Artmanfilm

How to Train your Dragon 3D TV

2012-02-19T05:32:00.000-08:00

I was tempted to see the 3D version of How to train your Dragon after that it was highly regarded at the time of its release and went to receive several Oscar nominations as well as hatful in the animation industry awards. I then saw the film Sky’s premier release in June of last year as 2D and yesterday I watched the 3D. The film was a financial success grossing half a billion over three times the original budget. The film is not suitable for the very young but having said this it is designed as a counter culture for those films advocating violence and macho toughguyness. The film is set on a mythical Viking Island inhabited by a wide range of colourful dragons that are regarded as the great enemy and children of both sexes are brought learning how to become dragon fighters and dragon killers. The problem is that killing creatures does not appeal to the son of the village chief, Stoick the Vast. Hiccup, the name says it all, tries to design a machine which will bring down a dragon to prove his worth to his father who treats him with contempt.

One evening he believes he has hit a dragon flying over and goes out to search. The following day he finds the creature with a damaged tail which prevents flying. Given the opportunity kill the creature he finds that he cannot do so and gradually makes friends bringing the animal some food. He searches a book about dragons and work out how to provide a replacing tail wing to enable it to fly with the consequence he is able to fly with the creature. He keeps this secret from the rest of the village but uses information from the training of the creature to control the various small dragons used to help the young people in their training as dragon killers. The most successful of these will be given the honour of killing one of the capture dragons before the assembled village in the dragon arena.

On one of his flying missions he discovers that all the dragons on the Island are under the control of a super dragon that lives inside a great mountain and their function is to keep the creature supplied with food. They have no interest in attacking human other than in self defence. When he is attacked by another dragon his dragon comes to his aid and is captured by the village and against the pleas of Hiccup his father takes the dragon with the combined Viking force to locate the great mountain and the monster animal. The consequence is that the giant dragon become free and burns the Viking ships and generally threatens to kill the forces on the ground. They are saved by Hiccup and the other youngsters who have been quickly taught to also fly some sympathetic dragons and keep the monster busy until Hiccup is able to free Toothless. By some skilful and dangerous manoeuvres the two manage to get the monster to destroy itself but only with the result of Hiccup falling into the inferno created and Toothless trying to rescue him. The Viking chief finds the dragon badly injured and no sign of his son until the dragon reveals his boy injured but alive cradled within the wing of the creature. The picture ends with dragons and Vikings living in harmony and teenage Astrid and Hiccup becoming more than just good friends. Good fun for a family.

The 3D effects considerably enhance enjoyment of the film.

Avatar revisisted with 3D TV

2012-02-19T05:26:00.000-08:00

The Russia House with Connery

2012-02-17T10:45:00.000-08:00

In this break from the Leveson Inquiry there is opportunity to catch up on a number of activities and projects including the work of John Le Carré in book and film, and with of my favourite Le Carré film The Russia House because of the romantic, happy and amusing nature of the story which is devoid of grimness of much of confrontation between the intelligence services of the USA, GB and the Soviets headed by Russia. The opportunity was also taken to read the book which functions at a different level.

The film is even suitable for watching in Valentine’s week unlike the reality of the cold war even under glasnost and perestroika where double dealings, betrayals and death continued. Whether loss of lives, expenditure in time and effort was helpful to any of the sides is debatable especially to those of us on the outside gleaned from news reports, literature, film and TV.

The action commences in Moscow at an international attempt to interest the Russians in the English Language Talking Book Audio cassette Fair. The film opens when a woman arrives at the adjacent stand to that hired by Bartholomew Scott Blair, the part owner and manager of a book publishing firm of Abercrombie and Blair. She asks Niki Landau (not to be confused with Andreas Niki Lauder the Formula I racing driver) if he will take a book Barley Scott Blair as he is known who she says he has agreed to publish. Barley nick named after the basic substance of beer was not at the Fair because the aunts who partnered him in the family business, helping to keep it afloat and in the life style which he had accustomed, decided against branching out into audio tapes so he has instead gone to his bolt hole in Lisbon unknown to the intelligence man who is the voice of the book.

The book was first published in 1989 the year when it can be said the Soviet empire disintegrated in a series of independence moves as President Korbechev also attempted to move Russia into a new order. (I have Gail Sheehy’s 1991 biography). The arms race and its industry remained at the forefront of Western economies and politics, at the time that Polish but London based Niki brought the package back to London and not finding Barley had contacted several government departments until making contact with British intelligence.

In the film the role of the character Niki Lander does not impact to the same effect as in the book although even here the role is described as prologue. Niki is fed up with making depressing trips where income rarely balanced costs and he longs for a more comfortable life. Although the persistence of the woman has annoyed him and he was a little disappointed when she declined his invitation to a nice dinner he accepts her assignment because her plea reached to the nice being within his outward shell.

In his search to find Barley followed also by the UK intelligence service we also learn more in the book about Barley that he was married for instance and has two grown children with their own lives, and that he belonged to a London club in addition to his ability to play jazz clarinet and chess against all comers.

The book also explains the lengths Niki has to go to make contact with the intelligence service and the lengths they then go to quiz him about the woman and her package. He had played his part well, getting her to pretend she was passing to him the book in an anonymous plastic bag as a gift, the possession of which marked her as different from the average Muscovite who carried a string bag, in fact as he disclosed he was certain her manner, her dress suggested Stalingrad/St Petersburg as it has now returned to its original name and Russia’s second city and home of the greatest museum art gallery in the world.

The book also raises the discussion about what British intelligence should do with Niki as he had flipped through the three notebooks with over two hundred pages of text and grasped their potential significance without understanding the pages of formulae and technical notes. He was told to cancel the arranged visit to Gdansk so they could cover everything that had happened in minute detail. They wanted to know if he had been given special treatment on his way back home which might indicate that the book was a plant and they wanted to know about anyone and everyone that he might have mentioned the package and its delivery to him.

Fortunately for him he said nothing to anyone but attempted to find Barley and then persisted until making contact with the right people. At the end of the process with muttering dark threats he is presented with a cheque for £100000 financed by the Americans, told his overseas trips have ended and his movements will have to be monitored even with signing the Official Secrets Act. For some the requirements would be onerous but for Niki all his dreams had come true and he was able to open a video cassette store which did interest the police from time to time, by implication because of the material he sometimes stocked and sold, but nothing which his minders could not sort out for him. The only thing that was missing is that his path never crossed with Barley again, a precondition of the settlement but something he wished would happen in order to show his appreciation of the man until his death he believed was a professional spy, for how could you judge someone who appeared in a drunken stupor most of the time and then beat anyone and everyone at a game of chess.

The reason for this emerged during the first part of the book when it is revealed that Barley has an extraordinary precise memory of conversations was well of events. Fifty years ago as part of training I learned to make a process record in which I recorded as much of the conversations and interaction with a client I could remember and then applied my knowledge and in time experience to make an analysis of the problem, the situation, the judgement which could be made.

The intelligence service is able to trace the whereabouts of Barley from his bank statements which shows he rent of the property in Lisbon Portugal. They find him at a cafe playing Chess and he is invited to accompany the man from the Embassy where he is taken to meet a group with includes the CIA who are quite open. In the film the man from the Embassy Ned is played by James Fox and another of the group is played by Ken Russell the film Director who died last year. Martin Clunes is the technician recording the conversation in an adjacent room.

The film foreshortens through visual presentation Barley’s realization that while he has never met the Russian woman Katya played by Michelle Pfeiffer he has met someone who is likely to be the author of the manuscripts.

He explains that on his previous visit for a book Fair, the Sunday after drinking all night they had gone to Peredelkino in Jumbo’s car. to the grave of Boris Pasternak and then he had got into conversation with a man. Jumbo by the way was a Russian Gold Card man, closet Scottish Fascist and Black Belt Freemason. Peredelkino the writers dacha village.

There were some two hundred at the grave of Boris Pasternak which was steeped in flowers. A plane flew over and back no doubt taking long lens photos of those below.. Barley remembered he had quoted the lines from the Nobel Prize winning speech.

“Like a beast in the pen I’m cut off.
From my friends. Freedom, the sun
But the hunters are gaining ground
I’ve nowhere else to run”

Barley remembers that the man who spoke to them was Nezhdanov which those from the visiting Russia House were immediately able to amplify that Vitaly Nezhdanov had become a latter day hero with three one act plays opening in Moscow within the coming few weeks. Barley is pleased to have this intelligence having taken a great liking to the man with their visit to a Dacha, a big rambling house with some thirty people present; this was reduced to probably a dozen for the film. The hostess was a poet. And they spoke English which was essential given that Barley had only a handful of words which is surprising given his memory but there we are. Husband edited a science magazines and Nezhdanov was a the brother in law. That had sat together at lunch at one table drinking and talk about truth.

The closest I got to such a gathering was when at Ruskin when I was part of small group of politically orientated students who also had a sense of history and an international outlook. What happen to them I wonder? That there have not been other such occasions in the rst of my life is cause for regret.

The man was called Goethe, not his real name, but someone protected by the group, a genius, this was the man with whom conversation had taken place which Barley considered led to the manuscript being delivered to him.

Disarmament was not a political matter or military he had said but of human will. This was an important statement which resonated with me given my experience and actions. I would have added that politics ought to be about will but is has become the art of the possible with the Party framework and international capitalism. He had spoken well of Gorbachev arguing that the West had to find the other half of him while the East had to recognise the half they had.

In response to those who said the bomb had kept the peace for forty years he had asked what Peace?

They had gone in after the meal and the drinking to listen to Count Basie whose records I have on one original Long Play and a 3 disk boxed set as well individual numbers among my collection of Big Band Jazz. It was an interesting choice because the more likely artist could have been expected to have been Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman or Glen Miller if they were locked into pre World War one jazz swing, Basis was his own man and style but also main stream

Count Basie Dance Session
Straight Life, Basie Goes West Softly with Feeling, Peace Pipe, Blues Go Away, Cherry Point, Bubble, Right On, The Blues done come back and Plymouth Rock

And a 3 dick Box Set
Oh Lady be Good, Going to Chicago Blues, Live and Love Tonight, Love me or Leave Me, Rock a bye Basie, Baby dont tell on me, Taxi War Dance, Jump for me, Twelfth Street Rag, Nobody knows, Pound cake, Ho long blues, Dickie’s Dream, Lester leaps in, The apple jump, I left my baby, Volcano.

The devil and the deep blue sea, I never knew, Tickle Toe, Louisiana, Easy Does it, Let me see, Blow Top, Gone with the Wind, Super Chief, You betcha my life, Down down down, Tune Town Shuffle, I’m tired of waiting for you, Basie Boogie, Fancy meeting you, My old flame, Ton Thumb, Take me back baby, All of Me, One o’clock jump’

And the angels sing, Bolero at the Savoy You can count on me, Your and your love, What goes up must come down, Fiesta in Blue, Something new, Sub-deb Blues, Boogie woogie, Bubbles, How high the moon, Your’re not the kind, Jumpin at the woodside, Jive at five, Yesterdays, Blee Blop Blues, Straight Life, 16 men swinging, Nails, Two Franks. I have also experience the Count Basie at the former Grand Croydon Theatre, usually a cinema with several thousand seats but which hosted a number of visiting jazz band sin the later 1950’s and 1960’s.

He had gone to sleep in deck chair on the veranda with a blanket wrapped around him waking at midnight wondering where he was. It was Goethe talking to him saying that some things are necessary evils. All victims are equal none more equal than others. Both these were quotes back from what Barley had said at lunchtime. He had asked Goethe who he was with the response a moral outcast. I trade in defiled theories he added. Nice to meet a writer Barley had said asking what kind of a writer he was. There was no denial. History, lies, comedies and romances came the reply.

Asked where his idea came from he had spoken at length mentioning the obscene fantasies of politicians and generals of all nations and from liberated intellects from pressed ganged Nazi scientists, from the great Soviet people and after other thoughts adding occasionally from distinguished western intellectuals who happen to drop into my life,

He said he believed every word Barley had said at the dinner and promised that if he was not a spy he would promise something in return.

The gathering around Barley from the Circus and the CIA had then considered the material in the notebooks, its potential significance and Barley’s appreciation. It was decided that Barley should return and attempt to meet Goethe and that he should have an assistant, an Editor on the books so to speak of the Publishing firm and for this it was necessary to successfully spin a story to the Aunts. He had been taken back to England to a safe house cottage in Knightsbridge chosen because Barley had no connections in the area. with the costs borne by the Americans because they were going take control. There was three weeks of intense preparations at the end of which there was a special meal. A salmon trout on a silver dish two bottle of Sancerre and a rare single malt whiskey. I drank my first bottle of Sancerre late in life at a great meal in Le Touquet in him 1980’s with a whole crab starter and a ain course fish which I have listed somewhere having retained he bills followed by a double crème caramel and coffee. It tasted my first single malt at a club in Edinburgh one afternoon, bought by the chairman of the Dunoon CND after a meeting of the Scottish CND Committee.

Before departing the Circus people had checked his flat for his likely state of mind and discovered he had written from Stevie Smith

I am not so afraid of the dark night
As the friends I do not know.

And I learn by going where I have to go, which applies to me more often than not.

In Moscow Katya had been alerted and eagerly awaited his arrival.

Gorky Park

2012-02-17T03:47:00.002-08:00

It seems appropriate to include in this piece a review of Gorky Park, a film viewed in the theatre and previously on TV. Again it is a film set as Russian commenced to move between its past and its future with a few Westerners permitted into the country but at a time when movement for Russians was prevented except on official visits. While the politics of the country, its human rights record and relations with the West are the present in the film the story is that of the murder of three young women in Gorky Park, but no ordinary murder as the killer or killers had taken great steps to prevent identification by destroying face and hands, and clinically.

The other aspect of the film is the trade in the Sable which was regarded and in some countries is still regarded as the most luxury of fur coats. The creature lived in the cold wild forests of Russian, China and Japan but in more recent times is farmed. The premise of the film is that the hunting of the wild Russian Sable tipped with silver was strictly controlled with an ban on exporting pairs if live animals in order to maintain the price. Jack Osborne is an American with a licence to hunt the wild Sable and export the skins with appropriate premiums paid to the authorities.

He cuts a deal with corrupt officials to export three pairs to the wilds of Sweden where he has a farm. This involves the secret building of a trunk by the three young women on the promise of being smuggled out Russia. Assigned to investigate the case is Arkady Renko a man who describes himself as solid and methodical, a modern but loyal Russian with no illusions about the nature of his society and who meets with an American detective, whose brother has disappeared and has been given permission to enter the country to investigate what happened with the help of the authorities. Renko (American actor William Hurt and not to be confused with John Hurt, the British special Bafta award winner) becomes concerned when the KGB show no interest in the deaths of the young women and his suspicion rises when at the weekend Dacha of the Chief Prosecutor Lanskoy (Ian Bannen) he meets Osborn (Lee Marvin) and his girl friend Irina Asanova. With the help of an assistant (a much thinner Richard Griffiths) and a university Professor the face of one of the girls is reconstructed to help identification and that of a second head which remains to be completed.

Renko works out that someone skilful in skinning the Sables to prevent damage to their fur is the ideal candidate for the murder of the young woman and he keeps an eye Osborne and his girl friend as does the American and the KGB, Eventually Renko and the American prevent a KGB officer from completing the injection of a lethal substance into Irina and Renko takes the young woman to his flat to recuperate. He tries to persuade her to be open about Osborne and the killing of the three young women but she still has hopes of also being taken to the West which she believes the other girls have been able to do so with his help, Renko and the girl become lovers and in order to shake her out of her illusions he confronts here with the head of one of the girls. She admits the plot but then runs away.

When Renko and the American go to check out the second head they see a KGB officer leaving the building with it in a box and they follow to where he hands it over to the Chief Prosecutor and Osborne. The head is that of the brother of the American Detective. Later in a Russian baths Renko confronts the Prosecutor and in a fight kills him.

In order to create dramatic tension the rest of the story is left to unfold with first Renko and two associates going to Sweden where Osborne lives, and who had advise he is leaving Russia for good as a wealthy home on the city and an isolated fur farm close to a forest. Renko has come to retrieve the Sables and kill Osborne but is told by a senior official they have come to cut a deal. When he meets Osborne and is taken back to his luxury home he is shocked to Irina him having managed to get out of the country. He and his colleagues arrange to meet Osborne at his farm where first he finds the American gutted and tied to a tree because he had killed one Osborne’s dogs, Osborne appears with the six pelts of the Sable but a cautious Renko is convinced that one of his colleagues is also a traitor and in the subsequent fight Renko, Osborne and Irina are the only ones to survive. It is Irina, who kills Osborne emptying the magazine into the body,

Renko has discovered that Osborne had previously exported another set of Sable which he lefts out into the wild. The girl wants Renko to leave Russia and join her in the west. He explains that back home he had agreed that his permission was to retrieve the Sable and Kill Osborn and then return with the freedom of the girl being his price for taking the risks. In any event he says he is a Russian and would not be content in the West. The girl offers to return to Russia with him but he admits she needs the freedom. He offers a prophetic thought, given when the book was written and the film released (1983) that hopefully things will change and they will be able to be together.

Despite all the effective efforts against the use of animal fur for coats, a Russian Sable three quarter length coast is on Bay at present for £63000 sold by a Chinese firm. I recall a dinner held by the Association of Directors of Social Services North East branch where all the wives accept my partner wore fur coats (I need to write up aspects of that event in the context of allegations made by someone investigating the abuse of children in public care.

Amy Winehouse Back to Back
Rehab
You know Im no Good
Me and Mr Jones
Back to Black
Love is a losing game
Tears Dry on their Own
Wake up alone
Some unholy War
He can only hold her
Addicted.

Franz Ferdinand
Jacqueline
tell her tonight
take me Out
the dark of the Matinee
auf achse
cheating on you
this fire
darts of pleasure
Michael
come on home
40

The Essential Bob Dylan
Blowing in the Wind
Don’t think Twice Its Alright
The Times they are a changing
It aint me Babe
Maggies Farm
It’s all over now Baby Blue
Mr Tambourine Blue
Subterranean Homesick Blues
Like a Rolling Stone
Positively 4th Street
Can you please crawl out your window?
I want you
Just like a woman
Rainy Day woman
All along the watchtower
Quinn the Eskimo
Ill be your baby tonight
Lay Lady Lay
If not for you
I shall be released
You aint going nowhere
Knocking on Heaven’s door
Forever Young
Tangled up in Blue
Shelter from the Storm
Hurricane
Changing of the Guards
Gotta serve somebody
Blind Willy McTell
Jokerman
Tight connections to my heart
Silvio
Everything is Broken
Dignity
Not Drunk Yet
Things have changed

Marc Bolan T Rex
20th Century Boy
Get it On
Metal Guru
Ride a White Swan
Hot Love
Jeepster
Telegram Sam
I Live to Boogie
Children of the revolution
Sold Gold Easy Action
New York City
The Groover
Truck on Tyke
Debora
One Inch Rock
Light of Love
Dreamy Baby
London Boys
Celebrate Summer
Teenage Dream
The Wizard
Desdemona
Pewter Suitor
King of the Running Spires
By the Light of the Magical Moon
It is Love?
King of the Mountain Cometh
Cosmic Dancer
Raw Ramp
Life’s a Gas
Sailors of the Highway
Thunder Wing
Born to Boogie

Christmas Bop

Laser Love
Life’s am Elevator
Soul of my suit
Dandy in the Underworld

Battle Los Angeles

2012-02-16T09:10:00.000-08:00

This accolade goes to Battle Los Angeles. The world is led to believes that an meteorite shower is expected to fall largely off cost and then on the seaboards and then it transpires these are sprayed weapons of Alien invaders. They have drone fighters that can target onto any electrical device and they have super personal fighters which remind of the super fighters in Avatar while the individual aliens appear mixtures of being an instrunemtn rather like the Borg’s. The onoy way to take on what is evidently superior fighting force in numbers and equiment is to blanket bomb the area they ghee gained although why this should work is not explained. In such a situation we are asked to accept the ludicrous proposition tat a band of highly trained professional soldiers would be tasked to rescue a few civilians taking shelter in a local police station where the police are long gone or killed.

Almost all the film comprises the attempt of these men to complete the mission and includes someone who had put in for his release papers after combat experience and a training role. The civilian father of a young boy dies and so too do several of the soldiers. They not only rescue the remaining civilians before the obliteration bombs but manage to work out how best to attack kill individuals and they also destroy a Command and Control Centre.
And that is about it.

The Lincoln Lawyer

2012-02-16T00:20:00.001-08:00

Another of the American dream myths is the Lincoln Lawyer in which unscrupulous and amoral operators can be made to change their spots by a sudden bolt on insight into their iniquity. This time the proposition is that because everyone is entitled under the rule of law to have the allegations against them tested in open court it is morally defendable to use wealth and power, including wealth and power criminally obtained, as well as the laws procedures and precedents and the adversarial system to get the blatant guilty off. From my experience in the UK British lawyers have a sense of right and wrong and will not contest cases where the their any admission of guilt but in those instances concentrate on putting forward any genuine evidence in mitigation and for seeking mercy. I do not know the extent to which the sharp shooting money making amoral street lawyer is a Hollywood created myth but the number of times the story of the Lincoln Lawyer has been told, my instinct tells me it is not.

In this instance Mickey Heller is asked by a bondsman, always shady characters in Hollywood films along with Bounty Hunters to make money loaning you the instant cash to make bail, to take on Louis Roulet Beverly Hill playboy son of a wealthy and powerful property family. Louis is accused of brutally beating up a young woman who he claims picked him up in a bar. He claims that on arrival at her flat he had been hit on the head and recovered to find himself being pinned down by two neighbours of the woman who she had called for help. He and his dominating and pushy mother claimed he had been set up and that this was a shakedown. He would not pay up or plea bargain for a crime he did not commit and is most convincing about his innocence.

To soften his image as a rule exploiting and bending bastard who will do anything for money Mickey has a beautiful young daughter whose care he shares with his ex wife who is also physically beautiful with an adorable personality who appears to have an ongoing relationship with the hotman, you know what I mean, and Mickey is otherwise monogamous and dedicated to his dubious trade. The basic flaw in this film is that there no justification why Mickey is as he is when it comes to the way he operates his trade. And guess what his ex wife is a prosecutor and her main beef is the way he gets arseholes off or plea bargains?

Now this is where the film also tries to draw a line between the really nasty devil villains and OK villains in that one of Mickey’s roles is to get some drug pushing, minor violent bikers from facing the full force of the law for their crimes. Instead of coming to his office they tend to drive up the free way in formation and direct him to a siding where they can put their beef to him. I cannot remember or care if it was one of bikers that Mickey had persuaded to plea bargain for life in exchange to the electric chair for a murder he insists he did not commit or how Mickey comes to the view that it was his client who had committed the original murder and was therefore also guilty of the brutal assault.

Mickey is able to get hold of a copy of the police file only to find that suspecting this is his modus operandus they have not included the photo of the knife which the perpetrator had used on the face of the victim with a jagged blade and unique handle and which belonged to Louis. He then realises that this knife was used in the previous crime and that the man he persuaded to plea guilty and plea bargain was innocent

It is at this point that Mickey finds that he has allowed himself to be a patsy for having yielded to the bondsman request for a fee for telling Mickey about the arrest of Louis when he finds that Louis and his mother had had Mickey and asked the bondsman to contact Mickey because they were aware he had been involved in the earlier case. By appointing Mickey they were aware he could not use the earlier info against his client which the man now admits he was guilty of both crimes but tightens his hold on Mickey by threatening to harm his daughter and ex wife if he does not keep his mouth shut.

Mickey uses his private investigator buddy to try and find out anything they use to nail Louis and then the private investigator is murder by a historical weapon which Louis has stolen from Mickey’s home after breaking in to confront the lawyer. The expendable use of Private I’s was brought home when I caught the tail end of a Gregory Peck film where he is a scientist who develop amnesia after he believes he is the cause of the death of his employer and family friend. He hires a Private Eye to try and find out his background and the man is murdered by those seeking to kill Peck.

Back to the Lincoln Lawyer who finds an answer phone message from the private eye which leads to evidence which could convict Louis of the earlier murder. What Mickey the does and is in fairness the unique aspect of the film which makes the production worthwhile. He uses all his established tricks to successfully get Louis acquitted but in doing so introduces evidence drawing attention to the murder and with the finding of guilt he is free to assist the police and DA with the evidence secured by the private eye for Louis to be immediately rearrested. This brings the wrath of the mother who has known all about her sons nocturnal cravings. It is she who has murdered the detective and it is she who now attempts to kill Mickey with the same weapon. Fortunately he has secured a gun of his own from his driver who he employed having lost his licence so although wounded he survives and in hospital learns that the man he persuaded to go to prison has been released and that the DA is going for the death penalty on Louis.

The film is based on a novel by Michael Connelly which is not and never will be on my list to read. Both young women were prostitutes with the latter who survived charging $400 a time. There is a red hearing of one of her clients on whom Louis attempts to put the blame which was the situation in relation the client he persuaded to plead guilty and who Louis had effectively frame for the previous murder, and no doubt countless others.

Just when one thinks that Mickey is about to mend his ways and get back with his wife and daughter now that he has seen the light he meets up with the bikers who want his help in another hopeless cause and who request a half price job because of their help in a way I cannot also now remember. Mickey shows that he really is a good guy by taking the case pro bono. However this was not the worst film of the week.

The Adjustment Bureau

2012-02-15T22:19:00.001-08:00

I thought the Adjustment Bureau a clever but flawed film. The film is part of genre where Angels in various guises come to earth on some Godly mission. The best loved is Its a Wonderful Life with Clarence determined to get his Wings and then the wartime Matter of Life and Death and Heaven can Wait. In this film the Angels are among us ensuring that we keep to God’s individual and written down plan because we have shown we are not capable of exercising free. The deity is not referred to as God in order not to offend religious sensibilities although the central argument for their intervention is one that most religious bodies would concur that human kind has abused free will and God has determined that until everyone learns to exercise that will is more creative and Godlike way it is suspend while a number of special individuals with the right basic qualities have their life plans controlled and if appropriate constantly adjusted, we would say tweaked to ensure they fulfil destiny and contribute to creating a world in which humans can be allowed to make their choices freely. Where this proposition crosses the acceptable line is of course that flies in the Christian belief that life is meant to be a struggle in which human can make bad ethical choices and condemn themselves to eternal damnation until such time as God gets fed up and calls a halt the whole caboodle in which instance the collective day of reckoning will arrive.

The best laid plans come to naught comes to mind as a set of particular circumstances throws Elise Sellas played by Emily Blunt who is planned to become a world acclaimed dancer with David Norris (Matt Damon) who is scheduled to become President of the United States.

They met up in the men’s room where she is hiding having crashed a wedding reception (one of many unlikelies in film) and the interaction leads to a kiss after she hears him planning his acceptance of defeat. Inspired by this contact he gives an honest explanation for the loss by having given too great a reliance on focus groups, opinion polls and presentation consultants a constant beef about American political life along with its corruption and bully which having been censured intensifies continuing in the same manner as before.
In this instance the speech has almost magical qualities and impresses all kinds of Joe’s and Jane in the street and David is back on his pathway tot he White House and saving mankind.

Sometime later unknown to the audience an Angel called Harry is told by one of his seniors to intercept David Norris for a few minutes before he make his way to the office of new job. The purpose of the delay although its precision a few minutes before his arrival is not explained, is to enable a squad of angels complete with security guards to freeze the entire office staff at the premises in order to fix the new seniors of Mr Norris to further his progress in the divine plan. The proposition that such divine intervention could only be achieved by such an earthly and physical manoeuvre is preposterous although it is essential for the rest of story as the failure of the delay means that David discovers the intervention and requires and explanation with warning.

There is a further complication in that David has meet Elise again on the bus and she giver him her telephone number which is written on the back of a card. The boss man on the ground explains that David has been selected to be part of a special plan from which there can be no deviation. He should not have witnessed what he has and if he discloses to any one his being will wiped and will be given a very different life outcome. Any involvement with the young woman is out of the question and the phone card is destroyed.

However a spark has been lit so although he continues to make political progress and does well in his occupation he send much of his free time trying to find the young woman. He does this on his own quietly, believing it is out of sight and mind of his official minders.

When they meet for a third he has difficulty explaining why he failed to contact her although she is still single and was clearly very interested in him she has since had at least one relationship which had led to an engagement. She is a dancer and he manages to get the name of her company and arranges to meet to see her after a rehearsal. Aware of this further contact the angel brigade keep him under constant surveillance using a form a hand held Sat life Navigators which controls the immediate environment as well as thought decision making process. Despite this ability they are required to keep within a limited range of their subject so if able to throw a curved ball they can be jolted off the navigation plan

This provides the opportunity for an interesting use of CGI as while they move around the city on foot they are able to use portals which enable speedy short cuts as fast as any motor vehicle or city centre train. The minders fix it that the two would be lovers do not meet up but David makes use of his creativity as well as motivation to eventually get to where the girl is rehearsing. It is at this point the local chief shows David the extent of her talent and that is scheduled to become an internationally acclaimed super dancers which he will ruin when after her causer her to have an accident and the doctors will decide that either it is a temporary sprain or a fracture which will force early retirement and a career as a dance teacher.

All appears lost until his personal angel minder intervenes having discovered that the two were originally destined for each other which is why there as the instant attraction but then the decision was taken that they would have separate destinies and that their paths were never intended to cross. Why this decision was taken is not explained

Harry decides to intervene in two ways. The first is to approach the Chairman directly with the plight of the couple and secondly he tutors David in how to evade surveillance and travel at speed through the city using the portals. The climax of the film is an intense chase between the couple and the official forces determined to separate them and make a permanent adjustment. Just when all appears lost Harry appears with a communiqué for the lead pursuer to say a change of plan has been put into effect and the couple are to stay together. A different kind of adjustment has been undertaken. It is good fare for Valentine’s day week although the ending that true love can overcome God‘s will is interesting nonsense.

L'avventura

2012-02-08T13:30:00.000-08:00

The fifth was one of the great disappointments when it was first released and viewed in Theatre back in the early 1960’s. L’Avventura was directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and features Monica Vitti in the main role of young woman who is best friend of another young woman who has disappeared and she falls in love with the boyfriend when they try to find out what has happened. The films lasts 145 mins and is full intended depth and stylised shots which failed to engage or impress me them, let alone now. The film is regarded by many as important in development an approach to use photography to communicate feelings more than words.

In terms of story we never know what happened to the original girl friend and in fact concern for her appears to quickly depart from the young man and while the best friend feels guilt at first she quickly allows her needs and passions to dominate her consciousness. The characters as with many in Italian films of this era appear to led empty self obsessed lives with no interest in the political and social concerns of their countrymen and the world at large. The relationship between the central characters has its ups and downs especially when Vitti finds the boyfriend with a prostitute. He appears disgusted with himself and Vitti appears to forgive him. Symbolically Mount Etna which I have visits at its rim, looks ready to erupt once more.

The 300

2012-02-08T13:13:00.000-08:00

I have seen Clash of the Titans, I am convinced in theatre but I cannot find my review at the time. In ancient Times the Gods led by Zeus divided up the world/universe with Zeus controlling the land and sky Poseidon the sea and Hades the underworld. Hades was tricked by Zeus which eh resents at what appeared to him to be banishment and a lack of power.

Zeus was responsible for the creation of human beings whose prayers sustained him in strength and power but where the human felt they were not getting a good deal from their subservience.

Pete Potlewathwaite plats a fisherman who finds a floating coffin in which here id a live child but whose mother is dead. He brings up the child as his own and as part of his family when he marries and heroes a child/children of the marriage.

When on a fishing expedition and admiring the great status of Zeus they are horrified to see soldiers from the city of Argos bring the statue down which falls into the sea. This rouses the wrath of Hades who appears in the form of a being reminiscent of supernatural creature in the series The Island but who then sends a bolt in the direction of the fishing boat which destroys the family leaving the son free. The son Perseus is captured by soldiers from Argos who take him to the court when the wife of the King in particular is in great defiance setting herself and her daughter above the Gods,

Hades has approached the other Gods on Mount Olympus to plead that the rebellion of the human cannot be allowed to go unchecked and Zeus in part from guilt at the earlier actions causing his brother to be left in the Underworld allows him to put humans in their place his way. The immediate consequence of this is his appearance at the Argos Court where he first eliminates the guards leaving only Zeus unscathed and then turns the Queen into an old woman/skeleton. He then poses a chose to the King of surrendering his daughter to the Kraken a sea based giant monster controlled if not spawned by Haddes, if the total population is not be obliterated.

Perseus initially does not accept that he is anything other than human but when there it appears established that he is the son of Zeus and that he and his mother was cast adrift in the ocean. He makes it plain that he wants to be regarded and to act as a human and that he is hostile to the Gods in general because of what happened to his adopted family. Having said this he is assisted Lo a beautiful young woman condemned to being ageless as gift from Zeus for refusing his advances,

At one point she delivers a special sword and at another she is responsible for providing him with Pegasus the flying horse. He also has a meeting with his father who begs him to up a position on Mount Olympus with him after having rejected him but when his son says he wishes to continue as he is; he does accept a gold coin, the fare for Charon, the Ferryman of the Underworld.

He also attempts to prevent the sacrifice of Andromeda, the daughter of the King by visiting the three women who function with one hand held eye, the Stgyian witches and he also then goes on a quest to encounter the gorgon Medusa. On his way he and soldiers from Argus encounter Calibos the form King whose wife was taken by Zeus and who cast the woman and child adrift. He has been given powers by Haddes to help his vengeance on Perseus and when they fight and his arm is severed it is turned into the fist of several giant scorpions. Just when the party appears out numbered by these creatures a race, the Djinn arrives who are able to control the beasts and then use them as a means of transport,

He then uses the coin from his father to enter the Underworld and encounter Medusa who after fighting he cuts of her head. Meanwhile back in Argos the mob have yield to incitement to surrender up Andromeda who is attached to a sacrificial structure for the Kraken. She is saved by Perseus with the help of Pegasus and the use of Gorgon head to send Haddes back to the Underworld.

Andromeda presses Perseus to stay and be king but he says she will make great Queen. Zeus also appears and expresses the hope that his son is now ready to join him on Olympus but Perseus says he is content in human form. Previously Lo has given her life to enable Perseus to gain the head of the Medusa and free Andromeda and as a reward for returning Haddes to the Underworld and returning the world to the previous harmony Zeus brings back Lo so that his son has a companion and the two fly away on Pegasus.

