Movie review - "My First Wife" (1984) ***1/2

 There's a genre of films called "here is my penis" movies made by auteurs who stand naked in from the camera going "here is my penis". This is one of them. That's not to say the films aren't good - this is very good, exquisitely acted, done with honesty, it's just Paul Cox standing nude in front of the camera. John Hargreaves even has a Cox style beard.

He goes balls to the wall as does Hughes. The behavious is unsettling - Hargreaves is self centered, violent, sulky, a lousy husband and father. It's no mystery why Hughes cheats on him and leaves him.

The lack of concern by the police when Hargreaves abducts his daughter is all too believable as is Hargreaves' focus on Hughes' infidelity rather than her problems.

Hughes goes naked as she seemed to be legally required to do so. But it's a very good performance even though Hargreaves is the one who carries on.

I'd be inclined to go with four stars but the dude really should have had more of a comeuppance.

Movie review - "All Creatures Great and Small" (1975) ***1/2

 Completely charming dramatisation of the books which ha been overlooked by the success of the TV show. The stories suit television better, really, but it has been done with taste and affection - and it has a "spine" in the romance between Simon Ward and Lisa Harrow (even though there's some weird editing... we don't see them kiss, they date, then he proposes to her father then they get married then we see them kiss over the credits).

Anthony Hopkins is wonderful as Siegfried. Simon Ward isn't much as Herriot - you can see why he didn't become a star, in this and Ace's High. Lisa Harrow is charming.

Production design a delight. Some sure fire scenes like Ward telling a crusty old farmer he needs to put his dog down, and some shifty Yorkshire farmers. Ward's character is very keen to recommend euthenasia!

Movie review - "Exile" (1994) ***

 Liked this more than I thought I would. Slow, but gorgeously shot, great locations. Aden Young in exile, Beth Champion visits, Claudia Karvan is his ex. Prob needed more of a bang - role of Karvans's guy was mis used and Karvan is missed in the last thirty minutes. But i liked it.

Movie review - "Kostas" (1979) ***

 Early Paul Cox film benefits from simplicity - a romance between a Greek immigrant cab driver (Takis Emmanuel) and an Anglo (Wendy Hughes). It helps that Emmanuel and Hughes can carry the screen - Hughes is so gorgeous and Emmanuel a solid performer.

His character's backstory is interesting, as we see him being beaten up by Greece for his politics (he was a journalist). So the film has an edge.

Appearances from what would be Cox's stock company - Norman Kaye (a BBC expat), Chris Haywood (annoying man at dinner party), Graeme Blundell. Kris McQuade is in it too.

A bit rough but I liked it. Cox doesn't over-reach, the Greek milieu is well depicted, he knows what he's making a movie about.

Movie review - "Baxter!" (1973) **

 Lionel Jeffries second feature wasn't released until after this third, I think because EMI weren't that into it, and to be honest I don't blame them. Maybe I saw this in a bad mood but I didn't care about the kid, his speech impediment didn't seem so bad, the mother felt like a caricatured bitch that it was easy to dump everything on, it was odd this American was in England, this random couple befriends them (Jean Pierre Cassel and Britt Ekland) and sing show tunes, dad pops in to be an arsehole, kid seems to have a breakdown.

Maybe it needs another viewing.

Movie review - "Take Me High" (1973) **

 Cliff Richard's last proper movie, it came and went fairly quickly, but it could have worked. I think it was just too cheap.

He plays a merchant banker dude who wants to go to New York but is sent to Birmingham to close some deal. He fals in love with a local girl and a local restaurant.

It's a musical - Richard sings some songs on screen - but also at times it isn't, the songs play on the soundtrack. There's a weird number where he and Anthony Andrews are in a car and a duet between them plays on the soundtrack and they are clearly thinking the song but not singing it. That happens a few times. Lik when Deborah Watling visits him on the boat and he thinks the song, doesn't sing it - why not have him sing it? Was this an artistic decision or to save money?

Deborah Watling is fine I guess. George Cole is terrific as is Hugh Griffith.

I don't mean to be rude but Birmingham isn't that visually pretty. This really needed to be set in say Scotland or Ireland or Brighton or somewhere there were prettier pictures.

I did really like Cliff staying in a funky boat on the canal, that was cool. And the street march.

Not well directed. Works as an ad for a hamburger. Needlessly confusing plot.

Movie review - "Made" (1972) **1/2

 Kind of like imitation Ken Loach - producer Joseph Janni and star Carol White had previously made Poor Cow with Loach, which made money for Nat Cohen so he backed this. The director John Mackenzie had worked on Loach TV plays and the script is down beat - working class heroine who has a rough life, mum with MS who dies, a kid who is killed when knocked over by soccer hooligans, men let her down. There's an immigrant who love bombs her, a priest who seems a little keen on her, and a rocks star who uses her and exploits her trauma as a song.

