Tag: films

book adjacent, film

Book Adjacent: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

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I feel like I’ve been on a bit of a run of long term favourite old movies recently, but I’m back with another one because Dick Van Dyke’s 100th birthday was yesterday (13 December) and given that I’ve already told you how much I love his other big kids movie role in Mary Poppins, this seemed fitting.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is the iconic story of a magical car owned by a not very successful inventor and which takes him and his family on adventures, including to rescue their grandfather from a foreign land where children are banned. It’s loosely based on the children’s book of the same name by Ian Fleming (of James Bond fame). By loosely I mean the whistling sweets, the flying and the floating of the car are from the book, but the whole Baron Bomburst plot is… not (the book has gunrunners on the French coast instead!). Chitty probably has just as much plot as Bedknobs, but it has a lot more musical numbers. Bedknobs is a kids movie with some songs, this is definitely a movie musical.

It should be stated up front that the Child Catcher is one of the scariest villains in all children’s movies and if you’ve got kids do remember that before you show it to them for the first time. Robert Helpmann is amazing playing him and it’s a creepy scary character and performance that can easily give kids nightmares. Dick Van Dyke is perfect for the chaos energy of Caractacus Potts – a scatty inventor and single dad who can be totally oblivious to anything but his work but who has made a contraption to cook food for his family. And he also gets to show of his dancing. I’ve put the Me Ol’ Bam-boo scene in here because it’s just so good – it’s basically the equivalent in this of the Chimney Sweep on the roof scene in Poppins, with massed dancing and tricks except that Van Dyke is two beats behind for a lot of it because the schtick is that he’s copying the others and learning it as he goes because he’s hiding from a man who’s just had a disastrous hair cut from one of his inventions.

The music is by the Sherman Brothers, who basically did the music for all my childhood favourite children’s movies because they also did Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and of course The Parent Trap as well as most of The Jungle Book. And just to link it to my favourites even more, Irwin Kostal who conducted the music also did The Sound of Music (as well as Bedknobs and Mary P). Like Bedknobs and Broomsticks this was in my sister and my Saturday night rotation when we were kids, again recorded off the TV onto VCS and I’m pretty sure I still know all the words to the songs even now. I definitely borrowed the easy piano book from the town library more than once so that I could play the songs and sing along. Side note: I know that the word “quay” is pronounced “key” and when I’m singing along to Hushabye Mountain in the film I’m fine with the line “down by the quay” but any time I encountered it written down when I was playing the piano music it trips me up. Anyway.

And if you’ve watched the James Bond films there is a bit of cross over here too beyond just the fact that they’re both Fleming creations. Baron Bomburst is Gert Fröbe aka Goldfinger and the man that is scrapping the wreck of Chitty at the start of the movie is Desmond Llewellyn aka Q. And the screenplay is written by Roald Dahl (yes him) who also wrote the screenplay for You Only Live Twice. And it’s produced by Cubby Broccoli’s Eon movies and so of course because they’ve just been sold to Amazon there is talk of a remake, which is one thing we really do not need. This is already not a short film. It’s over two hours – nearly half an hour longer than Bedknobs and nearly ten minutes longer than Poppins – and I’ve never known a remake to be shorter than the original! But in any case, this is pretty perfect as is.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

book adjacent, Children's books, film, not a book

Book Adjacent: Bedknobs and Broomsticks

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Angela Lansbury would have been 100 last month, so today I’m talking about one of my favourite childhood movies – Bedknobs and Broomsticks – which had magic and witches and is thus perfect for a post-Halloween autumn afternoon.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is loosely based on two books by Mary Norton, who also wrote the Borrowers books. In this Disney version it’s 1940 and three orphans, Charles, Carrie and Paul, are evacuated to the village of Pepperinge Eye on the Dorset coast where they are billeted with the very reluctant Eglantine Price. They try to run away to London but change their mind when they discover Miss Price is a witch. When they try to blackmail her about this, she turns Paul into a rabbit and says that she’s learning magic to try and help fight the Nazis. When her correspondence course writes to say it’s closing down, they head to London on a flying bed to track down her teacher to try and get the final spell on the course. But it turns out the teacher is Emelius Brown, who is a street magician who has no idea his spell work when it’s Miss Price using them. And that’s only got you to the halfway point. The second half has a trip to a magical island and a Nazi invasion to thwart.

As well as Angela Lansbury as Miss Price, it has David Tomlinson (aka Mr Banks in Mary Poppins) as Emelius Brown, Reginald Owen (Admiral Boom from Poppins) and for Brits of a certain age Bruce Forsyth as a spiv. Like Mary Poppins it has a mix of live action and animation sequences and music by the Sherman Brothers. As is often the case the song that got the Oscar nomination (The Age of Not Believing) is not my favourite in the but Beautiful Briny, Substitutiary Locomotion, The Old Home Guard and the Portobello Road songs are singalong bangers.

