This week should be a celebration. This week should have seen the 10th anniversary DVD release of one of the best loved, and most thrilling action adventure movies of recent times. In this perfect world, we’d be onto the third or fourth adventure for a crime fighting duo who do everything in style, and the series would be pushing Bond and Bourne for the title of biggest spy adventure franchise.

We don’t live in that world though. We live in the world where a movie adaptation of one of the best loved TV series of all time was handed over to a director with no experience of big budget summer movies, an enthusiastic producer shackled by the needs of the studio to demographically tailor a unique movie and the whims of test screenings.

Welcome to the world of The Avengers…

On its release in August 1998 The Avengers died a painful, but thankfully swift death. It was suppoosed to be Warner Bros. BIG summer movie, released in the middle of June. But following disastrous previews, the film was yanked back to the summer graveyard of late August, shorn of almost an hour (losing plot points, scenes, characters and any narrative coherence), and generally abandoned by the studio. Already stung by negative reports pre-release, Warners decided to ditch the film into cinemas without any previews.

What emerged was an interesting, but ultimately flawed attempt, to capture a fascinating piece of TV history: 60s style shot through with state of the art effects.

Ask people now about The Avengers and they’ll probably screw their faces up and say “it was crap”, “a travesty” or more likely “I never bothered to watch it”. Which is perhaps telling.

It lingers in the depths of imdb’s rankings (currently 3.4) but so few people have seen it in comparison to its big budget peers that it’s difficult to judge its worth. Now I know what you’re thinking “If so few people went to see it, then it must be rubbish” to which I have two words: Shawshank Redemption. That perennial ‘best film of all time’ contender took a mere $700,000 on it’s opening weekend, compared to The Avengers $10M, and barely scraped together it’s budget on it’s cinema run. So that argument is cobblers and I’ll here no more about it.

 Saying that, The Avengers is no ‘lost’ classic in the realm of Shawshank or The Thing. Films like this were criminally ignored on their initial release and later found a more appreciative audience. The Avengers is NOT like that.

Assessing The Avengers merits is difficult in its current form, since it’s clearly not the film that was intended to be released. In his excellent book, Blockbuster, Tom Shone talks at length about the tortuous process of bringing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s notorious flop Last Action Hero to the screen. He concludes by saying that the film didn’t need re-shoots, test screenings or market research, “it needed finishing“. The same is true of The Avengers.

The whole debacle warrants a study of its own, since it is indicative of all that’s wrong with Hollywood. Warners had a product, or a brand which they knew they could exploit. Rumours of an Avengers film had abounded for years. Names like Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant had been bandied around as potential stars. People, allegedly, wanted to see the film. The fans, of which there are millions, were not so keen. The Avengers is held in high regard of a kind probably only matched by that other iconic 60s series, The Prisoner.

So what Warners realised they had to do was make a movie which would have broad appeal, but also placate the fans baying for blood. It was at this point that Warners should have taken a look at one of the Avengers’ brothers in arms, the Bond series. Whilst the series had begun with clever, respectful adaptations of Flemings novels, it had quickly established an identity of its own, far removed from the source. Attempts to meld the two (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Licence to Kill) were met with critical aclaim but box office disaster (of course this was completely changed with the triumphant Casino Royale in 2006, but the movie landscape in 1998 was very different). Another good example is the disasterous attempt to reinvent Doctor Who for an American audience in 1996.

According to various internet sources, the movie that director Jeremiah Chechick delivered is actually a fairly good attempt at capturing this mythical combination of wildly different audiences. The problem was Warners decided to ‘test’ the film.

Test screenings are usually held for lowest common denominator audiences, since they make up the bulk of a film’s box office potential. Unfortunately, they are also the ones least likely to accept anything new, original or remotely different to what they’ve seen before.

As a result The Avengers became another generic action movie, where its intrinsic qualities (Britishness, style) became quirks. Remember the scene in Last Action Hero where the police department is pairing off its cops into wacky ‘buddy movie’ combinations? (You probably don’t since no one saw that misunderstyood film either.) Well, I suspect that’s how the suits viewed The Avengers.

As a huge fan of the TV series I’m suppossed to loathe the film, and I don’t. I feel sorry for it. There is potential there that is either squandered or misused.

For a start, Thurman is horribly miscast. I know they have to cast an American in one of the main roles, but surely not as Steed or Peel. Surely the villain would have been more appropriate asan American? Wouldn’t that have been more fitting for the piece? Thurman’s casting probably damaged the film even more as a result of her appearance in the dog of all dogs, Batman and Robin, the previous summer.

