Union Jack: Tradition

“So... Captain Britain!”

This is a web series made by fans, and it’s on YouTube here. It’s completely unofficial and, rather winningly, starts with the plea for Marvel not to sue them. Let’s hope they’re not such big meanies as to do that, because I rather enjoyed this.

So, Union Jack. I have no idea whether this is based on a limited series or something as I stopped reading current comics in the mid-‘90s, as the siren call of beer and heavy guitar riffs distracted me. But I remember the Roger Stern stuff in Captain America back in the '80s, as well as a rather embarrassing story in Marvel Comics Presents, but that's it. So I'm coming in relatively cold.

And you know what? This may be low budget, it may have no stars, but it's really rather awesome. It's much swearier than any official version would be, which is a good thing, but it does exactly the right thing and relies on character, dialogue and humour, from the first scene. This is a very British sitcom, with characters you care about and very real dialogue. The set-up is delicious too, with Sam O'Hara Childs' laddish but likeable Joseph Chapman teamed up with his girlfriend Romany as the brains, while Rachel Cuthill gives us an equally genre-savvy Baroness Blood who likes to celebrate the fruition of her dastardly schemes with a "cheeky Nando's". There's lots and lots of violence done to the fourth wall here, which is exactly how I like it. It all feels a bit like a British Joss Whedon series in the best possible way. For a Halloween event this is much, much better than sodding Brexit.

For a first episode with lots to do this does a superb job of fitting lots of necessary exposition and set-up into just thirty-minutes while also hooking you in. I'll be watching next week.

Indexes

I've just updated the indexes over there on the right- there are now a damn sight more of them.

Some people call them "indices". These people are wrong. That is all.

The Sopranos: Meadowlands

"Hear about the Chinese godfather? He made him an offer he couldn't understand..."

The Sopranos is extraordinary, four episodes in. Yes, the first episode grabs you immediately and is a show-offishly and performatively classy piece of television. Subsequent episodes have been more restrained- no flashy direction, realistic rather than knowingly witty dialogue, but a masterclass on how to build a slow-burning and rich serial narrative.

Here we have a number of turning points, all seeming to emerge naturally from plot, certainly, but more importantly from character. We have some flashy direction in the dreamlike beginning as Tony has a surreal dream about Melfi's office in which worlds collide and it becomes clear that he fancies this somehow unattainable woman, who for once appears vulnerable. The bent cop that Tony ends to spy on her ends up beating and traumatising her boyfriend, unwittingly giving her a taste of Tony's violent world- and reminding us, by breaking the barriers separating the two worlds, that Tony is a very bad man, however much we may emphasise with his family problems.

The two worlds collide elsewhere, too, as young Anthony Jr is rudely ripped from his cosy teenage 1999 world of Super Mario Kart and mildly rubbish, forgotten metal bands by the realisation that there's a reason why, as Meadow points out, they can afford such a massive house on the wages of a "waste disposal consultant".

Tony has two families, both with simmering problems. His mother is as passive-aggressive and emotionally cruel as ever. And the death of the sincerely mourned Jackie seems to be leading inexorably to a Soprano vs. Soprano "War of '99", So Tony's creative solution, based on some unlikely advice from Melfi, unexpectedly undercuts this while showing a lot of guts- to let Junior be "acting boss" while being the power behind the throne- or so he thinks.

Incidentally, we learn that Jackie, dead at 44, had only been "acting boss" for two years. And the "boss", not a Soprano, is 74 and doing life. And, despite the power games and constant Godfather quotes, the Government is watching them all. There's a sense that the throne Tony wants is that of a shrinking empire...

This is bloody good stuff. And, just when you think the episode can't get any better, it ends with a bit of Mazzy Star...

The Mark of Zorro (1920)

This is my first silent action film, a swashbuckler based on a minor novel from the previous year that owes perhaps just a little to Baroness Orczy, that romantic and reactionary Hungarian aristocrat, Here the noble heroes are Spanish, in a Los Angeles and a southern California that still owed allegiance to the Spanish throne yet feels somewhat like a proto-Western, but at least their noble blood, while being much-fetishised, is focused on saving the poor, downtrodden and even the "natives" from arbitrary tyranny.

