Trailer of the Week - Theatre of Blood

Getting back into the blogging saddle again, so amongst other things, we're doing this again!  However, there is a sad reason for this week's choice.  Today we all received the terrible news that legend of stage and screen Dame Diana Rigg has passed away aged 82.  She has had a huge, notable career; in recent years she gained a whole new legion of fans for the part of Oleanna Tyrell in Game of Thrones, however she first became a household name thanks for her role of Mrs. Emma Peel in The Avengers.  Taking over as Honor Blackman had departed the role of Cathy Gale, she instantly became a true icon of a character, not least for her fashions.  (Fun fact comics fans; one particular episode of The Avengers, A Touch of Brimstone, was a big influence on The Dark Phoenix Saga in the X-Men, down to the outfit Rigg wore).  She then followed that up with her role as Tracey in On Her Majesty's Secret Service; not just a Bond girl though, this was the one that 007 actually fell in love with, and with Rigg in the role, you can believe why.  The ending of OHMSS still knocks me for six to this day, it's my favourite of the whole series.  She had a whole bundle of great roles over the years, including a few wonderfully OTT turns, like in The Great Muppet Caper and Evil Under the Sun.  To pay tribute to her, I'd like to reference a personal favourite of mine, one where it's clear she's having the time of her life in the part; 1973's Theatre of Blood...

The Film Canary - The New Mutants

It's very hard these days to approach a big studio film without preconceptions.  In this age of internet muckraking clickbaiting scu- erm, I mean 24/7 film journalism, you can often build up in your head quite a picture of a movie from all the sneak peaks, reveals at conventions, big news stories etc. way before you see it.  That isn't helped from entertainment press' urge to make every little thing that happens a big deal, portraying it as some sort of crisis, nearly always making mountains out of molehills.  For example, reshoots happen all of the time, they're not really that big a deal, and often they do work out for the best.  However, I think it's safe to say that The New Mutants is a case when the exaggeration wasn't that necessary, this thing seems to have been straight up cursed from the luck it's had, to the point that I'd only be half joking if I was to say that it feels like the outbreak of a pandemic was par for the course given it's luck.  That trailer below, the April 13th release date at the end?  That was originally April 13th 2018!  I am an amateur that takes this seriously though, so I'm writing this before going in to say that I am going to judge this purely on the state of the finished product.  There have been films made that were nightmares to shoot that you wouldn't have guessed from their completed state, so I'm going to set aside my foreknowledge of the troubled history of this one in watching it as best as I can.  If I do bring it up again, it will be purely to say whether or not the film transcends these problems, or if they really impact the finished article.  Right, into the cinema, with mask and hand sanitiser ready, let's see how it's turned out.

:One viewing later:

Well, I'm going to be bringing up the whole troubled production thing A LOT, and not because the film transcended it.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2020 - Fundraising Begins

It's that time again!  Start the jingle!

"Two more months till Halloween!
"Halloween!
"Halloween!
"Two more months till Halloween!
"Silver Shamrock!"

Canary Duty - Tenet, and a bit about cinema in the time of COVID

Woo, I'm back!  Now, before I talk about the film itself, I should address the experience of returning to cinema at all.  Since this whole lurgy business began, I've been wondering a bit about whether I've been tempting fate with my title of Canary, as I don't think it's ever been more appropriate than with this trip.  I was hmming and ha-ing about whether or not to go back to the cinemas, however I managed to book for a nearly empty screening at Odeon Swiss Cottage this morning (just me near the front, an elderly couple right at the back), and had a free promo code, so it seemed a relatively low risk in the grand scheme of things.  Besides, I work in a school, so in terms of risk, work will be the bigger one.  In the end, I think Odeon have mostly got the right idea, in terms of blocking off seats either side when you book, making sure everyone stays in their areas, use of masks, and cleaning a lot, I felt pretty safe.  My one concern though is that it's still possible in their bookings to go right in front or behind someone, which is when you think about it a bigger risk than sat next to them, so that's far from ideal, and also being a small screening with a teeny audience I can't talk for when it gets busy.  I say if you're not comfortable with the idea of going back to the big screen yet, I understand and don't blame you at all; I felt reasonably safe the way things were, but I will say that if the screening looked any more busy, chances are I might not have bothered.   So yeah, I felt OK on this occasion, but I'm almost certainly not going back as regularly as I might for a little while yet.  With all that out of the way then, here's the question; is Tenet the experience that demands to be seen on the big screen that will bring us all back to the multiplexes?

Lessons Not Learned - The Fall of the Studio System

Hey, I know, long time, no see.  Well, that's what comes from starting a new job, and then a whole mess of terror about an apocalyptic global event getting in the way, sorry.  Still, I think I have some new things to say on here.

Now I'm not a very big player of video games, but I am interested in them, and seeing what the games industry has been going through recently has been fascinating, if a bit saddening.  Major issues of systematic harassment, exploitation of staff, corruption, and still making utterly obscene profits on top of predatory business practices.  With recent legal interventions on some of these points occurring, as well as a few other recent things which I'll mention in a moment, it suddenly hit me that where the Triple-AAA games publishers are these days is very similar to where The Big Five Studios used to be before a slow-motion trainwreck of their own creation mangled them across the 1940s and 50s.  So it's time to also dust off my "Lessons Not Learned" title, for not a look at a film going wrong, but close to the entire US film industry going wrong, and how we can see a few parallels with things happening in the games industry today.

Best way I could think of illustrating old cinema and modern video games at the same time.

The Morlocks Will Be Right - Cummings and Goings

Hey, I've been quiet on here for a while, I know.  Well, the general level of global stress and bru-ha-ha has not been great for the ol' mental health, not exactly ideal writing conditions (and entering the brain-broiling heat of summer isn't exactly helping).  However, I decided that working constructively on here is perhaps one of the best forms of therapy I can have, so to that end, here's the start of a new little column, The Morlocks Will Be Right, which is me going full political.  If you don't get why it's called that, have a little think about what message a certain Mr. Wells was going for in his work.  This isn't going to be that regular, it's just more here to help clear my head whenever the world get too... interesting.  So with that in mind, let's talk about the Dominic Cummings situation.

The energy I'm going for.  Especially with my quarantine haircut.

Happy Birthday to Me - 34 More Underrated Films from my Lifetime

Well, I enjoyed doing it last year, I thought I'd try it again this one too.  As a little birthday treat for myself, here are 34 films that deserve a bit of a better reputation than they currently do.  They're not necessarily the best of that year, or true classics, and some do have a better reputation than others, they just all deserve to be a bit better known.  Some are well known to film geeks, but they really should be household names.  Others are a lot more obscure, and just an audience to find them.  How many of these have you seen?