Ralph Fiennes seems an excellent choice on paper, but appears oddly out of place. For a start, I don’t think he’s got the right build for Steed. Yes, Steed is a debonair character, but he’s also imposing. Fiennes is not in anyway imposing.

Sean Connery, as the villain August DeWinter, is clearly thinking only of the paycheck, but has fun with his rare villainous role. Jim Broadbent is, as always, excellent as Mother. And the casting of Eddie Izzard and Shaun Ryder as henchmen is inspired, if only they’d given them (Izzard in particular) more to do.

One thing is certain though, Chechick was NOT the right man for the job. Much was made at the time of the enthsiasm he and producer Jerry Weintraub had for the original series. That’s all well and good, but for the movie you need a director who is comfortable with action and who’s idea of quirky isn’t ripping off old Charlie Chaplin skits.

Ideally the director should have been British. I don’t know who was approached, or who expressed an interest in it, but I can’t help feeling someone like Mike Newell or Mike Figgis might have been a good bet. If warners insisted on an American (which they probably did), Barry Sonnenfeld (Men In Black) would have been ideal.

The aftermath was not pretty. The critics mauled it. I recently read some of the user comments on imdb, and one person said ‘if you think the reaction here (USA) was bad, you should have seen how it was treated in Britain’. You wouldn’t wish the reaction on your worst enemy.

On opening day, the news was full of it. Normally if the mainstream media pick up on your film its a godsend. In the case of The Avengers, it was the final nail in the coffin full of bad publicity. Publicity, it should be added, of a film NO ONE had seen. It really was quite extraordinary. I remember Channel Four News reporting on it, interviewing people coming out of a West End screening. Obviously the three people they spoke to all hated it. They concluded their report by criticising the fact that Izzard only had one line (nay, one word). The press mocked the Independent newspaper for running a promotional tie-in, with the offer of free tickets to ‘judge for yourself’.

I myself went to the first showing at my local cinema, where I sat with just 3 other people, one of whom left about halfway through.

As I said right at the top, the whole thing is near forgotten now. The film is condemned to saturday afternoon screenings on Channel Five, the bargain bin in supermarkets and perrenial bad movie lists.

What it deserves is a chance. There are currently several online petitions to get the director’s cut released as a proper 10th anniversary DVD set. I suspect this is unlikely, as probably no one involved wants to talk about the movie again.

Chechik lost himself for a few years, returning to make a living in TV. Weintraub had is contract at Warners cancelled (as a result of both The Avengers and another big budget flop, Soldier), only to return a few years later with Oceans 11. He is allegedly behind remakes of Westworld and Oh God! (I suspect he may be the washed-up former producer ’Jerry’ referred to in Art Linson’s excellent memoir What Just Happened?)

Uma Thurman also went AWOL for a while, and now only seems to able to give a good performance when Quentin Tarantino is behind the camera.

If you’ve never seen it, I implore you to give it a chance. It’s certainly no worse than most of the tripe served up as entertainment these days. It’s easily better than any of the Star Wars prequels, either of the Matrix sequels, Die Another Day, Spiderman 3…

Its the kind of film that doesn’t get made anymore. A genuine risk taker that the studio wasn’t prepared to take a chance on and ended up as generic pap with an intriguing coating.

If you’re interested, here’s the link to the online petition:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/theavengersmovie/

 This is one of the few supportive websites out there

http://www.theavengers-movie.com/

Unfortunately, due a certain similar sounding comic book movie which is apparently iminent, it’s quite hard to find decent Avengers movie websites now. But I did manage to stumble across Warners original website. Most fo the content is now dead, but it gives a fascinating insight into web marketing in 1998

 http://the-avengers.warnerbros.com/

Trailer

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Until the untimely death of Heath ledger, Indy IV was probably the most anticipated film of the year. The release two weeks ago of the well recieved Iron Man has also taken some edge of the release.

But let there be no doubt, this is still a film that the world has been waiting for. And whilst it is thoroughly entertaining, it falls way short of its predecessors, and even some of the more modern variants/imitators/usurpers.

The plot is convolution defined: Indy hooks up with a young kid to first rescue one of Indy’s old colleagues, and the boy’s mother with the suspiciously similar christian name of Marion (… hmmm). This then leads into an adventure to first find a crystal skull, and then return it to its rightful resting place, deep in a secret Incan temple. Throughout all this they are persued by evil Nazis… sorry… Russians who are hell bent on stopping them. They are led by a rather sexy looking Cate Blancett, a psychic who wants to harness the power of the skull for nefarious means.

