Just a quick round up of some films watched since last blog with marks out of ten too!
The Fly (1958)
Still miles better than the 1986 Jeff Goldblum ‘remake’ which tried to be far too clever for it’s own good, the 1958 original is good old fashioned late 50s Sci Fi / Horror fun. Vincent Price is the (very camp) good guy, although of course he makes a far superior (very camp) bad guy – he would have been better cast as the ambitious but unfortunate scientist who ends up with the arm and head of a fly after a mix up in his transportation device. The movie is well over half way through before anything remotely ‘scary’ happens, but the build up is still entertaining and it’s a great looking film, in glorious, totally unreal technicolor. Famous for the multi faceted ‘fly’s eye view’ of his screaming wife, and the “help me!” scene at the end (which apparently had to be shot umpteen times because Price couldn’t stop pissing himself laughing), this is a thoroughly enjoyable Sunday afternoon lazy movie. (6/10)
The Third Man (1949)
Ahem - A 'British Classic' nonetheless.I attempted The Third Man one night years ago after a hefty session at the pub, but was comatose half way through (a result of the quantity of the beer not the quality of the movie) It was also shown on at 23.45 on the night of Saturday 21st May 1994, which just happened to also be the date and time my beloved eldest was born - good enough reason for missing it then too. Beer and Babies eh? So this was the first time I've actually sat and watched it all the way through.
It’s an excellent take on the end of WWII from a different perspective (in this case occupied Austria) filled with strange, idiosyncratic characters and off kilter, dreamlike scenarios. Although it’s no great shock that the ruthless but charming Harry Lime (Orson Welles) is not dead after all, the revelations about the horrendous consequences of Lime’s racketeering (and his famous speech about the ‘little dots below’ during the scene on the big wheel) are stirring stuff. There is enough suspense, mystery, dirty dealing and danger to make this a great story in its own right, let alone the top-notch moody atmospherics and a terrific performance by the entire cast. (9/10)
District 9 (2009)
Bang up to date with this one, for a change. A Peter ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Jackson production, and closer in some ways to his earlier projects (low budget ‘splatter’ movies such as ‘Braindead’ and ‘Bad Taste’)
A tale of a race of aliens who (almost) crash landed on Earth in the 1980s and for twenty years have been given asylum by being allowed to ‘live’ in a shanty town in Johanesburg. Much of the film (especially the first half) comprises mock documentary, news reports and ‘fly on the wall’ style filming, as the tale of Wikus (the central character and to some extent the ultimate hero of the story, a bureaucratic nonentity at first who, like everyone else, demeans and exploits the alien race – known as ‘The Prawn’ – but soon learns to empathise with them after he – in a nutshell - starts to turn into a ‘Prawn’ himself, following contact with a liquid the aliens are secretly developing) unfolds.
This is an entertaining and highly original Sci Fi action movie (the South Africa setting itself is out of the ordinary - no Bruce Willis here to kick butt, or Morgan Freeman as the President) and if you approach it expecting no more, then you should enjoy it for the hokum it is. The references to social issues (many of them particularly close to home in South Africa) for example apartheid, exploitation of the poor by shadowy corporations and the racketeering, gun running and gang culture of the impoverished townships are thinly veiled, but then a good action movie was never supposed to be too thought provoking. (7/10)
Just a few movie reviews today, but there is of course
More to follow
Col
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