The film was original made for Theatre is conventional 2 D. It was then remade in 3D with the consequence it provides the internal dimensional view without the gimmicks of things flying in and out of the screen in d a distracting way. This also provided an alternative ending in which Perseus develops a relationship with Andromeda which is brought to life with rescuing her from a certain and horrible death. He says he will return but first flies to Mount Olympus to advise his father that he does not wish to be a god before flying off, we presume back to Andromeda. Lo has remained dead something which she had intimated she longed for having lived for so long and seen all her contemporaries and love ones dies, an experience which Perseus could empathise through the loss of his family.

There is a good cast in the film with Sam Worthington as Perseus, Liam Neilson as Zeus, Ralph Fiennes as Haddes and as mentioned the late Pete Postlethwaite as the surrogate father. This brings credibility to the ancient Myth and Legend.

I now come to the least effective of the films seen, the 300. The story of the men trained from childhood to become ruthless killers with no other purpose in life than to produce children who would become nation sanctioned killers in their footsteps. This was also a race of people that murdered boys at birth who were weak or deformed or who the male parent felt was unlikely to become a replica of themselves. They used slaves although it said within limits they treated women well although it would more appropriate to say they treated “their” women well and in the film the wife of King Leonides tells him to come back with victory or die in honour. There is no alternative to a situation where the opposing forcee is huge with enormous resources while the city state is comparatively poor, small and under resourced despite the machine like quality of the special forces.

The story is uncomplicated. The Persians on sea and land want to conquer the known world as far as they can and Sparta wants to retain its independence. When the Persian King sends his envoy to request homage and acceptance of their fate he is pushed to his death down a well. The King has a plan to locate his forces at the entrance to a narrow gorge on the plain of Thermopile which I have visited and present such a barrier that the Persian ruler will grow tired and move them on elsewhere. Before he can put his plan into practice he must consult the Ephors and ancient leprosy ridden priests who live on an isolated mountain rather like Mount Olympus who in turn consult the oracle who appear to be teenage nubile young women who are ravished by the old men and trained to say whatever the old men have determined in advance of any consultation.

They and the Oracle say no to the Spartan plan and afterwards we learn that that they have been bribed by an ambitious politician who wants to be King in league with the Persians and who has offered the Ephors an unlimited supply of you women to be trained as oracles on a daily basis plus a pile of gold.

The outcome is that the politicians refuse Leonides permission so he calls for volunteers to accompany him on an exercise which so happens takes them to place of proposed confrontation with the enemy.

The main part of the film therefore concerns the battle between the 300 and the hordes of the Persians and their subjugated people. They are attacked by cavalry, elephants and other beasts, powder bombs, the Immortals and showers of arrows. Then they are undone by one of their own people. This is hunchback who escapes the cull at birth and was taken by his parent to live outside the city but was trained to fight and has the burning despite to prove him and his family’s honour in battle. He is rejected and told he can help the wounded and dead after each battle. This act of insensitivity results in the man offering his services, and in particular his knowledge of a pathway which will take the Persians behind and above the Spartans in exchange for access to the slave women folk of the Persian King who behaves like a God and is satisfied with an act of homage as people prostrate themselves in adoration before him.

Leonides is given two opportunities to surrender by the Persian King which are rejected and as the mountain of killed enemy grows the anger of the Persian intensifies with neither side taking prisoners.

Meanwhile the Queen has been trying to win support from the politicians to raise an army in support of her husband who has only obtained the support from another city state but whose men are not professional soldiers. She is told that she needs to bring the ambitious Theron on side and to this she has to subject herself to rape advising in advance that she will not enjoy his attention. However when she goes to the Council he accuses her of adultery so she kills him in her anger. The blow opens his purse to reveal Persian Gold and the extent of his treachery. This prompts Spartans to unite and raise an army of 10000 which together with 40000 others from the rest of Greece confronts the Persians who still have three times as many fighting men.

Before his death Leonides has a near miss at killing the Persian King but he and his men die with honour, Before this he had sent a messenger back to ensure the tale of their action is known to his countrymen and pass down to history, Historians have been able to place the action in the context of the brutality of both sides and their civil shortcomings in terms of what is considered acceptable to day.

Now to the facts. The Spartan army in force with other Greeks estimate to be around 7000 confronted the Persians estimated 100000 to 30000 while the respective Navies were engaged in Battle. The Persians had invaded again after their first invasion defeat at the Battle of Marathon where a runner brought the news to Athens some 26 plus miles away, a site which I have also visited. It was after the betrayal disclosing the pathway that Leonides dismissed the bulk of his force to regroup while he fought what he knew was a rearguard action and which he believed would unite all Greeks against the invaders. While the Persians were able to make progress they were every defeated and with drew. There is no doubt that the King and his men sacrificed themselves on behalf of their countryman and to die in battle as they had been trained all their lives to do.

The Clash of the Titans

2012-02-08T08:52:00.001-08:00

The Clash of the Titans

2012-02-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

I was up after five but it is now 6.30 am and I am just about to get going again after insisting on reaching the latest target on game of patience when I should sell be attending other matters. I have risen early in preparations for rising at a similar time on the morrow for the latest Travel Lodge special offers. I will shortly commence to write about five films seen recently on TV all of which I have seen in theatre or previously on TV but for a variety of reasons were selected to view again but they were not anticipated to have challenged mentally or emotionally but would mark time for a battery recharge or I was too tired to concentrate on anything else. Laziness is a curse of old age couple with the lack of physical staying power.

Last night the temperature was scheduled to have reached the lowest on record here in the North East in areas where snow has already fallen and settled. It was bitterly cold when I went out early evening for milk, a stock on sprats and some lettuce and bought a small pack of cherries for £1 and then undid the holding line on the weight with some small bars of nutty chocolate and as with last years this is the time, when Winter is at its sharpest and the slippery slide began followed by tempting additions as I commenced to watch cricket in what proved to be one of the best sunny and warm periods of the year in early April. I will get a hot drink and watch news about the weather at 7am while I commence the writing of the five films in the order that takes my fancy. It was cold down to -12 not a record but tonight is scheduled to be even colder

Thinking and writing about Family History and World War II time over the past week makes it appropriate to begin with a Sherlock Holmes, the first to be set outside of Victorian Baker Street and no I do not mean the recent incarnations, but Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror 1942 when in the midst of World War II the UK was at its lowest point, a General Winter of discontent and there icy winds from the artic East blew hard over Europe.

There were Nazi sympathisers in place throughout the UK to take over the running of the country once the planned invasion was successful. It was generally believed that had the invasions taken place before the second front against Russia had commenced then it would have been touch and go that the resources then available to us. The enemy would have been difficult to have withstood. There was also the voice of Lord Haw Haw, the name for the English speaking German propagandists who broadcast to the UK and Empire from 1939 to 1945 although the most regular and prominent was William Joyce a senior member of the British Union of Fascists who was captured and hanged. There was also Tokyo Rose who performed same role in the Far East and Pacific.

In the film there are a number of broadcasts which describe acts of Terror and sabotage shortly before they occur. Holmes is brought in by Members of a kind of coordinating and managing War Council to try and stop the horrors. One of Holmes contacts is murdered but before he dies he mentions the word “Christopher“. Holmes Basil Rathbone and Watson Nigel Bruce go to Limehouse to see the wife of the murdered helper where they are challenged by working class locals who resent the intrusion of someone one like Holmes with undertones of the uneducated working man who had espoused Fascism in the East End before the War against the rational middle class although there was just as strong support within the middle and upper classes and it is nom secret that the British press still reflects a right wing bread and circus fascism barely veneered in its editorials, enthusiasm for page three girls and dangerous hypocritical morality. The bastards are still at it.

Holmes appeals to the patriotism often the device of unscrupulous politicians in inappropriate circumstances but here he was calling to wider audience of cinema goers of the day to respond to the national emergency and make whatever individual contribution was within their means. The national lack individuals of the necessary calibre at the present time in a situation where the general education, understanding and communications systems are such to render the average politician in effective outside of Westminster. In this instance the catalyst for participation is not the outsider Holmes but Kitty, the local wife of the Murdered man who rallies the majority from hostility and apathy into action.

Through the help of these supporters and Kitty “Christopher” is tracked down as an ancient no longer used dock to the Thames but Homes Watson and head of nationals security appears to be captured by a leading British Nazi and one of henchmen but in fact Homes has prepared for this and the table are turned with the help of the locals. However using Kitty posing as thief she ingratiates herself into the home of the man. Meade who had temporarily captured Holmes and allowed to escape to try and find out information which will lead to the identification and capture of the individual inside the Council who is the traitor and also the location of where the German invasion is to take place.

The location is communicated and under direct orders from Downing Street the hostile resentful and sceptical Council members accompany Holmes to a location on the South Coast where the Meade, the would be British Nazi Party leader has assembled his other associates all in uniforms ready to take command of supporters in various parts of the UK once the invasion force lands.

It is at this point that the inside man is revealed as a leading Member of the Council who is unmasked as an impostor who replaced the original individual 24 years before. He had been in charge of defence movements and had arranged for the force to be deployed north to await the invasion force. However his instructions have not been put into effect arising from the direct communication between Holmes and Downing Street. The film portrays British planes returning from successfully attacking the German invasion fleet and aircraft and the conspirators arrested. Unfortunate Kitty is shot and killed by Meade who is himself gunned down by troops.

Earlier Homes had worked out that the broadcasts were being pre-recorded in the UK and then flown to Germany with the intelligence information for the next terrorist activity. The recoding was then played as a Live Broadcast from within Germany just before the terrorist attack took place. On intelligence that he life of another member of the Council was under threat Holmes goes to the home of a Council Member deep in the countryside who for some extra ordinary reason then goes out on an air raid warning job although there appears to be no one else about

For him to assist should circumstances dictate. Holmes approaches him as Meade who is also in thee area is making his way to an aircraft which is landing nearby. Holmes had worked out that shortly before each broadcast and horror attacking there had been raid of a few planes which had attracted the attention of the RAF. He had surmised this was a distraction for a separate plane to fly to the prearranged destination, land to collect the latest intelligence on target with the broadcast. In this instance the Council member feigns surprise and shoots towards Meade and the Plane which immediate takes off and Meade disappears into the gloom. The film concludes there is an East Wind coming Watson. Such a wind never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter. But its Gods own wind none the less and a greener, better, stronger land will be in the sunshine when the wind is cleared. Amen to that.
Painting the enemy as Devils is common but in the Dennis Wheatley novel based To the Devil a Daughter, the devil is a reality. I saw the film in theatre as well as on TV in the past and the all star cast brings a credible dimension in the days when horror suspense movies relied on audience imagination more than CGI creation of fantasy.

The film also relies on the audience accepting that it is possible for a fanatical former priest to establish an order of nuns who worship the devil adorned by inverted crosses. The story begins with Richard Widmark an established author attending an exhibition with his agent played by Honor Blackman and her lover Anthony Valentine Widmark is approached by Denholme Elliot to meet his daughter who is arriving from Germany for her once a year birthday with her father. The man explains to Widmark knowing of interest in the occult that the assignment is to look after the girl at his London riverside home until collected by father because of an occult threat. With remarkable insight Blackman is fearful and urges her client and friend not to become involved.

The background is that nearly eighteen years before, the girl played by 15 year old Natasha Kinski is born by a “natural” Caesarean to a mother willingly participating who understandable dies and the girl is then baptised in the blood of the mother. She is then raised by Christopher Lee as the devil worshipping priest and his consort within the nunnery until adolescence and then in a ceremony she is placed on an alter and stimulates sexual intercourse with a statue of the devil while Lee has actual intercourse n behalf of the devil with his consort. The woman gives birth by a similar method to that of the girl, a few days before her eighteen birthday and the most important night of the occupy year. The woman gives birth to a grotesque creature of the devil. The intention is that at 18 the girl will be baptised again in the blood of the creature and become the devil on earth enabling a new generation to be switched on although how she will do this is unclear.

Her father, played by Elliot is a drunk weakling who when he discovers what is happened is horrified but is visited by the spirit of his wife who warns that if he betrays her and the destiny of her daughter he will perish in a ball of fire and presents him with a an artefact as symbol of the pact of secrecy and obedience he has entered into. Lee takes charge of the “pact” which secreted in the altar of a church used by the cult. There is a scene of Elliot having sex with a young woman at the ceremony of his daughter and the conception of devil suggesting that part of the pact was to enjoy the experience of the young woman at their regular ceremonies. As the eighteenth birthday approaches he recants and hires Widmark to thwart the plan. However Widmark and Elliot underestimate the powerful force with Lee is able to generate.

At his home the girl appears to experience the horror of he birth of the devil at night and it is evident that she has memories of other situations in which she has participated in a trance like condition. First Lee sends a powerful auto suggestion via the phone, he holds a rope which turns into snake on the hand of Elliot in order to reveal where the girl is located. He is then able to send a message to girl to leave the home where she is being looked after by Blackman who stabs the woman to death in the head in order to leave the home and be picked up by an agent of Lee.

Widmark after being threatened over the phone by Lee goes to see a Bishop friend to gain access to ancient work on the occult held in the church library after reading up on the subject in his own references library. Here he reads the pages which are recorded a being read by the priests many years before but where the Library has a record as require by the church of all those whom read otherwise banned books. From this he understands what is happening only too late to save his friend and Valentine is understandably devastated and horrified with Widmark for allowing the situation to develop this way together with his own guilt for getting involved when Blackman had repeatedly warned against doing so,

Valentine insists on accompanying Widmark when they visit Elliot to find him seated in a protected circle against the power of the devil and he refuses to advise on the location of his daughter until they have retrieved the pact, They go in search of he church and first find it has moved with Frances de la Tour as a Salvation Army Major who has taken over the church, They find the church as advised by Elliot and here Valentine is mistaken by Lee for Elliot and is consumed by fire. Widmark takes the pact artefact to Elliot who realising it is broken reveals the location of the ceremony at an ancient church site.

Here Lee has created a circle with the blood of the woman who gave birth to the girl who eh has placed on an altar in the middle. Oddly the act is performed on his won without the entourage. He warns and also attempted to bribe Widmark from interfering. It is at this point that the film had its controversial moment in which the girl said to be eighteen years is played by the 15 year old Kinsky, appears full frontal naked as a potential gift to Widmark if he allows the ceremony to go ahead. Widmark hold, a stone with the protected blood to enter the circle which he then throw at the end of Lee to give him time to pick up the clothed girl from the altar outside the circle. The film ends ambiguously because as he leaves the circle Lee disappears and the girl with blood on brow looks at him in way which suggests he may have been too late.

Kinsky the daughter of German Actor Klaus Kinsky who she did not see from the age of ten had been spent her adolescence in a German Commune in the early 70’s and afterwards spoke of being exploited when she was too young to appreciate the long term implications of her appearance in the film. One wonders what her mother was up to.

Wheatley was one of the prolific writers of his day. He showed no aptitude for school or creative work as a child and young man joined the Merchant Navy. He served in the army in the First World War and experiences a chlorine attack at Paschendale and then saw service at Ypres and in France. After the war he joined the family wine merchant business and went into a depression when the business commenced to fail, remarried and commenced to write.

It was in the second World War that he held a important role for the Government coordinating strategic deception and cover plans including how to cope with the anticipated invasion which he covers in his work Stranger than Fiction. He presented a paper to the War Cabinet in Total War. He wrote over 80 fiction and non fiction works which books about the cult contained in a number of the series for example the Molly Fountain Mini series included the Satanist in addition to the Devil a Daughter. The Devil Rides out was part of the Duke of De Richleau series. And part if he Gregory Sullust series included they used Dark Forces and the Witch of the South Seas. The Irish Witch part of The Roger Brook Series. There were three fiction works on the occult on their own and a science fiction series. Six books in total were made into feature films He died in 1977 aged 80.

I have seen Clash of the Titans, I am convinced in theatre but I cannot find my review at the time. In ancient Times the Gods led by Zeus divided up the world/universe with Zeus controlling the land and sky Poseidon the sea and Hades the underworld. Hades was tricked by Zeus which eh resents at what appeared to him to be banishment and a lack of power.

Zeus was responsible for the creation of human beings whose prayers sustained him in strength and power but where the human felt they were not getting a good deal from their subservience.

Pete Potlewathwaite plats a fisherman who finds a floating coffin in which here id a live child but whose mother is dead. He brings up the child as his own and a s art of his family when he marries and heroes a child/children of the marriage.

When on a fishing expedition and admiring the great status of Zeus they are horrified to see soldiers from the city of Argos bring the statue down which falls into the sea. This rouses the wrath of Hades who appears in the form of a being reminiscent of supernatural creature in the series The Island but who then sends a bolt in the direction of the fishing boat which destroys the family leaving the son free. The son Perseus is captured by soldiers from Argos who take him to the court when the wife of the King in particular is in great defiance setting herself and her daughter above the Gods,

Hades has approached the other Gods on Mount Olympus to plead that the rebellion of the human cannot be allowed to go unchecked and Zeus in part from guilt at the earlier actions causing his brother to be left in the Underworld allows him to put humans in their place his way. The immediate consequence of this is his appearance at the Argos Court where he first eliminates the guards leaving only Zeus unscathed and then turns the Queen into an old woman/skeleton. He then poses a chose to the King of surrendering his daughter to the Kraken a sea based giant monster controlled if not spawned by Haddes, if the total population is not be obliterated.

Perseus initially does not accept that he is anything other than human but when there it appears established that he is the son of Zeus and that he and his mother was cast adrift in the ocean. He makes it plain that he wants to be regarded and to act as a human and that he is hostile to the Gods in general because of what happened to his adopted family. Having said this he is assisted Lo a beautiful young woman condemned to being ageless as gift from Zeus for refusing his advances,

At one point she delivers a special sword and at another she is responsible for providing him with Pegasus the flying horse. He also has a meeting with his father who begs him to up a position on Mount Olympus with him after having rejected him but when his son says he wishes to continue as he is; he does accept a gold coin, the fare for Charon, the Ferryman of the Underworld.

He also attempts to prevent the sacrifice of Andromeda, the daughter of the King by visiting the three women who function with one hand held eye, the Stgyian witches and he also then goes on a quest to encounter the gorgon Medusa. On his way he and soldiers from Argus encounter Calibos the form King whose wife was taken by Zeus and who cast the woman and child adrift. He has been given powers by Haddes to help his vengeance on Perseus and when they fight and his arm is severed it is turned into the fist of several giant scorpions. Just when the party appears out numbered by these creatures a race, the Djinn arrives who are able to control the beasts and then use them as a means of transport,

He then uses the coin from his father to enter the Underworld and encounter Medusa who after fighting he cuts of her head. Meanwhile back in Argos the mob have yield to incitement to surrender up Andromeda who is attached to a sacrificial structure for the Kraken. She is saved by Perseus with the help of Pegasus and the use of Gorgon head to send Haddes back to the Underworld.

Andromeda presses Perseus to stay and be king but he says she will make great Queen. Zeus also appears and expresses the hope that his son is now ready to join him on Olympus but Perseus says he is content in human form. Previously Lo has given her life to enable Perseus to gain the head of the Medusa and free Andromeda and as a reward for returning Haddes to the Underworld and returning the world to the previous harmony Zeus brings back Lo so that his son has a companion and the two fly away on Pegasus.

The film was original made for Theatre is conventional 2 D. It was then remade in 3D with the consequence it provides the internal dimensional view without the gimmicks of things flying in and out of the screen in d a distracting way. This also provided an alternative ending in which Perseus develops a relationship with Andromeda which is brought to life with rescuing her from a certain and horrible death. He says he will return but first flies to Mount Olympus to advise his father that he does not wish to be a god before flying off, we presume back to Andromeda. Lo has remained dead something which she had intimated she longed for having lived for so long and seen all her contemporaries and love ones dies, an experience which Perseus could empathise through the loss of his family.

To the Devil a Daughter

2012-02-08T02:02:00.000-08:00

Painting the enemy as Devils is common but in the Dennis Wheatley novel based To the Devil a Daughter, the devil is a reality. I saw the film in theatre as well as on TV in the past and the all star cast brings a credible dimension in the days when horror suspense movies relied on audience imagination more than CGI creation of fantasy.

The film also relies on the audience accepting that it is possible for a fanatical former priest to establish an order of nuns who worship the devil adorned by inverted crosses. The story begins with Richard Widmark an established author attending a exhibition with his agent played by Honor Blackman and her lover Anthony Valentine Widmark is approached by Denholme Elliot to meet his daughter who is arriving from Germany for her once a year birthday with her father. The man explains to Widmark knowing of interest in the occult that the assignment is to look after the girl at his London riverside home until collected by father because of an occult threat. With remarkable insight Blackman is fearful and urges her client and friend not to become involved.

The background is that nearly eighteen years before, the girl played by 15 year old Natasha Kinski is born by a “ natural” Caesarean to a mother willingly participating who understandable dies and the girl is then baptised in the blood of the mother. She is then raised by Christopher Lee as the devil worshipping priest and his consort within the nunnery until adolescence and then in a ceremony she is placed on an alter and stimulate sexual intercourse with a statue of the devil while Lee has actual intercourse n behalf of the devil with his consort. The woman gives birth by a similar method to that of the girl, a few days before her eighteen birthday and the most important night of the occupy year. The woman gives birth to a grotesque creature of the devil. The intention is that at 18 the girl will be baptised again in the blood of the creature and become the devil on earth enabling a new generation to be switched on although how she will do this is unclear.

Her father, played by Elliot is a drunk weakling who when he discovers what is happened is horrified but is visited by the spirit of his wife who warns that if he betrays her and the destiny of her daughter he will perish in a ball of fire and presents him with a an artefact as symbol of the pact of secrecy and obedience he has entered into. Lee takes charge of the “pact” which secreted in the alter of a church used by the cult. There is a scene of Elliot having sex with a young woman at the ceremony of his daughter and the conception of devil suggesting that part of the pact was to enjoy the experience of the young woman at their regular ceremonies. As the eighteenth birthday approaches he recants and hires Widmark to thwart the plan. However Widmark and Elliot underestimate the powerful force with Lee is able to generate.

At his home the girl appears to experience the horror of he birth of the devil at night and it is evident that she has memories of other situations in which she has participated in a trance like condition. First Lee sends a powerful auto suggestion via the phone, he holds a rope which turns into snake on the hand of Elliot in order to reveal where the girl is located. He is then able to send a message to girl to leave the home where she is being looked after by Blackman who stabs the woman to death in the head in order to leave the home and be picked up by an agent of Lee.

Widmark after being threatened over the phone by Lee goes to see a Bishop friend to gain access to ancient work on the occult held in the church library after reading up on the subject in his own references library. Here he reads the pages which are recorded a being read by the priests many years before but where the Library has a record as require by the church of all those whom read otherwise banned books. From this he understands what is happening only too late to save his friend and Valentine is understandably devastated and horrified with Widmark for allowing the situation to develop this way together with his own guilt for getting involved when Blackman had repeatedly warned against doing so,

Valentine insists on accompanying Widmark when they visit Elliot to find him seated in a protected circle against the power of the devil and he refuses to advise on the location of his daughter until they have retrieved the pact, They go in search of he church and first find it has moved with Frances de la Tour as a Salvation Army Major who has taken over the church, They find the church as advised by Elliot and here Valentine is mistaken by Lee for Elliot and is consumed by fire. Widmark takes the pact artefact to Elliot who realising it is broken reveals the location of the ceremony at an ancient church site.

Here Lee has created a circle with the blood of the woman who gave birth to the girl who eh has placed on an altar in the middle. Oddly the act is performed on his won without the entourage. He warns and also attempted to bribe Widmark from interfering. It is at this point that the film had its controversial moment in which the girl said to be eighteen years is played by the 15 year old Kinsky, appears full frontal naked as a potential gift to Widmark if he allows the ceremony to go ahead. Widmark hold, a stone with the protected blood to enter the circle which he then throw at the end of Lee to give him time to pick up the clothed girl from the altar outside the circle. The film ends ambiguously because as he leaves the circle Lee disappears and the girl with blood on brow looks at him in way which suggests he may have been too late.

Kinsky the daughter of German Actor Klaus Kinsky who she did not see from the age of ten had been spent her adolescence in a German Commune in the early 70’s and afterwards spoke of being exploited when she was too young to appreciate the long term implications of her appearance in the film. One wonders what her mother was up to?

Wheatley was one of the prolific writers of his day. He showed no aptitude for school or creative work as a child and young man joined the Merchant Navy. He served in the army in the First World War and experience a chlorine attack at Paschendale and then saw service at Ypres and in France. After the war he joined the family wine merchant business and went into a depression when the business commenced to fail, remarried and commenced to write.

It was in the second World War that he held a important role for the Government coordinating strategic deception and cover plans including how to cope with the anticipated invasion which he covers in his work Stranger than Fiction. He presented a paper to the War Cabinet in Total War. He wrote over 80 fiction and non fiction works which books about the cult contained in a number of he series for example the Molly Fountain Mini series included the Satanist in addition to the Devil a Daughter. The Devil Rides out was part of the Duke of De Richleau series. And part if he Gregory Sullust series included they used Dark Forces and the Witch of the South Seas. The Irish Witch part of The Roger Brook Series. There were three fiction works on the occult on their own and a science fiction series. Six books in total were made into feature films He died in 1977 aged 80.

Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror

2012-02-08T00:06:00.001-08:00

Thinking and writing about Family History and World War II time over the past week makes it appropriate to begin with a Sherlock Holmes, the first to be set outside of Victorian Baker Street and no I do not mean the recent incarnations, but Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror 1942 when in the midst of World War II the UK was at its lowest point, a General Winter of discontent and there icy winds from the artic East blew hard over Europe.

There were Nazi sympathisers in place throughout the UK to take over the running of the country once the planned invasion was successful. It was generally believed that had the invasions taken place before the second front against Russia had commenced then it would have been touch and go that the resources then available to us. The enemy would have been difficult to have withstood. There was also the voice of Lord Haw Haw, the name for the English speaking German propagandists who broadcast to the UK and Empire from 1939 to 1945 although the most regular and prominent was William Joyce a senior member of the British Union of Fascists who was captured and hanged. There was also Tokyo Rose who performed same role in the Far East and Pacific.

In the film there are a number of broadcasts which describe acts of Terror and sabotage shortly before they occur. Holmes is brought in by Members of a kind of coordinating and managing War Council to try and stop the horrors. One of Holmes contacts is murdered but before he dies he mentions the word “Christopher“. Holmes Basil Rathbone and Watson Nigel Bruce go to Limehouse to see the wife of the murdered helper where they are challenged by working class locals who resent the intrusion of someone one like Holmes with undertones of the uneducated working man who had espoused Fascism in the East End before the War against the rational middle class although there was just as strong support within the middle and upper classes and it is nom secret that the British press still reflects a right wing bread and circus fascism barely veneered in its editorials, enthusiasm for page three girls and dangerous hypocritical morality. The bastards are still at it.

Holmes appeals to the patriotism often the device of unscrupulous politicians in inappropriate circumstances but here he was calling to wider audience of cinema goers of the day to respond to the national emergency and make whatever individual contribution was within their means. The national lack individuals of the necessary calibre at the present time in a situation where the general education, understanding and communications systems are such to render the average politician in effective outside of Westminster. In this instance the catalyst for participation is not the outsider Holmes but Kitty, the local wife of the Murdered man who rallies the majority from hostility and apathy into action.

Through the help of these supporters and Kitty “Christopher” is tracked down as an ancient no longer used dock to the Thames but Homes Watson and head of nationals security appears to be captured by a leading British Nazi and one of henchmen but in fact Homes has prepared for this and the table are turned with the help of the locals. However using Kitty posing as thief she ingratiates herself into the home of the man. Meade who had temporarily captured Holmes and allowed to escape to try and find out information which will lead to the identification and capture of the individual inside the Council who is the traitor and also the location of where the German invasion is to take place.

The location is communicated and under direct orders from Downing Street the hostile resentful and sceptical Council members accompany Holmes to a location on the South Coast where the Meade, the would be British Nazi Party leader has assembled his other associates all in uniforms ready to take command of supporters in various parts of the UK once the invasion force lands.

It is at this point that the inside man is revealed as a leading Member of the Council who is unmasked as an impostor who replaced the original individual 24 years before. He had been in charge of defence movements and had arranged for the force to be deployed north to await the invasion force. However his instructions have not been put into effect arising from the direct communication between Holmes and Downing Street. The film portrays British planes returning from successfully attacking the German invasion fleet and aircraft and the conspirators arrested. Unfortunate Kitty is shot and killed by Meade who is himself gunned down by troops.

Earlier Homes had worked out that the broadcasts were being pre-recorded in the UK and then flown to Germany with the intelligence information for the next terrorist activity. The recoding was then played as a Live Broadcast from within Germany just before the terrorist attack took place. On intelligence that he life of another member of the Council was under threat Holmes goes to the home of a Council Member deep in the countryside who for some extra ordinary reason then goes out on an air raid warning job although there appears to be no one else about

For him to assist should circumstances dictate. Holmes approaches him as Meade who is also in thee area is making his way to an aircraft which is landing nearby. Holmes had worked out that shortly before each broadcast and horror attacking there had been raid of a few planes which had attracted the attention of the RAF. He had surmised this was a distraction for a separate plane to fly to the prearranged destination, land to collect the latest intelligence on target with the broadcast. In this instance the Council member feigns surprise and shoots towards Meade and the Plane which immediate takes off and Meade disappears into the gloom. The film concludes there is an East Wind coming Watson. Such a wind never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter. But its Gods own wind none the less and a greener, better, stronger land will be in the sunshine when the wind is cleared. Amen to that.

Priest

2012-02-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

I was interested in the title Priest not having learned much about the content other than it involved creatures described as vampires although these are animal like creatures.

The film takes place in a parallel universe in which human beings live in a city without sunlight are subject of a Catholic type order who require obedience and regular confessions using visual Internet communication.

In the prologue a group of specialist “priests” trained to kill the creatures are deployed to finish off those remaining creatures by removing the last known Queen. The so called priests are in effect an elite order of fighters trained in martial arts of both sexes who are sworn to the service and celibacy. In this Mission Paul Bettany as the “Priest” fails to held onto a comrade who slips down into chasm below and is presumed dead after the team have been caught in trap but part from the one death they are successful in their mission. For some reason they do not have ropes with them or others to check their colleague is dead and to retrieve his body.

In fact I do not understand why the Mission was ended at this point and they and their superiors believe the creatures had been eliminated. However the elite corps were not just disbanded on return to the City but sidelined because the impression is given that the leader of the Council of Monsignors Christopher (South of Music) Plummer feared they would become a threat to the established order and their power continuing.

Some distance outside the city as in all similar stories there is the waste land with prisons containing outcasts being infected by the vampires but not killed or eaten as well as other developments, civilian outposts including Sheriff administrators/lawmen.

Here we find a family comprising husband wife and daughter, the latter a rebel with a tendency to make visits on her into town (where she has established a relationship with the local Sheriff who has a resemblance to Brad Pitt (Cam Gigandet as Sheriff Hicks, although we only learn this after a scene where suddenly a tribe of vampire animals appear and in a scene reminiscent of Somewhere over the Rainbow and a number of other films there is a storm/defence cellar. The woman is killed and husband survives in a bed ridden condition and the daughter has been taken which suggest there is a purpose to the raid as yet to be revealed as well as someone who would know or knew about the panic room cellar.

In the City Sheriff Hicks arrives to advise Priest of the attack on his brother and the taking of the daughter, a young woman he loves. Priest appears to reject the request to help but in fact he needs permission which he seeks from the Council of Monsignors but although he has a supporter Plummer is adamant that there are no more vampires and it was an attack by renegade outlanders.

Priest decides to become an outlaw and a team of former priests are brought together to follow and arrest him including a former admirer of his Maggie Q as Priestess,,

Checks out the home of his brother and meets up with Sheriff Hicks and they join forces and we have another familiat situation where the night is used to prepare doctored bullets with the Holy Crosses. They enter a prison of affected and renegades where the guards appears to have abandoned their duties. The explanation is that the community is now controlled by vampires working with the former inmates who are allowed to live their lives as they now wish.

At some point we learn that the girl has been captured by the former Priest comrade who was believed to have fallen to his death who later we learn was recovered by the Queen vampire who turned him into a human vampire with combined powers which makes him invincible against humans and he has a master plan to take over and “cleanse“ the known world. As is the case with this type f film the known worlds is a small one restricted to an area conveniently in the United States.

There are various conflicts before the duo is joined by the Priestess, work out that a minor army of creatures has been formed and broken out of the hive under the cover of darkness towards an outland town where they kill everyone in sight and also crucify on a trio of crosses the priests who had stationed themselves in the town in the search for their outlawed former comrade. The vampires had disappeared and the trio after marking the loss of their colleagues work out that they have hijacked a mining train with metal container wagons to protect from the daylight which means the army is next heading for the capital city which because it is undercover from sunlight offers no protection from the Vampires.

They devise a plan for priestess to blow up the train while Priest and Sheriff attempt to rescue the daughter. It has been revealed that she is Priest’s daughter and he had been taken to be trained in his role when she was a baby. There is still potential conflict between Priest and Sheriff if the girl has become infected. Priestess is chased by a posse of affected motorcycle riders on space age vehicles which can travel at 250k a hour.. Unfortunately in the following battle the detonator is destroyed so Priestess attaches the explosives to her machine and heads for the train. Sheriff confronts some of the hive who are able to function within the storage cars and eventually there is a confrontation between the former colleagues who argues the Vampire are creatures of truth and beauty and this si why he is using them to cleanse the city(ies) of their corruption.

In the climax the train blows up in spectacular fashion killing the human vampire but all four of the others miraculously survive. The girl and Sheriff ride off into sunset and Priest attends a service of the Monsignors to report he was right and they need to prepare for further attacks as the Queen remains alive. He continues to be disowned and goes for to campaign with Priestess and those they can persuade to act with them, thus heralding a sequel. It is there a below standard film reshoot in 3D but not in a distracting way. I rated it only 5 out of 10

Ironclad

2012-02-05T03:21:00.000-08:00

During the week I also watched two films meriting a record. The first is another travesty of history for the purpose of a creating a film to entertain and interest. Ironclad is not a about a ship as might be expected but the warrior apparel of a Knight Templar who it is suggested gave his life in defence of his comrades in the siege of Rochester Castle in 1215 at the time of Magna Carter and the rebellions of the Barons against King John.

