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Eric (2024)
The Lost Boys
This much-heralded 6-part Netflix series sees Benedict Cumberbatch once again assume the role of a self-tortured individual struggling with his own demons in the face of adversity. For one thing, I can recall him a few years ago playing an almost identical role in a British television adaptation of Ian McEwan's "The Lost Child" and here again he and his wife suffer the agony of seeing their infant son disappear out on the streets of New York. We're back in 1985 when the Big Apple suffered a particular crisis in homelessness which saw many of its dispossessed citizens literally go underground into the dark recesses of the city's subway system and make subterranean shanty-towns for themselves. It's also the time of course when AIDS first broke out and with it the attendant ignorance, prejudice and heartlessness of a majority which considered it a problem only for the gay community, treating victims like lepers and social outcasts.
And so we're introduced to Cumberbatch's Vincent, a talented but troubled and temperamental creator and puppeteer for a popular "Sesame Street"- type children's TV show. Popular for many years, its producers think it needs an update to connect with a new generation of kids to which the protective but complacent Cumberbatch is immediately hostile. The son of wealthy but emotionally remote parents, especially his shady financier-dad, he obviously, one might almost say naturally, has parental issues. Over-dependant on the bottle, he's not slept with his wife for months and so they fight like cat and dog in front of their impressionable young son, Edgar, himself a talented would-be illustrator and creator of children's TV characters.
After a particularly heated argument between his parents, the next morning the boy runs away from his dad on his way to school. So was he abducted? Where can he be? Is he still alive and if so how to bring him back? At which point, enter Eric, the kid's own invented character, a big blue cartoon monster come to life who only Cumberbatch can see and who acts as his conscience and his guide.
Naturally there are sub-plots galore, his wife is having an affair with a younger man and reaches out to a black woman, whose own son similarly disappeared almost a year before and whose loss didn't and still isn't getting a fraction of the attention the missing white grandson of the wealthiest man in town is. Turns out she's pregnant too and her lover and not Cumberbatch is the dad. Then there's the cool young black detective trying to put the pieces together who thinks there may be a link between the two missing kids. We learn early on that that he's in a relationship with an older man who's clearly dying of AIDS. Also prominent in the narrative are the elderly black caretaker with a criminal record who lives in the apartment below Cumberbatch's family and who's befriended the boy, the slick owner of a nightclub where the earlier boy was last seen and who we learn has had a past relationship with the cop, the mother of the first missing boy who naturally won't give up on seeking justice for him and Cumberbatch's erstwhile business partner who suffers his friend's mood swings and obvious alcoholism out of misplaced loyalty but who himself has a weakness for younger men. In the end all roads lead underground as the plot strands come together with the different characters meeting very different fates including that of Eric the monster.
I'd imagine that Cumberbatch would be the big lure for many of the viewing audience but I have to say I have some difficulty with his performance. Some actors in striving for realism slip into overacting mode and I felt he did that way too often here. I get he's playing a distraught, alcoholic individual with problems in it seems, every aspect of his life, but that's all the more reason I'd contend for him to rein in his work here. I could say the same too for Gaby Hoffman as his long-suffering wife. I get they're both playing incredibly stressed individuals but somehow felt I could see each of them go through the gears especially at their respective points of high drama. The contrast is with McKinley Belcher III's more disciplined and detached playing of the undeterred detective, denying his sexuality to his work colleagues but who also picks up on both the colour and class prejudice in the NYPD which sees significantly more time and resource put into findng the rich white kid rather than the poor black one.
Then of course, there's the surprise introduction of the kid's invented Eric character which point of departure certainly takes the show to a whole different level. It's not an original idea of course when you think of "Harvey" and "Donnie Darko" and isn't the only stylistic reference on show, with its big nod to Nicolas Roeg's "Don't Look Now" in its insertion of the sinister tiny woman running around the sewers wearing the missing boy's red jacket or the insertion of lots of Basquiat-type graffiti art.
For the first five episodes I struggled with the improbable premise as well as the linking of the different stories and the pacing of the piece but felt that it all pulled together satisfactorily in a very strong final episode even if some of the outcomes were a bit Pixar-pat-like. I felt the depiction of the cute, precocious, floppy-haired Edgar belonged more in a "Home Alone"-type backdrop, there was the usual eclectic and supposedly hipster choice of songs used in the soundtrack, none of them as far as I could tell from 1985 or even relevant to the plot (I waited in vain throughout to hear the Beatles "Good Day Sunshine" track), but I did enjoy the use of the actual New York exteriors and there were certainly some strikingly memorable visual shots, particularly of Vincent and Eric traipsing around the city streets.
Reading the pre-publicity about this show I wasn't sure about committing to watch it but in the end I'm just about glad I did. For all my caveats, it was certainly different and, like I said, the end did just about justify the means.
Tomorrow Is Forever (1946)
Daddy's Home?
This florid, indeed lurid wartime melodrama was one of Orson Welles' first purely acting gigs after he upset too many of the top brass with his first two directed features, obviously "Citizen Kane" and "The Magnificent Ambersons".
It's a very conventional, even sentimental movie, quite different from the realism of William Wyler's contemporary"The Best Days of Our Lives", being based on a popular romantic novel of the day and directed in the grand Hollywood manner by Irving Bichel which means we get a linear narrative, grand sets, wraparound incidental music, with angelic choirs piping up at every dramatic moment and unflashy camera work very much pointed at the actors seemingly following every word on the written page. Of course one can only imagine what Welles might have done if he'd been behind the camera, especially remembering what he did in "Ambersons" but this film is what it is and that is solid, old-fashioned entertainment out to tug at the heartstrings right from the outset.
Welles plays John Andrew (that's important!) MacDonald, who we first see as a young man newly married to Claudette Colbert's Elizabeth. They're an idyllic young couple but he upsets their marital bliss by enlisting for service in the First World War against her wishes. Sadly he doesn't come back and after she receives an official communication advising her if his death she collapses, almost literally into the waiting arms of her secretly adoring boss, the safe, dependable and very rich George Brent. He takes. Her in and then takes her on, even her new-born baby son, christened Drew, housing her in his family mansion, helped by his decent-hearted old aunt. They then have a son of their own and live happily as a family for the next twenty years until of course the Second World War which as well as stirring the sense of duty in the almost-grown Drew, sees the arrival on the scene of Welles' returning John MacDonald, although he's adopted the identity of a heavily accented Austrian scientist and is now bearded, limping and bearing with him the adopted infant daughter of the surgeon who put him back together again after he suffered disfigurement on the battlefield.
From there, some secrets are revealed and some hidden with Elizabeth's awakening recognition of the newcomer's true identity, it all ending up in the teeming rain and a bitter-sweet conclusion with Orson again flat on his back, gasping his last although it's hardly as momentous a leave-taking as Charles Foster Kane's.