The casting isn't quite right. Carol White seems disinterested - bored, not engaged. Roy Harper was a rock star (if not a famous one) so at least is believable as that. Castle doens't feel quite right as a the priest.

It's interesting - Howard Barker wrote it from a play based on John Lennon ripping off Eleanor Rigby. There are different views as to what makes life worth living - religion versus pop music. 

The film doesn't get there but I love its ambition. White's character is very passive. (Like, why not have her there when the baby dies? Early 1970s films had a lot of dead baby's - Portnoy's Complaint, Cinderella Liberty).

Book review - "Zeppo the Reluctant Marx Brother" by Robert Bader

 Fascinating, exhaustively researched biography of a famous punch line name. Zeppo didn't want to be in the group but was forced after Gummo (who also didn't want to be in it) left to join the army. A straight man who was not hot enough to be a romantic lead (or a strong enough singer) he kind of hang around though his presence is part of the film's fun.

He was very smart, ruthless, hung out with gangsters his whole life, was a successful gambler, great card player, could charm, ran a successful agency (Barbara Stanwyck was a client and good friend of his wife), then bizarrely a successful factory plant in World War Two, and made profits from Safeway. Always had plenty of money but was skilled at stashing it so sometimes Groucho thought he was poor. Compulsive womaniser, he would occasionally beat women. His wife adopted two children and he was a terrible father (basically shipped them off and ignored them). He was also step dad to his second wife's kid and wasn't that great with him. Cuckoled by Frank Sinatra.

A genuinely unpleasant person. Fascinating book.

Movie review - "Some Will Some Won't" (1970) ** (warning spoilers)

 I'm confused why they did this. Was Laughter in Paradise such a big hit? Or did Nat Cohen just have the rights and want to make a cheap Peter Rogers style comedy?

Cast includes names like Ronnie Corbett, Leslie Phillips, Michael Hordern.

Talented actors. It was as if they went "well we'll 'cast' our way out of this."

Not terrible. Just feels pointless. Especially the end where ha ha there's no money ha ha.

Opening shot as a crazy white haired man climbing a clock tower in a storm and seems like it's from Back to the Future. That's novel.

Oh and nice for Corbett to get a lead role. I think he could've been a movie star in the right vehicle.

Movie review - "Lust and Revenge" (1996) ***

 Paul Cox goes back to the Man of Flowers well only instead of Alyson Best posing nude it's Nicholas Hope (which is maybe why he film didn't do as well, sorry Nicholas) and instead of cultured Norman Kaye watching he's a model for a sculptor (Victoria Eagger who was Chris Haywood's lover in Flowers) who is gay. She's working for Claudia Karvan the nepo daughter of pharmaceutical dude Chris Haywood (very funny) who is doing it for a tax deduction. Gosia Dobrowlska is Hope's wife and is into a new age guru Norman Kaye.

Some nice comedy courtesy of John Clarke, with easy yet funny jabs at the art world. Lovely odd touches like Wendy Hughes in drag and John Hargreaves as a sleeze in a gallery. Karvan is very sexy and disrobes as does Dobrowlska. The plot were basically women are made horny by being roofied (Karvan, Dobrowlska, Haywood's secretary) hasn't aged well.

I didn't like this as much as I once did back in the 90s but it has charm and a lovely musical score.

Movie review - "The Body" (1970) ***1/2

 Hypnotic. Beautiful music. Trippy but also social realism. Some social commentary. Two people actually having sex. There's a birth in there too.

No narrative. Tony Garnett produced. Roy Battersby directed. The lack of narrative does tell after a while.

David Lynch - top ten people he launched as stars

David Lynch had very successful track record as the launcher or relauncher of "semi stars" i.e. people not quite A-list but who had really really good careers after breakthrough performances in Lynch films. Here's a top ten:
1) Kyle McLachlan - plucked from nowhere to be in Dune, then saved from blacklash obscurity via Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks
2) Isabella Rossellini - had been the "girl" in White Nights and of course had famous mum but Blue Velvet made her an icon
3) Laura Dern - had a Lynch double whammy with Blue Velvet then Wild at Heart which made people look at her in, ahem, a different way
4) Dennis Hopper - am trying to remember this right but from memory Hopper was considered toxic goods in the early 80s but then in the mid 80s, I think 1986 to be specific, he became Mr Hollywood via a part in Blue Velvet as well as Hoosiers and then also directing Colors - it was a big comeback and of course Blue Velvet made him a go to villain for the next fifteen years or so which kept him in oil paintings  and health treatments
5) Lara Flynn Boyle - in the 90s she was on a magazine cover every second week it seemed (weight battles, dating Jack Nicholson, being in The Practice) but she was launched in Twin Peaks
6) Madchen Amick - okay yes she kind of never hit the hugest heights but for a section of us she will always be a star  (see also James Marshall, Lara Flynn Boyle, Sheryl Lee, Sherilyn Ann Fenn, Michael Ontkean, Joan Chen, Kyle McLachlan - there was much discussion on Tuesday night viewings of Twin Peaks about who your favourite eye candy was, there was a lot on display)
7)  Naomi Watts - seemed to be around forever (I remember her arc on Homers where she played a girl in a wheelchair who fell for Dieter Brummer’s brother) - then got Mulholland and it all changed
8) Robert Blake - acted since he was a child - became a TV star... then got Lost Highway which opened him up to a whole legion of fans and he might’ve had a Hopper like renaissance but then he, uh... shot his wife...
9) Sherilyn Ann Fenn - look, technically Two Moon Junction made her a star but Twin Peaks turned her into a 90s It girl, dating Johnny Depp and the rest... she never quite became what she could have but look back on her performances and they were actually legit terrific
10) Chris Isaak - cheating a little but not really, Lynch was an early supporter of Isaak, put his songs in his films and directed video for Wicked Game.

