Angel: Hell-Bound

"I liked your poems."

"You like Barry Manilow."

So an arc episode, then, and a pretty good one, although the thread about Spike being dragged down to Hell comes to an abrupt end here. It’s a particularly well-directed episode, in many ways shot like a horror film, which so far seems to be a stylistic quirk of the season.

It’s a terrifying concept here, I assume, for those who believe in Hell. There are no ghosts in Wolfram & Hart’s LA office because, for centuries, a sadistic murdering bastard has been sending them all to Hell so he can stay out. Brr. Plus we get loads of cool Ghostbusters type stuff and a good episode for a rather competent, and heroic, Fred.

Perhaps more subtly we see the possible beginnings of a rapprochement between Angel and Spike, who banter well together. Wes and Gunn are, by now, firmly mates again. Lorne, oddly, only gets a brief scene where he doesn’t interact with anybody. And there's a very interesting exchange between Angel and Spike where we establish they're both certain that the sheer weight of their past sins mean they can never hope to avoid Hell, yet they choose to do the right thing anyway. But then the thought that humans are so morally weak that we require the hope of a nice afterlife to behave morally was always a horribly bleak one anyway. We do the right thing because it's the right thing.

As an episode this one feels very different but, while not reaching the heights of the first few episodes, it nevertheless continues an impressive run of quality.

Angel: Unleashed

"That something you English eat with your beans on toast?"

Three episodes in and the season still hasn’t settled into the story-of-the-week formula. Yes, there’s a surface plot about Nina, a woman who is bitten by a werewolf and has to learn to cope with the consequences, but it seems very much as if there’s a satisfying prospect of loads of arc stuff ahead of us at this point.

Not that the werewolf plot should be dismissed: it’s great. The scenes of Nina turning into a wolf are shot like a horror film, and Nina as a character is well-realised, with a life to return to and a realistic reaction. She also seems to be getting on rather well with Angel, and there are hints that they may sort of fancy each other. Hmm. The concept of a society of monster munching gourmands is a good one though. And I’ve also not failed to notice that this is a story about a woman who turns into a metaphorical monster every 28 days; this is basically an episode about periods.

But there’s plenty of arc stuff- the episode is bookended with scenes of the gang eating Chinese together and being both friends and, of course, trying to plot against the evil organisation that they’re running. But the ending scene is far more relaxed than the opening scene, and the suspicion of what’s been done to Gunn is fading away.

Also fading away, though, and being dragged down to Hell, is Spike, and for rather silly reasons he’s confided only in Fred. Things seem to be coming to a head; is there any hope for Soike...?

Angel: Just Rewards

"Wisecracking ghost sidekick? No bloody thanks!"

So far this season is pretty much as good as telly gets, with the second episode managing to pretty much equal the first without Joss even writing or directing.

A lot of this, of course, is down to the premise: after a few clips of the end of the last episode of Buffy it's established that Spike is now, barring the technical details, a ghost, and the premise looks like it's going to be as per the quote above. And it's enormous fun to see Spike interacting with all these characters, including of course Angel, his rival of old and with whom he has a great sparring chemistry, and naturally Harmony, the comedy ex. All the fun is in the characterisation, as it should be. Oh, there's a threat- a necromancer- but that isn't the point; the point is Spike. He's irreverent, he loves to get under Angel's skin- and hit him when given a rare chance- but he's essentially a goody these days. He's just a bit, well, punk in how he does it. And therefore the first to call Angel a sellout, something he probably needs to hear on a regular basis. He may essentially be, with his lack of corporeality, essentially just a Greek chorus with an acquaintance with the fourth wall, but it's good to have him.

But there's depth, and we find unexpected pathos in the final scene as he admits to Fred that he feels himself slowly slipping down to Hell, and he's scared.

Elsewhere it's still fascinating to see the newly lawyered-up Gunn, and Angel's constant moral dilemmas are fascinating. I'm loving the set-up for this season but, more importantly, how much thought has been given to the characters.

Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966)

"When I go to confession I don't offer God small sins, petty squabbles, jealousies... I offer him sins worth forgiving!"

This is the kind of film that you know is going to be enormous fun before you’ve even seen a frame; Christopher Lee as Rasputin is a prospect that is certain to get bums on seats. Some films are purely about seeing how a certain actor handles a certain part, and this is certainly one of them.