If this all sounds a little familiar, that’s because that’s EXACTLY what it is. In fact at times, Indy IV resembles little more than a Greatest Hits package of Indy movies past. Some of these references work: the opening twenty minutes take place in a familiar looking warehouse, and is easily the best sequence in the movie, leading to an incredibly tense encounter on a nuclear testing site.

From here, the movie jumps from one action set piece to the next with little regard for logic, and even less regard for letting the audience know what’s going on.

The action is, in the main, well handled. An early motorbike chase is a good showcase for Harrison Ford’s stunt double (though unfortunately this time  it’s not the legendary Vic Armstrong, who was otherwise engaged on The Mummy 3), but an over long truck chase is too closely linked to its illustrious Raiders predecessor to be wholly effective. For a start it packs in too many elements, and too many characters in peril, to keep your attention focussed for its duration. Like so many modern action sequences, it flies by in a blur, whereas Indy’s more famous truck chase kept you on the edge of your seat the whole way through.

But the least said about the waterfall the better (it’s even more ridiculous than the waterfall scene in Temple of Doom… see? It’s just doing what was done before, but bigger).

On the subject of action sequences, it’s worth mentioning the modern movies greatest asset, and worst enemy: CGI.

In the build up to the film’s release, Lucas and Spielberg both portrayed themselves as martyrs to the cause of reclaiming movie making from the computers. Spielberg nixed digital film for old fashioned 70mm. The DP studied previous cinematographer Douglas Slocombe’s style to retain continuity, and it was announced that the effects work would be done using traditional methods (matte painting, wires, rear projection) and CGI would only be used where these methods were not possible… I’ll tell you now, that’s utter arse.

CGI gophers? CGI bats? Both used superfluously (with the exception of the hilarious first shot of the movie).

CGI lens flare???? Thirty years ago, lens flare would have been removed from a film. Now they are adding it in!!!!!

In the truck chase, most of the foilage was added in digitally, because it was too dangerous to shoot the chase in such a heavily overgrown area. Fair enough. But don’t then insert CGI foilage for the purposes of cheap gags!

The one exception I can buy, is a large scale giant ant attack, but it’s not very well done.

I’m not adverse to CGI when it’s used well (can you spot the CGI in Casino Royale for instance? And no it’s not the sinking house: that’s a model), it’s just don’t make a big deal about the fact that you’re not using it, and then use it extensively.

One thing the film does have going for it is a superb cast… who are thoroughly wasted. This is Harrison’s show, and no one is going to steal it from him, though Blancett gives it a fair go, hamming it up like Brian Blessed.

Shia LeBeof, playing the same character as Justin Long in Die Hard 4 but in a leather jacket, is enteratining enough. John Hurt gets  athankless role as a professor driven nuts by the power of the crystal skull, and Ray Winstone has fun as Indy’s sidekick, no wait he’s a baddie, no, hang on, he’s Indy’s mate again…

Nice to see Karen Allen back in the fold, giving Indy a love interest that’s believable, and her sassyness is very welcome at a time when the film begins to flag a little, but ultimately she’s there to deliver one line and that’s it.

A bright spot is Jim Broadbent as Denholm Elliot’s replacement. Given little to do, he adds a touch of class to proceedings, just like his predecessor (without the comdey buffoon rewrite).

Overall then, it’s a tad disappointing. It’s entertaining enough, with touches of brilliance, but the whole package feels like just that: a package. A demographically approved pick and mix shovelled into an Indiana Jones bag.

Nothing suprises me about Lucas anymore, but from Spielberg you expect more, considering how much affection he and the audience have for the films.

It’s far better than the Star Wars prequels, not as good as any of the original films, and, I fear, come the end of the summer, it may not be the most fondly remembered blockbuster of the year.

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OK, so I’m probably the last one to get the joke, but today I discovered this fine ensemble, Richard Cheese and the Lounge Against the Machine.

You remember the last ‘Friday Tunes’ post where I went off on one about how for five minutes everyone was into cheesy lounge music? Part of that was to do with an irritating little scroat called Mike Flowers Pops, who decided it would be an immense wheeze to make out Noel gallagher had stolen ‘Wonderwall’ from an old 60’s tune.

It was cobblers because it was too self-conciously twee and cheesy.

Mr Richard Cheese (geddit?) seems to have taken a cue from a certain Paul Anka, who a few years back released a dreadful album of ‘contemporary’ songs done in a Vegas stylee. He massacarred such classics as ‘Black Hole Sun’, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and… er… ‘Eye of the Tiger’. The album was made even worse by the fact that Mr Anka obviously thought this was a brilliant idea.