Movie review - "Man of Flowers" (1983) ****

 Paul Cox's biggest hit perhaps - a film made with his own money, or at least so he said, about things he was interested in set in a world he knew, with his friends. Norman Kaye has the role of a lifetime as a cultured man who enjoys watching Alyson Best be naked.

The film has a strong support cast - Barry Dickins as a lively postman, Ellis as a whining shrink, Chris Haywood superb as Best's egotistical artist boyfriend, Sarah Walker as Bests' friend who falls in love with her.

The film became an arthouse hit, in part because of all the nudity - Best, Walker, Victoria Eagger, even Norman Kaye. Werner Herzog makes a cameo. 

I mean it's made by dirty pervs. You can sense that. But it's got a solid story and pay off.

Movie review - "Island" (1989) **

 Paul Cox can't write. Good setup - three women on a Greek island. Man arrives turns ex druggie Eva Sitta into drugs. Deaf mute friend Chris Haywood kills guy. They cover it up. Nothing done with it. No betrayal, or other baddie coming. Lots of hanging around a pretty island. Sri Lankan character who is noble and wails. Irene Papas as Greek woman full of fire. Norman Kaye is in it and Takis Emmanuel. It just sort of ending. 

Good on Cox for making his movies. He made a lot. I think he struggled outside his comfort zone, i.e. urban Melbourne. There's a difference between hanging out in a place and living there.

Seven AFI nominations. Seven!

Movie review - "Entertaining Mr Sloane" (1970) **

 Am sure this worked a treat on stage. Cheap film - four actors and one set basically. Very homoerotic with Pete McEnery loungoing around on bed in underpants and being lusted after by two middle aged siblings - Beryl Reid and Harry Andrews. Good they filmed it. Not sure I cared. Sorry, Orton fans.

Movie review - "Spring and Port Wine" (1969) **

 The play ran for years so obviously worked for an audience who presumably related to its northern schtick. I didn't buy the film version. Maybe too foreign. But I've bought British tales of the north before. Ths feels like it should be shot in black and white or something. Everyone feels like an actor rather than a person, James Mason in actor mode, Susan George in actor mode, that mum from Bless This House the other hot daughter and her boyfriend. It feels unsatisfactory not the meet the dad of George's kid or find out what happened. I quite liked the ending with them all trying to get along - that felt real.

I sense this was made a few years' too late.

Movie review - "Jenny Kissed Me" (1985) *

 A fascinating melodrama, key in the career of Brian Trenchard Smith because it was a departure in one way, being a melodrama, but in another way being a stock Trenchard Smith movie, full of action and incident. It also shows what held back his career - a lack of understanding about story and character.

Jenny Kissed Me is full of pace and character but is just too... off. Ivar Kants is such a perfect person, hard working, devoted to the child (his partner hints at incestuous feelings but this isn't developed), upstanding, muscular, handsome. And when he abducts the kid she's all for it.

Deborrah Lee Furness' mother is hot but lazy, she can't find a job, bored, best friends with a hooker, has an affair with Steven Grieves, neglects her daughter, yells at her daughter, leaves with Kants.

Trenchard Smith seems terrified someone will get bored so something's always happening - there's nudity (from Furness and others), sex scenes, a scene in a brothel pool, drugs (Nicholas Eadie is Paula Duncan's sleazy boss), drug busts, Wilbur Wilde as a handyman, fights, slaps. One hour in Kants is revealed to have a terminal brain tumour, he gets arrested, out on bail, brings a gun to abduct Jenny, a car chase ensues.

The film is so unsympathetic to Furness and so sympathetic to Kants it's unfair. Well, that's fine if it's the story you want to tell, it's just uncomfortable to watch. Kants never takes any blame for the breakdown with Furness because none of it is shown to be his fault. Kants' behaviour at the end is fairly reprehensible - having him kidnap a kid and engage in a car chase that almost kills her in a crash and take her on the lam in the bush. But at the end Furness asks for his forgiveness and teaches her how to parent.

This has been pitched at as a melodrama in the Douglas Sirk tradition but those films were aimed at women, women aren't going to like this, the woman is the villain. This film's natural target audience is divorced dads. Especially with its mean female magistrates and social workers.

