American History X 2

Oliver Stone’s latest offering is a 10 part documentary called The Untold History of the United States. Covering the self styled ‘Amurican Century’ Stone weaves a somewhat supercilious narrative in and around the significant events of his country’s ascendance into it’s current militaristic and materialistic hegemony. It’s competently put together and does a decent enough job I suppose but it’s hardly Untold, occasionally simplistic and progressively less factual. Hats off to Stone for giving it a bash though as it’s a bold and brave thing to attempt and you never know it might even spark some navel gazing in the average Yank viewer.

Ken Burns' is considerably more talented documentarian and his latest, elegiac documentary The Dust Bowl provides ample evidence. A decade of drought and the ravenous agricultural expansion throughout the prairie lands of 30’s America led to a devastating, quite unfathomable series of dust storms that frequently blotted out the sun, eclipsing towns and even cities and impoverishing a generation of Yank farmers. Over the 4 hours Burns slowly charts the devastation and desperation this tragedy caused relying heavily on some rather moving testimony from a the few remaining witnesses to colour his austere cinematography and archival sources.

Terrorising TV

Tommy Lee Jones stars as a Vietnam vet who wigs out and takes control of Central Park in the ropey 80’s TV movie The Park is Mine. Using his military skills and his dead buddy’s war plan, Jones seals off the greenery for 48hrs to highlight the plight of neglected vets and faces off against the police and national guard desperate to oust him. Jones shouts his way through the script as if it was written in capitols and there’s a tonne of unintentionally amusing lines and though there’s some action to be had it’s mostly non-lethal in a tragically A-Team kind of way. Like a neutered Rambo, here it is anyway just in case you’re a fan of the so bad it’s good stuff.

The Town that Dreaded Sundown, on the other hand, is a grittier affair, mainly due to it’s docu-drama approach, based as it is on an actual series of murders in ‘40’s Texarkana. A masked man stalks the neighbourhood slaughtering a variety of locals and the police are stymied by a lack of clues and his erratic MO. With a titchy budget and little acting skill on display it’s quite surprising that it manages to muster a reasonably unsettling atmosphere but it does, maybe it’s the murky/cheap cinematography or the weird nature of the crimes themselves but it’s definitely worth a look. Getting a remake apparently.

Dark Dabbler Docs

Maya Deren’s hypnotic footage is the basis for the documentary Divine Horsemen about Haitian Voodoo.

Interesting if amusingly muddled BBC documentary about English Witchcraft circa 1971.

A surprisingly even handed but brief documentary about the life of Aleister Crowley.

Tepid Telly Terrors

Spectre is a hoary TV movie of psychic intrigue and satanic worship from the bonce of Gene Roddenberry and starring Robert Culp and John Hurt. A pair of criminologists join forces to investigate a case involving demons and black magic rituals after being contacted by a damsel in distress but even before their flight to London and they find themselves beset by dark forces. The made for tv budget is stretched beyond breaking point by some crummy effects and the plodding script leaves the actors floundering, relying on meaningful (but idiotic) expressions to carry the plot forward. The whole thing is as scary as a cheese sandwich and a complete waste of time.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow manages it's modest TV budget a little better despite it's plot being just as hackneyed. When a local girl is mauled by a dog, the town 'tard gets blamed and a posse of enraged rednecks, finding him hiding as a scarecrow, mercilessly riddle him with bullets only to find themselves hunted by an apparition after their acquittal. Charles Durning dominates the film as the creepy posse mouthpiece mainly because the rest of the cast snooze their way through their lines and although it's a fairly tame tale of revenge it manages a few wisps of atmosphere along the way.

Sound Small Screenery

The Deadly Tower stars Kurt Russell as notorious sniper killer Charles Whitman in a taut dramatisation of his clock tower rampage. Made for American TV this modest little feature sticks, as far as I can discern, to the facts of the terrible tragedy and this spartan almost documentary approach actually adds to the tension and brutality as Whitman's careful preparation soon turns into callous mass murder. Whitman's robotic character and lack of dialogue isn't exactly a demanding role but Russell does a decent enough job, much like the rest of the cast and despite the bare bones production there's plenty of atmosphere with a leaden dread giving way to the manic randomness of the slaughter.