The film which has a distinguished cast begins with King John (Paul Giamatti) being forced to agree to a charter of rights Magna Carter, drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Charles Dance) on behalf of the Barons at the water meadow by the Thames Runnymede, a site which I have visited. Contrary to popular belief he did not sign the document and agreed only to buy himself time. He then contacted the Pope who not only rejected the Charter but ex communicated the Archbishop of Canterbury for his behaviour. King John then enlisted the help of mercenaries, in the film from Demark, in a deal which would guarantee that the Pope did not intervene in the Danish religion and affairs of State.

The film then shows an Abbot and three Knights Templar on their way to Canterbury having assisted in the rebellion of the Barons taking shelter at the fictitious castle of Darnway (there is a Castle Darnaway in Scotland). Here King John and his mercenaries capture the Abbot tearing out his tongue who has taken a vow of silence. A feature of the film is its vivid gratuitous blood letting.

One of the Knights Templar, Thomas Marshal (James Purefoy) manages to escape with the Abbot while his two companions lose their lives in assisting him. The Abbot dies but Thomas makes his way to Canterbury to report was has occurred to the Archbishop and the rebellion supporter William d’Aubigny (Brian Cox) who in the knowledge of its futility elects to take control of Rochester Castle then an important gateway between the South East coast and London. The film shows William accompanied by Thomas and his new young squire locate potential fighters for the cause before making their way to Rochester where some of King John’s men have already taken occupation after gaining intelligence of the plot. The rebels take control much to the opposition of the Castle custodian Reginald de Cornhill played by Derek Jacobi who has a young wife marriage of convenience (Lady Isabel-Kate Mara)

Receiving information of what the rebels are attempting King John dispatches some men to enter the Castle to prevent the take over. They meet no opposition from the man in charge and his young wife.

In reality there were an estimated larger contingent of Barons and Knights at the Castle than in the film although in fairness accounts of the subsequent siege are limited. The siege a familiar affair with ladders and burning oil, catapults and a siege tower which is set on fire burning the men inside, an established feature used in many other portrayals. The Castle defences are eventually breached because there is no moat and the rebels are slowly worn down over six weeks and killed including William who has his hands and legs chopped off but who in reality was among the rebels who after surrendering from the lack of food were imprisoned or banished.

The most important dabbling with history is that the French did not arrive in England until much after the siege ended whereas in the film the Mercenaries decide to go home and King John retreats when the French come in sight. Marshall the Templar is released from the order and is free to ride off with the widow Lady Isabel.

I have not visited Rochester Castle which continued to play an important role in English affairs and both Samuel Peppys and Charles Dickens were fans with Dickens mentioning the place in the Mystery of Edwin Drood, recently televised and the Pickwick Papers.

Jackass 3 D

2012-01-29T01:58:00.000-08:00

I was tempted to say nothing about the worst film ever Jackass 3 D which I kept one eye on its entirety just to ensure that it was bad really bad. However given the huge financial success of film and series allegedly turning $20 million into $170 million I must comment on what it says about some of the present generation. The film comprises a crew of stunt men of various sizes and ages who engage in a series of happenings which they find extremely funny. They hit each other painfully hard, they jump or try to fly with various devices which fail and hurt and there is lots of farting, eating shit and making crude jokes about their genitalia finally ending the film with various forms of blowing themselves and each other up, The audience is warned not to try and imitate the stunts back home. The film is suitable for a squaddies night out without the girls.

Romeo is bleeding

2012-01-28T17:25:00.001-08:00

I can just about keep myself awake the early hours of Sunday with the briefest mentions of Romeo is Bleeding The plot can be summer as the story of another Jack, Jack Grimaldi a corrupt cop with a loving wife and mistress and steady extra income from the Mafia. He loses everything when coming across a sociopath Russian mob assassin called Mona Demarkov. Despite being found out and arrested he is commended and starts a new life running a road house in the middle of nowhere way out west with few customers where he remembers and imagines his wife will one day return to him.

The character is played by Garry Oldfield who ought to have known better. The film is said to have been made in the UK in 1993 for £10 million making less than a third of this at the box office. I am not surprised. What was he thinking

Pirates of the Caribbean IV On Stranger Tides

2012-01-28T17:14:00.000-08:00

In some respects Pirates of the Carribbean On Stranger Tides is a similar kind of film also shown in 3D but again without helping to overcome the limitations of the basic formula. However whereas the Last Airbender was a moderate financial success grossing double its substantial expenditure the Pirates series had made fortunes in this instance taking over $1 billion at the box office costing between $150 million to £250 million. I think Johnny Depp is a fine actor but I cannot stand his approach as Captain Jack Sparrow.

The interest of young people in Treasure hunting and pirates was created by Treasure Island written by Robert Louis Stevenson, the Victorian author of Kidnapped, the Master of Ballantrae and the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. There is also the story of Peter Pan J M Barrie with both books being made into the earliest of Pirate films in the 1920’s. Sea Hawk, Black Swan, The Spanish Main and Captain Kidd were released in the 1940’s and were part of my childhood. The genre came to the fore in the 1950’s with Treasure Island, The return to Treasure Island and Long John Silver, together with Hornblower, Moonfleet. The Crimson Pirate 1952 and Blackbeard the Pirate remembered.

1960’s saw the return of Blackbeard(Ghost) and the arrival of Captain Morgan and also of Captain Blood. Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island was made into a film and spawned various films and TV series. The Swiss Family Robinson was great hit and High Wind in Jamaica from one of the great books about the inner thoughts of child, There was another version of Treasure Island and with a major version again in the 1970’s when the genre seemed to go out of fashion. There were three versions of Treasure Island in the 1980’s and Yellow Beard. Peter Pan was Shipwrecked in the 90’s along with the Muppets who went too Treasure Island where there was also a made for TV series, Cuttroat Island was also notable.

The first three Pirates of the Caribbean appeared in the naughties along with Pirates 1 and Pirates 2 and Pirate Planet and as well Space Pirates although I cannot remember what year the film or the concept was born, There was also a contemporary version of Peter Pan and Master and Commander was a serious look at exploring the New worlds in the southern waters. So given this pedigree of adventuring the Caribbean series can be said to be high on visual trickery and with a 12 year certificate appears aimed at families who enjoy pantomimes where there is little genuine humour but shouting at the screen is to be commended.

The main story of the last epic which lasts 2 hours and 16 minutes is a search for the island location of the Fountain of Youth with three separate parties. The first is the Spanish with the aim of destroying the magical idolatry after a fisherman turns up in a net a man still alive carrying a notebook locating the Fountain. The second party is Captain Hector Barbossa Geoffrey Rush with the Kings Commission (Richard Griffiths) but whose aim is not the Fountain but his long term conflict with Blackbeared who on their last encounter took part of his leg. They have access to the shipmate of Captain Sparrow who steals his map in a complicated opening which follows the James Bond formula of a great action sequence to begin the proceedings. Hector is now a privateer and not a Pirate having lost the Black Peal. Jack’s beloved ship.

Jack is captured in London on behalf of the King after impersonating high court judge he has kidnapped to get his shipmate friend released. Judy Dench as a few seconds appearance in the opening. The King summons Jack on learning he is seeking a crew to go in search of the Fountain which the King does not want to fall into the hand sof the Spanish,

In fact Jacks not attempting to get a crew which he discovers is someone impersonating him who is none other than the gorgeous Penélope Cruz as the daughter of Blackbeard played by Ian McShane. She has a love hate relationship with Jack after he seduced from a convent she was to enter. Jack learns of her activities and whereabouts from his father played by Keith Richards no less who provides him a map and warns of the perils in store.

The story is that to benefit from the Fountain you have to put the water into one of two chalices together with tear from a Mermaid. In the films there are always computer generated creatures. In this instance bare back Mermaids who are a kind of sea vampire seducing sailors to their deaths within the ocean depths when it is alleged they provide food.

Jack is press ganged into service on Blackbeard’s vessel where Cruz is the first Mate and her father practices a kind of voodoo black magic which enables him to counter a successful mutiny take over led by Jack by converting ship’s ropes into snake like capturers. He also has a dangerous sword with powers of its own. On board there is a religious zealot who has been strung up by the yard arm because of his preaching and it he who manages to capture a mermaid alive and it is she who provides a tear( of Joy) when she finds he is alive after a fake throat cut to achieve the desire outcome.

There are many adventures, the finding of the Fountain and its destruction with at the end Jack admitting he loves Crux as she admits she loves him but he still leaves her castaway on a tiny atoll while he goes off to further adventuring. The young bible quoting Christian appears to live happy ever after in the depth with the rescued mermaid. Blackbeard has sacrificed himself after being poisoned by Barbossa and Cruz is also life threatened by removing the sword from the body of her father. Jack uses one chalice to save the life of Crux while Blackbeard is freed from the curse of physical being and turned instantly into a skeleton drinking from the other. Barbossa abandons the Kings Commission after the Spanish destroy the Fountain of Youth site to become a privateer.

Bluebeard has a collection of special ship‘s in bottles in a kind of safe on his ship. One of these is the Black Pearl. These are minaturized originals which can be brought back to life with the whole fleet of ships taken into Jack‘s custody at one point, just as well as the ship nd its crew is destroyed by a bevy of mermaids.

The money making will continue until Mr Depp gets bored.

The Last Air Bender

2012-01-28T15:53:00.000-08:00

The Last Air Bender should have been a better film given the subject marrying ancient mysticism and folklore with the latest computer generated use of 3 D. The concept is that of an earth populated by human beings with the capacity to bend (make use) of the air, water, fire and earth in superhuman magical ways. These uses can be for positive or negative purposes and in order to ensure the abilities are in balance there is a being called the Avatar who is able to command all four elements. Unfortunately the Avatar abandoned the world and those in command of Fire waged war in everyone else subjugating or destroying all those who stood in the way of world domination.

When an adolescent girl who is a secret water bender and her young brother are hunting food among the ice of the South Pole that come across a phenomenon which leads to the emergence of a young boy and a flying bison.

Immediately unbeknown to the adolescents 112 years before the boy had been identified within the people of who bend Air that this young man was destined to become the Avatar after training in all four arts. It is explained to him after the discovery that as the chosen one he must remain single and devote himself to the duties of the role. This frightens and devastates the young man who runs way rather than takes the oath of loyalty from and to the air bending subjects. He had become trapped by the water spirits and is unaware for how long.

Because he exhibits banned abilities by the people who can bend the earth his presence becomes known to the son of the Fire Nation who is on a quest to gain control over the Avatar and re-establish good relations with his father who regards him as a failure. His father’s senior Commander General Hao is also out to locate the Avatar which he hopes will end once and for all the relationship with the son who he is working at replacing in the affections and patronage of the Fire Lord Ozai.

The trio are captured when taking sanctuary with earth bending people are have been forbidden to use their arts and where anyone who shows abilities has been killed or imprisoned. They incite the people to use their latent powers to rebel from their conquerors.

They journey to the land where the Air benders used to reside and from the training centre from where he had run away.

He discovers that as a direct consequence of running away all the Air benders have been destroyed by the Fire Nation. He finds it even more difficult to live with himself than before. The problem is that apart from becoming a successful Air bender he was yet to learn the other three skills before he had run away.

He is taken to an isolated city of Water people able to teach and practice their art because they are protected by their isolation, their art and protecting spirits.

On their journey they experience various adventures and dangers including a betrayal, At one point they are rescued by the son of the Fire Lord and in return they save his life.

On arrival at the Water bending Kingdom they adjust to their new situation and the Avatar still appears unable to progress because of the continuing guilt he feels about his failure to accept his role as when boy and because of what has happened to the world since then. Here also the brother of Katara “ falls“ for the Water Princess and Katara and the Avatar bond closer in their commitment to the task of saving the world.

What they do not know is that the full army and fleet of the Fire Lord has set sail because they have learned of the whereabouts of the spirits protecting and giving to the water people The Aviator is able to enter a trance communicating with the spirit world for guidance and he does this as the fleet of the Fire Lord arrive and imperils the city with their fire machines and then with their destruction of the water spirits. The son of the Fire Lord has captured the Aviator when in a trance but Katara manages to rescue him by placing the son in\water freeze. However the people appear unable to use their power because of the killing of the Moon spirit when their powers are at their height. It is at his point that the Princes realises that her destiny is to pass from her mortal life to join the spirit world replacing the Moon and water spirits. She is afraid to make the transition but is helped through her friendship with Katara’s brother. Released from the control of the son of the Fire Lord, the Avatar has created a great wall of the sea protecting the fleet. The consequence is that the force for the Fire Lord within the walls of the city makes peace recognising the role of the Avatar as do the Water people. The rest of the fleet make tracks home.

Thus the Avatar and his companions are able to move onto the next stage of his question to gain master of the Earth bending and then of Fire. Learning of he Defeat the Fire Lord appoints his daughter to capture the Avatar.

There is some similarity with The Lion Witch and Wardrobe, Harry Potter etc where the main characters are children/teenagers.

Two graphic novels have been written The Last Airbender Zuko’s Story a Prequel and the Last Airbender drawn in the manga style. The film failed to impress the critics and audiences alike given that the production cost $150 million. It will be interesting to see if what appears to be trailed as at least one sequel, possibility two are made and released.

Killing Bono

2012-01-28T13:06:00.000-08:00

Now to a group of films in varying awfulness although I maintained interest in Killing Bono, because the film is based loosely on a true Story against the background of the success of the greatest rock band in the world. Neil McCormick went to school with Bono and the Edge from U2 but beyond this fact I have no idea how much of his autobiography memoir of the same title sub headed I was Bono‘s doppelganger bears to the truth. Apart from the US appearance at the original I was there Live Aid concert, the closest I have got to see the band performing live is a tribute band who played at the Custom’s House one evening and who I encountered in their van searching for their lodging house which I was able to show them the way after their Sat Nav went awry. They were and I assume are still the loudest band I have ever experienced, so much so that some of the audience could not cope and left at the interval.

The story is how McCormick decided to form a band which would rival U2 when working an entertainment journalist for a weekly a magazine. He was so determined his young brother from joining the group bit telling him of the offer. In order to gain experience he arranges a gig at a stripper drinks club run by a notorious criminal who he persuades to provide £10000 to sponsor the duo make it big in London. They take up accommodation in a large dilapidated factory office type of building run by the outstanding actor Pete Postlethwaite in his last film. He plays a gay landlord who is under the impression the brothers are a couple. There is a gay party at which they get know their neighbour who has been involved in the music industry but has become an actor.

They also appear to strike it lucky with a Tin Pan Alley entrepreneur who asks them to creates another demo as the one submitted is about rape and therefore not commercial. He is enthusiastic enough to promise a contract however when they return they find that he has left the firm and the man who has taken over rejects them because they were to be signed by the man he has replaced.

The core theme of the film is the way the writer keeps stuffing up. For example he arranges a concert coinciding with the visit of the Pope to Ireland. He returns to Ireland to persuade the backer to put up even more money to hold a concert as a promoter is interested but wants to see them perform. He arranges the concert on the same day as Live Aid. They arrange the concert which is a great success. The girl living in the next door loft agrees to become their manager. They meet up with the Music entrepreneur who had promised a contract. They eventually get a record contract and a tour however out hero stuffs up again by having sex with the wife of their sponsor although she had doing the leading and as a consequence the rest of the ban including his brother send him packing.

He returns to Ireland and reforms the original group less his brother. The film charts the world wide success of U2 and without knowing they have split up Bob contacts to offer them a gig opening their Irish concert dates. He fails to disclose this to his brother and as per the title in the film he seriously considers killing Bono in London when he arrives on the promotion of their latest Album the Joshua Tree. Fortunately the younger brother is also at the promotion and is able to intervene. They make up and plan to attend the gig however they end up being dumped in the country side by their sponsor and attempt to make a local bus which might get them in time to perform. They fail and the film explaining that he became a professional writer which I was able to check that he writes show business pieces for the Daily Telegraph. What made the film enjoyable is the musical background of U 2.hits

True Grit 2010

2012-01-28T09:52:00.000-08:00

I do not understand why I had not previously added a review of the remake of True Grit alongside the original with John Wayne as I saw in theatre at the time it was released at the end of 2010 just before Christmas. The film was made by the splendid Coen brothers whose work is always interesting although not always enjoyable and satisfying.

The story is an engaging one with a fourteen year old girl taking it upon herself to arrange for the return of the body of her father who has been killed when intervening in a conflict involving one of his hired hands while in town Fort Smith Arkansas purchasing two animals. The man Tom Cheney has headed into Indian country with two of her fathers special gold coin pieces. She comes to town just for the day with another hired hand as escort although she sends him home with the body staying in town to undertake unfinished business. Her first task is to cancel the purchase and claim compensation for the loss of her father’s horse which she negotiates hard. She sees the local Justices who have no interest in pursuing the murderer so she seeks advice as to who might be willing to undertake the task offering to pay $50 over the state terms. This is then raised to an additional $50 on success of the mission. She is given three names and approaches the old timer Rooster Coburn played by Jeff Bridges in the remake. While John Wayne remained distinctly John Wayne in the original Mr Bridges has become famed for his characterisation where you would not know who the actor is without being informed. This is to his credit although both performances are outstanding.

Roster Cockburn is not anti social as such but prefers to follow his business without encumbrances so the idea of being accompanied let alone commissioned by a fourteen year girl is understandably not something he is prepared to countenance. She begins to have misgivings about him after finding him a drunken state and wishes she had first approached Texas Ranger LaBoeuf played by Matt Damon who is also after the same man for the murder a Texan senator, especially as he knows the territory involved. While she is staying at the same boarding house where her father lodged The Texan and Rooster make an early start without her, telling the ferry man that she is a runaway and not to let her cross. She crosses the river anyway with the horse swimming.

The two men first fall out over the treatment of the girl and allowing her to go with them. Mattie Ross is played by Oscar nominated Hailee Steinfield who had to compete with 15000 applicants for the role(She is to play Juliet in a remake film of Shakespeare’s play.

With the onset of winter and snow falling the two make for a an overnight lodge on the advice of a medicine man they encounter but find that outlaws have taken up residence. They smoke them out and plan to stay overnight after a fight before finding out that a well known gang is to arrive accompanied by the man they are after. The two wait in ambush on a hill overlooking the cabin. The plan misfires when the Texas Ranger arrives before the outlaw gang. Rooster is able to his aid at a distance although the man is injured. Some of the outlaws escape to join the rest of the gang.

Unfortunately the two men argue again this time over the Civil War and La Beuof again goes off and Mattie is then caught by the gang when she is getting water from the river and confronts Chaney. Fortunately La Boeuf comes to the rescue just before Chaney is about to the kill Mattie. who has been taken hostage. They devise a plan to take on the gang which involves Rooster taking on four men a kind of jousting conflict. After killing three, Rooster falls and is trapped by his horse. LaBoeuf makes an amazing shot of 400 yards to down the fourth man. Having also killed Chaney the mission is over. Unfortunately Mattie falls down into a cave full of snakes and is bitten and Rooster rides in desperation to where he knows she will get appropriate help. She recovers but loses an arm.

Twenty five years later Mattie gets a note from Rooster with a hand bill saying that he is performing in a Wild West Show nearby. She visits only to find that he died a few days before her arrival. She arranges for the coffin to be moved to the family plot on the family farm. She reflects on their adventure together.

Although the film was nominated for 10 awards at the Oscars and 8 at the Bafta’s it only won the Cinematic Bafta. This is one of the rare situations where both films can be enjoy and stand alongside each other.

Coriolanus

2012-01-28T05:38:00.000-08:00

The news that Ralph Fiennes was directing Coriolanus for the cinema was greeted by me with enthusiasm until I realised I had confused this Shakespearean tragedy with Titus Androdonicus which I had seen at Stratford as well as when the RSC visited Newcastle. Coriolanus the character is in fact a fascist soldier with aristocratic contempt for the people, the plebeians, and for the concept of democracy. He is a tragic figure because he is the product of an ambition warmongering dominating mother who is also in control of his wife and son,

Mr Fiennes is best known for his performances in the English Patient, the Constant Gardener and the Duke of Devonshire in the Duchess once more on BBC on Saturday evening. He is also to appear in a remake film of Great Expectations as Magwitch.

He is faithful to the story and to much of the Text and to the setting of the play in Rome and Italy, but here is where the liberty is taken because the period is not the Latin era of the Consuls but the twentieth century and filmed in a grim war torn Serbia. He also brings the fore the role of his mother and of his wife. An aspect where performances were understandably limited with boys playing female figures at the time the works were written.

As with the text and various examples throughout history there are food shortages to an extent that the people do not have sufficient grain to make bread and what exists is controlled with priority given to the military and the patricians. The mob has been stirred by political agitators with their personal as well as civic agenda, written in an era within fifty years of the British Civil War.

Their anger has been directed on the military hero and deputy commander Caius Marcius who has already made known his contempt for the masses while distinguishing him repeatedly in battles. The agitation is led by Senators Brutus and Scinius played by Paul Jesson as the behind the scenes manipulator and James Nesbitt as the front man.

His wife is anxious for his welfare but his mother chides her for being soft hearted declaring she would rather have a dozen sons killed in battle that one living who puts his wife and personal welfare before the honour of combat and the acquisition of the scars of battle which should then be shown to the people to maintain their adoration and continuing support. Her main ally and supporter of Caius is Menenius Agrippa a kind of Speaker in the House, who with the support of the present Consul, a combined state head and Prime Minister rolled into one, are keen for Caius to be appointed when circumstances are propitious. To become Consul one must have the voice of the Senate and of the people at the Forum. While Menenius controls the body of the Senate, Nesbitt and co know the minds and the emotions of the people, and more importantly how to press the right buttons to get the people worked up and taking their lead.

When news comes that the leader of the Volscians, Tullus Aufidius, has launched a new campaign to right the grievances against the Roman state Caius concentrates on what interests him best, the business of fighting and in the film we are treated to an exposition of contemporary warfare with high powered rapid firing weapons and hand delivered rockets. When ordered you advance whatever the personal cost is likely to be and I was remind of this continuing principle of military authority with a Blackadder episode in which the men were told to go over the top and die in combat rather than retreat in cowardly dishonour.

The Volscians are defeated but Tullus escapes after a direct confrontation with Caius who returns to the acclaim of the Senate and the honour of being renamed Coriolanus after the place of the victory. Menenius and the mother of Coriolanus determine this is the moment for the warrior to become the state leader. The appearance before the Senate goes according to although Coriolanus refuses to listen to the acclamation speech on his behalf and he is reluctant to respond other than to accept the honour.

He agrees to attend the Forum (market place in the film) with reluctance and refuses to show his war wounds which is the required custom. He returns to the senate for confirmation and inauguration but makes the mistake of wanting to first change his clothing. This provides the opportunity for the conspirators to psyche the crowd into changing their minds and demand the impeachment of Coriolanus.

Coriolanus then resists the counselling of Menenius, his mother and other supporters including the existing Consul, to moderate his approach and say what is needed to convince the people. The device which the film uses is a modern day Television appearance after he agrees to do what is necessary. The conspirators have a few placed supporters in the audience to respond to the signal of Nesbitt to demand the trial and sentencing of Coriolanus for his contempt of the people. He does his best to cooperate with the wishes of his supporters but is quickly goaded into exposing his real feelings. Nesbitt calls for banishment which is quickly taken up by the studio audience. The conspirators are elated and keep the political status quo.

Coriolanus is bitter and determines on revenge and makes his way to the Volscians capital and demands to be presented to Tullus where he offers his life as a means of humiliating Rome. However his aim is to offer his services to help Tullus and his countryman wage war again on Rome and they seize on this with enthusiasm. The problem is that Coriolanus is too successful and the men begin to support him rather than Tullus and his leadership. They begin to try and look like their idol, shaving their heads like him and Tullus and his advisers begin to worry about their position.

As the invaders advance on the capital there is growing panic among the leadership and the citizenry and against his better judgement Menenius is commissioned to go and seek a peaceful settlement. When the mission fails he is sent away with a flea in his ear and commits suicide.

This leaves the mother, wife and son who previously attempted to get the conspirators to reverse the banishment, to now plead for the city, humiliating themselves, prepared to say and do whatever he asks of them. When it appears he is so wedded to his need for revenge that he will yield nothing, he relents, consults Tullus who agrees that to a peace deal. In the play it is only when The Volscians returns to their capital that they turn of Coriolanus and kill him. In the film Tullus and his men wait outside of Rome for the Peace deal to be signed during which time he becomes concerned about the reaction of the Volscians given that they had Rome at their mercy and fearing the response make a scapegoat of Coriolanus.

Both play and film make the point that Generals should stick to their profession and not enter politics and that in a democracy the masses can be manipulated one way or their other by demagogues. It is also a statement about the power that some parents can exert over their children. It is also clear that the play will be used by those on the extreme right as a statement in favour of fascism and dictatorships.

Katyn

2012-01-25T12:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I wrote of a film The Aryan Couple made for television which added the survival of two young ordinary Jewish individuals from the holocaust in a story to mark the handful of Hungarian wealthy and powerful men who managed to buy their and their family’s freedom. The film was a good reminder to more recent generations why Israel and the Jewish people in general have cause for continuing concern about their future in a world which has been largely hostile since their history was first put to paper. One reason for this hostility appears to be that they have not engaged in the wholesale slaughter of their own kind as have the Christians, the Muslims and the Communists have engaged for generation upon generation. It is therefore their overall sense of being one as a people which others find threatening although within that there is a spectrum of religious and political perspectives and differences over individual subjects and issues.

It was coincidental that that late last night, after an unsuccessful day and feeling tired, I decided to watch Katyn, the film by Andrzej Wajda, one of the great directors alongside Ingmar Bergman and Frederico Fellini. The film is his reminder to present and future generations of the most significant atrocity committed by the Russian Communists against the Polish People, second, albeit by a long way to the industrial slaughter of the Polish Jews by Germany.

I say it was coincidental although on refection given the mood I was in and the choice of a number of new films on available on the Sky Premier channel, together with seven DVD’s of Le Carré books made into films waiting with ten books to be read, I decided it was time to face an event which continues to upset and anger whenever I read to see references. The mood commenced yesterday when as I commented the reality involved in the purchasing of freedom of wealthy and powerful Jewish people in Hungry was a more relevant subject than the chosen vehicle of the film. The genocide actions of the Nazi Himmler, Eichmann and the controversial role of Becher along with those of Kastner who was responsible for the train which took over 1850 Jews to freedom merit continual examination by each new generation of young adults. For the Polish people Katyn remains a painful reality which has significance beyond its horror and the impact on the relatives of the government officials, the police the intellectuals and creative artists as well as about half the officers of the army, because everyone was forced for decades to confirm in public the lie perpetrated by the Russians that it was the German Nazi’s who had committed the atrocity, when it was them, and not their allies at the time. They were birds of a feather on the extreme right and left and which should serve as a reminder that those on the extremes of the right and left of politics who embrace the use of violence are always to be feared and opposed.

The DVD contains a long thoughtful interview with Wajda whose films produced as the height of the Communist rule in Poland- A Generation 1954, Kanal 1956 and Ashes and Diamonds 1958 brought him international recognition followed by Man of Iron which won the Palme d’Ot at Cannes in 1981 and which together with The Promised Land 1974, Maids of Wilko 1979 and Katyn(2007) were nominated for best foreign language film Oscars. He is also one of the few to be honoured by an Honary Oscar, awarded in 2000. Wadja explained that there was mo question of producing a film on the subject during the Russian occupation for reason which he makes evident in the film.

Nor was the subject one just a shared national horror because his father was one of the officers murdered and he witnessed the impact on his mother when his father failed to return home. He reached the conclusion that it was important to portray the cover up as much as the event itself and also to present the impact on the mothers, the wives, sisters and girl friends of those who executed.

The known facts are that the massacres took place in April and May 1940 and involved at least 21768 individuals including about 8000 military officers, 6000 police officers and others describes at the time as intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials and priests but who covered the middle and upper classes who the communists decided to eliminate.

The Russians did this on a grander scale to their own people as did the Germans and later the Chinese. Although a large part of the shooting in the back of the head took place in the Katyn Forest there were simultaneous executions elsewhere in Poland and Russia where the prisoners were taken after the 1939 invasion succeeded. The Russian Government denied responsibility and blamed the Germans until 1990 and a decade later Stalin and others were officially blamed. Documentation has been released from time to time but remains far from complete.

Wajda tells the story through the wife and mother of one of the captured officers. When the film opens she and her daughter have travelled across Poland from German occupied zone to the Russian to find the captured husband and plead with him to come home. He is a man of honour who had sworn allegiance in the service of his country and feels bound to accept the conditions of his captivity. At least in this instance the couple and their daughter have the opportunity to say what proves to be a final goodbye. She is then prevented from returning across the new border between the divided nation and told to stay to await the return of her husband. She lodges with a sympathetic Russian officer who knowing what is going to happen advises her to marry him. Understandably she rejects this but is grateful when shortly afterwards he hides the couple when the authorities come for her and a neighbour. The Russians are said to have moved hundreds of thousands of civilians from Poland into Russia for various purposes of whom many never returned. Following her narrow escape she is advised to try and make her way to the capital where her father and mother in law live. The film does not cover her journey except that she had to bribe her way across the border using her wedding rings.

On arrival she finds that her father in law, a University Professor, has been sent to a Labour Camp and the University closed. Again his wife had pleaded with him not to go to the meeting between the university Head and a Nazi leader. He wanted to support the proposed request that the university should remain an independent body. Instead they are met with tirade of complaint at having continued to operate without seeking permission and having shown anti occupation sentiments and anti occupation activities. The are immediately bundled in vehicles for the Labour camp. The husband is a later reported to have died from untreated heart problems.

Following the break up of alliance between Germany and Russia and the German occupation of the whole of Poland and move into Russian territory, the Katyn graves- many open site- are revealed, and the German command makes as much capital as possible. They excavated the site and carried out post mortems which they filmed together with placing in large envelopes any personal effects found on the bodies together with lists of names of those where identification was possible. Mother in law, wife and child are relieved when their loved one is not on the list, but her husband’s closest friend in the service is.

At the end of the war they are shocked when the friend arrives wearing the uniform of the Polish army under the control of the Russians. He brings tinned meat for the family but the main reason is to explain that her husband had been wearing a tagged pieces of clothing of his. He is therefore a Katyn victim. Later under pressure because he is working for the Russians and colluding in the state myth that the atrocity was a German one he commits suicide. Not before he has pleaded with those holding the personal effects and other recovered documentation to return anything belonging to the husband to his widow.

After the war the widow works at or manages a photography business and one day she encounters a young relative who proposes to enrol at a local teaching institution. He states on the application form that his father died at the Soviet Katyn atrocity and refuses to revise the application. The official in charge of the institution tells a colleague that she will find a way to admit the young man without the state offending declaration. Later full of anger about the situation he has found in the capital destroying a government poster in view of the military who give chase and he is helped by a young woman to hide on a roof. When the coast is clear they leave and she agrees to meet him for a date at a nearby cinema the following evening. He then is seen by the military who were looking for him and in the effort to get away he is knocked down and killed by a passing motorist,

The educational institution female head is one of two sisters whose brother is another Katyn victim, a man who is not religious but is given a rosary, a rosary found on his person when he is killed. It is passed by a priest who was part of the filmed Russian revision of the discovery of the atrocity blaming the Germans, to another sister who has become a Polish activist trying to free the country from the Russians. She later sells her long hair to a theatrical company to make up a wig for an actress who has lost all her hair in a concentration camp, using the payment to have to have a memorial slab created in memory of her brother which the priest. When she arrives with the stone plaque she finds that the priest has been removed by the authorities and the replacement priest is unwilling to have the monument in the church. The sister takes the memorial to family cemetery and is joined by the other sister who tries to persuade her to desist from the action. This other sister makes the point that resistance is futile and the country will never be free from the Russians and other occupiers. The activist is picked up by the authorities and offered the opportunity to recant and when she refuses she is taken away with the implication that she is to be executed.

The film also covers the experience of the wife of one of the Generals who takes time to digest and accept that her husband will not return. After the war she and her adult daughter are visited by their former maid who now appears to be a well dressed woman with a chauffer car. Her husband has been appointed a local mayor. The purpose is to bring the General’s ceremonial sword which she had been asked to keep for him. She asks for the trunk of her possession which the family had kept to be given to the poor people as she no longer has need.

During the war the General’s widow had been asked by the German authorities to make a recording of her condemnation of the massacre. She declined and was taken next door leaving her child in distress thinking the worse when in fact she was being shown a film of the discovered Katyn graves. Years later she cannot accept the same film with a new commentary placing responsibility for the atrocity on the Germans. Her fate also becomes in question.

The final sequence is when someone brings the envelope of belongings to the wife of the central character. This contains his diary notebook in which he attempted to record the main events of what happened since their capture and the names of those with whom he was captured and imprisoned. Reading this enables the film to show what happened when her husband and a substantial numbers of fellow officers are taken from one camp on a journey which leads to an execution centre near the forest and to the forest graveyard. In both instances the film shows the execution of characters which we have come to know, The diary ends with his arrival at the Forest. The films ends with a blank screen and then a sung liturgy and them credits rolled in silence.

The Aryan Couple

2012-01-24T11:32:00.000-08:00

Last night I saw a compelling film about someone I had not heard previously of but who with his wife, children and extended family bought their way from a journey to a German Nazi extermination camp by signing over his substantial and significant industrial empire and family holdings of property. As with all such films where the film announces that it is based on a true story, however loosely, my first action after viewing the film was to attempt to find the facts.

The man was Manfred Weiss but I could only find one reference of value which I shall come to later because of the what I discovered about the man who took over the huge industrial holdings with 30000 employees and who went on to become one of the most wealthy men in Western Germany after the War.

Kurt Becher was a member of the Nazi S S who from his experience in Poland and Russia was responsible for the techniques of the genocide of the Jewish people and was then appointed Chief of Economic Development of the SS Command in Hungary by Heinrich Himmler in 1944.

It is sometimes forgotten by the media especially the entertainment media that Eichmann worked directly to Himmler on the extermination of the Jewish people in the German occupied territories and Himmler was head of the Gestapo as Minister for the Interior as well as responsible for the security and policing of all occupied countries. In this respect he was more powerful that Hitler in terms of his power over the German civilian population as well as the occupied territories.

