batman

Your 10 out of 10 for my Val Guest quiz may be at risk if you think Vernon Sewell directed 80,000 Suspects.

Jingle bells Batman smells ... I heard that at school Daddy.

BAT QUIZ 16 HAS JUST BEEN POSTED IN THE COMPETITION THREAD - 06/01/09

batman

I watched Michael Winner's marvellous drama West 11 (1963) with Alfred Lynch and Eric Portman. This film is a real slice of life from the early 60s. Winner's direction is top-notch and all the cast give credible performances. The jazz is fantastic and you also get to see the fresh young faces of Anthony Valentine, Francesca Annis, Una Stubbs and David Hemmings. Highly recommended.

I followed this with a cracking US B-movie called Dial Red O featuring 'Wild' Bill Elliott in the unfamiliar role of a 50s cop mixed up with escaped mental patients, adultery and murder. This was the first of 5 noirs that Elliott made at very the end of his career. If the other 4 are are good as this, then The Bat has some exciting viewing to look forward to. Highly recommended.

Jingle bells Batman smells ... I heard that at school Daddy.

BAT QUIZ 16 HAS JUST BEEN POSTED IN THE COMPETITION THREAD - 06/01/09

Steve Crook

I watched the first couple of episodes of the second series of Secret Diary of a Call Girl with Billie Piper. There's a new girl called Bambi (Ashley Madekwe) who wants to take up the oldest profession.

Bambi: I want them to call me Bambi, that's what I was called at school.
Belle: Oh, because of you doe eyes?
Bambi: No, because my mother got shot!
[Belle looks stunned]
Bambi: Only joking



Great bit of dialogue

Steve

dpgmel

Oops thanks Bats of course it should be Val Guest ! ( I blame the thopught of returning to work befuddling me )

dpgmel

Couldn't agree more

Last night I watched " The Very Edge" directed by Cyril Frankel and starring Richard Todd and Anne Heywood in a tale of a houswife and a stalker. To be honest fairly disappointing : not much tension and a very invasive music score didn't help.

The one highpoint was a very young Jeremy Brett as the stalker.

MB

I watched two films, one of which was British and the other not. But, very similiar themes, actually, although I hadn't chosen it that way. I enjoyed both, even though they were what some people might have called 'biography for dummies' and, of course, there is always the question as to whether it is tasteful to make these films at all.

In the end I came to the conclusion that both these women would have wanted to have their stories told, but who knows..

Sylvia

Sylvia (2003)

Again, not enough of the poetry..but it does try to settle the argument, a little, over 'who killed Sylvia Plath'..Something that has been discussed, relentlessly, in poetry classes across the world for the last forty years (At the college I was in, someone wrote a play about the subject where Ted Hughes was blamed without question..) In the end, I think this film dealt a fair, reasonable analysis.

Factory Girl

US, but with a number of British actors involved.

Factory Girl (2006)

Again, the story takes the approach of mapping the emotional breakdown of another talent, spirited woman, perhaps, looking to replace her father and mistakenly thinking that the enigmatic man who falls 'in love' with her will take the same care - in this case 'Andy Warhol'. I am fascinated with the Factory, the Velvet Underground etc. As is everyone else, it seems, given the amount of successful exhibitions that are still based on his work, particularly in the UK.

It was interesting to get a glimpse in to his world from someone elses perspective. Which, I suspect was the impetus as they struggled to find a strong 'reason' as to why they had chosen to focus on this intriguing, beautiful and yet, peripheral young woman for the achievements of her own.

Not as well made as 'Sylvia', but with some surprising performances...I am still reeling from the realisation that the person playing Andy Warhol (pretty darned good, fittingly slightly over the top 'take off', I'd say..) was Guy Pearce..who I remember from Neighbours...

julian_craster

80,000 Suspects starring Richard Johnson, directed by Val Guest.....

Chevyman

"The Way Ahead"

A Happy and Healthy New Year to all

"Don't tread on Greta Garbo, as you walk down the boulevard?"

Harbottle

The Snorkel (1958) DVD-R. Another of those Hammer films that neither gets a TV airing nor a DVD release I found it rather good, with Peter van Eyck stealing the acting honours with his especially cold performance. Young Mandy Miller acquits herself well too, William Franklyn and Gregoire Aslan also feature.

Steve Crook

Have you seen The New Lot (1943)?
That was the original version of the story which was made as an Army training film but its downbeat message wasn't liked by the Army so Ustinov remade it commercially (where the Army had no control) as The Way Ahead

Steve

Lord Brett

Does Billie Piper still sound like Sylvester the Cat thanks to her new tooth caps? Thia caused great amusement when she returned to Doctor Who earlier this year.

dremble wedge

Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn which was part of the Times' great giveaway last week. Thoroughly enjoyable nonsense with the incomparable Charles Laughton in delightfully villainous form, Robert Newton as an unlikely hero and Basil Radford popping up intermittently when plot devices require him to leave the port and walnuts.

Chevyman

No I haven't Steve. Sounds like it will be worth watching

A Happy and Healthy New Year to all

"Don't tread on Greta Garbo, as you walk down the boulevard?"

Steve Crook

It's on the DDHE DVD of The Way Ahead if you can find a copy.
Shame DDHE went bust

Steve

Steve Crook

All or Nothing (2002)
Shown on BBC, so no ad breaks

Another masterpiece from Mike Leigh, starring the always wonderful Timothy Spall. But as always with Mike & Timothy, we don't expect a happy film. But we do expect, and usually get, a beautifully shot, very closely observed slice of life even if those lives aren't the most glamorous.

Here we had Phil, a minicab driver (Timothy Spall) his "other half" Penny (Lesley Manville) and their two children Rory (James "Gavin & Stacey" Cordon) and Rachel (Alison Garland). The children are overweight and underachieving, Phil & Penny are hanging on to a semi-decent life by their fingertips. When Phil has a bad day on the cabs he has to scrabble around for loose change to pay the rental on the cab radio that brings him work.

They live in a block of flats and we're introduced to a few of their neighbours as well. The other cab driver with the alcoholic wife. The single mum with the newly pregnant daughter.

It's not a fun life. Total disrespect from most of the kids, a few strange passengers in the cab or a glimpse of Penny at work at the supermarket. An occasional night out to try to blot it all out, but that usually ends badly. It doesn't add to their joy.

They're people we know even if they're not us or our close friends. For most of them their conversation is limited to "Alwight?" ("All right?") which is what passes for concern for other people.

But despite the bleak outlook it's not at all depressing. They are managing, just. Then a crisis brings them back closer together, some neighbours help out, others fail to. But Phil and Penny are ready to face another day.

The love is there, the family life is there, but you have to work at it.
It's All Or Nothing.

Steve