Following on from Mark Kermode's appraisal of Jim McBride's Breathless (1983), perhaps the most rebellious contribution I can think of is that one time a movie critic voted for Carry On Up The Kyber in the B.F.I's Top 100 British Films list. It's the British equivalent of that time in Apocalypse Now (1979) Col. Kurtz came to the bonkers understanding when he was processing how the Vietcong hacking off the arms off inoculated children, was not only an act of defiance, but also a level of genius. I don't know about any mutilations, but any professional critic nominating a Carry On film and it making it on to a best British Films list, deserves a salute from me.
Scanning through the aforementioned list, along with other versions produced last year, by both Empire and Time Out, there's a bunch of utter shite any non-poncey movie lover could do without. However, what's interesting about these more recent lists, is they open the floodgates for more genre movies. They might be somewhat tokenistic to a degree, since they appear to be ranked very low and are there for the sake of filler. Meanwhile, the usual rogue's gallery of luvvy directors dominate these lists with multiple movies from their respective filmographies. Props to whoever voted for Theatre Of Blood (1973), though. Coincidentally, it's a film that pokes fun at the poetic demise of critics. Personally consider that as Vincent Price's greatest ever film.
This got me thinking, perhaps it's worth the time to make a Dada Debaser list of the 100 Best British Films. Examining the other lists, the criteria to qualify seemed to muddy the waters with a number of irregularities, e.g. co-production by a non-British studio. Googling took me to some government web document of guildlines, but here's the gist of what I got out of it (search notes, you're a life saviour):
A setting in the UK or a focus on British people abroad.
A predominantly British cast.
A storyline about some aspect
of British life — past, present or future — or notably by, or based on a
work by, a British author.
The nationalities of scriptwriter, producer, director and, perhaps especially, the ‘investment’ seem less obviously significant.
That sounds like a fair guide to follow when coming up with worthy nominations.
From the three lists, I managed to tick through around 20-25 films I would agree with - at least at this very early stage. That might make the creation of a monumental list like this daunting to some, but it's certainly a worthy challenge. Get to put my money where my mouth is, and all that. Will keep working on this and get it finished and posted later this year. Word to Sidney Ruff-Diamond.
"Diamond in the back, sunroof top Diggin the scene With a gangsta lean, wooh"
One of my favourite ever recurring put-downs, is the use of the 'Allo, 'Allo theme being played whenever a pompous contestant serves up a gallic platter on gastronomic gameshow Come Dine With Me. It's equally relevant here whenever Jean-Luc
Godard is brought up in any kind of film discussion. I find Godard
boring and utterly pretentious. His films are not for me. The only take
aways I got were Anna Karina was mighty tasty back then, and a talking
computer with throat cancer will have me reaching for the remote. That's
it. Nothing more. Opted to revisit Jim McBride's remake of Breathless since it's a personal go to pick whenever superior remakes find their way in any movie discussion.
Generally
find the changes made over the original work a lot better for me;
namely the leads' origins and the location are vice versa to Godard's
film. Don't know about you, but eighties America looks way more
appealing to me than sixties era France. Our remake's couple also happen
to be far more stimulating than the other two dossers. I find
Valérie Kaprisky's character, Monica far more endearing compared to Jean
Seberg's Debbie Downer beatnik; also helps that she's smoking hot.
Richard Gere's rock 'n' roll outlaw Jesse is what ultimately makes the
movie such a joy to watch. How he can pull off wearing Rodney
Dangerfield's tablecloth checkered trousers and still look cool doing
it, defies all belief. It's also a remarkable achievment playing such a
larger than life character, who might possibly be on the spectrum,
infinitely less annoying than Jean-Paul Belmondo's wannabe American
gangster from the original. Also, it helps matters that Richard Gere
doesn't resemble a smoking chimp when taking puffs from a cigarette, either.
Breathless vs. Breathless
(Kermode Uncut, 2010)
A favourite scene between the two love birds is Jesse's explanation of the tragic plight of The Silver Surfer to Monica. It's one of the most intimate scenes between the couple and foreshadows events that occur later on. Jesse identifies with Mavel's Herald of Galactus because he sees himself as equally misunderstood. An example of which is displayed in a newstand scene early on in the film.
