It’s got a fantastic opening as a man dressed in a tuxedo climbs out of the sewers and steps out into the freshly cleaned gutters. So many questions fill our mind. What was he doing down there? Why is he dressed to the nines? Why all the secrecy?
The practical answer would be he’s been on a reconnaissance job under a bank or cash-filled casino or hiding from someone but I think it’s the symbolism that’s the real reason and the symbol is that this man is a rat and that the sewer might even be his home or where…
So many alarm bells immediately start sounding as the opening credits roll to ‘Paint Your Wagon’ (1969) that it’s quite a fright. Clint Eastwood sings? Ooogah! A lavish musical production with a massive budget made at a time when musicals were seriously out of fashion? Ooogah!! A lavish musical production with a massive budget adapted to the screen by er… Paddy Chayefsky? OOOGAH- OOOGAH!!! Lee Marvin in a lavish musical as the lead? OOO… or actually, no. In fact Marvin might just very well be the best thing about this whole bloody mess. …
I’ve avoided Joe Rogan like the plague as he simply seemed nothing more than the physical manifestation of pontificating male ignorance. However, I was curious to hear what Neil deGrasse Tyson had to say to Rogan regarding the Pentagon’s report on UFOs so I thought I’d give it a watch. Oh, how I wish I hadn’t.
Not surprisingly Tyson wipes the floor with Rogan as he clearly explains the scientific method to Rogan and how nothing in the report indicates aliens or spaceships in the slightest. This shocks the ‘open-minded’ Rogan so the ‘open-minded’ Rogan responds with various examples of…
Warning — contains strong language and irrational thought processes.
Michael Anderson’s ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ (1956) is colourful, lavish, star-studded, spectacular, exotic, beautifully shot but, most of all, it’s tedious as fuck! Christ, this might be the dullest movie ever made and is so long, so drawn out, it would feel quicker actually going round the fucking planet itself. Yep, this one royally pissed me off so strap in, folks. This could be a bumpy trip.
It all starts off quite promising with the unflappable, unruffable and imperturbable Phileas Fogg accepting a bet at the Reform Club that…
VROOM!
It’s Rome in August and timid law student Roberto (Jean-Louis Trintigant) is studying for an important exam when his peace is rudely interrupted by a complete stranger who loudly rocks up outside Roberto’s apartment in his Lancia Aurelia convertible and shouts up asking if Roberto can make a phone call for him. Roberto has no idea who the hell this guy, some cocky dude in his early forties, is but invites him up anyway.
Turns out the guy is called Bruno (Vittorio Gassman) and now Bruno has entered Roberto’s apartment, and by extension Roberto’s life, it seems it’s going…
It had been so long since I had seen ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ (1940) that my memories of it were as distant in time as the tale itself; nothing more than a hazy myth of genies, distant lands, flying carpets and high adventure. Although I was also re-visiting it through a certain bias as I’ve since become a big fan of the 1924 Douglas Fairbanks/Raoul Walsh silent version so was curious to see how this would compare. So let’s open the stopper to this cinematic bottle, unleash the genie and find out!
What immediately hits you when watching producer Alexander…
I was looking forward to ‘In the Heights’ (2021), a vibrant musical about a Latinx community in New York following their trials and tribulations during a hot summer and how a power blackout changes everything. I’m a fan of both musicals and that sub-genre of film I’d call “Hot Summer New York Movies” where the scorching heat can elicit tensions and passions in a neighbourhood until they demand release so ‘In the Heights’ was looking promising. So how come by the end I felt I’d been in a coma for over two hours and needed jolted back to life?
My…
Warning to all Dead Heads — this was written from a place of flippancy, affection and some ‘comedic’ exaggeration. If I disliked them THIS much I wouldn’t have lasted 18 hours. Anyway, with that out of the way…
It was only recently I realised that I had never listened to anything at all by The Grateful Dead in my entire life. “I’m in my fifties.” I thought to myself. “If I’m going to listen to them before I die it’s going to have to be now.” …
All I could remember about ‘A Night to Remember’ (1958) was that it starred Kenneth More and that a ship sank in it. And that’s it. Oh, and that the Titanic went down in one piece as opposed to breaking as in two as in Cameron’s version but not much more than that.
Yet what stayed with me most about the movie from all those years ago were the aesthetics of the cinematography; the way the pitch black of the sky and sea contrasted against the white of ice and points of electric light. Death and hope? Revisiting the film…
My idea of living hell would to be stuck in a Richard Curtis movie. His early TV work was great but his film work makes my skin crawl to the extent that I want to tear it all off until I resemble Uncle Frank from ‘Hellraiser’ (1987) and I’m just a bloody, skinless body writhing about on the floor. …
Colin Edwards
Comedy writer, radio producer and director of large scale audio features.