At first it seemed odd watching a straightforward romantic swashbuckler without sound, with early scenes relying heavily on intertitles, but it works, mainly because of the winning combination of the splendidly shot visual spectacle of the action scenes and the winning charisma of the merry Douglas Fairbanks Jr as the eponymous hero, played pretty much as a traditional Robin Hood- and it also helps that the pulp style plot is so straightforward, and the genre tropes so faithfully followed. This is Robin Hood crossed with the Three Musketeers set in a Los Angeles that was still part of New Spain before the Napoleonic Wars set Spain's colonies in the Americas on the path to independence- a reminder that the City of the Angels is not so young as often assumed.

I enjoyed this much more than expected. Beware, though; there are some very poor copies out there on YouTube.

Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (1984)

"That's not a starcruiser. That's a horse!"

I'd never seen this TV movie before until now, in spite of it being a perennial title of the many video hire emporiums that abounded during my '80s childhood. First impressions are that it's badly acted, well made and... well, it sort of works as a kids' programme.

The whole thing really does look mostly amazing, with some great stop motion creatures, although I can't decide whether the spider is awesome or bloody awful.It's also a great exemplar of how kids are often awful actors. It is, however, awesome to see the Ewoks again (including Wicket and Logray), and their Stone Age lifestyle that somehow includes a glider. It's also good to see that Endor is more than just a forest Moon.

The whole thing is, of course, more fantasy with ray guns than science fiction, but Star Wars was ever thus. This as co-written by George Lucas himself and is therefore pure quest narrative in the most Joseph Campbell of ways. Our party sets off on an epic journey to Mordor... er, the tower of a wicked giant. Logray gives each member of the party a MacGuffin which miraculously has a very specific use to the plot.And everybody learns some kind of incredibly vague moral lesson at the end. Or something. Fantasy tropes abound, with this evil giant living independently of any kind of ecosystem and magic sort of working.

But you now what? It isn't awful and is rubbish in a fun way. I'm going to watch the next one, Gulp...

Safety Last! (1923)

As with Buster Keaton until yesterday, I've only seen one Harold Lloyd film before and it was a short. So here’s me repeating the trick, this time with what is indisputably Lloyd’s most famous full length film.

It’s interesting that, judging by their respective shorts, I much preferred Keaton to Lloyd. Yet I found Safety Last to be very funny indeed, much more so than Sherlock Jr. The social mores may have dated- Harold needs to be successful and marry Mildred before there’s any question of getting inside those knickers of hers- but the humour hasn’t, even if the 1920s department store looks absurd in 20-9 with its silly hierarchies, popinjay “floorwalker” and sales of material to old ladies so they can make their own dresses.

No; the humour is straightforwardly funny, with the visual humour matched by some refreshing verbal wit from the intertitles, and the plot is simple, easy to follow and inexorably leading towards the big concluding set piece of Harold climbing up a tall building unaided, with lots of comical perils befalling him in a tour de force of spectacle which, importantly, never forgets the humour.

I never assumed, from the little is seen, that Harold Lloyd could be as funny as this. I was wrong. As things stand this is my favourite full length silent comedy.

Sherlock, Jr. (1924)

I haven't blogged a silent comedy for years, so here's Buster Keaton in what may be his most famous film. I've blogged one of his shorts before- Neighbours- but this is my first proper look at his work. Incidentally, it’s also the first time I’ve seen actors introduced on the intertitles after they first appear, not a bad idea.

First impressions are that Keaton himself is brilliant at comic facial acting, as you’d imagine. Second impressions are that the humour is reminiscent of what you’d think of today as cartoon humour, and there are lots of amusing moments but the film is clearly not renowned specifically for its humour. It’s often funny, but many silent comedies are funnier.

There are little jarring reminders of just how long ago 1924 was- the spelling “to-day”and pianos in cinemas. But much else feels surprisingly timeless, not least the humour. And the most impressive thing about the film is, of course, the violence done to the fourth wall as the Keaton character dreams his dreamy little dream and there’s an extraordinary sequence of him walking into the cinema screen amongst various different scenes. And the comical centre of the film- the attempts of “Sherlock Jr” to solve a crime while the culprits try to kill him by, among other things, blowing him up with an exploding pool ball, is both laugh out loud funny and utterly surreal, along with the extraordinary chase sequence at the end. All these scenes are enormous technical accomplishments.

No more than quite good as a comedy, then, despite Keaton’s personal talent. But the film is surreal, groundbreaking and splendidly weird. I think my next silent comedy won’t be after so large a gap.

The Sopranos: Denial, Anger, Acceptance

“And the Romans- where are they now?"

"You're lookin;' at 'em, asshole."