John Carpenter's TV movie effort Someone's Watching Me is a psychological thriller about a woman endlessly stalked by a stranger after moving into a new apartment. Carpenter skillfully, carefully builds the tension as the besieged Lauren Hutton's torment escalates and violence becomes inevitable. The script is a bit workmanlike and the plot a little hackneyed (only after being retread for the past 30 years or so but there's plenty to enjoy here with Hutton putting in an excellent effort while Carpenter works his particular nerve jangling magic to excellent effect.

Classic Creations

Quatermass and the Pit was broadcast live for the Beeb in 1958 and it's a glorious slice of vintage speculation that reeks of it's era and has a wonderfully British sense of understatement. Professor Quatermass, stiff lipped maverick scientist, fresh from a row at the War Office, is dragged to a building site turned archaeological dig that's unearthed a mysterious craft in a 5 million year old strata with some curious alien corpses inside. Despite the amusingly dated styling and script there's plenty of vigour in the plot and a few wisps of genuine atmosphere as the well mannered team find themselves besieged by incomprehensible forces. This is brilliant stuff but something that's probably only going to appeal to fans of retro scifi.

Frankenstein: The True Story is a reasonable, if mis-titled, TV mini-series version of the classic horror. I was expecting some sort of psychological retelling of the man-made monster but it's quite plain interweaving of the original with the sequel The Bride of... . When the naive Dr assists a demented colleague and inherits his life giving experiments his first bash slowly turns into a disaster and he's offered a second go, this time with lady bits, but it quite unsurprisingly it all ends in tears. The production is decent and the talents of James Mason and David MacCallum assist with proceedings so although I was a little disappointed with the unimaginative retelling it was still an entertaining 3hrs of vintage scifi.

HBO Home Truths

HBO has built up a fair catalogue of high quality TV productions and The Notorious Bettie Page is a good example of their efforts. Shot in a beautiful monochrome the biopic follows the career of the (in)famous model who appeared in a bevy of glamour and bondage magazines in the 1950's. Gretchen Mol fleshes out the naive, big hearted wannabe starlet with panache and is supported with a number of recognisable faces but the script/plot are a little timid and like so many biopics it struggles to balance the events of the subject's history with the necessary character development. Still it's a good watch and I can think of worse ways to spend 90mins than stare at Mol romping about in her undercrackers.

Citizen X is a dramatisation of the true story of a Soviet serial killer who managed to kill 50 before being caught. Stephen Rea's trammeled detective is tasked with the hunt by his sly boss, played by Donald Sutherland, and the pair must thwart Moscow's interference and professional incompetence in their years long search for the murderer. Though it's not as pretty to look at as Bettie Page the script and performances provide an effective atmosphere of quiet, tragic desperation though Rea does occasionally drift into Droopy-esque levels of morosity.

Adapted Selves

It's been a long time since I read H G Wells' The Invisible Man but the 1984 BBC adaptation seems faithful to a fault. Obsessed with optics the antihero almost ruins himself in his pursuit of a technique to induce invisibility but his irascible nature drifts into murderous megalomania after he succeeds in his experiments. Though the characters and setting seem amusingly quaint by today's standards the menace and tremulous rage of Pip Donaghy's performance as Griffin provide the dark heart to this production. Originally shown as 6 25 min episodes I was happy to gulp the whole lot down in one go but be warned if you're unfamiliar with the original novel you'll probably be surprised by the decidedly modest, almost low key adventuring.

Herman Hesse's beautiful, lyrical novel Siddhartha got the big screen treatment back in 1972 and like Invisible Man it's a remarkably faithful version but inevitably fails to muster the same spiritual potency of the original. A young brahmin leaves his luxurious home to wander the forest with some rishis and during his spiritual journey encounters the traditional obstacles to the path of enlightenment. It's well acted and has a musing Indian score but somehow it feels a little rushed and the cinematography is surprisingly humdrum. A good film but with a little more care this could have been something special.

