more observance

heya


well, i have watched a fair few movies over the last few weeks. perhaps. maybe i have watched more than you, or less than you have, look you see, but by my usual ratio it feels like decidedly more than would be "the norm". so, as ever, if for no reason but to have something to put here but forever with the hope someone might find my musings of interest, here's a look.

a rather appropriate name for this post would instead be watching with William. that would be because a hefty number of the films covered here were done so at the behest of the young lad, for they were movies what he wanted to watch. i have every confidence that you will work out the titles which were not of his choosing, and certainly not seen by his eyes.

if for some reason you wanted a form of preview rather than just reading all of this, well then yes i can confirm that "a significant" number of films what have Batman in them feature. oh yeah, also, please note that for everything below the first image a quite significant and you should pay attention to it *** SPOILER WARNING *** is in place.

yes, indeed, quite an eclectic, or if you will diverse, selection of motion pictures this time around. except for the fact that a significant percentage feature, as mentioned, Batman, whereas a slightly smaller yet still noteworthy quota feature vampires.

hey ho, on we go, then.

in starting where i think i did with this most recent bout of film watching, we have The Hunger. this came out in 1893, i think, and i am fairly sure it was the directorial debut of Tony Scott. which is fine, but the selling point for when i first watched it and the selling point now was the presence of David Bowie.

provenance of my copy? HMV. it was in the "2 for £15" section where i picked up a couple (three) of them ones what had been made to look like VHS boxes. just a standard case for this, but yes, like those VHS replica sets, the DVD and Blu Ray versions were included.

the plot? a vampire (Catherine Deneuve) takes (frequently by vampire standards) lovers. they stay with her for one or two hundred years (after she has bitten them and that), but at the end of that period they rapidly age. it is this fate which is about to befall her current lover (David Bowie). in seeking a way that might prevent the rapid aging she consults one of them science types (Susan Sarandon) who is working on slowing down or preventing the ageing process. but, as it turns out, the vampire thinks about it and decides a change is as good as a rest, and thus courts the scientist with a review to making her the new lover.

i was hesitant about both buying and watching this one again because my memories were of it being very boring. as it turns out, i should have obeyed the hesitancy. this really is not a good film. some will speak of the "innovative" and "stark" editing, which is in fact just clumsy and hamfisted.  the acting is ok, the visuals are nothing special and for the most part the story is a borderline incoherent mess. of those points, the latter is made true by a nonsensical ending, one which does not tie in with much of the film and was apparently forced on the film in the hope of making sequels. it is unlikely that i shall ever watch it again.

no, William most certainly did not watch The Hunger, but i happened to find myself watching the 1989 Batman by Tim Burton again as he very much wished to see it.

provenance of my copy? i actually have a couple of it kicking around, but this one was all of 49p (sans box) off or that That's Entertainment shop when it was still around.

do i really need to cover the plot for this one? i didn't think so. briefly, then, it refreshingly trusts the audience to accept who or what a Batman is without an opening 30 minutes of an "origins" story, but does give us one possible origin tale of The Joker, here of course played memorably, and exceptionally profitably, by Jack Nicholson.

it would have been at least 20 years since i last saw this one. possibly closer to 25, actually. my memories were that it was ok for the time, but ultimately the massive hype surrounding the release of the film was actually better, more enjoyable and more fondly recalled than the actual movie itself. with this recollection i was half wrong, half right, or some similar such ratio.

one of the easiest things to do is forget just how good Jack Nicholson was as The Joker. in terms of acting performance, and sheer audacity, one must bow at the altar of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. that would be because it's not just that Ledger gave the greatest performance anyone could ever hope for in the role of The Joker, he simply flat out delivered one of the single greatest acting performances ever. as a consequence some - i, for one - have thought back and said "well maybe Nicholson wasn't so great". oh, by my word, watching again, he was.

indeed, Nicholson is so good he basically carries was is an entirely rubbish film. Burton presented a very Disney influenced idea of what counts as "gothic" and "dark". Keaton is rubbish as Bruce Wayne and terrible as Batman. Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl and certainly Pat Hingle woefully miscast as Commisioner Gordon are simply awful. other than Nicholson the only actor to have any credibility in the film is Billy Dee Williams as Harvey Dent. looking back at it, the mind boggles as to why they did not stick with him, instead recasting the part with Tommy Lee Jones a few years later.

anything else wrong with it? sure. the decision to shoot just about all of it on a sound stage at Pinewood Studios for security reasons makes all of the big scenes seem cheap and tacky. also, the plot is dull and the way the story is told is woefully badly paced. but yet, and still, Nicholson, Billy Dee Williams, the Elfman score and moments of Prince songs let you wander through the film.

another film absolutely not watched by William would be The Exterminator. but, i watched it, after he and his brother James were reasonably safely out the way one evening.

provenance of my copy? one of them shops that sold stacks of second hand or excess stock discs cheap. this cost me all of £1 in a bargain bin.

the plot? classic 70s / 80s trashy exploitation. a Vietnam Vet returns home, finds his friends being abused and bullied by criminals, and so to takes a flame thrower to them.

my reason for getting this one was sheer curiosity. it was banned outright in the 80s by the BBFC, so no UK release. strangely i had seen Exterminator 2, as for some reason a very heavily edited version of that film was indeed allowed to be released here. going on my memories of that film, it seems that an awful lot of Exterminator 2 was made up of "flashbacks", which is to say reused footage, of the first one, as well as a lot of simply flat out recreated scenes.

at no point have i ever hidden away from the fact that i love trashy, graphic rubbish films loaded with gratuitous sex and violence. this film pretty much has it in abundance. whereas it is no masterpiece, The Exterminator is a most smart "video nasty" for those of a mind to watch such things. and indeed i am always of such a mind.

