P.R.O.B.E: The Zero Imperative

 "This is a hospital, Miss Shaw. Not Scooby-Doo."

It says a lot about me was that tonight's viewing was a choice between a 1980s BBC TV production of Sophocles' Antigone and this, a straight-to-video Doctor Who spin-off from the wilderness years. My geek side just won out against my pretentious git side... this time!

Thing is, though, this may not be Sophocles but it's a very impressive script from a young Mark Gatiss, a tale of dark, otherworldly forces, possession and family tragedy that is perfectly paced, well characterised and unfolds in a deeply satisfying way, with revelation after revelation. Bill Baggs' direction, too, is impressive, using stylistic camerawork to cover what must have been a tiny budget.

The dialogue is great, as is Caroline John as Liz Shaw, now running her own outfit investigating supernatural weirdness in contrast to "another acronymic organisation from my salad days"- love the pipe.

Nevertheless... although Jon Pertwee, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy (especially towards the end) are all great, I tend to feel that the inclusion of so many former Doctors (although I love Sylv's "Trust me, I'm a Doctor") perhaps undermines Caroline John in what's supposed to be a starring role. Still, that isn't the script's fault, and the overall impression is of a compelling thriller that, very wisely, leads with mood and character as opposed to anything too expensive-looking....

Green Day- Dookie (1994)

 

It's a little odd, with thirty years of distance, to look back at what was a rather formative album of my teenage years.

Yes, I know it wasn't Green Day's first album, or their second, but it's their major label debut (and "selling out" to major labels was much agonised over back then- how times change) and so the album most of us heard first. And... looking back, it made a huge impact. Grunge was in its death throes (despite much good stuff to come) and Californian punk, spearheaded by Rancid, the Offspring and especially Green Day, felt like the ideal replacement. For a few years (after earlier bands like X, the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Agent Orange etc had been awesome but not quite mainstream), Californian punk ruled the roost.

And... well, then came Blink 182 and all that pop punk crap, mixing punk with chart pop, literally the least punk thing ever. And... yes, in hindsight, in a certain light this album might seem like a bit of a harbinger of that, full of the laddish angst of a trio of still very young men. Yet, unlike anything Blink 182 ever did, it's awesome. There's not a single bit of filler on here and, even if we ignore the singles, we have songs like "She", "Sassafrass Roots" and "F.O.D."

With thirty years of hindsight, then... an even better debut that it would have seemed at the time.

Stargate (1994)

 "There can be only one Ra..."

I've never seen any of the subsequent telly series, but I have seen this film before, back in the '90s, hiring it from the local video shop. I enjoyed it then... and I absolutely adore it now.

I'm told there were all sorts of behind-the-scenes headaches for the film, it wasn't expected to do well, and it was a massive surprise when it turned out to be a huge hit. Yet it's simply very good, a very '90s twist on Erik Von Daniken with Egyptian gods as ancient aliens, with a superb and well-placed plot, a brilliant series of concepts and very strong central performances from James Spader and Kurt Russell. 

The visuals, the aesthetics of the gods are awesome. The first sight of Horus is well-shot and effective- and it's a surprise to find him being played by a young Djimon Hounsou. The pyramids, the three moons in the sky... the visuals are as good as the plot.

The whole thing is very much plot-driven, and the conceit of seeing everything through the eyes of Daniel Jackson works well, as we are introduced to the backstory of the Stargate at a point where the authorities are on board and plans already laid.

Yet there is humanity too. Both Daniel and Colonel O'Neill are three-dimensional, flawed but ultimately good people, and the people enslaved by the "gods" manage to seem like real and likeable people despite speaking an unknown language. And the ending is deeply satisfying.

This is simply a great concept, executed superby. That's why it's a great film.

Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans

 "Called himself the Physician, or the Dentist, or something..."

The new season of Doctor Who is over. I need something for the withdrawal symptoms, really rather urgently.

This is another of those fan-made, straight to video dramas made during Doctor Who's "wilderness years". Made on a shoestring by fans, they were nevertheless fascinating. Often featuring actors from the show, as well as other British telefantasy series such as Blake's 7, they varied in quality, in truth. Many of those fans making them would go on to greater things, though, and for what they were- and their minuscule budgets- they were very impressive.

This, which I've now seen for the first time, is undoubtedly one of the best.