Potter's Potted Pasts

Dennis Potter was a film & television writer/director of some distinction, a proper auteur with a stinging intellect and much bravado. Singing Detective freaked me out as a child but I kept watching, mainly due to Potter's fondness for sex and gratuitous nudity but it's the television interview he did shortly before his death that I remember more than anything else (watch here) so I've decided to entertain myself with some of his oeurve. First up is Dreamchild a strange retelling/biopic of the adventures of Lewis Carroll's Alice peppered throughout with creatures from Jim Henson's Studio. An elderly Alice, on her first visit to the States to receive an honorary degree, recounts her childhood with the awkward, stammering author and with fact and fallacy tripping over one another she tries to reconcile those experiences and face up to her current situation. Dodgson is nicely played by Ian Holm and the ambiguity about his affections for the young girl are sensitively handled in Potter's script. As it progresses this seemingly slight period piece reveals a maturity and darkness to it's ruminations of memory and the telling of tall tales.

The colourful and fascinating life of Franz Anton Mesmer, the famed animal magnitiser/proto-hypnotist/deluded mystic (take your pick) is the focus of another of Dennis' scripts, the imaginatively titled Mesmer. If you're unaware his career for ailing the sick took off from the upper class salons of Paris in the late 18th C and against the prevailing wisdom of blood letting his theories and practises as well as other medical dingbattery swept across Europe. Now is not the time for debating what was actually going on with Mesmerism but there's little doubt that he did assist some of his early patients and Potter manages to nicely reflect the contradictory aspects of this showman/caregiver/fantasist/letch instead of taking the easy route and just piling on the scorn. Rickman clearly enjoyed his flavoursome role in this modest, occasionally amusing little biopic it's just a shame the sound production is a bit dodgy and ultimately they wasted too much time on the early part of his career.

Family, Friends & Foes

The Green Man is a 3 part BBC adaptation of a Kingsley Amis novel and stars Albert Finney as a rakish hotelier who's in charge of a luxurious but haunted country gastro-retreat. Unfortunately Finney's constant womanising and alcoholism have strained his family relations to breaking point and after his father dies our protagonists ghostly visions take on a more corporal form. Originally written in the 60's and adapted in the 90's it's showing it's age a bit but Finney's excellent performance and the curious brew of comedy, sex and horror keep things nicely afloat as he drifts between revulsion and temptation by the offer made by an evil cleric. All in all good
(not so clean) supernatural fun - must root around for the book.

Wild Palms will, no doubt, always be overshadowed by Twin Peaks, which preceded it by a year or so, but it's a clever 6 part scifi mini-series about technology and power that probably has more resonance than ever in our current milieu. As a new interactive, holographic TV system is about to be launched a corporate lawyer finds his family and world turned upside down when he's drawn into a conflict between two groups vying for the future, the Fathers and the Friends, the former helmed by a demented CEO determined to translate recent successes into political power and digital immorality. There's big buckets of talent involved on and off screen - Oliver Stone producing, Kathryn Bigelow directing and Belushi, Loggia, Dourif, Dickinson and a trailer load of other familiar faces starring but it's actually the script that shines through for once with the crisp dialogue sheltering a careful ambiguity. Like Green Man, the past 20 years haven't done it any favours and maybe Belushi is a bit out of his depth but it's still a potent, if unheard, clarion call about the dangers of mixing corporations with politics.

All Things Must Pass

Season Two of V closes and apparently it's all but dead now, not a huge loss but it's ironic that the show plodded along wasting loads of episodes and only finally picks up the pace as they try to tie up loose ends by packing in the action. Anyways it was always too glossy and pristine for me and fleshing out the original seemed to stretch their plotting and scripting ability. You never know but another network might give it a final season and I'd probably watch to see if they can build on the momentum.

Star Wars: Clone Wars closed on another double ep adventure with Ashoka Tano, Anakin's student, kidnapped from the battlefield and thrown into a game reserve for reptilian hunters. It's not a strong finale with a derivative plot and some tiresome moralising and there's an over reliance on fanboy gasms to perk up the second half with the appearance of Chewbacca. This series has been a bit hit & miss and the 5-ep arc mid season where Anakin sees his terrible future and then has it wiped from memory was more than a bit naff, in fact that whole balance-planet bit was guff. Not sure why I keep watching to be honest; not as if I'm a big Star Wars fan, but it's occasionally amusing and the animation is top shelf I just wish they'd concentrate more on Anakin's slow corruption.