moving about as far away as you possibly could from the joys of The Exterminator would be to head towards ET The Extra Terrestrial. how handy that this where we are at, then. and yes, another one watched again as William was curious.

provenance of my copy? either £10 or £12 at Tesco. whereas i had a whole load of copies of this on DVD, Blu Ray and VHS (somewhere), i was drawn in by the price of the "special" 12", vinyl record style packaging of it.

again i would be quite confident that all and sundry out there are familiar with the plot. but, if not, or for the sake of completeness, a curious alien is accidentally abandoned on our planet. he is taken in by the middle child of a broken family, hiding and hoping to be rescued whilst being determined to avoid detection by the authorities.

i was quite reluctant to watch this again as i knew all too well what an emotional experience it was. and indeed it was. this film stands as incredible testament to how genius, how gifted and how extraordinary Steven Spielberg is as a storyteller. basically for prolonged periods of this film i had tears of sorrow and tears of joy all swelling up and wishing to flood forward. an absolutely brilliant, near flawless work of art. to make this "topical" to the time of publication, it is little wonder that the Oscars keep experiencing dwindling interest and viewing figures when they do things like ignore and snub works of the highest quality. which is precisely what they did with this film.

to reminisce, this is of a time when cinematic art was appreciated and protected. although we had a (very good quality) bootleg of it on VHS, there was reluctance and resistance to this film ever being made available for home entertainment. should i recall correctly, this came out in 1982 (i can at least remember seeing it at the cinema in Australia), but the home video release was only as late as 1988. as instant gratification appears to be the order of the day, what with all this "streaming" business, one really cannot see audiences being so patient now.

one more film watched at the behest of William would be the much maligned and heavily criticized "franchise" crossover that is, was Alien vs Predator. as he was fascinated by my smart "evolution" t-shirt celebrating how birth works in the Alien world he has been mad keen to see one of the films. this, quite deliberately, as the lowest age restriction certificate, so this one had to do.

provenance of my copy? 49p again, and once more from That's Entertainment, a shop sadly no longer with us. still, what a price for a Blu Ray disc.

the plot? ancient pyramid discovered under the arctic (or the other one) circle, turns out it is a sacrifice chamber used when Predators came along to prove their worth against some Aliens. humans come along and disrupt it, mayhem ensues. well, heavily sanitised mayhem, as famously - and much to the disgust of some fans in some corners of all things Alien and Predator - this was inexplicably and bewilderingly made with a "family" audience in mind.

here is a list of excellent films to feature either an Alien or a Predator - Alien, Aliens, Predator. this is the list of really quite good films to feature similar - Predator 2, Predators, The Predator, Prometheus (kind of). you will note that Alien vs Predator is missing. in parts it is an ok film, but by holding back on the horror and the violence in order to seek a non-existent bigger audience for the film they kind of missed the point of these wonderful creations.

if the aim was to make this a franchise for a huge audience, along the lines of, say, Marvel superheroes or that Star Wars stuff, then it failed. how do i know this? because William would fall into that demographic and he was, for the most part, absolutely bored senseless by the film. quite a shame, really, as there was always great potential for this.

another vampire film, then, and improbably another 80s one featuring an actor called Sarandon, only this time it would be Chris and not Susan.  i think the two of them were married at some stage, but apologies if it was some other form of relation. oh yeah, anyway, this time the film is Fright Night.

provenance of my copy? can't say, really. sadly age has caught me and i do not remember which, but this rather splendid DVD and Blu Ray set was a gift off of the family, either for a birthday or for father's day. or maybe just at random.

the plot? a (presumably) teenage Charlie Brewster (great character name) is trying to get down and dirty with his girlfriend when he cannot but help notice that his new neighbour appears to be smuggling a coffin into his basement. on that note, do all American houses have these basement things? it seems that way, going on films and tv shows, with particular emphasis on The Brady Bunch. anyway, some investigating happens and it turns out that Charlie's new neighbour is a vampire. with few, if any, prepared to believe him, he has to turn to former vampire film star turned tv host Peter Vincent (played superbly by Roddy McDowall) for help......

as i watched it what became clear the most was how much the BBFC had fiddled with the video i saw in the 80s. for a start, and most obviously, the demise of "Evil Ed" was far more prolonged and graphic than i had recalled. what also became apparent was just how good this film was, and remains to this day. it takes the rather basic, always there elements of any vampire film and yet feels like a fresh new spin has been given. well done, i say.

for the record, i remember watching the relatively recent remake with him off the rubbish Miami Vice film and him off Doctor Who, and it was pretty good. but yeah, i would rather go watch the original Fright Night again, for it has "stood the test of time", etc.


finally, then, and once more at the behest of William, three films in the form of the much celebrated Dark Knight trilogy. or, if you prefer, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.

provenance of this copy? not too sure. either bought online or down at Musica, not so long after we had upgraded to one of them fancy Blu Ray player machines. but yes we have the films on DVD too.

the plot? erm, these are the Christopher Nolan Batman films. they are, then, the finest cinematic treatment we have yet had on this character, and going on efforts since, the best we shall ever get.

what was the William perspective on this presentation of his beloved Batman? he thought Batman Begins was really good, that The Dark Knight was the best thing he has ever seen, and that The Dark Knight Rises is ok in places but ultimately is far too long and slow. basically, then, the opinion of the majority of critics and so forth what going paid to watch them. nice work if you can get it, i believe the appropriate phrase is here.

it is, i believe, in underlining the above, just the three times that William has had me watch The Dark Knight over the course of a week. well, he had it on, and once it started, with that brilliant opening, i had no inclination at all to do anything but sit and watch it again.

well, anyway, or strewth, as an Australian might say, i think that's that. many thanks as ever for reading, and if something here has been interesting well that's smart.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!