Belcher responsible for extracting the maximum financial profit from all those exterminated, not just their possessions but everything from their body, including teeth, hair and using body fat for soap as well as enabling some wealthy Jews to officially buy their way out of the country. He was therefore by definition in terms of his role a monster of a human being yet he survived the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials where although arrested he was not charged and was used as witness.

Yet on arrival in the Hungarian capital in March 1944 his first task was to “ negotiate” the taking over of the most important Jewish businesses which were still owned and managed and he did this for the benefit of himself contrary to Himmler’s approach, a fact which the film deplorably stands on its head as the film argues Himmler coveted the art collection of the central characters which was housed in a provincial and rural located Palace, which because of the removal of Jews was looked after by a couple who posed as Aryans who were not only Jews but in touch with those monitoring and helping Jews to escape the Terror. Himmler is shown to attend the Palace for a meal with the Industrialist and his wife, plus the Hungarian Commander, presumably intended to be Becher and other local senior officers with Eichmann being invited for coffee to witness the signing of the agreement.

The films begins with a moving and challenging portrayal of the Terror in terms of the way Jews of all ages and backgrounds were herded into cattle trucks together with pictures of an extermination centre as it remains to day. Becher only remained in Hungary for the rest of that year in which he negotiated with another figure of controversy over the transport of 1685 Jews out of the country to places of safety for money, negotiating first with Eichmann and then through Becher with Himmler.

By the beginning of 1945 Becher was promoted by Himmler and Hitler in charge of all concentration camps until his arrest by the allies in May and by which time it is alleged that he had personally acquired in objects and money to the value of 10 million Swiss francs in the six large suitcases accompanying him on his travels.

He was protected at Nuremberg by Rudolf Kastner. Kastner was a Hungarian Jew who led an organisation which purchased from Himmler the safe departure from Hungary of the documented 1685 Jews for substantial payments but at a time when an estimated 12000 a day where being transported to the extermination centres. After the war Kastner moved to Israel where he came to hold a position in the Ministry of Trade and Industry in 1952.

However shortly after this he was subject to accusation that he had in fact been a profiteer not just failing warn others of what was in store for them but encouraging them to comply with the authorities, reassuring that they would be safe. Although a court found that the case against him was not proven this was after a judge had criticised his role and led to his assassination in in 1957 and the judgement had a lasting and damaging effect on his family. My understanding is that Mr Kastner undertook work prior to the War helping Jewish refugees to resettle in Romania before moving to Budapest.

It was in 1944 that Kastner negotiated direct with Eichmann for the passage of a number of Jews by train to Switzerland and onward out of German control and with the details being agreed with Kurt Becher acting with the authority of Himmler and who required 50 of seats on the train for those he personally sponsored. In fact at first Eichmann broke the agreement and routed the train to Belsen however the agreement was then kept with those involved including artists, scientists, religious leaders and political activist being allowed to leave in two contingents via Switzerland.

Part of the subsequent campaign against Kastner was his support for Becher at the Nuremberg trials although again the view has been expressed that Kastner did this with the approval of Jewish leaders because of the wish to find and prosecute Eichmann and to recover property that Becher had removed for himself and for the Reich.

The real story was to have a twist because in what many regarded as an extraordinary move, after the capture of Eichmann Becher was called as a witness for the Defence at re Eichmann trial in 1961. He provided testimony from Germany unwilling to travel to Jerusalem where the trial was held, possibly sensing this was a trap. His testimony was not allowed because he was provided with questions in advance of the relay to the court. He was regarded as one of the wealthiest men in Western Germany at the time.

Writing after the event one important source, Hannah Arrendt, said “It was a great pity that Eichmann and Becher could not have been confronted with each other and this not merely for judicial reasons. Such a confrontation would have revealed another part of the "general picture," which, even legally, was far from irrelevant”

After describing his career she said “His relations with Himmler were excellent, he could see him whenever he wished. His "special mission" was clear enough. He was to obtain control of major Jewish business concerns behind the backs of the Hungarian government, and, in return, to give the owners free passage out of the country, plus a sizable amount of money in foreign currency.

“His most important transaction was with the Manfred Weiss steel combine, a mammoth enterprise, with thirty thousand workers, which produced everything from airplanes, trucks, and bicycles to tinned goods, pins, and needles. The result was that forty-five members of the Weiss family immigrated to Portugal while Mr. Becher became head of their business.

When Eichmann heard of this Schweinerei, he was outraged; the deal threatened to compromise his good relations with the Hungarians, who naturally expected to take possession of Jewish property confiscated on their own soil. He had some reason for his indignation, since these deals were contrary to the regular Nazi policy. Which had been quite generous.

For their help in solving the Jewish question in any country, the Germans had demanded no part of the Jews' property, only the costs of their deportation and extermination, and these costs had varied widely from country to country-the Slovaks had been supposed to pay between three hundred and five hundred Reichsmarks per Jew, the Croats only thirty, the French seven hundred, and the Belgians two hundred and fifty. (It seems that no one ever paid except the Croats.) In Hungary, at this late stage of the war, the Germans were demanding payment in goods-shipments of food to the Reich, in quantities determined by the amount of food the deported Jews would have consumed.

So how does the film deal with these issues. As I said it begins well with scenes sending thousands by train to their extermination and with a sight of a centre as it is today. The story in fact centres on the young couple who look after the Palace and where the attractive wife is pregnant and flirts with a guard at a control post which they pass on their regular visits into the nearest town where in fact they keep watch on the transport of Jewish people and appear to report to some kind of underground movement. They are suddenly contact by their employers to get the Palace ready for the visit of Himmler and three others and this poses as challenged for the young man as they are in fact also Jews and he wants to assassinate Himmler and Eichmann when he learns they are to be involved, The wife persuades him not to do this because of the implications for them and for others.( This is one of several irrational moments in the film introduced for dramatic tension. The situation for them deteriorates when the on the ground appointed security man takes a shine to the wife who he believes is Aryan hence the Title of the film The Aryan Couple, He has learned from Eichmann who appears as a kind of chief of Gestapo that the couple are to be killed once the deal has been completed and the employers leave from a local air field by plane. He asks Eichmann to arrange sound proof facility at the Gestapo HQ where he intimates he wishes to rape and then kill the young woman for amusement.

It is fact that Himmler and Eichmann did not get on as personalities and approaches. It is arranged that all the relatives of the industrialist played by Martin Landau as a Joseph Krausenberg should be held together at the Gestapo Headquarters and for Joseph to be summoned from his office to the Gestapo HQ where he is made to wait, roughly treated and told to calm his relatives nerves before going to his country home for the dinner and departure. This action is designed to ensure that he signs the papers handing over the possessions to Himmler including the art collection. This is all fabrication because as has been shown the intention was to hand over the property to Aryan Hungarians in return for their payments for the elimination of the Jewish people.

The antipathy between Himmler and Eichmann is shown when Himmler insists that Eichmann kisses the hand of Joseph’s wife. The reality of what would have been such a situation is also shown by the hesitancy of the wife to sign the document without guarantees and her scathing and dangerous in the circumstances comments about the treatment of her countrymen and women. Before the couple depart and do leave with their extended family of some 45 individuals on the plane to Switzerland the young couple disclose their truth identity and fears and ask their employers to help them.
By this time Eichmann and the aggressive would be rapist have found out the young couple are Jews and he decision taken to order the senior office left to clear up the situation and take charge of the Palace, to kill the couple and bury them in the grounds in a grave which the young control point soldier who flirted with the young wife is asked to dig and then participate in their execution.

However unbeknown to the audience the employers have provided the senior officer with gold for him to enable the couple with exit papers signed by Himmler presumably of the kind which were issued for the Becher train and indeed the couple are to leave the capital by a special train which the officer escort them from the central station. In the meantime Eichmann has ordered the execution of the couple so he can hear their deaths over the phone. The irrationality is that in order to confuse or mislead the audience there are no cries as the shots are fired which in reality would have led someone over the phone to question. In the meantime the young soldier waiting by the open grave commits suicide because the situation he is in thus absolving the young German soldiers in general from the behaviour of their seniors, the SS and the Gestapo and the political leaders.

However there is a further twist because Eichmann’s fanatical henchman goes to Palace and discovers the officer has lied who is then apprehended his gold. The henchman undertakes to go off and take the couple from the train before they reach the border. However meanwhile Himmler having learned of the situation and fearing his plans to take over the industrial empire and the Palace will be thwarted at the last moment instructs a colleague to ensure the couple depart and join their employer. This colleague has to shoot the fanatical henchman who refuses to accept the order and is about to shoot the couple before they can reboard the train as it slowly leaves the station.

The film which I presume was made for TV is well done but it is a pity there is such a gulf between fact and fiction although some of he key elements of the reality are faithfully recounted I came across one reference to the death of one the daughters who I presume travelled with her father. She had become New York based and is understood to have devoted much of her life to supporting Human Rights Charities.

Abandoned

2012-01-22T13:26:00.001-08:00

Abandoned is a 2010 released thrills and actions film which requires a considerable stretch of credulity. The films can be said to be in two parts. In the first a young woman accompanies her boyfriend to a hospital for day surgery. She accompanies him to the ward where a nurse asks him to get ready and tell the girl friend when to leave and how long the process will take. The hospital is in the processing of closing down with transfers to a new building already in hand. It is never explained why it is closing and transferring as the building is modern with modern facilities. While she waits she shares a cup of coffee with an elderly man who is spending his days at the hospital visiting his wife. When the boyfriend does not return at the time expected she makes inquiries and there is no record of him, or the nurse who she has encountered or the doctor he was supposed to be seeing and that the area where he was admitted and which she visited had been cleared and was no longer in use.

She makes various inquiries and eventually the hospital administrator is called because she making a nuisance of herself. When he is not found after extensive searching the girl calls a female friend who surprisingly appears the reinforce the hospital view that maybe the man used the visit as an excuse to break with her. She calls the police and the selected nearest officer is also sceptical but does a search of the large multifloor building without success. The direction of the film is to add to the sense that there is some great conspiracy especially when we learn that the man’s laptop has disappeared from his car. That he worked from home and other planted clues suggesting he has been kidnapped for some reason and with staff at the at the hospital colluding. When she spills her purse to reveal a bottle of anti depressants, although why should carry round such a large bottle is not explained, the suggestion is that she is making everything up and is in need of psychiatric help and with the doctor again appearing part of he conspiracy. The policeman leaves although calls at the home of the boyfriend and after breaking from the psychiatrist the girl goes on another search and gets a phone call from the boyfriend saying he is being kept prisoner within the hospital.

A key aspect of the film is that the girl works as an electronic expert for a bank and by phone she is told to transfer $10 million from the bank to an International account. She does this demanding to see her boyfriend before submitting the final transfer code.

We now come to the second part which occurs from the moment she pus through the transfer on seeing her boyfriend. Only then she realises she has been part of an elaborate hoax of which the boyfriend is the leader. His partners in crime include the man with whom she had a cup of tea, the nurse and the head security officer, with the latter responsible for erasing the CCTV record of his entering the hospital and going to the ward from which he official disappeared without ever having been there. This trio go off leaving the security chief to kill the girl and dispose of the body in a part of the hospital that is to be demolished but he wants to test out a comment from the boyfriend that she is great in bed. This provides the opportunity to escape and eventually to kill him with a piece of pipe.

Throughout the film she has been carrying a novel given to her by the boyfriend. At one point she uses the cover to do a paper trace for his National Insurance number as he used the book as a rest to complete a form. This number proves false as does the phone number of his mother he had put into her mobile. She gives the book to the policeman and when he gets home he looks at the final pages which appears to be include a story similar to what the young woman had explained happened to her boyfriend. The last part reveals that it was a scam and that the life of the victim is in danger. He calls for back up and make his way to the hospital.

Meanwhile the boyfriend, the girlfriend and the partner have made their getaway but a phone call reveals that the transfer has not in fact gone through. They arrive back as the girl is about to make her getaway so there follows a chase back through hospital during which the girl has the gun from the security guard and shoots the partner. The policeman gets back and captures the nurse girlfriend who is waiting in the car and then shoot the boyfriend just before he shoots the girl. The extent and levels of implausibility should be self evident. This is a three out of ten film with the rating shared by the the critics.

Another Tme Another Place 1958

2012-01-22T10:47:00.000-08:00

Another film set in the 1940 and 1950 also released in 1958 is Another Time, Another Place starting a young Sean Connery as the male lead who plays an international journalist and radio broadcaster who at the start of film reports on the dismantling of a bomb. He has an affair with Lana Turner who is also a Journalist from America covering the war in Europe and engaged to her employer who travels to the UK and France to cover the allied invasion as well as the creation of the United Nations.

Sid James plays the personal assistant to the boss in Europe with whom Turner confess that she has decided to break the engagement with the boss because of her affair with Connery. However coinciding with this intention Connery who is about to leave for Paris, has decided to break with Turner because he has a wife and child in Cornwall who he also loves. Earlier in the film we see Connery declaring his eternal love for his future wife promising to be always together. We also witness him saying as much to Turner during their love affair. The wife is played by the excellent actress of my childhood and youth, Glynis Johns, who has take her son to live in a Cornish fishing port to get away from the bombings in London. Connery also has a Journalist/BBC colleague who is also a family friend and has been against his relationship with Turner persuading Connery to remain with his family.

When the boss arrives he senses relations between them has cooled and presses James to reveal what is going on. Turner admits the relationship but also the irony of the situation because she has been rejected. The following day the boss calls on Turner when she is about to listen to the next broadcast of Connery from Paris. He attempted to stop her listening but understandably she insists only to learn this way that the plane Connery travelled in had crashed and he had been killed. She is devastated, has an emotional breakdown is and admitted to a residential clinic headed by John Le Mesurier. The boss visits after about six months when she is ready to leave although still in a state of shock. The boss played by Barry Sullivan arranged for her take a cruise back to the USA from Plymouth Devon. She agrees but arranges to go for the day to Connery’s hometown on the day beforehand. Finding that with the peace the local hotel is fully booked she leaves her overnight case with the rest of the luggage sent on to the ship and goes on a walkabout until the evening train.

She visits the outside of his home where she meets his son out playing and is invited in for a cuppa and then because the boy takes to the American and wants to know all about the USA, she stays for an evening meal and then missing the train is asked to stay overnight. She is overcome by the situation and the following morning goes off a panic. I am not clear what happens next except that she is brought back in a collapsed state and is cared for by the wife until she recovers. She agrees to stay on and write a book about the life of Connery with the help of the wife much to the horror of Connery’s former colleague who survived the crash and who now also lives in the same community. He is understandably concerned that the looking back will arouse concerns which the wife had expressed to him about the fact that Connery’s letters to her shortly before his death had become brief as if something had changed or was wrong. Lana’s boss also arrives to take her back to America but too late to prevent the widow realising what had happened and then the woman was Lana. Lana is asked to immediately leave but at the station Glynis and the longstanding friend come to say goodbye with Lana leaving for the USA able to move forward.

According it a brief Wikipedia article during the making of the film the gangster boyfriend of Lana Turned arrived on set with a gun to warn Connery not to get involved with the actress. There was a struggle with the gun firing but fortunately no one was injured. The film looks as if there was some location shooting in Cornwall although it could have all been created in a studio .is is a pleasant film full of nostalgia for Cornish fishing ports. I do have a Newlyn Pottery vase bought from the pottery shop in St Ives..

Never Let Me go

2012-01-22T09:20:00.000-08:00

I missed the publicity and the critical evaluations of the 2010 British film Never Left me Go. The film raises important issues and is the story of a group of children attending from the age of 11 an isolated special school which young people they later encounter saying they wish they had been given the opportunity to also attend. The one thing all the children have in common is that they do not have relatives who visit. They are warned against leaving the school unless supervised something about which they are obedient. In fact obedience is something which appears all the children have in common although in other respects they appear normal each having friends within the school, some rivalries and picking on someone who appears different, in this instance Tommy who is not good at sport but also at art which appears to be highly regarded with the best paintings, sculpture and other art selected to appear in the “gallery.” He is befriended by two girls who are also friends.

While the children are still at school a teacher played by Charlotte Rampling breaks the news that they are special because they are clones whose originals have paid for them to have a better life than other clones brought up in secret establishments, the different between battery hens and free range. However as with hens who all end up in the cooking pot, once they are adults they will be used for body parts, up to four organs after which their use will be completed and are terminated unless this has happened beforehand because of complications with the transplanting of body parts. The teacher disappears.

When they become adults they able to live in cottages in the area close to the school and are free go out and about and enjoy life until their time.

One of the girls played by Keira Knightly has a relationship with the now young man Tommy (Andrew Garfield) until the harvesting commences and she dies on the operating table because of complications. She has been supported by the other girl Kathy (Carey Mulligan) who becomes a carer, someone who travels the country visiting and supporting other clones when ready for transplant and the post operative experience, if it is explained why she has been selected and has not as yet been asked to donate transplant, I missed this.

Tommy and Kathy meet up and fall in love and he persuades her to go and see Madame, the former school head at her home after learning that the school has closed. The purpose of the visit is to show Madame the art work that Tommy has created since being an adult and the hope that this will enable him to have deferment similar to the position of Kathy. It is Kathy who grasps the there is no such thing as deferment and the purpose of the artwork was to establish if the clones had “souls” A twist in the tale is that the sacked teacher shares the home of the Madam. We see Kathy helping Tommy to cope with another transplant before completion.

The film as with the book by Kazuo Ishiguro in 2005 was highly regarded with the film receiving several nominations in the lesser institutions and groups with Carey Mulligan winning best actress by UK Independent film awards and Andrew Garfield also winning in others competitions. The film well acted and thought provoking and may well sit in the memory.

The film is based on an alternative reality claiming that as early as 1952 the ability to clone humans meant that we all had a life expectancy of 100 years. It not stated but presumed that some clones were used for medical experiments to eradicate diseases such as the cancers. The story is told by Kathy when she and Tommy are 28 and she looks back. Although between 1950 and 1980 the film has a feel of the 1950’s throughout, apart from the medical centres.

Those brought up at the residential school are fortunate because their originals have paid the extra to enable them to have a good childhood and free adulthood until the body parts are needed. The film does not explain why the clones accept their fate without revolt. The school is closed when originals are unwilling to pay the additional costs and society in general does not want to see the clones out and about thus raising the issue that we tend not to want know about the price paid for our way of life... The lives led by those who make the cheap food and clothing or who die because the food, water and medicines which they need and are available are not provided.

The subject of transplants is not knew and I remember the fuss which Oh Lucky Man created when it was released some 50 years ago and the hero attends a clinic when there are experiments in transplanting with one young man finding his head and brain attached to a pig. I still have the Long Play record of the excellent music composed and played by local Jarrow man Alan Price of the Animals with Eric Burden.

It could also be argued that the film is more about the choices we make as a society collectively and the implications as much as the issue of cloning. All those years ago some 50 now I decided to go to prison for six months when I was given an alternative as a statement that I could not accept the potential use of weapons of mass destruction.

J Edgar

2012-01-22T05:12:00.001-08:00

I decided to celebrate these events by going to see the just generally released film about the life of J Edgar Hoover which is directed by Clint Eastwood and where many of his films are outstanding such as Play Misty for Me, High Plains Drifter, Pale Rider, Unforgiven, the Bridges of Madison County, Mystic River. Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iow Jima, Invictus and now J Edgar. The other feature films which he has directed are The Eiger Sanction, Breezy, The Outlaw Josy Wales, The Gauntlet, Bronco Billy, and FireFox. Honkey Tonk Man, Sudden Impact, Heartbreak Ridge, Changeling, White Hunter Black Heart, The Rookie, A Perfect World, Absolute Power, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, True Crime, Space Cowboys, Bloodwork, Million Door Baby, Grand Torino, and Hereafter. I have seen most but not the recent Hereafter

J Edgar Hoover is a figure who many feared including several Presidents, those left of centre hated him akin to Margaret Thatcher while the majority regarded him as a heroic figure who was responsible for the creation of modern national policing methods which were exported throughout the world.

He was born in 1895 whose parents were of German, Swiss and English descent. His mother‘s uncle was a Swiss honorary consul general in Washington and she is portrayed by Dame Judy Dench in the film as a strong dominating woman conscious of family standing and with a strong moral sense which declares at one point that it would be better for a man to kill himself/be dead that become a transvestite/homosexual. His father is portrayed as a sick man who played little or no part in his upbringing and which leads to the proposition that he found relationships with men easier than with women and led to allegations of homosexuality. The film makes an important distinction between having a close relation relationship with one man akin to a brother and a physical relationship although it also suggests that the other man involved, his deputy Clyde Tolson, did hope for a more intimate relationship. For a long period they dined together every day and went on holidays and to the races.

The film suggests that Hoover considered marriage to a two years younger than him secretary, Helen Gandy and that he took her out three times including to the Library of Congress where he showed her the filing system he inaugurated which enabled a book to be located with a few minutes, but that when he was about to propose to her on this visit she explained that she did not wish to marry and that her work was her life. It is alleged that it was after this, and because of this he appointed her his personal assistant, a post which she held for 54 years until his death when she retired going on to live for another sixteen years.

While what happened is still a matter for speculation it is widely accepted that she was responsible for the destruction of secret confidential files which he used to stay in power and exercise great influence. The implication of the film is that had she not done this President Nixon would have used the file to reinforce his position.

His conflict of personal identity and sexual orientation is one of the two core themes of the film. He arranges to take his deputy for a holiday going to the races where Hoover admits he is treated like royalty and if he wins he keeps the money but if he loses the bets are cancelled. He arranged a suite with adjoining bedrooms which leads to Tolson believing the relationship is to progress however when they are together the common living room Edgar confides he has been out several times with a well known film star, unbeknown to Clyde, and that he is considering asking her to marry him. Clyde is enraged and they fight during which Clyde kisses Edgar and Edgar tells him never to do that again. The incident is portrayed as creating a strong bond between them so that when Clyde has a stroke Edgar shows him affection and similar Clyde is the first to attend to the body after being contacted by the housekeeper who notifies Miss Gandy.

The President’s men sealed Hoover’s office when in fact he had arranged for Gandy to secure the documents elsewhere so that only she and he knew their location and would enable destruction should he become no longer in charge of the bureau. It is against this background that the story of Hoover and the FBI is presented for the two were in reality interlinked and interdependent.

Edgar obtained a law degree from George Washington University in 1916 and Master of Laws in 1917. He was appointed to the Justice Department direct from University and made responsible for the Enemy Aliens Section and at the age of 24 appointed head of a new General Intelligence Division within the Bureau of Investigation, rising to Deputy head in 1924 and then Acting Director because of his dedication to work and high standards.

I am familiar with what happens when one achieves recognition and rapid advancement, there is a continuing expectation as well as resentment by some and an increasing number of those who want to end the reign, tarnish and or just control. There is also fear of the individual because of the knowledge acquired or becomes believed has been acquired.

There is no doubt that Edgar insisted and maintained high standards and possessed a clear vision of what he thought America was and should become, to a great extent influenced by his mother but also by his experience. The film begins with a set of several coordinated bombings which killed politicians and was aimed at other leading figures in Washington including the Justice Department chief organised by a fanatical communist group and that once put in charge of the aliens bureau he pressed for the expulsion of anyone and everyone who appeared to him to be working against the interests of his country, This was the first aspect of his character emphasised. Edgar had his vision which was only in part determined by the constitution of the country and quickly he came to distrust everyone except his mother in being able to maintain the standards he considered necessary.

The film also suggests that he personally decided who would work for him and who was not, suggesting that he rejected one experienced officer because he was wearing facial hair and others because of their clothes or lack of loyalty or showing him respect or because something trivial or perceived by him a slight. It is also fair comment to say that he is turned on those closest to him including Tolson and Gandy although learned to cope cesspit being wounded at times and to hit back or challenge some of his extremely risky ventures. The film is excellent in bringing out the problem that what ever one achieves remains only appreciated by those closest to one unless there has been significant recognition and even then it becomes fixed in a moment of time. The best of example in the UK is that of Winston Churchill a hero because of his leadership during World War 2 but then rejected as Prime Minister in the post war General Election and later even his greatest achievement was critical examined and placed in the perspective of his whole life. Few individuals have learned to accept what has been and is no more and move forward successfully.

There is one aspect which the films fails to communicate and this is the size of the bureau in that when he took over the Investigations it had 650 employees of which 441 were special agents. It now as 35000 and a budget of $8 billion.

Much of the film is a retrospective look back at what the scriptwriter and director have selected as the key events in the creation of the bureau which he recounts to an officer he has brought into his personal office to write a history of the FBI which would place him at the centre. There is an important scene when Tolson recites the instances in the published account where he bent the facts to improve his position.

The main individual case is that of the kidnapping from their home, the son of Charles Lindberg, the aviator and suggested in the film to have been the most well known and loved American of first part of the twentieth century. The film explains that although at the request of the President and other leading Government and national figures Hoover attempted to take charge of the investigation the offer was rejected by the local police and the Lindbergh himself. The FBI had not jurisdiction although after the baby was found dead two months later (the film only shows the skeleton which would not have been the situation after so short a time. A law was passed, allegedly at the insistence of Hoover than the FBI would have authority on the basis of interstate movement, which is also the basis for other situations when the Bureau has authority over State and County authorities which in the USA is often regarded as akin the intrusion into the rights and duties of one country by another.

However the main argument in the film is that the kidnapper was only caught because Hoover insisted that the bureau should apply the latest scientific forensic methods. The ladder used was examined and its manufacture traced although there was no record to whom. When the ransom request was met the notes were marked and their use suggested an area in the same part of the USA as the ladder manufacture and then a petrol station attendant had noted the number of car where the owner had passed one of the bills. Much use was made of the similarity between the hand writing, use of words and spelling of the owner of the vehicle a German background Hauptmann who was convicted and executed despite protesting his innocence. The film alleges that he was only responsible for making the ransom demands, collecting and using some of the money and that other were involved. The film makes the point that the kidnapping did lead to the Bureau establishing forensic science and a national fingerprinting index as well as inter state authority, Hoover’s claim to have been present at the arrest was a false one.

The films makes the point that that a Congressional committee criticised the cult of personality which had built up over the Bureau’s partially successful war on gangster crime which led to the making of G Men with James Cagney as an early version of the Sweeney which brought John Thaw and Dennis Waterman, actors to national acclaim here is the UK. They made the point that Hoover was taking personal credit for a direct involvement when in fact he was never present but overall in charge. Not only did he encourage the cult but profited financially.

Worse still he took action against anyone within the bureau who gained the limelight however justified. Special agent Melvin Purvis for example was responsible for braking up and capturing gangsters but Hoover became so jealous that he drove the man out of the service. It is my understanding that despite his campaign against gangster and violent criminal he appeared to turn a blind eye to the mafia, particularly their involvement in gambling as he himself gamble heavily on the horses placing $100 bets a time

There is no doubt that he was also responsible for the illegal surveillance of senior politicians, their wives and their relationships. The film alleges that he had a secret file on Mrs Roosevelt preventing the President from dismissing him from office and similarly that he used surveillance information on President Kennedy’s affairs to prevent his brother then Attorney General and politically responsible for the Bureau from taking control and that he was listening to a tape of the relationship between the President and Marylyn Monroe when he learned the news of the assassination. There is a comment in the film that when he went to see Nixon he was shocked by Nixon’s demand that he used his surveillance capacity to reinforce Nixon’s political position.

The other area where the evidence is that Hoover went way beyond the law and gave vent to his prejudices spreading misinformation and lies about people was his opposition to radical groups as well as extremists with the most well known case his actions to discredit Martin Luther King and his attempt to get him to refuse the Nobel Peace Prize. There is no doubt he did much of what he did for his country but he also acted for himself and in that that was also a wicked man as well as a patriot. It is accurate that he was able to hold power long after he should have been retired because of the information he possessed or was thought to have. In the UK the similarities with the power of the Murdoch family over Government, the Police and public opinion is obvious. Hoover was a prominent Freemason which I suggest also explains the power and the protection which some have in the UK.

Dr Mark Kermode on Friday argued that the film was limited because of its balance, something for which Clint Eastwood is justifiably famed for, and the performance of Caprio was similarly limited because the use of make up to make him, Tolson and Gandy appear throughout the film as their natural age as well as old. I regard the film as the best film I have seen in theatre this award season year although admittedly I have seen few in theatre. I regard the performance of di Caprio as Oscar winning and certainly do not share Mark’s continued enthusiasms for Tinker Tailor which has been listed for a raft of awards at the Bafta’s. However I did appreciate his views on War Horse which is a film aimed at young people rather than a condemnation for the wholesale industrial scale human slaughter in the first world war.

His rant against the Madonna film, as a film and as an historical travesty was the best ever as many listener also joined into congratulate. The film has been trailed dishonestly as a film about the Duchess and former when in fact half its length is devoted to a contemporary couple used to suggest the problems the couple faced are timeless in terms of being the victims of prejudice and misinformation. There is no doubt that the British Media led by government and national figures did do all they could to destroy the reputation of the Mrs Simpson and that whether she had been a whore and indulged in questionable sexual behaviour is open to question. However she nearly destroyed the British Monarchy at a time when the country needed leadership and unity. However I always thought she played an important role in getting rid of a very dangerous man who was right of centre and thought Hitler was a big cheese. The result was we got a great King and Queen and their daughter. I maybe a republican at heart but that does not prevent recognising quality and ability wherever it exists. Long may she reign for I fear what happens when she does not.

The Devil's Brigade

2012-01-15T13:04:00.000-08:00

It is Sunday January 15th 2012 and I have had a quiet but enjoyable day where I had enjoyed food, watch sport and undertaken some writing. I purchased some mushrooms and tomatoes last evening and used my new microwave dish holder to great effect. For lunch I had defrost a good piece of steak together with some fresh vegetables boiled. I used the microwave and dish holder again for a portion of apple (one) and custard. In the evening I used a giant pizza stone for a modest meat pizza bought yesterday frozen for £1.

Yesterday Sunderland lost by one goal at Chelsea where visiting supporters were required pay £45 or £50 for their seats. A 50000 crowd at St James Park saw the team win 1.0 in a workmanlike performance for the new arrivals from the Championship now struggling and replacing the manager who gained the team promotion, Neil Warnock, with former Manchester United forward, Mark Hughes. Newcastle is facing up to two months without their star forward and midfield players on duty in the African Cup. There was rumour in the week that Any Carroll was to return to Newcastle a year after he was sold to Liverpool for £35 million, a rumour which was denied by both clubs. The team climbed to sixth position with the win, equal point with Arsenal in 5th who then were away to Swansea another of the teams who gained promotion to the Premiership at the end of the last season. Swansea have a good record at home and have gained supporters for attempting to play attractive attacking football. They excited their home supported and neutral viewers by another outstanding performance in which they equalised after Arsenal score within minutes of the game commencing. They went to a 2.1 lead and then has the second half progressed Arsenal brought the score to 2.2 but Swansea made no attempt to settle and within what seemed a matter of seconds they had taken the lead again 3.2, a lead which the held thus creating a situation that only a minus 2 goal difference separate Newcastle from the 5th position. Swansea also consolidated their position away from the relegation contenders.

A brief TV blip interrupted the Antiques Road show which I shall attempt to view the i Player recording when available. I enjoyed Dancing on Ice where Chico the comic singer from a previous X factor amazed the audience and the critics, and most of all himself by his first performance gaining the highest marks of the sixteen performers spread over the two weeks,

Yesterday I watched what I thought was a standard training and war special force film which it is, but was intrigued to discover that the training and subsequent action was close to what happened in reality.

The Devil’s Brigade, The Black Devil’s Brigade or Freddie’s Frieghters are names given to the famous Second World War special forces American Canadian Commando Unit created in 1942 in a mountain area of Montana, originally with the intention of participating in an expedition to Norway. The Unit only functioned for two years seeing service in the Aleutian Islands, Italy and Southern France.

The idea for such a small unit to work behind enemy lines originated in the UK and was approved my Lord Mountbatten, The project was then offered to the USA at the Chequers Conference in March 1942.

The commanding officer responsible for establishing the unit had a raft of objections doubting its effectiveness and predicting high casualties but because it had been agreed with the British High Command the project went ahead. The first officer appointed to lead the unit argued with the Mountbatten and Eisenhower and was removed.

In July 1942 it was decided that given the shortage of Norwegians available half the proposed force of 1800 should be Canadians with some 700 officers and men recruited to form a parachute regiment. Technically the Canadian Unit was unofficial and part of the US Army although they were paid for by the Canadian government. They were well trained professional soldier. The USA involvement was through volunteers such as former lumberjacks, rangers, game wardens, prospectors, hunters and explorers and tended to be individualists who found it difficult to adjust to traditional military discipline.

The first structure comprised three regiments each led by a colonel, thirty two officers and 385 men. Each regiment was divided into two battalions, each with three companies and three platoons and each platoon had two sections.

It is with the bringing together of a ragbag of individualists and commencing their training that the 1968 film The Devil’s Brigade commences. The film plays up the separate Canadian and USA mixture and the rivalry that initially developed and the challenge of integrating professional soldiers with the oddball volunteers.

The film emphasises the hard physical endurance training with a route march of 30 miles with each man carrying a pack filled with fifty pounds of rocks. In fact six days a week they would rise at 4.30 and breakfast at 6.30. The obstacle course would be tackled four days a week at 8.00 am followed by full day’s training. They tackled route marches on a 60 mille 97 K course completed in 20 hours. They were trained in unarmed combat by a specialist who is also part of the film introduced in a dramatic way although in fact the men sustained many injuries some serious because of training with knives and bayonets. They were also taught to ski, not shown in the film and they were allocated several new weapons not generally available and designed for winter alpine conditions. The plan was for the force to become operational after the Christmas holiday at the end of the year.

In the film not only is the mission cancelled when the British are alleged to have decided to go ahead themselves but the unit was to disband. My understanding is that the Norway project did not go ahead. The Commanding Officer goes to Washington on Christmas Eve to plead the cause and is able to persuade that they should be used.

