With the year almost over, it’s time for my final post. I’m not writing about an underrated film this month, but making an announcement.

As some of you should already be aware, this year marked the blog’s 10th anniversary and, now that’s done, the blog will be going on hiatus; (hopefully) not permanently, but at least for some time.

The blog will live on, of course. I’m not going to delete the archive of posts on here and, as those of you who follow me on Instagram or Facebook already know, there’s a book version coming soon.

I had hoped to have it finished (and possibly even out) by now, but sadly the logistics of proof-reading and creating the index for a book featuring a decade’s worth of film posts took way longer than I expected and that, combined with my other work as a touring musician meant that I still have some work to do. The book, which also features an introduction from my friend and film writer, Alistair Owen, will be published in the early half of next year and I’ll post about it here again, once it’s ready.

In the meantime, I thought I’d finish off the blog’s anniversary year with a look back at 12 of my favorite posts in the archive:

Let’s start right back at the begining, with the first ever film I looked at:

1.) Juggernaut (aka Terror On The Brittanic) 1974, Dir. Richard Lester

I’d loved this film since I was a teenager and few seemed to have heard of it, so it seemed the perfect film to start a blog about underrated films.

Juggernaut aka Terror On The Britannic (1974, Dir. Richard Lester)

2.) Phenomena (aka Creepers) 1985, Dir. Dario Argento

A very important one, as it inspired myself and my friend Steafano Cocchi to make a short documentary about the Swiss locations used in the film.

Phenomena AKA Creepers (1985, Dir. Dario Argento)

3.) A special post about film music

Occaisionally, I’ve strayed from the format slightly and used the blog to write a special piece, related to film. This post dealing with the unsung heroes of the film music world: orchestrators, copyists and arrangers, (which both my father and grandfather worked as) was one of those.

You Need To Hear This Special:

4.) Reptile 2023, Dir. Grant Singer

A far more recent post, about a superb little thriller that I’d never heard of until I saw it on Netflix. When the director themselves likes the post enough to retweet it, you know you’ve done a good job.

Reptile (2023, Dir. Grant Singer)

5.) Jennifer 8 1992, Dir. Bruce Robinson

Another very early post and one which led me to becoming friends with Alistair Owen, who wrote the brillant books of interviews with director Bruce Robinson: Smoking In Bed, after he found the post online.

Jennifer 8 (1992, Dir. Bruce Robinson)

6.) Running On Empty 1988, Dir. Sidney Lumet

A post that a lot of readers seemed to like, about a lovely, often overlooked, little gem of a film from Lumet.

Running On Empty (1988, Dir. Sidney Lumet)

7.) A Good Year 2006, Dir. Ridley Scott

A post in defence of a film I genuinely love, but very few (even Alistair) like as much as I do.

A Good Year (2006, Dir. Ridley Scott)

8.) Wolfen 1981, Dir. Michael Wadleigh

Another film that I’ve loved since I was a teenager and one that is still incredible, despite all the problems during the film’s post-production.

Wolfen (1981, Dir. Michael Wadleigh)

9.) Looking For Mr Goodbar 1977, Dir. Richard Brooks

A great film, only recently available on blu-ray after being “lost” from home media for decades due to rights issues (it was still unavailable when I wrote the post), which might account for why the post has had a recent surge in popularity. One of the late, great Diane Keaton’s most incredible screen performances

Looking For Mr Goodbar (1977, Dir. Richard Brooks)

10.) Running Scared 1986, Dir. Peter Hyams

Peter Hyams’ films have featured quite a few times on the blog because he’s one of my favorite directors and yet still (criminally) underrated. This one’s my favorite of them all, brilliant performances from Crystal and Hines and some of the best buddy cop dialogue ever written.

Running Scared (1986, Dir. Peter Hyams)

11.) Sound Of Noise 2010, Dir. Ola Simonsson & Johannes Stjärne Nilsson

A brillantly clever and imaginitive musical comedy that I’m sure 90% of my readers have never even heard of. Track it down anywhere you can.

Sound Of Noise (2010, Dir. Ola Simonsson/Johannes Stjärne Nilsson)

12.) The Divine Order 2017, Petra Volpe

One of the best Swiss films of the last decade, about women’s rights. Beautifully acted and filmed, it deserves to be much more widely seen outside of Switzerland than it has been.

The Divine Order / Die Göttliche Ordnung (2017, Dir. Petra Volpe)

End Of Line…(for now) was originally published in “You Need To See This…” on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Synopsis:

Just before her 9th birthday, Lee Harker finds a creepy man with a pale face (Nicholas Cage) in her garden. 20 years later, Lee (Maika Monroe) is now a young F.B.I. agent. When Lee exhibits what might be slight psychic abilities during a case, her supervisor William Carter (Blair Underwood) assigns her to the ongoing „Longlegs“ case – so called because even though each of the killings appear to be murder/suicides of familes committed by the father, at each scene a letter has been found signed Longlegs and written using what seem to be satanic symbols. As the case continues, Lee realizes that the killer is the pale man she met as a child and that somehow she has a connection to him, but will that be enough to stop him before he chooses his next victims?

I was intrigued by this film ever since I first saw the atmospheric trailer. I always enjoy a good serial killer movie and one that promises to not only deliver some stylish visuals but also add a vaguely supernatural element to the premise was hard to resist.

Directed by the son of Anthony Perkins, the template for all future cinematic serial killers thanks to his landmark performance in Psycho, and drawing inspiration not only from the likes of Silence Of The Lambs and Se7en (as well as Angel Heart and Hereditary), but also real life serial killers such as Charles Manson and the Zodiac Killer and real life murder cases such as that of JonBenét Ramsey (apparently killed only a few feet from a life-sized replica doll of her), Longlegs is a film that uses the serial killer film as a jumping off point, rather than slavishly sticking to genre expectations. It’s certainly a movie that veers off onto its own path and one you’ll not forget in a hurry.

Doing well at the box office but often dividing the critics, with many praising the visual style and the performances, but feeling that the plot ultimately tried to include too many elements. I definitely feel that there’s a certain validity to these criticisms. The satanic aspect is stretched a little too far for me, at times, and it suffers from the same problem that any film or story has with the devil as an adversary – namely that the devil can’t actually be defeated, meaning that the protagonists can’t really triumph. Despite this, the film manages to throw in quite a good third act twist, at least part of which you probably won’t see coming and ends up breaking the traditional structure of the serial killer film in the process.

