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The Reckoning (2023)
Dubious storytelling
The makers of this programme were walking a tightrope. I think they fell off, for reasons I will explain.
Surely the main issue in a drama like this is how accurate it is. Yet there are many red flags casting doubt on its authenticity. I happened to work with Dan Davies for about a year and a half, while he was writing this book. We didn't work together super-closely but we were in the same office and I had many interactions with him in and out of work. He wasn't like how the actor here performs him. For starters, the actor is a lot younger - but that's not the main issue. I just couldn't see Dan talking to Savile the way he did, particularly in the final episode. (In 2008 Dan told me he quite liked Savile.)
Next up, there's the BBC's obsession with diversity, which here includes the appalling decision to make one of Savile's victims, the girl who killed herself, Asian, rather than white British which she was. What a stupid, pointless, disrespectful decision. But this is 21st century TV, where identity politics trumps all, where they will literally rewrite history to get more non-whites and women in historical dramas. It makes you doubt whether the male nurse whom is present at Savile's last rites was black; it feels like this black man is being presented as noble and good, in contrast to evil white man Savile. A PC agenda infuses The Reckoning, as is common nowadays.
So we've established that the drama takes liabilities. How many more does it take? How can we TRUST it? (It even says at the start of each show that certain scenes and characters have been invented.) A caption comes up at the end of the fourth episode saying Savile assaulted over 100 people. Really? How can we believe you? Could it be possible that this was exaggerated, that once the pile-on on Savile had started, it was easy for others to join in kicking a corpse that couldn't speak back?
The show implies that ALL of Savile's work was done to gain him access to children. Is that really so? Would not some of it be motivated by a desire to do good? I realise this is dodgy ground for me to be on, but some nuance was surely required. Because Savile was a complex character, as we so often hear.
Many have praised Steve Coogan's performance, and I agree that he has the voice and mannerisms right. But he doesn't portray Savile when he was properly turning the charm on for the cameras; it's mainly grim, troubled Savile. And watching Coogan in this is reminiscent of many of his previous performances - you see the tics and gestures that we've seen in several of his characters over the years, including Alan Partridge. He is undoubtedly a very talented actor but he's no Peter Sellers, who could transform himself in astounding fashion, almost becoming other human beings. By the way, in real life, Coogan seems to have little problem with Hamas murdering children and babies in cold blood. Does he care more that kids were abused many years ago by a celebrity? Savile was many things but he wasn't a murderer.
Was all the foul language really necessary? Spattered with F-words and even C-words, it feels gratuitous. Again, modern TV for you. I'd also question whether this was suitable to go out on BBC1 before 10pm.
The Reckoning is an odd mixture of new real-life interviews, dramatised footage, real archive footage (sometimes Coogan is Savile in a photo, sometimes it's Savile himself in a photo or video), skipping around many time zones and mostly drenched in doomy, gloomy music which TELLS you how to feel. It's way over the top. By half way through episode three I'd becoming incredibly irritated by this, and all the other manipulations that were going on.
This was a programme shown on a TV network that lied and covered up for Savile, and maybe they're still lying with this programme. The BBC can't even call terrorists terrorists, and one wonders whether we can trust them at all with this highly selective, highly manipulative, dramatically shaky drama.
Over Exposed (1977)
Sweet and sexy
A glamour photographer has extra-curricular enjoyment with the models.
Cute little sexy short that was originally shot in 1974 and had more footage added three years later - although the sudden cuts as seen on the version on the BFI's website would suggest even more fun and games was shot.
The girls, including Suzy Mandel, Heather Deeley and Ava Cadell, are lovely and the west London scenery very pleasant - it's funny how a trifling softcore film made in the mid-Seventies can somehow say quite a lot about the past social history of Britain (and how favourably its milieu compares with today's).
Tony Benn: Will and Testament (2014)
Good political doc
Documentary about the life and career of Labour politician Tony Benn.
In what was a slightly ghoulish turn, Benn died shortly before this film was completed, but here he is to discuss his eventful existence in detail, either in his kitchen or in a dark virtual set - there is also a mass of archive footage, which immerses the viewer in Britain's recent past.