In reality after an aborted action in the sense that the enemy had vacated the Islands to be reclaimed, the force was sent to Italy via Casablanca arriving in Naples in 1943. In the film before the unit is fully deployed they are tested with a project to capture enemy soldiers for intelligence gathering. They capture a fortified town with the minimum of casualties which impresses the doubters about the value of this kind of unit and methods. Where the film and reality merge is in the main action which brought them lasting fame. The allies had been held up on their progress to Rome by the German command of a mountain area which they controlled through artillery emplacements and substantial forces. The allies had attempted to dislodge by frontal assault after shelling. The plan was devised to scale a sheer rock face with some overhangs within a matter of hours from the side and come upon the Germans from above while were preoccupied with the shelling from the allies anticipate more of what had happened previously.

Although the mission was successful the participating regiment suffered substantial casualties with 91 dead plus 9 missing with 313 wounded and over 100 exhausted. The film ends at this morning mentioning that the unit continued with high casualties.

The Brigade was then given an important role at Anzio penetrating behind enemy lines on reconnaissance and disruptions, A German communiqué was subsequently found which described the American Canadian force as treacherous, unmerciful and clever and that the first soldier or group capturing one of these men would be given a ten day holiday. They acquired the title- the Devils Brigade because at night the soldiers blacked their faces with boot polish. Thy carried stickers in German which read The Worst is yet to Come.

They also served in Southern France. The 1800 force were responsible for the death of 12000 German troops and captured at total of 7000 men. The members of the force were then placed in other standard combat units for the remainder of the war. Survivors have continued to meet once a year at their original training base in Montana.

William Holden and Cliff Robertson performed in the 1968 film and there have been a number of documentaries and mini series about the Brigade.

Resident Evil IV Afterlife

2012-01-14T03:14:00.000-08:00

However the film is significantly better than the extraordinary popular Resident Evil: After Life which possibly may frighten thrill some immature minds new to the genre. It is the fourth instalment of a series with another promised for this year The ingredients are a world devastated by a virus gone wrong experiment which turns the human population in zombies who cannot bear anyone to remain normal and in in this instance congregate in their thousands around a building in the USA where a small group of individuals immune to the virus survive.

Before this we learn that the man who created this holocaust survive in an exceptionally well fortified multi level compound which is penetrated by a minor army of clone female acrobatic martial art and multi weapons equipped female warriors. The Man escapes this and every situation sometimes involving a nuclear type explosion or being shot to shredding. The remaining female warrior and heroine of the series (men are on the whole criminal, bad, stupid, treacherous, lecherous etc while women are sensible, courageous, inventive, trustworthy and loyal etc slant) goes off in a light aircraft to Alaska where a group of surviving humans she knew from previous episodes and gone in response to a call from a group/place called arcadia. Here she finds only girl who appears to be a maniac zombie, controlled by a device clinging to her chest reminding of the parasite type entity of several previous series but which in this instances appear to be removed with a little hand pressure without detriment to the victim except for a temporary continuing memory loss.

The girl cannot explain what happened especially what happened to the others and the duo go off in search of other survivors down through Canada and the USA to Los Angeles where she crash lands the plane on top of a former state penitentiary and which later in the film one member of the group manages to take off although we do not fully see the incredulous development. The plane also appears to have an unlimited fuel supply.

The grater part of he film centres on the building and an attempt to break out and reach a large super tanker moored in the harbour called the Arcadia and which appears to have gone along the entire coast of North America trying to contact any non zombies and offering them salvation.

When the majority of the party managed to reach the vessel they find two things. The crew has disappeared and below decks the vessel has been transformed into a super space laboratory in which all those who have been picked have been transformed by the parasites and held in a form of frozen statis tubes in a sub deck but who appear to return to instant normality as soon as they are released from their captivity. Interestingly they all appear to be young and fit although this might suggest that only the young and fit survived something which is not so with the group discovered on the roof of the state prison.

As the heroine progresses horizontally with in the lower decks of the super tanker there is one area containing a fleet of the latest armoured attack helicopters and then an almost empty area with central at a control console the mastermind who escaped the nuclear destruction of his previous control centre. He has been part affected by one of the virus which on what hand has led to his having invincible super powers similarly to our heroine but also those of a special zombie who has a destructive set of embracing sucking killer tentacles coming out of the mouth. He wrestles between these two forces within his body and he assisted by two dogs which split partially open to reveal horrendous devouring razor sharp teeth. After a climax confrontation the man escapes in one of the helicopters which explodes in mid air although he escapes again by parachute.

There is then finale epilogue in which the heroine announces they will continue to original intention of the vessel to rescue other survivors as the they have unlimited food and water not disclosed and water and with the helicopter should be able to travel in land looking for other survivors. However just when they are underway a horde of other helicopters descend on the vessel led by someone from the previous series still control by a parasite on her chest.

The film is reported to have grossed five times the alleged $60 million it cost to make. The film was released and viewed in 3D. This enables the audience to be shot at and splashed with blood and gore and to see any horrors in vivid close up reality. However I found none of the effect convincing or frightening and the while lacked tension and credibility which others have been able to achieve in the past. This appears to be a successful weekend franchise also translated into video games

Midnight in St Petersburg

2012-01-14T02:41:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed the role of Michael Caine in the role of Harry Palmer, a character created be Len Deighton in three of his early books, The Ipcress File released in 1965, Funeral in Berlin 1966 and the Million Dollar Brian 1967. Some three decades later the aged Caine reappeared in the same role with new screenplays, Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in St Petersburg.

I have now seen the final film and what a great disappointment although it provided the opportunity to view some good shots of the modern city. Caine is now operating as an independent investigations agency with a small Moscow based team which includes an ex CIA and an ex KGB specialist as well as a young assistant played by the son of Sean Connery, Jason, who appeared with Caine in the earlier film and for a time was married to the actress who also played a lead role in the film.

In the film Caine is hired by the International Atomic Authority to prevent a stolen quantity of Russian Nuclear material being sold to one of the countries seeking to develop nuclear weaponry. The deal is reported to take place in St Petersburg before the end of the week so Caine moves to the City where’re he has no previous experience although leading criminals with whom he has crossed swords in the past are also prominent.

A contrived complication arises when his assistant realises that his prima ballerina girl friend is being shadowed on her way home to St Petersburg from Moscow where she had been appearing. Her father is the curator of the Hermitage and what with Caine and the young man asked to attend the circus to receive their new assignment we have the Bolshoi Ballet, the State Circus and the greatest museum in the World all introduced into the film early on.

The girl is being trailed prior to being kidnapped so that instead of a number of valuable paintings arriving at their destination for an arranged exhibition they are to be taken out of the country. The paintings are being stolen for a fee of $5 million by a man who specialises is picture recovery. He will then negotiate a finder’s fee significantly greater than the $5 million investment so no one losses other than the Insurance company. The $5 million is then being used to pay for the nuclear material which is then to be sold to one of the many interested governments, again for a significantly greater amount. This is the first individual signalled a big clue, as is the young US reporter who first wants to interview the ballerina and then Michael Caine although the idea that one correspondent would be employed to cover both types of stories is preposterous as is much of the rest of the film.

I do accept the central proposition however linking the art theft/fraud with the financing of the nuclear material sale as it is well documented that the US Government for example used the drugs trade to finance political and military operations although in the instance of the film there is a lack of credibility throughout because the main protagonists have been transported from Moscow to St Petersburg in order to show off the Russian second City and the Hermitage which is my understanding is the only tourist reason for visiting. Certainly according to the film the best restaurant in the city serves bad food, is frequented by the Russian criminal class and is shot up by criminal rivals to the owners. The idea that the place would immediately reopen and be frequented by the same customers including the police chief is absurd.

The rest of the plot involves the father going along with the kidnap demands without seeking help from the authorities so the young man trails the father and immediately assumes the young reporter is an ally who keeps turning up and also keeping company with the art dealer. The young man appears to have little judgement or skill to equip him for the private intelligence business and Caine looks and behave his age and would not have survived five minutes in reality. However they manage to recover the nuclear material and recover the paintings to enable their loan the gallery in question with some of the baddies apprehended. The art dealer is required to forfeit the $5 million bankers draft for restoration of the Hermitage but otherwise is left free to continue his global criminal activity joining the celebration party which ends the film. It is OK nothing better to do late night viewing to complete watching the five Harry Palmer Caine interpretations of the characters which may well have pleased some of the teenage weekend audience at the time, but given the else was being offered I doubt it. There is a lack of tension, thrills, credibility and sincerety

Day of Wrath 2005

2012-01-13T15:15:00.000-08:00

The film Day of Wrath “Dies Irae” deals with one aspect of the Spanish Inquisition that period of eternal damnation where the Catholic Church of Spain executed citizens, usually after torture and trial from serious crimes against religious orthodoxy of the time. The number of executions was surprisingly small considering the total number of cases tried, and even these were not fo the same order as the great purges before and since. What the film argues is that those behind the Inquisition were in fact Spanish families with Jewish backgrounds who following the banishment of Jews from Spain and not wishing to leave did a deal to become officially Christians and creating false identities rewriting family histories.

Christopher Lambert plays a Catholic who marries an exceptionally devout woman from Antwerp where he has been sent by his mother from a small Spanish town in the middle of the sixteen century and where his wife has bore him two children. He is then asked by the Governor to return home and become the chief law enforcement officer although the real power rests with the Official Inquisitor and his officers who almost daily test and execute heretics, an aspect not based on the reality.

Lambert is confronted with a series of deaths of prominent men whose bodies together with their escorts he discovers badly disfigured and with the initials D and E cut into their bodies. However when he investigates he discovers all traces of the bodies and blood stained streets have been obliterated and worse still not only there are no witnesses buy the wives claim their husbands have gone on missions abroad.

The Governor is played by Brian Blessed who appears to be a man only interested in splendiferous banquets of fine foods and being entertained by the court fool. We the audience know that there is a group of local worthies who appear to be led by the Chief Inquisitor meeting in secret and expressing concern about what is happening and also about the existence of a list and the possibility of it falling into the wrong hands.

When the Governor goes to the Church for confession instead of the priest he is confronted by someone threatening to disclose a truth unless there good payment.

One of the men who dies is the husband of Lambert’s first love who he is still attracted especially as his wife is sexually frigid seeing the adult relationship has intended to create new life rather than an act of pleasure. This woman also denies the death of her husband.

In a third situation someone he knows from childhood warns that he and his daughter/daughter in law are in peril if they do anything other than continue with the fiction of what happened.

The Sheriff, as he is described in this film, undertakes research and cannot find any trace of the families in published work on family histories. However he is told this is a false book and is referred to one kept by the local clergy, a large old and dusty volume which shows the histories of the families of the murdered. He has noted that in each of the households there is the same style and period created family portrait of ancestors. In one instance it is claimed the portrait is a copy of one held at the family home in the capital.

He eventually comes across the murderer who admits to being a paid assassin and who has been instructed not to kill the Sheriff but to warn him off, including threats to his wife and children. His mother appears to know something which she also refuses to disclose. Eventually he discovers that his assistant is also part of the conspiracy and he man throws himself through a window to his death rather than be captured and tortured to reveal what he know.

Eventually the assassin brings him to the home of Governor with two lists which were held by two further nobles who have been killed in the same manner as before. The Governor explains that when the expulsion of the Jews was enacted a number of families did a deal with the King and had new family histories created as devout Catholics eliminating all trace of Jewish ancestry or of involvement with the Jewish faith. One list covers the original names of the families and the other their assigned names. The decision was taken for the leading families to come to live in one town to provide mutual protection and where their secret was known by the Inquisitor because he was also of a former Jewish family hence the enthusiasm of his actions in order to underline his position. Only the local priest was unaware of the true situation. The Governor discloses that the Sheriff is the son of his sister and his closest legitimate heir someone he hoped would succeed him in the future. He then admits that he had paid a blackmailer but grew tired and assuming it was someone on the list had employed the mercenary to commences to kill everyone else on this list. This later includes the Chief Inquisitor. The Sheriff is at first horrified but comes round to the situation when he finds that is wife wants to report him and the children to the Inquisitor. The film ends with the Sheriff marrying his childhood sweetheart and becoming the governor and being given caskets of jewels and gold coin in gratitude for his protection. Later they are seen practicing the Jewish faiths in the vaults of the Governor’s residence.

The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1480 about 80 years before the time when the film is set, The Royal decree demanding that Jews convert or leave was made in 1492 and with that for Muslims made in 1501. The reign of terror lasted for over 300 years. Some of those who converted were allowed to hold office and it was one convert who financed the voyage of Christopher Columbus. A few were ennobled. The extent of the Inquisitions is the subject of much research with the numbers surprising low ranging from 50000 to 15000 and the total deaths between 1000 and 3000 with a similar number condemned in their absence so that only their effigies were burned. This is not to minimise what would have been the impact on the population at the time and on those directly affected in particular.

The Lion King

2012-01-12T01:30:00.000-08:00

The film is the Lion King first released in 1994 with a budget of $45 million and box office gross of just under $1 billion. The success of the Lion King was achieved from the combination of a story which emotionally affected the audience of all ages and its music which included The Circle of Life and Can you feel my Love Tonight and the humorous and catchy Hakcuna Matata -compositions by Elton John and Tim Rice. The sound track achieved fourth position and the highest ever sales for an animated film. The film was nominated for several awards, some it won again unusual for an animation project and has entered several best film lists.

The story of the film is reputed to have echoes of Moses and his son and Hamlet although in my view it stands alone on its merit and again features a rites of passage experience this time between the heir to the throne who is anxious to prove himself to be as brave and adventurous as his father who commands great respect from all the animals in their valley having established a natural order which keeps the savaging hyenas to their own territory. The film skates over what the natural order is with the implication that the animals do not fight, kill and eat each other, apart from the hyenas.
The film opens with the presentation of Simba as the heir to everyone which is to the horror of the King’s younger brother Scar who realises that the opportunity for him to come to power has been reduced and sets his sights on removing the young threat at the earliest opportunity.

The young lion is gradually prepared for his role one day by his father assisted by Rafiki a wise old Mandril who acts as a Regent adviser protector and on behalf of the King present the Lion Cub to his future people. While touring the lands controlled by the Pride of Lions Simba is warned by his father not to enter one area which understandably arouses his curiosity and learning of the interest Scar, voice of Jeremy Irons, fuels the situation by saying it is the burial ground of the Elephants and implying that the boy’s father is being unreasonable. Simba has a young female friend Nala who he persuades to go adventuring while eluding the watchful eye of Rafiki. At the Elephant grounds they encounter a trio of hyenas one of whom is the voice of Whoopi Goldberg who contemplate and unexpected banquet by the duo are rescued by the King and sent home in disgrace. The King then attempts to explain to his son that his special position brings with it responsibilities.

Thwarted Scar creates a new plan which involves creating a stampede of large animas being chased by hyenas having encouraged Simba to again break restrictions on his movements. Appreciating that his son is at great risk his father once more goes to the rescue and is about to escape the stampede himself by climbing rocks to safety when instead of answering his appeal for help his brother attacks causing the King to fall to his death. He then lets Simba believe that his behaviour caused the death of his father and that he will have no one’s respect. The young lion goes off alone, ashamed, into self imposed banishment from his family and position.

This means that Scar becomes the lawful monarch who then uses the hyenas to reinforce his power thus bringing fear and desolation to the Pride Lands enslaving everyone else.

When Simba becomes ill he is cared for by a Merekat, since made popular by an Insurance company and a warthog and teach him their philosophy of life which is no worries, with the implication of no responsibilities and have as much fun as is possible.

Years pass and Simba has to rescue his two friends from a lioness who turns out to be Nala who unaware who he is at first tells of what has happened and the nightmarish regime created by Scar. Unable to explain his sense of guilt at causing the death of his father, Simba disappoints Nala by refusing to return home and take his rightful place and rescue his people. She leaves heartbroken and discloses the news of his survival to Rafiki who goes in search of the legitimate King. Rafiki summons the ghost of the father who reminds of his destiny which has the effect of persuading Simba to return with his friends to take back the lands and the free the people (animals).

In the climax to the film Scar reveals his treachery after failing to defeat Simba who now has the appearance and strength of his father and is forced to admit the truth to the other lions. Scar pleads in mitigation that it was the hyenas that were behind what happened and Simba decides to banish the murderer. Scar refuses and attacks Simba who successfully fends off the attack with the consequence that it is Scar who falls off the rock where he is attacked and killed by the hyenas who he has just betrayed. They are driven out and over time the land is restored to is former state with Simba the established King and his son by Nala presented by Rafiki as the new heir. The circle of life continues.

Apart from the improved perspective the out of screen incidents to reinforce the 3D medium are limited not to distract from the main work which at one level is a successful reissuing of a very successful film to a new generation. There is however one moment to be mentioned when early on a bird flies over ones shoulder into the screen. This is magical.

The Battle for Terra

2012-01-11T15:20:00.001-08:00

In terms of visual treats The Battle for Terra is the best of the bunch experienced to date. From my experience so far the out of screen at you or over you effects are spaced whereas in this film there is a regular bombardment in a film which attempts to cover some of the great issues of our time and the next 100 years or so. Terra is computer animated film first released in 2007 and where the voices include those of Brian Cox and Dennis Quaid. Because the film is computer animated it was possible to reshoot in its entirety using the second camera necessary to create the full 3D effects and therefore having gone to this expense the makers ensured that their effort were worthwhile.

The film has merit as a 2D feature because of its themes. Terra has become a planet at peace and in harmony with nature. The Terrian heroine is Marla, a young headstrong and creative young woman constantly challenging the authority and restrictions imposed by the elders. She is unaware why the controls and limitations are there assuming as all young do that life revolves around their generation. Everything changes when the planet is approached by a giant ark ship which sends craft down to the surface of the planet to capture a selection of the indigenous creatures. Marla who in defiance of her father and the elders has made a telescope to observe what is happening in the sky returns to her community to see her father seized.

Fired up she fights of a pursuing craft forcing it to crash and reveal that the pilot is an oxygen breathing human accompanied by an intelligent robot. The robot is able to communicate and also able to inject the human language into her brain so she can communicate with the pilot when he recovers. To achieve this and prevent him dying the robot advises the young Terrian how to create an oxygen environment.

A young and conventional friend discovers the situation and reports to his superiors who come in force and armed to recover the human but the trio of human, Terrian and Robot manage to escape and discover a secret place which reveals that conflict and war had once been part of the Terrian history. Having saved him the human carries out an undertaking to return to ark ship to find and release her father.

We learn that because the population of earth expanded beyond its natural resources it had expanded to the two closest planets who in time had demanded and then fought for independence with all three worlds being destroyed. Only the great Ark ship had survived and BattleStar Gallactica style then travelled the universe in search of a planet where they could breathe, build and prosper. Several generations had passed and the ship was beginning to break up and the oxygen creating machines break down. The situation was becoming desperate. The senior military commander had devised a plan to make Terra their home creating oxygen which will in turn destroy the indeginous people. The Military commander seizes power from the civilian government when they refuse to adopt genocide to achieve their own survival.

The human enables Mala to escape back to her planet after she is captured having witnessed her father die. The General has designed a planet transformer which will create an oxygen chain reaction process which buries into the planet core and which he and others control from a centre part of the huge device. He insists that the human and his brother are part of the space fighters who will protect the device until it becomes fully operational and effective.

The Terrians are able to mobilize all the glider type fighter craft they have kept hidden for centuries in an effort to attack and prevent the Human device from working. Mala is a leading member of this force with the sky and therefore screen filled with laser cannon fire and explosions. Despite this they are ineffective against the device machine which is reading the point of chain reaction. Fortunately the human realises that what is happening is morally wrong sacrifices his life by taking the machine into the device and destroying it.

There is also an epilogue in which the atmosphere of the plant has returned to normal and the Terrains are helping the humans to created a vast doomed city in which they can breathe and live in harmony with their neighbours. In the middle of the city a giant statue is being created to the human who sacrifices himself. The interesting aspect is that the film can be watched without glasses as 2D although there is some doubling effect. It was also released with the minimum of advertising and although now released for home DVD as well as Channel release and 3 D systems it has todate yielded only the lower end of the box office records scale. Yet I rate this film second only to my final and top film of those covered.

Legend of the Guardians The Owls of Ga Hoole

2012-01-11T14:23:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed the Legend of the Guardian: The Owls of Ga’Hoole which I thought had dark and challenging moments for the very young and which is a 2010 Australian computer animated film with a strong cast of voices including Helen Mirren, Mirian Margoyles, Sam Neill, Geoffrey Rush and Hugh Weaving.

Two young barn owls live with their parents in the forest and as with all young people want to do more quicker than they are able to, and one night despite having been told not to do so they go off for an exploratory flight only to fall to the ground and open to enemies unable to immediately return to safety. There is already considerable rivalry between the brothers as one likes to hear tales of a mythical group of owl warriors The Guardians of Ga’Hoole who once saved all owl kind for the evil Pure Ones. The other ridicules his brother only to now find themselves captured with other owls by agents of the Pure Ones.

The majority of those captured undergo a process of submission and become workers, Although selected to become a worker, one brother is able to feign the process so remains alert while the other brother volunteers and becomes a soldier. The workers examine owl pellets for small metal flecks which cause pain for owls when ingested and where a great store of the material is being prepared.

One of the Soldier Owls discloses to the young owl and a friend that he was of the Guardians and the Pure Ones are plotting to trap and destroy the Guardians and thus gain control of all the Owls once again. Before the duo can escape they must learn to fly for a long period and at speed and this takes time. Even when they are ready they just out run their pursuers and then face a number of challenges including a great mist and freezing typhoon. Eventually they successfully make it to the home of the Guardians and the Great Tree. When the owls recover and tell their tale one the Guardians expresses disbelief about the threat with the consequence that only a scouting party is sent to find out what is going on led by him.

The two owls begin their training as Guardians by an old owl who they discover was an important figure in the battle which the young‘ns father would tell his son. The young owl is disillusioned because he imagined someone very different. The leader of the scouting party returns saying the others were ambushed and killed and they he had escaped with two processed worker owls one of these is younger sister of the young owl. The entire force of the Guardians set off to engage the Pure Ones. Fortunately the sister recovers from the process and reveals that she was taken prisoner by their brother and given to the leader of the scouting party who is a traitor.

The Guardians are going into a trap where they will be confronted by the accumulated metal flecks leaving them helpless on the ground.

The young owl leads the small band of trainee guardians and others left in the Great Tree to try and help the others and almost too late. The young owl sees a way to change the situation and this is sufficiently effective for the Pure Ones to believe that their spy has changed sides and they send soldiers to kill him.

Since their capture his brother has not just become a soldier but made himself into a senior lieutenant in the new order. When the soldier brother gets into difficulties in the final combat he pleads with his brother to save him only to then attempt to force his saviour into the inferno below them. Fortunately his plan fails and he appears to fall into the flames and to his death. The Guardians are saved and the Pure One killed or driven out. The young owl is made a Guardian to the pride of his parents, sister and other family members. There is a new generation of legend. This is however only the first part of a three book series.

In the epilogue the body of the other brother was not found and we see him with the glowing red eyes of the other Pure Ones who have survived flying out to sea. I was impressed by some of the animations and use of 3D effects but continued wonder about extent to which this is a family film, given the Cain and Able main story.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

2012-01-11T13:25:00.000-08:00

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the third in the Chronicles of Narnia which commenced with the most famous book of all The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. There have been few works of fiction which managed to sustain interest during individual works while part of some grand design. Harry Potter is the best example. Some authors have successfully created characters who can undertake a series of individual adventures at the same as the original. Enid Blyton achieved this with her Famous Five and Seven Stories in times past.

I marked the Voyage of the Dawn Treader as OK and as film which would satisfy those who enjoyed the seven series of books by C S Lewis. Lucy and Edmund Pevensie, the two youngsters of the original children who enter Narnia via the back of a wardrobe are staying with their sceptical rationalist cousin Eustace and are drawn to an oil painting of a traditional sailing ship on high seas. Then the sea flows from the picture filling their room so that the trio find themselves in the high seas and picked up by the sailing ship.

This is commanded by Caspian now the King of Narnia who is on an expedition to find out what has happened to the seven Lords of Narnia which his uncle had banished. It was Lucy who first discovered the world within the world and as she grows up she wishes she was as beautiful and successful as her older sister. She represents the challenges faced by preteens in the contemporary society of the 1950’s. Her brother is responsible and protective for his age but saw the Prince, now King as a rival, taking account that Lucy is regarded as a Queen of Narnia for her previous efforts.

In the early part of the voyage Eustace spends all his time in disbelief especially over the talking and swashbuckling mouse, Reepicheep, who attempts to help him adjust to the fantasy world.

On the first island visited Caspian and Edmund are captured and imprisoned while Lucy and Eustace are to be sold as slaves to traders who control the island. Those who are not sold, mainly the indigenous island people, are periodically taken out in boats and disappear to a mysterious Green Mist, They learn this from one of the missing Lords who provides one of a number of swords given by Aslan the Lion in the Golden Age. The rest of the crew free those captured and chase off the slavers freeing the remaining inhabitants not already in the hands of the Mist. A young girl who has seen her parents taken by the Mist becomes a stowaway pleading with Caspian to find out what has happened to her parents.

On the next Island it is Lucy who is abducted by invisibles who leave giant footprints. They turn out to be small creatures standing on top of each other. Lucy discovers a book of spells and which she uses at one point to become her elder sister only find she is living a life where Narnia or her true self do not exist. Aslan interjects to explain that Narnia only exists in the knowledge of the family through her as she really is. They also learn that that it is only by laying together all seven swords of Aslan can the Green Mist be defeated.

They recover another sword on the next island where everything that enters a pool turns to gold. Edmund see this as creating great power as well as wealth for him. This is also where Eustace is turned into a fire breathing dragon by an enchanted treasure. This has positive as well as negative consequences and with the help of the Mouse enables Eustace to prove his worth which in turn coverts him to active participation in the adventure and a crucial member of the expedition. It is the dragon that is able to create the wind to break the ship out from the doldrums where they are being held during which time the crew have grown restless.

They come to Aslan’s Table and three more of the lost Lords and their swords are there frozen in time and reach the point when only one sword is missing believed to be on the Dark Island. A beautiful creature arrives and says she can guide them to the Island which is the lair of the Mist. They find the last missing Lord on the Island who warns of its power to make reality their fears. Edmund’s fear of a sea serpent nearly costs everyone their lives but it is Eustace as the dragon who saves the day after being wounded by the last sword and flying away. He is rescued by the White Witch who changes him back to the boy with the last sword which he takes to the others. It is Eustace with the sword that defeats the Mist and places the sword on the table enabling Edmund to defeat the Sea Serpent of his fears and this in turn releases all the people who have been held by the Mist.

The ship then encounters a sea of lilies which takes them to a shore and Aslan. There is a giant wave out to sea which if they traverse will take them to Aslan’s world but if they travel they can never return. Caspian declines saying his duties are with the people of Narnia. Aslan opens a portal to send the three children home while it is the Mouse Reepicheep who elects to make the one way journey. The trio return bonded through their now secret adventure. In terms of objects and characters moving out of the screen I thought the film was limited but one does get the sense of three dimensional effects within the space of the TV. In this respect I thought the make had got the balance right not allowing the effects to dominate the established and well known story.

The Green Hornet

2012-01-11T12:09:00.001-08:00

The Green Hornet is based on a 1930’s radio character which was developed to comic books, TV series and games which is puzzling because the character is one of the more unlikeable if not the most unlikeable of all such characters. There are no redeeming aspects. He is a typical spoilt overindulged young man of a wealthy father who runs an important newspaper in the City. The father is found dead allegedly from an allergic reaction to a Bee sting and the young man finds himself in charge of father’s wealth which includes a vast collection of expensive cars as well as the Newspaper. One of the first things he does is to fire his entire father’s domestic staff.

This results in his morning cup of coffee not being delivered to his bedside in the annex which he has made his home. This in turn leads him discover that the coffee was provided from a special machine designed by his father’s handyman and that this individual is not only brilliant investor but an extraordinary skilled martial arts practitioner. He is the hero of the film and the force behind the Green Hornet. Because both men hated the father/employer after getting drunk one evening they visit the grave of the father and decapitate his bronze statue. Coincidentally a young couple are being robbed and assaulted by a gang at the same time and the handyman Cato rescues the couple and the two men who quickly leave the double crime scene are assumed to be criminals and are chased by the police who they evade in a criminal fashion driving exceptionally dangerously.

Crime in the city is controlled by a Russian who ruthlessly kills or has killed anyone who gets in his way or fails to expand his wealth and power. As is usual in the USA the mobsters have corrupted any official who poses a threat and this includes the District Attorney who is concerned about the public perception of his position. Because Cato is a one man army and has the ability to create wonder cars and multiple weapons the former waster decides to clean up the city but unlike Superman or Batman he adopts the unique role as posing as the new top villain on the block seeking a take over by attacking and where appropriate eliminating the existing criminals, That with Cato he uses criminal methods rather than exposing the criminals bringing them to justice is not something considered. He adopts the signature of the Green Hornet relating to the death of his father and the mask and outfit the two come to wear.

There are two developments which upset what some may believe is a worthwhile cause. Cameron Diaz arrives as a temp but because the waster immediately wants to get into her pants she is hired permanently and proves her worth because criminology was a part of the Journalist degree and she is therefore useful in conducting research into the city underworld. She quickly makes the point that she has no interest him as a potential bed partner and he becomes incensed when she dates Cato. Worse is to come because the waster decides to take the credit for all the interventions when any success is only due to Cato, his martial art skills and his inventions.

Fortunately when his arrogance outweighs common sense and they fall into a trap set by the Russians and are buried in a pit the vehicles is equipped to get them out of what is an otherwise impossible situation. This is the last straw and Cato leaves the duo and is quickly hired by the Russian to kill the waster. The District Attorney is also on the case attempting to persuade the young newspaper owner to stop his attacks on the crime boss and the failure of the city to deal with the level of crime. He admits that he murdered the father when he refused to cooperate.

Fortunately for the young waster Cato changes his mind and comes to the rescue and the two engineer what appears to be a successful incriminating tape condemning the DA and the crime boss. There the usual intended exciting climax in which the two villains are killed and the trio determine to continue to protect the law by breaking it. As atonement for misjudging the father they return the head to the rest of the statue. On the whole an awful film about an awful person. However I would not surprised if there is a follow up.

Alnight Thor

2012-01-11T08:59:00.001-08:00

I have recently watched several animated, fantasy and family orientated film because they were shown in 3D. As I have recent stated in relation to sport and cultural events 3D brings added to value to an event but only if the event itself proves entertaining, of interest, possible exciting, possible wondrous or unique and at a minimum is enjoyable.

I have attempted to list the films in some kind of order although in truth there was only one which had merit; in fact the film had merit recognised at the time before it was reissued in 3D form.

The least enjoyable was Almighty Thor very loosely based on Norse mythology. It is difficult to believe that even children will find this story of interest and more likely to be outraged with disappointment if they had seen the earlier enterprise based on the Marvel Comic hero Thor. The story is of an evil underworld God who seeks to conquer everyone and everything by taking control of the Hammer of Invincibility. When Thor’s father and brother are killed in an attempt to stop the baddie from his designs, the younger brother sets on a quest to seek revenge. He is brave but lacks skill and an appreciation of the task as well as knowledge to overcome the enemy. Fortunately he encounters a Valkyrie who has the ability and patience to prevent the young warrior from not one but a succession stupid and disastrous attempts to engage the villain.

Combined they elude the clutches of the villain by use of movement portals one of which take them from the Nordic past into present day America. The most ludicrous aspect of this device, presumably on grounds that the use of derelict industrial sites was less expensive than creating mythological scenes, is that the three characters do not bat an eyelid about the nature of contemporary reality compared to their previously normal experience. The villain tests Thor at one point by offering him the prospect of bringing his father and brother back to life.

There are several repetitive aspects mainly of combat between Thor and the villain. There is one creative sequence where Thor approaches the mystical Tree of Life and a second when he finds himself in a molten lava flowing concept of Hell. He succeeds in obtaining the hammer which defeats the Underworld God who is forced to return to his natural Kingdom thus saving the rest of humanity and all creatures great and small from their worst nightmares.

The Cement Garden

2012-01-10T05:51:00.001-08:00

The Cement Garden is based on a 1978 novel by Ian McEwan and is also about adolescent sexual awakening although this time between a brother and sister. The family live in a concrete house on the edge of town as the housing a round them is demolished. When both parents die is relatively quick succession the three children, the elder sister, the brother and the youngest, also a boy are left with a dilemma knowing that if they report the death of the second parent the family will be split and the youngest possibly both boys placed into care. They use concrete from the neighbouring building site incase their mother in a metal cabinet in the basement.

Their mother knowing she is going into hospital had opened an account for her daughter to use so they have income and therefore are able to continue without coming to the attention of the authorities and because of their social isolation in terms of location there are neighbours to notice and take action.

The girl does her best but the adolescent brother alternates between babyhood and sexual arousal masturbating while looking at “girlie” magazines and in between a refusal to contribute in a positive way to keeping the family together in terms of day to household chores, cooking, cleaning, washing etc.

The two older children therefore adopt the traditional roles of mother and father in the situation with the normal tensions that will arise in any household. It can be argued that this is a film about what are the acceptable norms within families, what happens within families behind closed doors particularly if the family is isolated in a physical or social sense and difficulties are not picked up at school at school as the critical aspect of the story takes places during the long summer holiday from school.

The films reach a climax because of several factors. The young woman takes up with a young building contractor or someone employed by a contractor developing the waste land between the house and other properties. Although the impression presented is of a sexual relationship with the man involved providing expensive presents and the taking the young woman off on trips in his red sports car, it emerges that this has not been the situation and which in turn is the downfall of the the couple and their situation; secondly the young man is understandably curious about how the children have come to be on their own and when there is smell in the basement arising from a crack in the badly mixed concerete casing for the mother his concerns grows. He may well have helped in the cover up of the situation if he ahd not chosen to return at the very moment brother and sister reach the point of mutual consolation. He leaves outraged and frustrated at they way he believes he had been treated. The very moment that the couple move from consolation into sexual union, we the audience are aware of the blue flashing light of a police vehicle outside the property called no doubt by the boyfriend. The film ends.

It can be argued that both films are therefore works of art rather than entertainments. Not great art, but good art.