The acting is pretty good. Tamsin West is terrific.

The film could've worked. Give Furness a troubled background. Like a drug habit. Make Jenny's dad a character - a real piece of shit. He gets Furness back on drugs, he gets her ito the brothel. The film needs a real baddie.

Movie review - "All Neat in Black Stockings" (1969) **

 I thought the title indicted a thriller. Actually it's more a drama - the producer called it a cross between Alfie and A Kind of Loving and that's not inaccurate. He also called it a sex comedy. There's sex but not a lot of laughs. It's moe social realism.

The star is Victor Henry who was a big stage actor, an angry young man, who was knocked over by a bus in 1972 and went into a coma until he died in 1985. I don't think he's much of a leading man. I'm sure he was a good actor but the role needs charm.

He's a womanising window cleaner - years before Confessions of a Window Cleaner - who kind of falls for Susan George, and she likes him but then at a party she shags his mate. I think he kind of rapes her, yes? Did I understand that?

She gets pregnant and he marries her and she has a mum who hates him so that's the A Kind of Loving About it.

The film looks ugly at least the print I show. Not a comedy really. A drama. 

Just not that interesting. Well worn material. George is cute just young.

Movie review - "A Kind of Loving" (1962) ***1/2

 I appreciate the artistry. Extremely well done. Empathetic to working class. Likes them. Young hot Alan Bates. June Ritchie fine if lacks charisma. Bitchy mother in law. Beautifully shot.

Most of plot has him trying to root her and she loves him but he's not really in to her. But in the end he guts it out. Conformity.

Genuine atmopshere. Sex content made it a hit. And the fact it's a romance with a happy ending ish.

Great debut for John Schlesinger.

Movie review - "Catch Us if You Can" (1965) ***

 Anglo-Amalgamated tried to do a Hard Day's Night with the Dave Clark Dive. It's not really a musical though more a sort of gloomy road movie/satire of British society with a Dave Clark Five soundtrack.

 Stunt man Dave Clark runs off with model Barbara Ferris and they have adventures - meeting beatniks, an upper class couple, going to a fancy dress party, going horse riding, encountering army maneuvres.

Look it's interesting.Songs play on the soundtrack but no one sings.

Clark is good looking but doesn't have much life. Ferris is okay but struggles a little against him.  None of the others get much of a look in.

Michael Blakemore was Boorman's assistant, Alex Jacobs was producer David Deutsch's assistant, peter Nichols wrote the script. So a lot of talent. Interesting visuals.

The film stuck with me after.

Movie review - "Nothing But the Best" (1964) ***

 Made with care, turned Clive Donner into a hot director, smart arse script from Frederic Raphael which. has some funny lines ("how did you know my size" says Mary Millicent as they drive up to a castle).

Maybe didn't have enough sex to be a hit. Or needed a murder.

Denholm Elliot is fun as a rich prat, Alan Bates is amiable. Nice Nic Roeg photographe.

Movie review - "This is My Street" (1964) ***

 Kitchen sink drama with sex, which earned Nat Cohen money via A Kind of Loving but not this one despite also starring June Ritchie.

I think that was about young people falling in love which everyone can relate to. In this one she's married to an idito and has an affair with Ian Hendry who then falls for her sister Annette Andre (very good).

It's well acted. It's a little hard to care for a married woman having an affair with an idiot. 

Sidney Hayers directed. Peter Rogers, the Carry On guy, producer.

Moving ending. John Hurt is in it.

Movie review - "Coda" (1987) ***

 Liked it. I got it. I don't think Craig Lahiff then had the skills to pull it off, quite - or the budget. But I love its ambition, the Hitchcock riffs. I love it being set at an Adelaide Uni and the second wave feminism of its four leads being women. There's something endearing in that three gave off mature age student vibes. Penny Cook can look gorgeous but here was mumsy. Liddy Clarke was like a pot smoking single aunt. Olivia Hamnet was also mumsy. Anna Marie Winchester however was spot on - campy, big, scary.

I wish Lahiff had had a little extra money to do a blood and guts feature version. A hot guy or two might've helped - if onyl to have a red herring.

Opening murder well done - one long take. Other stuff is choppy. The tight budget hurt. But endearing.

John Hughes Top Ten

 1) Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) - great pain and empathy, maybe doesn't nail the ending

2) Pretty in Pink (1986) - Hughes blossomed as a writer with this, sensitive about class, I like the re-done ending

3) Breakfast Club (1985) - a lot of comedy, great juggling, beautifully cast

4) National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) - funny, dark, sly, feels real

5) Home Alone (1990) - I didn't like this much once but now I love it

6) Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) - in some respects made too fast but great heart and humour

7) Mr Mom (1983) - has it aged? I'm too scared to find out - I used to love it though

8) Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) - career best work from John Candy, very sweet moments

9) Uncle Buck (1989)-  as above

10) Sixteen Candles (1984) - look, I know. I just remember how funny it was and all the strands came together.