He was always a sharply intelligent person, if wrong on most issues, and thus this makes for always interesting viewing, although it's evident that the director is not keen on any negative light being cast on his subject.
The DVD has some extra interview footage; more still would have been welcome.
The Adventures of Hal 5 (1958)
Mostly cute kiddie adventure
A car with a mind of its own is swapped between owners.
A sort of Herbie before Herbie came along, albeit one represented by simple line drawings of the changing expressions of the car's 'face' on the radiator grille. It's quite sweet stuff, very much a product of its gentle time, with an undercurrent of deceitful business dealings, as exemplified by the crooked mechanic. Lots of pleasant rural photography helps.
Director Don Sharp went on to do lots of great Hammer horrors, star William Russell went on to try and cover up William Hartnell getting his lines mixed up on Doctor Who.
Egghead's Robot (1970)
Pretty dreadful
A young boffin uses a robot double of himself to do various tasks, without telling his parents.
Even by the standards of the Children's Film Foundation, this is a painfully juvenile adventure which will test the patience of even the most ardent fan: there's only so many times you can see Roy Kinnear or the children falling into a muddy pool.
The script offers a pretty dismal and repetitive runaround, with rather too many shots of the Chegwins in their undies or dressed up as a girl. Bit weird really.
It actually seems to be a semi-sequel to The Troublesome Double (1967 - IMDb may have the wrong date for it) - one can only hope that that wasn't as inane as this; still, there are nice shots of the Wimbledon of the time.
Hellcat Mud Wrestlers (1983)
A unique film!
A semi-staged documentary about an evening of female mud wrestling in Croydon.
Essentially the very last British sex flick released to cinemas (the first was Nudist Paradise in 1958), this is Wheeltappers and Shunters with added dirty grappling (which takes an age to start), intercut with fake interviews by John M East, mostly with glamour girls purporting to be mud wrestlers - a couple of whom casually wear nothing but a robe. One of them is the lovely Vicki Scott - after she has spoken the camera pans down her naked breasts and then rests on her pubic hair. It's the sexiest moment!
You could call this a nadir of UK culture, or you could be kinder and say 'well, you had to be there...' Sound recording, photography and acting are all out of the bottom drawer.
It is perhaps proof, though, that even an enterprise as low rent and dingy as this has some sort of cultural value - and anything with sizeable American wrestler Queen Kong in it will at least raise one or two smiles.
It's extremely hard to see nowadays, probably not surprisingly.
Dir: Alan Hall, David Sullivan.
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1931)
Interesting first talkie version of Hound
Sherlock Holmes investigates a family curse.
The first sound version of this story was once thought lost but was thankfully recovered, although it can now only be viewed at the BFI Mediatheque on London's South Bank (where I watched it yesterday). It's a decent, industrious adaptation, unsophisticated but plucky, with a script by the great Edgar Wallace (who writes some good dialogue and makes a few changes to the story - Holmes doesn't dress up in this one, for instance) and the odd performance redolent of the silent era.
It also features plenty of outdoor shooting, and a fine hound played by Champion Egmund of Send. Definitely worth catching for Holmes acolytes.
Nudist Memories (1961)
One of the first British nudist films
A young woman persuades her friends to accompany her to Spielplatz naturist resort.
This early British nudist film is typically sweet and innocent, and has some suspense worthy of Hitchcock as the girls stop off en route to Spielplatz to get petrol and admire the historical buildings of St Albans, before finally disrobing - although the efforts to prevent you from seeing their pubic hair are truly heroic.
It's funny to see Olive from On The Buses in the lead, here looking rather nicer than she did in that show. Mitzi might be my favourite, though.
This short's message to take off your clothes is all well and good, but the British climate isn't exactly suited to doing that for more than a few days a year...
Nudist Memories is worth seeing for those of us for whom this sort of thing is a guilty pleasure. It also shows how beautiful England was at the time it was made.
This can presently only be viewed at the BFI Mediatheque on London's South Bank, where I watched it yesterday (you might be able to watch it at other BFI buildings).
Under the Bed (1977)
Frothy light sex comedy
A wedding party sees all sorts of saucy shenanigans.