McBride's film makes excellent use of music, which really compliments Jesse's erratic persona. No real surprise that he would eventually direct the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic a few years later, since his music features so prominently. The biggest musical highlight for me however, is the incredible use of Link Wray & The Wraymen's Jack The Ripper incorporated to perfection in a car theft scene.
This film deserves way more love, in my humble opinion. Glad that a respected critic like Mark Kermode was brave enough to put his neck on the chopping block back in the day and claim it was better than Godard's original. Only people who still feel outraged today by this statement are so far up Godard's arse that it puts Richard Gere's gerbil to shame. McBride's film is the superior version and will always be.
One of life's little mysteries (to me at least), is how some film makers are pushed to the forefront by various critics and media alike, while the rest of their peers are like crabs in the barrel. Talent, would undoubtedly be the answer one might say, but in the case of New York directors, the answer appears to be a little more complicated. I would go as far to say that some of them are placed on a considerably higher pedestal when compared to their contemporaries outside of the state. Take Abel Ferrara, a N.Y. film maker who started out via the exploitation film route: from notorious video nasty, Driller Killer(1979); to rape-revenge vigilante thriller Ms .45(1981); and then to Fear City (1984), one of the zaniest entries in the cop sleaze trend of that era. Ferrara gets a free pass by critics with these scuzzier entries from the earliest period in his work. His transition from that phase to the next is perhaps where his most interesting body of work lies. One particular film I really want to discuss is his 1995 philosophical vampire tale, The Addiction.
On one level, I find The Addiction borderline inaccessible, largely because a film that heavily references lauded philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre, Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche is way beyond my personal comprehension; on another, I'm drawn to the film, because I find it an immensely stylish take on vampirism in cinema. The film also exemplifies an era in horror movies which I largely considered was either dead, or at the very least, had gone underground. It's this sort of dichotomy that further extends to Ferrara's body of work. He's an artist that flirts between the blurred lines of genre movie and highbrow film. If anything, I would cheekily label him the Michael Crawford of New York filmakers - started out as popular slapstick entertainment like Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, and then went on to critical acclaim with a poncey Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. The Addiction is hardly a unique film, since film makers like Jean Rollin and Jesus Franco had been doing existential horror for a couple of decades before The Addiction. Themes like love, death and immortality aren't exactly anything new in horror movies either, but I do find it interesting that this and both Shooter McCrae's Shatter Dead and Michele Soavi's Dellamorte Dellamore (AKA, Cemetery Man), all contain similar themes and were released between the years '94 and '95. The subject of philosophy isn't the only theme running in this film either. Drug addiction is obviously apparent, with some scenes of vampirism resembling a shooting-up session - syringes et all. Strangely enjoyed those scenes the most, probably because it was less of a headache to process than the psycho-babble.
Beautifully shot in high contrasting black and white, I find it reflects the juxtaposition of different cultures and classes in New York City's social melting pot. An observation not uncommon in Ferrara's earlier films, either. It's especially evident when he has our film's protagonist, Kathleen Conklin, a philosophy student, played by Lili Taylor, who mixes it up between her scholary bourgeois social circle and with common street corner urchins like Fredro Starr, or homeless junkies. The two worlds aesthetic is developed even further when Kathleen gets bitten by a vampire and she transitions into the undead - rockin' shades like Eazy E. Speaking of which, I usually don't like contemporary music in serious horror films, but given the context and location of this film, it genuinely works here.
Supporting cast is provided by a recognisable bunch of actors from The Sopranos,
along with a scene stealing performance by Christopher Walken, as a
sagely vampire. As mentioned earlier, Fredro Starr is also in this. The
scene where he holds hands in the street with Kathleen is
particularly hilarious to me; simply because he looks like a little kid
in his oversized clothes and the scene resembles a child and its mother walking to school, rather than him being a blac vagina finda. With the
very short hair, Annabella Sciorra looks way less attractive as the
vampire Casanova compared to anything before and after this film. I suppose it works within the context of the film, considering she's no longer supposed to be human, but it's always bothered me when a beautiful woman intentionally opts for the emaciated look.