(EDIT: I’ve since discovered Mr Cheese has been doing this sort of thing for nearly a decade… so Anka must have copied him)

Mr Cheese and his (superb) band also think its a brilliant idea, but also are aware that it’s also fucking hilarious. These guys tread the path that Mike Flowers and Paul Anka would NEVER tread.

Here are some absolute stormers, and if you like ‘em, then for christ’s sake buy the albums (click the pic below for a link).

Richard Cheese - Creep (Radiohead)

Richard Cheese - Me So Horny (2 Live Crew)

Richard Cheese - Closer (NIN)

Richard Cheese - Rape me (Nirvana)

Categories: Friday tunes
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It didn’t take long for Boris to make his first balls up as London Mayor, but you’ve got to admit it’s a doozy: upsetting the Tube Unions. You couldn’t make it up.

 Seems Boris’ first splash of inspiration is not one of his headline-grabbing policies from his campaign about bringing back Routemaster buses (who cares), tackling the congestion charge (believe it when I see it) or adding coppers to the streets (pull the other one). No his first big policy decision is to ban alcohol on the tube.

Brilliant.

Apparently it’s something vaugely to do with ‘anti-social behaviour’, that wonderfully 21st century catch-all term used to describe wankers who hit people and break things.

I was intrigued to see this will come into force on the the 1st June… three weeks time. So in the space of just six days Boris has researched his policy, decided it is for the public good, budgeted for the extra police (which we haven’t yet got), budgeted for the marketing of the scheme (people need posters) and consulted everyone concerned. Wow. That’s fast work.

Except,of course, he hasn’t done any of this. He’s simply plucked out of his arse one of those policies that no ‘right-thinking person’ could disapprove of and decided that’s what he’s going to do.

As for consultation, surely he spoke to tube bosses about it? Well, he may have got a statement from Timmy O’Toole or some other oxygen wastiing suit, but Mr Bob Crowe, really the most powerful man in London, was not consulted. And he’s, (…and I can’t bear to type this…) probably right that he’s concerned his union’s members are liable to find themselves under even MORE threat from irate passengers.

But the one thing that grinds me most about this, and I’ve written to Boris’ office about, is that there isn’t a problem of people drinking on the tube. Yes, it might not be particularly appealing to see people drinking on the tube, but we could all run off a list of unpleasant things on the tube. Boris isn’t going to ban food, loud music or teenagers from the tube.

The problem is DRUNK PEOPLE. Unfortunately, people get drunk and do stupid things. And it’s THIS that gets up people’s noses.

People generally drink on the tube when they are going out and, therefore, sober. Sober people don’t do stupid things unless they are stupid (and you can’t legislate for stupidity).

Drunk people do stupid things all the time. So if you’re already drunk, how is not being able to drink on the tube going to stop you being drunk and stupid?

The simple solution would be to ban drunk people from the tube. This of course would be shouted down as an ‘infringment on our human rights’. It would also upset a  lot of the City boys who make up Boris’ core voters.

So instead, as I mentioned, he comes up with a plan which affects a lot of innocent people to show that he’s ‘doing something’ without actually doing anything at all. 

Categories: Rant
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What is a hungover sunday on a Bank Holiday weekend for except watching trash, eating crap food and generally lounging about in your pants.

That’s generally how I spent the sunday just gone (although I did eventually get dressed), as Lady Scaramanga, myself and Harry Webshiter settled in for a trio of trash cinema at its ‘finest’.

First up is the near-legendary ‘when animals attack’ movie Night of the Lepus. Based on an obscure satirical Australian novel, and subsequently stripped of eveything interesting, this falls into that wonderfully 70s genre. Basically, all these movies (Food of the Gods, Giant Spider Invasion et al), will involve a down-on-their-luck actor battling with poorly matted shots of giant animals, whilst conjuring up a ‘it’s so crazy it just might work’ plan to deal with the situation.

Lepus follows the formula so slavishly that it could be accepted as passable time wasting but for one glaring issue… rabbits are not scary. Yes, that’s right, I said rabbits.

Giant rats are scary. Spiders of nearly any size are scary. Giant mutant sea monsters are scary. Rabbits, of ANY size, are not scary. So the film is crippled from the start.

It’s got an interesting cast. Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh play a ‘young couple’ (the film’s words, not mine) researching animal behaviour, who are called in by Professor Clark (My GOD! Deforrest Kelly!!!!) to investigate an explosion of the rabbit population in some arse-end-of-nowhere Arizona town.

(This is the sort of town where EVERYONE has a rifle. Surely they’d welcome their lupine friends as target practice and fresh meat?)