Still, I thoroughly enjoyed this high-quality if fantastically plotted soap opera. Welles shows us he can play the game as an actor with a solid, sympathetic performance. Colbert is one of my favourite actresses from the era and puts in another convincing turn as the conflicted wife and mother while Brent again turns in a strong supporting role as her doting husband. Interesting too to see future notables like Richard Long and little Natalie Wood in their debut roles.
All in all, a highly watchable wartime feature, not out to break any rules or blaze any trails but it certainly delivers exactly the type of warming entertainment perfect for taking minds off of the then ongoing conflict while tacitly upholding the underlying values of family, patriotic duty and sacrifice.
What's New Pussycat (1965)
Pussycat Dog
An all-star swinging 60's sex comedy which on the face of it, has a lot going for it. Heading the cast are Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toole trying his hand at broad farce and Romy Schneider, with as befits the plot, a lot of guest turns by some of the more glamorous female actresses of the day, including Pauline Prentiss, Capucine and Ursula Andress. The screenplay is by Woody Allen, who used it to lever himself into the movie as an actor and it features some cool Burt Bacharach and Hal David songs on the soundtrack.
So what does it all add up to? Director Clive Donner is certainly up for the chase, keeping his camera moving as he follows O'Toole's seemingly irresistible Michael character in his attempts to have his cake and eat it which means trying to keep his fiancée Schneider on the back-burner while he hits the town hard in his pursuit of la belle dame, fittingly in the all-action location of Paris. He seeks professional help in the form of Sellers' leery sex-therapist who naturally in the spirit of "Physician, heal thyself!" seeks escape from his hulking Rhine-maiden of a wife by lusting after every pretty young thing who lays down on his psychiatrist's couch.
Allen himself plays O'Toole's sort-of sidekick who has a not-so-secret thing for his mate's fiancée and so it goes round and round, O'Toole blundering from one gorgeous woman to the next and Sellers and Allen behind him trying to pick up the crumbs from his table.
I personally think that few film types have dated more badly than the 60's sex-comedy. The women are invariably treated as objects while the forced, often crude comedy is played too fast and broadly with no alleviating subtlety or timing.
Allen runs out of jokes early on and Donner overcompensates from then on by upping the farce content resulting in a crude runabout homage to the Marx Brothers at a small hotel and then a silly car chase out on the open roads to finish it all off.
No one really comes out of this well in front of the camera either. O'Toole throws himself into his part but is clearly miscast, Sellers with his theatre-curtains hair-cut hams it up one more time with feeling while all the women get to do really is swoon under O'Toole's gaze and if you're really unlucky like the typecast Ursula Andress, run around aimlessly in their underwear.
In fact the only takeaways I got from the film were the three quality Burt Bacharach songs performed by Tom Jones, Dionne Warwick and Manfred Mann which are still well remembered today, unlike its surrounding dog of a movie.
El caso Asunta (2024)
Family Pain in Spain
My wife and I are expat Britons now retired and living in Spain and we like to occasionally watch a Spanish-made drama, obviously with the subtitles on. This six-part dramatisation of an infamous murder case in the north of Spain some thirty years ago caught our attention although we made the mistake of mentioning it to our native Spanish neighbours who then proceeded to unwittingly blurt our the who in the whodunit of the murder of an early-teenage girl of Asian extraction, the adopted child of a middle aged Spanish couple who we learn very quickly are in maital crisis.
The narrative adopts that very modern and for me sometime confusing and somewhat irritating technique of going back and forth in time at will, playing out potential resolutions in the process. The couple themselves appear to be the only suspects, even if a motive either way seems difficult to fathom, as neither of their respective stories on the night of the murder seem to quite add up. The husband we are told early on is impotent and lives in a separate flat from his wife but not very far away from her. The mother, meanwhile, has custody of Asunta but is having a passionate affair with a married man who clearly has no intention of leaving his wife and family for her. Heartbroken at this, she drifts back to her welcoming husband but it's clear there is still tension in the air between them.
After Asunta is murdered, they're exhaustively pursued by a male-female cop team and above them, a determined chief prosecutor who has family issues of his own. It turns out the husband has some unsavoury images of his adopted daughter on his phone and computer meaning that both husband and wife have sordid secrets hidden from each other.
It all resolves itself in the final episode at the tense courtroom trial but even after that, the end titles disclose more revelations which in different ways only add to the mystery at the heart of this tragedy.
In watching some Spanish-made dramas in recent years, I've not always considered the production, direction and acting quality to be to my taste but this time I was much more impressed. The tale is told in a compressed and taut way, almost putting the viewer in the shoes of the investigators as they forensically examine the mostly circumstancial evidence and behavior of the suspects themselves. I also appreciated the acting of the cast especially Javier Gutiérrez as the determined prosecutor and Tristan Ullóa and Candice Peña as the did-they-or-didnt-they parents.
All in all, an engrossing if at times attritional drama series well worth looking out whether you speak Spanish or not.
Venus (2006)
I'm your Fire, Your Desire
Having recently read Robert Sellers definitive biography of Peter O'Toole I was intrigued to watch this low-budget British feature which provided the celebrated actor with the last of his eight nominations for an Oscar over his long career. I must admit I was surprised to see someone of O'Toole's stature featuring in a Film Four project, but filming in and around London with a British cast containing a number of his contemporaries, he's obviously right at home here. I was worried about his occasional propensity for overacting, but was pleased and surprised at the nuanced and sensitive performance he delivers of a man literally raging against the dying of the light.
He plays Maurice, something of a national treasure, but still a jobbing actor, happy to play corpses and accept cash payment for any role he deigns to do. He meets his two thespian chums Leslie Phillips and Richard Griffiths for a daily coffee and whinge, where the talk usually comes around to the subject of mortality, often triggered by news of the demise of another of their fellow-actors. He also has an obviously long suffering ex-wife in the person of Vanessa Redgrave, with whom we learn he has three children, but they're nowhere around. Now impotent, he's largely getting by on fumes and knows assuredly that his hard-living ways have caught up with him and that he hasn't got long to go in this life.
Then into his life enters Jodie Whittaker's Jesse, the young, brattish niece of Phillips. Too much for her uncle to handle, she falls into Maurice's orbit where after a testy beginning, an unusual relationship doesn't exactly blossom but certainly starts to develop between them. He tries to educate her, taking her into his world, getting her a job as a life model for an art class, having already shown her his favourite painting at the National Gallery, Velasquez's "Rokeby Venus," re-naming her after the painting. His interest in her isn't just cerebral but she unsurprisingly isn't having any of that and yet they continue to meet as their strange bond gradually deepens, although more on his side than hers as his dependency grows. Is she a substitute daughter to him or a reminder of his younger randier days and his diminished libido? Later, things take a turn for the worse after she acquires a thuggish young boyfriend but it's inevitable that the two will reunite and play out his final scenes together.
Written with verve and insight by Hanif Kureishi, this was a sometimes amusing, sometimes moving film certainly about ageing and death but also about the age barrier itself and the different types of love which subsist especially between the old and the young. O'Toole bestrides the production without teetering into luvvydom and there's strong support from his fellow-seniors as well as Whittaker in her major film debut. Sensitively and astutely directed by Roger Michell with a pleasing soundtrack by Corinne Bailey-Rae, this understated film is perfect for a rainy-day afternoon.
Budgie: Some Mothers' Sons (1971)
Bad Budgie Bias
This second episode of the popular early 70's British drama series, much loved by me in my youth, sadly betrays more of the outdated prejudices of the day which only detracts from what might otherwise have been another enjoyable waltz for me down memory lane.
It's a regrettable pity, because there are other things to enjoy in this episode but the casual and wholly offensive racism jars and jars again, especially as it's only Budgie who says them. It's more than that however as the four Pakistani illegal immigrants are also shown to be sheep-like in their docility and stupidity.
Elsewhere, Budgie's taken to court on what is called an affiliation charge, or alimony in modern parlance and there are entertaining scenes as he interacts with Hazel's mum's super-posh solicitor, cops a telling off from Nicholas "Are You Being Served" Smith's DC and naturally there are some highly entertaining exchanges between Faith and the great Iain Cuthbertson as the heavyweight kingpin Charlie Endell.
But any goodwill I had towards this episode just evaporated the minute it so casually dropped the offensive lazy descriptors which polluted the dialogue.
I personally loved growing up in the early 70's and most of my favourite TV shows are from that era but I'm not so naïve as to think it was all peaches and cream. This unfortunate episode of a programme of which I have fond memories unfortunately bears that out.
All I can say is watch and learn!
The Wild One (1953)
Wild Boys
An early example of Hollywood treating the subjects of teenage delinquency and the generation gap, it's strange watching "The Wild One" today and realising it was actually banned for years in several countries, including the United Kingdom. However, to contemporary audiences, the sight of Marlon Brandon and Lee Marvin bringing their respective motorcycle gangs to raise some hell in a quiet little town where nothing ever happens, must have scared the more patrician members of the audience.
Based, at least somewhat, on a real event which happened in the US just after the end of the war, the film is obviously a starring vehicle for Brando who gets some choice lines and plenty of opportunity to stare sullenly into space. At first it seems that he and his Black Rebel Motorcycle Club gang just want to get drunk and let off some steam around town but things hot up when Marvin's rival team, improbably called the Beetles, hit the same joint challenging Brando's authority plus to complicate things more, he goes and gets himself involved with the docile police chief's daughter Mary Murphy who's working nights as a waitress when the boys are back in town. She's bored and vaguely rebellious herself as she finds herself trying to tame her wild one even if she doesn't fully understand him. When tragedy strikes later, it's the townsfolk who really turn nasty and resort to mob rule with director holding up a mirror to his audience as he probes the breaking point of ordinary everyday people when confronted with a youthful challenge to the status quo.
To be honest, some of the stunts the bikers pull seem decidedly tame, boys dancing with boys, one even getting up in drag and all of them generally using that very dated and hackneyed "Don't you rock me daddy-o" hep-cat jive talk. Still, Brando, even though he does seem too old for the part, undoubtedly has a presence, I also liked Murphy as his obscure object of desire and the film is well-shot in black and white featuring some notable phrases which would be taken up as rallying cries by the younger generation who would eventually find themselves in rock and roll when things really kicked off.
Probably of more interest today as a social document of its time, it still works well enough as a teen-oriented drama even if it often overreaches itself in the process.
Budgie: Out (1971)
Out and Down
A real walk down memory lane for me here. Back in early 1971, I was, what all of 10 years old. My favourite TV shows at the time were fantasy adventure shows like "The Champions", "Department S" and "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)". I still love them all of course but "Budgie" changed all that. By comparison, it was gritty, realistic and contemporary. While it was very much set in London it was easy to do the read-across to any other place in the country. Its characters seemed real, the situations were commonplace and the language used very much in the modern vernacular. Ronald "Budgie" Bird, as played by Adam Faith, was a good-for-not-very-much, low-level ex-con who obviously hasn't been reformed by the penal system. No sooner has he been sprung from jail than he's plotting his next get-rich-quick venture by looking to rob the van-driver who's given him a lift away from the nick.
He goes back for accommodation to his long-suffering girlfriend, Lynn Dalby, the mother of his child as well as falling back into the orbit of Iain Cuthbertson's shady big-time operator Charlie Endell, a man you don't want to cross if you want to keep your hands attached to your wrists.
Naturally, Budgie's plans come to nothing setting the template for the whole series as I remember it but the show was less about big story-arcs and more about the characterisation of people struggling to make a living, prepared to break the law in the process.
Written by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, the show is undoubtedly guilty of many of the era's now unacceptable -isms of the time, especially in its depiction of women and gays but I'm afraid that's what society was often like in those far-off days. So while it may be offensive to some viewers today, I'm going to cut it some slack and say that I enjoyed re-acquainting myself with the misadventures of this lovable rogue, in particular the sparky interplay of Faith and Cuthbertson and will almost certainly return to watch more of the series episodes wherever I can find them.
Cold Call (2019)
This Sally Doesn't Lay Down
Although it was made some 5 years ago this four part ITV series is if anything even more relevant today as the money lost by innocent individuals from scam calls continues to increase, so much so that the BBC actually has a morning TV programme called "Scam Busters", where they film an undercover team set up specifically to try to identify and intercept such calls sometimes when they're actually in progress.
It's just a pity then that they weren't able to shut down the calls made to Sally Lindsay's mother which eventually leads to her losing the £83,000 she'd raised from the sale of the family home in order to set up her soon-to-be single parent daughter with a home of her own. Distraught but seething at how easily she was duped, she makes contact with a local group of previous victims of similar scams where she hooks up with an old ex-schoolmate Daie Ryan who takes a special interest in her case to the extent that he devises a plan to identify and take down the perpetrator, getting her money back to her in the process.
This he duly does, as he tracks down Paul Higgins' seemingly respectable insurance broker who lives in the lap of luxury with his wife soon-to-be-married daughter and elderly mother who is suffering from dementia. By coincidence we've already seen Lindsay recently lose her job as a professional carer so it's not long before Ryan puts her on the inside into Higgins home as the new private carer for his mum.
From here things get darker and deeper with many a subsequent cliff-hanging moment as she and Ryan put themselves in harm's way with Lindsay in particular proving herself adept and indeed ruthless at coping with every nail-biting situation she encounters, before the big denouement at Higgins' daughter's wedding heldin the grounds of his own house.
This drama started very well in its depiction of the cruel way that Jackson is conned out of her money, but in all honesty it rather loses its way with a series of remarkable coincidences and unlikely occurrences which strained credibility way beyond breaking point.
Nevertheless it was undeniably easy-to-wach, fast moving entertainment well acted by Lindsay and Higgins but would, I think, have worked better if it had resisted its tendency to fly off into a rather sensationalist thriller and stayed true to the original premise of exposing the heartless people out to rob usually vulnerable members out of their life savings.
The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002)
Don't Kid a Kidder
This film adaptation of Robert Evans' own memoir of his life and times in Hollywood sees his written word brought to the big screen with an imaginative mix of Evans' own spoken narrative, clever intercutting of a combination of home movie footage, news coverage and excerpts of the films in which he was involved ss both actor and producer and a varied musical soundtrack incorporating pop, rock and opera, but always returning to different interpretations of the old Irving Berlin standard, "What'll I Do", which I'm guessing is a personal favourite of his as well as a description of the ups and downs of his life.
I came to it after reading a couple of books documenting the rise and occasional falls of several of the emergent young directors of the early 70's with whom Evans often interacted, especially Roman Polanski and Francis Ford Coppola. Having got his own start in the early 50's as a good-looking young actor under the studio system, when his career in front of the camera later fizzled out, he astutely used his contacts to go behind the scenes and move into production.
It was as a producer that he really made his mark, getting off to a spectacular start with "Love Story", falling in love with and marrying its star Ali McGraw in the process and "The Godfather", two more contrasting films I couldn't imagine. He continued mostly successfully in the 70's living the high life and staying in the most luxurious house you'll ever clap eyes on, producing the likes of "Marathon Man" (Hoffman good-naturedly spoofs him over the end-titles), "Serpico" and "Chinatown" amongst others but his fortunes changed as the decade progressed when he lost McGraw to Steve McQueen while they were shooting "The Getaway", turned increasingly to a womanising lifestyle and to cap it, settled into being a regular cocaine user.
He hit rock bottom however when he was implicated in the murder of a business associate, finding out just who his real friends were in the industry as he was frozen out by former friends and associates. But this is one guy who won't lie down and sure enough, after the repercussions of the murder trial die down, by the end he's re-emerged as a producer of hit movies again even if no one would claim the likes of "Slither" or "The Saint" were epochal examples of the art, even if they did make money.
Apart from occasionally finding Evans' low drawl a little hard to follow sometimes, observing a few jump cuts into the future plus the to-be-expected narrative omissions, (I mean, the guy was married seven times!), at least the narrative was linear, plus being told over just ninety minutes, it made for punchy and compulsive viewing. In summary, this eye-pleasing and never dull documentary proved that Evans was every bit as charismatic and interesting a Hollywood producer as the giants of the old days like his own mentor and inspiration Darryl F Zanuck who indeed gave this film its name.
Ferrari (2023)
So Ferrari, so Fair...
Seems to me that whenever we get a major movie from Hollywood on motor racing, it's usually a significant someone's passion project. Think of Newman in "Winning" and McQueen in "Le Mans". To paraphrase the line from "Batman", big name stars and directors love the car. And so it is with Michael Mann, in this his first movie project in nine years, centring on Italian car designer and constructor Enzo Ferrari.
Despite the title, this is no bio-pic as the film concentrates solely on the events in his life in the year 1953, with two interweaving plotlines, both obviously centring on Ferrari himself, the first dealing with his complicated personal life, the second as you'd expect with his management of his racing team and in particular the entry of five of his cars into the prestigious Mille Miglia road race in Italy.
Certainly his private affairs are in a mess. Although he lives with his wife and aged mother, he still grieves for his son who died at a young age through illness. He has a mistress and an illegitimate son by her both of whom he seemingly loves more than his spouse, but he's inextricably tied to Mrs Ferrari who owns 50% of the family business and indeed still effectively handles the company's money matters. There's even still some physical passion between them but never mind the two women or even the boy, the true love of his life are the stunning red cars which bear his name. He has a keen rivalry with the owner of Maserati but with his company in a financial mess and talk of a merger in the air, suddenly the outcome of the big race becomes crucial to the future of both the man and his brand, although just around the corner tragedy is waiting...
I'm no petrol-head but I did enjoy the thrilling depiction of the race scenes, especially when you appreciate how much more dangerous driving was then, both for the drivers and indeed the watching spectators. Mann contrasts these high-action set-pieces with the dark tensions at play for Ferrari away from the race-track. Thus we get low-key scenes between him and the two women in his life in dimly-lit interiors as he tries to somehow placate both.
I found it hard to warm to this, no pun intended, driven man, who openly cheats on his wife with another woman he strings along at the same time. He's much more comfortable around men, especially if he's their boss but he clearly has excellent man-management skills as he spurs on the five drivers in his team. That said, I found those interior scenes rather slow and heavy with some over-(re)acting by Penelope Cruz in particular as the scorned wife. By contrast, Adam Driver (perfect name for his part!) as Enzo, delivers a performance which is pretty much one-tone for the most part and could do with more variation.
Like I said, car movies don't do much for me and if I was being honest, I'm not sure that this one ever really got out of third gear for me, although any Mann film, like a too-of-the-range Ferrari will always catch the eye.
Back to Black (2024)
Understanding Amy
Sam Taylor-Johnson's film on the life of Amy Winehouse is the antithesis of other recent high-profile pop-star biopics such as those on Elton John and Freddie Mercury. There's very little glitz and glamour in her movie, which I guess accords with the artist's own "take me as you find me" outlook.
The narrative stresses the key relationships in her short life, those with her amateur crooner father, her nan, who as a former jazz-singer was the real deal and proved to be Amy's main musical inspiration but who sadly died at the height of her granddaughter's fame and lastly of course her mutually self-destructive short-lived marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil, a self-confessed cocaine addict even at the time they met.
The undoubted physical chemistry between the two is apparent but I felt the film didn't really dig deep enough into their relationship to explain just why they couldn't make it together. There are undoubtedly mitigating factors on the road to the singer's accidental early death adding her name to the jinxed list of talented artists who departed the earth at only 27, a roll-call including the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Janis Joplin amongst others and it's perhaps the similarly alcoholic and temperamental Joplin whose story Winehouse sadly resembles. Said factors are presented as the afore-mentioned death of her nan, but also her alcoholism, the constant invasion of her privacy by the gutter-press almost willing her on in her downward spiral and also her unfulfilled wish to have children of her own, this latter issue, perhaps too clunkily put across in a chance encounter Amy has with a young fan in a corner shop
Marisa Abela convincingly portrays Amy, realistically capturing her sometimes down-at-heel appearance, her disarming, occasionally foul-mouthed candour (it's no surprise her debut album was called "Frank"), her sexual voraciousness, especially around Fielder-Civil but also her constantly on-the-edge lifestyle which ended when she apparently drank herself to death alone in her London house. She's also excellent at capturing Winehouse's charismatic live persona as well as her individualistic singing style. There's good support for her too with Jack O'Connell as the unrepentant Fielder-Civil, Lesley Manville as her devoted nan Cynthia and Eddie Marson as her long-suffering dad.
There were one or two overripe exchanges of dialogue like when Amy puts off her dad's plan to get her into rehab by saying "Music is my rehab" and I was surprised by the omission of her co-producer Mark Ronson who I understand was the one who pointed Any to the wonderful Shangri-Las as the main reference point for the "Back to Black" album.
Making effective use of actual locations in and around London in particular, I rate this a fine movie tribute to a mercurial talent who sadly wasn't in it for the long run.
The Stunt Man (1980)
The Film's the Thing
Richard Rush's blackly comedic, behind-the-scenes drama always keeps the viewer on the hop with its ever-changing character focus, plot-shifts and meta-references.
It all kicks off when two worlds collide, the fantasy world of movie-making with Peter O'Toole as the megalomaniacal director out on location making an anti-war film, which nonetheless seems to have an awful lot of shooting and explosions in it, with the real-life situation of an on-the-run young man, Steve Railsback, being pursued by the police. When he accidentally blunders his way onto the movie set, he's concealed from the inquisitive police by O'Toole who then adopts him as the film's new stunt man, his predecessor having apparently come a cropper in a stunt gone wrong which O'Toole is also keen to cover up. Apparently a natural dare-devil, Railsback quickly makes himself indispensable to the movie throwing himself into his new job, but did he himself witness the demise of the original stunt man as he coincidentally crash-landed into the dead man's shoes? Is O'Toole so obsessed with his movie that he would suppress the actual death of one of his crew? Not only that, he's effectively concealing a fugitive from justice in not turning Railsback over to the cops who come snooping around looking for him.
A chance encounter brings Railsback together with the leading lady of the feature, Barbara Hershey with whom he starts an affair but again there are wheels within wheels as he learns that O'Toole and Hershey previously had a fling. Feeling confused, jealous and manipulated, the new stunt man wants out, just before he's required to complete the climactic big set-piece of the film, unsurprisingly the dangerous underwater car-escape which claimed Eddy, his predecessor.
I must admit to bring confused for much of the time by the changing narrative even as I appreciate it was probably deliberate on the part of the director. I was certainly afforded some interesting insights into movie-making and especially the setting up of action sequences although I was less taken by the human stories played out in the backdrop.
O'Toole is suitably grandiose as the over-the-top , and here I'm guessing, Kubrick-esque director and I liked Hershey too as the love-interest but must admit I was rather underwhelned by the gauche performance of comparative newcomer Railsback in the title role.
A tricky film to follow, perhaps a little too smart and knowing for its own good but redeemed to some extent by O'Toole's Oscar-nominated performance plus I did enjoy the viewing experience which probably got me as close to being on the set of an actual movie as I'm ever going to get.
Mikey and Nicky (1976)
A Hard Night's Day
The third and probably least known of the three features directed by Elaine May in the 70's, "Mikey and Nicky" seems to me to be at one and the same time both the most straightforward and most complex of the three I've recently watched.
We're parachuted straight into the action as we join a paranoid, small-time crook, John Cassavetes' Nicky character, holed up in a cheap downtown hotel in Philadelphia, convinced that he's about to be murdered on the say-so of big boss Resnick. We're not told what he's supposed to have done but there's only one person he can trust to get him out of his tight spot and that's his long-time buddy and partner-in-crime, Peter Falk's Nicky. Nicky it seems, will do anything to try to help his buddy, his first job being to try to calm Mikey down. I initially suspected that Mikey was imagining it all and that the two were about to play out a movie-length update of "Waiting for Godot". The situations they play out as well as their seemingly banal exchanges of dialogue certainly convey such a premise until we cut to Ned Beatty's character, driving around looking to catch up with the duo and later again to the monster boss Resnick himself, so there must be something in it.
About two thirds of the way in we get the major plot twist which reveals the true lie of the land so that after the two take in interludes at an all-night cinema showing a kung-fu movie, a detour to the cemetery where Nicky's mother is buried and then an early-morning rendezvous with an old-flame of Nicky's, the film reaches its by then inevitable climax with Nicky seeking sanctuary at Mikey's house.
The key to the movie is the naturalistic direction by May, with hand-held camera shots, unusual camera angles and many scenes played out in near-darkness. The playing by Cassavetes and Falk and their delivery of the rhythmic dialogue seems almost improvisational at times and is excellently acted by both men.
I may prefer a bit more plot in my movies and certainly there isn't at first glance a whole lot going on, plus there are a few unpleasant.scenes around the women in the movie but I found I did, against my own instincts and better judgement, somewhat enjoy this unconventional, unusual and unsettling treatise on friendship and betrayal, condensed into one long, dark night of the soul for these two interconnected individuals.
Wicked Little Letters (2023)
P.S. I Hate You
I believe that it's good to have a good swear. I certainly do very occasionally and I know I always enjoy the sense of release and devilment I get when I occasionally let rip verbally. In comedy, there's no easier or arguably cheaper laugher to be had from an expleted relative, but if it's overdone, it can be offensive and actually boring.
I say all this because you'll hear an awful lot of profanity in this British-made Film Four production starring Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley as the next-door protagonists in sleepy post WWI Sussex who end up in court over just who wrote the potty-mouthed poison-pen letters which initially Colman, but later almost everyone in the local community receives. She's the seemingly prim and proper middle aged spinster who lives with her God-fearing parents where her dad Timothy Spall rules thevroist with a rod of holy iron. Buckley on the other hand is the young, attractive Irish-born free-spirit who has a live-in boyfriend and young teenage daughter in her care.
We see the two women start as friends but it's not long before they're at daggers drawn once the news gets out about the wicked little letters that Colman starts to receive. Buckley is an easy target and with the dopey local police taken in by the accusations, it starts to look bleak for Buckley and in particular her relationships with her lover and daughter. But wait, there's hood for her, in the form of Anjana Vasan's young WPC who smells a rat and takes up the case alongside a motley collection of local women in the town. It all ends up in a scandalous high-profile court case where we learn the truth and just desserts are duly meted.
I'd hesitate, for obvious reasons, to call this family entertainment but the strong language apart, it's actually quite an easy watch. The era of post-war poverty is well-conveyed with these lower-rung people living cheek-by-jowl, sharing outside toilets but underlying this communality lie snobbery, jealousy and venality although in the end, good old fashioned community spirit carries the day in a sting devised to catch the culprit red or should that be scarlet-letter handed.
Colman has a great time in her saint and sinner role, Spall too joins in the fun as her overbearing old dad and Buckley brings spark and energy as the tart-with-a-heart easy target. There's a good deal of earthy, small-town humour and there's good acting support from the rest in a highly diverse cast in this amusing and entertaining movie you suspect the cast in particular enjoyed making.
The Heartbreak Kid (1972)
Two Weddings and his own Funeral
This very acidic comedy follows the progress of Charles Brolin in the title role as Lenny Cantrow, a young man who initiatially gains our support as we see him marry Jeanie Berlin's Lila Kolodny at a big fat Jewish wedding. Although she holds out on consummation until their wedding night, all seems well with them thereafter as they goof along with one another on their long road trip from New York to Miami Beach. But once at their hotel, Lenny inconveniently starts to go off his blushing bride. Everything she says and does now grates on him and it's not long before a chance encounter on the beach (as a near-third-degree sunburned Lila conveniently convalesces in bed) with the beautiful Cybill Shepherd's vacationing college girl Kelly Corcoran, sees him transfer affection faster than you can see Mazeltof!
At first he tries to cover up the attempted affair, because that's all it is at the moment with Shepherd initially rebuffing his advances, dreaming up ever more ridiculously far-fetched excuses to try to explain his disappearances to his loved-up bride. Born, as the Irish say, with the gift of the gab, Lenny manages to hoodwink Lila and soon enough he's even making progress with the initially frosty Kelly. However having so-far avoided these two potential icebergs he still has a Titanic-sized one to contend with in the guise of Kelly's glacially disapproving father, played beautifully by Eddie Albert.
Brolin is great too as the self-absorbed Kenny, only concerned about his own happiness. He's like a junior Don Quixote as he tilts his lance at every challenge, even when all hope seems lost. However, like the moral says, be careful what you wish for as he has to realise the hard way that it's lonely at the top and that after getting there, the only way is down.
Neil Simon's humorous screenplay is shot through with all-too-recognisable insight and director May knows just how far to take this charmingly venal character along before hanging him out to dry, while behind Brolin and Albert, Berlin and Shepherd both shine in their very different bridal personas.
A deft, bitter-sweet comedy which makes you cringe and laugh in equal measure.
Rebus (2024)
Ring-Around-a-Rebus
I've read all of Ian Rankin's Rebus novels right up to date and started doing so when they first appeared in the late 1980's. I'd just spent a year working in Edinburgh too, so I was naturally accessible to these characterful, well plotted crime novels and I wasn't alone as the expanding titles became best-sellers in the UK and elsewhere. I even remember attending a book-signing in Glasgow to get my copy of "Resurrection Men" signed by the author.
I also watched both the earlier British television adaptations of the books, the first starring a slightly too young John Hannah and the second, the slightly too old Ken Stott in the Rebus role. Both shows were directly adapted from the source novels which meant I could have fun seeing just how closely or otherwise the dramatisations stayed to the original text.
This new Rebus however is different. It's set in present-day Edinburgh but our man has been de-aged, taking him back some twenty or thirty years to when he was a detective sergeant in CID, just starting to make a name, good and bad, for himself. The story here is original but leans on the books for inspiration and naturally works in the established key characters, such as the warring Edinburgh gangsters Big Ger Cafferty and Darryl Christie, Rebus's ex-wife Rhona and his pre-teen daughter Sammie as well, on the police side, as his colleagues, new younger partner Siobhan Caldwell and internal affairs nemesis Malcolm Fox.
In this six-part series, Rebus is Richard Rankin, no relation apparently, who's caught up in a power-play between Cafferty and Christie which escalates when one of Cafferty's minions is murdered in hospital by one of Christie's young goons. Meanwhile, interconnected to this, Rebus's ex-Army younger brother is struggling to keep his head above water to support his wife and kids and raids one of Christie's neighbouring drug-dens which will have consequences for him and his brother later on, especially when one of Cafferty's goons with connections to the Irish paramilitary UDA group is literally caught in the crossfire.
I must admit I was impressed with Rankin in the lead. He's down to earth and savvy but even now exhibiting some dinosaur-like qualities and opinions which prevent him coming across as just another lovable rogue. Married to the job, but divorced from his wife, he'll cut corners and treat with the dark side to get the job done. There was less emphasis I found on the Rebus of the novels predilection for late 60's rock music, although the name of one of the early characters does lend itself to an amusing Rolling Stones gag and while I'm on the subject I also ticked off a knowing in-joke to the actor Rankin's best-known earlier role in "Outlander".
Certainly the standard of the writing and the support acting was of a high standard, especially that of Brian Ferguson as Rebus's errant brother, who with his gang of ex-Army mercenaries, gets in way above his head as he unwittingly messes with both Cafferty and Christie.
For all the changes made and yes, there is naturally some diversity in the casting as is to be expected these days, this was definitely the best Rebus I've yet seen. Avid followers of the novels will appreciate seeing Rebus drown his sorrows in the Oxford bar, drive his old Saab and Siobhan meeting with Christie in the National Museum of Scotland which I remember was the setting for the climax of the very first novel "Knots and Crosses".
Making excellent use of actual locations in the capital, I'd go as far as to say that this production played as well as any of the original novels I remember reading. This was the Rebus of thirty years ago brought up to date, even ending with a chilling doorstep murder which echoed a recent true crime in Scotland.
All the way through it gripped and felt authentic and I really hope it does well enough to garner a second series.
A New Leaf (1971)
Love Comes Rapidly
Elaine May broke free from her frequent collaborations with Mike Nichols to write, direct and co-star in this old-fashioned romantic comedy tinged with some black humour.
Walter Matthau is the feckless one time rich kid who has been around the block a few too many times and now run out of his money. Money clearly makes his world to go round as we see from the very amusing opening scene where he treats the condition of his car like an impending death in the family. When he realises his money train has derailed he hits on a plan to marry and then do away with a wealthy unattached young woman and finally settles on May's very ditsy but very trusting heiress. Quite what she sees and hears in the charmless Matthau's lugubrious looks and far from dulcet tones is anyone's guess but smitten she is and before you can say "The Merry Widower" they're married and move into her mansion home complete with an entourage of hangers-on who claim to be indispensable employees but who in fact are shamelessly sponging off her financially.
So far so good for old Walt, all he has to do now is to find a convenient way to dispose of May, although he could have saved himself a lot of trouble by just looking behind him when they're picknicking out by a cliff edge where May is foraging for her very favourite species of fern. But then May's awkward charms start to work some sort of magic on him, compromising his grand plan of acquiring his wife's wealth leaving him in a classic love or money dilemma.
I found the movie really funny and enjoyable as well as touching as you kind of want these two misfits to find out that they are right for each other even while one of them harbours murderous designs on the other. It all resolves itself on some fast-moving rapids with Matthau literally turning over a new leaf, which just goes to show that love can strike in the strangest of places.
Matthau and May make excellent foils for one another in this oddball love match interspersed with genuinely amusing comic interludes, I think my favourite being when the buxom parasitic floozy running May's household tries to knowingly wink her way into Walter's affections, not realising that his own eyes are very much still on the prize at that point.
Warmly diverting and offbeat, I was pleasantly reminded throughout its running time of some of my favourite screwball comedies of the thirties, which can only be a good thing.
Child's Play (1972)
School for Scandal
One of a number of malevolent chillers produced by Hollywood at the end of the 60's and early 70's, this one pits two teachers at a Catholic boys' school against one another in a battle of wills against one another.
Robert Preston.plays the easy-going popular, drama teacher against James Mason's unyieldingly strict Latin teacher in an apparent struggle for the hearts and minds of their increasingly out of control pupils who have lately taken to random acts of escalating extreme violence against select members of their own number.
Into the fray comes the new physical education teacher, Beau Bridges, himself a former pupil of the school. Although he tries to keep the peace between the two old men, his sympathies appear to lie more with the more personable and placatory Preston. However, when the feud inevitably ends by exacting the ultimate toll, we, along with Bridges, sort of learn the truth in a hushed enigmatic ending in keeping with much of the rest of the movie which has relatively few shocking moments as director Lumet instead seeks to build up the tension slowly and surely all the way through.
Director Lumet is probably best known for his gritty police procedurals but I'm afraid in this attempt at the horror genre he rather falls flat. Despite some well-lit scenes, he somehow fails to really convey the sense of evil pervading the school. I also wasn't convinced by the lead acting, Preston I found too passive, Mason too histrionic and Bridges too gauche in their parts. The irritating and distracting scratchy, scrapy soundtrack didn't help matters either.
I'm afraid this is one school-based thriller I'd struggle to award a pass-mark.
Under the Bridge (2024)
"...Is Where I Drew Some Blood...".
This television drama told the shocking tale of the murder of a fourteen-year-old Indian girl Reena Virk by a teenage boy and girl in British Columbia, Canada in 1997. Young Reena was beginning to rebel against her Jehovah's Witness parents, in particular her strict mother and after being subjectef to racial taunts and casual bullying, she obviously felt keenly the cultural and identity issues she encountered when she tried to mix in with the kids of her own age.
And what kids they were, more like feral animals you'd say, especially the group of gangster-loving young girls from a nearby children's home, whose acceptance she longs for. We see her assimilate their malign influence as she gets into gangster rap, begins swearing, smoking and drinking and generally disrespecting her parents. It all ends up with the young girl so piqued at not being allowed entry into the three-girl gang she looks up to that she cavalierly takes on the ringleader by publicly shaming her, which triggers the terrible revenge visited on her one dark night by the leader's doting but dangerous right-hand girl keen to sate her own bloodlust and an impressionable young boy carried along it seems by events.
Often very difficult to watch, the series is careful not to paint young Reena as a saint, but it's obvious that her need to belong forced her to make some bad decisions none more so than when she goes along with the gang-leader's suggestion that she fabricate sexual accusations against her own father just so that she can get him arrested and herself into the children's home where the three other girls live.
All of the stuff about Reena and her life and death I found riveting and compellingly acted by the young cast playing the various children. I have to say though that I was a lot less convinced by the highlighting of some of the other characters in the story, most particularly the female author who becomes so fascinated with the case and the evil magnetism emanating from the head girl and her adoring confederate and later the young man who participated in the murder that she often comes close to losing her perspective on events. She grew up in the same neighbourhood and even has her own back story of loss and guilt from her own childhood.
Her story also elides into that of her childhood friend, now the diligent and ambitious lead cop in the case, her former lover, played by Lily Gladstone, who's also given a vaguely connecting backstory where we learn that she too was adopted at birth and has her own identity issues. It all seemed too conveniently and unnecessarily interconnected for dramatic purposes, detracting from the real story here, the brutal murder of a teenage girl by two fellow teenagers. Lastly we're also shown at length the courtship of Reena's own parents some twenty years before which again seemed like it was an unnecessary rabbit hole to go down and explore.
I really wish that show-runners of productions like this would desist deviating from the heart of a true story like this almost, it seems to me, for padding purposes, which irritated me as well as the voguish but occasionally confusing back and forth treatment of the different timelines at play. And, old fogey that I am, I naturally hated the constant rap soundtrack even as I appreciate it was popular at the time.
Still, this was largely compelling stuff right from the beginning, concluding as you'd expect with a set-piece courtroom scene where justice doesn't initially appear to be served although there's some consolation here if you read the on-screen printed postscripts. Gladstone is far and away the best adult actor on show but it's the ensemble acting of the young adults at the heart of the matter who really deserve credit as they pull you inexorably into the gathering tragedy.
Good as it often was, this eight part series could have been better yet if it hadn't felt the need to over-emphasise the roles of lesser characters to the extent that they detracted from the utterly compulsive dark heart of this disturbing real-life event.
Dachau - Death Camp (2021)
A Slight Disservice
My wife and I visited the camps at Auschwitz and Berkenau in January of this year in the freezing cold and it was in every way a truly chilling experience. We therefore felt duty bound to watch this fifty minute documentary which focused on another infamous concentration camp at Dachau.
I thought the brevity of the film somewhat
strange however, in light of the seriousness of the subject to which I can perhaps only attribute to a lack of actual footage from the camp itself. Thus the narrative used the current device of very obviously recreating some imagined scenes played by actors which for me certainly jarred my sensibilities. The story also crossed over into other camps including Auschwitz / Berkenau as if to unnecessarily pad things out, plus some photographic images were repeated unnecessarily I felt.
The film was however unstinting I broadcasting the horrific and harrowing vérité footage of the treatment of the Jewish and other prisoners both on video and in photographuc stills and these are supplemented by latter-day interviews with several of the survivors and also the liberating Anerican soldiers, all of whom naturally still bear the scars of their experiences. However even some of these interviews seemed poorly edited with some of the interviewees' words at times randomly cut up between others.
Sadly this film had a correspondingly "cut and paste" feel to it which for me reduced the effect it should have had on me, but please understand my criticism is of the film-makers and not the film or participants themselves who deserve only our great respect and sympathy for somehow enduring what they went through.
You'll Never Get Rich (1941)
For Richer or Poorer
Another typically light and fluffy Fred Astaire musical rom-com with songs by Cole Porter, where Ginger's absence is more than compensated by the radiant young Rita Hayworth in an early starring role.
The plot is typically silly and contrived as choreographer Fred's Robert Curtis is coerced by his producer Robert Benchley into covering for him when the latter's caught out by his knowing wife over the matter of a golden bracelet the old lech was hoping to gift to Hayworth's unwitting Susan Winthrop character. Astaire and Hayworth, as we've seen countless times before in films like this, have an initially frosty relationship, plus she's very much in the sights of and is being lined up for marriage to a privileged, handsome Army officer. But wouldn't you know it before long he's unsurprisingly smitten with her and she's less predictably enamoured with him but in the meantime, Fred's required to serve a stint in the Army to escape the heat and cool his heels.
It all spirals out from there as Fred finds himself in the guardhouse in more ways than one, with the confusion deepening when Benchley brings his production to the Army base, requiring Fred to run the show, only the old man now has his leery eye on another young starlet while the Fred and Rita romance is endangered by the arrival of his army rival, to whom she's now become engaged, simply to spite our Fred.
You won't be surprised to guess how things end up for the starring couple at the conclusion of the big show, as I think every Astaire musical has ended since he first emerged as a leading man. He dances as well as ever, although I've seen him put to work in more imaginative solo routines than he has here, but it's Hayworth who really balances the ticket with her beauty and poise. I enjoyed the big production number at the end but I wasn't impressed by the forced comedy in the barracks, especially the two doofuses Fred picks up as his willing accomplices and in particular the one who continually falls into irritatingly unintelligible double-talk any chance he gets. I wouldn't say the songs were top-drawer Porter either, in fact when you hear him tag the end of one of the numbers with his famous "Night and Day" refrain, you can tell that the great composer is scraping the barrel a bit too.
Pleasant and inoffensive if formulaic and somewhat hackneyed, this definitely isn't top-drawer Astaire but as pot-boilers go, it just about passes muster.
Dune: Part Two (2024)
Dune is Busting out all Over
Having recently sat through Part One, although admittedly in a state of some confusion and bewilderment, I continued onto Part Two to see if as a whole I could yet put together the various plot strands and differing characterisations to have the movie get through to me. I remember sorting of managing it with the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, but it maybe helped that I'd read the books beforehand. Here, never having read the source novel, I must admit I was as lost in the rolling sand-dunes as any of the massive Worms which infrequently appear throughout the story.
That's not to say that the film wasn't a visual treat. From the recreation of the vast expanses of sand, the huge war machines and various monumental interior and exterior sets, none more so than the Colosseum-type arena, they're a feast for the eyes. The actors too work hard for their money, entering fully into their often physical parts as they follow every wormhole the narrative throws at them.
I think I picked up on the various historical and allegorical references to everything from the Bible to Ancient Rome and Nazi Germany and there's even a young-love romance buried away in there somewhere too.
However, when I got to the end, while I found myself impressed overall by the spectacle of what I'd seen, I was ultimately left thoroughly discombobulated by what had passed before my eyes. Yes, I can see where every dollar was spent on what must have been a massive enterprise but there was just too much going on throughout for me to ever get a handle on events and follow the story through.
Nasty (2024)
Oh you Nasty boy!
Ilie Nastase was my first tennis hero. I can still remember being disappointed when he lost the 1972 Wimbledon final to the American Stan Smith and even more so when he so tamely lost the 1976 final to the emergent Bjorn Borg. With his wavy hair, saturnine looks and entertaining playing style he was arguably the first new superstar of the Open era. With great movement around the court and a wide range of shots he was equally successful in doubles tennis and until the appearance of young superstars like Borg and Connors was probably the biggest name in the game, as evidenced by his signing the first sportswear contract with Nike way back before that became an everyday occurrence in the sport.
But they don't call him Nasty for nothing. While much of his antics on court were entertaining and served to prick the pomposity of the tennis establishment, he undoubtedly went too far on occasion, as we see him practicing the dark art of gamesmanship, especially on the normally placid Arthur Ashe. He was also guilty more than once of making highly inappropriate remarks off-court, nicknaming Ashe in a racially derogative manner while he was playing and many years later to Serena Williams during her pregnancy.
This near two-hour documentary on his life and times doesn't go into any detail on his childhood years. We're not told anything about his parents or his upbringing with his story really only beginning when he pairs up with his long-term doubles partner, the appreciably older Ion Triac and makes his breakthrough in both doubles and especially singles disciplines. We see many examples of his brilliance on court but also a number of his pre-McEnroe spats with the game's umpires and administrators.
Certainly, there are no shortage of big-name players, past and present, who line up to mostly pay tribute to his maverick ways, including contemporaries like Smith, Borg, Connors, McEnroe and Billie-Jean King and later stars like Mats Wilander, Boris Becker and Rafa Nadal. In particular, he formed a firm friendship and winning doubles partnership with the equally out-there American superstar Jimmy Connors, who speaks warmly of their time together on the circuit.
While I didn't agree with some of the unsporting stunts he occasionally pulled and certainly a number of the unpleasant things he's said off court, I found it impossible not to be won over by this sometimes infuriating but never dull individual. The point is made throughout that Nastase was the type of player who put bums on seats and got people interested in the game who might otherwise have passed it by.
I could have done without the seemingly voguish but sometimes confusing direction style of going back and forth in time and would have appreciated a bit more insight into his personal background, not only his youth but also into his colourful personal life as we learn he was married five times. Some interesting contemporary context, however, is provided when we see the 1972 Davis Cup staged in Nastase's own, Ceausesco-era, very grey Bucharest, against the Americans, where he buckled under the pressure of the expectations of his fellow countrymen and women. We also get a little insight into his entangled love life where it seems he could no more resist a beautiful woman than they could him. Filled with many nostalgic anecdotes and reminiscences, the picture emerges of a complex individual on and off the court, but one who in comparison with the super-fit emotionless automatons of today's game, certainly enlivened the often musty and privileged old game and helped, for better or worse to usher in the modern era.
My Favorite Year (1982)
In Like Swann
A riotous comedy starring Peter O'Toole as a faded, sozzled matinee idol of the 30's and 40's booked for a guest appearance on a network US TV comedy show in the year 1954. It's easy to do the read-acrosses required to arrive at Errol Flynn as the model for O'Toole's star who's named Alan Swann as well as Sid Caesar's Show of Shows as the spoofed programme as actor Richard Benjamin, under the auspices of one Mel Brooks who did indeed write for Caesar's show way back then, lovingly recreates the era and in particular the backstage buzz of putting together a live show.
With other nods to real-life counterparts, like the whispering Neil Simon equivalent, there's lots of scope for the fast-moving, fast-talking Jewish humour which came to dominate television in the years ahead.
Charged with chaperoning O'Toole's old Hollywood soak, is newcomer Mark Linn Baker whose Benjy character unsurprisingly struggles to keep his charge on a leash, especially when there's a bottle or especially a pretty young woman nearby, even fearing that his own intended will fall pray to Swann's wicked, wicked ways.
O'Toole of course is reputed to have lived this lifestyle himself and would, you suspect, have made a good compadre of Flynn, if he himself had been born twenty or thirty years earlier. As it is, he so convincingly plays the ageing lounge lizard that you half-suspect he may have downed a bottle of Bollinger or two before his takes.
The story reminds me of "Singin' In The Rain" as a fading star from a past era struggles to adapt to revolutionary new developments in the industry only for silents and talkies, thus time read movies and television.
With some nice comedic set-ups like when Benji takes Swann to meet his family or when Swann steals a patron's gorgeous gal at a posh night club as the band fittingly plays "Somebody Stole My Gal" and especially the big finale when Swann and King Kaiser (obviously the Caesar character) duke it out with a bunch of gangster-heavies out to disrupt the show, it's all great knockabout fun, with O'Toole superb in the lead.
I wonder if it was remade now just who would play O'Toole's part or do they just not make them like that anymore?