I seriously doubt I'll be watching anymore No Ordinary Family now it's almost limped to the finish line of season one. If you haven't seen it, it's a Heroes meets The Incredibles type thing with Mackie from The Shield heading a super powered family in an awkward mix of action and soap with the kids abusing their powers at school while their parents drift into crime fighting and primary level investigations. It's cheesy and not funny though there's glimmers of a better show occasionally, maybe if the kids had been older, college age or the plot more thoroughly developed it could have been great. I'll watch the finale but that's it.

Moreish Danish

Forbrydelsen aka The Killing is an accomplished Danish TV show doing the rounds on BBC4/iplayer at the moment and it's really entertaining stuff. A blend of Prime Suspect and State of Play as politics and murder intertwine around the brutal murder of a pretty school girl. Well acted throughout and with a fine central performance from Sofia Grabol as the strung out but determined detective tasked with leading an investigation that soon points towards the office of a high rising politician vying for election. I'm sure some of the subtitling fumbled over a few nuances and it's nothing particularly original but overall it reeks of quality, an adult, complex thriller that manages it's twists without the corn and is highly addictive stuff. The US un-make is about to air across the pond.

Sofia Grabol reprises her role as the dogged Lund in the the second series of Forbrydelsen and I am glad, her performance dominated the first season and with good reason. Anyways in this second grisly tale of murder Lund puts herself through the wringer once again in a desperate search for the truth, hindered by the shenanigans of the powers-that-be while trying to investigate the murders of soldiers which appear to relate to events in Afghanistan. There's only 10 eps this time round and I think that was a good idea as the oh-so relevant plot began to grate a little as it crams down the war-issues with gay abandon and it the character arcs are not dissimilar to the first but who cares despite these faults this is high quality TV, a very rare thing indeed, I'm sure it'll appear soon enough so make an effort as it's another thrilling, capably acted drama that rocks along like crack. If you enjoy this sort of stuff you should maybe try King's Game, there's enough similarity between the two that I wondered if they shared the same behind the scenes peeps (they don't) and also Nightwatch. I still haven't started the 2nd series of Engrenages but it'll be tough to match the pacing and skills involved here. Anyone got some other Danish recommends?

No. 1 Loony Detective & Diabolical Dessert

The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It is an old tv special by John Cleese and Joe McGrath. Playing Sherlock's half witted grandson, Cleese undertakes a mission to foil arch nemesis Moriarty with help from a super dense, slightly bionic Watson played by Arthur Lowe. It's all very silly with pratfalls, sight gags and general idiocy and it's entertaining throughout with a good cast providing the laughs but it's uneven and a little rough round the edges. For Holmes buffs and fans of obscure, odd British comedy.

The Stuff is a highly amusing horror comedy from Larry Cohen. A industrial spy is hired to investigate the astonishing success of a pudding which appears to consist of sentient gloop from beneath the earth's surface and things get a little sticky. There's plenty of fun to be had despite the dodgy acting and the shonky FX and surprisingly it's got plenty of satirical bite with big business and governments besotted with the delicious Stuff's money making potential while our hero turns to some demented militia men to restore the country. Another classic B from Cohen.

Hurt's Pain & Bill Double

Whistle and I'll Come to You has had a Xmas TV remake and it's actually quite good though most of it's success lies with John Hurt's excellent performance. Hurt plays an aging academic taking a little seaside break in a crummy hotel and after finding a ring on the beach he begins to feel a touch haunted. The original was a slender piece so they've fleshed out the story a little but essentially it's the same old fashioned chiller that ruminates over memory and loss. I hope the Beeb give some other M. R. James stuff similarly adept reworkings.

After enjoying Nothing Lasts Forever I thought I'd treat myself to some more back-cat Bill Murray during the Festivus lazy days so first up is Quick Change, a comedic bank robbery caper which seems to have erm inspired a recent Spike Lee film. Anyways Murray stages a cunning robbery dressed as a clown but during their escape things begin to unravel. A witty comedy that gives Murray plenty of room for laughs - strange it's never had a R2 dvd release.


Next up is Stripes - a film I haven't seen since a kid but I've fond memories of. Harold Ramis, John Candy and Judge Reinhold all assist deadbeat Bill Murray wisecrack and charm his way in and out of military mischief after enlisting as a Marine on a whim. After rewatching it those fond memories are most probably due to the appearance of some fine 80's titties and a brief bush flash but besides these attractions it's an enjoyable old-school, all-for-one comedy with some decent laughs along the way. Not as brilliant as Caddyshack or Buffalo but still worth watching.