An unusually short third episode starts with Christopher and Brendan being absolute bell-ends in a way which makes it quite clear that at least one of them (and Brendan is the bigger bell-end) is going to get “whacked”. But this episode, as ever, is about Tony- and the anger which he, the classic exemplar of what we now call toxic masculinity, uses as a displacement for other difficult emotions. His reaction to the Impressionist-ish painting in Dr Melfi’s waiting room is revealing- he sees decay where others don’t. But his experience here is, of course, legitimate, in spite of his obvious inferiority complex where it comes to education and culture.

What is affecting Tony more than anything, at the moment, is Jackie’s cancer, which is obviously killing this much-likes man- and the title obviously mirrors the process Tony goes through. He arranges a girl and a party with booze for his friend, whose life has now shrunk to the hospital room within which he will very shortly die. It would upset anyone.

But Tony uses anger as a displacement emotion elsewhere too. Artie and Charmaine are broke, moving to a smaller house near the Sopranos, and the insurance company suspect arson which will leave them in penury. This is, of course, all Tony’s fault, so he reacts angrily to the pathetically loyal a Artie recounting his woes while acting as chef for a charity do at their house- and Charmaine, acting as waitress, is humiliated. A sudden class rupture seems to be destroying Carmela’s attempts to get close to Charmaine again, leading her to reveal that she once slept with Tony- but ultimately chose the decent, honest Artie.

There’s an interesting sub-plot with a family dispute between some Hasidic Jews who behave with an old-fashioned honour which Tony admires.

We end with a nice juxtaposition. Meadow and her friend Hunter perform the choir recital they need to do to get some kind of points to get to a good uni (ridiculous) which moves Tony deeply- but Junior has had a chat with Livia, who drops some wonderfully subtle hints. So Christopher gets a traumatic mock execution but gets to live- mistakenly thinking its Tony’s doing after he supplied crystal meth to Meadow. But Brendan is killed, in true Roman fashion, in the bath, ending a truly awesome episode as Junior watches...

Judge Dredd (1995)

“I never broke the law. I AM THE LAW!!!”

This isn’t my first viewing, of course, but the last time I saw this film was on VHS and when John Major was prime minister. It’s probably one of those much-maligned films that benefit from being seen some time later.

There’s no doubt that the film has its flaws. A phoning-it-in Sylvester Stallone is woefully miscast, and the film spends most of its running time breaking the sacred commandment that is Thou Shalt Not Remove Dredd’s Helmet. The Angel family are also shovelled pointlessly into the film with no real development, and it’s very obvious that the Mega City One Street scenes, in spite of the rather good design and use of CGI, are shot on a small set shot to look bigger than it is. You’re also made painfully aware of the flat studio floor.

Still, if you look past these flaws,  and the first two in particular, we actually have a bloody good script here and, while clearly straining against the budget, things generally look pretty impressive. Dredd’s characterisation is perfect (with lots of “I knew you’d say that”) and the world of Mega City One and the Cursed Earth is both faithfully and clearly presented in a way which gives us a world true to the 2000 A.D. strip and a film which works pretty damn well for those who, like myself, are not necessarily huge Dredd fans. A complex plot is made admirably easy to follow, there’s lots of humour, and we have the clever including of Fergie as a much-needed Everyman  for us to identify with

The whole thing, inevitably, looks very ‘90s now, and nothing dates the film as much as the stunt casting of Stallone just because he’s a big name. But this is certainly a cut above most ‘90s sci-fi B movies and manages to overcome its flaws. I enjoyed it.

The Sopranos: 46 Long

"Time and patience change the mulberry leaf to silk..."

We've had the introductions; now we get straight on with developing the characters and arc plot as David Chase hands over to lesser mortals to write and helm this second episode. The result is not quite as superlative but nevertheless constitutes superior telly. 1999 was a long time ago, though; no one has a mobile phone and a pay phone plays an important role, the Internet is not a thing for most people, while DVD’s are fancy new tech. It all felt very modern at the time, with the Millennium approaching.

Carmela and the kids take a back seat as this episode focuses on Mob conflicts and Tony's impossible relationship with his mother. The opening scene is suitably ominous, with a poker game soundtracked by a news programme about the inexorable decline of what we never hear described as the Mafia- and of omerta. Tony and his lieutenants Paulie, Big Pussy and Silvio- all fleshed out a little more in this episode- take refuge in pop culture references to The Godfather; Martin Scorcese's later cameo appearance is certainly appropriate.

