so, i've watched a fair few more things. the last post i did on some things that i had watched was, look you see, unexpectedly popular. north of 100 people read it, so presumably someone out there somewhere wants more.
alas, no, nothing i viewed came from the collection of Sammy Davis jnr, or any of the Rat Pack for that matter. this i say, to be sure, in clarification of a reasonably recent post about tapes of celebrities. as has become the usual, at least it is what i did in the last post, the provenance of each of the discs what i watched will be given. well, as far as i can .
provenance - That's Entertainment, 49p
yeah, that provenance will come up a few times in this post. when confronted with classic, or interesting looking, films sans a conventional DVD box but in a dapper plastic sleeve i find it hard to resist.
i am not sure when i last saw this film, but i recall my first viewing of it. this was back in the mid 80s, possibly on the north side of mid. the BBFC were in their totalitarian prime back then, armed with scissors. the first version i saw of this, and indeed Way Of The Dragon, had been cut to ribbons by the censors. absolutely any martial arts scene involving weapons and virtually all of the hand to hand bouts of combat were cut out, leaving you with something of a disjointed viewing experience lasting little over an hour, at best. it might be amusing to get one of the BBFC cut to bits copies one day, just to see how badly audiences were treated back then.
this, then, the introduction assured me, was a fully restored and uncut print of the film. and how sensational it was too. no doubt some films similar to this came out before, but this one really did set out a blueprint for action movies. off the top of my head, i suppose Schwarzenegger's Commando was clearly heavily influenced. especially the bit about going to an island and knacking everyone.
from what i can remember Enter The Dragon was highly influential on Spiros, too. yes, it inspired him to take up martial arts, but not for the obvious reasons. he really, really liked the idea of having his own army of martial artists on an island, and indeed entertaining guests by having mostly undressed gentlemen wrestle at dinner tables.
provenance - That's Entertainment, 49p
well, i did warn you on the provenance thing.
i spotted this and elected to get it, both despite the fact and because of the fact that it was one of them there "Region 1" DVDs, theoretically playable in the USA (yee ha) only. some magic means that this is not the case.
the appeal was, like above i suppose, i had only seen a really badly edited version of the film. not the BBFC to blame this time, but South Africa's censors. unless, of course, what got submitted to them was a hacked to ribbons cut of the film, intended either for the UK or the "international" market.
yes, it is a Jean Claude Van Damme film; ostensibly an "early" one in his career. this is supposed to be some post apocalyptic future thing, where he escorts "the saviour of the world" to safety whilst seeking vengeance against those what killed or harmed people he cared for. sort of, almost, kind of, maybe, at a push, something of a sci-fi, and quite sh!tty!, re-imagining of Outlaw Josey Wales.
with a possible spoiler warning here, the reason i got it is that i recalled how a very dear friend was impressed with one scene in it. i mean, he acknowledged that the film entire was rubbish, but the bit where JCVD finds himself crucified, and escapes, in a bit borrowed out of the version of Conan with Arnold in it, was a masterclass in cinematography and editing. he is right on all counts.
other than that, the only real reason i could say that Cyborg is worth a watch is the masterclass in bad acting. seriously. whoever it is that plays the "big bad" in this film, i really cannot be bothered to look it up, delivers by some distance the worst film performance in history, especially during the inevitable final battle.
provenance - Amazon (i think), £5 (or so)
i stumbled on this, and another we will get to later (or will if you keep reading) when i was going through a box looking for something else. with it in my hands, i said yeah, why not, and kept it aside to have a gander at again. this i did, of course.
what is it? part of a series that came out seemingly determined to try and convince people to keep on buying real music, rather than "digital downloads", legal or otherwise. in essence, then, for a quite reasonable price you get a Greatest Hits CD and a sort of Greatest Hits DVD, with ten music promo videos included. is particular variant celebrates Marillion, then. the Scottish band who once were huge but to this day also have quite a dedicated following.
most - maybe 80% if not 90% - of the DVD focuses on what one would call "the Fish" years of the band, as in when Fish was lead vocalist. the three best known songs from that era - Kayleigh, Lavender and Incommunicado all feature. a nice inclusion would have been Market Square Heroes, which had an outrageous video, but no it is not there.
provenance - That's Entertainment, 49p
for fact fans, who for some reason still read this blog despite a sometimes unusual take on what is a fact, yes, i believe this film is also known as Hannah, Queen Of The Vampires. which is a far more appropriate title than what i saw it under, for "living dead" implies zombies, and zombies there are none.
plot? some sort of professor is messing around on an unspecified island, disturbing the tomb of that lady mentioned above. one of her guardians ensures he comes to a quite gruesome end. so, as you do, his son comes to this island, both to lay his father to rest and find out exactly what happened. he becomes aware of the myth, legend and quite (for the islanders) real fear of Hannah, and so feels compelled to investigate further.