The script, from ever-reliable Terrance Dicks, is genuinely witty and full of twists and turns. The Sontarans here are supremely designed, wtritten and acted, coming across as a very three-dimesnsional species. The Rutans are used well, with surprisingly good effects.

And while the performances are variable, Brian Croucher truly stands out. So does Carole Ann Ford, playing a much deeper and interesting character than Susan ever was. 

Location shooting on HMS Belfast, and creative use of camerawork, makes this look far less cheap than it doubtless was. It's not quite a prodessional production and that shows in places- it looks as though the performances are not always well directed. Yet, with a very strong script at its core, this is a highly impressive piece of work.

Clerks (1994)

 "She broke your heart and inadvertently drove men to deviant lifestyles."

I haven't seen this wonderful film since I was at uni. What took me so long? It is, first of all, hilarious. But, for this fortysomething, it's so gloriously, nostalgia-inducingly '90s, and my '90s. The '90s of slacker culture, Grunge, Douglas Coupland and lumberjack shirts. Oh, and landlines and video stores.

The soundtrack is glorious too- Soul Asylum, Bad Religion, proper '90s stuff. But the film is far more than just a comedy. The structure is based on Dante's Divine Comedy. Yes, I know it's filmed as it is because it was made on the cheap, but it looks so wonderfully arthouse, which somehow works.

The characters are superb too. The put-upon Dante, our audience identification character who isn't even supposed to be here today, seems decent on the surface. But there's no two ways about it: he's being unfaithful to his very lovely girlfriend, and gets what he deserves.

Both he and Randal are aimless in their McJobs, suitably for the zeitgeist but reflecting a more prosperous age where such directionless apathy was a luxury that could be afforded. We explore that lifestyle here, with Randal at least having some self-awareness.

Most of all, though, the comedy is wonderful, real, inspired, and contains nuggets of wisdom. I can certainly confirm milkmaids exist. I am a bearded example. I'll get the latest date no matter what.

I think it's going to have to be full steam ahead with the View Askew-niverse for me. It's been too long.

The Crow (1994)

 "Abashed the Devil stood, and felt how awful goodness is."

 I'm not religious, personally, but I certainly worship John Milton's Paradise Lost. If you haven't read it, go away and get drunk on its gloriousness before you continue reading this. I'll wait.

 It's rather embarrasing that I, being seventeen in 1994, have never seen this film before. And it needs saying, at the start, that the death of Brandon Lee through unprofessional carelessness is unforgiveable. Alex Proyas may be a talentless director but, given what happened here, it is unconscionable that he ever worked again. Shame on him.

Still, one cannot deny that this film is incredible. On the surface, it's a very simple revenge thriller with a gothic tinge. It's very '90s in style, in the best possible way, and the way this defines the direction has as much of an effect on the ausience as anything to do with the plot or performances. This has the best soundtrack of pretty much any film ever, including The Cure, Jesus and Mary Chain, the Rollins Band, and Pantera. Stone Temple Pilots are heard too but, in the circumstances, we can probably forgive that lapse.

Brandon Lee is captivating. Ernie Hudson, given a criminally rare chance to really shine, does so. Michael Wincott is a superb villain, chewing the scenery in a masterful and genuinely brilliant way; it's a shame his career seems not go havr exploded aferwards, jealous thoiugh I am that he can apparently grow his hair even longer than my own manly locks.

This is a simple yet ingenious film. It's style over substance, yes, but in the possible way. It's a directorial triumph which overcomes a very simple concept. I love it.

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (1994)

 "I can't stand women who jabber like parrots!

I never really was a gamer in the modern sense of headphones and immersive games. I played computer games until about '94 or so when I discovered rock music, and from that point on I stopped buying games for the Sega Mega Drive and started buying CDs. It all seems so quaint now.

I've never really been much of a gamer since, and my interests in the genre these days are decidedly retro. Hence my interest in this, what I believe is only the second anime I've ever blogged, as I have fond memories of playing the game in the arcade- yes, the arcade- in the early '90s.

There was, of course, a live action film of the game released in the same year, which I blogged some time ago. This animation, cheerfully daft though it is, with hilariously rubbish dialogue, is far superior. It actually features all the characters, faithfully, although many of them (Guile, E. Honda and especially Ken) are absolute wankers and M. Bison's fictional terrorist organisation is risible. 