Lee does not disappoint; his Rasputin is raucous, charismatic, larger than life, magnetic. Just, apparently, like the man himself. Not that we should expect historical accuracy from Hammer, of course; they don’t stand for anything so po-faced and serious as that. But it’s fascinating to see a film from mid-period, peak Hammer which is in their usual horror style but not really a traditional horror; the only monster here is Lee himself, and the only supernatural elements are nicely ambiguous.

Barbara Shelley is equally gripping as the tragic Sonya, and there’s a classy performance from Renee Asherson as the czarina- quite rightly, Nicky is kept out of this.

The only disappointment, perhaps, is that the ending- Rasputin’s dramatic and much-mythologised death- is both a little rushed and not particularly well choreographed, but this doesn’t spoil what is a hundred minutes of seeing Christopher Lee doing his splendid stuff.  All this and a nice little role for the great Cyril Shaps. This may be no one’s favourite film, but if you don’t enjoy this then there’s no hope for you...

The Airzone Solution

“Have I been scintillating company?”

 Unexpectedly, Amazon Prime is now showing- complete with subtitles- this interesting little piece of wilderness years nostalgia for us Doctor Who fans. It isn't Doctor Who, of course- in 1993 that existed only in a rather good set of novels. But it's made by fans, and stars no fewer than four doctors plus Nicola Bryant- and a very young Alan Cumming in a henchman role. And, most importantly, it’s a bloody gripping environmental thriller to boot, belying it’s low budget.

It’s very 1993, of course. From the opening music to a couple of jarring instances of casual racism that wouldn’t happen nowadays (Ellie does an arse-clenching  Chinese accent after a takeaway, and there’s an equally arse-clenching exchange about “big chief”, “pow wow” and “heap”.), but most of all it’s fascinating  to see how the perceived problems of the environment have changed over the past 26 years- incredibly, global warming isn’t even mentioned; the threat is pollution and- nostalgia alert!- the ozone layer. Remember that?

Jon Pertwee, as he often did later in life, phones it in. But Peter Davison is superb as a crusading journalist, while Sylvester McCoy shines in a slightly under-prominent role as an environmental activist. But the indisputable star is the superb Colin Baker as weatherman Arnie, a nice guy forced against his nature to resist the nefarious Airzone Solution, a very ‘90s exemplar of private sector greed from an age when Thatcherism was still very much a thing. This is an obscure bit of fandom drama, but something obscure can nevertheless be bloody good.

Tangled (2010)

“

This is another one of Little Miss Llamastrangler's favourites. And yes, another modern bloody Disney Princess film where they’ve turned the title into a past participle form of a verb. They like doing that, and obviously they couldn’t just call it Rapunzel...

Anyway, this is an entertaining and fun retelling of the fairytale, and I can confirm that it is quite astoundingly addictive to little girls. The central character is well crafted- young, naive but resourceful- and its a nicely picaresque riff on the fairy tale as Rapunzel gets to explore the wild and wonderful outside world.

One nice touch is that Rapunzel end up not with a boring old prince but with Flynn Ryder, who is both a bit of a rogue and a bit common, and their relationship is rather fun instead of just being lovey-dovey. There are also a couple of rather good songs, and some rather interesting cameos. The whole thing is quite impressive.

Plus, I haven’t seen this quite so often as I’ve seen Frozen. I suppose I should be grateful. But I’m not expecting that Little Miss Llamastrangler will grow tired of this film any time soon...

Frozen (2013)

“The cold never bothered me anyway.”

Little Miss Llamastrangler turned four on Monday, and I didn’t get a chance to watch anything last night. So here’s a blog post about what is a) Little Miss Llamastrangler’s favourite film, although other Disney princesses have risen a lot lately in her estimation and b) a film I’ve seen a million sodding tunes and might as well vent about the fact while acknowledging that the film is bloody good for what it is and, indeed, a class A substance for little girls.

One gripe I have is the title- Frozen, not The Ice Queen, the name of the actual Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. This is rather similar to Disney’s version of Rapunzel being called Tangled; they seem to like their past participle form of verbs. I bet if they ever do a version of The Three Billy Goats Gruff they’ll call it Trolled.