Perhaps it was because of pre-millennium jitters, but The Addiction came out at an interesting time in creative media; distortion and decay were prevailing themes. From music, film, art and graphic design, Ferrara's The Addiction follows this trend remarkably well, as mid-nineties New York City looks positively dickensian compared to shots of it today. This is largely why I selected this movie out for a revisit above any of his other works. It was also a way to cleanse my palate after Ferrara's horrificly bad Zeros And Ones topped my list of Worst Films I Watched in 2021.
The Addiction (Peina scene)
(Abel Ferrara, 1995)
Perhaps I'm commiting a cardinal sin for liking this film for all the wrong reasons. Reading and watching more credular reviews of The Addiction has me feeling like Kaspar Hauser for not accepting it the correct way. Still, it doesn't dissuade my appreciation of it, if anything I think it's one of Ferrara's better films (but no my favourite, though), from the ones I have seen at least. It's the comprimise that caters to both a trash movie aficionado like myself and the snooty Criterion crowd. Shame he catered to the latter category later on.
It's fair to say the swingin' sixties was entering a seismic comedown in 1968, as represented by a wave of downbeat films like, Rosemary's Baby, Night of the Living Dead and Planet of the Apes. Across the continent, the spaghetti western genre was already in full stride, approaching critical peak with a string of personal faves, If You Meet Sartana Pray For Death, Kill Them All And Come Back Alone and of course, Sergio Leone's epiccinemagasmOnce Upon A Time In The West. The genre itself had breathed new life into a tired old format by deconstructing familiar archetypal figures and values into much grayer areas. It was the era of the antihero. Amongst those antiheroes was Sergio Corbucci's mute protagonist Silence, featured in his snow-swept, doomer classic The Great Silence.
Casting prolific French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant as the titular antihero, appeared to be an intentional masterstroke, since his lack of knowing the native lingo forced him to play out the role as a mute. This let Tritignant show off his acting prowess with some superb facial acting. Visually speaking, of all the most recognisable characters from the spaghetti western genre, Silence is definitely up there, since his dark winter clobber are in stark contrast to the lighter clothing of his peers. No idea what that hairy monstrosity which is sprouting from beneath his heavy black coat is, but it looks like it's the same material as Pete Burns' gorilla fur coat, making him appear all the more stiking. What's easily the most identifiable item related to Silence, is his ultra cool Mauser C96, replete with its innovative gun holster, that also serves as a shoulder rest. Love the design of this semi-automatic pistol, and it actually dates itself correctly with the film's 1898 setting.
Corbucci didn't drop the ball with his supporting cast of actors, either; hiring an enviable league of spaghetti western veterans, ranging from Frank Wolff, Luigi Pistilli, Mario Brega, and of course arthouse and trash madman Klaus Kinski; as the film's major villain Tigrero (Loco, to the English dub headz). Venetta McGee also appears in one of her earliest roles, before even Blacula (1972), as Pauline the wronged woman, who hires Silence to exact her revenge.
The film is remarkably bleak throughout its run time, with the exception of two scenes: Gideon (Wolff) and Silence's bonding over some friendly target shooting; and Silence and Pauline's love scene, before everything goes to hell. I'm particularly fond and appreciative of the former scene, largely due to seeing our two sharpshooters take a brief respite from Snow Hill's doom and gloom, and have some fun for a bit. I also consider it fairly important, since we're seeing these two men represent a mindset that's completely alien to the rest of the film's male characters - a code of honour. It's this absence of any moral decency that makes Kinski's Tigrero one of the most compelling villains he's played, and he's played a hell of a lot of memorable villains. Corbucci's film subverts familiar tropes and cliches, and one of them is having the film's bad guys - Trigreo and his clique of bounty hunters, on the right side of the law. Another, is its take on capitalism, and how the amoral prosper from it, while the less fortunate are completely expendable.