Anyhoo… the scientists balls up royally, by using an un-tested serum (Whitman admits having no idea what it does when he administers it), and letting their daughter have a rabbit as a pet. The kid promptly swaps her control rabbit (one that hasn’t been tested on) for another (guess which one…). It gets loose and before you can say chicka-wah-wah it’s shagging every other rabbit in sight, and they start growing to extreme proportions (turns out it was a growth serum… or something).

 Much hilarity ensues as the rabbits march on in slo-mo over Hornby railway models, occassionally stopping to be substituted for a guy in an oversized rabbit costume to attack the townspeople (cue close-ups of cute bunnies with ketchup on their faces).

One quite disturbing scene shows a (dead) rabbit set alight and chucked about (clearly on strings) in the middle of a group of genuine (and presumably terrified) live rabbits.

So, after a failed attempt to trap them in a mine (yeah, rabbits can burrow… you’d think a scientist would know that), it’s eventually decided to electrocute them on a railway line. But not before we’ve had a marvellous sequence where the rabbits attack two pieces of stock footage of cows simultaneously, whilst travelling through time so they are at night, but the cows exist in daytime.

It’s utter tripe, quite frankly. In fairness, some of the effects work is quite good. There’s continuity of scale (a concept many giant animal movies forget, even Jaws was a bit fuzzy on this) and an excellent matte shot of a rabbit approaching a guy hiding behind a truck. But this is undone by the ludicrous ‘man in a suit’ sequences.

The editing is atrocious. Scenes begin and end quite arbitrarily, with post-production dubbing seemingly laid on at random where they feel a scene doesn’t quite make sense. (One scene ended with a piece of dialogue spoken by someone who wasn’t even in the scene).

There is actually very little to recommend Lepus, beyond pure kitsch value. In fact there’s nothing. Except Dr McCoy’s moustache, which you’re sure is going to leap off and attck someone at any minute.

Nowhere near as good as Tarantula or Them; not as joyously exploitative as Food of the Gods; and not even enough to give FOTG 2 a run for its money. It holds curio, after hours entertainment only.

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It’s sometimes thoroughly depressing being a horror fan. Whilst I have an ever increasing stack of old movies still to watch, I still want to go and see balls-to-the-wall horror at my local megaplex (if I had one, but that’s another story).

Hollywood is still stuck in its seemingly endless remake-a-thon with Asian horror now being overtaken by remakes of ‘the classics’ (the term is used loosely to describe anything with any kind of fan base: Evil Dead, Driller Killer and (I shit you not) Cannibal Holocaust are all forthcoming). So when something truely scary, suprising and, godammit, entertaining as 28 Days Later comes along, you can’t help but think, maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Then the sequel comes out, and you realise the tunnel has a big metal grate over it and you’re stuck in the tunnel.

28 Days Later was one of the best films of 2002, by a long shot. The opening ten minutes are amongst the most visually stunning you will ever see; the characters were believable, the acting superb. You couldn’t help but think ‘what would I do in this situation?’.

28 Weeks Later by comparison feels just like what it is. An American financed sequel-cum-remake which forgets all the stuff that made the first film so good (bar the excellent soundtrack) and serves up a by-the-numbers extension of what we’ve already seen.

What worked first time, still works here. As the zombies, aren’t really zombies (they are humans infected by a virus which makes them crave human flesh), they pretty much resemble their ‘normal’ form and they run like fuck to get some of that tasty longpig.

Where it fails is in increasing the scope. Taking it’s cue from Romero’s Day of the Dead, London is slowly being repopulated in a military-run complex with lots of those lovely underground tunnels for exciting chases cut together so rapidly you haven’t got a flipping clue who’s been eaten until the next scene and you realise who isn’t there anymore.

The cliches are ladelled on like wedding cake icing: the ‘good’ soldier who refuses to shoot a child and his helicopter flying buddy who ultimately turns out to be a git; the whiney survivor who just whines and blubs; and the plucky heroine. Yes, thirty years on from Halloween, you still can’t have a horror movie without a plucky (preferable virginal) heroine who saves the day.

The band of heroes somehow manage to walk from Canary Wharf to Regents Park to Wembley Stadium (via Central London) in the space of a few hours, whilst avoiding ‘the infected’, the army and heavy bombing of the streets. You couldn’t make that journey in less than three hours on public transport, let alone walking with all that going on around you.

One thing of note is the casting of Robert Carlyle. Obviously he has a bit of marquee value, but really his role could have been played by anyone in their late 30s, and, sadly, his presence adds nothing.

It’s all so frustrating. We finally get a Brit horror movie that the American majors get behind and they fuck it up.