Movie review - Carry On#2 - "Carry on Nurse" (1959) **1/2

 An even bigger hit than Carry on Sergeant - the biggest of 1959. Everyone gets sick I suppose. It's different from later ones in the series - there's even some serious moments. More static than the first as so many people are in hospital.

Shirley Eaton is in it again. I like her but she hasn't got much to play. It's funny. Just a little flat. I'm surprised it was number one.

Movie review - "See How They Run" (2022) ***

 Charming mystery about a murder backstage as they are going to make a film of The Mousetrap. Lots for buffs such as characters including John Woolf, Agatha Christie, Sheila Sims and Richard Attenborough. 

I'm not a huge Sam Rockwell fan but Soraise Ronan is delightful and Adrien Brophy is having fun.

Movie review - "The Toll of the Sea" (1922) ***

 Early colour film and leading role for Anna Way Wong who's excellent. It's a version of Madame Butterly only set in China, presumably for her. Kenneth Harker is the drip guy. Baby Moran is excellent too as their kid (who doesn't look even a little Chinese but acts so well it doesn't matter). Only 55 minutes. Frances Marion wrote a tight script and concise titles.

Movie review - "Carry On" (2024) **

 Two really good scenes. When Jason Bateman first contacts Taron Egerton and starts threatening him. And that car crash scene with the cop and the bad guy.

The rest is contrived. The baddies go to so much trouble. Is there not an easier way? The characters are uninvolving. Much feels generated by AI or has "sixteenth draft" syndrome - dull wife (pregnant with perfect hair and glossy lips and shoehorned action sequence), dull backstory (I want to be a cop)

I sensed I'd be in trouble with the opening sequence - Jason Bateman casually killing a bad guy, just shooting a fifty worder with one shot, walking into a car and blowing up a greenhouse just to be "cool". There was no real thought put into these scenes and so it proved for the rest of the film

I wish people who tried to copy Die Hard would study Die Hard more closely.

Movie review - "Murder at the Windmill" (1949) **

 Only an hour. Includes a couple of songs, which are fine, and an unfunny long comedy sketch. Maybe you had to be there. Maybe it just needed nudity. No nudity here although the characters allude to it.

There's a murder, cops investigate, kids put on a show. Val Guest directs and writes with customary energy but the cast feels weak. The girls are really young. Were they this young on stage?

Nat Cohen had money in this and is listed as "presents".

Movie review - Carry On#1 - "Carry on Sergeant" (1958) ***

 The one that kicked off the legendary series is less typical than later works (apparently). It was based on a play and financed (most likely) due to the success of Private's Progress and The Army Game. 

It's fun and good hearted with an excellent cast. Shirley Eaton is in it but not in a very big part. Less sex obsessed than later ones. I think this was Norman Hudis' influence (also censorship of the time).

Movie review - "Aces High" (1976) **

 The sort of idea that initially sounds intriguing - Journey's End only with war pilots. You can see the appeal - a great piece of material, similar sense of doom, constant death, only they're out in the open. I can see why Nat Cohen greenlit it.

However the film doesn't work. In hindsight, Sherrif's piece is more effective when cramped and damp. This is too open. Maybe it could have worked. But there's no atmosphere. You never ( I didn't anyway) feel the desperation and impending doom or the sense that people are cracking up. Jack Gold didn't do much of a job directing. I had trouble telling characters apart. Compare it to say the 1938 Dawn Patrol - that was full of urgency and desperation. 

The emotional undercurrents aren't there. In Sheriff's play it's very clear - the young guy hero worships the older guy who is cracking up. There's an old duffer who in a great scene chats with the young guy before they go off on the mission. That's all missing here.

Part of it is the acting. This features three big stars-to-be of English cinema: Simon Ward, Malcolm McDowell, Peter Firth. None rise to the occasion. Firth is a blank slate. You can see why he didn't become a star - there's nothing there. Ward has a flashy role as a pilot who is cracking up but he can't do it. Neither can, more surprisingly, McDowell. Maybe McDowell could have played Ward's role - just ate up the scenery.

Howard Barker who wrote the script dismissed the film, saying the original idea was bad and that the final movie was basically public schoolboys flying over Surrey. This is mean, if true.

Plane fans will get a lot out of it. I think they've have been better off remaking Dawn Patrol.

Movie review - "Spanish Fly" (1976) **

 Sigh. I mean.. well. A film cobbled together to give Canadian distributors a Leslie Philips film. This feels like an australian sex comedy written by Alan Hopgood. There's nudity. Phillips is sleazy. Terry Thomas is fine even if protected - his Parkinson's was worsening. You can't tell. Some women go nude. There's a little bit of sex. Plot involves Terry Thomas inventing an aphrodisiac. Feels cobbled together. I don't think I laughed once. The Spanish locations are a point of difference. There's an Aussie character.