This sunny, light-hearted short has a real 'shot at the producer's house' vibe (it's the delightful Wraysbury in Berkshire) and its content is deeply inconsequential - it starts with its best nudity (with the gorgeous Theresa Wood in the bath) and then there's all sorts of chatter, some of which is actually quite funny, especially the stuttering, fffffing girl, before some mild couplings. We also get a cast member who'd become a teacher at Grange Hill. And there's not only a gay man present, but a lesbian too!
You can't imagine the dirty mac brigade would have been too impressed, unless they watched the hardcore version intended for foreign markets - as it is, this is a very English, very Seventies sauce film, but that's not necessarily an insult.
This can presently only be viewed at the BFI Mediatheque on London's South Bank, which is where I watched it yesterday.
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Remarkable to see filmmakers troll their own fans so blatantly
For me, easily the worst of the three latter-day Star Wars films, and almost as bad as Solo.
It's the fag end of the Star Wars saga - there's nothing new in it, nothing that makes you go 'wow!' There's a lot that makes you groan, though, particularly its almost parody-like wokeness: the cast is just so DELIBERATELY 50/50 male/female, 1/4 white, 1/4 Asian, 1/4 black, 1/4 other. There's a kiss that is the PC icing on the cake. And at the core of its being is unthinking feminism: Rey is the one who can do almost ANYTHING! You name it, she can do it, it's laughable.
I've decided to keep this review spoiler-free so I'll just say that there is at least one absurd turn-face from a character that makes no sense and is hugely disappointing. Old faces show up and it's sometimes nice to see them, but it doesn't really add much to the film apart from stirring memories of older, better films. Characterisation for pretty much everyone is paper thin.
The plot just has little drive, it's all a bit 'going through the motions'.
Time to bid farewell to Star Wars, folks - it's had its day, it's now a box ticking exercise, both woke and weary, and not even that much of a thrill ride.
Blinded by the Light (2019)
Very political, very ethnic, very obvious
This is a curdled film. It's heavy politicalised and very ethnic but celebrates the music of Bruce Springsteen. I'm not sure the crossover audience for these subjects is all that large. And while it mostly tries to be an earthy social drama there are brief sequences of musical fantasia a la Rocketman; they jar madly, and are really quite toe-curling.
It's virulently anti-Thatcher, sometimes hilariously so: there's a shot of the lead actor after a bruising NF rally, then he exits the shot and we're left with the sight of a poster for the Tory party with a picture of Mrs Thatcher and the words 'Conservatives: Uniting Britain'. This is pitiful political posturing; I actually burst out laughing. Firstly, the Conservatives never produced that poster. Secondly, why would they? Thirdly, it's just so brain-hammeringly obvious what the filmmakers are trying to do here. Their bias is literally laughable. There's another scene where the lead visits his new white English girlfriend whose parents are of course evil Tories and they actually have a poster in their window which has the words 'Margaret Thatcher' on it. Why would anyone have this in their window, especially when it's not election time?! This is visual storytelling at its most painfully amateurish, in thrall to student, Corbynista politics. (There's another, later scene with a multitude of newspaper headlines in the background that is so cretinous it takes the breath away.)
Of course, because it ticks the right boxes - ethnic, leftish, a low-budget Brit film - the critics have largely given it an easy ride, but this isn't a good film. It's too long. The acting is weak, the scripting more so. It isn't funny - AT ALL.
There are all sorts of anachronisms, musically and otherwise. The right-on girl tells her parents: 'Nobody says coloured any more' but, um, yes they did, in 1987. It wasn't till many years later that that our liberal masters told us that that was a COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE term (whereas the totally and utterly and completely different term 'people of colour' was completely acceptable).
It's the politics that really betray where the film's heart lies. Most of the whites in the film are villains, most of the non-whites are goodies. The film tells us that the Muslim's family is suffering oh such hard times because of nasty Thatch. I can assure the writer that the family would have had a vastly, VASTLY worse standard of living, vastly less freedom and witnessed a good deal more violence had his father not been allowed to come to England and stayed in Pakistan; the opportunities to better oneself in that country are not comparable to in Britain. And as for Luton. Well, just go there today and stay if you can in some of the Islamist neighbourhoods and see how welcome you feel. Although the opposition to Pakistani immigration into Luton was often crude and crass, the native people knew deep down that this was not something benign, it wasn't something that went along with their ideas of how life should be. That Luton is now a hotbed of Islamic extremism isn't addressed in the movie, naturally.