This is a dysfunctional crime family; Giacomo (Jackie) is seemingly acting boss while some senior Soprano (isn't Tony's dad dead?) is in the slammer, but tensions are growing between Tony and his prickly Uncle Junior. These are largely because of the combination of Tony's incredibly thick and arrogant nephew Christopher and his even worse friend Brendan, both of whom keep robbing Junior’s stuff. This seems to reach almost a crisis, and frankly I’m surprised Tony doesn’t shoot Brendan. But he certainly isn’t happy.

Far worse than any of this, though, even the comical and Tarantinoesque shooting dead of the lorry driver, is Tony’s purgatory at the hands of Livia, the passive aggressive and drama-loving mother from Hell who knows how to wound with words. We learn that Tony has sisters who are estranged from her mother, but in setting her hob on fire and running over a friend she makes it clear that she can no longer live alone, spurning help with a combination of casual racism and emotional knife twisting. It’s no surprise that Tony’s mother- Nancy Marchand is brilliant- causes him such emotional turmoil, and Dr Melfi fulfils the time of Greek chorus here; this is far from a normal mother/son relationship. And it’s far from a normal television drama, too. More please.

Batman and Robin: Episodes 14 and 15

Episode 14: Batman vs the Wizard

"He can make himself invisible!"

Oh. My. God. The penultimate episode and we have the faint stirrings of... a plot.

This isn't immediate- after the most pathetic cliffhanger resolution yet, and that's saying something, we have scenes of the invisible Wizard having his escape made less easy by his sudden visibility, escaping but being grazed on the hand by a bullet. And then silly plot convenience sets in; both Barry Brown and Dunne turn out to have injured right hands. But, as our not-very-dynamic duo and Gordon rush to check the hands of the Professor and Carter, Carter is shot by an unseen hand- it seems we was the Wizard, if not for the fact we know that would be far too easy, and there's an episode to go. But things are actually happening, praise be.

I love how Batman realises the Wizard must be invisible by reciting the same technobabble nonsense...

One suspicious thing, though not to come across like one of those wankers who accuse disabled people who don't always use their wheelchairs of being frauds, is that we see the Prof walking in this scene which, I suspect, intended to cast suspicion. But the Wizard is not dead- dramatically, Barry Brown announces that the Wizard is to kill Gordon in his office at 2pm, and then gets strangled live on air by an invisible man. It's all happening.

So Gordon is going to make damn sure he's far away from his office at 2pm, right? Hell no; there's a cliffhanger to get through. But at least, for once, Batman- using a special infrared camera- actually wants Vicki to do her job as photographer.



Episode 15: Batman Victorious

"I'm ready to make a full confession..."

It's a surprising finale in that on paper it has a lot to wrap up in 17 minutes but, given that these fifteen episodes have been 99% set pieces and peril and only 1% plot, there isn't much to wrap up. It is, of course, convenient that the Wizard doesn't wear his mask while trying to shoot Gordon through the window, and did no one realise he might try that? Really? But we're getting somewhere. Confusingly, the photo shows the Wizard to be the late Carter, but from here the rest of the episode is a manhunt for an invisible but very alone Wizard, and now it's the final episode Batman and Robin are finally allowed to discover the secret passage.

We have a lot packed into the final few minutes as Batman and Robin burst into the Wizard's HQ and he run's away through a secret passage into the Prof's house. And here we have the clever and the absurd- the Prof was a red herring after all, his machine to make him walk and secret passage being just an unrelated scientific experiment. Yet the Wizard was Carter... and the "Carter" we've seen all along, and whom he shot dead, was his twin brother. Er...

We end with another crap scene where Vicki is persuaded yet again that Bruce Wayne isn't Batman, and it finally stops. And I can get on with The Sopranos and try and regain some of the brain cells I've lost while watching this.

A suggestion; let's give serialised Batman adventures a rest now for, say, about seventeen years. And, when we do bring it's back, let's mix up the set pieces with some camp humour, perhaps aving words like "THWACK!" or "BASH!" actually appear on screen. How about it?

Mars Attacks! (1996)

"For dark is the suede that mows like a harvest..."

I saw this once in the ‘90s- at a festival, I think, perhaps Phoenix ‘96. But I was very drunk, and let us not discuss any herbal substances which may or may not have been imbibed. Let us also, in the same token, disregard the bottle of Aragonian wine (yes, the bottle states it’s from “Aragon”, a name from the annals of history) that I have just imbibed at the time of composing this paragraph. Let’s just say that, yes, I can see this film is no classic, but it’s fun.