The women are pretty. Director Bob Kellet keeps it all moving. Mostly. Sometimes the film feels padded, to put it politely like when everyone is dancing. Feels wrong to have kids in it - they're just looking for ingredients but it feels wrong.

Movie review - "Capuccino" (1989) **

 Not a good movie, in writing or even acting (odd for a valentine to actors) but it just wants you to have fun,it likes its characters. I feel it would've been better as a play. I enjoyed the references to things like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. It's about four friends - John Clayton, Barry Quinn, Rowena Wallace and Jeanie Drynan. Plus Clayton's girlfriend and some cops. People like Ernie Dingo make cameos.

Joan Colins Top Ten

 Watched The Stud the other day so thought I’d do a Joan Collins top ten - films only! No TV
1) Revenge (1971)- Really good vigilante film about a family who’ve lost a daughter to murder. The person accused of it is let off and they kidnap him but... did he do it? Collins is good as always.
2) The Girl on the Red Velvet Swing (1956) -20th  Century Fox had Collins under contract as their version of Elizabeth Taylor. This was devised as a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe who wouldn’t do it so they put in Collins - a very good real life murder story and Collins is excellent. Probably her best movie at Fox (though Island in the Sun is entertaining I picked this over that one because she gets a lead.)
3) The Square Ring (1953) - Based on an all-male play about one night in a boxing stadium by Aussie Ralph Peterson - this added some female characters including Joan Collins. Her part isn’t good but she suited low rent criminal tales and the film is entertaining. (She had a similar small role in The Good Die Young)
4) Cosh Boy (1953) - Entertaining Lewis Gilbert melodrama about a juvenile delinquent with Collins lovely as his naive girlfriend.
5) Turn the Key Softly (1954) - A British crime film with female protagonists! This is a three-girl movie about women getting out of prison, an excellent idea, and Collins is very good as an ex call girl
6) Tales from the Crypt (1972) - Gloriously fun anthology horror movie from Amicus - I wish they’d still make them - with Collins having a high old time.
7) Up in the Cellar (1971) - Kind of a sequel to Three in the Attic (1968) directed by Ted Flicker who made The President’s Analyst. Collins and Larry Hagman are very funny, easily stealing the movie from the random lead.

8) The Stud (19798) - Terrific exploitation. Trashy melodrama story which says something about the class system giving it some depth, terrific disco soundtrack (10CC, Hot Chocolate), great casting, lots of sex. Reminded me of 70s Oz films like Petersen - director Quentin Masters was Australian. Joan Collins shows off her body a lot and has lots of sex. Oliver Tobias is handsome and can act- why didn’t he become a bigger name?  Lots of fun.
9) Empire of the Ants (1977) - You can’t call this a good movie but it’s impossible to dislike - Joan Collins as an evil property developer fighting Giant ants and their human allies (no kidding). Where’s the TV series based on this, come on, I’m not kidding.
10) The Big Sleep (1978) - Why did Joan Collins become a star in the 1980s? Because during the 1970s she was consistently the best thing about her not very good movies. Alfie Darling was one. This is another.

Movie review - "Kiss or Kill" (1997) ****

 I watched this after seeing some later period Bill Bennett movies - The Nugget, In a Savage Land, Uninhabited - and the difference is remarkable. This has so much energy, certainty. It gets off to a flying start: girl sees mother immolated - bam - girl grown up meets sleazy man, fight, seduction, man assaults her, collapses, drugged, they rob him, he's dead, there's a tape of a footballer and a kid. Bam, bam, bam.

Much is marvellous. Support characters like Max Cullen and Barry Otto and the team of Gilbert and Haywood. The slob black tracker (John Clarke) asking for more money. The locations. The lack of music score.

Lead roles are dynamic. Matt Day is a little "hey I'm playing this  as angry and I'm not normally cast like that hey". He's totally fine as is Frances O'Connor.

Movie review - "The Nugget" (2002) **1/2

 One of the several flops from the Macquarie Film Group though the idea is strong and the cast excellent - Eric Bana, Dave O'Neill and Stephen Curry discover a nugget on the weekend and wonder what to do with it. But they might have checked that Bill Bennett struggles to make commercial films. His strengths are authenticity and when motived by outrage at something. I'm not sure he has a sense of humour, or much of one.

Every now and then this slipped into a groove, of being a fable, and seemed to work. I like the last third.

The cast is very Melbourne - in addition to the stars there's Peter Moon and Vince Colosimo.

I think Bennett missed a beat not having a romance - everyone is partnered up. Someone should have fallen in love.

Mudgee looks very pretty and there is affection for country people not often found in Australian films which are traditionally classist. I can see why this didn't do well at the box office but can also see why it's lingered after - it goes down easy, has charm.

