Movie review - "Candy" (1968) **

 Cripes. The novel was popular, apparently. I don't think anyone reads it anymore. I haven't heard anything good about this movie so I was surprised to find myself enjoying it so much at first. It got off to a flying start with its groovy visuals and music and all star cast. Ewa Aulin isn't much of an actress but she's gorgeous - apparently Terry Southern wanted an All American type like Hayle Mills which would've been interesting but maybe too confronting.

Candy has a series of encounters with men who all manhandle her. This isn't a film that's strong on consent. What it does have is a series of encounters with stars, and you find yourself marking the vignettes. Richard Burton is hilarious as a Dylan Thomas type poet - he really commits and goes all out. Ringo Starr is less fun as a lechy Mexican. John Astin (in probably the second biggest role) is Candy's dad. Walter Matthau is a funny as a general but as Pauline Kael pointed out this sort of character was old hat by then. James Coburn is very funny as a doctor, he plays it in the right spirit as does Anita Pallenberg (sexy nurse) and John Huston.

There's an unfunny sequence with some Italian actors playing gangsters and an even less funnier one with Charles Aznavour as a hunchback and I wasn't wild with Marlon Brando in brownface as a guru or the cimax where she has sex with her dad Astin.

Look, the film exists and it's got stars in it and is weird. Everyone disowned it but it did business.

Book review - " The Day the World Ended: The Mount Pelée Disaster: May 7, 1902" by Gordon Thomas, Max Morgan-Witts (1969)

 I wasn't that familiar with the disaster - it happened in a French colony in the Caribbean - but it was remarkable with around 30,000 people wiped out in a few minutes due to an exploision, ash cloud and fire. The thing is the situation got bad for weeks and weeks earlier, mudslides and fires and mini exploisions and the town wasn't evacuated. This is an examination of inertia and denial, rulers swept up in petty politics (there was a local election at the time), the Church being useless, stiff upper lips, a weak press. All too many resonances today with climate change.

Film rights were purchased but it wasn't filmed, at least I don't think so. I can see why. The actions are so frustrating from humans. However tremendous action set pieces - mud, ash, snakes going mad and attacking humans, cats taking on the snakes, voodoo sparking up, gore of people being killed, lots of dead kids and babies. It's a harrowing read.

Movie review - "Megalopolis" (2024) **

 Too many thoughts to put down in a coherent form so I'll do dot points:

- this didn't have to cost $120 million, at heart it's people in rooms talking

- props to a boomer blowing his fortune on an indulgent movie

- it feels like a third year drama school play - a verse drama, cobbled off Roman history, lots of "wisdom" and pretension, lousy female roles

- occasionally some genuine emotion comes through like Talia Shire giving son Adam Driver a serve

- the cast all commit - Nathalie Emmanuel does as well as she can, Driver goes for it, Aubrey Plaza really goes for it, Jon Voight excellent and Shia LeBouf absolutely nails it - whatever the film is, Shia is it

- the adaptation of Rome doesn't work - there's lots of newspapers, and people smoking - also rich families tend not to run for elected office these days it's easier to buy politicians - so there was a level of non reality about it (I know it was expressionistic but things clunked - it was set in our world but also had a 1980s vibe) - I wish he'd just set this in Ancient Rome or gone fully sci fi and set it in the future

- I couldn't follow what was happening (Driver builds things I think and there's elections and... something) and at two horus 15 minutes it was hard

- Coppola can still do violence well as shown with the assassination attempt on Driver

- DB Sweeney and James Remar have small roles! Bless

- obviously very personal about Coppola with his love for a princess daughter and Driver thanking Emmanuel "for making him work" (gotta love those behind the scenes women), and blonde female sex objects

- why was Dustin Hoffman in this film?

Look, he had a go. He really did.

Movie review - "Our Man Flint" (1966) ***

 Sometimes you have to be there. This was one of the many, many, many Bond spoofs but it was one of the first out of the gate - I think it just beat The Silencers to the punch though that was a big hit too. The casting of James Coburn was, in hindsight, a masterstroke - he had a laconic, suave, rugged look, not too imidiatingly pretty, a nice sense of humour. I mean, maybe it would've worked with someone else but who? Think about it - Paul Newman too earnest, Jack Lemmon too goofy. James Garner could've made it work.

Anyhow. It's very 60s. Lee J Cobb got on the nerves as did the gag about the phone. There's some funny bits and pretty girls. Edward Mulhare is suave but doesn't have much of a character to play apart from suave - why not someone more colourful.

I really liked the second half when Coburn went on the mission. That's when Flint worked for his money and girls and was more likable. The island is fun, Jerry Goldsmith's music is terrific, the whole wish fulfilment is hilarious.