You can see why this film got funding - it ticks all the right diversity boxes. But blimey, it's a stinker: its template is incredibly well worn and yet the dramatics it presses upon this template are deeply unexciting.
Pavarotti (2019)
Good apart from Bono
So me and the opera crowd were sitting there enjoying this positive - perhaps too positive - biopic when up pops Bono.
Sigh. Here's the sweary luvvie Irishman, swearing away, paying tribute YET AGAIN to someone from the world of showbusiness. It really jars. This is just like in Ron Howard's Beatles movie when Whoopi Goldberg comes on. Why does he do it? It's like he thinks, 'Let's bring someone discordant on to swear a bit, that'll do it'.
What have we done to deserve Bono? Can't he just go away forever?
Anyway, film is a decent watch. You can't help but grin along with Luciano.
Pity Gazza isn't in it, though.
Rising Damp: That's My Boy (1977)
In answer to Prismark10
The episode isn't silly: the reason Rigsby thought Miss Jones might be the mother was because SHE had been away for many months, ostensibly to get married. Frances de la Tour had taken a break from the show midway through the second series.
So it actually makes complete sense and is very funny too.
Westworld (2016)
Well made but deeply dislikeable
I've watched the first season of Westworld: I have no desire to watch the second.
It's what I'd call a 'feelbad' show. It takes a very bleak view of humanity. I love the original film though I'm biased in favour of 1970s pop culture and somewhat anti what we have nowadays, but it's such a dark show there's very little chance of feeling any affection towards it.
This Westworld features nary a single likeable character and is overwhelmingly nihilistic, unpleasantly violent (I don't have a problem with violence on screen but it goes out of its way to make every violent incident really nasty), relentlessly foul-mouthed (much of the dialogue is deeply crude) and about as far from 'fun' as could be. It is implausible, to put it mildly, and deeply pretentious.
Slow and massively verbose, it tells a multi-character story that elicits little sympathy. And it's all as PC as you'd expect nowadays: at least three of the female characters are basically male. The Thandie Newton character, presumably because she's a woman AND a bit black, is like some sort of superhero: she's far wiser, more charismatic, stronger and more able than any of the puny males here. Many of the males are quislings, cowards, vain, motivated by base motives etc.
Two of the actors have expressions that never change - Leonardo Nam (anxious) and Evan Rachel Wood (a little downcast; confused about her life). Angela Sarafyan treads a fine line between looking beautiful and possessing a sort of down syndrome chic. Anthony Hopkins at least doesn't phone his performance in like he has many times in the past, but his crinkled face quarter-smile irks a little. At least he isn't as flat-out foul and depressingly nasty as Ptolemy Slocum's character, who brings down every scene he's in. And I can see why Ed Harris wears that hat.
Westworld is nasty, gloomy, grim stuff, whose underlying message is that people are horrible (especially white males), that life is brutish and unsatisfying, that people manipulate other people all the time, that rich people are especially awful, that there is no such thing as 'real' pleasure. I can't think of a show with a worse message to send out concerning the human race.
New Town Utopia (2018)
Interesting but somewhat biased
Anyone coming to this intriguing documentary should be aware that it has a big agenda: it's very much from a socialist viewpoint, and most of its contributors are from an artistic background.
There's nothing necessarily wrong with this of course, but it does mean that we don't get a complete portrait of Basildon or of its origins. Its origins were in the post-war era, and all we get of the thinking behind it is Jim Broadbent voicing MP Lewis Silkin's speeches of the time - he was partly responsible for town planning in the 1945 Labour government. There are no architects interviewed, virtually no one of a pro-free market disposition and barely any 'ordinary' families, who constitute the majority of Basildon's population.
Mrs Thatcher comes under attack, predictably. Council house sales are blamed for destroying community cohesion and disadvantaging the poor. There are various problems with this outlook: firstly, the people in those now ex-council houses continued to live there, by and large, so why would that change the neighbourhood? If not enough council houses were built after that, that was a separate problem, not the fault of council house sales (something that empowered people and made them feel a greater sense of personal responsibility). The film does not look at other reasons why communities might have fragmented and have 'kids not playing in the streets any more', which could include: warmer, more comfortable houses; greater technology that in many cases - the internet, the iPhone, videogames - encourage people to stay inside more; high immigration (although Basildon has largely escaped this phenomenon - indeed, the town has been a recipient of some of the 'white flight' from London); more travelling, which comes with greater wealth.
