Steve

21 July 2014-07-21

2022-11-132014-07-18 by Steve

Out in the UK This Week The Lego Movie (Warner, cert U, Blu-ray/DVD) Normally I watch a film and take notes as I go. With The Lego Movie I hardly managed any, because there was so little of the film that wasn’t packed to bursting with stuff – action, jokes, new characters, new twists on old characters, yet more awesome blocky Legotastic animation. The Lego Movie doesn’t make the Wreck-It Ralph mistake. Instead it sticks to a simple plot and pursues it to the end. Which is… The Matrix meets Star Wars – the nobody who becomes the somebody who can save the world. The voice work is fun, with Liam Neeson growling away as … Read more

Shadow Dancer

2023-10-272014-07-18 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 19 July IRA declare ceasefire, 1997 On this day in 1997, the Provisional Irish Republican Army declared that hostilities with Britain were over. It had come into being, in its modern form, in 1969 after increasing unrest over campaigns for more civil rights for Catholics had resulted in the mass deployment of the British Army in Northern Ireland. There had been several ceasefires before, most recently in 1994 when secret talks between the IRA and the British government had led to negotiations about proper talks to secure a settlement. When the British government announced that it wouldn’t go into talks with … Read more

Mister Lonely

2023-10-272014-07-17 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 18 July Papal infallibility proclaimed, 1870 On this day in 1870, the Catholic church declared that certain utterances by its pope were to be considered infallible – they could not be wrong. The Church had long held that pronouncements made by the pope in his official capacity, and speaking ex cathedra, had a universal truth to them, basing this notion on Jesus Christ’s words to Peter, the first Pope – “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed … Read more

4

2026-09-172014-07-16 by Steve

The infamous "drunken-vodka-breasts" sequence from 4

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 17 July Czar Nicholas II and family executed, 1918 On this day in 1918, the former ruler of Russia, Nicholas Romanov, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias, having had a disastrous reign during which he had presided over the collapse of his once-great country, was shot and killed, along with his family. He had abdicated the year before, after a series of military defeats and revolutions, culminating in the February Revolution of 1917. For a while his family had lived under house arrest but in comparative luxury, though rations had increasingly been tightened and servants had been dispensed with as the … Read more

The Hi-Lo Country

2023-10-272014-07-15 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 16 July Potsdam Conference, 1945 On this day in 1945, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Harry Truman arrived in Potsdam, where they were over the next two weeks to decide the shape of the world in the wake of the Second World War. The three powers had met before, at Yalta, in 1945 while the war was still coming to an end, when Franklin Roosevelt was still alive, and before then in Tehran in 1943, when it had started to look like the Allies might be triumphant. Germany had surrendered nine weeks before Potsdam, and the conference largely was about Germany’s … Read more

An Ordinary Execution

2023-10-272014-07-14 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 15 July John Ball hanged, drawn and quartered, 1381 On this day in 1381, a charismatic priest called John Ball was killed publicly in front of the monarch of England, Richard II. Ball had been a “hedge” priest, roaming the countryside, unattached to a parish, a “Lollard” who believed the Church to be corrupt. In prison in Maidstone at the time of 1381’s Peasants’ Revolt – a rebellion against too much taxation, villeinage (ie slavery), corvée (obligatory unpaid labour) and the new laws making it illegal to refuse work on the grounds that the pay was too low (the Black Death had … Read more

14 July 2014-07-14

2022-11-132014-07-13 by Steve

Out in the UK This Week Under the Skin (StudioCanal, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD/digital) Brian Glazer’s most attention-grabbing film since Sexy Beast is another experiment in genre – this time he’s playing with the idea that audiences know so much about alien invasions that he can tell a story with barely any spoken dialogue, characterisation or much in the way of sets or SFX and we’ll all still get it. So those who think Scarlett Johansson can’t act – she can – will be relieved with her portrayal of the nearly silent but deadly sexy alien who’s driving around Glasgow in a van and inveigling lonely single guys back to her lair, where she takes her … Read more

Rabbit-Proof Fence

2023-10-272014-07-13 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 14 July Nazi eugenics law passed, 1933 On this day in 1933, in Germany, the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring (Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses) was put onto the statute books. It allowed for the compulsory sterilisation of anyone whose genetic disorders might be passed on to their children. Disorders originally included manic-depressive insanity and alcoholism, as well as more usual hereditary conditions, but were eventually widened out to include homosexuality, idleness and dissidence. Genetic health was decided in a series of courts set up expressly for the purpose, with the Nazis taking their cues from the work … Read more

The Song Remains the Same

2023-10-272014-07-12 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 13 July Live Aid, 1985 On this day in 1985, some of the world’s most popular music acts got together at Wembley Stadium, London, UK, and John F Kennedy Stadium, Philadelphia, USA. Live Aid was a spin-off from the single Do They Know It’s Christmas, a song co-written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure after Geldof had seen footage of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia. Expected to make around £70,000, the single in fact made around £8 million. The shows, in summer the following year, were designed to capitalise on what seemed to be the public’s happiness to dig deep if … Read more

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2023-11-102014-07-11 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 12 July Julius Caesar born, 100BC Most people have some inkling about the death of Julius Caesar – “et tu, Brute” etc – but he was born too, so it seems. In the year 100BC, on this day, to a family of patricians who already bore the cognomen Julia – descendants of the mythical Iulus (or so they liked to say) aka Ascanius, king of Alba Longa, son of Trojan hero Aeneas. Julius Caesar’s given name was Gaius, his family name Julius, the cognomen or family nickname Caesar – because one of his ancestors was born by caesarean section (from the … Read more