Sounds like Neil Marshall’s Doomsday is going the same way as well.

After recently seeing Haute Tension and Ils (Them) I’m starting to wonder if we’ve got to rely on the French for our movie scares from now on…

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A wierd thing happened a while back (about 1996 or so). Lounge Music became trendy. Everyone was suddenly declaring their undying love for all things Andy Wiiliams and such like.

I was annoyed because I’d always loved Lounge Music, even though i wasn’t entirely sure what it was. As a kid I always loved the music they used to play over Ceefax or the Test card (there are websites for this kind of thing if you so wish such as The Test card Circle).

 Anyhoo, Lounge is very hard to define. It can include jazz, funk, easy listening or rock, and in essence is a bit of a shit label.

I’ve got my own ideas of what constitutes Lounge, and that would include people like Syd Dale, who’s ubiquitous Penthouse Suite has become a kind of Lounge Anthem (it was the theme to Tarrant on TV, and Father Ted used it for Pat Mustard), Alan Hawkshaw (the Milk Tray advert) and Ray Davies (not that Ray Davies).

So I present here a few choice selections from my Lounge Collection. I’m sure I’ll dip into this particular fondue again soon…

Herbie Flint - Our Man Flint

Cal Tjander - Gimme Shelter

Big Boss Man - Sea Groove

Syd Dale - The Penthouse Suite

Categories: Friday tunes
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“All Jedi had was a bunch of muppets”…

And so Kevin Smith summed up the feelings of a great many 20/30 somethings in his film Clerks. Back in the day when Star Wars meant three supremely entertaining films rather than George Lucas’ pension and a seemingly suicidal plan to destroy the happy childhood memories of millions of fans (he actually once said “They’re MY movies. I’ll do what I want to them.”), Jedi was considered the least of the original trilogy.

Sure it had good stuff (Jabba, speeder bikes), but it also has Ewoks, what many considered the first signs of cutesy, cuddly kids stuff that would riddle the ‘new’ trilogy like so many cancers.

I, too, shared these views until last night.

After a marathon Lego Star Wars session, Lady Scaramanaga and I decide to regress to childhood and bunged on the Jedi DVD (the original version, natch). It was the first time I’d watched it in at least ten years, and by the end I had completely changed my opinion of it.

The way I’d always looked on it you had Star Wars (rollicking, family entertainment), Empire (darker, slightly more grown up entertainment) and Jedi (the kids film). Well, let me ask you how many kids films feature the following:

– a ‘vile gangster’ who enjoys having women chained up, and when he gets bored of them he feeds them to a monster;

– a vicious battle between a native tribe and a batallion of soldiers with superior weaponry

– a father dying whilst rescuing his son from an evil old man who had earlier corrupted him.

 Doesn’t sound like a barrel of laughs does it? Can’t imagine Pixar putting the finishes touches to that story anytime soon.

And that’s what I realised last night; Jedi is just as ‘dark’ (and I do hate that term hence the inverted commas) as Empire, maybe more so.

People really only percive Empire as dark because of Darth Vader’s revelation (which admittedly was quite a stunner for first time viewers), and because, again as Kevin Smith points out, it end’s on such a downer. Whilst I concede on the Vader idea, the ‘downer’ ending is really just the set up for Jedi. The studio knew they had a massive hit on their hands (unlike when Star Wars was released and they were ready to ditch the film at the first opportunity), so they HAD to have a downer ending, with a glimmer of hope, to get people to come back again.

This is common practice with successful franchises. Take Back to the Future. They had no idea how well that film was going to do. Robert Zemeckis has admitted they only tagged on the ending they did (with Doc Brown taking Marty into the future to sort his kids out) just for a bit of fun, one last gag. they never planned to make a sequel. (To side track a little… a little more… Zemecki and Bob Gale spent the best part of ten years writing BTTF, which is probably why it’s such a tight film; BTTF 2 and 3 were written together int he space of a couple of years, which is probably why they are such sprawling messes).

When BTTF 2 arrived thy knew they had a captive audience so could have an open ended sequel, knowing people would flock back for Part 3.

The same can be applied to The Matrix. Useless pieces of crap that the sequels were.

ANYWAY…

So, I think Jedi has had a rough ride. Bizarrely what I enjoyed as a kid I now found irritating. The openeing half hour in Jabba’s palace now grated so much I nearly skipped over it. abba himself is a marvellous creation, but hte sequence seemed more concerned with introducing as many new toys… sorry… bizarre characters as possible without advancing the story any further. And Lucas should forever hang his head in shame for the rather ignoble death of Boba Fett. Yes, Boba Fett, the coolest chacter in the entire Star Wars universe, dies following a hilarious mix up between a half blind Han Solo and a big stick. Guffaw! (I think Lucas realised the error of his ways by making the Fett dynasty so crucial in the ‘new’ trilogy, but the damage was already done).