Some of the people interviewed have good points, some are moaning minnies (as Mrs T might have said). A few are real gloom buckets, but your words can sound especially gloomy when played alongside mournful music and shots of run down shopping centres and factories (again, there are no other suggestions for why this has happened, how the internet has made us do more of our shopping online, or how globalisation has seen some factory work go abroad, because markets there are greatly developing).
Many artists have an unrealistic idea of their importance in the real world; that is illustrated here. Art is vitally important, of course - it helps us realise we are not alone in our human suffering - but aspects of commerce are far more important in most people's daily lives.
It is capitalism that makes it vastly more likely that there will be a more vibrant arts scene, because as wealth grows (which it tends to do under capitalism) people have more money, and usually more time, to spend on leisure activities, things that are not 'essential' for everyday survival. It is socialist societies that have far less in the way of culture and colourful art. I imagine those living in Soviet tower blocks for most of their existence would look with envy to places like Basildon. Artists are far more likely to thrive in a capitalist land rather than a socialist one, but many seem not to realise that.
New Town Utopia does feature some good photography - parts of it are reminiscent of Patrick Keiller's 'Robinson' trilogy - and I have no doubt that, like Keiller's films, it will gain a period charm in the future. But like Keiller's work it is also somewhat narrow-minded, overly leftist in its diagnosis of Britain's problems, and too pessimistic.
Still, it's a thought-provoking watch.
Doctor Who: Resolution (2019)
More painful than being exterminated
Chris Chibnall really does hate straight white males doesn't he? He certainly hates whites (when set against non-whites) and men (when set against women) and straights (when set against gays). I hope to god he never has a child to fill full of his bigotry and anti-prejudice prejudice.
Resolution was about as bad as the rest of this appalling series. A grandiose rewrite of the classic 'Dalek' from the Eccleston season, besides being as achingly PC as usual (and therefore unrepresentative of the vast majority of people who watch it) it was incredibly badly paced, frequently stopping for anguished dialogue scenes that might have come from EastEnders, non-scary and non-dramatic. Is anyone getting as irritated as me by Whitaker's one-note performance? Especially grating is when she does her 'I am woman, hear my roar' stuff to the monster of the episode. Enemies used to have to be out-thought to death, now they just have to be feminazied to death.
Also: what is the point of Yaz? Why does Tosin Cole's voice sound so stilted? Why have such a limited actor as Bradley Walsh? How did someone so immersed in mediocrity as Chibnall get the job as showrunner? Tell you what I'd like to see: some of the fans unhappy with his miserable reign tearing strips out of him in a TV studio like his young nerdy self did with the show's creators back in the 1980s. But I think we may have a long wait. For starters he'll probably be off on an anti-Brexit, pro-transgender, anti-borders march so be too busy.
Got It Made (1974)
The most Norwich-centric film ever made!
Anyone after vivid location footage of Norwich and Norfolk in 1974 is advised to seek this film out, as there are plenty. It all looks rather lovely and quintessentially English. There are also some nice shots of west London, in particular the Westway, which is at one point shot at night, the vehicles speeding through bluey-blackness to... who knows where?
Get It Made is a curious effort, moving at a leisurely pace and rarely very dramatic, which probably had little wide general appeal at the time. That may explain its descent into obscurity. There are long, dawdling shots of streets, waterways and buildings punctuating the story of an upper-class girl who is soon to be married but doesn't love her husband-to-be. She hangs out with an American guitarist as well as her sexually liberated Scandinavian friend Anna and begins to realise there is more to life.
Interestingly, the next film the director made after this was the erotic horror film Expose, with Fiona Richmond, and there are hints of eroticism here too. Lalla Ward briefly gets topless in the dark but it's the gorgeous Katya Wyeth who provides brief full frontal nudity in a memorable sequence where she simply answers the phone. '74 I do adore.