Like so many Disney films, it was adapted into a musical a few years back and I saw it on tour in Northampton. That was ok rather than brilliant, it was great to hear the songs from the movie but I didn’t love the new additions and I can see why it never went into the West End. My sister and I recorded this off the TV (one Christmas I think) and watched it in rotation with about four other videos on Saturday nights while we were eating dinner in front of the TV (our weekend treat). Even now if I happened across it on TV on a weekend afternoon I’m pretty sure I would stop and watch it to the end.

Have a great Sunday.

film, not a book

Not a Book: The Phoenician Scheme

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Happy Sunday everyone, I hope you’ve all had a good weekend so far, and I’m back with another suggestion of something to watch – this time at the cinemas because it only came out last week.

The Phoenician Scheme is the latest film from Wes Anderson. Written by Anderson and from a story by him and Roman Coppola, it’s a black comedy about a wealthy businessman who appoints his daughter as his heir after the latest of (many) assassination attempts against him sees his plane crash (again). The two of them set off to try and save his latest business venture where they are targeted by more assassins, tycoons and terrorists.

Anderson is known for his distinctive visual style and ensemble casts featuring regular players as well as the dark comedy, nostalgia-inspired worlds and quirkiness. My first Wes Anderson was The Life Aquatic, which I saw at the cinema in my year in France. Now that is not one of his more critically acclaimed movies, but which I really enjoyed – because of that crazy aesthetic and style. I loved Grand Budapest Hotel when that came out and have been to the last couple at the cinema because I like seeing them on the big screen. I’ve never had a bad time watching them – but some of them I think I will definitely watch again when they come around on the TV and others I probably won’t. This one I think is in the former category – whereas Asteroid City is probably the latter. But his films can be a bit of divisive – I’ve put Mark Kermode’s review here because he explains the situation very well.

Have a lovely Sunday everyone.

film, not a book, tv

Old Favourites at Christmas

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Every year in the run up to Christmas, I need to clear space on the TiVo for all the new stuff that’s coming – and that means that I’ll delete a few of my favourite movies to clear space – knowing that they’ll be on again at some point over the 10 days of Christmas and if the TV happens to be on when they’re showing, I’ll probably switch over and watch too. So today, here are a few things that are on that list…

Some people say it’s not Christmas if the Wizard of Oz isn’t on TV, I say it isn’t Christmas if The Sound of Music isn’t on somewhere. It is in my top 10 favourite movies, if not my top five. But it’s also now a tradition to read this genius article from McSweeneys: I Regret to Inform You that My Wedding to Captain Von Trapp has been Cancelled. It’s thirteen years old now and it’s still as funny as the first time I read it. I think I like it more than I like their Decorative Gourd Season article. And that’s saying something!

I’m also a big Doris Day fan – and Christmas is often a time when her movies pop up on TV. This year as well as Pillow Talk (definitely in my top five) there’s Lover Come Back, Move Over Darling and Calamity Jane where you can also enjoy the wonder that is Howard Keele – star of the movie version of Kiss Me, Kate (which inexplicably isn’t on this Christmas damnit).

And then there’s the Agatha Christie adaptation situation. Unusually this year there are no repeats of the Joan Hickson Miss Marples (Alibi are repeating some of the Ngaio Marsh Alleyn adaptations this year though) but you can watch the Albert Finney Murder on the Orient Express, which is definitely a Christmas movie (snow!) and has an all star cast and amazing music and is much better than the recent remake – which isn’t bad, it’s just not that one!

Oh and Some Like it Hot is on too. Another from my all time my top five. My TiVo is going to be so, so full!

Happy Christmas Eve everyone!

book adjacent

Book Adjacent: Day of the Jackal

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Back with another recommendation for a film based on a book this weekend, but I’m going to start off by saying that this film is brilliant, but I’m not sure I can ever watch it again. If you read on, I will explain!

OK lets start with the fact that I’m talking about the 1970s movie based on the book of the same name written by Frederick Forsythe and not the Bruce Willis remake or the recent mini series with Eddie Redmayne. This one is directed by Fred Zinneman and stars Edward Fox as the Jackal, an assassin hired to kill French President Charles De Gaulle in the summer of 1963. The Jackal is hired by a militant group, angry about the independence of Algeria, who have just failed in their own attempt to kill De Gaulle and hire a British assassin instead. The movie follows him as he meticulously plots the assassination, travelling all over Europe, and also the police effort to track him down – led by Deputy Commissioner Lebel, played by Michael Lonsdale aka Drax from Moonraker.

