Summer Ends - My Favourite Season Begins!

So as of tomorrow, it's the end of Summer.  Autumn right around the corner (well, it will be if climate change hasn't gotten that bad yet!).  Which means it's time for me to dust this off again; cue the music!

"TWO MORE MONTHS TILL HALLOWEEN!
"HALLOWEEN!
"HALLOWEEN!
"TWO MORE MONTHS TILL HALLOWEEN!

"SILVER SHAMROCK!"

A New Cause - Nice for the 2023 Worldcon

So as I mentioned last week, the 77th World Science Fiction Convention, Worldcon, was held in Dublin, and a grand time was had.  As usual after conventions, I now have an excess number of new books to read, a big recommendation list of things to catch up on (the Hugo Awards alone will do that), and a tonne of ideas for new panels I'd like to try running or contributing to at future events.  In fact, I've already started researching a few of the panel ideas, and am beginning to realise just how deep a rabbit hole some of these ideas are.  The good thing is that I do have a while before I need them, as Worldcon isn't going to back in Europe for a while.  Now next year's Worldcon is in New Zealand, which is a teeny bit out of reach for me, barring a sudden windfall.  2021 was formally confirmed as being Washington D.C., which I am toying with going for, if certain changes are made to who is residing in that large pale home there by the time of the con.  Currently there is only one bid for 2022, Chicago, and that's unlikely to change by the time of next year's vote.  Which makes 2023 the interesting one, as it's the first one in a while to now be a four horse race.

Just One More Thing - Killing Jerks

Decided to dust off an old title for here; Just One More Thing is the title I'm going to use for commenting on things that are happening, where I get to flex my inner Charlie Brooker.  For this week, I thought I'd talk about the Joker.  That trailer for the new R-rated Joker dropped this week, and I'm really not liking the look of it.  Not that it looks badly made, or poorly acted, or anything like that, and let's face it, you'd have to work hard to present a worse Joker than Jared Fucking Leto.  But the subject matter is bothering me; it's another story of a white guy getting treated a bit badly, told he can't have a thing he wants, deciding to take it out on everyone in a disproportionate way, and we the audience are asked to sympathise with them.  In the age of mass shootings every fucking week in America, it's very poor timing for this kind of thing, and in general I've never liked that sentiment.  The closest I ever came to really liking that sort of thing was Falling Down, only because at the end the film makes damn clear "Michael Douglas is the bad guy here", though only by literally saying it out loud.  But it's not really the film itself I have an issue with; it's some of the fans reacting to the premise, and how it links to the film's most likely source material.

A Look at the London Film Festival 2019 Line-Up!

It's that time again!  No, not for that, the other time.  No no, one along, next shelf down, by the bag of Quavers- yeah THAT time again!  October will be time for the annual BFI London Film Festival (LFF), now in it's 63rd year.  I have been going along to stuff there regularly since 2014, there are always some real treats to be found in store.  Also, in keeping on brand with my regular October Horror Movie Challenge (yeah, we're doing that on this blog again too), I always try to check out as much of their genre content as I can, and there's usually a fair amount of that to be found, especially since they started having a regular "cult" strand.  So with this in mind, the full line up has been announced today, let's have a look at some of what's in store this year?  Now this isn't necessarily going to be everything I see there (I'm not made of money and free time you know!), but they are things of my interest.

Yes, this is a real promo from back in the day!

Canary Duty - FrightFest Weekend Special

Yeah, trying something new out this time!  I saw a bunch of new horror films this weekend, two on general release, three at Arrow Video FrightFest, so I thought I'd do one big blog post of all five in one go.  Forcing myself to cut down on the waffling by just having one big paragraph per film.  Let's see how that works out after the page break.

Trailer of the Week - Train to Busan

So D23 has been going on this weekend, the latest boasting session from the juggernaut dominating global entertainment at the moment.  One big thing was showing off the cast of Marvel Studios' The Eternals.  Now that one is going to be interesting, as that property started off as Jack Kirby at his most... Kirby, a lot like his earlier Inhumans and New Gods stuff.  I'm really hoping though that Marvel learned from how the Inhumans series went down like a lead balloon  The cast was on stage for the presentation, including big names like Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan, Kit Harrington, and Salma Hayek.  There was also at least one other person there who's not nearly so much a household name, at least in in US and UK; Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee), a Korean actor making his English language debut in the Eternals, playing Gilgamesh.  I've seen him before, in terms of physical presence and charisma, he's an excellent choice.  If you'd like to see a good example of him in action before seeing The Eternals, then that's one of many, many reasons to seek out today's trailed film; the 2016 horror disaster blockbuster Train to Busan.