Despite this, it's great to see the characters all shown as true to their appearance, all getting reasonable amounts of screen time despite the focus on Ryu and Ken, and some truly aweesome animation. The fights, in particular, look amazing. And those are the main things, really; this was never going to be great drama, although the scene where Ken proposes to his girlfriend in the clumsiest possible way and then sulks when she says no is hilarious.

This is a load of old tosh. But it's enjoyable tosh.

Incidentally, the soundtrack is awesome, with Alice in Chains, and Korn from when they were good.

The Santa Clause (1994)

 “You don't want to be responsible for killing the spirit of Christmas, do you... Santa?"

I know, it's November, and Santa shoots an elf for every blog post about a Christmas film before the end of the month. The firing squad is assembling as I write.

Nevertheless... 2020, I think it's fair to say, has been a bit pants. Many people are decorating their houses for Christmas earlier this year in a herculean effort to hold back the existential fear and despair. There are things we can do to cheer ourselves up and forget that there's a plague going on around us. The Americans did their bit earlier this month by voting out the Stupid Orange One, which I very much enjoyed, and Mrs Llamastrangler and I did our bit earlier this evening by watching this, one of Mrs L's favourite Christmas films, with Little Miss Llamastrangler.

Now, I've never seen The Santa Clause before today, as I was seventeen in 1994, too old for such films, and have never really been a great fan of overly sentimental '90s Hollywood comedies. Plus, nothing will ever eclipse Santa Claus: The Movie in my estimation.

And yet... I enjoyed this. The principle behind it- if you damage Santa, you become him, a variation of "you broke it, you own it"- is played very well. The central custody battle between Scott and his estranged wife isn't overdone into extreme weepy territory and knows when to stop. This isn't a laugh-out-loud funny comedy- it's a '90s sentimental Hollywood comedy- but Tim Allen is superb and there are enough amusing moments. And I like the literal North Pole, the elf agents with jetpacks, and the slow morphing of Scott into Santa.

And there's no denying the film has heart, is executed well, and is brimming with Christmas spirit, dammit. It is of its time and of its genre, but manages to transcend both enough to be enjoyable. This is almost as good as Santa Claus: The Movie. Almost.

The Fantastic Four (1994)

“Look at you- the Fantastic Four!”

I've always wanted to see this unreleased little film, and tonight I got my wish. And what we have here is unquestionably a B movie, with an older Roger Corman producing, with no stars (other than Alex Hyde-White the only member of the cast I've heard of is young Mercedes McNab, Harmony in Buffy and Angel, who plays the young Sue Storm), no budget and some questionable acting. But actualy, well, I rather like this.

Yes, it's incredibly cheap. Yes, the script lacks sparkle. But the film's heart is n the right place. Doctor Doom's costume looks cheap (and his castle very Count Duckula!), but they're really trying to be faithful to the comics. We get cheap looking but faithful John Byrne era costumes. We get Alicia.

Even better, though, these are the characters we know and love- with Sue's embarrassed and cute crush on Reed and proper time given to Ben's angst at his predicament- with Alicia a big part of his healing. A comparson to the awful Captain America film of four years earlier shows what this film gets right- we recognise and care about these characters, even if the acting is somewhat functional.

Best of all, cheap though the film is, it makes a surprisingly decent stab at showing all of the heroes' powers in action, even if we have to wait a long time to see Johnny get a proper- and pretty damn cool- "flame on" moment.

So yes, this is a cheap B movie. Yes, the acting is functional. Yet it gets most of the big scripting decsions right and is a surprisingly entertaining movie with real heart.

Ed Wood (1994)

"Nobody cares! These movies are terrible!"

That Tim Burton would make a biopic of Ed Wood is delicious. That it should be so bloody good is even more so. Monochrome, stylised and deeply evocative of both 1950s Hollywood and the schlock genres, this is a well-structured, good-natured and fun look at one of Hollywood’s more eccentric “talents” with an extraordinary performance of Johnny Depp at the centre of it all.