TV review - "Rudolph the Reindeer" (1964) ****

 Yes, some things haven't aged well, such as the sexism of the married characters but it remains a charming, well directed and written special with remarkable emotional power - not just Rudolph being bullied, but his father urging him to fit in (how boomers must have related with their PTSD riddled dads yelling at them)... and Herbie who wants to be a dentist, and the island of misfit toys (the most brilliant invention ever). Other characters like Yukon Cornelius (memorably outed in Reductress as a terrific lay) also have impact.

Charming songs and narration. This is fantastic.

Movie review - "In a Savage Land" (1999) **

 Bill Bennett tries something a bit different - a 1930s/40s colonial epic about sexy times among anthropologists.

The location work in the islands are impressive though I don't know why it's shot through a yellow filter. Maya Stange was given a great opportunity but simply feels like a NIDA grad plunked in a big film. She never seems real. In her defence, the character has to spout all these clinky platitudes like "they're not savages" and "I'm an anthropologist too" and talking about her thesis. She takes her clothes off and shaves her head and goes all out but she's simply not up to it.

There is no native character with any dimension.There are just chanting natives. At the end when the Japanese come the whites just wave good bye. And when after the war Stange comes back she seems utterly uninterested in what happened to the New Guineans who were there.

Martin Donovan takes Maya Stange to New Guinea and is a sex anthropologist which is pretty progressive. Then he's controlling. But nice. Then he dies. Then Rufus Sewell comes along and he's perfect.

Look, there's two ways you could've gone. Have Stange and Donovan be this kinky couple who explore sex habits of the locals (have some local characters please not just jabbering extras). Sewell comes along and he can't quite "get" it. Make it sexy. Have her seduce Sewell. 

Or... play it safe, have Stange and Donovan as siblings and Stange get a sexual awakening. 

Either of those would have an arc. This film doesn't know what it wants to be. Or it does but Bennett and Jenneifer Cluff aren't up to it.

I enjoyed Max Cullen's officious officer. Sue Lyons' racist wife is just there to make the leads look less racist. John Howard has an unfortunate accent and Rufus Sewell a worse American one.

Old school Bennett would have sent actors into the jungle and filmed it on 16 mm and got them to ad lib. They couldn't have come up with worse dialogue.

This is a cranky review but they wasted so much money, and wasted a potentially great subject.

Real time in movies vs movie time in movies: some thoughts

I read the script for Saturday Night the other day, a movie which seems to fall into the “good try” category, and is definitely in the “at least 20 years too late for people to care” category (in 2005 people like Bill Murray, Chevy Chase etc were still omnipresent).

It’s written in real time - 90 minutes before the first show - and it got me thinking about the notion of real time in movies versus real time in theatre.

Real time works great in stage plays because, if done well, it creates this extra tension and energy in a work - it’s all happening right there, right then and there, with these people literally right in front of us. It’s also faster because on scene changes slow things down in the theatre: the lights dim, the actors leave, the scene changes, the lights come up, the actors come on. This is usually cumbersome and you have to resort to skill to not slow it down. John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation is an excellent example how to do quick scene changes on stage. But a lot of plays would be better off with longer scenes. Part of the trouble with many of David Williamson’s later plays is he has too many scenes which he'd be better off combining and playing out in real time as much as possible.

Real time works less well in film, where it can slow action down. The audience isn’t as attuned to watching film in real time - it expects time jumps via editing.  I mean, real time movies can work brilliantly (there are exceptions to every rule) - one only has to think of something like High Noon, Run Lola Run or Birdman. 

But you have to be careful picking what specific period of “real time” you are using.

Saturday Night takes place in real time before the first show of Saturday Night Live. That’s a sexy concept and it sounds like a good idea - all the chaos, the madness, etc. You can imagine the colour and movement and feeling of stakes.

But actually it’s not a good idea, not really. Because the last ninety minutes before a script show goes to air are tense for those involved... but not to watch. I mean, the show has already been written and cast and planned and costumed and rehearsed. The key decisions (who to write it, who to star, what jokes to tell) have been made. The ninety minutes before show is for vocal warm ups, props checks and trying not to freak out. It’s exciting but not that exciting, certainly not 90 minutes’ exciting.

Reitman tries to pump it up with some drama like having Lorne Michaels go see a stand up show, be unimpressed by the comic but like the material and hire the writer... which happened... but not just before the first show. Michaels should be on set during that time, to have him run off to a bar and see another show makes him look really incompetent. (I know the event happened, but on another night altogether). Also some things just don’t ring true like hinting Chevy Chase might be the new Johnny Carson before the show goes to air. After the show’s a hit, yes, and that's what happened in real life but it was after the show was the talk of the nation - having this event happen before the first show has aired doesn’t make sense. And all the sketches and bits that people come up with right before the opening show doesn’t feel real. A few lines, yes, a bit of business, certainly - but not to the extent here.

Saturday Night would have been better off focusing on the months, or a week before the show. You could put in the same material, more or less, I just think it would have had more propulsion and felt realer and you could do the countdown to the opening show as a ticking clock throughout.