Much like Corbucci's classic Django (1966), location plays an integral part in his film. Here, he swaps out the mud clogged town for knee deep snow, where Tigrero keeps his corpse bounties buried to remain fresh. Allegedly, Corbucci opted for snow this time around as he fancied a ski vacation in the Italian Dolomites. True or not, the location worked wonders as it helped cement the overall tone of the film. Much like Silence's iconic look, the location is also in stark contrast to many of its peers. Aside from the stetsons, you could almost be forgiven for mistaking it as David Lean's Doctor Zhivago (1965) - even Pistilli's character Pollicut is rockin' a ushanka. Hardly a coincidence that Tarantino was inspired heavily by the snow swept scenery of The Great Silence, as its evident in both of his westerns - Django Unchained (2012) and The Hateful Eight (2015).
Soundtrack duties were put in safe capable handswith il maestro, Ennio Morricone handling the music. His compositions are way more nunanced than some of his other western soundtracks produced around the same time. This feels way more melancholic and subtle, but still of a high standard. Morricone even has flourishes of the avant-garde by incorporating more exotic sounds, like sitar strings. Big fan of both the angelic harmonies from the main theme and the rousing Barbara E Tagliente with its quintessential Morricone style guitar riff.
Ought to come clean and reveal I always find myself holding back the feels on this one, especially the film's sobering finale. Much like me watching The Great Escape (1963) and wishing for Steve McQueen's Hilts to make it over the barbwire fence on his motorbike, I find myself wishing Silence takes down Trigrero and his band of killers like a true badass, and then rides off into the sunset. Alas, there isn't a coffin containing a gatling gun here to save the day. It was never meant to be. Silence walks to the saloon with the knowledge of his impending fate. We're presented with the shockingly brutal demise of our film's protagonist; along with his love interest and a grip of townsfolk butchered in cold blood. Daybreak hits and Trigrero and the rest of his mob leave the town triumphant. Worth noting that Corbucci did have the forsight in predicting the possible flack he would receive for his downbeat ending and shot a happier alternative; which sadly does not work at all, and really undermines the film's original submersive intention. Poncey film critics might interpret the film's ending completely different to me, but I see the change from night to day as a metaphor for the oncoming twentieth century; honour, as represented by gunfighters like Gideon and Silence is a trait from a bygone time, while the early dawn rays of the sun represent a bountiful era for greedy and ruthless men like Tigrero.
Worth pointing out that The Great Silence, or as film maker and ex-Moviedrome presenter Alex Cox calls it (and approximately sixty million Italians), Il grande silenzio, could be seen as a predecessor and purveyor of the intense damage and destruction felt by various film protagonists evident in seventies and early eighties cinema - particularly, within the New Hollywood scene. Way too young to go into it with any real first hand knowledge, but I see The Great Silence and its pessimistic ilk as part of a symptomatic legacy attributed to all the social and political upheavel around the globe at that time; a mass existential crisis, if you will. Feel like I've rambled on about this film way too much, but it's worth it. All armchair analysis aside, The Great Silence is one of the greatest westerns ever made, in my honest opinion.
(Central Office of Information Advertisement, 1973)
Had revered head-shrinks Freud and Jung been around today, there's a good chance they would have been working overtime with all the forty-somethings affected by the Central Office of Information's fear campaign. Masquerading as public information films, a liteny of short child safety videos were engineered by some of the most twisted minds ever to get behind a camera.
Perhaps the most notorious of these public information films is the The Spirit of Dark & Lonely Water, a cautionary tale of the perils of swimming in watey fly tips; featuring a ghostly robed figure and chillingly narrated by the late great Donald Pleasance. Worth noting there's an early appearance of class of '82, Grange Hill alumni Benny in that film.
These public information films would often be aired on TV during the school holidays for maximum traumatic effect on the kids. Everything from crossing a road, riding an escalator, holding a firework sparkler, to retrieving a frisbee by breaking into electrical substations was covered.
A series of six crudely animated short films featuring a cat called Charley would have a major cultural influence on my generation in the nineties; as The Prodigy would incorporate vocal samples for their song Charly. This helped kickstart a wave of copycat rave songs which sampled kids shows of yesteryear to the self-medicating masses. If anything, people were far more likely to break into substations, or take a dip in raw sewage while trippin' off their nuts at that particular time, than they were as kids in the seventies and eighties.
