Mac-148 Reviews

The Looking Glass War (1970)

What is going on?

[1/10 · 6 June 2016]

The book is about shades of gray, about lost childhood, about impotent British institutions, about deception, loneliness, love, frailty and betrayal. It is about harking back to World War Two and old men looking in the mirror at themselves 20 years earlier. Or through the looking glass where everything verges on madness. The movie fails on every count. Cold and wet East Germany is dressed up as sunny California and the desperate, ill-judged and futile attempts of the spy, a complicated, working-class Pole, and his feeble, old handlers, are presented as some sort of hippie road trip for a James Dean look-alike. If ever a movie needed to stick to the text and, like "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", use the starkest and bleakest cinematography, this was it.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sigh

[3/10 · 12 February 2012]

The first episode of the BBC series sets the tone perfectly, introducing the key players and telling us what kind of people they are, all by just having them enter a room for a meeting without saying a word. The trouble with the movie version is that we never get the chance to know the characters. They are faceless people with difficult names and we don't care which one of them is the bad guy. I have read the book at least three times, seen the TV series twice and was still totally confused by the movie. Anyone who hasn't read the book, I would suggest, doesn't stand a chance. The grimy landscape around the Hotel Islay was nicely done. But why make every scene grimy? Where was the circus? Where were the lights of Shaftsbury Avenue? Where were the green fields around Jim Prideaux's prep school? The key scene with Connie Sachs is destroyed by a totally out-of-place crudity and the climax, when the mole is revealed, is thrown away with zero drama. What was going on?

Emmerdale Farm (1972– )

Will the real Patrick Mower please stand up?

[10/10 · 15 February 2009]

I used to watch Emmerdale Farm between shifts at the Charlie Chester Casino in Archer Street and loved it. That would be November 1976 and it starred a Scottish lad who used to be in Dr Who. My point is, anyone who watches it now, with Patrick Mower, has to read "Central Casting" by Jimmy McTee (http://stores.lulu.com/aroundthepeak), in which there is a Patrick Mower look-alike competition in Sri Lanka and he is given a chance to explain why he didn't become James Bond... Apparently he nearly made it, but lost out to Roger Moore for reasons not entirely satisfactory. But then in his CV he has Callan, which makes him a star straight away. Target I am not so sure about...

The Jigsaw Man (1983)

Wobbling its way to cult status

[3/10 · 5 January 2009]

Made after some of the best spy drama movies, including the TV adaptation of Le Carre's Smiley's People, you have to wonder how they got it so wrong. And with Michael Caine, Olivier and Charles Gray! And with the director of the grittiest early Bond movies! It was totally ridiculous as a story and as a film, but also hugely endearing to a Brit who has lived in Asia for over 25 years. I got the same pleasure watching this as I did in seeing the sets wobble in "The Builders" episode of Fawlty Towers. The whole thing wobbled, especially the acting. Oliver's mention of the leather chair to Michael Medwin was the only finely delivered line.

Address Unknown (2001)

Dog of a movie

[20 April 2002]

There's a scene in this film where a man plays with a puppy. When the puppy, wagging its tail, approaches, the man, at first affectionate, slaps its nose. Two or three times. It is the most heartless moment in a cruel and vacuous movie. The cruelty is everywhere and stops the audience caring about anyone or anything. Except the dogs. Couple of questions. How does a bullet in the eye get fixed with what looks like soy sauce? Since when did a traditional Korean family allow a teenage daughter to bonk her U.S. soldier boyfriend in the family home? And where did the director drag up those American actors? Friday night in Itaewon? Boy oh boy they were bad. The boyfriend was bad, out of control and saying truly scary things. He blamed it all on the Korean mountains that were closing in on him. Hello? Calling Planet Earth? On top of that, in a movie set in the 1970s, no period pop music. Unforgivable. A real dog.

The Beach (I) (2000)

I'll take Phuket

[27 July 2001]

Some one took a wrong turn somewhere. What is the attraction of a beach community, albeit in beautiful Thailand, run by an abrasive Englishwoman and which sleeps together in a big dorm and everyone gives each other malicious glances before lights out? And then organised cricket after breakfast? Give me Patong beach and the bars any time.

Alexander Nevsky (1938)

Stalin's fingerprints all over it

[7 April 2001]

I have just seen this with the score played live by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Latvia state choir... Boy oh boy. The music is fantastically good. The strings at the beginning of the battle scene are fever pitch. The film isn't fantastically good. Wooden acting, clumsy action and bad studio sets. The Americans and Brits were putting out much better, or at least much more watchable, propaganda at the same time. But Stalin liked the rushes, apparently. And who's going to argue with him? The highlight of the evening was discovering Sergei Prokofiev (who died on the same day as Stalin) and finding out that I live in a town with a superb orchestra.

Instinct (1999)

"Cuckoo's Nest" meets "Silence of the Lambs" meets "Bambi"

[16 March 2001]

Sure there is a good message here, but if you are over 12, the delivery is self-indulgent and mawkish and, but for the presence of Hopkins, unbearable. And that penultimate scene, where Hopkins is at the window and Cuba Gooding is crying into his shoulder? I understand why that guy in the crash helmet kept banging his head against the wall.