Some will find this film boring, and it is slight and a little pretentious perhaps, but there's intelligence behind it, and it provides rewards for 1970s nostalgists, Norwich-heads and Katya fans. Very very hard to see now, I somehow have it on DVD and wouldn't readily part with it.
Suntan (2016)
A humanistic triumph
An unhappy middle-aged doctor is posted to a Greek island where he meets a hedonistic group of young people, one of which, a beautiful, liberated girl, he falls for.
This is the kind of film that puritanical, emotionally stunted Hollywood - and probably even the rest of increasingly Islamified Western Europe - is not capable of making nowadays. It's a searingly human drama about unrequited love, the consequences of ageing, and the depths to which a human can sink when failure and rejection become commonplace. It's brave, bold and beautiful.
Casually erotic (the actress who plays the frequently nude Anna could be described as cinematic Viagra), superbly acted by the lead (his character has to plummet to depths that are excruciating to watch) and unnervingly accurate in whatever scene it turns its eye to, it dares to tell a story that is as dark as we all are beneath our exteriors. And it triumphs.
The outraged person who gives this film 1/10 on this site hilariously appears not to have even seen it as they get a major plot point completely wrong.
The Killing$ of Tony Blair (2016)
Impressive evisceration of Labour PM
Thought it'd be good to give another view on this as I suspect the only other reviewer of this title on this page at the moment hasn't actually seen it, and just has an axe to grind.
I'm no fan of Galloway but he's made a decent film here. It certainly isn't guilty of having 'no structure', and I'd say Galloway is better at this sort of thing than the disingenuous and dishonest Michael Moore.
Galloway eviscerates Blair, pretty much every aspect of his premiership (he believes his only two successes were the minimum wage and the Northern Ireland peace process); such complete takedowns of one politician are quite rare. While there is a great deal of focus on Blair's engagement in the Middle East (his wars, followed by his risible role as a 'peace envoy'), there's also much on the astonishing amounts of money Blair has made. He apparently has around 30 UK properties alone and could be worth £100 million. His other misdemeanours, like the Formula One sponsorship scandal, don't go un-noted.
Seeing Blair in full flow takes people like me right back; the mannerisms, the verb-less sentences, the doe eyes, the halting delivery, the cheesy grin... what a chap!
While I personally disagree with some of Galloway's conclusions - that, for instance, the terrorist attacks we now see in Europe are entirely due to Bush and Blair, or that he 'destroyed' the Labour Party (he won them three elections!) - he's made an entertaining documentary that is not without historical value. Made with professionalism, wittily edited and with plenty of historical footage and an impressive array of talking heads, this a good watch for anyone interested in British politics.
Sex Farm (1974)
Dusty artefact
After years of searching I finally got to see this title! (Ask me how.) And since there are no reviews of it up here, well, I just HAD to write one.
It's not a good film. Of course. It's similar to 1972's Clinic Xclusive (aka Sex Clinic) and has much in common with other British sex comedies of the period. Two frustrated wives (which was used as an alternate title, possibly to persuade people that this wasn't a notorious film involving farmyard animals) head off to a health farm to get away from their dreadful husbands. Neither of them are especially pretty but their bods make up for it - one suspects they were cast for their chests.
The film was for a while refused a certificate by the BBFC (outside London) for excessive sexual content, but it doesn't seem excessive nowadays (although I should add that the copy I watched had two or three obvious cuts - I suspect a couple of minutes of sexy time was edited out, annoyingly). What will instead stagger any millennials/snowflake generation types watching now (unlikely, I know) is the sexual politics. Their jaws will hit the floor as they see molesting and sexual harassment treated like a joke. Tut tut, they will say, it's no wonder the likes of Jimmy Savile got away with what he did when the cultural climate was like this (the issue is vastly more complex than this but I'm not going into that now). Some women are not treated well in this film.
What also takes the breath away is some OAP sex - some lady, who must be nearly 70, has a topless snog with a guy probably in his 40s. It's not that nice to watch. There's also some inter-racial lesbian fun, which may have raised eyebrows at the time.
The most titillating sequence is one near the end where a husband's bit on the side gets fully naked. The camera homes in on her naked crotch as she goes to put her knickers on. It's a rare bit of pubic hair in the flick.