The visuals are superb and Perkins and his cinematographer Andrés Arochi Tinajero, do an incredible job of not only composing beautiful images but also trusting that long takes or wide shots are the most effective way of telling the story and there’s definite visual nods to both David Fincher and Stanley Kubrick. The film’s editing by Greg Ng and Graham Fortin is also brilliant, lulling the viewer into a false sense of security with a languid pace before jolting them with a sudden flash cut, something that adds to the film’s ability to keep your on the edge of your seat throughout. Equally, the film’s score, credited to Zilgi – a pseudonym of the director’s brother, Elvis Perkins, but which also features contributions from sound designer Eugenio Battagila, plus Melody Carillo and Elizabeth Wight – is superbly atmospheric; moving between ominous drones, folky melodies and eerie vocal textures which call to mind Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind‘s score to The Shining.

The main performances are all superb. Of course, Nicholas Cage – who is almost unrecognizable as the titular serial killer – got the majority of the critical attention (both good and bad). This is both one of his most extreme performances (belonging alongside his work in Face/Off, Mandy, The Vampire’s Kiss etc.) but also one of his most memorable in recent years, reminding the viewer that not only is he one the most fearless actors still working in Hollywood but also incredibly talented in terms of his range. Certainly, it’s hard to believe this is the same man who played the lead in the National Treasure movies or Gone In 60 Seconds and whilst his work here may not be to everyone‘s taste (there is at least one moment which was bizarre enough to be unintentionally funny), there’s no denying just how creepy or disturbing his portrayal is.

In contrast, Maika Monroe gives a wonderfully understated performance as Lee, conveying her awkwardness and quiet strangeness in a very naturalistic way, and giving one of her best screen performances to date. There’s also some superb supporting work from both Blair Underwood, as Lee‘s superior and almost mentor and Alicia Witt as Lee‘s mother, both of whom have very interesting character trajectories.

This isn’t a film for everyone and I suspect certain aspects (Cage‘s performance, the supernatural aspect to the storyline) are going to be like cinematic Marmite (that’s a vegetable spread that’s quite an acquired taste for any of my non U.K.- based readers) – you either love it or hate it, there’s not much middle ground. For me personally, whilst the film doesn’t quite live up to its ambitions, it’s still an extremely intriguing and stylish mix of horror and thriller and deserves kudos for attempting something fresh with the serial killer movie.

Longlegs (2024,Dir. Osgood Perkins) was originally published in “You Need To See This…” on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Synopsis:

A friendly alien is forced to crash land on Earth when its spaceship is damaged by the airforce. Needing help to make it to a rendezvous point in Arizona in three days, the alien assimilates the body of Jenny Haden’s (Karen Allen) late husband, Scott (Jeff Bridges) from a lock of his hair. Initially terrified, Jenny reluctantly agrees to drive the Starman across the country, helping him understand what it means to be human and developing feelings for him along the way. However, with the military close behind, can the pair make it to the rendezvous in time?

Whilst it is now regarded as a classic, John Carpenter‘s The Thing – the director‘s remake/re-imagining of The Thing From Another World, directed by Howard Hawks – was a box office and critical failure on its initial release. Many critics have since cited the release of E.T. – The Extra Terrestrial, that same year, as one of the reasons that Carpenter’s movie initially failed to find its audience – because moviegoing public now only wanted upbeat, heartwarming stories of alien encounters rather than the bleak nihilism and suspicion of The Thing. Whether Spielberg‘s mega successful take of a boy and an alien were really to blame for The Thing’s box office failure is still up for debate, but certainly it did mark a sea change in the sort of alien films that were then produced by Hollywood for the rest of the 80s. As with all Hollywood trends, the films that followed E.T. were a mixed bag. However, one of the better ones about friendly visitors from outer space would be directed by Carpenter himself.

In the aftermath of The Thing’s failure, Carpenter opted to do several films that were less personal because he needed the work. The first of these was his adaptation of Stephen King’s Christine and the next was Starman. A rare exception in his filmography where he didn’t have a hand in the screenplay, Carpenter was one of 3 directors considered for the film after Mark Rydell dropped out during pre-production and John Badham decided to direct WarGames instead (the other two being a pre-Top Gun Tony Scott and Peter Hyams). Carpenter was apparently chosen because he wanted to focus on the ‘couple on the run’ aspect of the story, with the director himself comparing the story to It Happened One Night. Ultimately, this proved to be a smart move because it differentiates the story from the other E.T. -inspired movies that would be released around the same time.

Whilst it’s certainly a more family-friendly film than the majority of Carpenter’s previous movies, this isn’t a kids movie in the way that E.T. is. The film’s opening, with the Starman‘s arrival and transformation into Jenny‘s husband, with its physical makeup fx (created by Dick Smith, Stan Winston and Rick Baker) and Jack Nitzsche‘s superb, sensitive and also, at times, ominous score (created using the then brand new Synclavier II synthesizer system) still feels slightly creepy to me. Even the film’s moments of humor, created by the Starman‘s inability to understand human behavior are more aimed at a grown up audience. However, this also a film with surprisingly few mean characters or dark moments, so the result is an usual hybrid of a typical John Carpenter film and a more mainstream movie.

Carpenter never gets much credit (if any) for being an ‘actors director’ (a stupid phrase at the best of times, as every actor needs something different from a director) and yet there are plenty of great performances in Carpenter‘s films. Starman is no exception, in fact it really is the performances of the two leads which are heart of this movie and Carpenter directs them beautifully.

Jeff Bridges manages to capture the feeling of an alien contained in an unfamiliar human body increadibly well. His beautifully controlled sense of movement (walking awkwardly as if he’s unsure of his muscles, jerking hand and facial movements suggesting that his behavior is strung together from a series of expressions that he is mimicking) and speech combine to make a really stand out performance and an atypical one from an actor who we’re used to seeing in laid back and naturalistic roles. However, as brilliant as Bridges is, his performance is also matched by Karen Allen in a wonderfully subtle and emotional role, that is light years away from the one she played in Raiders Of The Lost Ark and shows just what a versatile actress she is. The scene in the diner when she’s trying to explain love to the Starman and her voice breaks is increadibly moving. There’s also great supporting performances from Charles Martin Smith and Richard Jaekel but ultimately the movie is really carried by Bridges and Allen.

