On to Mad Max 2 (or The Road Warrior for the Yanks). If you haven’t seen this, you really must. It’s the greatest action movie ever made, and one of the greatest pictures ever, full stop. Two years on from the first film’s cult success, Miller had a bigger budget to play with, but his visual imagination had grown faster than the money and it’s a massive leap forward. Mad Max 2 in terms of its look, and of its vision of dystopia, has been as influential as Blade Runner.
It largely eschews dialogue for visual storytelling and is as close to a “pure” movie as we’ll get in the sound era. Everything about this film is great - script, characters, costumes, vehicles, locations, premise, editing, music, stunts (all done for real - this is the pre-CGI age), cinematography… direction. The final lengthy chase scene is just about the best you’ll ever see and has never been bettered as far as I’m concerned.
And on to the fourth movie (skipping the third because, as I said earlier, it’s rubbish), and the budgets are huge, the costumes, characters and vehicles outrageously OTT, the chases and stunts stunning (Miller used performers from Cirque de Soleil thus eliminating the need for CGI), so too the art direction, cinematography and landscapes. Tom Hardy is a bit of a blank - nowhere near as good as Gibson - but Charlize Theron is great and it’s splendid to see Hugh Keayes-Burne, who played the Toecutter in the first movie, playing an even more obnoxious charcter (Immortan Joe) in this one.
No.2 is still the best, but this one has all the stuff one wants from a Mad Max film - chases, stunts, crazy cars and costumes and an overload of visual imagination.
I’d never seen this Bond movie before (it’s a non-canonical one, along with the 1967 spoof of Casino Royale). A kind of re-run of Thunderball made in 1983, it’s not bad. The late Max von Sydow is excellent as Blofeld, Klaus Maria Brandauer is a splendid villain, the story is quite good. There are two problems – one: Connery, who’s obviously wearing a wig and a girdle to keep his gut in, looks too old (ironically, he was two years younger than the then current Bond, Roger Moore); and two: the music’s all wrong. Michel Legrand is a superb composer, but he can’t do Bond themes or incidentals. Only John Barry can do that.
The Truth starring Catherine Deneuve and the wonderful Juliette Binoche. It’s been getting a lot of good reviews but it was not quite as good as I had hoped. Available on Curzon Home Cinema.
Interesting BBC iplayer programme, currently available, on the making of the Le Mans film which I found fascinating. Had to give this another viewing last night - takes on a fresh perspective with the background knowledge from the documentary.
Had the fortune or misfortune to travel to Le Mans on a regular basis - the company I worked for had a subsidiary office there. The old town is a must see but the main town is not worth a few minutes. I made the mistake of lamenting with one of my French colleagues about the damage in the war. He said what damage it was the mayor in the 1950’s who was a communist and wanted to modernise the town in the style of Vladivostok!
The film did not work for me because it did not make sense on different levels and became unbelievable.
It is hard to imagine that in 1917, when the lines of battlefields were so well defined, you will find such a large force about to attack completely isolated and out of reach. And even if it were true, wouldn’t it be so much easier and faster to send one of these tiny airplanes which can land on every field to warn the Colonel and show him the areal photographs?
Two soldiers are suitable to clean latrines but not for such a dangerous mission. What is their chance of survival? Why not send two platoons instead? And where is their soldiership? Walking and conversing loudly like two tourists behind enemy lines, taking their time to explore enemy bunkers and abandoned farms. I guess we have to fill in the plot.
And why didn’t the commanding officer of the convoy assign more soldiers to assist him in his important mission when he was left alone instead of sending him all by himself into the the burning town?
Everything that happens there becomes completely surreal. The idea that he enters a house on his own to clear it (after wounding the sniper) instead of just bypassing it, the time he finds suddenly to dwell on a woman and a baby and then go out and knife another soldier seem all melodramatic and detached from reality.
I find it difficult to imagine a Colonel who had been warned from a futile attack, telling the soldier who had saved the lives of hundreds of his men to ‘F Off’.
The haunting music also got on my nerves but at that stage I had already stopped caring for the film.
My first comment to a friend after I saw the film was your point about just flying in the information by plane; and I do agree with your other points.
That did not stop me enjoying the film. There are aspects that I think are excellent. It WILL probably mean that I won’t buy it for my system or bother with repeated viewings.
Most excellent. I’ll admit to having a bit of a thing for Jessie Buckley(!) but this shows she’s a pretty decent actress as well as possessing a fine voice🙂
Surprisingly good film despite the MMA backdrop. Tom Hardy is always good value, Joel Edgerton plays his part and Nick Nolte is excellent (Oscar nominated). I’m not much of an MMA fan but the choreography and cinematography makes for incredibly realistic fight scenes. Worth a gander. https://images.app.goo.gl/KBKiJM8EpmX6mGPz9
Wonderful old (1953) Technicolor Ealing comedy with a fantastic cast. The very essence of “Englishness” with a typically Ealing hint of gentle anti-authoritarianism and stunning West Country scenery. Just the tonic when you’re in lockdown. And it’s got Sid in it…