indeed,. as you can see on the DVD face image, this was sold to me as an 18. i figured, then, that it would have some splendid graphic violence in it, or maybe nudies. quite a let down, then, when the disc started playing and i saw this, a PG certificate what it actually had instead.
no matter, i watched. and enjoyed. this was a pretty decent film. all things considered. what the personification of "average" should be, prior to that word having negative connotations. it keeps you interested throughout, and you don't feel like it was a waste of time at the end. but also you don't rant and rave of its greatness.
two points of annoyance with the film. firstly, the ratio of the film kept changing. once scene had the black bars at the top and bottom, the next not. secondly, internet says it is Spanish, but the island and cast feel Greek, yet at the end of the credits it is Turkey what gets all the thanks.
just what is that above? my first ever portable DVD player. must be 12 years old now, as i think one of the first things i watched on it was Star Wars Episode III - Back In Training. still works just fine. most of the films here have been watched on this; i plug it in and pick a desk when i am of a mind to do some ironing. oh yes, modern man, etc.
anyway, back to the films. and one i did not watch on the above player.
provenance - north of £10, maybe
yes, i paid full whack for this "4K"restoration, Blu Ray steelbook of The Wicker Man, labelled the "final cut". which suggests that they are no longer going to fiddle with what bits of film they find and issue it again at some later stage. but they said that about the Director's Cut DVD some 10+ years ago, and yes of course i got that one too.
what can i say of The Wicker Man that has not been said? to recap, Christopher Lee was quoted as saying that it was the work he was proudest of. many celebrate it as the greatest British horror film of all time. some go so far as to say that it is the greatest British film ever made. the latter has many contenders for such a title, but then again i would not argue too hard against such a declaration being made. quite simply, it is an astonishing and brilliant film. but i do get baffled as to why, very much like Planet Of The Apes (proper, not that hideous remake), they insist on giving the surprise ending away on the cover art. why assume that everyone has already seen it?
as i watched again i was reminded of the first time i saw this fine film. i'd not heard of it, instead trusting a dear friend when he passed on the video tape. it was a recording off of the BBC, probably quite late at night, at some stage of the mid 80s. this was a well used, scratchy, grainy video. and that, i think, is how you are supposed to see this film. whilst this all cleaned up new copy is bright and crisp (hello, Faye) and clear, that's not how it should be.
provenance - 49p, That's Entertainment
here's the personification of how we have devalued music, readers. whether you like them or not U2 are the biggest band in the world. no one sells out as many venues. and yet i can get a double DVD set of arguably one of their greatest performances for south of 50p.
yeah, i fancied a bit more music at one stage, and so put this on. ostensibly it is a gig from touring and promoting the album All That You Can't Leave Behind, arguably the last one they released prior to for some reason them being declared "uncool" and having abuse hurled at them from a small, vocal number. hey ho.
with each passing year i find myself more and more drawn to listening to U2 and REM. in respect of the latter, i "hated" them at the time, and had nothing to do with them. time, age and events has, however, found me discovering a great deal in the music of both which now resonates. if only i knew then what i know now, i suppose.
just about every performance on this disc is solid gold, with Kite being particularly outstanding. but, if you are a U2 fan you will know this; if you are not then i dare say you would not care.
provenance - That's Entertainment, 49p
oh yes, a controversial choice, this. but for some reason i found myself compelled in a wish to watch again, and so i did.
let me make something clear. i am a devotee of the novel. how much? it is my go-to novel to re-re-read, and if for some reason it was a question i would say that Bonfire Of The Vanities by Tom Wolfe is the greatest and most important work of fiction to have been published in my lifetime.
the film was, but of course, an absolute disaster. when you consider the time it was made, the casting was absurd. Tom Hanks was known only for comedy stuff, and that of a lightweight nature. it was all but impossible to take him seriously as a "Master Of The Universe" Wall Street type. not just 3 years after we had seen Michael Douglas give the performance of a lifetime in Wall Street. Bruce Willis, it would be quite fair to say, was also probably not who anyone what had read the book had in mind for the part of a decidedly alcoholic, very English journalist.
it is a film which tries to tell the narrative of the novel but completely and utterly misses the point of the story. the horrid, altered ending does not help in the slightest. anyone who even half kind of liked reading the novel would see this film as a spiteful act of vengeance, so deliberate is it in weakening the greatness of the source material.
and yet. and yet. coming back to it there are some redeeming aspects. if someone had never ever heard of the novel and encountered this now, knowing Tom Hanks as a celebrated actor and Bruce Willis as someone who can act, they might find it a mostly reasonable, linear story.
there's also the casting it got right. if we leave aside the controversy surrounding ditching Alan Arkin from the part (see this book), replacement Morgan Freeman is superb. also, the "side" characters (who actually drive the narrative) are perfectly cast - in particular F Murray Abraham, Saul Rubinek , John Hancock and Kim Cattrall.