Broken Glass
(Central Office of Information Advertisement, 1973)
The one that terrified me the most was Broken Glass. A short film
about the potential dangers of running barefoot on the beach. Perfect ad, since
it's much shorter than many of its peers, but gets its message across incredibly effectively; leaving the final scene to eternally play out in our minds. If Jaws had people scared of going into the sea, Broken Glass
had me not wanting to go near any beach. This short film has remained stored in the old noggin ever since, but it still resurfaces everytime I'm at the beach.
When the Coalition government tookover the reins in 2010, the Central Office of Information was seen as an unnecessary marketing expense, and by the following year, it finally closed its doors. Seriously doubt my mind will ever close its doors on Broken Glass, however.
When Rap guru and #1 Neighbours fan The Martorialist unveiled his 101 best non-Rap singles of the 1990s list, it had awoken stuff in the basement for me. The nineties was a pivotal decade for many a Gen X'er; going from school, to college, to university and then onto career - that would leave a mental imprint on anyone. The music of the era became a soundtrack to a particular time in my life; some songs I remember fondly, while other tunes make me cringe with regret.
The task of compiling a list of 101 singles was arduous to begin with: for one, Rap music was way more prominent to me than any other genre, so selecting other music was much tougher than I initially realised; secondly, a lot of songs which I may have liked back then, have either aged poorly, or have been played to death. Always loathed the term 'guilty pleasure', but I'm not sure whether that's hypocritical, or not with some of my picks. I do love the songs, regardless. Blame nostalgia, I guess.
Been
tinkering with this list for a far too significant amount of time, to the point I'm dizzy. It hasn't
changed too drastically from its earliest incarnation; a few new songs here or there, I did find myself
swapping song, but keeping the same artist more than just a couple
of times, however. Think it's more than about time to just let it go now.
Kind of broke the fundamental rule of 'singles' by including Iron Maiden's Fear of the Dark, since it was never released officially as a single, at least, not the studio version, but it is perhaps one of their best songs, IMO. They were always an album band, anyway. A last hurrah for traditional metal, by my reckoning.
Hated Britpop with a passion back in the day, but I've certainly mellowed to it over the years. Elastica and Oasis wouldn't have even gotten a look-in by my younger self back then, but I genuinely feel some of the Britpop has aged better in comparison to some of the non-listed songs I used to bump back in the day.
Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun is probably one of the few songs out of Seattle I like that isn't by Jimi Hendrix or Sir-Mix-Alot. Still loathe Grunge to the nth degree, though.
What we're gonna do right here is go back, way back, back into time. When the only people that existed were beatniks and squares. Edmond T. Gréville's British morality tale centred around spoilt, little, Kensington girl Jennifer (Gillian Hills) Linden, is a fascinating time capsule into the proto-hippies of the late fifties and early sixties. Jennifer's routine mostly consists of cotchin' in a greasy spoon with her dosser mates and listening to popstar teen idol Adam Faith strum his guitar in between rounds of milk. Jen isn't too happy with her father, since Daddy-O returned home after a long absence with his twenty-four year old, brand-spanking new French bride, Nichole. Described as "ancient", by Jen and her chums, she's livid that she now has a new stepmother and is determined to give her a tough time. She comes up trumps as she discovers mère dukes, was a "peeler" (stripper) back in the day. From there, the film switches up a gear as our right little tearaways go raving at her swanky crib and in subterranean caves. Remarkably, it's actually way cooler than that veritable crustyfest like in Matrix Reloaded (2003). Jen and chums also take time out to play "chicken the rail", by placing their noggins on a train track before an oncoming train. Splendid.
The supporting cast are a recognisable bunch of British actors from past and present. Shirley Anne Field and that bloke who was in The Mark of Satan; one of the better episodes of Hammer House of Horror, complete Jen's teen cypher. The legendary Oliver Reed has a very minor role as a rival beatnik. The always excellent, Nigel Green plays a marvellously entertaining master of ceremonies, and then you have the G.O.A.T, Christopher Lee as the sleazy club owner of Les Girls, with the most British sounding name ever - Kenny King. Edgar Wright's Last Night In Soho was amongst my favourite films from last year, so it's worth noting that the strip club featured in it took obvious inspiration from Les Girls, in both the exterior and interior scenes.