The opening titles, with the parade of ‘50s genre tropes and the glorious theremins, are wonderful, and set the mood perfectly. Then we move to setting up who Ed is, his transvestism, and the story of Glen or Glenda, complete with lots of 1950s trans people including the aristocratic but delightfully camp “Bunny” Breckinridge, played to perfection by Bill Murray. We then follow Ed’s, er, career right through to Plan 9 from Outer Space and see him happily married to a fellow geek- and then we stop, before we get any hint of his decline, alcoholism and early death.

Instead we see the tragedy of the great Bela Lugosi’s final years, forgotten by Hollywood to the point of appearing in Ed’s films, alone, homesick for a Hungary to which he can never return, behind an Iron Curtain. Martin Landau plays him with skill and much pathos, but also not without humour (“Karloff does not deserve to smell my shit!”).

We also see Juliet Landau (nepotism; fun for all the family), bizarrely using her native accent, and a superb cameo by Vincent D’Onofrio as the great Orson Welles. But this film belongs to Depp, and to Burton, who has conjured up perhaps his finest cinematic world.

The Flintstones (1994)

“Yabba dabba doo!”

 This film may be technically set in the Stone Age, vaguely defined, but we all know it's actually set in those early years of the '60s that were very much still the '50s. It's to the credit of this '90s adaptation that, seen today, it’s very Mad Men in its ‘50s social mores, although in this case without the racism.

This is a very faithful adaptation, right up to the point of recreating variations of the original cartoon title sequence several times. It’s perfectly cast with John Goodman and a just pre-retirement Rick Moranis. It’s so well-realised, with copious dinosaur animatronics from the school of Jim Henson, that this is a rare example of a film with a rubbish script being worth seeing.  It’s rare that it’s worth polishing a turd, but here the polishing is truly magnificent.

The plot is ok- Free gets promoted, betraying Barney in the process, living a life of luxury until it turns out that he’s being set up by the villainous Cliff, a splendidly and surprisingly villainous Kyle MacLachlan. Oh, and Halle Berry is the early 1960s sexy secretary, done with just enough of a nod and a wink.

Yes, the script is pants. It really is. And this may be a rare example of an adaptation being too faithful to the source material. But the whole thing looks amazing, the casting is inspired, and the whole thing just feels right.

It’s worth watching, honest. You won’t laugh much, but you’ll feel a nice nostalgic glow.

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)

“The first was the best."

 Phew. The franchise doesn't end with a whimper after all, but with a typically clever and well-directed instalment from the esteemed Mr Craven himself. This last film redeems the whole thing somewhat. Still, it's far from perfect in that it's somewhat slow and there's not enough Freddy screen time.

It’s clever, though; the franchise so far has just been a series of movies and Wes Craven, various actors and even producers appear as themselves. There’s lot of wry commentary on the tiresome idea of horror movies having a bad effect on society (yawn) and a lot of fourth wall-breaking fun- the ending, with Heather reading the script of the very film she’s in to her son, is perfect and, what’s more, believable. The concept is a good one- an Evil From The Dawn Of Time draws strength from monsters in scary stories and this time it’s taken on the form of Freddie from it’s new favourite horrror franchise. It’s a superb idea and very well realised, although the threat never quite feels like Freddy. In fact, much of the film evokes cinematic horror more widely- especially, in the excellent scenes with little Dylan, The Exorcist. And it’s clever to contrast the new “Freddy” make-up with Robert Englund wearing his old costume for the fans.

It’s very well done. It’s very witty. Stylistically, at times it feels very much like the precursor to Scream that it clearly is. But I can’t help feeling that it takes too long for things to start happening, Freddy doesn’t get enough screen time and, well, Freddy isn’t really Freddy, great though the effects are in the final showdown scene. This is an interesting case of a great concept, very well made, which perhaps suffers from not satisfying our expectations of the sort of film it’s supppsed to be.

And that, folks, is the end of Nightmare on Elm Street for a while. I have another franchise to devour before I get to Freddy vs. Jason, and I’ll be watching other stuff in-between. So many other horror franchises, too...

Pulp Fiction (1994)

"I'm gonna get mediaeval on your ass!"

This is, quite alarmingly, the 384th film I've done for this blog. Just as alarmingly, it's the first of those 384 films to have been directed by Quentin Tarantino. The odds were against this- I'm quite a fan of his, and this is THE film for those of my generation- but here we are; I've finally got around to blogging the finest film of the '90s.