The Scouting Book for Boys

2012-01-10T05:49:00.000-08:00

Among the family fantasy films and classics watched over Christmas and New Year were two dark films which cannot be classed as entertainments,

The Scouting Book for Boys is a brilliant portrayal of what happens when a silly young girl with hopeless parents make friends and turns the head of a motherless young boy. They remain children who have been led to believe they have become free functioning adults. The setting is a residential caravan weekend retreat site on the Australian coast complete with a good size pool and indoor entertainment. I am not sure what the function the boy’s father had other than organiser and compare performer of the evening entertainments at which the boy is expected to do a song at the behest of his father. The girl’s parents ran the site store, argued and drink excessively. Both sets of parents are content to let their offspring run wild together and separately.

The girl persuades the boy to help her go into hiding using a cave which can only be reached via a pool at the entrance. The boy believes this will provide him the opportunity to commence a sexual relationship and is shattered where he finds the rumours to be true that the girl had a relationship with the site handyman. Worse follows when the girl claims to be pregnant and wants to stay away for twenty six weeks because then her father will not be able to insist she has an abortion. It later emerges when she uses her pants to stem the flow of blood from a minor injury that she has menstruated and is not pregnant although this aspect is not made clear in the film and is my supposition.

The young man and alleged father of her child is hounded by the camp site community, led by the girl’s mother who is arrested at one point for setting first to his caravan.

He rightly suspects the boy knows where the girl is hiding but the boy is able to fool him, the parents and the police that he knows nothing. That he steals food and clothing for girl also goes unnoticed. The police at first disregard the disappearance as just as another teenager off adventuring in the city but take the situation seriously when there are confirmed reports of the girl being seen intimate with the handyman. The boy is used to help get the on site to participate in detailed searches of the area for clues and at one point the father of the girl follows the boy until he is given the slip.

In fact the girl has got it into her head that by disappearing and claiming to be pregnant, (she may have believed she was pregnant by her experience with the handyman), that young man will have a serious relationship with her and not treat her as just another scalp among the teenage holidaymakers who use the caravan park. When the girl gets fed up with her incarceration and sends a note via her friend with the intention of getting the man friend to come to meet her, the boy burns the note and pretends their is no answer. What is worse he tears up the blood soaked pants and places a piece in the motorcycle of the handyman who is rearrested and an initial taken in for questioning.

When the absence of a response provokes the girl to decide to leave, the boy stays with her saying they will go back together in the morning but when she is asleep he smashes her ankle so she cannot leave on her own. He leaves her imprisoned, desperate and cold. When the following morning he returns full of remorse he finds that she had managed to get out of the cave but has died of exposure on the rocks. He takes her out to sea before letting the body sink. The picture ends and it is not clear if he drowns to be with her or returns to the ashore.

Both sets of families were content to leave the young people so they could get on with their own lives and the parent of the girl in particular were not aware of her vulnerability of they were just did not care enough. It can be argues as a story particular to the individual mix of people and circumstances or a more general warning of can happen if their abdication of parenting when children reach adolescence.

The Iron Lady

2012-01-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

On Friday afternoon January 6th I went to see the second performance showing of The Iron Lady and the Bolden Cineworld. The film was shown in the largest of screen theatres and the audience for the 1.25 showing number around and 50 good for most early afternoon showing but less that for the Kings Speech or Tinker Tailor. I was not surprised at this because there are those on the political centre and left that hate what the woman did during her thirteen year reign as Prime Minister and would not contemplate seeing a film about her life.

In February 2007 (Blog 1008 Feb 2009)) after seeing Thatcher the Musical I mentioned knowing of several senior political figures at national and local level within the Labour Party who admired her ability to get things done, her way, and wished they had a leader of similar strength, ability and popularity. Be Careful what you wish for.

I attended an evening performance of the Musical at the Playhouse Theatre in Newcastle attend by an audience of 200 which mainly comprised students from the two Universities in the town. The auditorium to the main stage was about half full. The musical touched on all the things which many people came to hate her for, including Members of her Cabinet and Party because once she had made up her mind the Lady was not for turning even if the decision quickly proved wrong in terms of the desired outcome.

The show commenced with the quote from St Francis about compromise and healing divisions made before entering number 10 as Prime Minister for the first time and touched all the main issues which continue to be debated, monetarism and the Grocers daughter approach to budgets, her contempt for anyone who became dependent on the state, her attitude towards ideological Trade Union Leaders which I came to share, especially Scargill despite his being right about the end of coal mining in the UK, her approach to Europe and the single currency, her intransigence in Northern Ireland, her success with the Falklands War despite the sinking of the Belgrano as it appeared to be sailing away, her bonding with Ronald Regan and the generally hated Poll Tax together with the venom of former Cabinet Colleagues when they fell out. For me there was one aspect of her approach where her rough justice approach was wrong.

She presided over the destruction of local government autonomy from Central Government over budgetary control in setting local taxation according to the wishes of the local electorate. The Treasury became all powerful nationally and locally. When South Tyneside was first created in 1974 the controlling Mid Tyne Labour group were insistent that the emphasis should be on the provision of public services so they created a small management team which included the heads of Education, Housing and Social Services as well as Finance and Technical Services headed by a Chief Executive. Until that time Legal officers, Personnel Officers and Planners could have expected to have had permanent seats in management teams. It did not last long and soon the shift in power change and the money and their supporters took firm control. It was the job of the political chairman and vice chairman of the Committee to forge good links with their colleagues in control of the finance Committee and for myself and senior management work creatively and constructively with colleagues in the finance department to provide a degree of protection within the straitjacket imposed by central government.

Thatcher led the way to Treasurers taking control to the extent that they became more powerful than Prime Ministers after her, look at the way Brown controlled domestic policy while Tony had to play the international stage and in local government accountants rather than Lawyers became Chief Executives.

It is interesting that while David Cameron has talked the talk about decentralising power the approach of the first two years of the Coalition is to force local authorities to rigidly stick to the decision of no rate increases at the same time as reducing government financial support with the consequence of ruthless reductions in public funded services and their staff irrespective of local needs and circumstances and electoral wishes.

I came into close quarters with senior Tories and with Margaret Thatcher twice when as Minister of Education she came to a Social Service Annual conference and made it plain in private conversations and in her after dinner speech that she believed in self help and welfare being restricted to only those with carefully assessed need. The second occasion was when on a visit to London for a morning meeting I stayed over for a debate in the House of Commons on a child care scandal affecting an authority in the Northern region to which listened to the introductory speeches. The Deputy Labour Chief Whip arranged a seat on the floor of the House for me similar to those of the Civil servants but opposite to them. As I sat alone except when he came to sit with me, my presence appeared to interest the Government front bench and got a visual appraisal from her. I worked out the assumption being made that I was from the local authority under attack whereas in fact I was sympathetic to the criticism.

Lady Thatcher is said to have been influenced my two men, in addition to her father and her husband. Airey Neave who was assassinated by the IRA was a distinguished second world war soldier with the Military Cross and DSO who encouraged her not just to seek the leadership of the Tory but to see herself as Prime Minister and the loss of his wise and supportive counsel was greatly missed especially when she was forced out of office by the then Tory leadership.
In the film there is an important moment when Lady Thatcher challenges the claim they she has become governed by emotions, emphasising that all her life she has been concerned not just with ideas but putting ideas into practice. Her guru in this respect was Sir Keith Joseph who was my dinner guest on one occasion with whom I shared a flat overnight and who was responsible for approving my appointment as a local authority chief officer. When I openly admitted my different political perspective he suggested that I moved from the UK to a Russia, a sentiment which in the film Lady Thatcher also expresses in a different context. I think he understood more of my position when I commented that come the revolution we would both be on list for an early firing squad.

However while the film does refer as flashbacks to all controversial policies which marked her Premiership, The Iron Lady is not primarily about politics but about what happens when we get old, particularly those who have held positions of power or of public attention.

The film does cover the truths of political life at the top and that most colleagues belong to other political parties with as Churchill advised one newcomer to Parliament your enemies sit all around you. There is also the price to be paid in terms of partner and children. Denis, her husband played by Jim Broadbent, I suspect more as Jim Broadbent than Denis, complains that her ambition relegated him to an appendage. Yet the main focus of the film is inability of Lady Thatcher to accept the death of her husband allegedly keeping his clothing and possession for seven years or so in place before being persuaded to part with them and constantly having conversations with him as if he was with her long after his death. When her daughter arranges an earlier than planned visit to the Consultant Thatcher is defiant that she is not having hallucinations and afterwards tells Denis how she successfully dealt with examination although shortly afterwards she spends the night putting his clothes and possessions into bin bags for passing on to charity.

Michael Portillo on attending a private showing of the film last year commented on this Week that she had been shocked about how old she is presented. She was born in 1925 with HM Queen Elizabeth born in 1926. Yet the film also showed the difference between the elderly who are not cared for and those who are able to have their hair professionally attended and if female continue to sue make up. The film opens with Lady Thatcher going out alone early one morning to the local corner shop for milk and a paper and returning to tell Denis that the price of milk is now 46 pence a pint. The world around her is presented as alien to her but this is a misunderstanding as the film itself points out that when challenged by colleagues that she was out of touch because of the unfairness of the Poll Tax in practice, she is able to quote the price Lurpack and other makes of butter and challenges her male colleagues to do likewise. When meeting one of several comments about being a grocer’s daughter, she commented back that that she had had an Oxford Honours degree (second class in Chemistry).

The film is therefore primarily about how we perceive ourselves and our lives in old age and how others perceive us. For many they will see Lady Thatcher not as the old woman she is but as the ruthless Prime Minister she once was riding roughshod over the views of anyone and everyone who did not share her point of view and perspective. The acting in the film is superb and there will be no justice if Meryl Streep is not awarded the Oscar. I have not seen many films in theatre this season but it is the film of he year to date although the Artist which will be shown later in January is said set to be Oscar Winner along with the War Horse which has no appeal to me. I have reached the stage where a film has to appeal as well as appear to be of quality before I will venture to the theatre.

Burlesque

2012-01-02T03:05:00.000-08:00

The third film which involves Dance is also contrasting, Burlesque stars Cher and Christina Aguilera and her performance of a number from the film and DVD record the USA Pop Idol or X Factor series caused uproar because it was presented to an audience with children and young people as enthusiastic as adults. On the scale of stripping acts Burlesque is considered the most acceptable. At one end are the strip clubs of the kind which feature in the Sopranos where the girls engage in sex as the main business purpose in side rooms. Burlesque is the oldest form of stripping with origins in the music Hall and the famous fan dance and even perhaps the Dance of the Seven Veils. The shows are usually raunchy and full of dancing and singing although usually the vocal is mimed. The show ends with its star stripping nude although through the clever use of fans and props nipples and crotch are never displayed for public view.

The Windmill Theatre was created just off Piccadilly Circus as a music hall in 1930 with Comedians Singers and variety acts but lost money because its small size. There was once a Windmill in Great Windmill Street in Soho which I came to know well in the late fifties and early sixties because of the Cy Laurie Jazz club which I would visit on weekends mixing with the ladies of the night rather than the girls from the show in a cafe which served hot meat sandwiches as my evening meal when visiting straight after work. The breakthrough came when Van Damm the production manager inspired by the Moulin Rouge and the Follies Beregere persuaded its owner, Mrs Henderson, to persuade the Lord Chamberlain and censor for the London stage to agree to the nude tableaux in which the girls were not allowed to move. The musical Hall and cinema was based on morning to evening non stop shows so an individual could pay their entrance fee and stay for the day. At the Windmill men would climb over seats to get the close views as those first in went home. The show continued throughout World War II under the slogan we Never Closed which was modified to we Never Clothed and at my all male Independent school some boys boasted of having got into to see the show by the time they reached the fifth form, along with circulating copies of Health and Efficiency and National Geographical Magazine which were available at the barbers along with condoms. Harry Seacombe, Peter Sellers, Bruce Forsythe and Tommy Cooper all cut their comic teeth at the Windmill and stage door Johnnies came from all walks of life.

The theatre closed in the mid sixties as with the relaxation of censorship Strip clubs became licensed in which women took off all their clothes performing masturbatory sexual acts where the only rule was do not touch (unless invited). By the early seventies most cities and many pubs featured strips usually around Sunday lunch time or associated with sporting events usually home football matches. Nudity movement was also permitted with the show Hair which I saw and reflected the drug culture as much as the new sexuality. Raymond’s Revue Bar attempted to continue the tradition of the Paris show and the Windmill became a Cabaret Club run by Raymond’s daughter. The all day pay once stripping continued in Wardour Street with the Sunset Strip which has survived to this day moving up market with the development of Pole Dancing clubs, which have proliferated some charging huge fees for champagne and other drinks and where there are significant charges for individual girls to perform for individuals and groups. There have been four films about the Windmill with Mrs Henderson presents the most well known with Judy Dench and Mrs Henderson and Bob Hoskins as van Damm. Will Young also appeared? Pauline Collins appeared in Secrets of the Windmill Girl in an earlier production.

In the USA the Burlesque stripper was created with Gypsy Rose Lee and the Minsky Brothers and went through the similar phases as in the UK with topless and lap dancing to full nudity and sexual exposure. It was in the 1990’s that saw a revival of the Burlesque in the USA with the Pusycat Dolls group starting as Burlesque dancers. I was therefore interested to see what a film with Cher and Aguilera would cover or to be precise uncover when shown on Prime Time Sky Premier. The film is clever by presenting the club as primarily a vehicle of serious but raunchy dancing rather than nudity and sex. Cher is the theatre artistic creator and part owner rather than performer although she is known for her outrageous and scanty costuming as much as for her first class acting With the International singer Aguilera as the main star and Burlesque performer it is not surprising that the twist is that she is a singer dancer who cannot get a professional job after packing in her work in a bar in small town USA for Los Angeles. There are other plot points with the main one the attempt of Cher to hold onto the theatre despite the covetous attentions of a property developer and Aguilera becoming involved in a love triangle involving Jack from the club and the developer.

Aguilera commences as an unpaid waitress and gets her chance as a dancer when one of the girls becomes engaged and then pregnant much to the annoyance of another girl. When this girl later appears drunk Aguilera is told to take her place as the lead and the girl retaliates by cutting off the sound. As customers are about to leave Aguilera shows she can sing having failed to persuade her boss of this beforehand. As she is a great success and the place has standing room her future appears certain but not that of the club. However she is persuaded by Jack’s former fiancée that their relationship is still on after Christina has slept with Jack and at this point she accepts the attentions of the property developer but finding out his plan she reveals this to her boss and together they find a way to thwart his intentions and to raise sufficient money to keep the club going for Burlesque entertainment. It is only with the finale that there is the fan dance and full stripping but with the key points covered! The film is one for Cher and Aguilera fans.

Street Dance

2012-01-02T00:46:00.000-08:00

Street Dance also has a fine actor Charlotte Rampling as the artistic director/Principal of a ballet school in the UK anxious to get its most promising students into positions in the leading national company. She seizes on the opportunity to give the dancers the edge when she encounters a street dance crew seeking rehearsal space and insists they combine with her lead dancers after an accident where the crew unintentional damage a wall and cannot afford to pay the damage. There is an ongoing story line of the simplest kind unlike Fame for example where there was a serious attempt to say something of the lives of the students and staff and which led to the international Kids from Fame tour. Here the story is that the crew are at the point of breakup because the lead male dancer and the female lead dancer (Carly) and choreographer have parted because he says he needs time out of the relationship. In fact he has joined a rival crew preparing for the world street dance competition.

The idea of Ballet dancers and street dancers combining into one group is presented in the film as a clash of class and cultures. There is some truth in this in that ballet dancers are traditionally children of the middle class whose parents can afford the cost of training while street dance is said to have grown up out of disco dancing and the culture of the workingclass/underclass disaffected. While it is also true that those attending dance schools can concentrate on classical or contemporary dancing the training is as concentrated, professional and costly and those who can afford and are willing to devote the time usually undertake both classes. In their annual biannual production in theatre dance schools will present a mixed programme with some dancers appearing in both forms of dance routines.

The drive behind the film has been the success of individual and group street dancing in Britain’s Got Talent with George Samson the winner of the competition in the year that Susan Boyle came second and the two street dance crews of Diversity and Flawless appearing with one taking the title subsequently. This has proved an inspiration to youngsters and dance schools around the country with one impact being a flow of new students seeking to learn contemporary dance rather than the classical. This is highlighted in the film in which Samson plays the role of the school delivery boy and puts in a star performances at the world champions to everyone’s surprise and Diversity and Flawless who play group champions.
The Street crew also have ordinary and exciting lives whereas the classical dancers are closeted and boring. The street crews eat fast food spend the weekend clubbing and having passionate relationships.

The purpose of the film is to demonstrate that Dance is Dance and that great dancing requires concentration, dedication and discipline, that great dance requires creative choreography and that dancers can also have fun.

The storyline is that the two sets of dancers are hostile to each other and scathing at the techniques and lifestyles. The classical come to appreciate the skill of the contemporary and to enjoy life attending the Nottinghill Carnival and a disco club, while the street crew leader (Carly) is taken by the school Principal to see Swan Lake and is moved by the final scene in particular, What she does and this is not seen until the performance of the group at the World Championships which is a combination of classical with part of the final Swan Lake scene incorporated together with balletic lifts and somersaults and the raw and in your face energy of the street. To add tension the group is nearly divided when the audition for the ballet company and the world championships are held on the same day with overlapping times. Carly meets her former lover and they bed again without her knowing he is dancing for rivals. Needless to add the classical dancers get the jobs and the combined group win the championships. Charlotte Rampling who faces opposition from trainer Eleanor Bron and her boss has reservations but comes round to complete the picture.

The film is an effective use of 3D which is an ideal medium for relaying artistic events as well as sport with the BBC showing Come Dancing finale in 3D and Sky featuring Ballet, Contemporary and Irish Dancing.

It is anticipated that street dancing will form a an important part of the opening ceremony at the Olympic games much to the disgust of the Morris Dancers who are said not to have been included and threaten to perform a mass flash dance in one of the open areas around the stadium. There is also to be a second film released during the year with one observer noting that Flawless were filmed in Trafalgar Square in July so I would not be surprised if the film is about groups competing to perform at the Olympic games opening ceremony.

The Black Swan

2012-01-02T00:36:00.000-08:00

I have watched a number of films over the season most of which were disappointing and did not engage as I had hoped for, I decided against going to see the Black Swan when it was released because the theme did not appeal to me. Given the attention to the performance of Natalie Portman who won the 2011 Best Actress Performance I decided to view when the film was recently premiered on Sky. It was not a good experience and I wonder who would appreciate the film but have to admit it is reported to have been made for $14 million and grossed over $300m.

It was branded as a psychological thriller. The psychological is accurate but there are no thrills just an accumulating and depressing darkness. I like the story and the music of Swan Lake although watching others dance has rarely engaged, Flamenco does and also Irish dancing is small doses. I first heard the music at a Promenade Concert and bought the record. I have seen productions of the ballet on TV including from the Royal Opera House. Although my mother took me to experience Opera as a boy she took a cousin to see Swan Lake.

It is essential to know the story of the Ballet as although the film about professional dancers preparing to dance in a new version of the Ballet at a main ballet company/House in New York they are also assigned roles of some of those in the story of the Ballet.

The Prince (Siegfried) has been ordered to marry by his parents and produce an heir situation but he is a romantic and believes in ongoing passionate love. He is also a typical aristo who has been raised to kill animals for sport and in this instance he and his cronies go off to shoot some Swans. He comes across a swan with a crown and is intrigued and then as night falls the Swan is discovered to be a beautiful Princess Odette who is the subject of an evil spell by the Sorcerer Von Rothbart who is represented by a bird, usually in black.

The Prince and the Swan Queen stay together all night but she returns to being a swan with her companions by day. The Prince can break the spell by declaring his love for her and for no other which he declares and invites her to attend the Ball which his mother has arranged for him to choose a bride. Odette then explains that should he chose another she will be doomed.

The Sorcerer understands this and attends the ball with his daughter both in disguise, his daughter in the form of Odette. The Prince is delighted and declares his love for her with the consequence that the real Odette who arrives late can only witness the deception at a distance. She returns to the Lake to die and the Prince realising the deception ends his life with her. The climax of the Ballet is for the two lovers to ascend to heaven.

The central plot of the film as such has Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers who wishes to become the new Principal ballerina in company and play the role of the Swan Queen in the next production after the enforced retirement of the current principle (Winona Ryder) in her role of the Dying Swan.

Nina lives with her mother Barbara Herschey in her role as Erica the dominating Queen. Erica was also a lead dancer with ambitions but at 28 she was seduced giving birth to Nina who she wants to succeed where she failed. While professional ballet dancers enjoy sex in real life it is true that few if any leading females can continue once they have given birth. The issue of keeping their figures, guarding what they eat and have a different lifestyle from others including contemporary street dancers is one aspect of the second dance movie experienced over the season, Street Dance, made as a vehicle for 3D and shown by the BBC on their HD channel on New Years Day.

In the instance of the Black Swan Nina is portrayed as a sexual innocent because of her mother’s experience and attitudes. The company’s artistic Director hits on the idea of having the same Ballerina playing the White and Black Swans in the ballet and while he chooses Nina he berates her because of her natural inability to project herself as the bad swan because of her sexual inexperience. In this respect he prefers her rival for the position of Principal Dancer Mila Kunis as Lily, The Black Swan who puts it about as they say and in this respect willingly offers herself to the Artistic Director in the effort to get the title and new role.

Although the film appears to concern the narrow lives of those engaged professionally in ballet dancing it can also be argued that the main story is about the relationship between Nina and her mother, the guilt the daughter is made to feel about “ruining the life of her mother” her drive for perfection and to be better than her mother and the extent of the obsession which leads to self abuse. In such situations whole some parents live their lives through the success of their offspring, as sports personalities or performing artists following their careers first hand attending every performance, sometimes acting as managers their is also jealous at their success and proprietoral control which prevents and at times obstructs a child leading separate lives with a partner.

The Director of the film complicates what could have become an ingenious switching between the day to day lives of the cast and their roles in the Ballet by also incorporating a story about understudies and doppelgangers as in the Dostoyevsky’s work- The Double. He had also achieved success with his film The Wrestler, which I avoided because professional Wrestling is a skilful but joke activity which like professional boxing also has significant criminal involvements. The Wrestler also involved an in depth examination of the life of a professional needing athleticism and a high level of body self control.

In the Black Swan Beth, the former lead is incensed by the decision to offer Nina the new role is seriously injured in a car accident which the Director believes was a genuine suicide attempt (The dying Swan).

Nina becomes intimately friendly with Lily suggesting the development of a Lesbian relationship which the artistic director approves if this releases the passion in her which he know Lily possesses but who lacks the technical precision of her rival, part of the paradox that can one become the best of the best at whatever but find it difficult to lead a conventional normal life with partner, children, extended family network, participating also in local, regional and national community life, and vice versa.

Because Nina appears to have commenced a relationship with a male admirer, her relationship with Lily cools but one evening Lily arrives and suggests a girl’s night out which she agrees against the wishes of her mother. Later Lily returns with Nina and the two spend the night together. During the evening Lily appears to have slipped Nina a capsule so she oversleeps and is late for rehearsal and arrives to find Lily dancing her role as the official understudy. She accuses Lily of plotting and betrayal but Lily explains that she was out on her own clubbing and spent the night with a man she had met. Nina appears to have made up the whole situation in her mind, which is not the first time her day and night dreams, fears and fantasies have become merged.

The first night approaches with her mother increasingly concerned at the behaviour of her daughter saying that the pressures of the role have become too great and suggesting she drops out. They fight and mother appears to have successfully restrained her daughter contacting the company to say her daughter is ill. Nina however escapes and presents herself at the theatre. The performances goes well but Nina has a hallucination and falls from a lift so that as the second act commences Nina finds that Lily has been instructed to play the Black Swan and is transformed physically into herself. The two fight. A mirror is shattered and Nina kills Lily with a shard of glass. She therefore performs the part of the Black Swan and transmogrifying into a creature with wings playing the role with great passion and acclaim startling the artistic director with a passionate kiss. Previously he had attempted to kiss her and she had bit his mouth drawing blood.

Lily arrives to congratulate Nina and then Nina realises she has experienced another hallucination except the mirror is shattered and she has stabbed herself. She completes the third act and in doing so sees her mother in the theatre weeping with joy and pride. She throws herself of the cliff understage onto a mattress to thunderous applause. When the cast go to congratulate her they find her dying covered in blood whispering Perfect, it was Perfect.

Emma two versions

2011-12-30T07:10:00.000-08:00

A feature of television at Christmas is a congestion of times past for the landed gentry who live in fine country houses and this year was no exception with Emma and Mansfield Park, a Downton Abbey Christmas special and from Time to Time. I also include the Dickens Great Expectations.

I have been less of a Jane Austin fan than the Bronte sisters as her portrayals of the superficiality between the landed gentry leave me cold. Mansfield Park and Emma is the same story told with different principal characters in the sense that a man and a woman become close friends over a period of time and only later appreciate that they also wish to become adult lovers and because they are friends there is confidence that their love could be long lasting if not happy ever after.

I have not read Emma the 1815 comedy of manners among the genteel of Georgian Regency England and therefore have been guided by others about the authenticity and effectiveness of the 1996 version with Gwyneth Paltrow in the title role and Ewan McGregor and Greta Scacchi among the cast. A year before there had been a a USA set version called Clueless and last year an India film called Aisha. The television productions have been more faithfull to the original intentions with versions in 1948, a six part BBC serial in 1960 with another in 1972 and a four part version in 2009. In the same year as the Paltrow the BBC produced a single session film with Kate Beckinsale which should be the one to compare. By coincidence this film featured on ITV in the afternoon so my decision to watch the second part of the Harry Potter finale and then write about the series proved justified in more ways than I had anticipated. The Americans, NBC and CBS have produced three TV versions in addition and there have been seven stage production, including three musical versions.

Emma is an intelligent young women stuck in a world where she has too little to do other than gossip and match make about which she no talent. She is only twenty one so one has to make allowances for her youthful silliness. I am not sure if we learn when her mother died but with the marriages of her sister and her governess she lives alone in the country house with her father who leads his own life and therefore leaves Emma (Woodhouse) to enjoy the riding, the country walks, the picnics and dancing with her permitted circle of contemporaries. She enjoy the company of her father’s friend George Knightly unmarried and in his late thirties whose younger brother has married Emma’s older sister. They have five young children and prefers nuclear family life but indulges his wife’s enthusiasm for vacations and visitations. Something which she shares with her young sister who one predicts will follow in similar fashion.

Having decided that she is a good match maker Emma sets her sights on finding a husband for her friend Harriet Smith who is illegitimate, and raised locally and not part of the set until introduced by Emma. When a local farmer and his sister take an interest in Harriet, Emma does all she can to prevent a relationship developing and insists that the girl rejects the offer of marriage from Robert Martin and friendship of his sister because she believes the girl could do so much better.

She targets the new young Vicar Philip Elton but he first sets his sights on Emma and when Emma rejects him, he quickly marries another young woman from out of town because of her income of £10000 a year. Augusta but lacks the genteel qualities of her new circle and is written as pretentious and boastful and likes to have her own way. She struck me as very suitable for her husband who in the tradition of the Church of England is an ambitious man with only the trappings of Christianity lacking religious sincerity.
There are two other principal characters. The first Frank Churchill, the son by his previous marriage of Mr Weston who has married Emma’s governess of sixteen years and who acted as a substitute mother to Emma, exercising good influence but limited to having been a servant in the household. Frank has taken the name of the husband of Mr Weston’s sister who raised the boy has their own after the premature death of his mother. He was raised in Richmond in Yorkshire but becomes an immediate hit when he visits except for George who becomes jealous when Frank sets his sights on Emma. He appears to be good in his judgement when Frank returns briefly to London for the purpose of getting a haircut.

The other principal character is Jane Fairfax who has been raised by her grandmother and a spinster aunt to be a spirited and sensible young woman of musical and social talents but because she is without fortune to make an appropriate marriage she appears destined to become a governess. She and Frank Churchill became acquainted while holiday in Dorset and where he executed a rescue of the young woman when out on a boat trip which ended in heavy winds and seas.

Frank arranges a dance at the local Inn at which Mr Elton declines to dance with Harriet Smith who has to sit and watch the others enjoys themselves. Mr Knightley steps in. When Emma and Harriet and walking to her home one day they are accosted by gypsies in one version for their purses and by begging children in another. Harriet who falls to the ground is rescued by Frank Churchill and Emma gets her wires crossed and believes the girl has become infatuated with Frank who appears to be taking an interest in her when in fact she is taken with George Knightley.

There is a strawberry picking tea party at the home of Mr Knightly who owns the great house and estate in the areas. Mrs Elton says he should have asked her to organise the event but he puts her down saying that this will be the responsibility of his wife when he finds her but he remains in control until he does. I was struck by the volume of perfect strawberries on show in the British film version which does not reflect the size of the beds in the kitchen garden where they picks those they plan to take home.

There is a significant difference between the two films in the scale of the picnic to Box Hill which remains an important visitor attraction to this day and which I visited as a child in an extended family outing by bus. I revisited a few years ago and it is possible to park the car at the top of the film. In the British version film the party includes footman, cooks and maids in their uniforms who transport screens and comfortable chairs as well as setting a table with a full buffet style meal displayed. The Paltrow version the picnic is modest by comparison.

This is a pivotal event because Emma humiliates the spinster aunt of Miss Fairfax and is severely reprimanded by George who is disgusted and disappointed her behaviour and she suitable chastened and remorseful. However the crunch event is when the new arrives that with the death of his aunt Frank Churchill has announced that he and Miss Fairfax are engaged. They were secretly engaged after meeting during the Dorset holiday but could not disclose further because of the anticipated disapproval of the aunt. With her death the relationship can be acknowledged. Because Mr Knightly had made his carriage available to Miss Fairfax her grand mother and aunt for a musical evening, Emma had thought he was interested in the young woman at one point and that it was George who had provided the sister with a piano sp Miss Fairfax who is considered an excellent pianist and singer could play. In fact it was Frank Churchill who arranged the delivery on his supposed mission for a haircut in London. George returns home and visits Emma as soon as he learns of Frank’s deception. The scene leads the two disclosing their long term affection for each other. Meanwhile Harriet had regained contact with the farmer Martin and his sisters and they are also to be married. The film ends with a joint wedding.

Apart from her attractive facial features and body it is difficult to see what George sees in Emma It can be argued that at least Emma does not spend all her time seeking a partner or pursuing a fortune. However she must be condemned for the attachment to class and belief in her superiority over others. She contributes nothing to humanity. Miss Paltrow is excellent without a trace of an American accent and I preferred hersion to that of Kate Beckinsale. Mark String is excellent as Knightly and Bernard Hepton as Emma’s father in the latter.

Harry Potter and the Dearthly Hallows Parts 1 and 2 in perspective

2011-12-29T09:23:00.000-08:00

Millions of young people around the world now aged in their early twenties have grown up with three fictitious characters and their cinematic portrayers, Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, Rupert Grint as Ron Wesley and Emma Watson as Hermione Granger the creations of J K Rowing in the multi billion dollar seven book eight film fantasy series Harry Potter.

Because of my devotion to the Lord of Rings and the Hobbitt in book and film and for other reasons I decided against reading the books when published or seeing most of the films in theatre where there were released.

The books are all titled Harry Potter and: - the Philosopher’s Stone, -the Chamber of Secrets, -the Prisoner of Azkaban, -the Goblet of Fire, -the Order of the Pheonix, -the Half Blood Prince and the Deathly Hallows which was then made into a film in two parts. A total of 450 million copies of the books have been sold and translated into 67 languages. The films have made over $8 billion with merchandising bringing the total to $15 billion. While the series was given a special award at the last Academy Ceremony none have been awarded an Oscar although there have been a number of nominations.

While each book and film can be viewed as a self contained adventure there is an overall grand design and story which begins to unfold and then gathers momentum into the finale when many questions are answered including whether Harry Potter lives or dies. The final book is depressingly dark throughout with none of the humour and simple adventuring of the beginnings.

The world according to J K Rowling is divided between Muggles, that is you and me, and the witches and wizards and their world which including Goblins, Elves and miscellaneous creatures. The central location throughout every book is Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Scotland which children of magical parents are sent to be trained in the arts of spells and potions each with a wand and super natural abilities.

We are introduced to Harry Potter as an orphan being raised by his uncle and aunt. Harry finds himself on his way to Hogwarts on a train which leaves from Kings Cross London on secret platform which can be entered through a pillar between platforms nine and ten. For the last film we are shown the completed St Pancras International station as King’s Cross is undergoing a major transformation in time for the Olympic Games.

At the school he encounters a gentle half giant Reubus Hagrid played by Robbie Coltrane who tells Harry that he is a wizard in the making and that his parents were murdered by an evil wizard called Lord Voldemort. Lord Voldemort is played by Ralph Fiennes. A feature of the films is that a number of actors play the same role throughout. Harry also finds that he is regarded as special by the Principal and other staff because when he was one year of age Lord Voldemort tried to kill the child but his killing curse had the effect of changing him into an effective weakling. This is a major clue to understanding the overall story and the ending.

The school is divided into four Houses with Harry making friends with two other pupils of the same House Griffindorf, the brilliant rational Hermione and the loyal Ron. From the outset a fellow pupil in another House Slytherin- Draco Malfoy, is a rival and plots Harry’s downfall at every opportunity. He appears to be supported by Severus Snape played by Alan Rickman who is one of the Professors responsible for spells and incantations. The School’s Principal was played by Richard Harris until his death before the filming of the third film and after that by Michael Gabon.

Maggie Smith is Minvea McGongall as a Harry Protector and school champion also appears in very film. Some who have roles in certain films but also appear in the final episode as staff members are Emma Thompson as Sybill Trelawney, Miriam Margolyes, Gemma Jones and Jim Broadbent. Zoe Wannamaker, Kenneth Branagh also feature in the early films.

In addition to some 30 school pupils who have speaking parts of substance there are other groups of participants who include some of the best British actors of recent times. The Order of the Pheonix founded by Dumbledore to fight Voldemort has Julie Walters as Ron’s mother and Gary Oldman as Sirus Black with Adrian Rawlins playing Harry’s father and Geraldine Somerville as his mother, David Thewlis as Remus Lupin appears in several films together with Brendon Gleeson and Jim McManus.

Lord Voldemort when he returns to claim his destiny has his crew of Death Eaters with Draco’s father Lucius played by Jason Isaacs and Timothy Small as Peter Pettigrew. Helena Bonham Carter has a key role in the final films as Bellatrix Lestrange while David Tennant appears in one film.