But I must admit this is a solid tale, and positive in a lot of ways. They’re really trying to avoid the trope of pretty princesses being all passive in their dresses while princes, i.e. men, have all the agency. This is a love story between two sisters in which Elsa’s sisterly love, not the kiss of a prince, saves Anna from eternity as a frozen statue. Prince Hans, Anna’s initial love interest and indeed fiancé, turns out to be a blunder and a cad and she ends up with the thoroughly working class Kristoff. Best of all, we learn that “conceal, don’t feel” is not the way to go- a nice little metaphor for expressing your true sexual orientation, whatever it may be.

Also, Olaf is funny, and has the best song.

Frozen isn’t perfect- Anna and Elsa are still feminine stick insects who look thin and pretty- but it’s a positive variation on what went before, and I’ll grudgingly admit that it managed to entertain me. Well, the first fifty times at least.

Angel: Conviction

”I need you to to initial here concerning your mortal soul...”

This week my in-laws are visiting for Little Miss Llamastrangler’s birthday and everyone is gaming with headphones and that, so I’m likely to have little access to the telly for Gifted or Inhumans, which are still my priority as I have to get them off the Sky Plus planner. However, while I’m restricted to DVDs I can watch in my laptop, here’s the start of Angel Season Five a little sooner than planned.

Anyway, when I last saw this season a scary number of years ago I recall it bean well, ended well, had some very good episodes but suffered from the lack of a strong season arc and was far too “story of the week”, disapppointing for what is now the only remaining Buffyverse show. This first episode shows none of those problems, though: it’s written and directed by Joss himself.

The pre-titles is nice- a damsel in distress saved by Angel much as in previous seasons until a bunch of underlings come along with their red tape, making him seem somewhat less heroic and appear to be doing it all for publicity. This is a nice little microcosm of the theme of the season- the gang have loads of power but power corrupts. We even get a smug, evil, Greek chorus in the person of Eve who, in a nicely symbolic scene, hands Angel an apple which he bites. Oh, and Angel’s Secretary happens to be Harmony. This will be fun.

There are some nice character touches as the threat unfolds- a very dodgy figure is about to be sentenced for his terrible crimes but, if he goes down, he will unleash a virus that happens to be mystically stored inside the heart of his own Marvel comics-loving son. Nice.

There are nice touches- Wes and Gunn get a scene to establish they’re mates again; Fred gets to grow into her role as boss of all science, Lorne appears to be very comfortable indeed on Planet Celebrity. Most intriguingly, though, Gunn goes through a procedure to give him perfect knowledge of the law- and, er, Gilbert and Sullivan- and his last minute managing to get the baddie off is a thing of coolness. It is, of course, also a thing of moral compromise, and we are likely to be seeing rather a lot of that.

I loved Angel’s scene with the aptly named Spanky, too, and his showdown with the evil head of “special ops”. It’s a very, very strong season opener. And then bloody Spike appears...

Creepshow (1982)

“Where’s my Father’s Day cake...?”

EC horror comics, although I’m sad to say I’ve never read any, are best known, unfortunately, for being the unlucky victim of that stupid quack, Fredric Wertham, whose genuine achievements in his earlier career were overshadowed by his ridiculous witch hunt against comic books. They are also known, of course, for two British portmanteau horror films by Amicus, one of which I’ve blogged. But this, more than anything else, makes me want to look at the source material. I love the linking comic book stuff by Bernie Wrightson.

He’s not the only “name” though; the legendary George A. Romero directs and Stephen King, no less, has here not only his screenwriting debut but a deliciously scenery-chewing acting role in one of the segments. Other interesting little points are an unusually menacing role from Leslie Nielsen and Adrienne Barbeau as the most annoying woman in the world. The whole thing is splendidly grand duignol and enormous fun, bookended by scenes of a tyrannical father stealing his son’s comic book and getting his comeuppance, setting both the tone and the style.

As ever with a portmanteau film some segments are better than others, although the tide one was a real highlight, but what works well here is the tone and sense of cheerfully grisly fun that pervades thecwjolw thing. This may not be the greatest horror film ever made but it’s thiroughly enjoyable to watch all the way through, and that’s a superb achievement . The spirit of EC lives on.

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

“Now, father, you’re living in the past. This is the fourteenth century!”