Tim Burton is always brilliant at making his films feel likes stylised worlds of their own, but he generally has his own gothic style. This film, like its superb predecessor  Ed Wood, gives us a style very different from Burton’s norm- in this case that of the ‘50s flying saucer movie. Hence the many CGI saucers look exactly as we might expect from countless movies. Hence the ever-present sound of the theremin. And the Martians, in old fashioned stop motion, look awesome.

Oh, and the film is bloody hilarious. No, it’s not the funniest film ever, but it’s a fun little spoof and extraordinarily well cast- Jack Nicholson is superb, as ever, as the cynical President. Pierce Brosnan is hilarious as a character taking the piss out of all those pipe smoking, exposition-spouting professors. Also excellent are Sarah Jessica Parker and the wonderful Pam Grier, with a small role for a Michael J. Fox presumably too far into his Parkinson’s disease for a larger role.

It’s also very, very ‘90s- Richie dresses just like I used to back then, and the less Grungy fashions are... yes, well. But the film is enormous fun, with its capricious Martians putting people’s heads on dogs’ bodies and zapping US Senators. And can we please have a Martian do you Trump what is done to the President here?

Batman and Robin: Episodes 12 and 13

Episode 12: Robin Rides the Wind

"I'm a respectable scientist!"

Here we go again, then: another shameless cheat of a cliffhanger resolution. Then we have the still useless Batman failing to see the bloody obvious entrance to the hidden cave where we find the entrance to where the Wizard's little submarine is hidden in that hilariously overcomplicated set-up.

Then we have a little fracas at the Professor's house, as private eye Dunne has been nicking the Prof's plans for a neutraliser to his remote control machine- plans which Batman promptly "confiscates" and somehow convinces the gullible Commissioner Gordon, in spite of Batman's by now long record of incompetence, to allow him to set up a ridiculously overcomplicated "trap" for the Wizard. But who'd have thought it? The Wizard has a counter-plan of his own involving a bloke in a plane to drop bombs on Robin. Must be time for a cliffhanger, and there's not a lot of plot that's happened.



Episode 13: The Wizard's Challenge

"No neutraliser in here."

"Maybe it neutralised itself?"

Ok, I realise I always say the cliffhanger resolutions are mostly appalling, but this one is worse even than usual. We then get a ridiculously complicated ruse where the Professor arranges for the Wizard's men to "steal" his suddenly completed neutralise. Batman sort of suspects the Professor, but doesn't do anything because it's only episode 13.

Even worse, now the Wizard has the two combined machines, their rays together have the effect of, er, making the Wizard invisible. No, me neither. So the Wizard announces, via Barry Brown and a load of unnecessary theatricality, that he's going to steal his next target at 3pm- and Batman just stands around being thick, being believed and trusted in spite of not knowing a damn thing or having anything constructive to say.

We finish with amusing scenes of the invisible Wizard having fun with the robbery, while Batman robs himself in the vault for some reason. The cliffhanger is the door to the vault getting blown, which is a bit cra as it obviously doesn't reach the Batman.

Two episodes to go. And it's still all bloody set pieces and no bloody plot...

The BFG (2016)

“Dreams are so quick!”

“Yeah, on the outside. They’s long on the inside.”

I read the novel as a kid, of course. And I’ve seen (and blogged) the cartoon with David Jason. But nothing, aside from Roald Dahl’s original work of brilliance, can top this wonderful Spielbergian fairytale.

Spielberg seems to be evolving in his recent work; there are similarities between this and Ready Player One in the confident use of CGI which achieves spectacle without overdosing us in a CGI landscape, and the confident creation of a well-thought-out world- giant country is dark, yes, but also very fairytale, and the use of hand held cameras to show us Sophie’s point of view during the action sequences is deeply effective. Even the setting, the Britain of the early ‘80s with cars to match, is fairytale in its iconic use of London cityscapes, a London where all streets are cobbled, the only drinking establishments are traditional pubs and buses abound.

Mark Rylance is simply a triumph as an unusually melancholic BFG, as you’d expect, the definitive portrayal. Ruby Barnhill inhabits Sophie perfectly, and I’m glad to see she kept her native northern vowels. And Penelope Wilton is, of course, perfect casting for the Queen.

The tale is told with verve and economy, with a mildly melancholic ending and some extra little set pieces- I loved the scene with Fleshlumpeater (the splendid Jemaine Clement) using cars as roller skates. This is probably the definitive film of the splendid novel, and another fascinating example of late Spielberg, with his inspired ability to create successful CGI worldscapes which work.