There are a host of characters at the Ministry of Magic with Robert Hardy, Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton having key roles and where Percy Weasley, played by Chris Rankin has several appearances. Richard Griffiths plays Harry’s foster father and Pam Ferris has a role as his wife. Among the foreign wizards and witches is Francis de la Tour playing Olympe Maxime and Dawn French is a Fat Lady Muggle with John Cleese in a couple of early films along with Rik Mayall and Leslie Phillips. John Hurt has an important role at the end and is also there at the beginning while Miranda Richardson and Julie Christie make appearance. Lenny Henry plays a creature but the final accolade goes to Toby Jones as the Elf Dobby.
In the second film Harry has to prove himself the heir to Salazar Slytherin the founder of the Chamber of Secrets in which in finds himself imprisoned for a time. In the third episode Sirius Black escapes from prison and Harry learns something of the role the man had in his life with the help of Professor Lupon in his staff role as Defence against the Dark Arts teacher. These three films form the introduction with the main action commencing in the Goblets of Fire with the re-emergence of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

From the outset Harry and then Ron play roles in school game of Quiddich which is a competition played above ground using broom sticks to catch a flying object (A Snitch) and score goals. Harry and friends attend the World Championship at which the Death Eaters make their unwelcome appearance.

Three European Wizard schools then arrive at Hogwarts with their Champions chosen by the Goblet of Fire in a TriWizard Tournament with Harry chosen to represent Hogwarts. The tasks required in the competition can involve the loss of life and this brings Harry into his first encounter with the Dark Lord.

It is with the fifth book/film that we learn of the Order of Pheonix, a secret Order for the protection of Hogwarts and Harry and against the return of Voldemort. The Ministry of Magic is in Chaos because they cannot accept that Lord Voldemort has returned with his Death Eaters and Dementors. Their power and attacks on the worlds of magic and muggles intensifies and the Principal accompanied by Harry persuades his old friend and colleague Horace Slughorn to return. As the various forces line up Draco Malfoy is persuaded to attempt to poison the principal and Harry learns more of his past and relationships when he discovers the textbook inscribed as the Property of the Half Blood Prince.
The Principal and the old friend devote their attention to way to destroy Lord Voldemort.

As the series has progresses Harry finds several ways to learn about his past and the future. The most disturbing is that he appears to have direct contact with the Voldemort and therefore learns something of what he is planning and vice versus but the sessions, depending on their length also appear to drain Harry and place him under the control of his adversary. The principal characters are no longer children so there is romance but surprisingly not between Harry and Hermione despite their close and common purpose and endeavours with at times Rom something of a hanger on. However it is Ron who falls for Heroine and she appears to have a love hate relationship with him while Harry‘s interests are elsewhere.

This is all by way of introduction to the final books made into two films which I viewed as a Christmas new release on Sky Premier yesterday recorded while I was away and then Part 2 on the Sky Box office this morning on payment of £3.49.

In the sixth book professor Dumbledoor was killed by Severus Snape who then becomes head of the school. Harry entered Hogwarts aged 11 and this should be his seventh year but he has been told that the protection from the Dark Lord when staying at his Uncle and Aunt will end on his forthcoming birthday and that he must move to another location where he can be protected. A potion is used which can turn people into the character of choice for a short period so that all his friends who are members of the Order of the Pheonix now including Ron and Hermione partake and then go off by diverse means in pairs with one appearing to be Harry. They are soon attacked because of an unknown spy in the camp and George Weasley is wounded but they reach the refuge and Harry is safe.
Unable to return to the school the trio decide to concentrate on the task which Dumbledore and his old friend had commenced: to find the way to destroy Voldemort. They know that he has hidden parts of his soul in objects called Horcruxes, which contribute to his purpose of becoming immortal. They isolate themselves to ensure their friends and families' safety. They have little knowledge about the remaining Horcruxes except the possibility that two are objects once belonging to Hogwarts founders Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff and a third may be Nagini, Voldemort's snake familiar. The whereabouts of the two founders' objects is unknown, and Nagini is presumed to be with Voldemort.

As they search for the Horcruxes, the trio learn more about Dumbledore's past and the existence of a brother. Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour are married, but the wedding is disrupted by the news that Voldemort has taken over the Ministry of Magic.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione flee into London and to 12 Grimmauld Place, where they learn from Kreacher the whereabouts of Salazar Slytherin's locket. They successfully recover this Horcrux by infiltrating the Ministry of Magic and stealing it from Dolores Umbridge. This is a great adventure.

They are unable to destroy the locket which exerts an evil influence over the carrier reminding of the power of the Ring in the Lord of the Rings. During one spell of carrying Ron becomes concerned about what he sees as a growing intimacy between Harry and Hermione. She has with her a small bag which contains a depth of objects including the ability create a protective tent for nightly stopovers while they try to work out the location of the second Horcrux and the means to destroy the locket. Ron goes off in a huff calling on Hermione to give up the quest and follow him. She is tempted but her loyalty is not just to Harry but to the purpose of the quest.

Harry and Hermione travel to Godric's Hollow, Harry's birthplace and the place where his parents died. They meet the elderly magical historian Bathilda Bagshot, who turns out to be Nagini in disguise and attacks them. They escape into the Forest of Dean, where a mysterious silver doe leads Harry to the Sword of Godric Gryffindor, one of the few objects able to destroy Horcruxes, lying at the bottom of an icy lake. When Harry attempts to recover the sword from the pool, the horcrux attempts to kill him. Ron reappears, saving Harry and using the sword to destroy the locket.

Hermione is angry with him for leaving and for the casual manner of his return although he explains he was led to them by the Deluminator, a gift left to him by Dumbledore in his Will so he comments that the Professor must have known there would be need. Dumbledore has given Hermione a book whose value is to be determined and to Harry the original Golden Snitch which he caught in his first game at Hogwarts which has an inscription which is yet to be understood. He has also bequeathed the sword which was lost and which technically was not his to give.

Resuming their search, the trio repeatedly encounter a strange symbol that an eccentric wizard named Xenophilius Lovegood tells them represents the mythical Deathly Hallows. The Hallows are three sacred objects: the Resurrection Stone, with the power to summon the dead to the living world; the Elder Wand, an unbeatable wand; and an infallible Invisibility Cloak. Harry learns that Voldemort is seeking the Elder Wand, but is unaware of the other Hallows and their significance. (Harry used an invisibility Cloak in an earlier episode).

The trio are captured and taken to Malfoy Manor, where Bellatrix Lestrange tortures Hermione. Harry and Ron are thrown in the cellar, where they find Luna Lovegood, Ollivander, Dean Thomas, and Griphook. They escape to Shell Cottage (Bill and Fleur's house) with Dobby's help, the Elf but at the cost of his life. The Elf is buried in the sand dunes surrounding the refuge. The first part ends with that Voldemort breaking into Dumbledore’s tomb and taking the Elder Wand which he uses on the sky signalling that he is now in command

The second film opens with the same sequence and then Harry determines that the must break into the vault of Bellatrix where the second foundation Horcrux is thought to be held. Hermione uses the shape shifting potion to appear as Bellatrix and they taken along the Goblin Griphook. The vault is in the bowels of earth involving a dangerous helter-skelter ride and although they enter the vault they encounter a problem as everything they touch multiplies exponentially. Griphook tries to turn the tables when exchanging the Horcrux for the sword but the trio manage to escape on the back of a dragon similar to a prehistoric flying creature

They return to Hogwarts and oust Severus Snape. Ron and Hermione go to the Chamber of Secrets and destroy what had been hoped was the remaining Horcrux. However they have worked out there is another Horcrux after Harry has confronted the spirit Rowena Ravenclaw and this is a diadem in the Room of Requirement. Malfoy and two others attempt to foil Harry who is rescued by Ron and Hermione but then find themselves engulfed in the flames of a fiend. They only escape using broomsticks, with Harry deciding to rescue Malfoy. Ron makes one of the few jokes that he will kill Harry if they rescuing their adversary. The remaining Horcrux is destroyed leaving just the snake familiar.

The Death Eaters and Voldemort besiege Hogwarts, while Harry, Ron, Hermione, their allies, and various magical creatures defend the school. Several major characters are killed in the first wave of the battle, including Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, and Fred Weasley. Voldemort has pleased with the school to give up Harry or be killed.

Voldemort then kills Severus Snape because he believes doing so will make him the Elder Wand's true master. Harry finds him dying a uses a utensil to capture the tears of Severus who urges Harry to use them to discover the truth about the overall story and its outcome by consulting one of he devices which has enabled Harry to see back as well as to the future.

There are two revelations which astound Harry and turn everything on its head. The first is while Harry’s father was not the hero that been assumed it was Severus who had adored Harry’s mother and attempted to save and then Harry. He had been a double agent throughout pretending to be on the side of the Dark Lord as a means of guarding Harry and had done this with the full knowledge of Dumbledore.

It was Dumbledore with only a year to live who had asked Snape top kill him as a means of saving the soul of Draco who throughout had acted under the influence of his parents who were servants of Voldemort.

However the main and most challenging revelation is that when Voldemort had attacked the one year old Harry he had made the boy into a Horcrux which means that Harry had first kill the snake and then let Voldemort kill him so the dark Lord would be destroyed by his own hands. This presents Harry with his greatest test.

After using the Resurrection Stone to bring back his deceased loved ones for a short while and to ask them about the moment of death and to be with him as he surrenders himself to death at Voldemort's hand. Voldemort casts the Killing Curse at him, sending Harry to a limbo-like state between life and death. There, Dumbledore explains that when Voldemort used Harry's blood to regain his full strength, it protected Harry from Voldemort harming him; the Horcrux inside Harry has been destroyed, and Harry can return to his body despite being hit by the Killing Curse. Dumbledore also explains that Harry became the true master of the Deathly Hallows by facing Death, not by seeking to avoid or conquer it.

Harry returns to his body, feigning death, and Voldemort marches victorious into the castle with his body. However, he shows that he is still alive while Neville Longbottom kills Nagini, the last horcrux, with the Sword of Gryffindor. The battle resumes, and Bellatrix Lestrange is killed by Molly Weasley.

Harry and Voldemort engage in a final climactic duel. Harry reveals that because he willingly sacrificed himself to death by Voldemort's hand, his act of love would protect the Wizarding community from Voldemort in the same way the sacrifice Harry's mother made protected Harry. Harry also reveals that Snape was never loyal to Voldemort and did not murder Dumbledore Voldemort, who murdered Snape, was never the master of the Elder Wand. Draco was the master of the Elder Wand after disarming Dumbledore, but Harry disarmed Draco at Malfoy Manor, making Harry the true master of the Elder Wand.

The wand refused to kill the one to whom it had allegiance, further protecting Harry. During the duel, Harry refuses to use the killing curse and even encourages Voldemort to feel remorse, one known way to restore Voldemort's shattered soul. Voldemort dies when his own killing curse backfires; he and his Death Eaters are finally defeated. The wizarding world is able to live in peace once more. Harry breaks the wand and throws it into thee deep.

There is a splendid epilogue some nineteen years later and once again the train departs from platform nine and three quarters for Hogwarts. But this time Harry is there as a parent to see a son off to school for the first time. There he meets Ron and Hermione who are married and are also there to see one of their children off to the school. For a moment the trio stand together as the train moves out. Also present at the departure is Draco Malfoy and his family seeing off their son Scorpius

Harry and Ginny Weasley have named their three children: James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lily Luna Harry's godson, Teddy Lupin, is found kissing Bill and Fleur Weasley's daughter Victoire in a train carriage. Harry tells his son Albus, who is worried he will be sorted into Slytherin, that one of his namesakes, Severus Snape, was a Slytherin and the bravest man he had ever met. He adds that the Sorting Hat takes one's choice into account, like it did for Harry.

I am told the book ends with these final words: "The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well."

But is it really the end?

I enjoyed the two films seen in close proximity more than any of the other films which were disappointments after the originality and novelty of the first. My attention did not waiver. However they do not compare with the Lord of the Rings or the adult George Martin Game of Thrones series which returns for the second book dramatization in April.

The Bridge over the River Kwai

2011-12-19T08:18:00.000-08:00

I tested my Bluray player not with an H Day or 3D film but The Bridge over the River Kwai a film released in 1957 when many families, such my own extended network were still affected by the loss of sons in Japanese prisoner of war camps. The film is a fictional account of the building of the Burma Siam railway in which an estimates 80 to 100000 civilians perished and 13000 prisoners of war. The treatment of the prisoners was much worse than depicted in the film. Alec Guiness plays a tradition career British commanding officer who with his men is brought to a camp where the Japanese commander is under pressure to complete a bridge over the river in time for the arrival of a train.

Already at the camp is William Holden an American who spends his time trying to survive by bribing guards to get out of the work parties and get extra rations. He is bemused by the British Commander who immediately takes on the counterpart who insists that the officers should undertake manual labour with the rest of the men despite this being banned by the Geneva Convention. Guiness survives being imprisoned in the oven a corrugated metal box and eventually does a deal with the captors to complete the bridge to high standards as long as he is given control over the men. This brings concessions in terms of medical care and Red Cross deliveries.

Meanwhile William Holden has escaped and his would are treated by local villages before making his way to a British base in Ceylon. Here he is approached by Jack Hawkins to accompany small mission to return to the site and destroy the Bridge ideally with the first train. With Hawkins injured they managed to reach the camp just before completion and train arrival and mine the bridge to detonate as the train arrives. It is Guiness who spots that the bridge is mined as the water drops from the tidal flow revealing the network of explosives. Eventually Guiness realises he has put the mission in jeopardy and falls on the detonating box as he dies and the train arrives with successful and spectacular consequences.

The film won seven Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor Alec Guiness, and Screenplay. Editing Cinematography and Music with the theme Colonel Bogey a hit [parade success. The film also won three Bafta awards, Golden Globes and other awards and remains in several top 100 lists, 10th as recently as 100 war films in 2005.

Brother Sun Sister Moon

2011-12-19T07:50:00.000-08:00

Brother Sun and Sister Moon is the story of the early life of Saint Francis of Assisi in a Franco Zeffrelli production and which interested me because Donovan had contributed the song track including the title number.

There have been a number of films about the life of Saint Francis including the Flowers of St Francis in 1950 which I saw as a school boy as well as another film in 1961. Brother Sun Sister Moon came next with three others following the latest in 2007 none I can recall seeing.

Brother Sun \and Sister Moon accurately represents his early life as the young man about town son of a wealthy cloth merchant who together with his companions goes off in the finest armour to fight with Catholic church blessing. He had six brothers and sister who are not shown in the film.

The film telescopes his experiences of fighting in two wars during 1201 -1205 and becoming a captive during one for a year. The film does cover a period of illness and the apparent effect of armed conflict on his outlook on life. The film plays around with the chronological sequence. It tends to overdramatise his identification with the poor and beggars. In the film his father becomes excessively wealthy exploiting the wars controlling scarce resources and getting nobles to surrender their valuables in exchange of essentials. There does appear to have been conflict with his father because Francis identified with his mother, a French woman, learning her language and cultural interests. It is supposedly correct that he did give all his possessions at one point to a beggar and also sold off his fathers possessions in order to give to charity and fund the rebuilding of a derelict church outside of the city. The film ends with a mission to Rome to see the Pope and ask what he was doing wrong after being rebuked by the local bishop egged on by one of his former friends. Alex Guiness play the Pope.

The film has a romantic sixties slant and introduces early on the daughter of another noble who Francis encounters giving alms to lepers and later during the film Francis and his small band are seen administering to the leper colony who live out of the town. There is the suggestion of romantic relationships early on between Clare and Francis but when he adopts celibacy she also joins the group and later he established an Order of nuns for her with the Little Clare sisters coming from daughters of the Poor. Much is made in the film of his visit to Rome when the Pope is portrayed with his court in great splendour and where the group dressed in the rags of the poor are met with ridicule and hostility and told to address the Pope with a prepared formal dress. However Francis decides to be his true self and impresses the Pope who is reminded of his original faith and gives his blessing

Francis is also known to have established a lay order for those who wanted to marry and this aspect is also covered in the film. The film covers his love of nature and animals and is beautiful shot in terms of the techniques of the era.
Zefrelli was known for his version of Romeo and Juliet and there are elements in this production coupled with the poetic romanticism of Donovan. The film creates a mood of peace and gentleness

Up

2011-12-09T01:22:00.000-08:00

Any connection between the 1930’s Lost Horizon and the 2009 Disney Pixar film Up will be considered remote at first consideration. You would be wrong. The main theme of the film is the desire of Carl Fredricksen and his wife Ellie to find their Shangri-la - Paradise Falls in the midst of South America. As an eccentric tomboy who befriends shy and quiet Carl Elle confides that she dreams of moving the ramshackle old property which she invites Carl to join her in a club of 2 to take the house to the cliff top on top of the falls. Carl’s hero is an explorer Charles F Muntz who disappears have being accused that the skeleton he brought back of a giant bird is a fake.

The two grow up and marry and then age happily together with Elle still clinging to her dream but practical considerations prevent attempting to make the dream a reality although they do up the house as their comfortable home and in which Elle dies. Carl is determined to carry out her lifelong wish and devises a scheme to take the house using a vast collection of hot air balloons. Just before he is ready for take off he is approached by a young boy called Russell similar is part of an organisation called the Wilderness Explorers who need his final “Assisting the Elderly” badge to complete the set required to be honoured at which he hopes his busy father will find time to attend the ceremony. The approach to assist Carl is rejected but the boy hangs around on the porch and seeks entry into the house when it takes off for the adventure.

They make their way to South America but land near a ravine close to the falls so the two harness the buoyant house to themselves and attempt to get to get to the falls on foot when they encounter a large colourful bird which does not fly and which is trying to reach her chicks, Before then the two also encounter a talking dog because of a special collar.

The dog is part of a pack all who speak although one has a quirky voice because of collar defect, The pack are in fact pet servants of the explorer Charles F Muntz who has a large Airship from which he has spent years tyring to capture the colourful bird who is the living form of the skeleton which he was accused of faking

He wants and is successful in capturing the bird to take back to vindicate himself while Russell wants to rescue the creature so he can be reunited with his chicks. Carl just wants to get the house to the spot on the cliff above the falls but goes along with the effort to find and release the bird although he is initially impressed on finding Muntz until he realises how ruthless he has become killing others who have got in his way in the past. There is a great battle of wits with many scrapes until they defeat Muntz and take over his airship leaving the house just where Elle wanted and getting the bird back to her chicks. Before they return Carl has to jettison all the furniture to refloat the house and he finds an album which Elle has named the great adventure. He does not fully examine the book until he returns with Russell and attends the presentation of his award for having achieved a full badge set. He finds that in fact Elle had long abandoned the Paradise Falls project because she considered her life with Carl to have been the greatest adventures she could ever have hoped for.

Lost Horzion

2011-12-09T01:15:00.000-08:00

My only reservation with the day was falling asleep early waking but remaining tired and eventual going to bed at 9.30 which meant rising at 4, Now to the original 1937 film Lost Horizon created from the 1933 novel of the same name by James Hilton and which is remembered as the concept of Shangri-La a fictional utopian non industrial society set in an isolated sheltered Tibetan Valley.

There are several important similarities between the film and book. Both rely on a third party recounting his experience of finding a former British diplomat/politician Richard Conway in strange circumstances and nearly dead who after recovering told his bizarre story about the utopian community he had discovered and to which he had decided to return. The man had disappeared and his fate was unknown. In the book Hugh Conway is a Diplomat while the film Robert is an ambitious politician talked of becoming Foreign Secretary.

His story opens when on a mission to India in 1931 and the need to evacuate 80 white British citizens because of a local uprising with planes provided by the Maharajah of Chandapore, a real character. This is in the days of small twin engine passenger planes accommodating less than a dozen.

In the book in addition to Conway there are Conway’s number two and an American together with a British missionary, a female. The plane is hijacked and taken into Tibet and running out of fuel crashes killing the hijacking pilot who is able to reveal to the passengers that they should make their way to the nearby lamasery known as Shangri-La where they will find shelter and help. They meet up with someone from the lamasery who takes them to the valley where they find a modern house community with central heating, bathtubs, a huge library, a grand piano and a harpsichord and unlimited food from the valley.

In the film Ronald Coleman plays Conway and instead of his deputy John Howard plays a neurotic brother who cannot wait to get away from the valley as soon as porters arrive to lead them back to civilization. The other significant difference is that Conway is kidnapped because of his previous writings and known works whereas in the book the decision has been taken to add some “outsiders.” In both formats the American is someone escaping from the authorities because of a share fraud although in the film he explains that this was all to do with the great crash. In both situations he has no wish to immediate return when he finds there is unmined unlimited gold in the hills which would help to put him right with his creditors.
In the film there is an additional male character that has been researching fossils and has uncovered remains indicating that a creature previously unknown to the area has been found. This strikes a chord with UP the family two and three dimension feature where I recently saw the two dimension version on Sky Premier. He is a thoughtful individual used to relying on his own resources and also immediately takes to the community. The woman character could not be more different. In the book she is a missionary who also immediately takes to the community seeing her role as bringing Christian morality and education to the native population who are essentially Buddhist. In the film the woman is an actress who has an incurable disease who already has reached the forecast length of her life.

In the film there are two women who interest the visitors. Jane Wyatt plays Sondra Bizet who has grown up in the valley and teaches the local children. It is she who read about Conway and suggests he should be brought to the valley. They quickly establish a bond.

In both formats Conway is ripe for this relaxed contemplative peaceful life. In both the author predicts the prospect of another world war and that the destruction of property will be as great as that of human life as experienced in the first. Conway has been pursuing a peaceful solution to the world’s conflict.

In the book there is only one female character of interest Lo Tsen who does not speak English and plays the harpsichord. In the film there a similar character who falls in love with the brother (in the book the Vice consul) with both wanting to leave.

The core issue in the book is the discovery that the community was established several hundred years before by another traveller, a Catholic Monk from Luxembourg who is now the High Lama and 300 years old. The way of life has lead to such a long life, forecasting present knowledge that with appropriate diet, exercise and an absence of stress, coupled with the control of disease, the human body is capable of a much long existence than in the past. However their is a limit to life and the High Lama is aware he is approaching the end and is seeking a replacement and find Conway is ideally suited and Conway is interested especially after exploring the community and finding romance.

His brother refuses to believe the story and persuades Conway to leave with him and Maria when local porters/ Sherpa’s arrive to mark the death of the High Lama. In the film they were found at the plane by such a party sent to look out for them and who lead through blizzards and high mountain passes to the secret entrance to the valley. On the way back the two outsiders and the local woman find it difficult keep up with the Sherpa’s who cause an avalanche which consumes them. Then the local woman rapidly changes from a beautiful young girl to an aged woman who dies from old age and the hostile environment. The brother also dies from a fall leaving Conway to struggle over many days to find another community where he collapses but is cared and survives until news reaches the outside world and someone is sent to find him and bring back as the new Foreign Secretary. Conway rejects this and makes his way back eventually finding the pathway and the entrance to the community. The cinema audience is left to conjecture what happens. The actress has discovered her life has improved and decides to stay and similarly the two others but for different reasons. The community is able to continue as before but the search for Shangri-la has continued.

In the book Conway agrees to accompany his Vice Consul and Lo-Tsen to where the porters are waiting five miles beyond the valley but when he is found he was brought by a very old woman. He is known to be attempting to make his way back but the readers do not know if he made it.

The book has sold several million copies with a burst in sales in the 1960’s. In 1973 a musical version of the film was released although previously a broadway production was not successful. The BBC has made a three hour radio play in three parts in 1981 and was broadcast again last year with Derek Jacobi.

Superman Returns

2011-12-06T00:47:00.000-08:00

Two decades later Bryan Singer decided to direct a Superman Movie Superman Returns in 2006. Superman played by Brandon Routh with a similarity to the original had searched the universe for five years trying to find out the remains of his home plant after astronomers believed they had located its existence. There is a recap of his origins and as Clark Kent he returns to work for the Daily Planet, he discovers that Lois has become a celebrity and a Pulitzer Prize winner for an article Why the World does not need superman.

Lex Luther has been released from prison has successfully appealed because of failure to follow due process and has married a rich widow to inherit her wealth upon her death. He is played by the best Lex Luther of all Kevin Spacey. He steals Crystals from the Fortress of Solitude and starts playing with their power causing power failures which affect as passenger airline which has a space shuttle to be launched from a piggyback mounting which fails because of the power loss. This is in fact the sequence where the airliner loses its wings and Passenger compartment is stopped from crashing into a baseball field with assembled crowd by Superman.

In a plot reminiscent of an earlier film Lex Luther has the idea of creating a new land mass to replace that on the Eastern seaboard which he utilise for profit creating new cities. He believes he will do this by combining the crystals with a sample of real Kryptonite held in a museum. So far so good.

Lois Lane is married with a son who appears to be a sickly weakling but in fact appears to be the son of Superman who reluctantly begins to show powers. The husband of Lois appears devoted to her and the boy and through the films there is the sense of God sons of God, Lois as Virgin Mary and her husband as Joseph!

The new land mass which is to replace the Eastern Seaboard begins to take place but fortunately is not the promised land but a dark and unattractive series of rocks which resembles the Krypton home planet and which without the protective creation of the super beings once again debilitates Superman. The good trio of Lois, her husband and the boy become trapped on Luther’s expensive yacht and are nearly killed until rescued by Superman so when Lois senses he has a problem she persuades her husband to return to the new land mass where they are able to free Superman and have a hair raising flight to safety.

It is not Superman who saves the world by Luther’s woman who tosses the remaining crystals away so they cannot be used to continue the land mass creation. Superman has used all his strength to gather the existing landmass at hurtle into far space but the effort drains him and weakened the proximity to the Kryptonite sends him into a coma. Lois visits whispers in Superman’s ear the information that he has a son. Superman visits the boy when he is sleeping and kisses him reciting his father’s last words to the boy and then flies off back to his old self. Lois writes a new article on why the World needs Superman. Thus the film ends with the implication that it is to be the first of a new series.

The film cost over $200 million to make whereas the originals started around $50 million making £300 million until the low budget financial flop of the 4th with Christopher Reeve. The actual costs are open to question with at one point talk of some $400 million taking account of marketing so with box office said to amount to £400 million even with the tax breaks which created a good profit it appears the latest recreation did not achieve the required sums for a series.

Despite 25 years between the first and second reincarnations the basic was problem is that Christopher Reeve had become an iconic hero in real life having become paralysed in a riding accident he had struggled to communicate and then to play a role in the world Reeve had only recently died and Brandon Routh met with the approval of the widow for his physical resemblance to her husband. I thought the film was made by Kevin Spacey who although as with the excellent Gene Hackman filled out the stereotype crazy villain Kevin brought a more serious and nasty edge to the character. Despite plans for sequel which should have hit the screens two years ago it was never made and with the momentum lost one can only speculate that it is back to the drawing for some 3D latest technical wizardry sometime in the future. My own view is that they ought to go back to the original planet of Krypton for a prequel

The only reason why I have tackled the five film sequence before other priorities is that the films were shown back to back over one 24 hours period and I recorded and then needed the space.

Superman IV The Quest for Peace

2011-12-05T17:00:00.000-08:00

It was back to normal with Superman IV The Quest for Peace with Sydney J Furie the Director Les Luther and Lois Lane restored and Christopher Reeve contributing to the story team. The film was however a box office and critical disaster.

It is in this film not III that he returns to the dispose of the farmstead after the death of his mother. There is still the prolonged opening credit sequence and an early display of his powers while he saves a group of Russian cosmonauts on a space station after they have been hit by an off course satellite.

Returning to the Daily Planet he finds a new owner with idea akin to the Sun Newspaper and News of the World. This 1987 thirty years ago! The man puts his daughter in charge that takes a fancy to Clark and attempts to seduce. There is a scene in the film when he double dates as Clark with the daughter of the Media Mogul and as Superman with Lois who still unaware that she was once the wife of Superman helps the daughter to appeal to Clark while she continues her romance with Superman.

When there is deterioration in relations between Russia and the USA he is in dilemma what to do. He attends a meeting of the United Nations and announces her is going to unilaterally rid the world of nuclear rockets which he captures and then in large net in space hurtles into the sun.

Les Luther is broken out of prison by his nephew and seeing an exhibition in which a single strand of Superman hair is holding a gigantic weight he works out that the hair can be used to create superman stronger than the original by attaching the hair with a regeneration formula to a missile which superman hurtles into the sun. Superman and Nuclear Man fight and he is wounded from a scratch of the creature’s radio active finger nails. He loses his cape and the Daily Planet headlines Superman is dead. However he manages to get to the penthouse of Lois and she retrieves the green crystal which he found when he returned home but which can only be used once.

He recovers and goes off to battle “Nuclear Man” who has taken a shine to the Medial Mogul’s daughter. Superman appears to have been defeated again and is driven to moon. Here works out that temporarily pushing the moon into a eclipse of the sun he will diminish the powers of Nuclear Man who he then captures and deposits him into a nuclear power plant (big error here as putting him down the chimney of a coal fire plant) and then capturing Lex Luther back to prison and his nephew to Boy’s Town. The problem with this film as with III is that there is no development of Superman Character or technical surprises.

Superman III

2011-12-05T16:12:00.000-08:00

Alas this cannot be said for Superman III which was released in 1983.

It was understandable that after defeating Lex Luther twice the decision was taken to create a new villain but Robert Vaughan as Ross Webster somehow fails even my comic book villain standards to convince that he is anything other than Robert Vaughan. He is assisted in his dastardly schemes by his sister played by Annie Ross the Mitcham Jazz singer and his woman Ambrosia Webster played by Pamela Stephenson, having fun.

The plot primarily involves Richard Pryor as bank employee who goes on a computer course and finds he is a genius manipulating codes in the days of the green screen basic programming. He finds that by siphoning the half pennies/cents which are rounded in the system he can achieve a fortune ($82000) over the first month of operating the system. However this shows up in the books and it easy to work out the culprit as he appears in a flashy car. His boss Vaughan instead of punishing up employs me to take control of Coffee industry by manipulating the weather conditions.

Meanwhile Clark has returned to Smallville to dispose of the farm following the death of his mother and to attend he High School reunion where he meets his former teenage love, now married with a husband who turned as the stereotype self centre mid American male a drunken bully. On his way he has to put out a dangerous far at a chemical plant. They have a picnic where her son runs off and falls asleep in a field being harvested so Superman saves him thus cementing the rekindling of their original relationship which never got off the ground. Superman returns to his role as saviour of the world this time preventing bad weather destroying the coffee crop.

Vaughan now remembers the article written by Lois Lane in which she discloses that Superman cannot cope with the mineral Kryptonite which is another way in which his powers are neutralised. Vaughan persuades Prior to use his computer skills to devise synthetic Kryptonite which they trick Clark to touch. This does not have the same immediate effect as the real stuff but gradually changes his approach, slows him up and makes him selfish. He straightens the Leaning Tower of Pizza, blows out the Olympic Flame and spills the contents of an oil tanker into the sea.

Vaughan now hatches his latest plot which is to take control of the entire ocean going oil tankers and hold, them in a spot in the Atlantic Ocean. Superman goes from bad to worse become drunk and has a nervous breakdown. He splits into two characters one good and one bad and they engage in battle and eventually overcomes his evil persona and becomes his original self.

Meanwhile Pryor has persuaded him to build a super world controlling computer which becomes self aware and seeking a life of its own as la Hal in 2001. The machine starts to defend itself draining electricity for the national grid. The evil influencing sister is drawn into the machine and becomes a Star Trek Cyborg an turns on brother and his woman.

It is left to Superman to turn to the chemical plant for the substance which he prevented from exploding and poisoning the atmosphere. This is used to destroy the computer with the sister returning to normal and she and her brother are left to the authorities. He requires Pryor to work in a coalmine and he reunites with his former love.

Superman II

2011-12-05T15:21:00.000-08:00

The sequel to Superman the Movie was eagerly awaited and was released two years later as Superman II thus signalling the commencement of a series. There are in fact two version of the film. The original released produced which included 75% created by the Director of the first film Richard Donner with the latter by the replacement director Richard Lestor who did not use some of he original produced film. To and a half decades later Donner released a second version which reinstated the cut footage under the title Superman II the Richard Donner Cut and which also retained some of the Lester footage.

Despite the gap the original actors were all available. Superman foils a terrorist plot which results in hurtling a nuclear rocket far into space where it explodes just as the imprisoned Krypton trio are passing thus freeing them to explore the universe and they encounter an earth planetary expedition and learn of their communication with Houston. They decide that Houston sounds like a place to conquer finding that as they move towards earth their strength and powers increase. They land and quickly terrorise the plant as none of the earth’s weapons has any effect. The dastardly trio storm into the Whitehouse and force the President on behalf of the rest of the world to yield to General Zod with everyone asking where Superman is. A good question.

Clark Kent and Lois Lane are doing a feature on Niagara Falls as a rip off tourist trap staying at a revolting “romantic” hotel. Lois finally works out that Clark is Superman and to test her theory throws herself into waters of the Falls and although Clark is effective in staving her he does so as Clark attempting to retain his cover. Back in the hotel Clark accidentally falls into the fire and Lois seeing that he is unharmed is able to persuade Clark to admit the truth. He takes her to the Fortress of Solitude at the North Pole where in order to be able to have a normal adult relationship he loses his special powers without understanding what the implications will be. He quickly finds out what this means when encountering a bully at a diner. The couple then find out what has happened and Clark realises he has no alternative but to return to the Fortress alone to reverse back.

Meanwhile Zod and his two companions are curious about who this Superman is. Lex Luther meanwhile has escaped from the chain gang and makes his way to the Fortress of Solitude. I am not sure if it is explained how he works this out but he learns the secrets of the man’s background and goes off to deal with General Zod who is delighted to hear that Superman is in fact the son of the man who had him banished. The price of the deal is Australia!

Superman has returned to his roots for the green crystal to enable the reversing processing and meanwhile the deadly trio had gone to the Planet and kidnapped Lois. When Superman retreats to the Fortress he is followed by the trio led by Luther and with Lois their prisoner. Luther explains that if they put Superman into the chamber his powers will leave him not realising that Superman has prepared for this and reversed the position so that those outside the chamber lose their powers.

The dastardly trio are defeated and the world is saved. There is however one negative and somewhat sad consequence as he is wipes the mind of Lois so that she has no knowledge that Clark Kent is also Superman. Superman II lived up to the expectations back n in 1980. Alas this cannot be said for Superman III which was released in 1983.