Got to admit, I was a little
uncomfortable seeing Christopher Lee playing a character trying it on with Jailbait
Jennifer. The man was practically like a grandfather to me during my
childhood, so it comes as a shock to the system seeing him
perform a scene like that. Can't honestly say the same for his acting peers,
with the notable exception of the gentleman of horror, Peter Cushing; the ying
to Lee's yang. The Cush however, did stray from his moniker at times,
like that time he offscreen raped Veronica Carlson in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), and then there was his out-of-turn lead role in the utterly depraved Eyes Without A Face (1960) rip-off, Corruption (1968). Edmond T. Gréville and Christopher Lee teamed up a year later with a remake of The Hands of Orlac.
That's not the only occurrence of Beat Girl's cast and crew working in
other film's, since Shirley Anne Field and Oliver Reed appeared together
in Hammer's 1963 sci-fi chiller The Damned. It was a much smaller network back then.
The one character that
rubs me the wrong way is Jennifer's dad. Poppa Linden should have taken a
page from Tony Soprano's book when laying down the rules to his daughter,
and he is the major reason Jennifer turned out to be such an annoying brat.
Being a successful busy architect, he seems to be away a lot, so he's either chasing
French women with tattooed-looking eyebrows, or
trying to realise his life's work - a post-modern city that reminds me of the ghetto flats in Highbury & Islington from my youth. The 3D model of
his passion project always gets the loudest laugh from me in this film, since Dad's ego is far too big to see through the urban shithole it would be by the seventies. Jennifer calling him out on this project might be her biggest saving grace in sympathy I have for her. She deserved better
from him. Money can't buy love and all that.
Admittedly, Beat Girl was not a film that grabbed me initially, but I found it an interesting curiousity over the years and became a fan after repeated viewings. It serves as an amazing look into an era of Britain that's always appealed to me; since my earliest Gen X memories of London were never transferred accurately to screen until witnessing John Landis' classic An American Werewolf in London (1981) and Dio's Rainbow in the Dark music video. Beat Girl predates all that and that's its major draw; accurate, or not. The portrayal and representation of rebellious youth in film has always
been a major interest to me, largely because they are prime visual examples of the
generational divide in modern human history. Obviously, Beat Girl is an exploitative example, tapping into juvenile deliquency and titalation, but I still find it a fascinating introspective into the teen angst of the Post-War generation (before they veered off into insufferable hippies); a generation that tended to berate and look down on Gen X'ers, like myself. We get to see some of that Baby Boomer psyche, and even if they're jive-talkin' beatniks, that's still a worthy reason to dig this movie out.
Gillian Hills went on to have minor appearances in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966) and Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971), but she eventually landed a major role in the Spanish giallo (should be called amarillo, am I right?) The Killer Wore Gloves (1974).
Kind of kicking myself, since I used to have a bootleg DVD of it back
in the day and lost it. Barely remember much of it, but I think it's the
film where you hilariously see mountains in the backdrop for a film supposedly set
in London. Here's hoping one of the boutique labels release a quality
print of it, instead of it being only available via age-restricted
blurry YouTube videos.
Finally, there seems to be a bit of confusion with Beat Girl's release date. The BFI state it as a 1959 film, while the likes of IMDb and every other resource site have it up as 1960. Based on the Gillian Hills supplemental interview on the BFI blu-ray, she states she was around fourtheen at the time of filming, which falls in line with the BFI date. From what I can gather, the film was submitted to the BBFC in 1959, but didn't gain a national release until 1960, without major cuts made to it. Opted to categorise it as a product of the fifties, otherwise I would have had to include Rocky IV: Rocky vs. Drago as a 2021 movie if I didn't stick to this same principle. Anyhow, who am I to argue with the British Film Institute over the release date of a Brit flick? Wouldn't be cool, Daddy-O.
Sandwiched in between what are arguably two of Michael Crichton's most famous creations (Westworld and Jurassic Park), his 1981 tech-thriller Looker never got much love. Personally, the world is sleeping on this underrated gem, as it carries a poignant message that is still relevant today. The concept of a sinister omipresent corporation hypnotising the masses to sell products, and get them voting cherry-picked politcal candidates, appeals to me greatly. It carries over that prevalent seventies paranoia, as exemplified by the likes of The Parallax View (1974) and The Conversation (1974), with a Californian aesthetic.