But Sex Farm isn't a good movie, it's pretty dull and vacant with little in the way of wit or incident. It's easy to see why it resides in obscurity (and that title probably didn't help). Seek it out if you must but don't expect much.
Doctor Who (2005)
Season eight half-time report
I'm writing this after watching The Caretaker, episode six in the twelve-part series eight. And what an atrocious series it's been so far.
I speak as a (40-something) lifelong Doctor Who fan. So why the ire? Many reasons. It's not necessarily because of Peter Capaldi, who may be a decent actor. But one problem IS the character of the Doctor, which is all over the place. One example: in Into The Dalek he takes coldly logical decisions, including ensuring a colleague dies; the actions of a level-headed military commander. And yet he now appears to hate soldiers. Huh? How do they square that one? (I'll reveal how they do later.)
Worst of all, character-wise, he's now an idiot, a fool, someone who gets it wrong, as in Robot Of Sherwood. A darker side was hinted early on but more often they just make him look silly and out of step. His companion, or whatever the PC term now is, Clara, is now the wise one, the dynamic one, the one who does brave stuff. Clara was actually quite likable in the last series but is now deeply irritating: Jenna Coleman's mannered, twitchy, doe-eyed performance is enough to make you wish your toenails were being pulled out. Acting-wise, though, she's nowhere near as bad as Samuel Anderson as Danny Pink, an actor with roughly the same versatility and range as a park bench, unable to show more than one emotion, no matter what he is faced with.
And the two together: forgive me for yawning when I'm not vomiting. Their sub-Coupling romance is not only totally unconvincing but utterly boring. Yes Mr Moffat, you're oh so clever with your snarky dialogue ticks and the use of the word 'stuff', but do you really think the kids are into all this talky, tedious stuff that belongs 1,000 miles away from Doctor Who? And having characters continually tell one another to 'shut up' is not only lazy writing but grating and unpleasant to hear.
I also hate the way the Doctor and Clara aren't properly travelling together, and the way he comes to the school or her flat and picks her up occasionally - if there's anything that'll remove any sense of wonder from the show this is it.
Other problems? Well how about the basic stories? Deep Breath was indigestible stodge; Into The Dalek feeble fan fiction; Robot Of Sherwood had people getting locked up, shouting at each other and then saving the day in an absurd way; Listen was portentous and made no sense; Time Heist was a joyless heist caper; The Caretaker was like a cross between The Sarah Jane Adventures and a bad episode of Coupling, a boring, verbose, parochial smudge of an episode.
A major issue is that the show is so full of itself. Bolstered by a wildly successful 50th anniversary episode, it now believes its own publicity. It sniggers to itself, it binge-eats its own mythology, it believes it's so much more than a kids' show, it thinks it has to convey 'socially important' messages. It's forgotten its primary objective, which is to be an entertaining adventure programme with characters we can take to our hearts.
And finally, just to fully ensure that I get plenty of NOs on the 'was this helpful to you' bit, a comment on how left-wing the show now is. It's pro-gay, pro-multicultural, pro-feminist, anti-military (which explains the absurd contradiction in the Doctor's character). Stridently so in fact, so it interferes with, and warps, the storytelling. In short, it's everything the left-wing socialist Steven Moffat believes in. That's why you don't get, for example, messages about standing up for cherished institutions, fighting for what is right as dictated by common sense and human nature, or getting from life what you put in to it. These sorts of messages are alien to the left. (How appropriate that Clara was clutching a copy of cherished left-wing bible The Guardian in one episode.)
But to end on a non-political note: Doctor Who simply isn't as much fun as it used to be, it's not exciting or suspenseful or thrilling. Declining viewing figures may confirm that am I not alone in this opinion.
About Time (2013)
About the worst film ever made
I'll admit straight off that I hate Richard Curtis with a passion generally reserved for mass-murdering dictators, but I was willing to give About Time a fair chance and see whether he could in fact charm me. I was wrong, and how.
From the start he makes the bile rise in your stomach. There's a character called KitKat ("who is always bare-foot"); her family have Sunday lunch on the beach all year round ("no matter what the weather"); they even watch a film projected onto a rock on the beach, in the rain.
