Excellent doco about one of the most fascinating musical figures of the late 20th century. It reminded me in some ways of that doco on Joe Strummer (though this is superior filmmaking) as we see the evolution of someone becoming the coolest dude on the planet. He starts as a gawky half caste kid growing up in rural poverty, then urban poverty, singing not-very-popular records, an outsider because of his background... but then discovering women, his talent, fame, marijuana, politics and turning into a legend, complete with an early death.
My knowledge of Marley was sketchy so this was illuminating - the white father, the relatives who snubbed him (and caused him hurt), the sheer amount of women (one of whom was Miss Jamaica) and illegitimate children (several of whom are pop stars), his overwhelming popularity with white audiences - and failure to cross over to black Americans which annoyed him no end (is there anything whiter than a white raggae fan?), having an affair with the daughter of an African dictator, the silly elements of Rastafarianism (the Ethiopian Emperor as the descendant of Christ), bringing up two opposing Jamaican leaders at a concert, being shot by political elements prior to a concert, ignoring the melanoma on his toe which led to his death, final days in Germany (Bob Marley in a white snowy Europe), his party house, having countless affairs on tour while his wife was a back up singer, being competitive with his kids, his devotion to physical fitness despite sucking back the cones, old school band intrigues, his anger and fury at being told he wasn't going to live.
There are some great talking heads like Bunny Wailer, plus the charisma of Chris Blackwell, the hurt of his kids and wife, stunning Jamaican photography. It's a superb doco and a credit to all who worked on it.
Sunday, July 08, 2012
Movie review - "John Carter" (2012) **
It's a Hollywood mystery that people who gave us films as perfectly written as Wall E and Finding Nemo could have made so many story errors. Maybe this is being wise after the event, but why didn't they just follow the standard template of countless sci fi films about Earthlings helping oppressed people rise up and overthrow their rulers... (Flash Gordon, Stargate, The Time Machine)? I.e. show the whole story through the eyes of a time traveller, instead of opening it with a big battle sequence about people and aliens we don't know, then cutting away to other characters we have no investment in (e.g. Burroughs), and continually cutting to political intrigue on Mars. As if anyone cares. Why not make it clearer who the baddies are? Why not have some humour and warmth? Why not use the pursuing Colonel played by Bryan Cranston after all this set up? Why not have a comic relief? Why not make the female lead more independent?
There are other errors too - Taylor Kitsch is atrocious, playing it in the mode of a Valley Boy, and Lynn Collins is bad too. The English actors do their I'm-an-English-actor-in-a-fantasy-film thing, with Dominic West and James Purefoy both must have been aware they would have been better in the lead. Plenty of action and and some impressive special effects but it drags and drowns in noise. I feel bad on one hand that this film lost so much money so publicly but I understand why it happened.
There are other errors too - Taylor Kitsch is atrocious, playing it in the mode of a Valley Boy, and Lynn Collins is bad too. The English actors do their I'm-an-English-actor-in-a-fantasy-film thing, with Dominic West and James Purefoy both must have been aware they would have been better in the lead. Plenty of action and and some impressive special effects but it drags and drowns in noise. I feel bad on one hand that this film lost so much money so publicly but I understand why it happened.
Friday, July 06, 2012
TV review - Suspense - "The Flight" (1957) ** (warning: spoilers)
Suspense felt padded on radio when it went from 30 mins to an hour and an hour feels too long on TV as well. This stars Audie Murphy in a story with similarities to The Gun Runners - instead of being a skipper here he's a pilot who has to smuggle someone into a fictitious South American country. Well, he doesn't realise that at first but that's what it turns out to be. The person is actually a dissident for the regime, but a lot of this doesn't make sense - namely, why don't the locals just kill Murphy instead of just keeping him sort of under house arrest?
Good support cast including Jack Warden (Yank expat who may or may not be a baddie), Everett Sloane (sleazy South American) and Susan Kohner (a girl he meets who may or may not be a baddie). Murphy isn't bad - it's good to see him in a different profession, ie. a flyer - but his character is a real dill because the whole thing is so obviously dodgy.
Good support cast including Jack Warden (Yank expat who may or may not be a baddie), Everett Sloane (sleazy South American) and Susan Kohner (a girl he meets who may or may not be a baddie). Murphy isn't bad - it's good to see him in a different profession, ie. a flyer - but his character is a real dill because the whole thing is so obviously dodgy.