I’ve seen many, many Disney Princess films; I’m the father of a little girl who will be Four in a couple of days and it comes with the territory. Mrs Llamastrangler and I are now resigned to living in a house festooned with Disney princesses and the toys thereof. And yet, Cinderella aside, I haven’t blogged them. This is mainly because I haven’t so much sat down and watched them all the way through but had them on in the background for Little Miss Llamastrangler while I do various parenting and hoist things. However, there comes a point where you’ve seen them so many bloody tones that you can justify a blog post.

Sleeping Beauty is one of Little Miss Llamastrangler’s absolute favourites, right up there with The Little Mermaid and the distressingly ubiquitous Frozen. To my forty-one year old eyes it’s a much better structured and plotted film than Cinderella, not needing to pad out the airtime with cat and mouse hi-jinks, and features a splendid baddie in Maleficent and a splendid set of comic foils with the three Good fairies. There is still, of course, a heroine who talks to animals and some very 1950s show tunes about dreams and all that, but it tells the fairytale well and seems to be perfectly designed for its little target audience.

There are only so many bloody times a dad should have to see it, mind...!

Get Out (2017)

“With my genetic material, shit gonna go down.”

 This is an extraordinary film, still very recent and an instant horror classic. Like the best horror films it holds back its scares and relies on suspense rather than gore, and works superbly on that score. Better than that, it's actually about something.

I'm British, and aware that it is doubly true that some of the commentary about race relations here are specific to America, where the legacy of slavery is something that actually happened in America rather than being too hurriedly dismissed as something that happened in distant colonies, and also that a great deal of it is universal commentary on race relations that very much applies here too.

The film is seen from the perspective of Chris, a nice, likeable, ordinary black man who is nervous about meeting his white girlfriend's very white family and turns out to be very, very justified. And yet said family is not overtly racist- there are no white hoods here and I have absolutely no doubt that Dean Armitage would indeed have voted for Obama a third time if he could. These are people who would be genuinely upset to be thought of as racist and a little too anxious to prove their non-racism in not-very-subtle ways. And yet, as the film points out, these people have seldom met a black person who didn't work for them.

All this happens with a grainy picture an a directorial style which is at once superb and very much employing the unsettling visual grammar of the horror film. The intensity of the hypnotism scene is terrifying, as is the later framing of Georgina's face in a creepy and highly effective scene, a triumph of both actress and director. This is horror by unease rather than jump cuts.

Even the final reveal of what is going on works perfectly as metaphor; the family may want to lobotomise young black people so their grandparents can use their younger bodies, but the racism here is far from overt but more of a metaphor for cultural appropriation and all the subtle, unthinking exploitation that we white liberals almost certainly undertake all the time. An outstanding and thought provoking film.

Belle de Jour (1967)

"What you need is a firm hand..."

I've done lots of geeky films lately and, yes, I love geeky films, but it’s time now for  subtitled foreign film from a big name director, I think. And it’s about time I tried one of Luis Bunuel’s later films, you know, the ones that actually have sound and didn’t inspire any famous songs by the Pixies.

This film is, of course, superbly directed, with a magnificent central performance by Catherine Deneuve, and very much comes across like a literary novel but with camerawork instead of prose. The film is of course about Severine- 23, newly married but still a repressed virgin but who has deeply sexual and indeed kinky fantasies- I like how horsey men with riding crops have a symbolic use throughout. A well-off woman with a maid, no less, she nevertheless ends up working in a brothel out of sheer sexual desire.

Importantly, I think, it is recognised that most women in such a position are forced into sex work by economic necessity; the character of Charlotte is there to represent this. Nor is the dark side underemphasised- customers are violent and dodgy (although, as with Marcel, bad boys have their attractions) and, most disturbingly, a client shows a deeply perverted interest in thevmadam’s visiting school age niece. But for Severine, with no economic need to do this, it’s all about the rough sex and rough treatment she needs sexually and isn’t getting at home from a husband whom she loves but who does not understand her sexual needs. Importantly, though, the film emphasises that sex is not necessarily always about men dominating women but can be the other way around by showing us a client who likes to be dominated himself. But all this takes place in a world which remains misogynistic, with Husson as an important mouthpiece for this entitled misogyny.