Carpenter had already worked with cinematographer Donald M. Morgan on his previous film, Christine. Prior to that , he’d collaborated with Dean Cundey on his all films from Halloween through to The Thing and the two of them helped established what we regard as the John Carpenter ‘look‘ – the use of widescreen anamorphic lenses and deep shadows. Whilst Christine continued this style to a certain extent, Starman finds him and Carpenter trying a new approach, one more akin to the look of Steven Spielberg’s films – the wide shot of the couple escaping the road block or the beautifully shot sequence as the pair hop aboard a freight train in the torrential rain, for example – than what you might typically expect in a John Carpenter film, but they work perfectly in the movie.

The film was a modest success at the box office, though perhaps not enough of one to convince Carpenter to do any more films like this. In a way that’s a shame, because although I love the majority of Carpenter’s horror and sci-fi films, there’s plenty of evidence here that he could have directed more mainstream movies, given the chance and the right script, and I‘m sure the resulting films would have been extremely interesting and entertaining. As it is, Starman is a fascinating anomaly in Carpenter’s filmography, a glimpse at what might have been and a further indication (if one were needed) of what a truly great director he is.

Starman (1984, Dir. John Carpenter) was originally published in “You Need To See This…” on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Synopsis:

In a future, where the world is ruled by corporations rather than governments, there is no more war or poverty and the most popular entertainment is a brutal competitive game called: Rollerball. Jonathan E. (James Caan) who is captain of the Houston team, is the most successful and longest-surviving player in the history of the sport. When the corporation, headed by Mr Bartholomew (John Houseman) tell him that he needs to retire just before the end of the season when Houston are tipped to win in the semi-finals and final, he refuses, unable to understand why he’s being asked to do this. As it becomes clear that the company view his continued success as dangerous to their stability, Jonathan comes to realise just what lengths they will go to in order to keep control.

I‘d heard about this film and certainly seen the iconic poster, designed by Bob Peak, with its distinctive retro-futuristic font, long before I actually watched the film. My recollection is that I didn’t see it until I was in my second year at university, avidly watching as many films as I could, often spurred on by reading about them in Sight & Sound or the sadly short-lived Neon. I have a feeling that it was a retrospective review of the film in Neon (it had just been re-released as a budget-friendly VHS) that prompted me to finally sit down and watch it. I have to confess that, on that first viewing, I was rather bored by the film and it would take until re-watching it more recently that I finally began to appreciate it. In retrospect, it’s not hard to see why I didn’t enjoy it at first. It’s a talk-y sci-fi film with not much action aside from the Rollerball sequences themselves and in the same way as Logan‘s Run (which I looked at a few years ago) this is another 70s sci-fi film whose vision of the future, with (then) modernist decor, quickly seemed outdated as soon as Star Wars appeared just two years afterwards.

Futuristic sports movies are comparatively rare and this clearly had an influence on many of those (including the film of The Running Man which I wrote about a few years ago) that would come afterwards. What Rollerball does brilliantly, both through the way the story is structured and the way it’s filmed, is give you the sense of this as a real game. From the opening shots of the umpires, linesman and medical personnel entering the arena to the music of J.S. Bach‘s Tocatta & Fugue in D Minor, through to the games themselves, lighting, camera angles and editing work together to give the viewer the sense that they are watching a real sporting event. Keeping to the format of familiar television sporting events helps sell the ˋreality‘ of the futuristic sport on display, as does the narration from unseen commentators, shots of the crowd and the bored-looking V.I.P.s, or the players standing and listening to the corporate anthem being played on a cheesy organ (just like at a baseball game). Despite its brutal nature, the sport of Rollerball is relatively bloodless. In fact, one of the most interesting parts of the film, when watched today after seeing literally thousands of other action movies with people being hit or knocked off motorcycles with barely a scratch, is just how realistic this feels – you come off your bike or collide with something at highspeed: dead; hit on the head with a spiked glove: permanent coma. This is not a movie where people get up looking slightly dazed after an accident.

The performances are all good, but it’s James Caan who really holds the film together. Despite Caan later feeling that „he couldn’t do much with the character“, I think this is actually one of his best roles. The flashy aggression of Sonny Corleone is non-existent and Caan gives an excellent portrayal of a sports personality who‘s a little bit more intelligent than many of his fellow players and wants more out of life. Jonathan‘s sense of frustration at being someone who has always been a good teammate and is now being asked to quit, simply because he’s too good at winning, is palpable and Caan plays him as someone struggling to grasp something that’s just out of reach. It’s quite a subtle performance in fact, full of pauses and uncertainty, closer to Caan‘s later work in films such as Misery, than The Godfather or Thief.

There’s some good supporting performances, particularly John Houseman, Ralph Richardson and Shane Rimmer. Maud Adams (Octopussy) is also very good in her brief role as Jonathan’s former wife but ultimately it’s Caan and the Rollarball sequences that stick in the memory.

Stunningly photographed by veteran British cameraman, Douglas Slocombe (who also shot the original Indiana Jones trilogy and as, resident Ealing cameraman, all the classic comedies that came out of that studio – including The Titfield Thunderbolt which I looked at a few years ago) and brilliantly edited by Antony Gibbs (who regularly edited films for Nicholas Roeg as well as several other films by Jewison and, of course, Juggernaut – which was the very first film I reviewed for this blog), the film is probably one of the most visually stylish in Norman Jewison‘s filmography – certainly up there with In The Heat Of The Night and The Thomas Crown Affair, for me. Personally, I‘ve always felt Jewison to be a bit of a journeyman director, working in numerous different genres and styles over the course of his career and, for me, it’s difficult to judge whether the visual style apparent in his best films (this, In The Heat Of The Night, The Thomas Crown Affair) is down to his directorial eye or the brilliance of his cinematographer (Slocombe, Haskell Wexler). Certainly, there’s nothing else on his filmography like Rollerball – his one and only excursion into sci-fi – which I think both works for and against the film. On the one hand, treating a film set in the future like a contemporary drama has its advantages – the story is more interested in the characters, particularly Jonathan and Mr Bartholemew, and much less in action spectacle (not that the Rollerball sequences don’t have their moments) – but also means the story is relatively slow-paced and there are a lot of sequences of characters sitting around talking. It’s another fascinating example of what happens when a director works outside the genre that they’re usually known for and that is always worth watching even if the results are occasionally a little uneven.