Movie review - "The Servant" (1963) ****
Sometimes it just all comes together - Dirk Bogarde expressed the desire to give a great performance in a great film, and Joe Losey came through for him, with the considerable help of Harold Pinter. It all works - the claustrophobic setting, black and white photography, music score, Sarah Miles electric performance as Bogarde's mysterious and extremely sexy (and leggy) "sister", James Fox as the weak aristocrat, Wendy Craig as the sensible girlfriend (probably the most thankless role as she is a bit of killjoy but important because she's the antagonist).
Maybe I didn't quite buy that someone like Fox would have a manservant in the first place but that's probably just me and my cultural biases. And it did feel as though it went on a bit long - maybe 20 minutes could have been cut (or maybe it's just I got weary with descent-descent-descent - Fox's weakness is hardly a challenge).
Losey's stylish direction is spot on: reflections through mirrors, careful framing, the whole "smell" of decadence. Bogarde had played rotten charmers a few times by now but never better here, with his crooked smile, superior air, lower class accent, homoerotic air around Fox, kinky relationship with Miles. One of the best things Pinter ever did.
Maybe I didn't quite buy that someone like Fox would have a manservant in the first place but that's probably just me and my cultural biases. And it did feel as though it went on a bit long - maybe 20 minutes could have been cut (or maybe it's just I got weary with descent-descent-descent - Fox's weakness is hardly a challenge).
Losey's stylish direction is spot on: reflections through mirrors, careful framing, the whole "smell" of decadence. Bogarde had played rotten charmers a few times by now but never better here, with his crooked smile, superior air, lower class accent, homoerotic air around Fox, kinky relationship with Miles. One of the best things Pinter ever did.
Thursday, July 05, 2012
Movie review - "Great Expectations" (1946) ****
Excellent version of the Dickens novel, brilliantly directed by David Lean. It starts wonderfully, almost like a horror movie, with Pip visiting his parent's grave in a creepy, wind-swept cemetery, and being scared by Felix Aylmer; the spooky mansion of Miss Havisham and the imposing Jean Simmons (a brilliant child star debut). Estella, Miss Havisham and Magwitch are all deservedly famous creations.
As it went along I found it became less effective - though clearly made with love, skill and care, with superb acting and all that... I don't know, I just found it a little flat. Part of the problem is Pip is so passive - he just sort of ambles along, inherits money, spends it, is pussywhipped by Estella. The only thing he actively does is try to to smuggle Magwitch out of the country but he fails. Dickens' fault I suppose - but I can't help the way I feel.
Also Valerie Hobson, as the grown up Estella, isn't as effective as Jean Simmons, who is amazing. John Mills at first comes across as much too old for the role but he grows into it, and he does well in what is a tricky part.
The elder supporting cast are all excellent: Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham, Francis Sullivan as the imposing fat lawyer with his dead client's faces on the wall. I liked Alex Guinness although I kept expecting his character to do more than he did.
Didn't buy the "happy" ending - Estella is going to make Pip's life hell. (I know why they did it but they would have been better off using Dickens' original ending - the one before he re-drafted.)
TV review - Ford Startime Theatre - "The Man" (1960) ** (warning: spoilers)
It's a real shame they no longer make anthology drama, because it gave movie stars the chance to stretch their wings and try different things. Audie Murphy, stuck in Westerns for the majority of his career, plays something genuinely different - a psycho in a contemporary thriller. He's a young man who attaches himself as a home handyman to elderly Thelma Ritter. He torments her, isolates her, and winds up killing her dog. (It's kind of like a cheap version of The Servant).
Since Murphy was reputed in life to be something of a psycho, it's not surprising to find him all too believable. But he needed more careful handling, I think - he's allowed to go too crazy too soon. Maybe people were more trusting back then, and they kind of cover it by having him claim to have known Ritter's dead son, but he is very wacko very early. The material lets him down, although it has pedigree - it's based on a play by Mel Dinelli which had been filmed. It feels as though it lacks logic.
It's really weird to see Murphy appearing as himself at the end smiling, saying goodnight and nice words about Ritter and Ford after just having murdered Ritter in the show (albeit off screen). Ritter is good as always and Michael J Pollard pops up in the support cast.