It would be silly, I think, to deny that this film could be very much criticised on male gaze grounds, and there is inevitably a whole host of unexamined misogynist assumptions. This is not a feminist film, and while it treats its women as three dimensional characters it presents a very male point of view. But it is, nevertheless, an extraordinary piece of work.

The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 10: eXploited

"Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go...”

This episode always threatened to be a downbeat one, and unavoidably it is, but we also get a big pleasing twist at the end which seems to offer the chance to divert this first season from its unrelentingly downbeat tone. We begin, though, to a curious flashback- there's a senator, electioneering in ways which are deeply unpleasant in terms of chauvinistic nationalism before he even gets on to his anti_mutant racism. A character for next season?

In the here and now, though, Andy, Lauren, Dream and Blink are captured and collared, and things appear very bleak indeed. And there appears to be nothing but aimless argument at the Mutant Underground, something for Esme, the cuckoo in their nest, to exploit. There's a startling interrogation scene between Jace and Dreamer, though, in which he tells her what she did to him by making him mourn his daughter all over again- and in which he bitterly tells her that he wants not apologies, but vengeance; a nice touch, as this is followed up on.

Campbell, though, is back from hospital, cured, if scarred, and manages to persuade Jace to release all four mutants to him for his nefarious, cruel and extra-legal purposes. We see his cruelty as he forces the Strucker teens to perform their joint power under controlled conditions through torture, during the process of which he murders Sonya in cold blood.

We also see Esme turning the adult Struckers and their mutant allies in different directions, manipulating them and, perhaps not entirely credibly, persuading Reed and Caitlin to try and appeal to Jace's decency; as far as I'm concerned, personal tragedies be damned, he has none. He simply isn't an ambiguous character; he's a shit. Nevertheless, the two of them drive into his neighbourhood, full of flags on people's lawns (does no one in America find this kind of aggressive nationalism creepy?) to the home which Jace shares with Mrs Jace- and attempt to reason with them by gunpoint. Jace, of course, is unmoved, but Mrs Jace is naturally appalled at what her husband has been doing, and that simple question "What are you doing in our little girl's name?" seems to have an effect.

Indeed, when we next see Jace, he's seizing back his prisoners from Campbell and promising to investigate Sonya's suspicious death. But chaos ensues as Thunderbird and the mutants strike, and it becomes clear that Esme has an agenda of her own. Who is she...?

An uneven episode; this season was good at the beginning as it slowly built its world and characters but soon fell into a pattern, and now we may be seeing an escape from this bleak pattern. But there's still plenty of bleakness here and I'm not sure where the ending to this season is going.

The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 9: outfoXed

"Noooooo!"

After a revelatory episode last time we get a decisive one this time. There are only so many times the Mutant Underground can undertake missions without someone getting caught. And this time it’s Blink, Dreamer and the Strucker twins...

We begin with the family discussing the revelations, though. Caitlin is quite resolved to tell the twins about everything, including Andreas and Andrea- and the twins soon find from experimentation that things can get out of control when they hold hands. There’s an interesting dynamic between them, though; on the surface it’s Lauren who is more fearful of this awesome power while Andy is almost eager, but things are more nuanced than that, a nice touch. They get a nice scene in which they muse over whether or not they are doomed to be bad.

At Sentinel Services Campbell is badly burned and refusing medical help, while Jace continues to pursue extra-judicial means in his increasingly disturbing obsession. The mutants know of what Trask are up to from last week, of course, and so we get the routine mission. We also get the routine need to involve Lauren and Andy, and the routine agonised acquiescence from their parents. But it’s genuinely shocking to see that, this time, not only Blink and Dreamer but also Lauren and Andy are captured and at the mercy of Trask and the Hound programme, those horrible collars round their necks. It’s a shocking ending, and a necessary one to pull the series out of its repetitiveness. Things Wouk otherwise have threatened to get rather dull. As it is, the series is still just about interesting me in spite of its unleavened seriousness.

One thing is genuinely superb, though- Amy Acker’s astonishing performance of grief as Caitlin’s children are captured.

Ghost Rider (2007)

"Mooooo!"