Only a very modest success at the box office initially and receiving mixed reviews from critics at the time, the film has been re-evaluated in the decades since and become a cult film precisely because of its quirks. Take it for a spin and judge for yourself.

Rollerball (1975, Dir. Norman Jewison) was originally published in “You Need To See This…” on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Synopsis:

Dealing with an ongoing losing streak and sparse attendance at their games, minor league baseball team, The Durham Bulls, bring in a young pitcher Calvin “Nuke” Laloosh (Tim Robbins) who’s hotly tipped for future stardom in the major leagues thanks to his “million dollar arm”. However, “Nuke” is as impetuous as he is arrogant, so the team draft in former major league catcher, “Crash” Davis (Kevin Costner) to teach “Nuke” a few things and hopefully bring the team together. “Crash”, who is none too thrilled both at being back in the minor leagues and his assignment as babysitter, and “Nuke” dislike each other from the start and their hostility is further complicated by local baseball fanatic and groupie (though she dislikes being called that), Annie (Susan Sarandon) choosing “Nuke” over “Crash” in terms of who she’s giving her attention to this season, leading to tension between Annie and “Crash” as well. Can the trio sort out their romantic lives and still manage to give the Bulls their most successful season in years?

Two baseball movies starring Kevin Costner came out around the same time in 1988/89, both capitalizing on his, then, heavily in demand screen presence. One, Field Of Dreams, was easily the more acclaimed of the two and had a strong Oscar buzz around it, whilst this (which actually came out first) was regarded as a bit of an underdog (though it also received an Oscar nomination, for best screenplay). I loved this film when I first saw it, even though I was only in my early teens and a bit too young and naive to really grasp the sexual politics onscreen and knew (and still don’t) next to nothing about baseball (it’s essentially rounders, right? Just kidding).

Whilst Field Of Dreams is still acclaimed, albeit perhaps not as much as when it was first released, this film, which was well-received both by the critics and at the box office, has been slightly forgotten. This is a great shame, because aside from great performances from the three leads and an amusing script, with some great one-liners („You couldn’t hit water, if you fell out of a boat“), that works even if don’t know or care anything about baseball (which to me is why it’s superior to Field Of Dreams, which wants you to care). Sarandon’s character in particular is way ahead of the curve for an 80s movie, in fact, re-watching the film now, you could almost argue that she’s a fore runner of the female leads that would later emerge towards the end of the 90s in films and, in particular, tv shows such as Sex In The City and Ally McBeal.

After almost a decade of small parts which sometimes ended up on the cutting room floor and finally getting a chance as a lead in Lawrence Kasdan’s Silverado, Bull Durham is really the peak of Costner’s time as a leading man, before Dances With Wolves showed everyone that he was more than just a handsome actor and before he later almost ended his career starring in expensive flops such as Waterworld and The Postman. Made the year after the release of No Way Out and The Untouchables, which pushed Costner into the Hollywood stratosphere, I’d argue that he never looked better or sexier than he does in this film, for once trading his clean-cut and rather strait-laced screen image for slightly longer hair, a three day beard and a much more flawed character than audiences were used to seeing him play at the time. I think it’s one of his best performances from that period and he gives the character and nicely cynical, world-weary charm, that keeps him sympathetic even when he’s being a bit of jerk and his scenes with Tim Robbins’ character are particularly good.

Susan Sarandon, who’d had quite a well-established career already, suddenly had a rejuvenation after first The Witches Of Eastwick and then this, which would continue throughout the 90s and 2000s and see her give some of the best performances on her filmography. Her work here, taking a character that probably seemed almost schizophrenic on the page and imbuing her with warmth, humor and sexiness – in such a way that seems charming and only slightly eccentric – is a great performance and one that is often overlooked next her other impressive roles from the same period. In many ways, she is the main character rather than either of the male leads and at the time it was still relatively unusual to have an older female character who was so frank and unapologetic about her desires.

Tim Robbins, who at the time this film had mostly only done small supporting roles in films such as Howard The Duck, Top Gun and The Sure Thing, gives such a fantastic performance here as the talented but slightly stupid star rookie, that I’d argue that it’s the best of his early roles and it takes a lot of talent to create a character who is both stupid and endearing at the same time.

There’s also some great supporting performances particularly from Robert Wuhl (Batman) as nervy assistant coach Larry and Trey Wilson (Raising Arizona) as the kindly but often exasperated coach. Sadly, this would be one of Wilson’s final roles before he died suddenly from a brain hemorrhage in 1989.

There’s some great looking shots from cinematographer Bobby Byrne (Smokey & The Bandit, Sixteen Candles) and it’s a slight shame that mostly stuck to working in tv after this film was released, as Byrne clearly inherited a lot of the style of his mentors, Conrad Hall and William Fraker, in whose camera crews he began his career.

Director Ron Shelton, who based the screenplay partly on his own experiences playing minor league baseball for 5 years, has a fine eye for detail, but you don’t need to know anything about baseball to enjoy the film, it’s really about what happens to your passion for something as you get older and what a professional sports person does when their career is winding down. Sadly, Shelton has had a slightly mixed career since his debut here. His follow up film, Blaze, starring Paul Newman, bombed at the box office, but afterwards he had another hit with basketball comedy White Men Can’t Jump. Most of his more successful films have been sports-related, including re-uniting with Kevin Costner for golfing romantic comedy Tin Cup, although his police corruption drama, Dark Blue, starring Kurt Russell is vastly underrated and is possibly one of the best films of his entire career.

If, like me, you haven’t seen the film since the 90s then do yourself a favor and head back to what Annie calls “the church of baseball”. There’s plenty to savor in both the performances and the script in this easy going and like-able film.