Hard to relate with a West Coast plastic surgeon as your everyman, but Albert Finney's Dr. Larry Roberts, is a rather likable protagonist, and serves us well as the avatar in the conspiracy plot rabbit hole. Susan Dey works really well with Finney, and brings a degree of depth with what could have been just a typical Californian bimbo. She has the best scene in the film, which is a very early example of CGI mapping and why I consider it a pandora's box that leaves me feeling uncomfortable today. We're seeing dead stars now brought back to life with CGI to sell products, it makes you wonder where we might go from here? Worth noting, James Coburn serves it up well as the film's villain, who could have been a worthy James Bond antagonist, in my estimation.
For me, this film was ahead of its time in a lot of respects: We see the shadowy veil lifted from a nefarious corporation masquerading as a benefit to society and our needs; It might have been going on decades earlier, but the true beginnings of cosmetic surgery becoming a cultural norm, became very apparent after the film's release; Human behaviourial experts and science boffins working in marketing of products and services, are way more noticeable today; Our dependancy and influence by television, is perhaps the biggest factor of the lot, however. An example further explored and developed in John Carpenter's seminal They Live (1988); which makes it the perfect candidate for a great double-bill with this film.
Can't sign off without mentioning how superb the soundtrack is. Barry De Vorzon knocked it out of the park with his amazing synth production. His compositions help with the tone and tension within the film. It's a soundscape that is not lost on bedroom producer millennials and zoomers in the retrowave scene. The title song, Looker sung by Sue Saad is easily another strong highlight in the movie'srepertoire and a personal favourite eighties jam. It was released as a single, but it sounds different compared to the movie version; better than that horrid Kim Carnes version, regardless.
Fingers crossed one of the big boutique labels brings this film back to life with a quality remaster, instead of it lanquishing with an awful Warner Archive release. Would also be a huge bonus if we have the deleted scene spliced back in, even if it only serves as an exposition dump.
Cobra Kai (Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg, 2018 - Present Day)
Considering how nostalgia plays a big part in courting today's audiences, it can be all too easy in becoming over reliant on it. Nine times out of ten, it's a lazy effort. In recent years, we've seen franchises from yesteryear incorporate the past to propel their way forward. Based on some of today's recent failures, modern elements don't have a leg to stand on, without being held up by successes from the past. Bad writing is largely to blame; the inability to write new content without making it appealing, says a lot about today's hack writers. Hence, why yesterday's hits are today's remakes, reboots and re-imaginings.
The beauty in Cobra Kai is it triggers all the member berries while mixing in new elements, without being detrimental to the familiarities of the past. Established characters like Johnny Lawrence aren't undermined by new characters such as Miguel Diaz; in fact, old and new characters grow and flourish together. Real pity when you see other television shows and feature films fail to achieve this.
Season four of the series, has been one of the best for me - outside of the now classic first one. It may be farcical and soap operatic at times, but it has its head on right, and knows how to build and expand, without pissing on its own legacy. As a result, Cobra Kai appeals to multiple generations and had me binge-watching it in just two sittings.
Cobra Kai is also blessed with a killer soundtrack which continues the theme of mixing the old with the new:
Mark it up as a cruel twist of fate that Archbishop Desmond Tutu missed out on hitting the number he was always synonymous with by a just few days. That won't stop me from being cautiously optimistic that 2022 will turn out to be better than its last couple of predecessors.
Since we're entering the winter duldrums and all the clickbaiters' best of 2021 lists have me feeling like I'm living in Bizarro World, it's a good time to rant and focus on the past movies I love. Besides which, any new movie released from now until spring is usually out for tax reasons, anyway.
In terms of upcoming entertainment: I'm expecting good things from The Northman, as Robert Eggers is two for two right now; I'm sticking to my resolution in going easy on the boutique blu's, but Second Sight's release of The Hitcherwill no doubt be an instant buy. Looking forward to checking out the new season of Cobra Kai. Not much else I can immdiately think of, but it's a good feeling going into the new year feeling all fresh-faced.