So what makes Pulp Fiction so superlatively good? Well, part of it is just bloody good directing- take the syringe sequence- but there's more to it than this. Tarantino famously appeals both to the Cannes-attending intellectual crowd and to those who just like to be entertained by a couple of hours of violence and cool, two things which Tarantino is very good at. How does he keep both groups happy?

Well, I tend to say that Tarantino is the Jimi Hendrix of cinema- a true virtuoso, but you could never call him pretentious. Clever though he is, he always retains that lightness of touch. There's a line he doesn't touch. So Pulp Fiction may have a non-linear narrative and a complex ensemble plot with multiple perspectives, but at the same time it manages to be easy to follow, an achievement in both scriptwriting and directing which is not easy. Also, the allusions to cinematic history may be many, but they never overshadow the film itself.

But, I think, what Tarantino does with Pulp Fiction in particular is to use dialogue differently. It's not just that the dialogue is cool and quotable, although it's both of those things, but that it is allowed to breathe. Conversations are allowed to meander and reach a natural end, as per real life, from that first conversation between Jules and Vincent about Amsterdam through the entire film. They are not truncated to fit the narrative and rhythm of the plot; rather, the dialogue sets the rhythm and is used to make sudden moments of action more dramatic.

So many performances deserve praise- Uma Thurman as the tantalising Mia, Samuel L. Jackson as the compelling Jules, comeback kid John Travolta actually being quite good (and getting top billing after all those years of obscurity), Harvey Keitel doing the cool character that probably inspired those recent insurance adverts (something I've only just realised). Not only that, but even Bruce Willis manages to be more-or-less acceptable.

This is one of the greatest films ever, end of. It shouldn't be so long until I blog my next Tarantino film...

My Girl 2 (1994)

"It's not easy being a woman!"

It's sometimes good to see and blog a film not in the usual genre, without all the explosions and CGI I'm used to, and see a nice little 90 minute drama about our old friend Vada and her dad, stepmum and soon-to-be baby sibling. No Thomas J for obvious reasons, so no Macauley Culkin to provide a big name '.this time; we'll have to make do with Jamie Lee Curtis and Dan Aykroyd. Still, I'm not sure Macauley Culkin was still a thing in '94 anyway.

It's interesting that this isn't, given the absence of Thomas J, really a direct sequel at all but rather a tale of Vada, a couple of years older, travelling to Los Angeles to research her late mother and to undertake a sort-of romance with the awkward and very teenage Nick. In its quiet way it's a nicely done drama, with Vada's search for answers providing a nice structure to it all.

The script and acting are both superb, and there's just enough wallowing in the fact it's 1974 to be fun without overdoing it. There are some nice cameos with Aubrey Morris as a jaded, elderly poet ("Don't be a poet. Be a TV repairman.") and Keone Young as a nerdy cop. A quietly satisfying sequel that's just as good as its predecessor.

The Madness of King George (1994)

"We consider ourselves blessed in our constitution. We tell ourselves our Parliament is the envy of the world. But we live in the health and well-being of the sovereign as much as any vizier does the Sultan."

This is scripted by the great Alan Bennett and stars the great Nigel Hawthorne (who, sadly, only graduated from the excellent Yes, Minister to a glorious film career at the end of his life), so obviously it's superb. It's as historically accurate as it's sensible for a play-cum-film to be (Alan Bennett did this period when he read History at Oxford, you know), full of heart, and funny. Cyril Shaps' poo-obsessed doctor is a particular delight.

We begin with a few scenes establishing where we are. Greville, the King's new equerry, is our POV as an audience, and we establish what the King is like as a person- pretty damn eccentric, what what? This is essential: before he goes mad, we need to see what he's like when he's sane. We also see his loving (but probably sexless) relationship with the Queen, his traditional Hanoverian hostility to the profligate and indolent Prince of Wales, and the political context of all this. Cold fish and budding alcoholic Pitt the Younger relies on the King's survival and sanity for his career and that of his faction of Whigs. If the King is replaced by Prince George as Prince Regent, then Charles James Fox is waiting in the wings with a somewhat more radical bunch of Whigs, which could mean a load of extremist nonsense like the abolition of slavery. Heavens above.

(The Tories are, incidentally, in no position to form a government: it was they who lost America and they will be out of contention for a generation.)