Superman the Movie

2011-12-05T01:25:00.000-08:00

The World let, alone the UK could do with a reality Superman. The 1978 Superman -the Movie film, introduced the former comic book character to a new generation with its trademark prolonged title sequence using the latest graphics and Marlon Brando as his father and Susannah York in his mother on the doomed planet Krypton in the opening sequence in which the main plot of the follow up film was also heralded as the Council banished three traitors into space where it appears they were able to escape from their imprisonment after the Krypton explodes.

Before the explosion Brando and his screen wife said loving goodbye to their son before placing him in a space craft intentionally directed to earth because of similar human physical characteristics and an environment in which he could thrive and do good.

It was fortunate that he landed meteor like in the days before the entire earth air space could be monitored and he landed close a an agricultural middle America just at the point that the kindly childless dirt farmer couple of Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter who immediately take the child as their own and realising his superhuman powers, when he lifts their truck with one hand so the wheel can be changed, bring him up as normal as possible and keeping his strength secret.

At this point he has not learned to fly although when at High School he is thwarted in his normal interest in girls by a local yokel he runs faster than the a passing train to reach home before the rest of the carload pass by on the way to their respective homes at other farmstead. It is presumed that he has also hidden his knowledge and mental abilities his biological parents having provided the sum total of human and terrestrial knowledge over the journey which enabled him to grow from a baby into a young boy. Once source says three years later.

Following the death of his father he makes arrangements for his mother to be able to continue living at the farmstead and goes off to the artic with a green glowing crystal which creates a structure in which he can learn of his parental background via holographic images, develop his abilities and his destiny. This includes the trade mark costume and cape together with the ability to fly at speed across the planet, into space and back without the need for respiratory gear. He is also able to stand the most intense and fierce heat as well as hold or lift breathtaking loads.

Again from a source the period of his stay in the artic is twelve years after which for some unexplained reason he chooses to become a reporter on the Daily Planet the Metropolis (New York) newspaper on which he is immediately assigned to work with the ambitious Lois Lane(Margot Kidder) to regards him as a hack handed hack! Her first impression appears confirmed when the couple on leaving the office are accosted by a mugger with a gun who Lois takes on unaware that Clark (Superman) has saved her life by capturing a bullet in his hand.

Clark only commences to reveal his superhuman powers after a helicopter leaving the top of the building becomes entangle and crashes downwards from the skyscraper and this heralds the city and the world learning of this amazing individuals who prevents disasters and catches criminals while continuing to function as a not so good journalist.

Unlike batman and Robin who confront a series of villains Superman has only one adversary, the master genius intellectual criminal, Lex Luther played by Gene Hackman who lives in a super dwelling hidden beneath the subways and which primarily consists of huge luxury fitted library with an incompetent henchman and peroxide girlfriend played by Valerie Perrine. His first plan is to capture USA nuclear rockets and aim at the San Andreas fault tipping the Western seaboard into the ocean (people and buildings and all so that the large area of inland desert which he has acquired becomes the coast and the home of various new cities and towns making him a rich and powerful man. The plan is thwarted by superman who also prevents Lois being submerged as a dam breaks. Superman saves the Lois by spinning the earth back in time.

Before this event Superman has prevented Airforce One from crashing into a baseball stadium/may have been football and captured some bank robbers escaping by boat which he returns to the police station. Superman then delivers Luther and his male associate direct to a chain gang prison. His relationship as superman with Lois has developed when he takes her flying around the world from her penthouse with patio garden home where he alternates with Clark as her date for the evening.

Although the plot is full of holes the film has credibility because of the role of Christopher Reeve as Superman and the exceptional cast where in addition to Brando, Hackman and Ford there is Trevor Howard as the first Elder on Krypton and Terence Stamp as General Zod the banished leader of the plot by the trio of villains to take control of the Krypton before it explodes. The cinematic tricks including flying around the planet, stopping planes and trains and rockets were also firsts as the new era of science fiction got underway, before Star Wars, Batman, Spiderman and the rest. The film has been much written about as a consequence including reference to potential biblical themes with General Zod as the devil cast out from Paradise and Superman as Christ set down on earth to lead the way with his miracle working and selfless behaviour. However at the time it was great family entertaining ground breaking fun.

The Square

2011-11-18T07:16:00.000-08:00

The Square is an Australian film which was shelved by its author because he considered it not strong enough but was persuaded to make the film by his brother. He should have trusted his instincts.

Raymond Yale is a contractor working on the site of a new development who accepts substantial backhanders from sub contractors. He is having a passionate sexual affair with a young neighbour who is married to a criminal. He promises to leave his wife and set up home separately with the young woman as soon as he has amassed sufficient funds start a new life.
The young wife discovers that her husband has hidden the substantial proceeds of crime in the loft of their home. She devises a plan for the lover to set fire to the home after they have removed the money. Unfortunately a relative is in the home when the fire is started and dies so the couple have become murderers along with accomplices involved. There then follows a series of misadventure which descend into farce in which several people are killed. Finally there is confrontation between the criminal and his crime partner which appears to be settled when the crime partner is killed however as the lover wrestles with criminal over the possession of the weapon it goes off and shoots the young woman in the head killing her instantly. And the moral is.

Un Posto all’inferno, A place of Hell

2011-11-18T06:58:00.000-08:00

Just two to go with Un Posto all’inferno, A place of Hell, an Italian 1969 released film which has recently been successfully dubbed in English. Most dubbed films are awful as those undertaking the dubbing fail to understand the idiom of the original language with some excruiating results. It was only at the end of he film that I discovered it had been dubbed.. It is set on a small Pacific Island where the indigenous people are held captive by the Japanese during World War II. On the island is a British Officer who has been responsible for setting up the new radar system and which has now fallen intact into the hands of the enemy.

There is also a small group of American soldiers where the officer holds the rank as War Correspondent.

Typical for this kind of film in which the allies provide heroic sacrifices by wounded individuals who enable their companions to escape from advancing forces by holding their position for a time despite mammoth odds against them. They are assisted by heroic villagers and they are able to carry out major assaults such as the destruction of the radar system with minimum casualties compared to those of the enemy who also speak perfect English,

The final sequence of the film as a surreal quality as an indigenous young woman bravely explores each of the hut dwellings at the waters edge to ensure it is as deserted as it appears. Her search takes several minutes. However when the remaining soldiers reach the centre of the village and approach the small sea going patrol boat they find that they are surrounded but several dozen enemy troops who have buried themselves in fox holes and covered pits in the sand. They are all killed but even after this the remaining men are attacked by two sailors on the patrol boat so that in the end only two survive including the war correspondent who surveying the beach covered with bodies comments about the cost of war and its futility.

The Jack Hunter Trilogy

2011-11-18T05:46:00.000-08:00

This is good point to introduce a mini series of three separate but connected films under the banner heading of Jack Hunter with each film titled the Lost Treasure of Ugarit, The Quest for Akenaten’s Tomb and the Star of Heaven.

The main story is the search for two artefacts which combined become an extraordinary weapon in the form a nuclear laser which turns rock into molten lava. There are various interests in the search of the two artefacts. Jack is a treasure seeker who works for a National USA intelligence service which operates with dozens of operatives keeping watch via satellites on banks of computer screens and led by a comparatively young woman who has a love hate relationship with Jack. He has a history love and sexual adventures although it is not clear which affair is what.
In the first he teams up with a US educated Syrian Nadia who is only interested in preserving the ancient artefacts and preventing them in being misused when their potential power is understood. She is accompanied by a driver who is a stupid and nervous coward who is intended to provide comic interludes. He does have his moments which makes his usefulness worthwhile and at the end of the series Jack and Nadia are present at the airport when he goes to greet his long suffering and separated wife anticipating she is the small height challenged and large weight challenged person who appears to open her arms to him but is for another while his wife turns out to be a beautiful beauty queen type.

There is also someone with wealth and the ability to hire hundreds of Russian type young hoods and he employs a former associated and friend of Jack which leads to the friend not killing Jack when the opportunity arrives in each of the films, sometimes on more than one occasion. There are also corrupt officials who with the prospect of Treasure also become involved. The antiseptic death rate is ginormous but remains suitable for Saturday morning Children‘s cinema. The films are allegedly set in various historical sites around the Mille East and also in various cities including Paris and Istanbul.

In the end the one of the main villains kills the other and just when it looks as if he has been successful using the weapon to destroy just about everyone and everything in sight there is an eclipse which means that the weapon cannot draw on the required energy from the sun and Jack is able to part the weapon for the surviving villain who falls into magna river he has created. Moreover Nadia is able to get hold of the weapon and throws it into the Magna causing a nuclear type of explosion. There is not much else which needs to be said. In fact there is nothing else to be said.

The Doomsday Prophecy.

2011-11-18T04:44:00.000-08:00

Although I have number of films to record it cannot be described as a film fest.

I begin with an end of the world forecast film which combines the Mayan Calendar with the Planet X or Planet Niburu forecast resulting in the films 2012 which as will be recalled featured volcanic and earthquake eruptions as the earth alters its axis following major solar flares and leading to a second great flood with the creation of several great Ark Ships so that humanity survives, and Deep Impact where a seven mile comet impacts with earth.

The Mayan calendar is said to end on December 21st 2012 along with less precise forecasts of other ancient peoples where as the Planet X being on a long rotation around the sun due to come close to the earth in 2012 with damaging consequences is more the notion of a 20th century individual who believed they received messages from an mind implant (upon which a large part of the X files was based)

The film is called the Doomsday Prophecy and was part of a week long series of disaster movies on a free film channel on Sky, free in the sense that an additional payment is not required.

Two individuals receive summons to meet a recluse professor living in the outback. One is a specialist in investigating ancient artefacts including the famous Mayan statues on Easter Island. Why they were there and how were they created? The other works for a publishing company who sent to meet the recluse who has offered to give to the company the exclusive rights to publish his latest manuscript forecasting the future following the success of an earlier publication along the lines of Nostradamous which can be interpreted as forecasting events that have already occurred. He aks for the young man to be his contact. Why these two individual should have been selected to meet with reclusive professor is subsequently revealed.

When the two reluctant would be saviour of humanity meet they are suspicious and hostile pulling in opposite directions when they arrive at the home of the Professor and find him murdered The clue is a kind of ancient rod which enables the recipient to receive visions of the future. And as the two subsequently find the use has the effect of destroying the brain and therefore the body of the user as it reaches the point where the world is due to end unless certain action is taken. The Professor points the way for the two to solve the mystery adn save humanity.

Meanwhile there are two developments which add to the pressure upon the couple. The first is that a series of catastrophes occur of increasing magnitude which includes the destruction of central New York, the disappearance of the Italian peninsular and such like. They are also pursued by a special Presidential Task force who have been monitoring the Professor and those he has contacted. A leading general in national security instructs a agent commander on the ground that it is the national interest to kill the two chosen ones and retrieve the rod, although it is never explained about how the General got to know about the rod and its powers.

The chosen young man has used the rod twice, the first unintentionally when he picks it up out of curiosity on finding the body and then intentionally when he understands it potential significance. He realises that for some reason the authorities are enemies while the young woman wants to get into contact with them and reveal all. Eventually they are able to persuade the lead pursuer that they must carry out the mission although they remain unclear what it is. They are assisted by an elder of the local indigenous people and his daughter who form part of the second visions as does leader of the pursuers.

What emerges is that the world was in a similar peril thousands of years before and that the Mayan statues were part of a device by an other world civilization which creates a force field when the rod is inserted in one of the heads and which counters the force directed at the earth which is potential creating its end. The rogue General wants to be the one to hold and control the power but when he does so he finds that it does not work for him.

The reason is that young man is the son of the Professor adopted as an infant and has inherited the power although how the Professor came to have the rod and the power is never explained. In the spectacular finale they are able to raise a new set of Mayan type figures which emerge from the ground in the area known to exist by the indigenous elder. The earth is saved from complete destruction although it is a close call.

Interview with an Assassin

2011-11-18T03:12:00.000-08:00

I have previously mentioned before the other film which deals more directly with the day of the Assassination of President John F Kenney entitled Interview with an Assassin. The film is made in the style of the Blair Witch project with a hand held poor quality camera and sound work and as a ‘mocumentary’. I hated the Blair Witch as did the majority of the audience on a weekend evening because it was badly made and ineffective as a scare movie. The style of this film also results in a lack of credibility if one sets aside the boredom and persists in viewing. It could have been a much better if not great film because it deals with one of the great cover-ups of all time. The Assassination of JFK and the cover up by the Warren Commission. It is unlikely that the US government will ever come clean that there was more than one shooter and that the bullet which causes the fatality came from what is known as The Grassy Knoll on the other side of a roundabout and where the shot was most likely fired from behind and above the fencing.

The film concerns an out of work camera man Ron Kobeleski who is contacted by a neighbour and retired marine Walter Ohlinger who prefers to be called Barry. Barry alleges that he is dying of cancer and wants to confess a secret which he has kept for forty years. He says he was the gunman that fired the fatal bullet and he shows Ron the bullet casing which he kept after it was fired before making his escape. He persuades Ron to take it to a specialist laboratory who are able to confirm that it is similar to the weapon used to kill the President but it would be necessary to compare with casing with the bullet to confirm it was the precise weapon. For some reason Ron leaves the casing at the laboratory which later disappears.

Given the significance of such a story if it was true Ron does not go immediately to the authorities and goes along with Barry’s assertion that to do so would endanger both lives and the family of the camera man. They go on a tour of the area and to find others who were involved in the conspiracy and still alive. Barry’s ex wife says her husband is a lunatic and a fraud while others appear to add credence to what the man says. However there are two twists as the film ends. Ron finds himself involved as Barry cleverly gets himself into a position where he attempts to assassinate the present day President. Barry says he just wanted to prove that he could do it to confirm his story about the killing of JFK. The second twist is that Barry then attempts to kill Ron who manages to wound Barry.

The film ends with a policeman saying to the incarcerated Ron awaiting trial that he could help his case by revealing the location of the tapes and the account of what was said to have happened re JFK and their subsequent research. Ron says that would end his life and that of his family. Ron is therefore telling the tale to us after his release from prison and it is mentioned that Barry died in prison not from cancer but mysteriously and allegedly by other prisoners. The film attracted interest in Texas and was made with a budget of just $1 million. It showed.

Both films are about how characters whose live are significantly changed from the interaction with strangers, one for the better and one for the worse.

Love Field

2011-11-18T02:30:00.000-08:00

There is more weight to Love Field a 1992 released USA independent film with Michelle Pfeiffer and Dennis Haysbert who are two individuals with spectacularly different reasons for taking a Greyhound bus from Dallas heading for connections to Washington DC. Michelle plays a housewife beautician, suffering the loss of a pregnancy and married to a stereotype male more interested in beer, watching games on TV, having his wife cook and tend to his needs on demand. He does not share her enthusiasm for JFK as the only politicians she ever voted for and adores his wife with scrapbooks filled with pictures and articles.

She takes time off to help a neighbour who is wheelchair bound to go to Love Field, the name of the airport, to see the President and his wife arrive. Because of Traffic problems they arrive just as the plane lands and a security man/policeman enables them to stand at the barrier with a good chance of shaking the hand of Jacqueline as she walks their side of the line. Unfortunately the woman she accompanies has dropped her purse (handbag) and while she is retrieving this the President’s wife shakes the hand of her companion and she misses close contact.

Later she arrives at the hairdressers/beauticians and notices crowds outside a TV shop window and they learn the news of the assassination. She is devastated and decides she must attend the funeral and makes plans to attend the funeral when it is known where it will take place. He husband refuses to take time off so he can drive her despite the incentive of staying at the same motel they used on their honeymoon so she goes off without his knowledge taking the Greyhound.

She sits at the back just in front of the seats used by “the coloureds” with Haysbert in what one critic described as a Sydney Poitier standard role but as with Pfeiffer both actors quickly transcend the stereotype characters that have been created for them. She is talks without thinking at great speed, jumping to conclusions and judgements emotionally on impulse without rational basis echoing the prejudices of upbringing and lack of education. She is a typical while working class American of that era.

Haysbert plays a father who was not ready to marry the mother of their daughter when the pregnancy was determined. When the mother died the child appears to have been cared for by the maternal family or foster parents who mistreated her physically so that she flinches when anyone goes to touch. Ffeiffer discovers this when the toilet for ‘the coloureds’ is closed and she take the child into the ‘whites only’ and discovers bruising. She accurately assumes that the child is being kidnapped and the man is the perpetrator and contacts the police giving her particulars. She breaks off and quickly learns that that the story that the father had undertaken his national service and on learning of the death of the mother had gone to find the child and immediately discovered the ill treatment. He was able to show pictures of the girl as a baby with her mother and himself to confirm the story and that because he was not the legal father he taken the child without going through the legal process to immediately protected. The days before DNA!

The coach is then forced off the road to avoid an accident and they are taken to the nearest Bus and Coach station to await a relief vehicle. Because from his rear seat he had noted a drunken driver trying to overtake he is required to give evidence and the local police become concerned as an officer has gone to the address of the Ffeiffer and alerted the husband to where she was and the possible destination. They decide to jump the bus leaving her case on the vehicle but he has his own and the child’s clothing with them.

They steal a clapped out car that only does 40 MPH but they get this fixed along the way but eventually it breaks down and they have to overcome an attack on him by three white men while she is away trying to get help and the girl hiding in the car. Fortunately she has a distant relative in the area and they are taken in while he recovers. The woman cooperates with keeping silent when the local sheriff calls to enquire among all the isolated properties in the area because they are on the look out for the threesome after it has been established that the man was involving in the kidnapping of the children and was being helped by the white woman.

This relative contacts the husband who comes to take his wife home but she refuses and it is evident this marks the end of the marriage. There is to be no happy ending though as such because the couple recognise the inevitable when attempting to get to the Presidential funeral at Arlington. He is given a custodial sentence but in the Washington area when Ffeiffer also settles and keeps in contact with the girl. The final scene is his release. Ffeiffer is divorced but managing on her own with the road trip having enabled her to stand on her two feet, grow up and understand more of the reality of the society and the prejudice that existed and continues to do so. Her performance led to a nomination for an Academy Award for an actor in leading female role.

London Boulevard

2011-11-17T11:50:00.001-08:00

London Boulevard is described as a 2010 British Film noir. Perhaps it is, but for me it is another violence exploitation movie in the genre of Lock Stock and Two Barrels which appeals to the weekend lads and lasses. Colin Farrell plays a contemporary East End criminal released from prison who wants to go straight, or at least not return for any more porridge and evening pint mugs of cocoa. He is collected by a former friend and associate Billy who says he can stay at his flat which is decidedly up market because it has been provided by the man he now works for the notorious Rob Gant played by the ubiquitous crime boss Ray Winston.

At first Farrell as Mitchell (any connection with the Mitchell’s of the Old Vic is coincidental) resists the offers from Winston and investigates the offer of a security guard to Keira Knightly who is well suited for playing Charlotte your today’s flat chested stick actress model and creative artist who cannot go anywhere with anyone because of the paparazzi who have somehow persuaded the owners of a neighbouring building to allow them to camp out on the roof so there is are only a couple of spots in the garden of the West London house where she resides and shares with Davis Thewlia who plays an disturbed business manager.

The absurdity of this aspect of the plot but one of several similar aspects of film which is all about slick appearance over substance. In reality she would have vacated the premises long ago to something offering greater internal security or have taken appropriate injunctions. The idea of someone like Jordan being such a successful business manager is also pure fantasy. She also has a grand county house in need of renovation but again without adequate securing fencing and screening.

What Mitchell is not aware when he arrives is that she is suffering after a date rape in Rome when the perpetrator another fashionista film producer I think, is dealt with by the businesses manager although I not sure if he was murdered or severely harmed. There are two attractions to the job. The first it has accommodation and the second is that he is a stupid man as well as a criminal and takes a shine to the lady of the house because she is fascinated by his ruthless hard man criminality. He is a dangerous thug no different from the crime boss who recognises this and offers to take him under his wing.

Winston is no nonsense crime thug who likes to order scampi and chips with beer at posh nosh restaurants and uses his money and reputation to bully everyone into submission. Farrell turns to him for help when a tramp he knows, although it is not explained why he would ever take an interest in the tramp, is murdered by two young Turks from a local estate one of whom is a professional footballer which I suspect is supposed to surprise teenage viewers.

In the event Winston’s henchman picks up the wrong man but this does not the boy being tortured and killed. The film also features a corrupt policeman Detective Inspector Bailey played by Eddie Marsden. So how does it all end well DI Bailey gets ambitious and is murdered by Thewlis as Jordan. Farrell and he take the body to the water system at the country house so the body will enter the adjacent lake/river. He also murders Winstone in a shoot out where he knocks out Winstone’s whore and so that it looks as if she had killed the security guard who is made to look as if he has killed Marsden or vice versa.

Farrell is then knifed to death by the footballer he is trying to find while fortunately for her Keira as Charlotte is able to show she had nothing to do with any of this by being on a plane to the USA for an engagement there. And the moral is? Criminals are no different from crooked police and overpaid footballers and fashionista personalities together with red top papers paying the paparazzi. They are all scum bags who meet early bloody deaths. While the former may be true that latter is sadly not.

Snake Eyes

2011-11-14T13:03:00.000-08:00

Snake Eyes is a 1998 released film featuring Nicholas Cage in a bravura performance as a dodgy detective who knows everybody who is anybody in contemporary Atlantic City which he regards as his manor. He attends a major Boxing event intended to help rebuild the image of the City at which also present is the United Sates Defence Secretary on his was back from attending a demonstration of a new missile Defence system which the Department is considering buying from a private company. Cage is accompanied by going back best friend who is the chief of staff and security officer for the Secretary.

Cage has gambled out of his depths on the Champ beating his opponent and is shocked when the champion appears to take a dive although this is only apparent later from video tapes. Before this his attention is directed at a sexually attractive red headed young woman who takes a ringside seat. Another young woman takes the vacated seat of the chief of staff who has moved to talk to the young woman and who had then moved away up a stairway as he approached. This young woman is shot wounded as the Secretary of State is also shot and killed.

The chief of staff shoots the assassin who is located at the top of the steps where he was following the red headed woman as she left. The State police attempt to take charge but Cage exerts his authority until Federal Government agents arrive. There is lock down at the stadium while the identities of everyone are checked out and to establish witnesses to the event. Cage watches available video and works out the champ has dived and confronts him, gaining the admission that he was blackmailed because of gambling debts to take the dive at a signal from a man in the crowd.

He also works out that the young woman who sat in front of the Defence Secretary is connected although the initial reaction from the information about the killed assassin is that he was a Palestine Terrorist. The young woman behaves suspiciously in covering a wound to her arm and talking her way into the hotel room of a gambler at the adjacent Casino to the fight Hall with a view to hiding out.

Cage goes in pursuit using closed circuit TV to track her movements. By this time we also know that his friend is a villain and involved in the killing of the Defence Secretary and attempted killing of the young woman. He has a small team with him who included the red headed woman who was wearing a wig and is an official member of staff. He has killed he three members of his support team and is also in pursuit of the young woman.

What emerges is that the young woman is a research worker at the company and discovered that the evidence of the missile system working was fixed to give the impression that the targets at the demonstration were hit when they were not. The company wanted the contract to go through which they had bribed the Chief of staff and hoped they would be able to fix the faults before the required delivery dates.

The young woman had attempted to contact the Defence Secretary and arranged to meet him at the Boxing match to pass on the evidence of the conspiracy. The style of the film is that of the caper the Tourist although there are several more dramatic moments including when Cage has to wrestle with the accusation that his best friend is behind the killing. There are also moments of farce. Their respective lives are saved and the friend killed.

Cage is immediate recognised as a hero and his ambition to become the Mayor of Atlantic City becomes possible. However the press who have been investigating his activities produce evidence that leads to his arrest for corruption. His wife abandons him and he loses custody of their son. He is also abandoned by his mistress. On the day before he is due to commence a prison sentence he meets the young woman whose life he saved and who thanks him for his involvement as his actions prevented the fraud being perpetrated and which could have resulted in the loss of soldiers’ lives. Despite the difference in ages she says she will wait for him after they kiss.

Throughout the film there is a sexually attractive women involved in a way I cannot now remember. As the final credits roll we see a construction team placing a large column into a hole and the sight of large ruby which the woman had been seen wearing, What the implications of this is in terns of the Mafia tradition of burning in concrete as well as among the fishes is uncertain except for the reputation of Atlantic City being a Mafia style gangland run City from the days of Prohibition, Nucky Thompson and the Boardwalk Empire.

Mozambique

2011-11-14T09:15:00.000-08:00

A similar kind of caper although one which was more inclined to take itself seriously is Mozambique a 1965 British Drama. As with the Tourist the aspect of the film which engages is the location shooting at the Victoria Falls and in Portugal who then managed the African country as a colony. It has to be said there is no rational justification for any of the action centring on the falls as the main action appears to centre on the Capital city which is in the far south of the country and smuggling to the island of Zanzibar which is off the coast of a neighbouring country to the far north. It is possible that the location of the hotel and the nightclub featured in the film was not in the capital city although it is unlikely there were two International airports in the country at that time.

The film is the story of an out of work pilot in Portugal since the aircraft he was flying crashed killing his passengers and where he was the only survivor. He is offered a job in Mozambique provided with a one way ticket and not told what his duties will be. Also on the same plane is a young and attractive singer also out of a job who has been offered a contract to sing at a night club again with only a one way ticket. Both are clearly desperate to have accepted the offer on this basis.

Prior to their departure a man is seen travelling down some steps and then is found murdered at the same time a number of children are also passing down the same steps. There is an important clue here which will escape most viewers unless they have some advanced insight into the story.

I cannot remember now why the pilot comes to the attention of the Portuguese authorities and in particular one police inspector but he does and it emerges that his interest is in the activities of the man who has hired the pilot and similar to the Tourist the interest is as much in the location of the ill gotten funds in a numbered account which it emerges the murdered man on the steps was carrying information in the attaché case.

In Mozambique where the main action takes places the pilot is surprised, rather than shocked, to find that his employer has died and that his widow, played by Hildegard Knef appears under the control of the mans chief assistant who in turn taken control of the nightclub and is assisted by a at least one heavy as well as other security personal.

There are various scenes at the night club which appears an extraordinary odd place filled with unhappy looking people who spend their time listening to acts or sitting in silence. We are treated to an African dance troupe and to various boring singers even by the standards of the day. This includes the new recruit although the contribution by Knef later in the film is worth attention and only underlines the gulf between her voice, the song and performance and that of everyone she followed.

Having said this about the club it is also used as a brothel where the singers are expected to sleep with customers under management arrangements. There is an Arab racketeer based in Zanzibar but with a penthouse in Park Lane who engages in white slaving kidnapping and rape. The new singer is duly kidnapped and carried off to Zanzibar after she has established a sexual relationship with the pilot who she turns to for protection.

He finds that his task is to fly a light plane involved in trafficking pharmaceutical products and as well as illegal drug substances. This leads him to accompanying the new boss to Zanzibar where he is able to rescue the singer and the three return to the private airfield used for the enterprise. However before arrival they have to take the plane down on a beach because of a clogged fuel line and after fixing decide to take a break at a beach spot for some distance away from where the lane has landed. When the couple return they find the new boss stabbed. They bring the body back with the plane only to find the police waiting and wanting to check for drugs. The two are taken into custody on suspicion for murder.

The senior police office from Portugal has arrived in order to pass to the widow the missing brief case which was subsequently found. It is at this point I cannot remember aspects of the plot which involves another character who the pilot has followed one night from the night club to a first floor apartment. The individual prevents the pilot from entering the apartment on the grounds he has a woman for the bar also in the building living there. Later the pilot discovers that living in the apartment is a man who these days we will describe as a height challenged individual, known in the day as a dwarf. He had been employed to kill the agent with the brief case in Portugal and has merged in with the other children who with amazing coincidence had gone down the steps at the same time. He had also hidden in the plane undetected on the journey to Zanzibar and having doctored the engine intended to kill the new head of the enterprise.

This individual was acting for the widow who he now double crosses and takes off on road on his way over the border via the crossing at the Victoria Falls stopping off at the Victoria Falls hotel for breakfast and room to freshen up. The Portuguese police man accompanies the pilot in a borrowed plane in pursuit of the car and sets down at the nearest airport not without great views of the Falls beforehand. The adventure appears to end at a bridge at the Falls from which there is a fight with the death of the villain. On return to the capital the widow is arrested as the instigator of the deaths in order to gain control of the funds of her husband. The pilot and the singer are able to go off into the sunset as a couple.

The Tourist

2011-11-14T02:14:00.000-08:00

I begin the with latest film experience because it was shot primarily in Venice and also in Paris, and never intended to take itself serious, The Tourist 2010 with Angelina Jolie and John Depp and Timothy Dalton was enjoyable late night fun which did not require intense mental or emotional attention..

Alexander Pearce worked as an accountant for an international criminal, an Englishman surrounding himself with Russian Hoods. Alexander steals $2.3 million dollars from his employer and then goes on the run during which time he is pursued by the beautiful Angelina as Elise, an undercover international spy working for the British and in particular Paul Bettany as Inspector John Acheson who is pursing Pearce not as thief or the accountant for an International crime boss, but for unpaid taxes amounting to £744 million. Some £8 million has been devoted to the task to-date.

Elise has one flaw as an undercover spy she falls in love with her honey pot victims and has taken up residence with Pearce reputedly for the greater part of a year. She is consequentially suspended from her job. Pearce then changes his face spending $20 million to achieve his new look during which time he has no direct contact with his bed partner who lives the life without him in Paris spending her say relaxing in pavements cafés and expensive shopping and living the life of rich widow waiting to hear from her partner after his facial transformation.

During this unspecified period she is kept under surveillance by British agents with the help of the French Police although Jolie is all too well aware of their presence. One day at the café a messenger brings her a brief note inside a larger delivery package. The observation squad apprehend the delivery man believing he is Pearce only to find he is who is he is. Elise burns the note as instructed but the ashes are recovered, chemically treated and scanned into a computer programme which reassembles the fragment into the message. Meanwhile she has enjoyed giving those watching her temporary slip which she takes the train from Paris to Venice and attempt to find one person of the same height and build who is sitting alone in a compartment.

She assumes this is to be Pearce but the man quickly disabuses her by stating that he is a bachelor school master from the USA, with an American accent (played by Johnny Depp) on his way as a Tourist to Venice. She assumes or off camera is advised that he is a blind, a patsy, someone who will be taken to be Pearce by the British authorities and the Russian style international hood and followed by Interpol and the pursing former employer after his money. She may have been advised of this in a subsequent note which is not shared with the viewer. She takes him to a pre booked for her expensive suite in a hotel overlooking the Grand Canal which is full of her size designer wear and requires that he sleep on one of the sofas although gives him at kiss at the window for the purpose of making observers believe it is Pearce.

They have a meal in the dining room during which flowers are delivered to the suite and a new message with an invitation for Elise to attend a Ball. We also witness the owner of $2.3 billion ordering his hoods to find Pearce alive but the girl can be killed once Pearce has been secured. The Tourist with the name of Frank Tupelo wakes to find breakfast is being delivered and he still in his night attire when the hoods arrives and start shooting through doors so he has go onto the balcony and get onto the roof and is eventual forced to dive down on to a canopy and then onto a policeman who falls into a canal. He is held by the police several hours after explaining to a senior detective his nightmare of what has happened.

The detective then attempts to sell him to the Russian style hoods but he manages to escape still in hand cuffs and in he canal cruiser in which he has been brought to the meeting place, but before he is handed over his boat is towed away by one driven by Elise. Then is then a low powered chase through the canals because of the enforces speed limit by the Venetian authorities to avoid further damage to the buildings. The couple eventually get away and this costs the surviving Russian hood his life, personally killed by the International criminal in front of a tailor preparing a new suit .

Next Elsie attends the local police/Interpol centre where it is revealed for the first time that she is a suspended British agent because of her relationship with Pearce. True to previous experience she had grown fond of the self effacing American Tourist and she agrees to be wired for the Ball or locating Pearce. She then takes the Tourist to the canal side airport station with his passport and money telling him to return home and forget what happened.

At the Ball she believes someone who has left a new note for her is Pearce but he disappears. Frank the American Tourist gains entry into the Ball and dances with her she disappears while Frank is apprehended by the British out to recover more than the £8 million they have spent to-date trying to secure the £744 in unpaid taxes. The girl makes her away to the rendezvous which because of the wire is also known to the Interpol group who establish surveillance with marksmen covering the windows.

Here Elsie is trapped and threatened with Torture and death by the Englishman and two new Russian Hoods. She reveals the location of the safe but her first try at opening is a false one. Frank who has been watching the event on camera and handcuffed again becomes more and more agitated as the Inspector refuses to give the order to fire on the captors to save the life of Elise because he hopes that the situation will force Pearce to reveal himself.

There should be few viewers by this time who have not worked out that Frank is really Pearce and this is confirmed when he undoes the handcuffs and gets away from the surveillance centre and appears in the apartment introducing himself as Pearce and offering to open the safe if Elise is allowed to depart. She is not so when he goes to the safe the order is given to shoot the criminal and his bodyguards. The boss of the Inspector is present and he lifts the suspension on Elise and immediately discharges her from the service so she can go off with the Tourist. Then the news comes that the man who had left the note at the Ball has been spotted and the unit goes off to apprehend him believing he is Pearce. He turns out to be a genuine American Tourist paid by Pearce to deliver message and be at different places as indicated by mobile phone message having received a significant payment with a promises of more.

Pearce when confronted by his former boss has already explained the extent of the facial reconstruction including an implant to change the sound of his voice and produce the American accent.

Alone with Jolie he opens the safe to reveal passport cash and other goodies, presumable the codes and information on the location of the main funds. The Inspector and his boss arrive back and are forced to blow open the safe where a single cheque is found for the full amount of the back taxes, The Inspector is wanting to mount a new manhunt for Pearce but his boss is philosophical drawing attention that the real villains are dead, that they have recovered the full amount of the taxes and he wishes he couple well who are seen setting of for a new life together and presumably with the balance remaining on the ill gotten gains.

The outstanding question is did Jolie really not realise that the Tourist was not Pearce. Ok he had dramatic facial and voice reconstruction but his manner and general personality will not have changed.