a problem with Hollywood, or movie makers, is that they tend to decide to remake films which were great in their original form, delivering a lesser version. what they should do is take a concept that was excellent but did not work in execution first time around. remake bad films, to make them good, then. the world is surely crying out for Bonfire to be done as a film properly, with an ensemble cast. whether as a film or tv series thing, i know not.
provenance - Amazon, about £5 i think
for the more technical sides of the content, then, refer to Marillion above. same format, etc.
in this instance, though, it's 10 videos off of the Men In Black, The Stranglers. a very, very dear friend introduced me to this band and i shall remain eternally grateful that they did.
the ten videos selected here come from their celebrated 77 - 82 period. so no Skin Deep alas, or anything with any of the singers and guitarists who came in to replace Hugh Cornwell in the early 90s.
perhaps the biggest disappointment of the ten selected is that it doesn't feature Nuclear Device. the video for that was boss, with the band sporting them smart Australian hats with corks on them, and waving boomerangs around for good measure. happily, the infamous Nice N Sleazy footage features; the one where the band elected to have some strippers perform on stage with them. oh yes, all got arrested for public indecency, but how nice of the coppers to wait for the performance to finish before moving in and making arrests.
provenance - That's Entertainment, 49p
yes, another potential bargain purchase, bought on the promise that it was an 18 and looked quite like a horror, so there was every chance of some smart violence, decent special effects and nudies.
there is not a particularly great deal of that in the film, as it turned out. although it does have the now sadly late Adam West in it, which was a plus.
plot? not entirely sure. some people die in bizarre circumstances, with them being placed in a mausoleum. this is a mausoleum where a sorority decided to hold an initiation, by forcing a potential inductee lady to spend the night in it. do American colleges really have these initiation things? anyway, one of the dead in the mausoleum is some sort of wizard or sorcerer, and comes back to life.
a fairly standard slice of 80s cheap and cheerful teen horror movie, really. i wouldn't call it great, but then no it is highly i would watch again, or suggest it to anyone else. well, maybe fans of Adam West who want to see him do something non-Batman, maybe.
provenance - unknown
i really have no idea where i picked up this 2 DVD set. for some reason i suspect it was at one of them trade in stores, like a 'Cash Convertors', for a really low fee.
this was the 2 DVD set put out a few years ago, bringing together most if not all of the footage of the band to exist when all 4 were alive and what was not part of the The Song Remains The Same film.
at present there is a certain trend which seeks to bring to justice some celebrities for alleged crimes committed several years, in fact decades, ago. often these are crimes of a sexual nature. whereas i have no quarrel with people being brought to justice, i do raise an eyebrow at the selective nature of it. Led Zeppelin, for instance, are never brought in to question, despite well documented "incidents", rarely denied and often celebrated, involving John Bonham (see The Dark Stuff) and in particular Jimmy Page (see Hammer Of The Gods). but, i am sure the constabulary are right to pursue only the ones they do.
well, this ended up on as i wanted some vibes as i did some writing, man. for some reason Vintage TV has gotten really, really passionate about broadcasting lots of Hall & Oates, so i turned to my disc collection instead, and selected this.
provenance - Poundland, £1
yes, one of them blu ray discs off of Poundland.
plot? there's one of them plague outbreak things, this time in San Francisco, what turns loads into zombies. in this instance the survivors decide to hole up on the island of Alcatraz as they work on a cure.
my heart goes out to the screenplay writer of this film. he, she or they had actually managed to come up with a fairly new take on well covered ground. the moral questions, or if you like scruples, to be sure, are interesting. but any form of originality or inventiveness is quite lost amongst some truly awful, awful acting and mostly average but often distractingly mediocre effects. on the one side it is class that someone felt the screenplay should be filmed, even cheaply, but alas the strengths of it are all diminished by the end product.
an example of where it goes wrong? well, the one recognized "star" in it is Danny Trejo. well, him and that LeVar bloke off of Star Trek. in terms of Danny, it seems he was cast for the acting qualities he could bring, rather than being a badass killer.
provenance - 49p, That's Entertainment
ostensibly, then, this is pretty much the 80s video tape of the same name bunged on a DVD with little or no "remastering" work done. certainly nothing added, for this comprises of some of the hits off of Mr Loaf up to and including 1984.
to be very honest, no, i did not watch it all. i shoved it on to watch, to hear and to marvel at the wonders of Bat Out Of Hell. then i sort of skipped through the rest of the tracks and found that i had skipped through the entire disc.
no, i am not disrespecting Mr Loaf, or his music. i suppose, maybe, i was just being "popular". but all i really, really wanted to do was have a listen to Bat Out Of Hell, and as i had the portable player on the go, putting this disc on was the best and most straightforward way to do that. magnificent song it is, to be sure. when people get around to asking me what exactly is wrong with modern music, i would probably point to something like this, and say that people today lack the ambition, the skill, the risk, the sacrifice and the audacity to try and reach for this greatness.
well then, that's that for another round up of what i have had a bit of a gander at. let me go and watch some more, then, and throw the comments together here. should i be granted the margin to make it that far.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment