Movies and [some] television

What is your favourite film? If you can actually answer that question with one movie, then you’re not much of a film fan in my book. A single film that is tops no matter what your mood, how your day went, how focused you are, is simply not possible. Some days you want to watch Earth Girls are Easy; some days not. (Mostly not, but then…)

A few years ago I set out to select my ‘top ten’ movies. When the list grew past 100 I gave up. I hate the increasingly common dumb movies (such as pretty much anything with Mike Myers in it), but if my mind is a certain way, I love Laurel & Hardy—and you don’t get any dumber than Stan having a bad time. I don’t like musicals, except for Singing in the Rain. And Thoroughly Modern Millie. And Fred & Ginger. And some of the crazy 30s things. But, honestly, I don’t like musicals.

If pressed, I have three ‘favourite’ movies—from before the late 70s (technical advances make it unfair to compare across major changes, such as silent/sound, or the huge modern improvements in sound quality, special effects or colour). The three are:

• The Day the Earth Stood Still
• The Wrong Box
• If.... (yes, the incorrect ellipsis is in the orginal…)

I doubt that any of these have ever appeared in any well-known film critic’s list of 10 best of all time. But I like them a lot. (And The Wrong Box has finally been released on DVD, although it is very difficult to find, and may already be out of print.)

Technical improvements do not necessarily produce better films—King Kong 2005 clearly has ‘better’ special effects, but KK 1933 remains the better movie. (And KK 1976 should be eliminated from our collective memory.) And why are almost all remakes inferior to the original? It is understandable that sequels are usually worse—just milking the cow dry—but to put all that effort into a remake and have it turn out abysmal is a mystery. Did anyone connected to The Day the Earth Stood Still 2009 consider going back to the original short story, instead of the much-different 1951 film? (After finally catching it on telly, I will admit that the re-do isn’t too bad – but why?)

Rather than provide lists of films, organised by genre, which would be rather boring, I will simply say:

• I like science-fiction a great deal, but horror very little (and of those, really only some of the Universal films of the thirties and forties – class on a small budget).
• Westerns are almost always too formulaic, and as a genre they are not much like the real West. (Read Teddy Blue’s wonderful We Pointed Them North, University of Oklahoma Press, for a better view.)
• I hope that Seven Days in May is (and always will be) pure fiction.
• John Agar was in more really bad movies than pretty much anyone else.
• Of the Internet Movie Datase top 25 movies (the cream of the top 250, as of February 2015), I have not seen thirteen (up from nine in the poll of two years ago!), and will take the inclusion of the spaghetti western as a communal joke; I regard as outstanding only 12 Angry Men (1957), Seven Samurai (1954) and The Matrix (1999), although the others I have seen on the list are largely good films.
• Of the top 25 films on the American Film Institute’s “100 years…100 movies—10th anniversary edition” (2007), I have not seen four. The remainder are good, but I would say that some of them are there either for their social content (e.g. The Grapes of Wrath) or an on-going reputation—when is the last time you actually saw Sunset Boulevard or The Graduate? The very large change in position for some of the rankings compared with the 1997 version (as many as 84 places) suggests that a certain amount of fadishness (is that a word?) is involved.
• Perhaps the best collection of original + sequels is the Bourne series. Outstanding writing and performances throughout, and while I prefer the directing style of the first one, by Doug Liman, over the more frenetic Paul Greengrass films, the first three Matt Damon films are excellent. OK, so they lapse into non-believability now and then, but get a grip. If you loved the films but were not familiar with the books, be prepared for a shock, as the books are extremely different; don’t bother with them if you are looking for movie tie-ins. The fourth film, minus Bourne’s presence but with a pretty good alternative in Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, and directed by the writer of the previous screenplays, Tony Gilroy, is pretty good. However, the fifth (2016), with Matt Damon back in the saddle, was a considerable disappointment for me; it seemed to lack focus, and came across as merely a money-making attempt to capitalise on the franchise.
• See these if you can: Buckaroo Banzai—Rex the Runt—Ronin—Wallace and Gromit—Dean Spanley.

For some comments about the wonderful films of Miyazaki, please see Hayao Miyazaki on the Japan page.

How to Steal a Million—film locations

Inspired by the websites discussing filming locations for Amélie, I recently devoted a considerable amount of time to discovering locations for the lovely romantic comedy How to Steal a Million (Twentieth Century–Fox, 1966), with Audrey Hepburn, Peter O’Toole, Eli Wallach and Hugh Griffith; directed by William Wyler, music by John Williams (yes, that John Williams—he was not always mere bombast).

Magic lantern shows

As someone who is interested in the early cinema, I had read about some of the predecessors of movies, including a technology referred to as “magic lantern”. In essence, this is simply a slide show, using large glass slides, but that bare description does not do it justice. I was fortunate enough to see a magic lantern show in Cambridge, performed by an expert, the late Mervyn Heard (whose website has gone away). And it was, indeed, magical. Complete with sound effects, transitions, narration and, yes, even motion, it was a marvelous experience.

[some] Television

I use [some] because so much TV is drivel. That is inevitable, given the sheer volume of shows, but still unfortunate. My favourite TV programs of all time (excluding outstanding short series such as Porterhouse Blue (1987), The Singing Detective (1986) and House of Cards (1990 plus sequels):

• The West Wing
• Hill Street Blues
• House
• Sherlock Holmes—the Jeremy Brett series (I also greatly enjoy the current modernised Holmes with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, as well as Elementary, with Jonny Lee Miller – though I wish he would not speak so fast – and Lucy Liu)
• Science Fiction Theater (although this is entirely a fond memory, as I have not seen it for decades, and it does not apear to have been released on DVD nor stripped for TV—perhaps it no longer exists?). With your host, Truman Bradley.

Probably The Wonder Years should be there as well. I cannot explain the appalling lack of Samurai Pizza Cats on DVD. Shows that I remember having watched avidly when they were new, but which now seem mediocre on DVD/re-runs:

• The Avengers (although I still have not seen any of the episodes with Honor Blackman)
• The Rockford Files (though full of good characters, these now seem formulaic in the extreme)
• Get Smart
• The Wild, Wild West

And it is painful to watch Monty Python and see how cheap and nasty the production values were (the Beeb tends to do that). Still great, though.

Recent likes

When I first read a description of Forever – a 200-year-old man who is apparently immortal, although stuck with reanimating in the nearest body of water, sans clothing, when ‘killed’ – my first thought was ‘another lame concept on a pathetic network (ABC)’. But then I saw the cast: Ioan Gruffudd, Judd Hirsch, Lorraine Toussaint, and a name new to me, Alana De La Garza. Tried it; liked it a lot. Excellent writing and structure, with voice-overs by Gruffudd which make enough serious points to outweigh the silly premise. Inevitably, it lasted but one season; cut probably by some network big-shot who was too ‘busy’ to watch it.

Beautiful speaking voices

• Truman Bradley
• Richard Carlson
• Ronald Coleman
• Sam Elliott
• Leslie Howard
• James Mason

Why are they all men?! Add in:

• Minnie Driver
• Myrna Loy
• Glynis Johns
• Kathleen Turner

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