Movies, TV Etc

I've been doing some intense media stuff lately. Partly as research for the podcast (which comes out next weekend) and partly because the temperature here in Melbourne has been pretty high lately and I can't be stuffed doing much else.

So what have I been hitting my retinas with?

The first three episodes of the second series of the tv series "Primeval", which I highly recommend you watch even if you have to torrent it as I did. The premise of this one is simple - anomalies in time are opening up all over London and a team of scientists lead by Professor Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall) have the job of returning whatever comes through the anomalies to their original time periods. His job is complicated by the fact that his wife Helen (Juliet Aubrey) who disappeared into an anomaly eight years before, has returned and seems to a) know how to predict where an anomaly will appear and b) is playing around with changing the time lines. Raptors, pteradons, smilodons, pre-Cambrian worms the size of large dogs and highly intelligent ambush predators from the future all come through and menace the team. It's a good solid adventure series with engaging characters, a story arc that hooks you in and it's a lot more fun than the nihilistic, virally-hyped shaky-cam of a movie like "Cloverfield" - which we also saw. A week after viewing "Cloverfield" (dumb name, why not call it Pastel Pony Wonderland Movie) my reaction is that it's a godzilla flick for youtube reality tv junkies. Nice monster but its' physics are all fucked. You can't get a tentacular calimari-textured thingie that big. The Inverse Cube Law makes even a muscular endoskeletal daikaju like Godzilla ludicrous. Someone should do a giant monster with carbon-fibre bones and muscles like braided ships hawsers. Gimme a pre-Cambrian worm anyday.

I've also been nibbling away at Series One of Have Gun-Will Travel, the late 50s western series starring Richard Boone as Paladin, the knight-gunfighter who solves problems more often with his brain than his perfectly balanced 45 caliber Colt Single Action Army revolver. The episodes are slightly less than 30 minutes and the writing and acting are wonderful. Watching Boone carry a live rattlesnake at arm's length into an indian encampment was one of the greatest bits of tv actor bravery I've ever seen. The guest actors are pretty good too - Charles Bronson, Strother Martin, June Lockhart, Warren Oates, James Coburn. Can't wait until I can afford series two and three from Amazon.



I also got out to the cinema to see No Country For Old Men, the new Coen Brothers movie based on a novel by Mr Comedy, Cormac McCarthy. Excellent film, even when there's a microcephalic tosser sitting in the row in front of you talking all the way through it. Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin are all excellent in this one. Add it to your list. While watching it we saw the preview of There Will Be Blood, the new Paul Thomas Anderson flick starring Daniel Day Lewis. I'll have to check it out even if DDL is doing a note-perfect imitiation of John Huston's Noah Cross from Chinatown.

That's all for now. Gotta watch some movies.

Extra Linkages

That Old Feeling: When Porno Was Chic - a Time magazine article on the golden age of cinema erotica which mentions Alice In Wonderland.

Grant Tracey's review of The Big Combo.

An Appreciation of Burt Lancaster's The Swimmer.

And as an extra treat, here's an entire episode of one of my favourite childhood tv shows, The Adventures Of Robin Hood starring Richard Greene, thanks to the magical kingdom that is Youtube.



Enjoy!

Paleocinema Podcast 7

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Here it is, numero siete. In this 'cast, I look at the first of my own personal Magnificent Seven action heroes pre-1980, examine The Big Combo, a kick-arse film noir from the 1950s and as a guilty and naughty pleasure, examine the 1975 or 1976 porn version of Alice In Wonderland, then end with a brief spiel about the movies I've watched since the start of 2008.
The download link is here.

SHOOT 'EM UP

The movie opens Mr. Smith (Clive Owen) sitting at a bus stop chewing a carrot when a woman in labour staggers past. Seconds later, a car broadsides into another parked vehicle and a hard-case gets out and follows the woman into an alley while brandishing a gun. Reluctantly, Smith follows.

Mr. Smith is to gunfights what Bruce Lee was to kicking people in the back of the head while standing in front of them. He's the last person in the World you want to see if you're about to cut a baby out of a woman with a hunting knife and for the guy who is about to do just that, Mr Smith is the last person he sees. More villains turn up and Mr Smith handles the problem of shooting bad guys and delivering a baby simultaneously. When he severs the umbilical with a well aimed shot, the movie kicks into high gear. Paul Giamatti turns up as Hertz, the leader of the killers. Time was when the villain in an action movie was a suave Alan Rickman Eurotrash thief. Giamatti looks like the kind of guy who spends all day in the public library, which is possibly why his character is such a good hitman.

If Smith is the angriest man in the World, Hertz is the smartest killer. When it comes to following clues he makes Basil Rathbone look like Bill Murray in Caddyshack. When the mother of the baby is killed, Smith is left with the kid and recruits Donna, a lactating prostitute played by Monica Bellucci to wet-nurse the baby, who as the plot unfolds is revealed to be the intended subject of the original hit.