Bull Durham (1988, Dir. Ron Shelton) was originally published in “You Need To See This…” on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Synopsis:

Middle aged banker Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) is having an existential crisis. Disillusioned with his job, his failing marriage and a daughter who barely stays in touch, he’s given a slip of paper with an address written on it and later that night is contacted by someone claiming to be his old friend Charlie, whom he believed dead. Charlie tells him to go to the address the next day. After being shuttled around a bit, arrives at an office where he’s drugged. Upon waking it’s explained to him that his death will be faked and he will be given extensive plastic surgery, a new life and a new identity. If he refuses, footage of him sexually assaulting a young woman (which was staged whilst he was drugged) will be released. Told that his family will be looked after financially and admitting that he is deeply unhappy with his life, he consents to being reborn as artist Tony Wilson (Rock Hudson). However, Hamilton finds it hard to adapt to his luxurious new life and when he attempts to reconnect with his old existence, he discovers the lengths the mysterious company will go to.

Largely unavailable to watch on DVD or Blu-Ray (at least in the U.K.) until comparatively recently and rarely shown on TV, Seconds, the third film in what might be seen as an unofficial trilogy of films by John Frankenheimer dealing with paranoia (after The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days In May) was a movie I’d long wanted to see. Performing poorly on its initial release, it was considered a “box office bomb” at the time and the critical reception was mixed. Watching it now, it feels like a dichotomy of a film – both ahead of its time in its idea of cosmetic improvements, sinster corporations and body horror and yet also firmly trapped in the atmosphere of white collar, W.A.S.P. America in the late 50s/early 60s (despite the film being made in 1966, the decision to shoot it in black and white, the depiction of Hamilton’s bored, middle class life in the suburbs and even the idea of a wild, Bacchanalian gathering with Wilson’s new found friends feels grounded in an earlier decade than the one that would be depicted in Easy Rider just 3 years later).

Another key reason why the film feels like it was made earlier than the mid 60s is the casting of Rock Hudson. Best known at the time for his series of romantic comedies opposite Doris Day, Hudson deliberately wanted to escape the sort of typecast role he normally played. Hudson’s homosexuality, whilst hidden from the public at the time, was an open secret in Hollywood. His casting (even though he wasn’t Frankenheimer’s first choice) is a stroke of genius and it’s very possible that he brought something of his own experience of living two separate lives to this performance. I think his work here is possibly the greatest of his entire career. It’s certainly one of his most subtle and believable performances, even if he does occasionally look as if he’s found himself part of the wrong film, and his terror in the film’s final moments is so genuine that it is actually hard to watch.

Equally, in the film’s first half, John Randolph’s performance as the disaffected Hamilton is beautifully nuanced and restrained, full of small gestures and sad glances. The scenes between him and his wife (played by Frances Reid) perfectly sum up their unhappiness together, through uncomfortable pauses and abortive attempts at affection and the topic of male unhappiness and desperation feels even more relevant today.

Surrounding the two male leads is a cast of semi-familiar faces from American TV: Will Geer, Murray Hamilton etc. who we’re used to seeing play avuncular and friendly characters. Their presence here only serves to heighten the film’s nightmarish quality, however, as their screen personas are transformed into darker antitheses, just by virtue of the story. What I was unaware of until I watched critic Kim Newman’s video essay on the film, included in the Masters Of Cinema DVD/Blu-Ray release, was how many of these actors, including Randolph, had been blacklisted during the McCarthy witch-hunt of the 1950s. How much of the decision to use them was purely based on Frankenheimer wanting to use actors he admired or whether he was also trying to make a point is hard to say for sure, but casting them in a film where people change their identities and leave their old lives behind cannot be completely accidental.

For me, Seconds an example of a U.S. film that feels more like a European one, with the early sequences reminiscent of Bergman’s films and the later ones after Hamilton has been transformed (particularly the grape crushing party, with its daring-for-the-time, full-frontal nudity, handheld camerawork and semi-documentary style) are seemingly influenced by the early films of the French new wave. The fact that the film’s incredible visual style of image distortions through the use of P.O.V. tracking shots, extreme angles, high-contrast stock and ultra wide lenses was the work of established cinematographer James Wong Howe (then in his mid-60s) rather than a young and up and coming cameraman is a surprising one and Wong Howe was deservedly nominated for an Oscar for his work here.

There’s also a superb but also slightly uncharacteristically restrained score from Jerry Goldsmith, full of doom and gothic organ dissonance at the beginning and very end of the film, but also utilizing wistful, almost folky melodies for the section featuring Hamilton’s new life as Wilson and a beautiful, mournful theme for piano over the end credits.

Seconds is a dark, disturbing film, nightmarish at times – one that might surprise modern viewers with just how savage it gets – particularly the ending. From its opening Saul Bass-designed credit sequence of distorted close-ups of a face, accompanied by Goldsmith’s disquieting score, the film has a sense of queasiness and the grotesque that make even the most mundane sequences seem unsettling. It’s also terribly sad and tragic and there doesn’t seem to be a single character in the film who’s really happy. Even the freewheeling abandon of the reborn seems forced and hollow.

At the time of its release, critics called the film improbable and it was even booed when it was shown at the Cannes film festival. Thankfully, it’s been reappraised since and fully deserves its reputation of (as critic Andrew Johnston has called it) “one of the most subversive to come out of Hollywood”. In his video essay Newman also talks about it being a film that has seeped into the groundwater of modern cinema. Despite its lack of box office success, elements and themes from the film can be found in a great many later movies, including David Fincher’s The Game, which even borrows the scene where the company executive tries to interest Hamilton in some food. It’s themes of dissatisfaction with one’s life and trying to regain what’s been lost feel even more prescient in today’s culture.

It’s certainly not a movie you’ll forget after you’ve seen it, not even for a second.

Seconds (1966, Dir. John Frankenheimer) was originally published in “You Need To See This…” on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Synopsis:

After a dying man tells him to seek out rich and influential businessman, Gregory Arkadin, Guy Van Stratten (Robert Arden) attempts to get an audience with Arkadin (Orson Welles) by befriending his daughter, Raina (Paola Mori) and falling in love with her in the process. When he does finally meet him, Arkadin surprises Guy by offering him a job: compile a report about his past, with as many details as he can about the people he knew and what he was doing prior to waking up alone in Zürich with a large amount of money in his pocket and no memory. Guy agrees to take on the job but soon discovers that Arkadin has an ulterior motive for digging up his past.

