Popular Reviews
The Human Centipede
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 21 June Josef Mengele’s remains identified, 1985 On this day in 1985 it was finally ascertained that remains exhumed from a grave in Brazil were those of Josef Mengele. Later DNA testing in 1992 confirmed this original identification from dental records. Mengele had died after suffering a stroke and drowning while swimming in the coastal resort of Bertioga. He was 67 and had been living in South America ever since fleeing the concentration camp Auschwitz at the end of the Second World War, where his experiments on inmates had earned him the nickname the “Angel of Death”. Mengele’s special field of … Read more
Undine
So, an Undine. It’s a mythical water nymph, mentioned by Paracelsus, the Renaissance physician, but you won’t learn that directly from Christian Petzold’s latest drama, an increasingly bizarre and dislocated story of love suffused with magical realist moments that make no sense at all… unless you realise that the titular Undine (Paula Beer) is a version of the mythical creature who fell in love with a human. This Undine is a pencil-skirted guide to historical Berlin. She’s fresh out of a relationship with a guy she thought was the one, now propelled by fate into another one when a fish tank explodes and she and a man she’s just met (Franz Rogowski) are … Read more
Lovelace
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 12 March Ron Jeremy born, 1953 On this day in 1953, the porn star Ronald Jeremy Hyatt was born, in Queens, New York, to a physicist father and a book editor mother. He studied acting and education at Queens College and City University, New York, and went on to become a teacher in special education. His heart lay in acting, so he left teaching to pursue his dream, working in several Off-Broadway productions before starting to supplement his income in porn movies after a girlfriend sent a photo of him to Playgirl. In the days before Viagra, Ron gained a renown … Read more
War and Peace Part I
So here’s the most expensive film ever made in the USSR, or a quarter of it. War and Peace Part I finally arrived in 1966 after years in the making, a rebuke to the massive 1956 US version starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda. Here’s how you do Tolstoy, the Soviets are saying, at five and half hours long, with a cast of thousands, no expense spared, big sets, huge battle scenes, and so on. It was released in four big chunks originally, too, and it’s best watched that way, in instalments. It’s impressive, certainly, shot on 70mm film for that widescreen epic look – though on muddy Soviet film stock – but … Read more
Jaws
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 18 October Moby-Dick published, 1851 On this day in 1851, Herman Melville published what is considered to be one of the great American novels, about the elemental struggle between one Captain Ahab and the whale that once bit off his leg. The story is told from the viewpoint of Ishmael, and “Call me Ishmael”, its opening sentence, has become one of the most recognised opening lines in literature. The book is based on two actual events. One took place in 1820, when a sperm whale rammed and sank the Essex, a whaler that was in hot pursuit of it. The other … Read more
Million Dollar Legs
Originally intended as a Marx Brothers movie, Million Dollar Legs is a comedy with humour verging on the surreal and is set in a familiar Marx Brothers world. Even so it’s probably too mad even for them. It’s so familiar, in fact, that you might wonder if they read Joseph Mankiewicz’s original treatment for Million Dollar Legs and rejected it because there wasn’t enough meat in it for all the brothers but liked its basic outline enough to borrow it for Duck Soup, which came out the following year, 1933. Duck Soup is the one where Groucho is the ruler of a bankrupt country called Freedonia, who goes to war to save his … Read more
Overland Stage Raiders
One of the Three Mesquiteers series of movies – there were 51 between 1936 and 1943 – Overland Stage Raiders is that strange thing, a cowboy movie set in the modern era. It opens with a gang of bad guys on horseback chasing a bus, shooting as they go. This seems like a foolish pastime, like a dog chasing a car. But it turns out that the bus is carrying bullion and this is the just latest of a string of attempts to heist the Overland Stage. What’s the solution? To switch the transportation of gold to an airplane, of course, which drives the raiders to take even more desperate measures and makes … Read more
The Angels’ Share
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 5 March The Proclaimers born, 1962 On this day in 1962, the brothers Charlie and Craig Reid were born in Leith, Scotland. Later known as The Proclaimers, the identical twins were in a string of punk bands before forming their own band in 1983. One-hit wonders in many parts of the world, thanks to their song 500 Miles, the brothers have had a number of hits in their home country, ever since their debut tour, supporting the Housemartins in 1986. The song Sunshine on Leith is the anthem of Hibernian FC, of whom they are fans, and Charlie and Craig lent … Read more
The Avengers: Series 2, Episode 2 – Propellant 23
Set mostly in the airport at Marseille (a studio just to the north of London, apparently), this tight and fast episode gets underway with a passenger on a plane arriving from Tripoli getting very distraught and claiming he’s about to die. Without giving too much away, he does die, gratifyingly for the foreign spies who are after a flask of a highly volatile rocket fuel, Propellant 23. Unfortunately for them, the flask gets lost in the shuffle. Has it fallen down the back of a seat, been taken home by a light-fingered airport luggage worker, been drunk by the hotel barker who touts for business in the arrivals lounge, or been whisked away … Read more
Mill of the Stone Women
1960’s Mill of the Stone Women was the first Italian horror film to be shot in colour – Technicolor, no less – and is a landmark film which opened the door to the lurid looks and titillating scenarios of the giallo genre. Also known as Drops of Blood (or Il mulino delle donne di pietra, in the original Italian), but not in the slightest bit frightening no matter what you call it, it’s soaked in atmosphere only enhanced by the dislocating effect of the foreign language dubbing. It’s dubbed no matter which language you watch it in – originally it came in German, French, Italian and two different English dubs (one more US, the … Read more
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 18 September Tiffany and Co founded, 1837 On this day in 1837, Charles Lewis Tiffany and his partner Teddy Young opened a fancy goods and stationery shop in Lower Manhattan. Tiffany, Young and Lewis changed its name to Tiffany & Co when Charles Tiffany took sole control in 1853. At the same time he shifted its emphasis to jewellery. Growing fat on the revenue from its mail order operation, Tiffany also started to get a name as a provider of quality items – silverware, surgical instruments and swords. By the 1880s it had become closely associated with diamonds after buying the … Read more
Something in the Air
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 30 May Charles de Gaulle dissolves the National Assembly, 1968 On this day in 1968, French President Charles de Gaulle, in the face of increasing street protests against his government and his personal style, dissolved parliament. The previous day he had fled the country, telling his prime minister, Georges Pompidou, “I am the past, you are the future. I embrace you.” No one knew where he had gone. With strikes breaking out all over the country and running battles taking place on the streets of Paris, revolution was in the air. Government officials were burning documents and ministers were arming themselves … Read more