Like all good action films, this one creates its' own reality. If you buy in to the bit with the umbilicus, you're in the movie's zone. Giamatti, Owen and Bellucci are excellent in what are essentially a string of action sequences laced together with a plot that doesn't, and doesn't have to make much sense. There are some dark and icky bits in it, especially when Hertz tortures Smith, but in general, this is a great popcorn and beer movie. Stylish gun-porn.

Paleocinema Podcast #6 - The Newtonmas Show

Here it is podcast 6 - in it I look at Advise and Consent, a political movie from 1962, Sally looks at the Rankin-Bass Christmas stop motion specials from the 1970s and I go through a few of my favourite viewing experiences of 2007. The download link is here. Happy Newtonmas, mon freres.

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Remake Madness

JoBlo.com has a report that the guy who produced Alexander for Oliver Stone, a twit called Thomas Schuehly wants to do a remake of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. This is an extremely bad idea. It's even worse than the 1984 soundtrack for the film where Giorgio Moroder decided that it was a good idea to get Pat Benatar, Adam Ant, Billy Squier, Loverboy, Bonnie Tyler and Freddie Mercury to sing banal pop-songs in an attempt to enhance a silent movie classic. It wasn't a good idea and it wasn't enhancement.

Here's an open letter to Thomas Schuehly. Leave it the fuck alone. Go and do a movie based on Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash or Charlie Stross' Iron Sunrise or get someone to update Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron instead of drawing over masterpieces with cinematic crayons. Nobody's going to thank you for frigging up their memories of the original movie and you won't do it better than Fritz Lang did.
In his later years, Lang starred in a movie called Le Mepris and that title expresses my feelings about the idea of remaking Metropolis. Le Mepris means contempt.

Yet Another Great Movie Review Site

Boris Lugosi (not his real name) has been pubbing his movie review on the web since Jesus was a cowboy. The site, Girls, Guns and Ghouls is worth checking out as a checklist of DVD goodness for the discerning cult movie buff. It's yet another case of Australian quality cultural content in the great tradition of this and this and this.

Couch Potato Saturday

Just to chill after a week of working for the man, I spent Saturday watching DVDS. Here's the summary.

The Simpsons Movie

Bland, middle of the road stuff to keep the masses happy. A tiny bit edgier than the TV show which passed its' use-by date around the time of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Two chuckles in the whole lot. People waited eighteen years for this? Sal enjoyed it more than I did, but she's a fart/bum joke kind of woman. Now a Family Guy movie might have some edge to it... or even better still, a Venture Brothers movie.

Banacek Series One I watched some episodes of this 1970s tv show about an insurance investigator played with an amusing smarminess by George Peppard. Good crimes in this. How do you steal a flat car from a train while the train is moving? How does a football player disappear while in the middle of a game? How does a million bucks vanish from inside a glass dome in the middle of a busy casino? Cool seventies stuff with guest stars like Margot Kidder and Joanna Pettit, Victor Jory and Broderick Crawford.

Nihon Chinbotsu I picked up from an Asian DVD shop for fifteen bucks. The name of the movie means Japan Sinks and it's a remake of a 1973 movie based on a 1973 novel by Sakyo Komatsu. The movie does a good job of balancing the people stories with the fantastically well done special effects. Islands sinking, tidal waves, volcanoes, landslides, massive destruction of cities and a string of underwater nukes are all done with an impressive realism. There are also some shocking scenes on a human scale. A grieving woman kneeling beside the body of her husband while she carries a dead baby is particularly shocking.

Finally Godzilla 2000 in which the big spiky guy goes up against an alien spacecraft that scientists found on the bottom of the ocean where it has languished for 60 million years. The space ship is around the size of the Burj Al Arab and absorbs information, which includes the data on Godzilla's DNA. Great special effects, a climactic punch up between Gojira and the monster created from his DNA and Tokyo, as usual, gets a severe kicking.

Podcast 5 - Roberto Rossellini Versus Gerry Anderson Versus Robert A Heinlein

Yep here are the movies I'm discussing.

Viaggio In Italia
Journey To The Far Side of the Sun
Project Moonbase.

If there's a theme there, I'm buggered if I know what it is.

I'll be also looking at movie reference books.

Stream the podcast at the link below or download it here by right clicking on this link and saving the destination

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Paleocinema Podcast #4 - Spy Movies Sans Bond

Podcast 4 is up and running.

In this podcast I look at the history of spy films, apart from James Bond, going back to the origins of the genre, revealing the longest running spy movie series of all time and dissing not only “Get Smart” but Austin Powers as well.

Extra music and sounds from archive.org and Soundsnap.
Download the file at this link.

Or play with the embedded player

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