Once the film kicks in proper it really ramps it up. The speeder bike chase on Endor is easily the best action sequence in the series. Using a combination of minatures, back projection and live action, you really get queasy watching those guys ducking and weaving through the huge forest.

The Ewoks may be cute, but they are bad-ass as well. Endor was originally going to be Kyyshak, planet of the Wookies. But of course that wouldn’t work. There is no way the Wookies would have stood by and let the Empire build their deflector shield base on their planet. The Ewoks HAVE to be small, timid creatures to have allowed it to happen. This also makes the fightback that much more exciting (and we even see some die, which Lucas probably wouldn’t do nowadays).

Of course, Lucas didn’t direct Jedi (or Empire for that matter). Richard Marquand was the chosen vessel for this one. He has a very short filmography after sadly dying in 1987. I’m not quite sure how he got the gig (maybe someone can enlighten me), as his previous work seemed to show no great desire to direct a huge space epic, and neither did his later films (of which Jagged Edge is easily the best; avoid The Legacy at all costs unless you have a crushing desire to see Roger Daltrey with his troat cut open).

Of course, Marquand was little more than a Lucasfilm employee, but he manages to squeeze some humility into the proceedings that had not appeared before, and never would again, one of which is my single favourite moment in all the films.

As the Emperor is laying into Luke with his jazz hands, we cut to a shot of Vader’s helmetted head, the laser’s reflected in his cold black viasge… and for a second we sense Vader might not be enjoying this very much. His mask is exactly the same, it’s not changed at all. he’s just looking down, as he’s probably down thousands of times as minnions and rebels died at his feet. But the addtion of the reflected lasers, and then a brief glance to the Emperor tell you everything you need to know about his tortured state of mind.

It’s a stunning moment, and one which most probably never notice, or even care about. But for me it’s a moment that redeems the film from it’s shortcomings.

It’s rare for me to sit and watch a film on a purely entertainment level. I’m always looking for clues to the off screen shenanigans, the hidden meanings, the symbolism. I’m so jaded and cynical that I can’t just sit and watch a film for what it is, entertainment. And last night, Jedi delivered that entertainment in a way that, say, five years ago, I would have openely laughed in your face and probably slapped you for suggesting that I would have absorbed it all like a sponge and not made sarky comments every five minutes.

I employ all of you Jedi haters (mainly the ones who say Revenge of the Sith is better… it’s not. It’s cack with a capital CACK), to have another go. Make sure it’s the non-fucked-about-with version though. It’s slightly cut-and-paste look is endering in a way CGI can and never will be. And you don’t get to see Hayden Christiensen either.

And, did you notice how I managed to talk about Jedi without once mentioning Carrie Fisher’s bikini…?

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Every friday, I’m going to take it upon myself to plonk some happy Friday tunes on here for your delectation, plus it also cheers me up a bit too.

Today I’ll give you some prime slices of two of the most underrated bands of all time.

 THE MONKEES

Buy Monkees CD’s!

If anyone ever says to you, “Oh, The Monkees were a bit of a joke, weren’t they”, you know they are a fool and you should cease all contact with them immediately before stabbing them in the ears, cos they obviously don’t use them properly.

The Monkees have had a rough ride over the years. Yes, they were a manufactured band designed to cash in on The Beatles. So were most bands in the early to mid 60s.

They were completely aware of what they were, but that didn’t stop them wanting to break free of their shackles and go out on their own. As a guide a good Monkees song is one sung by Mickey Dolenz. Everyone knows ‘The Monkees Theme’ and ‘I’m a Believer’. They are great, classic pop tunes. But the Dolenz stuff seems to edging into slightly darker territory.

Things like ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ and ‘Last train to Clarksville’ are amongst some of the some best tunes to come out of the 60s.

Check out these two lesser-known tunes and see what you think.

The Monkees - Words

The Monkees - Goin Down

XTC

Buy XTC CDs!

Quite simply one of the best bands Swindon EVER produced (and that’s some endorsement) XTC were never huge, but their legacy can still be heard 30 years on in bands like The Kaiser Chiefs and The Futureheads.

Blur were probably the first band to openly appreciate the influence (even getting Andy partridge to co-produce their best album Modern Life is Rubbish).