Curtis' Critique Continues

The Trap: What Happened to our Dream of Freedom is yet another excellent Curtis documentary series charting the theories dominating our notions of liberty. Over the three parts he digs into game theory & the rise of the DSM, Labour's statistical reductionist obsessions and Dawkins' Selfish Genes and finally concluding his theory of state/market psychological manipulation with discussion of Isaiah Berlin's +/- liberty and the unfortunate consequences that have been meted out to us all due to Bliar & co's experiments. Though Curtis occasionally gets distracted in his longer series this 3-parter is tight and quite focused and as usual it's all expertly enmeshed with audio snippets, film stock, archive footage etc a filmy trademark he pretty much owns now surely. I will try to stop banging on about Curtis soon - I've only got one series left - but if you want further evidence of his worthiness he'd just posted an excellent piece about B.F. Skinner, Camo & a systematised future.

The Marionette's First March

Alfred Hitchcock Presents, despite being over fifty years old, is still fantastic entertainment & well worth watching and it certainly makes you think about where TV went wrong with our screens currently packed with reality/talent show garbage. Each episode famously begins with Hitchcock himself providing an introduction usually with dollops of sarcasm and a gentle dig at his sponsors) and the plays themselves cover a wide spectrum of genres, time periods, tones etc. They're all beautifully shot, well scripted and sport talented casts including Claude Rains, Charles Bronson, Lorne Greene & Peter Lawford.

Some of my favourites from the 39 ep first series include Breakdown - about a man paralysed during a car accident, A Bullet for Baldwin - an office worker kills his boss only to find him back at work the next day, Whodunit - a mystery writer is allowed to relive his last day so he can uncover his murderer and And So Died Riabouchinska about a troubled ventriloquist. I've embedded The Cheney Vase for your perusal below, sorry can't find any others.

Box of Delights

Pandora's Box is an early documentary series by Adam Curtis. First aired in 1992 it's a typically idiosyncratic overview of the social engineering theories that dominated so many lives in the 20th Century all wonderfully mashed together with archive footage and talking head interviews. Over the six episodes Curtis discusses Soviet machinations, American game theory, British Economic jiggerypokery, DDT and the science/industry interface, Ghanaian industrial dreams crushed and nuclear power, phew. Though it's dated a bit since it's airing and he's covered some of the material in following programmes this is still a fascinating series that should be lapped up by documentary lovers. And check out his blog.

Quizzing it with Dali, Zappa & Malcolm X

Small Screen Screams

The Walking Dead is a new TV zombie series helmed by Frank Darabont. The 90 min opener is pretty amazing, you certainly can't accuse it of pulling it's punches with an uncompromising first death and some splendid fx. Andrew Lincoln stars as a Sheriff who wakes in hospital to find flesh eaters have taken over and after donning his uniform begins the search for his wife and kid. I've never read the novels but can't wait for the next episode it's just a shame AMC only had the confidence to make 6 episodes in the first season.

The first season of Psychoville was not bad, not quite League of Gents standard but a nice dark tale of local lunatics and their shared misery. The Halloween special is a portmanteau of stories adding background to the original characters all neatly framed by a story about a yoof showing a TV producer around the delipatated loony bin Ravenhill. It was ok, not scary but still pretty funny with some good lines along the way and tied itself nicely into the finale of the original series.

I Like Chinese

Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut) is a 6 hour documentary series about the Python team in a exhaustive Beatles Anthology type stylee. All the surviving members appear, with Chapman in video form, rambling about their work and the behind the scenes egos etc and over the six episodes they pretty much cover everything from inspirations, first steps, success, the movies and cracking the States. I'd have preferred a bit more detail about the making of the original shows and as a fan there wasn't too much I hadn't heard before but it's a good watch, with some amusing talking heads and plenty of clips. Strange then that it hasn't appeared on UK TV? apparently the Beeb have only aired a 1hr cut last year but Finland, Israel & New Zealand have all shown the 6hr version? I get Finland but why not it show here? I bet the stoopid BBC are sitting on it for some anniversary or something. Twits.