But things get much, much worse. Curtis basically recycles scenes and ideas from all his previous crimes (sorry, films). We get the eccentric older family member, the kooky friends, the cute and nondescript American girl wooed in a fantasy London, the births, a death and of course a ****ing wedding. Mawkish music on the soundtrack tells us when to be happy, when to be miserable. The cynicism of the project and the vapidity of its intentions would be unbelievable were it not for Curtis's previous form.
Do not see this film. Watch a Hitchcock, a Kubrick, a Wilder, something that is proper cinema. This is an abomination, a dreadful, lazy, meandering, actually quite nasty (how on earth did a film with numerous F-words get a 12 in Britain?), vomit-causing, stupid slice of celluloid which, if there was such a place as hell, would be shown there on a loop.
The Girl (2012)
Unpleasant motives
As Total Film magazine said of this one-off drama, "it amounts to nothing less than a wholesale character assassination". They were right – it makes Albert Goldman's biography of John Lennon appear hagiographic.
While it looks great and Sienna Miller is fine as Hedren and Jones captures Hitch's voice well, The Girl is a narrow and nasty portrayal of the world's greatest film director. In its attempt to construct a drama it forgets some important points: people often have to suffer for their art; Alfred Hitchcock was a film director who knew his audience better than anyone, his understanding of the human condition was deep, and he realised that the thing that mattered most was the experience that the audience would derive from his work. If it meant discomfort and long hours on the set, that was a price worth paying – there's no room for fluffy dressing gowns and tea and biscuit breaks when you're trying to create a masterpiece, something that might last for centuries.
To suggest that Hitch unexpectedly sent a model bird crashing through a telephone box window just to terrify and "punish" Hedren, as opposed to being a desire to frighten the wits out of the audience, is absurd. The shoot of The Birds had been meticulously planned for – literally – years, and in any case, why would Hitch risk harming his leading lady's features? The greatest of people are endowed with light and shade, and possess the ability to view human existence from deep and differing positions. Hitchcock was one of these people. This greatness is something to be lauded – not bemoaned and belittled, as was the case with The Girl.
Beatlemania (1981)
Quite a playlist
Four lookalikes perform the songs of the Beatles. And here are the 30 songs they perform, in order:
I want to hold your hand, She loves you, Please please me, Help!, Day tripper, If I fell, Can't buy me love, Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby, We can work it out, Nowhere Man, A day in the life, Strawberry Fields forever, Penny Lane, Magical mystery tour, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Michelle, Get back, The fool on the hill, Lady Madonna, Got to get you into my life, Come together, With a little help from my friends, All you need is love, Revolution, Helter skelter, Hey Jude, The long and winding road, Let it be, The End.
A good selection then, although I would have preferred a few more lesser well known ones. I understand the film was a cut down version of the play so maybe some got left on the cutting room floor. I guess it's a reasonable split between John and Paul songs. Sadly there are no George ones.
As a nitpicking Beatlemaniac I found it slightly annoying not so much that the songs are performed in the 'wrong' order but that many of them are performed in clearly the wrong 'look' for the time. A bit of crossover is acceptable, but having the guys sing If I Fell in their Magical Mystery Tour outfits feels a bit weird.
This isn't a great movie, in fact it's barely a movie at all, but it's nice to hear these songs again. It always is. But as always the ear wants it to be the originals. Oh well, I guess there are other films for that.
The World Ten Times Over (1963)
Low key drama of a little interest
Here's an obscure British drama now available on DVD.
It is about two 'nightclub hostesses' aka prostitutes working in London. One has to deal with her dad (Hartnell, just before Dr Who) and the other a married businessman who's been having an affair with her.
The front cover of the DVD has Ritchie in bra, panties and stockings and suspenders but there's not a great deal of titillation here. It was an X back then and a 12 now. Her character is a little irritating; Sims gives the better performance here - there's meaning beneath those eyes.
This rather downbeat drama, with flashes of style, is lifted by extensive location shooting. For those who want to see 1963 London it's a treat. Particularly good is the scene where Hartnell walks through Soho amid the flashing neon lights advertising the sexy delights on show. He also walks past a film poster for West End Jungle.
The director did better than this (Village of the Damned) and worse. Now it's difficult to judge how ersatz it is.