Many of their tunes sound like they could have come out in the last couple of years. Whether this means they still sound amazingly fresh, or because so many people have copied their style, I’m not sure. But the music is still corking!

You all know ‘Making Plans for Nigel’ and ‘Senses Working Overtime’, so here’s a couple you may not know.

XTC - Science Friction

XTC - No Thugs In Our House

XTC - The Mayor of Simpleton

Categories: Friday tunes
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Yay! Just what the world needs. Another Brit Rom Com. As far as I can tell the only difference between Brit rom-coms and American ones, is we have more swearing in ours.

They still trade in nauseating characters you just want to punch, usually good performers dying a slow and painful death and a script from the RomCom-o-Matic 3000 in terms of plot development, character and situation.

 I’m not completely adverse to romantic comedy; just like ANY genre, if it’s good quality I’ll enjoy it. Annie Hall, for instance, is one of my favourite films ever, probably because it plays up the com rather than the rom (see also Groundhog Day, which is a slushy rom-com dressed up as a Bill Murray starring Twighlight Zone episode).

When Harry met Sally is another. Witty observations, career best performances from everyone and characters you care about.

What happened somewhere was ‘the formula’ got invented. I blame Richard Curtis (just like everyone else), but it wasn’t Four Weddings and a Funeral that did it, it was the long lost and never popular The Tall Guy. Watch that film again, and you’ll see that ‘the formula’ is just about there. Flawed bloke, enigmatic lady, ker-azy mates (including one who’s disabled), Rowan Atkinson cameo (nicely playing against type as an egotistical bastard…). The only element that differs from Curtis’ other more successful movies was the casting. Jeff Goldblum and Emma Thompson have superb chemistry (better than almost every other film of this ilk), but the imported star was the MALE lead, rather than the FEMALE lead.

This may explain the film’s failure, or it may be the thought of seeing Goldblum’s arse not long after seeing his balls in a jar in The Fly put people off. Who knows…

Anyway, this formula has been tried and tested with varying degrees of success, so now the Americans want a piece of our rom-com pie.

“But, wait…”, I hear you cry, “Run, Fatboy, Run is a Simon Pegg film. You know, him from Shaun of the Dead and Hott Fuzz, one of the few truly talented actor/writers currently working. How dare you slander his good name by declaring this film a Hollywood product!”

Well, sorry to break it to you, but despite the roster of Brit talent on the show, and being set in London (though not a recognisable London, but we’ll get abck to that), this has Hollywood product stamped through it like Blackpool rock.

Basically, the script as written, was set in New York, and sat on the shelf for a while. Then David Schwimmer and Simon Pegg became best buds working on Big Nothing (no, I didn’t bother with it either), and they came up with the idea of relocating it to London and getting all Pegg’s mates in it.

The plot, for what it’s worth, concerns Dennis (Pegg) ditching his bride (Thandie newton) at the altar, then five years later running a marathon to win her back, cos now she’s got a perfect new boyfriend (Hank Azaria). Paper thin doesn’t really do it justice.

It conforms to formula so much you half expect plot-point captions to appear on screen. Azaria is obviously a git because he’s successful, sensible, well spoken and works in ‘the City’. Pegg is obviously a nice bloke because he dumped his missus at the altar, has no ambition, is irresponsible, skint and hangs around with a lot of dodgy people (including the ACE Dylan Moran, of whom we don’t get enough).

Newton is given precisely dick all to do, you wonder if half way they just decided to replace her with a cardboard cut out just to see if anyone would notice.

And this is set in London, as I said. This is a London where ‘geezers’ hang around in lock ups playing cards, a crippled man can drag himself around town for twelve hours and no one beats him up or throws chips at him. A  London of boating lakes, a London where you can waltz through security at a City bank, and a London of comedy Asian landlords. Yes, it’s the 1970s.

And yet… and yet… against all my baser instincts, it kind of works.

OK, so Newton’s change of heart seems a little sudden (simply because Azaria trips Pegg, and calls her son a “little shit” after he tries to cripple him in an adjustable bed, sounds fair to me). And there’s no way I can forgive Simon day’s supposedly vicious gangster actually cheering when he loses a huge bet.

But, it all sort of falls into place. Maybe a bit too neatly, but neatly nonetheless.

This is most definately NOT what I want to see Pegg doing. He’s so far above this kind of material he’s levitating. And Moran is far too good a comedic actor to play ‘crap mate’ for the rest of his career (or get his bum out for comedic effect).

Run, Fatboy, Run is so slight the DVD nearly blew away in a small draught, but it’s entertaining with some good moments. It’s not ‘heartwaming’, ’sweet’ or any of that cobblers though.

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