It is, of course, as popular culture always shows us, extremely dull at the court of George III. Versailles this is not. Nor, thank heavens, is it the awful Brighton Pavilion. But things soon become interesting as the King's behaviour takes a turn for the bizarre.

The film concerns the progress of his madness- mercifully brief, this being his first lapse in 1788: he would not recover, alas, from another attack in 1810, long after the film ends. The film seems to adopt the prevailing theory that the King's malady was, in fact, porphyria. A caption at the end reminds us that this is hereditary. Ha!

The meat of the film consists of the battle of wills between the King and Dr Willis, a man who is now able to exercise his authority over no less than a King ("No, Sir! You are the patient!"), if only for a little while. The Prince Regent will not have his way. Yet.

These scenes are fantastic, but the whole film is so damn watchable. It's brilliant. I mean, it's Alan Bennett. Just go and watch it now.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

"You gave me life, and then you left me to die."

This is a very different cinematic version of Frankenstein. The point is not that it follows the broad outline of Mary Shelley's novel- which, not splitting hairs, it more or less does, including the Arctic bits- but that it is quite self-consciously made as part of a different genre. This doesn't have the trappings of a horror film and, unlike every other version I've seen, isn't a melodrama. Instead, this is presented simply as an adaptation of s classic novel, owing more to Merchant Ivory than to James Whale or Terence Fisher. The very presence of Helena Bonham Carter would signify that, we're it not for the fact that she would go on to meet Tim Burton.

Obviously, this means a focus on scientific ethics. But Kenneth Branagh's take on the themes of the novel seems to emphasise the Gothic, and not just in terms of mood; he includes the prominent lecture room scene in which Frankenstein stands up for an older, "philosophical" approach to science, and the controversial Professor Waldman (played by John Cleese in an entirely serious role) stands for an older, more alchemical tradition. This makes the monster, in a sense, a creation of the knowledge of a dark past- true Gothic.

It's also worth pondering Branagh's take on the links to Romanticism too, what with the original author being married to a certain writer of Ozymandias (and the thematically relevant Prometheus  Unbound) but not really in tune with the movement. Frankenstein here seems to be no fan of rationalism, yet he is hardly a sympathetic figure.

The film works well enough; Bonham Carter is excellent in the film's (and novel's) only significant female role from the pen of a daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft. Branagh is competent although, outside classical parts, he is not the most charismatic of actors; next to Colin Clive and Peter Cushing his take on the character is not overly memorable. Robert De Niro is superb as always. But there's a reason why film versions of Frankenstein lend themselves towards melodrama. This is a good film but not a great one, simply because the source material doesn't really lend itself to a straight adaptation.

A Friend to Die For (1994 TV Film)

"I never really liked her..."

This is one of those things I would never have seen if not for my wife who, bizarrely, has fond childhood memories of this rather serious and weighty drama! It's a quality work, though- well scripted, shot and acted, and a serious treatment of some weighty themes without sensationalism. It's just s pity that the only available DVD lacks subtitles.

The names are changed, but this is based on a real murder from 1984 in which a popular and bitchy cheerleader- essentially Cordelia from early Buffy and a familiar trope of American high school drama- is murdered by a jealous classmate. The film questions the hierarchies in such places, where the popular ones always seem to come from money and popularity always has to involve bullying those who don't fit in.

I'm a foreigner, but I've always found cheerleading creepy, a disturbing cult and blatantly sexist. And don't get me started on sororities, fraternities and those stupid, awful-looking jackets that the popular boys wear. But here we have a principal who, true to Reaganomics, exhorts his teenage students to "be the best" and praises survival of the fittest and to Hell with the weak. The priest may may question the role of capitalist 1080s values in this murder, but he flat out refuses to consider it. This is a mitder that arises out of a complex interplay of class, gender and hierarchy. 

The whole thing is brilliantly structured, starting with the murder itself from an outsider's perspective, then turning to the perspective of Angie, the killer, up to and beyond the murder itself, and then towards the community itself and an unnecessary show trial which echoes The Scarlet Letter. It may be obscure, but this is worth seeing.

Forrest Gump (1994)

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get."