It’s a film full of fabulous but understated performances, but Edward Fox is truly chilling as the Jackal. He is a professional who is completely detached from everything and everyone and will do whatever it takes to get the job done. The reason I’m not sure I can ever watch it again is because one of the murders he carries out en route to his vantage point to take a shot at de Galle upset me so much. I can’t tell you much more than that, but it really upset/disturbed me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterwards, and in the course of finding the trailer to insert into this post, YouTube also turned up the clip of that scene and now I’m thinking about it again. Hopefully writing about it will help and I’ll be able to get to sleep tonight without it circling around in my head again. I honestly don’t know why sometimes things stick in my head like this, but things do sometimes and this one did.

A few months back I wrote about Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and I would put this in the same category as that – right up to the fact that there’s a scene at the end of that film that if I hear the music from it, I get flashbacks of it (although it doesn’t stop me from re-watching that one – so maybe I will get over this?). Luckily (!) after the opening sequence, Day of the Jackal doesn’t use music as a soundtrack – it only occurs on people’s radios or TVs or where there are bands or musicians on the street, all of which really adds to the tense atmosphere of the movie. It is also very sparing on the dialogue – you need to be paying attention to follow what is going on – so much is seen or inferred rather than spoken out loud. And on top of all that, it’s great to see what all of these European locations looked like back then and with all of the great 1960s cars.

Him Indoors recorded this one off one of the film channels for me, because he thought I’d like it (he was right, except for that one thing) so it should come around again at some point, but probably isn’t on the streaming services at the moment.

book adjacent, film

Book Adjacent: The Count of Monte Cristo

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It’s Sunday and this week I have a movie to recommend, and it’s a bit of an epic. It’s not often that I recommend a three hour-long film, but honestly The Count of Monte Cristo didn’t feel that long because there is so much going on and it’s so much fun.

So this is the latest adaptation of the book by Alexandre Dumas (pere), and unlike The Three Musketeers, it’s not one of his that I have read so I can’t tell you how much this new French version has left out, but I suspect it’s a lot because it is a long book and covers a huge period. The early phase of this has a lot of “x years later” slates to get you to the point where Edmond Dantes returns to seek his revenge. But I’ve skipped a few steps. Here is the rough outline of the story, as told in the movie:

In 1815 Edmond Dantes, a young sailor, is falsely accused of aiding Napoleon and is arrested on his wedding day (before the knot can be tied). Betrayed by his friends and convicted by a corrupt magistrate, he is sentenced to life in prison. Some years into his time in prison, he meets an old abbé and while the two of them work to escape the Abbé educates him and also tells him where to find a mysterious treasure. On his escape, Edmond locates the treasure and sets himself up as the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo and in the 1830s arrives in Paris to wreak revenge on the people who put him in jail.

I love a bit of swashbuckling adventure, and this really delivers on that. It doesn’t have as starry a cast as the two recent French Musketeers movies, but it has a similar amount of swagger and adventure, and as I said at the top, there’s so much going on that you don’t notice the three hour run time. You might have to have a hunt around to find a screening of it, but it looks amazing on the big screen – it made me want to go to the south of France again as well as being entertaining.

Have a great Sunday!

film, not a book

Not a Book: On the Basis of Sex

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A slightly random film review today, because this is not new, and there was no particular reason why we watched it the other week, except that it was there.

This is a biopic about the early career of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the US Supreme Court Justice who died in the latter stages of President Trump’s term. If all you know about her is that she was a judge, this will fill you in on how she got to that position, and how tough things were for women who wanted to be lawyers in the mid-twentieth century. In fact there are portions of this that will probably make you really angry – they definitely did me anyway.

It has its flaws – it’s quite old fashioned in style, I don’t think Armie Hammer is great, and it probably should have done more about her later achievements than a couple of credit cards at the end, but as a primer to go and watch a documentary or read a biography, it’s pretty good.

film

Not a Book: The Wedding Singer

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It’s the August bank holiday weekend here in the UK, which is one of the most popular times to have your wedding – in fact one of my co-workers got married yesterday. So today’s not a book is one of my favourite films set around weddings – the late 90s Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore classic: The Wedding Singer.

It’s 1985 and Robbie Hart (Sandler) is the singer with a covers band in Ridgefield, New Jersey. Their main gig is weddings, and as the film opens he’s performing at one the week before his own wedding. Newly employed at the venue is waitress Julia Sullivan (Barrymore), who Robbie meets during his break and promises to sing at her wedding which she is just beginning to organise. But it seems that they may both have chosen the wrong people to get engaged to…

I have watched this film more times than I care to mention – and it’s one of those films where if I come across it on the TV I can’t help but stop to watch it. It was in Amazon Prime a month or so back and I watched it again then. In fact, while I was writing this paragraph I went back to see if it was still on Prime so I could watch it again (it’s not, it’s back to being a rental, gnash). I can recite along with large parts of it because it was one of about half a dozen films that my sister and I had on heavy rotation on Saturday nights when we were teenagers – it’s in a group of films* where even now if I send a line from them to her and she’ll message be back the next. It’s one of a couple of Drew Barrymore movies that I love but it’s also maybe the only Adam Sandler film I’ve watched more than once.