I hadn't seen this film until last night hit my expectations we’re not high. The film doesn’t seem to be well-regraded, Nicolas Cage is certainly a very Marmite actor, and Mark Steven Johnson was personally responsible for the crime against cinema that was Daredevil. Having seen it, though, I can’t see much wrong with it and enjoyed it a lot. It’s not up there with the very best but is a perfectly good film.

I suppose the DVD cover didn’t help matters- the quote used praised the film for its special effects, which usually indicates a well-polished turd. Yet the effects are indeed superb here- Ghost Rider looks amazing and the transformation scenes are extraordinary- but the stench of faecal matter is very much absent. There’s a solid script, for a start, making Johnny a sympathetic and well-rounded character and achieving that surprisingly rare trick of making an origin story entertaining. It’s broadly faithful to the comic books, although there’s no mention of Zarathos.

One place they can’t, and shouldn’t be faithful, of course, is with the character of Mephisto, a strange Marvel sort-of-the-Devil-but-not-quite character. For cinematic purposes he has to be treated as a more traditional devil type, and Peter Fonda is magnificent. It’s also a good idea to use Blackheart as the main villain, plot-wise at least. But perhaps stealing the limelight is the splendid Sam Elliott as Carter Oage, the Ghost Rider of the old West who gets one last ride.

This is a satisfying way to spend 100 minutes, a hugely entertaining film. I genuinely don’t understand the hate. Yes, Nic Cage is, er, Nic Cage, And his acting style is certainly unorthodox. But surely he’s perfectly appropriate here...? Received wisdom can be weird.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

“I see dead people!”

I've spent twenty years trying, not very successfully,  to avoid spoilers for this notoriously twist-dependent film. If you've been more successful than I was, PLEASE BUGGER OFF NOW, because it's impossible to talk about this film without spoiling the twist.

Right?

Right.

So... he's dead, isn't he? It's hrd to gauge how unobvious it would have been to the unspoiled, but the anniversary restaurant scene is devilishly clever, and I’m sure the big reveal at the end comes as a shock to the unspoiled; Anna has been distant with Malcolm simply because he’s dead and she’s been mourning him. It is, of course, totally implausible that it would never occur to Malcolm during those eighteen months that he might be a ghost, but I think we can accept that as a sleight of hand.

Beyond that, though, the film is very well made, with some highly effective jump scares with the ghosts, who are largely held back. As ever, it’s suspense that makes a film scary, not gore, and this has it in spades when it so chooses, even if the lighting and picture look so very late ‘90s. It also works brilliantly as a drama, with an impressive performance (and accent) from Olivia Williams but a truly magnificent and career-defining turn from Bruce Willis.

This film is superbly made. Perhaps not one for repeat viewings, as it is dependent on one big twist, but I see why it made the impact that it did.

Incidentally, I thought Philadelphia looked somewhat run down when I visited back in 2001, but this film makes it look beautiful.

The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 8: threat of eXtinction

"I failed! It came back!"

This is, quite clearly, a pivotal episode in which we comics fans have our suspicions confirmed about the decision to use the family name “Strucker”. In fact, we start with a 1952 flashback featuring Andreas and Andrea von Strucker, indeed Fenris, in their full terrifying glory, or at least dialogue about it, which is much kinder on the budget. These mutants are not traditionally X-Men characters, of course, but I like that. And the sense of secrets being uncovered fills the episode.

The other subplot is that the Mutant Underground is dealing with many refugees, one of whom turns out to be a helplessly brainwashed “Hound” spy, although not one without pathos in the manner of her eventual death.

While this keeps the others occupied, John accompanies Reed on a visit to his estranged dad, Otto, who used to work for Trask. What they discover is a real bombshell. Otto is the son of Andreas, is himself a closeted but powerful mutant, and his work with Trask was to eliminate the x-gene and “cure” Reed, his mutant son- what Reed remembers as a serious childhood illness was in fact his powers being erased. Otto could never look his son in the eye after nearly killing him like that, but insists that “everything I did in life was for you!” And he then goes to prove it by sacrificing himself so Reed and John can escape as Sentinel Services come looking.

The bigger revelation, though, is that Lauren and Andy have the same powers as their feared great grandfather add great aunt- what does this mean for them...? This is gripping, fascinating, arc-defining stuff.

In other news, Polaris and Marcos make up and Clarice is subtly integrated into the team, but this extraordinary episode is all about the revelations.