I didn't want to like this film. I assumed it had a passively conservative agenda in that the homespun wisdom of the Deep South is a much better guide for life than those pesky liberal intellectuals. And yes, there is a bit of that. And it's not necessarily a good thing to imply that success comes to those who morally deserve it as it does to Forrest- it doesn't. But I liked it anyway. I may be a Guardian reading type and Lib Dem voter (though definitely not on Clegg's wing of the party), but I hail from the reactionary, UKIP voting rural East Midlands and, while most of my fellow denizens of this region may average some decidedly right wing views, I'm definitely proud of where I come from. Eh up, me duck.

All of which is to say that I rather enjoyed this film and I think it would be churlish to knock it for it's fairly passive conservative slant. In any case, I'm wary that I haven't read the novel on which the film is based. So let's actually talk about the film, shall we?

Firstly, Tom Hanks is superb, evoking both humour and pathos in a way that reminds one of the great Charlie Chaplin.

His choice of scripts may often leave something to be desired, but as an actor he's one of the best that Hollywood has to offer. And the film is fun, riffing enjoyably on its Zelig concept to insert Forrest into footage of the likes of John Lennon and any number of American presidents. It is, perhaps, an example of a post-Cold War America, in the middle of the "End of History" era, looking back fondly over its most recent tumultuous decades of counterculture and Vietnam. 

Forrest's homespun philosophies are, of course, silly, and the film could be accused of naïveté in having it's mentally subnormal star end up rich and successful because he's nice. But one can also, if one tries hard enough, see there an existential acknowledgement of the absurdities of life and fortune, and I tried very hard indeed. The film is worth a look and great fun, even for those of us wary of possible conservative overtones.

Street Fighter (1994)

"I hoped to meet Guile face-to-face on the battlefield, where we could engage each other in unarmed combat. Then I would snap his spine. But why? Why do they still call me a warlord? And mad? All I want to do is to create the perfect genetic soldier. Not for power, not for evil, but for good. Carlos Blanka shall be the first of many who shall march out of my laboratory and crush every adversary, every creed, every nation, until the world is in the loving grip of the Pax Bisonica. And peace will reign and all humanity shall bow to me in humble gratitude."

Once upon a time there was a game called Street Fighter. It was rubbish, and sank without trace. But then it begat a sequel called Street Fighter 2, which became very popular. And this in turn begat a rather rubbish film, which is about to receive something of a critical spanking. Thing is, though, the film couldn't be called Street Fighter 2, after the game, as it would look as though it was a sequel to a non-existent film. Instead, it had to be named after the original, rather rubbish game. Awkward, eh?

I used to play the arcade version of Street Fighter 2 quite a lot as a teenager, in Upper Castle Street in Hinckley town centre circa 1992. I was rubbish. I always played Dhalsim, as the character requiring the least skill to play, and got whupped on a regular basis. So this film has a bit of a nostalgic pull for me, especially as all the characters from the game appear in the film. Initial impressions were that the film seemed likely to be rubbish, but then I was reassured by the presence of noted thespian Jean-Claude Van Damme, a performer of subtlety and grace, so cruelly overlooked by the Academy for so many years.

And yet, in spite of the peerless performance of this all-time great of the acting profession, the film is, not to put too fine a point on it, a pile of steaming cack. And, as such, I recommend it hugely. Don't make the mistake I made, though: this is not a film to watch sober, or alone. Alcohol is essential.

The glorious awfulness of this film just can't be exaggerated. It's a melodrama in the purest sense, with Raul Julia putting in a superb scenery-chewing performance as the wonderfully villainous M. Bison. Basically, he's Dr. Evil, and possibly the most fun character to play in all of cinema history. Most of the rest of the cast are quite obscure actors, although it's fun to spot all the characters from the game as they appear. No less a figure than Simon Callow appears as an officious type, causing a hilariously over-the-top from Van Damme as Colonel William F. Guile, a US marine with a suspiciously Belgian accent. Kylie Minogue is…. good to look at.

The plot is pure hokum involving a ransom demand and much twirling of moustaches, pointless violence and all the things you'd expect, but it's nice to see so many gladiatorial style one-on-one combats, reflecting the game, and all of the characters get a little glory except Dhalsim, my favourite, who doesn't even seem to have his cool Mr. Fantastic-style powers.

The most eye-goggling thing about the whole film is the series of bad jokes recited over the closing credits, and the post-credits scene basically reveals that M. Bison has Windows '95. But the thing as a whole is a very silly and hugely entertaining pile of crap. Much recommended.