Category Archive: FILM
Bridesmaids
(2011) (Paul Feig) A long, slow-motion descent into the maelstrom for Kristen Wiig, a selfish, damaged, pretty, self-pitying gal with a drinking problem, and jealousy issues. It is a bit of a plod, saved by her romance with Chris O’Dowd and three deathless scenes: the bridal fitting after lunch at a very dodgy eatery; the plane trip to Vegas, and the bridal shower. It’s where America is now, unfortunately: resilient but mad, mad with self-love.
Continue Reading →Victim
(Dir. Basil Dearden) (1961) In 1961, in the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, if a man put his pee-pee into another man, it was not only abnormal; it was a criminal offence, punishable by imprisonment. And without knowing much about that, we are confident that such imprisonment was not only qua punishment, but for punishment. So for film-industry insider Basil Dearden, and various stars, to make this rather didactic thriller constituted an act of courage. Boy Barrett (Peter McEnery) is being blackmailed and desperately wants to protect his object of desire, Neville Farr (Dirk Bogarde, in a superb performance, arch and feisty). Farr…
Continue Reading →Silent Running
(Dir. Douglas Trumbull) (1971) The order comes from exhausted, ravaged Mother Earth, to nuke the space farms, but Bruce Dern (a man born with a contrary face) prefers to treat that order as garbled in transmission. This is the first and best of the Green Space Operas. Trumbull, the special effects guru (2001, Close Encounters of the Third Kind) goes wild in his directorial debut: the space farms and incidental craft are an art-direction triumph; his droids (Huey, Dewey and Louie) are far more charming than those rusty, effete and annoying Wizard of Oz knock-offs from Star Wars (which P, incidentally, considers a…
Continue Reading →Fahrenheit 451
(Dir. François Truffaut) (1966) Apart from the bone-chilling Mars-Hates-Earth story, “While Earthmen Sleep”, Ray Bradbury (22 Aug 1920 – 5 Jun 2012) – Happy Death Day Ray! – wrote a classic dystopian work, Fahrenheit 451. In a world where possessing books is illegal, Oskar Werner is a promising up-and-coming fireman whose job is to torch the western canon (451 degrees is the applicable temperature). Cyril Cusack is impressed with how well Oskar winkles out those hidden classics. Whilst the fire engines belong to a weird mix of Thunderbirds and On the Buses, and the film strikes odd, repetitive, notes, a…
Continue Reading →Eraserhead
(Dir. David Lynch) (1977) A hilariously creepy, surreal, slice of family life set in an urban landscape of industrial nightmare. Henry (Jack Nance, a Tim Finn parody) finds his life, such as it is, a gigantic and miserable chore. Every human crossing his path seems straight out of Brother’s Keeper. His prospective parents-in-law belong in the zoo. So do the chickens they serve. Their home, adjacent the railway tunnel, is a jet-black version of the cardboard horror from Targets. Scenes of amateur squalor abound. A show-stopping singing number (one of P’s preferred funerary songs) is performed by a deformed inamorata. His near catatonic girlfriend takes off when the fruit…
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