Some films aren’t so much underrated or under appreciated as simply „lost“. Mr Arkadin (or Confidential Report, as it was re-titled for its European release) is technically one of Orson Welles’ „unfinished films“. In what was a re-occurring theme throughout his career, the film that was taken away from him in post production and re-cut, resulting (according to film historian Jonathan Rosenbaum) in no less than 6 separate versions of the film, including the Confidential Report version and an early cut discovered by Welles’ friend Peter Bogdanovich and subsequently distributed in the U.S. by Corinth Films (and referred to as the Corinth version). There’s also a version of the story created as episodes of the radio show, The Adventures Of Harry Lime (based on Welles‘ character in the film adaptation of Graham Greene’s The Third Man and who was originally the one investigating Arkadin) which Welles wrote and which appeared a few years prior to the film, plus a novelization erroneously credited to Welles – who apparently had no idea of its existence until he spotted it in a bookshop). Welles himself called it the „biggest disaster“ of his career due to his loss of creative control. There was no version released during Welles‘ lifetime that can really claim to be his vision of what the film was meant to be. The closest we will now ever get is the new „comprehensive version“ compiled by Stefan Drössler of the Munich Film Museum and Claude Bertemes of the Cinémathèque de municipalite Luxembourg and overseen by both Rosenbaum and Bogdanovich, which was released by the Criterion Collection, along with restored and remastered editions of the Confidential Report and Corinth versions of the movie in 2006 and its this „comprehensive version“ that I‘ll be referring to.

What we’re now left with, whilst by no means perfect, is easier to follow than the more truncated Confidential Report and which retains more of Welles‘ non-linear flashback narrative. Arkadin is a film that mirrors the themes found in both Citizen Kane and The Third Man of someone trying to discover the truth about someone else and their past. Whilst it will never live up to the brilliance of either of those two masterpieces or even Welles‘ Touch Of Evil, there are plenty of interesting Wellesian touches that elevate it above the standard noir thriller and make you forgive the production‘s minuscule budget or occasional choppy edits or moments of dodgy dialogue synchronization.

Mr Arkadin was made after Welles’ departure from Hollywood and was filmed around Europe in a piecemeal fashion, with actors coming into do scenes and then leaving again in a similar manner to the way Welles had made Othello a few years earlier. In fact, Welles had long had the idea of creating feature films in a semi-documentary style on location and his unfinished It’s All True (which he’d intended to be his next film after The Magnificent Ambersons) had been planned to be made in this manner. Had he been allowed to complete Arkadin himself, some of the shortcomings arising from this method of filmmaking might have been largely covered up during the editing; as it is, some of the film’s scenes feel slightly rushed, particularly in the film’s first half where Guy is desperately trying to get to meet Arkadin, and there’s no disguising the film’s often slightly wayward narrative. Despite this, there’s still a lot here to enjoy: From the opening of Van Stratten searching for Zouk in the snow-covered, ruined buildings; the death of the man in the harbour, lit in a high contrast, shadowy, noir style; Welles‘ trademark use of low or dutch angle shots and wide angle lenses, to the seasick handheld camerawork in the scene between Arkadin and Mily onboard his boat (which to my mind, looks ahead to the dazzling handheld work in Touch Of Evil), the film and the performances are far from the embarrassing disaster that some critics have claimed it to be.

I became slightly obsessed with Welles and his work at the end of my first year at university. Both his meteoric, self-made rise through Hollywood and his later attempts to continue making films on his own terms, however he could, inspired me at a time when I was trying (but mostly failing) to make my own short films, much in the same way they had for the young French directors of what would become the Nouvelle Vague. I‘d already seen The Third Man and Citizen Kane by that point, as well as The Lady From Shanghai and was reading Rosebud, David Thomson‘s amusing (though far from flattering) biography of Welles at the time, when I borrowed a copy of Confidential Report from my local library on VHS partially to see for myself just how bad the film that Thomson calls: „…a bad film such as only a great and self-consciously wayward artist could make…“ really was.

At the time, whilst I could certainly see the film’s rough edges, I didn’t hate it the way Thomson did and didn’t (and still don’t) dislike the performances (particularly the central trio) as much as he and other critics have. Robert Arden‘s performance as Van Stratten has been heavily criticized over the years, but, like Rosenbaum, I don’t feel it’s nearly as bad as others have claimed it is and part of the problem isn’t his performance at all, but the character itself – Van Stratten isn’t really a criminal, just a bit of a louse, who bumbles around trying to find out about Arkadin‘s past, without much skill or ability. Think how much more compelling the story might have been with the wily and genuinely dangerous and seductive Harry Lime doing the investigating. Then, the attraction between him and Arkadin‘s daughter might have not only seemed more believable but also more of a threat to Arkadin. Likewise, Welles‘ then lover (and later third wife) Paola Mori’s performance as Raina, Arkadin’s daughter, has also been unfairly criticized over the years. In her case, as her voice was re-dubbed by Billie Whitelaw at the producer’s request, it’s a little tougher to judge how much that changed the nature of her performance, but again she does a good enough job with the role she’s been given. Welles‘ own performance is what you‘d expect from him, directing himself: brilliant, in places, but also self-indulgent, at times, in a way that he probably wouldn’t have been allowed to get away with if he was being directed by someone else. However, the later scenes with Arden, in Arkadin‘s car and in the church highlight both his skill and his subtlety as an actor. His scene in the restaurant with the baroness shows a light touch as well. Ultimately, Welles was always an extremely „theatrical“ actor – always happy when he could disguise himself under makeup and wigs and change his voice – there are very few examples of him underplaying in anything, that just wasn’t his style.

The supporting roles all have their little moments: Michael Redgrave as the Dutch antique shop owner, Misha Auer as the flea circus trainer, Gert Frobe (Goldfinger) as one of the German detectives, but with the exception of Akim Tamiroff‘s humorous performance as Zouk and Katina Paxinou (in the English versions, the part was played by another actress entirely in the Spanish versions of the film), who exudes warmth and considerable charm in her performance as Sophie, the woman from Arkadin’s past; most of these cameos come and go without making a huge impression on the film itself. Because of the nature of the story, the actors filmed these scenes with Arden in isolation, which only serves to heighten their lack of importance to the story as a whole. Equally, Patricia Medina (who was married to Welles‘ long time friend Joseph Cotton) does her best with the role of Mily but the character doesn’t really have much to do. In each of these cases this feels like the fault of the script rather than the performances themselves.