There was a musical of the film made in 2006, which falls into the category of shows I’ve never seen but still know all the lyrics to – because it hit Broadway during the period where I was deeply into the BroadwayWorld message board and when YouTube was starting to get videos of clips from TV shows – which happened to include their Tony Award performance. Although the soundtrack to the musical is iconic, the musical has an original score – except for Grow Old With You which is from the movie – which I think does a great job of capturing the energy of the 80s songs of the movie. So enjoy their opening number – It’s Your Wedding Day – from the Tony’s and see what I mean.

Anyway, I love it to the point where I find it hard to believe that there can be any one out there who hasn’t watched it, but if you haven’t and you like the sort of romances that I write about on this blog and you like romantic comedy movies, then you should definitely seek it out at your earliest convenience.

Have a great Sunday and enjoy the rest of your long weekend if you have one.

*The other films in this basket include Bridget Jones’s Diary, Drive Me Crazy, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill and on the TV front large swaths of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

film, not a book

Not a Book: Bombshell

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A film this week and one that features Margot Robbie, but sadly not Barbie as I haven’t managed to get to the cinema to see that one yet. I’m sure I will though. Probably not as a double bill with Oppenheimer though because I’m not sure I can cope with Christopher Nolan at the moment.

So this is a dramatised version of true events – and is inspired by the real life sexual harrassment allegations made against Fox News boss Roger Ailes by women who worked there. Nicole Kidman plays Gretchen Carlson, who was the first to sue Ailes and Charlize Theron plays Megyn Kelly, who we see at the start of the film being insulted by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump for asking him about his offensive comments towards women. Margot Robbie plays Kayla, a composite character who is a young journalist who joins the newsroom and faces unwanted attentions fromAiles.

I think whether you followed the story at the time or not this is a compelling look at power dynamics in the work place and the pressures that women can face from men in positions of power. I’m not in the US so I don’t really have enough experience of watching Fox News to comment on how accurate the portrayals of Carlsson and Kelly are – except to say that Charlize Theron is unrecognisable (Him Indoors didn’t realise it was her at all!) but the make up teams won the Oscar and the Bafta for their work – and Theron got an Oscar nomination – as did Margot Robbie.* It is a bit of a tough watch – but it is very good – and if you’re planning on doing some of the other films about famous/powerful men who have faced sexual harassment allegations – like She Said (which I’m waiting to hit the movie channels) then this is definitely one to watch.

And because I hate ending posts on a down note – all the reports that I’ve heard about Barbie so far have been favourable, so I really am going to try and get to see that soon!

Happy Sunday!

They lost to Renee Zellweger’s Judy Garland and Laura Dern in A Marriage Story respectively.

book adjacent, books

Book related: The Three Musketeers

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Let’s start by saying I have a soft spot for adaptations of Alexander Dumas’s band of sword fighting soldiers. I think it probably started with Dogtanian and the Muskerhounds – the original, not the film a couple of years ago and possessor of a deeply catchy theme tune (I’ve put it right at the bottom of the post, press play if you dare) but there have been many others since, including when my favourite skater at the time did a routine to the music from The Man in the Iron Mask to win his Olympic gold! Anyway today we’re talking about the new French movie – the first of a duo.

So they’ve done some… adjustments to the plot of the book, but if you’ve read the book D’Artagnan takes you to roughly the halfway point of the novel in a very easy to enjoy two hour romp. There are sword fights galore along with chivalry and banter and some great stunt work – including a man jumping from one horse to another, which I always love to see.

It’s got a top notch French cast – including Vincent Cassel and Romain Duris among the musketeers and Eva Green as Milady – who spends a lot of time in a huge hat smoking a long stemmed pipe. Iconic stuff. Him Indoors came with me to see it and he described it as “nonsense – but very enjoyable nonsense” and then started to speculate on how the French film industry manages to make such impressive looking movies on such a consistent basis!

If you’re a purist and want something that follows the book completely, this may not work for you – one man left out screening sucking his teeth and telling the usher it wasn’t very accurate – but if you enjoyed the BBC series Musketeers, then I think you’ll like this. We’re definitely going back for part two, which is called Milady, when that arrives here at the end of the year.

Have a great Sunday everyone.