Hannibal (2001)

Tacky and offensive

[24 February 2001]

I read somewhere that Hopkins had turned down the sequel because he didn't like the violence. What happened? The very last scene, on the plane, was tacky, offensive and unforgivable. Maybe I'm getting old, but wouldn't everyone on this move have felt a whole load better if they hadn't done it? The video will be watched, by mistake or otherwise, by toddlers. And what will they make of it?

Meet the Parents (2000)

Stay in Chicago

[6 January 2001]

No one looks comfortable in this because the script is appalling. Its targets are deliberately politically incorrect, which is okay, but the jokes are repetitive and feeble. The movie is arrogant, soft, complacent and lazy. De Niro, probably my favourite actor, flounders. But I liked his hair.

The Tender Trap (1955)

Deconstructing Frank

[8 November 2000]

The start of this film isn't promising. Another dated 1950s sex comedy with a lot of babes. And then it takes off at a tangent and gets serious, deconstructing the bachelor heel played by Frank. Debbie Reynolds is magnificent as the love interest who is frankly very strange. The scene where she falls for Frank as he plays the title song on the piano, and the scene in her apartment where she declares her love, are unique. Stick with this movie.

Patch Adams (1998)

Mindy and Mawkish

[14 October 2000]

Robin Williams does it again, pulling at every heart string with his fists, manipulating his audience with complete lack of respect for human rights, and playing an anti-establishment (fill in the blank -- English teacher, doctor, U.S. armed forces radio presenter in Vietnam). Shameless, mawkish nonsense. I would have kicked this guy out of medical school too. I would have injected him with something toxic. I would have also instructed him to watch Jimmy Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy to see how to combine funny and poignant.

Meet Joe Black (1998)

So, um, er, is there a god?

[14 October 2000]

Loved the coffee shop scene and the sense of joy on the faces of two beautiful, young people. But that gets lost when Brad Pitt decides to play the Grim Reaper as a sleepy Mr Bean. And what was it with all the hesitations? There was a chance here to explore, lightly or profoundly, an interesting area. How come Anthony Hopkins doesn't ask a few more questions about life after death, about God, about good and evil, about chance, about what Gene Kelly's up to these days? Silly movie, but enjoyable.

North by Northwest (1959)

What were they drinking in the dining car?

[10 October 2000]

The crop duster scene is brilliant. So is the scene at the big house (but why go to the trouble of installing and moving the liquor?). And the scene at the police station -- Cary Grant leaning against the cop like a dancer. And the sea of red hats at the station in Chicago. And the scary photography of the U.N. building. And the auction scene (the woman sitting next to Cary Grant cannot keep a straight face). And the house at Mount Rushmore. And the Bond-like changes of location which give repeat viewers something to look forward to. My only big question: on which planet was the dialogue in the dining car written? Boy, it must have been tough being a grown-up in 1959.

Bullitt (1968)

The movie that taught me not to smile

[3 September 2000]

Steve McQueen was so cool, I thought when I first saw the movie, that I decided then on that this antihero stuff was the way to go. Now, more than 30 years later, people keep telling me to smile. But I saw Bullitt, I tell them. And he never smiled. Except briefly, and irresistibly, at his English girlfriend across the table in the restaurant. I saw this movie again yesterday and still liked it, especially the pace. The plot lost me, but suspect that was deliberate. The scene in the corner store where he packs up the TV dinners sums up McQueen's attraction - dispensing with what other people find necessary and pleasant as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Bullitt (1968)

The movie that taught me not to smile

[3 September 2000]

Steve McQueen was so cool, I thought when I first saw the movie, that I decided then on that this antihero stuff was the way to go. Now, more than 30 years later, people keep telling me to smile. But I saw Bullitt, I tell them. And he never smiled. Except briefly, and irresistibly, at his English girlfriend across the table in the restaurant. I saw this movie again yesterday and still liked it, especially the pace. The plot lost me, but suspect that was deliberate. The scene in the corner store where he packs up the TV dinners sums up McQueen's attraction - dispensing with what other people find necessary and pleasant as quickly and painlessly as possible.

The World Is Not Enough (1999)

Time to hand this franchise over to the Americans

[25 November 1999]

Bond films should be rollercoaster rides with a brutal leading man and menacing baddy. The baddy in this film was about as menacing as my window cleaner. Why didn't they exploit the fact he felt no pain? At the end, he could have grinned with that nuclear rod sticking out his back.

The action was as weak as an episode of the Persuaders. That ski chase? Please. Boats, one of them a toy, whining around Docklands? The action was 200 times more exciting in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. And how did a director who brought us the wonderful Coal Miner's Daughter fail to exploit the Bond music? And the script (oh do pipe down 007)...

Sorry, but it's time to hand this franchise over to the Americans who know how to use technology, sound and vision. I have in mind Armageddon and Speed. Wonderful cast wasted. How could a director manage to screw up John Cleese's timing?