Canary Duty - The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Episode 1)

Ah, I knew I kept that BFI Membership for something!  Last night myself and a friend got to attend at the BFI Southbank a special preview event for one of Netflix's most anticipated productions of the year; the prequel series to 80s fantasy classic The Dark Crystal.  I have had a fondness for that film since I first saw glimpses of it on an old Palace Video promo reel, and I have quite a few good friends for whom it means a lot to them, so I have had big "pleasedon'tsuckpleasedon'tsuckpleasedon'tsuck" feelings about this one?  So were my concerns valid?

Trailer of the Week - Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

So it's a bit late, been busy at Worldcon in Dublin, but I wanted to write at least something on here, so let's do something related to my weekend.  On Sunday the latest Hugo Awards got announced, and it was quite the evening, from the first acceptance speech onwards.  Given the number of women and non-caucasian creators who received awards, I think it's safe to say that the days of the Sad Puppy movement are well and truly dead.  I was in the bar when a lot of the awards were announced, there were some big cheers for quite a few of the announcements including everyone going nuts when AO3 received the award for "Best Related Work".  Another one that got a great response was Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form, which went to today's title...

Trailer of the Week - Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films

Studios and film production companies these days are very much in the vein of major corporations, it's extremely rare to have an actual face of such organisations.  Sure you have some notable producers around, but few are synonymous with particular companies, bar a few notable exceptions, like Kevin Feige at Marvel Studios, Jason Blum for Blumhouse, and a certain pair of brothers who's entire cinematic legacy has gone down in infamy with them we will not discuss further.  But back in the day, the name of the producer was as big a selling point as the stars and/or director for some projects.  Which is funny, because quite a few of these names, if they weren't part of a big established studio, were basically Del-Boy-esque wheeler-dealers when it came to managing their projects.  You had Sir Lew Grade, who had good success on TV, but not so much in film, Dino De Laurentiis, always trying to one-up the big successes in his demented, continental way, and then there were Menahem Golan & Yoram Globus, the minds behind Cannon Films, subject of this documentary...

Trailer of the Week - Evil Under the Sun

Sorry for the quiet around here; a lot of personal stuff has been going on, including starting a new temp job, so not as much time for writing and seeing films.  But I'm going to try to keep more regular, this is basically my sort of therapy.  I'm aiming to do at least ten posts per month about various things, although I'm having to prepare a little backlog of posts as I have Worldcon in Dublin this month too.  So if things are erratic again, that's why.  Anyway, back to where I left off.  With the trailers I'd just done some Miss Marple, so let's turn our attention to Hercule Poirot, with 1982's Evil Under the Sun

This was the second outing for Peter Ustinov as the Belgian Sleuth, after Death on the Nile in 1977, and like that one the script was done by Anthony Shaffer, who also wrote The Wicker Man, and more relevant to this genre Sleuth.  It follows the path of the book well, with the main changes being the tone (it's another Guy Hamilton film, so high camp is the order of the day!) and the location.  The 1941 novel was set in Devon, and was based on a real hotel, Burgh Island, which I'd like to go to some time.  In fact, when this story was adapted for the Poirot TV series, they filmed at that hotel, using all the authentic details, like the weird tractor thing you have to use to get there when it's high tide.  This film on the other hand takes place in the Adriatic sea, near a Tintin-style made up country (ooh, another famous Belgian!).  It was filmed in Majorca in Spain, and whatever else you can say about this one, it looks gorgeous, the locations are superb.  Hamilton was rather limited by the English village surroundings in The Mirror Crack'd, here he's playing to his strengths.

As I said, a Guy Hamilton film means a larger-than-life style (look at his Bond films!), and this cast is no exception.  It's a fantastic group of performers in and of itself (James Mason, Sylvia Miles, Roddy McDowell...), but they all seem to be having a ball and letting loose.  There's a centre-piece moment of Diana Rigg and Maggie Smith singing a duet of a Cole Porter number, which is basically a polite way of telling each other to go f*** themselves, and it is glorious to watch.  The main mystery itself is a little bit rushed, although that may be because the film ditches a few red-herrings and such from the book, it streamlines the plot, which is fine when making a story feature length.  Also, the ending is a prime example of "the evil voice" principle in these mysteries, including milking the reveal to a ridiculous degree.  That's this film in a nutshell, it takes the humour up to almost an absurd level, but remembers that it has to deliver a satisfying whodunnit, so it knows when to reign things in, and importantly the murder itself is no laughing matter.  I do have a lot of fun with Ustinov's Poirot films, and whilst I think Death on the Nile is the better film, I think I enjoy this one more, if that makes sense.  I am curious to check out the TV films he did as Poirot though, especially as one of them includes David Suchet in the cast.

Bonus Trailer, here's a TV spot for the film, with some more of Ustinov talking to the audience as Poirot directly.  I love the way he pronounces "Rated PG"!