In Thomson‘s book, Arden felt that Welles had used up a lot of his energy and enthusiasm whilst writing the script, so that when it came time to shoot the scenes he felt he needed to change things. How true this actually was is difficult to say, but knowing Welles‘ penchant for re-writing or improvising dialogue on set I certainly find it easy to believe. Something that comes through in Thomson‘s biography and in many of the other books about Welles is how quickly he would bore of projects. He seems to have been an artist who constantly needed to be creating and possibly found the creative act more interesting than the final result. After the increadible creative spurt that produced Citizen Kane, he seemed to think he could pull off the same result by simply throwing enough energy and ideas into a project and as such, some of his films have the feeling of „let’s throw ideas at the screen and see what sticks“ – something that reached its fullest extent in his last completed film: F For Fake, a wayward but also ahead of its time kaleidoscope of a film, combining fiction and documentary – a scattershot method of making art, that sometimes seems like it was more fun for him than it is for the audience. Mr Arkadin also suffers from this approach a little – at its heart there’s an intriguing noir idea about a rich man trying to bury his unsavory past, but the story takes a lot of detours along the way and often feels slightly unfocused. Despite this, it’s is still a fascinating watch, not least because, with filmmakers like Welles, near misses are sometimes more interesting than masterpieces and, whether you see this version or the more widely available Confidential Report version, it’s still worth your time.

Mr Arkadin/ Confidential Report (1955, Dir. Orson Welles) was originally published in “You Need To See This…” on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Synopsis:

After a meteorite lands outside the small town of Arborville, a local vagrant poking around the crater gets his hand covered in the mysterious gloopy substance from inside it. He’s taken to the hospital by 3 teenagers: cheerleader, Meg (Shawnee Smith), college football star, Paul (Donovan Leitch), and local troublemaker, Brian (Kevin Dillon). Things go from bad to worse once they get there, however, as the mysterious blob claims more victims. Soon the whole town is being quarantined by the government as the blob grows and grows. But does the government have their best interests at heart and can they stop the blob from destroying everything?

As I mentioned when I reviewed Tremors, another modern attempt at a 1950s style b-movie, there is a real art to making this sort of film, properly. Chuck Russell’s 80s remake of the 1958 film of the same name (which is now mostly notable for starring a young Steve McQueen), stands up there with John Carpenter’s The Thing (also a remake of a 1950s b-movie) for me, in showing how to adapt this sort of 50s sci-fi for a modern audience without ever losing its affection for the source material or trying to make it a pastiche or a parody. Like Carpenter‘s classic it also borrows moments and ideas from the original but makes them fresh again – interestingly, in this version the blob turns out to be man-made, marking the shift from the 1950s Cold War paranoia about potential invasion, to the more 80s idea that the government are far more devious and sinister than any foreign aggressior (from earth or otherwise). The script, by Russell and his then regular collaborator Frank Darabont, uses the simple plot as the backbone to create memorable characters and dialogue which then aides in grounding the more ridiculous elements of the narrative, making the whole thing a little more realistic (if you can use that adjective about a monsterous amorphous organism that devours anything in its path).

As with both Carpenter’s The Thing and a host of other monster and horror movies (Alien, Halloween, the original Friday The 13th, Scream etc.) this is really an ensemble piece with extra gore and special effects. You need to care at least a little for the inhabitants of this small town and their respective problems from the start, otherwise you won’t when they all start dying. Russell and Darabont know this (they‘d already had great success with writing and directing what is still one of the best Nightmare On Elm Street sequels: Dream Warriors) and spend time making sure you have little thumbnail sketches of who everyone is in the town, setting up your expectations – only to subvert them brilliantly within the first 30 minutes. They‘re also smart enough to fill the supporting cast with a bunch of great veteran actors such as Joe Seneca, Jeffery DeMunn (who would go on to be a regular in Darabont‘s own movies later on), Candy Clark, Jack Nance, Del Close (who‘d also been in the sequel to the original film), Art LaFleur and Paul McCrane who make even the most minor characters memorable; as well as Erika Eleniak and Frank Collison, in small roles before they became better known.

The central duo of Shawnee Smith and Kevin Dillon (who at the time looked set to have as big a career as his brother, Matt) do their best with the rather thankless roles of cheerleader and town bad boy – but then the heroes of these sort of movies are often intentionally bland. Smith does better than Dillon, who seems to be unsure at times whether he should delivering his lines completely straight or ironically and has an unfortunate habit of looking petulant when he’s supposed to looking mean, but even this isn’t enough to ruin the film.

Like most horror films, however, the main star of the movie is the special effects themselves. Despite Lyle Conway receiving the main credit, it was actually Tony Gardner and his special fx crew who created the majority of the film’s effects and they do an amazing job of making one of the silliest film monsters of all time (the 50s original actually used strawberry jam – something the remake even gives an ironic nod to at one point) seem quite scary and dangerous and there’s some fabulously gory make up fx (all done practically, of course) as the titular blob melts and devours its victims.

The cinematography by Cronenberg regular Mark Irwin and the editing by Tod Feuerman and Terry Stokes are top notch and means the film punches well about its weight, visually. The film’s score by Michael Hoenig is a great mixture of 80s synths and militaristic percussion that works extremely well, though obviously is also very much of its time.

Not a huge critical or commercial success at the time of its release, which Russell himself partly puts down to it being released during a busy summer with a poor ad campaign, this remake has slowly become more appreciated over time and I‘ve seen quite a few reappraisals of it online. Whilst his co-writer Darabont would achieve critical acclaim for his Stephen King adaptations, Russell himself has had a slightly uneven career since – directing Jim Carrey in The Mask, but then helming the disappointing Schwarzenegger action thriller, Eraser, and The Mummy spin off, The Scorpion King, before remaining mostly in tv, directing episodes of series such as Fringe. This is a bit of a shame because based on this, Dream Warriors and The Mask, he was a rare example of a sci-fi/ fantasy writer and director who could handle fx-heavy stories whilst making sure that the script and performances were better than average.

Ultimately, this is one of the best modern remakes of an original B-Movie. If you’ve never seen it, or haven’t seen it in a while, take the opportunity to check out The Blob’s gooey charm.

