Murray Melvin

The Undertaker

by
Paul McGann

The Undertaker has a novel suggestion for gangsters needing to dispose of dead bodies in a hurry. Instead of going to all the fuss of running a waste disposal business, why not just bury the bodies in a the ground, beneath the coffins of legitimate new arrivals at their final resting place? Who’s going to look in a cemetery? And if you can’t be bothered with the rigmarole of being an undertaker yourself, just get a real one to play along, and pay him handsomely to keep his mouth shut. That is the simple and effective premise of Michael Wright’s debut feature, which he wrote and directed. Wright started out in the world … Read more

Barry Lyndon

by
Barry aims a pistol

Barry Lyndon tends to get summed up in one of two ways. It’s either Stanley Kubrick’s visually sensational magnum opus and a triumph of film-making at every level, or it’s a bit of a bore, a “one thing after another” drama with not much actual drama in it. Both are true. Adapting William Makepeace Thackeray’s story about a young Irish chancer’s escapades, it follows young Barry, original name Raymond Barry, from his first shy encounter with his sexy, cock-teasting cousin Nora (Gay Hamilton), through a series of adventures criss-crossing wartorn 18th-century Europe. To survive in the world Barry signs up for whichever army will have him – no scruples – and plugs away … Read more