Another script/film it reminded me of was Jobs. (Sidebar: while reading Saturday Night I was constantly thinking of Studio 60 on Sunset and that was much better written than Saturday night though that’s an unfair comparison. Actually I began to wish that instead of making Studio 60 on Sunset Aaron Sorkin had written the Saturday Night Live story like he did for Social Network.. I think he would have done a banger job, packed a script full of zingers, understood the drug addiction, got that backstage showbiz story out of his system, and spared us that three episode arc where the star’s brother was kidnapped in Iraq. End of sidebar.)

With Jobs Aaron Sorkin came up with a (seemingly) sexy way to tackle the life of Steve Jobs: three different product launches. Well, that is different, and better than from cradle to grave storytelling.

But... problem is, nothing much really exciting happened at those product launches. Like Saturday night the key decisions/conflict had happened before/after those launches. I think Sorkin kind of realised it writing the script - he did pretty well with the conflict involving Jobs not identifying his daughter (this was quite well done) but still couldn’t resist flashing back to the big moment in Jobs’ professional life - when Jobs got sacked from Apple. That was a lot more interesting than the product launches and Sorkin knew it.

Also another thing about real life stage versus film. I think on stage you can allude to things you don’t see more - characters, events. Indeed, it can work quite well, discussing what happened, say, “last spring” with “Camilla” can be very evocative on stage. Tennessee Williams uses it brilliantly - having characters recall events that happened off stage. Theatre audiences will use their imaginations a bit more than film audiences. You can stand on a theatre stage and say “we’re on the moon” and audiences will go for it. Film audiences are on the whole far more literal. Absurdism and expressionism works far better on stage than film, as does references to past events. I think discussing Jobs getting fired in Jobs would have worked on stage but it doesn’t on film because when you watch film you are conditioned to use your eye more. And Sorkin and Danny Boyle realised it so they showed it.

Maybe Saturday Night would work on stage because you can have people chatting about all the big events and the audience would go with it. You can recap events via dialogue quite effectively on stage. (I actually think the dialogue on Saturday Night isn’t very good but that’s a separate issue).

So what am I saying?

I guess it’s this: real time can work on film, yes, but think very very carefully about what sort of “real time” you’re going to do.

“24 hours before a big terror attack” - that’s great. You can do 24. “One hour til the noon train comes in with killers”. You can do High Noon. You just have to juggle the stories but it can work.

“90 minutes before the first show”. Actually not a good idea. Ditto “three product launches”.

One thing I think filmmakers should do more of - longer takes. Play out certain scenes in real time. Alphonso Cuaron does this brilliantly. Sometimes scenes are too short when there’s drama to be had playing them out. Again though you have to pick your moment.

Movie review - "Backlash" (1986) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 Improvised film benefits from an electric performance from David Argue, a tightly wound livewire who constantly seems he's about to explode and often does, jabbering away, strutting around in underwear, brandishing his gun. Gina Carides matches him.- young, gorgeous, a believable law student. Bill Bennett was clearly less sure with Lydia Miller, who admittedly is inexperienced but isn't given the chance to do much.  Brian Syron's pursuer is an ideal threat.

As in many of his movies Bennett runs out of story - it would be better as an hour. Or it needed another subplot. I like that Argue was killed because of what he did in the past but it needed something else, like Carides and her boyfriend, or Miller's kids/husband or something.

The scene where Carides and Argue get the confession out of the publican's wife is a little awkward but it did make me laugh because the cops are so outrageously unethical.

Movie review - "A Street to Die" (1985) ***1/2

 An film that's impossible not to admire. Bill Bennett was fired up by a newspaper article which showed a street of Vietnam vets having major health problems due most likely to Agent Orange. He brought his journalist skills, made it in the street, with the involvement of the family.

Chris Haywood is terrific in the role of a life time as the ocker, irreverent Colin Simpson, who runs, smokes 20 cigs a day, develops a rash and eventually terminal cancer. The best scenes are of him visiting doctors (initially dismissive), then finding out he's really sick (his wife is told twice before he finds out, one time the doctor calls the wife from the next room), then dying. Jennifer Cluff is strong as the wife.

The understated presentation is hugely effective.  Structurally the film has problems because Haywood dies 66 minutes or so into the film. Then there's 25 minutes of funeral and a hearing. Which is kind of interesting but just lacks emotional power.

I sense the material here really ran for 60 minutes and was better as a TV play - the last bit feels like padding, important as it was to society. The other way to have done it would have been to do a subplot.

The evocation of 70s/80s life is strong - union reps, smoking, street cricket, backyard BBQs. This was my childhood so it was moving.

Movie review - "Spider and Rose" (1994) **1/2

 A throwback to the mid 90s - decent budget, AFFC,  it got a lot of publicity. A road movie with Ruth Cracknell who is wonderful and Simon Cossell who has his moments but is a little too inexperienced. Could have done with another subplot maybe - or simply a better male lead. I don't mean to be mean he just goes a little over the top.

Gorgeously shot.