The Blob (1988, Dir. Chuck Russell) was originally published in “You Need To See This…” on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Synopsis:

Danny Parker (Val Kilmer) lives a largely nocturnal existence as a methampthetamine addict amongst fellow „speed freaks“ and „tweakers“ in L.A. He also occasionally acts as an informant to two corrupt cops: Morgan (Doug Hutchinson) and Garcetti (Anthony LaPaglia), to whom he occasionally shops meth dealers, who they then raid, murder and steal the money from. However, Parker isn’t who he says he is. Sometimes he’s also Tom Van Allen, a trumpet player, whose wife (Chandra West) was brutally murdered some years earlier whilst they were staying by the Salton sea. Is his new identity of Danny just an attempt to cover his tracks whilst his life hits rock bottom or is Tom attempting something much more dangerous?

Following the sad news that Val Kilmer passed away earlier this month, I thought I‘d pay tribute to him by looking at a performance (and a film) of his that has never been given the attention it deserves.

I first came across the film through its soundtrack. As I‘ve mentioned before, I‘m a huge fan of Thomas Newman’s work, particularly his more offbeat scores which mix unusual instrumentation with found sounds and sampled textures. I picked up the CD of this film’s score at The Cinema Store in London‘s St. Martin‘s Lane (now sadly no more), which was my go to source for interesting soundtracks, region 1 DVDs and videos and even, at one time, long out of print VHS copies of films that were simply unobtainable in any other way. I fell in love with the soundtrack’s mixture of jazz and electronic or grungy guitar-driven ambience (which defies easy musical categorization but the closest comparison I can think of would be the solo work of artists like David Torn or Eivind Aarset) immeadiately, as I listened to it on my CD Walkman traveling home on the bus that evening and it has remained a permanent fixture on every iPod/iPhone that I‘ve ever owned since then.

It might seem surprising then, given my love of the soundtrack, that I didn’t seek out the film immeadiately, but in fact it would take another 5 years at least before I saw it on DVD (I‘m not even sure it got much of a cinema release in the U.K.). On my first viewing I felt that whilst it was clear that I was never going to love the movie as much as I loved the soundtrack (which is actually a little lost in the finished film), there were still enough moments in it that stuck with me after the credits rolled, that I felt it deserved a better critical reception than it had got.

First of all, the performances are excellent. In fact, the film is stacked with so many great actors some of whom (Danny Trejo, B.D. Wong, Adam Goldberg, Glenn Plummer, R. Lee Ermey, Shirley Knight, Luis Guzman) barely have any dialogue, that it almost doesn’t do them all justice.

Kilmer, then still in the process of returning to film roles after a few years of appearing in very little and picking up a reputation (following his appearance in the cinematic car crash that was The Island Of Dr Moreau) of being arrogant and difficult to work with, truly holds the film together with a great and at times surprisingly (considering how over the top parts of the film are) subtle and nuanced performance, managing to switch seemlessly between the various personas of Danny and Tom depending on who his character is dealing with.

Just as impressive and nuanced is Peter Saarsgard as Danny‘s drug buddy, Jimmy, a character that, in the script, was probably just written as a foil for Danny to give him someone to talk to when he’s roaming around L.A. looking for meth, but Saarsgard elevates him to such a sweet and innocent character, that the relationship between him and Danny ends up being the most important one in the film.

Deborah Kara Unger gives a solid performance as Danny‘s abused neighbour who he tries to rescue, whilst Chandra West does the most with her small amount of screen time as Tom/Danny‘s late wife and Anthony La Paglia and Doug Hutchinson are superb as the corrupt cops, as is Vincent D‘Onofrio as the (physically and morally) grotesque drug dealer „Pooh Bear“.

The cinematography by Amir Mokri (Blue Steel, Lord Of War, several of the Transformers movies and Zach Synder‘s Man Of Steel) is gorgeous and manages to move effortlessly between shadowy night time noir-infused streets, to the bleached out vistas of the desert in the middle of the day.

If the film has a flaw, it’s the shifts in tone and whilst the more comic moments (the opening montage about the history of methaphetamine, Kudjo‘s botched heist of Bob Hope‘s stool sample) are amusing, they jar with the rest of the film as a whole. However, the story does have a good third act twist, which raises the level of the stakes for Danny/Tom and ultimately saves the film from being just another drug addled neo noir, even if the last few minutes seem a bit rushed, as if it was drastically cut down in the editing room.

The movie was D.J. Caruso‘s feature film debut and his handling of the various set pieces is suitably assured and its not surprising that he’s gone on to do bigger budget films like Disturbia and I am Number 4.

Ultimately, this is an intriguing and unusual thriller, that goes places you don’t necessarily expect it to. If it gets a little lost along the way, then the performances and the visual style, not to mention the fantastic score (which is readily available on You Tube if you‘re intrigued to hear it in isolation after reading this – something I highly recommend) more than make up for the occasional detour.

Finally, I have my own (sort of ) Val Kilmer anecdote from around the time this film was released: I was engaged to provide the score/sound design for a production of Shakespeare‘s Hamlet in London, with Colin Firth attached to play the lead. I was very excited by the prospect (though not as excited as many of my female friends – several of whom made me swear, under threat of bodily harm, to take them as my ‘plus one’ to the opening party), but as often happens with such dream projects-it all fell though, as Firth bowed out of the production. In the interim though, searching for a replacement there was serious talk of getting Val (who was in London filming something at the time) to take over the role. How far the negotiations got, I have no idea but the moment remains fixed in my memory as the point in my career when I nearly got to work with him.

The Salton Sea (2002, Dir. D.J. Caruso) was originally published in “You Need To See This…” on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We‘re almost at the end of March already and I forgot to post something about this blog‘s 10th anniversary, on March 2nd.

When I wrote that first post back in 2015, I had no idea that I‘d still be writing this blog a decade later. In fact, I was more worried about keeping it going for more than 12 months – my longest running blog previously had lasted about 9 – than anything else.

I‘m currently in the process of turning the blog into a book, which hopefully will be released at the end of this year. More information on that later on this year once it’s nearer to completion.

In the meantime a big „thank you“ to all my readers, especially those who have been around since the beginning.

Happy Birthday! was originally published in “You Need To See This…” on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.