Movie review - "Major Dundee" (1965) ***

 A famous they-took-my-film-away-and-butchered-it movie, with Sam Peckinpah bleating loudly about the suits and critics dutifully taking his side. I think there's a lot of great things about this movie but it has an essential flaw. Oddly, fixing that flaw I think would've been easy and saved money but the studio wanted a Roadshow, and Peckinpah prepped for one, then the studio cut budget, and filming went haywire. I get why the studio wanted to cut the budget but if they did they should have junked the Roadshow idea and gotten Peckinpah to properly refigure it. It would've saved money.

The basic idea is very strong - North and South troops team up to chase Apaches into Mexico and clash with the French. There's a knock out cast. You could tell that story with ten people. It's a prison. There only needs to be a few guards.

But there's too many characters. Charlton Heston (very good) leads a a big band and there's all these people whose stories need to be serviced. Richard Harris is the Southern officer, an Irishman (which makes historical sense), James Coburn is a scout, Warren Oates is a Confederate, Brock Peters is a black soldier, Michael Anderson is a bugler seeking revenge against the Apache, Santa Berger is an Austrian doctor's widow, Ben Johnson is a sergeant, there's a sort of peaceful reverend guy RG Armstrong, and there's a Mexican Mario Adorf, Jim Hutton is an officer (I think he's meant to be a scrounger character), there's also some other women, oh and there's Slim Pickens too. And LQ Jones as some Southern soldier who gets these close ups. Like Heston hooks up with Berger, and then has a relationship with another woman. Who cares?

It's impossible to serve all these characters especially when time is devoted to Heston's character having a mid life crsis - which is fine actually. He should be the focal point. And you need Harris' character. Peters' character had great potential and is junked. Oates has a terrific subplot being killed. They should've cut Anderson and Hutton entirely, merged Coburn's characer with Johnson and Adrof... made it  about a small bunch. Trim it right down to, let's say, Heston, Harris, Peters, that merged Coburn character and a few others. 

There's so much terrific stuff. I loved the novelty of them fighting the French at the end. Harris and Heston duking it out is fun. Heston gives one of his best performances and Harris has flair. The Peckinpah regulars are spot on. Actually all the acting is good and the Mexican locations are splendid as is the photography.

What a missed opportunity.

Book review - "Larry McMutry: A Life" by by Tracy Daugherty

 I was always going to find this interesting. Daugherty can write and has done research. The book isn't as good as McMurtry's own autobiographical writing which is so extensive. I was hoping for a little more numbers and date behind the books and movies (sales, etc) - Daugherty draws from letters and writings which have to be taken with a grain of salt. Some of the movie stuff, which I know a bit about, was a little wrong which made me wary of the rest of the book.

Ah, look, this is fine. It's better than fine it's very good. I guess I was hopeing for less quotations from people and letters and writing and more hard facts, like more specificity of who he was sleeping with and how much the different books sold and the money he made. And it'k okay on the novels, not amazing (I acknowledge this is due to the fact I have different opinions from Daughterty as to a few of them).

Movie review - "What Did You Do in the War Daddy?" (1966) ***

 A box office flop despite the fact it was from Blake Edwards and had James Coburn coming off Our Man Flint and a concept that would've seemed idea for the cynical sixties I'd have thought - a US unit in Italy comes across a town that wants to surrender after their wine festival, so the Yanks pretend to meet resistance, which brings in the Germans and US superiors. That's funny.

But maybe when you pick at it, it's not - World War Two was a Good War, so they are ducking out of important service. Also why can't they surrender and then do the wine festival? It doesn't make sense. It maybe would've worked if it was near the end of the war and they'd been sent to fight silly battles and there was a better reason to stop - like give the Americans a really villainous gneneral.

The movie falters in terms of characterisation. The leads are Dick Shawn and James Coburn but Coburn's role is sidelined. I think Shawn is meant to be uptight and Coburn laid back but Shawn gets un-uptight pretty quickly and Edwards can't seem to think of things for Coburn to do, or Aldo Ray who's also in there. Operation Petticoat had very defined characters - Cary Grant was uptight and by the book, the nurses called havoc, Tony Curtis was on the make... The characters here aren't as fixed. You could cut Coburn and Ray out of the film and made it about Shaw and Sergio Fantoni - actually that's what it should've been.

It looks gorgous, there's some funny bits, it was good to see Shawn in a lead role. I did sense Edwards would've been happier with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. But also Edwards liked Coburn - he used him on Waterhole 3 and The Carey Treatment - why not give him more to do. The Italian female doesn't have much of a character, or does Sergio Fantoni (friendly Italian).