Malcolm in the Outskirts

Joseph Losey directed Malcolm McDowell and Robert Shaw (who also penned the adaptation) in a curious, enigmatic 1970 chase thriller Figures in a Landscape. The film opens with a helicopter scouring the countryside in search of two escapees, Shaw and McD, who, still bound by their never named captors, are in a desperate race to reach a unspecified mountainous border crossing. The spartan plot with it's deliberate obfuscation of almost all details and the stark cinematography foster an atmospheric backdrop for our central duo, who, driven a little mad by captivity and the intensity of their pursuers bicker, reminisce and murder their way across the land towards freedom harried by the seemingly ever present chopper. It's success lies in the two brilliant, searing performances at it's core, with Shaw and McDowell throwing everything they've got into these febrile, traumatised yet determined men. A fantastic film that's seemingly fallen between the cracks but has now tumbled out onto YouTube.


Malcolm McDowell appears in another cryptic thriller, a decade or so later, called The Caller that in the most part is even more abstruse. McDowell plays an unnamed caller at a woodland cabin inhabited by a peculiar single white female, their uneasy encounter soon develops into a vastly more convoluted relationship with a darker tone and some ugly twists. I'd like to say more but it's definitely one of those plots best left unspoiled however I will tell you that while Figures never provides answers to it's questions, The Caller does and the denouement is, er, quite a surprise. McDowell's ambiguous, slightly google eyed performance outshines his co-star's fractured turn and though the script is strong it falters in the final furlong. This film is all about the ideas & the mind games however and in that regard it deserves plenty of credit for it's ambition and chutzpah. A very strange but highly enjoyable little oddity.

The Great Antidote

Beautiful art from tinkering with ferrofluids. NewScientist.

Unusual and ancient structure found in Wales, BBC

Casual gaming appears to relieve anxiety and depression, via Reddit.

Interesting experiment into Freudian style unconscious anxieties. SciDaily.

The hunt is on for people with supersight. Discover.

Nice article about the gut over-riding the brain. Scientific American

Believing in Heaven or Hell appears to related to criminality. via Reddit.

Lichen can survive in space apparently, giving further credence to panspermia? SciDaily.

More Moon water evidence found. DailyGalaxy

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.

Three Threats Within

Craic & Hack Jobs

Brendan Gleeson plays a bored, feckless Garda stuck in an Irish backwater in the dark comedy The Guard, The rural quiet is disturbed when some drug traffickers reconnoiter the area for a large delivery of product and the FBI send Don Cheadle to assist in their capture. Gleeson dominates the film with some brilliant one liners and his hilarious Churchill dog face but with Cheadle, Mark Strong and Liam Cunningham providing solid support and a surprising poignancy mixed through the script it's a thoroughly enjoyable romp.

Gleeson and Cunningham reunite in supporting roles in the Denzel/Reynolds spy thriller Safe House. A bored 'housekeeper' has his tedium shattered when a high value, treasonous agent is brought in for interrogation followed by a hit squad that'll do anything to stop him coughing up his info, the pair escap and a series of noisy flashy action sequences and stagey battle of wits ensue. Denzel phones in one of his competent but lackadaisical performances while Ryan tries too hard to convince as a cross eyed tough man and the script, plot and action are straight from Hollywood's factory floor - hardly worth bothering with.

In to the Works

Strange & beautiful installation using old VHS tape. Via Reddit.
Some nice esoteric art gathered at a Brooklyn gallery recently, Phantasmaphile via BoingB
Henri Matisse illustrated an edition of Joyce's Ulysses, belated Happy Bloomsday courtesy of Brain Pickings.

Kidding Mr Hitler

An eye-patched Burt Lancaster leads his weary squad to make a stand in a sumptuous, art stuffed medieval castle in the slightly surreal, almost mythical Castle Keep. With the Germans approaching their position the soldiers try to make the most of the brief hiatus by luxuriating in their new found home and the local town's well stocked brothel while their Captain finds himself in bed with the Count's young wife. There's plenty of comedy in the script but it's subsumed in a pathos, a melancholy not just from the war but a semideranged sorrow for the passage of time so when the inevitable conflict arrives the violence and death seems almost welcomed. A fine looking film with some excellent performances, presumably neglected for it's more ambitious intentions.

The Passage, on the other hand, uses it's WW2 setting & talented cast to unfurl a lurid, action packed chase film with little more ambition than popcorn entertainment. Anthony Quinn stars a grumpy Basque shepherd who agrees to escort a scientist, played by James Mason, and his family over the Pyrenees while being chased by a thoroughly insane SS officer. In fact it's Malcolm McDowell's hyperbolic, super camp portrayal of the Nazi antagonist that makes the film, the other performances are fine but with a mediocre script & formulaic plot without McDowell romping about in a swastika jockstrap or a chef's hat this wouldn't be worth a second glance.

Space Spectacles

The Noctis Labyrinthus trench on Mars has curious, possibly hydrated deposits. Nat Geo.
Voyager 1 is about to become our first interstellar object, Reuters.
Thackeray's Globules apparently, APOD.