Since Murphy was reputed in life to be something of a psycho, it's not surprising to find him all too believable. But he needed more careful handling, I think - he's allowed to go too crazy too soon. Maybe people were more trusting back then, and they kind of cover it by having him claim to have known Ritter's dead son, but he is very wacko very early. The material lets him down, although it has pedigree - it's based on a play by Mel Dinelli which had been filmed. It feels as though it lacks logic.
It's really weird to see Murphy appearing as himself at the end smiling, saying goodnight and nice words about Ritter and Ford after just having murdered Ritter in the show (albeit off screen). Ritter is good as always and Michael J Pollard pops up in the support cast.
Movie review - "Bad Boy" (1949) **
Juvenile delinquents were all the rage in Hollywood in the late 40s and early 50s - Knock on Any Door, Rebel without a Cause. They were liked in Britain too - there was a film called The Boys in Brown about decent reformist juvenile wardens and crusading judges, plus female equivalents in Good Time Girl. This feels heavily influenced by Boys Town, which like that was about a real life reformist institution - here it's the Variety Boys Club of America (which sounds like a pedophiles paradise, but that's just my biased 2012 eyes - I'm sure they do a lot of good work). A young gangster comes into the institution with a massive chip on his shoulder, causes a lot of trouble, but eventually sees the error of his ways, turning down the chance to go off with a real bad egg.
Here the warden is Lloyd Nolan and his most troubled charge is none other than Audie Murphy. Murphy got stuck in Westerns for the majority of his career - from this performance, his first lead, it's a shame he never got the chance to play a gangster, because he was a baby faced psychotic (he could have made a great Pretty Boy Floyd or Clyde Parker). It's a great introduction for him because his dialogue is kept to a minimum (his final speech to the judge is given to Nolan rather than Murphy - he says "isn't that what you wanted to say, son" and Murphy says "yes"), he has a good character (chip on his shoulder juvenile delinquent with a mean step dad), and has to perform several scenes with experienced actors like Nolan, Jane Wyatt and James Gleason. The one thing they might have done better is we don't have much sympathy for Murphy for a long time - we don't find out his "they took my red fire truck away" story until about two thirds of the way in. Murphy is very effective - he didn't progress too much as an actor but he was a lot better than he got credit for.
Nolan is professional as ever - these "decent warden" roles are thankless parts, really, though not as thankless as Wyatt's, who plays his supportive, loving wife. If they remade this for pay TV today she'd be having sex with prisoners and/or having a drug problem, but in 1949 she just makes cups of tea and cooks - she may as well not be in the film. There's also quite a silly story about the root of Murphy's troubles - he only went bad because he thinks he killed his mother accidentally with pills. It gives this some narrative drive, but it's still silly. (They would have been better off using Murphy's gangster mate more, like they did in Boy's Town). So this isn't much of a movie, really, but it is interesting, and Murphy fans will get a lot out of it.
Here the warden is Lloyd Nolan and his most troubled charge is none other than Audie Murphy. Murphy got stuck in Westerns for the majority of his career - from this performance, his first lead, it's a shame he never got the chance to play a gangster, because he was a baby faced psychotic (he could have made a great Pretty Boy Floyd or Clyde Parker). It's a great introduction for him because his dialogue is kept to a minimum (his final speech to the judge is given to Nolan rather than Murphy - he says "isn't that what you wanted to say, son" and Murphy says "yes"), he has a good character (chip on his shoulder juvenile delinquent with a mean step dad), and has to perform several scenes with experienced actors like Nolan, Jane Wyatt and James Gleason. The one thing they might have done better is we don't have much sympathy for Murphy for a long time - we don't find out his "they took my red fire truck away" story until about two thirds of the way in. Murphy is very effective - he didn't progress too much as an actor but he was a lot better than he got credit for.
Nolan is professional as ever - these "decent warden" roles are thankless parts, really, though not as thankless as Wyatt's, who plays his supportive, loving wife. If they remade this for pay TV today she'd be having sex with prisoners and/or having a drug problem, but in 1949 she just makes cups of tea and cooks - she may as well not be in the film. There's also quite a silly story about the root of Murphy's troubles - he only went bad because he thinks he killed his mother accidentally with pills. It gives this some narrative drive, but it's still silly. (They would have been better off using Murphy's gangster mate more, like they did in Boy's Town). So this isn't much of a movie, really, but it is interesting, and Murphy fans will get a lot out of it.
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