The Last Cowboy Rides On
Kirk Douglas is a hundred today.
I always liked his film; Lonely Are The Brave, ever since I watched it late one night, whilst programming Artemis.
Happy Birthday, Kirk!
Why Should Hackers Censor What I Watch At The Cinema?
As one of my friends was born in Korea, I was quite looking to seeing The Interview.
However, it now appears that Sony has cancelled all showings of the film in response to threats from hackers.
In response, I will not buy any more Sony products. Not that I have for a couple of years.
Surely, the film makers were only following the route of Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator.
Properly used humour is a vicious weapon and I’ve been wondering what Joan Rivers would have said of the cancellation.
I hope that Have I got News For You give the whole story comprehensive coverage.
I decide what I watch, not dictators, hackers or those with weird political views!
At least the film will soon be available on the Internet, as Sony’s Plastic Collander Of Security, will have let at least one complete copy escape.
The Titanic, Ipswich
This was my nickname for the Odeon cinema in Ipswich which was built in 1991.
I gave it the nickname, as I thought it would never be a success and would sink as the ill-fated liner did. According to this report from the Ipswich Star it lasted until 2005.
C and I only ever saw one film in the cinema.
It’s all very sad!
The Battles Of Coronel And The Falkland Islands
Thebattles of Coronel and the Falkland Islamds were fought between the Royal and German Navies in the First World War. In 1927 a silent black and white drama/documentary was made telling the story of both battles called the Battles of Coronel and the Falkland Islands.
The British Film Institute have restored the film and on Friday, I went to see it at BFI Southbank.
It is a superb restoration to which has been added a modern score. Usually, when films of this age are restored you see the odd bit of blankness on the screen. But not with this film!
The film is also unusual in that no actors are given any credits, but the Royal Navy ships, who played the actual combatants in both navies are named.
It is a serious reconstruction of the battles, but it is not without dramatic and comic moments.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and it reminded me of when at about eleven or so, I saw the Powell and Pressburger film; The Battle of the River Plate, made about the battle in December 1939. I had seen the film in the Rex cinema in Station Road, Wood Green, which was close to my father’s print works.
It would be interesting to see that again to compare it with the earlier one. Both were made with real warships!
If you want to see the film, but can’t get to a screening it is available for download on the BFI Player.
A Dog Of A Film
The Times today gave the film Pudsey: The Movie, the score of zero stars. The review included this paragraph.
Given the half-chewed dog’s dinner of a movie that resulted, it seems likely that makers of Pudsey the Dog: The Movie decided to maximise their investment by getting Pudsey to write the screenplay as well
No wonder, it’s being advertised on a high proportion of buses. The busometer is never wrong.
They Run Out Of Letters
The Scree n on the Green, rarely misses a tick in its film information.
They Run Out Of Letters
This is one of their best.
The Film That Changed My Life!
Last night, I went to the Hackney Picturehouse to see the newly-remastered digital version of Hard Day’s Night.
The film was originally released in July 1964 and I probably saw it that summer or soon afterwards. I remember I spent that summer in London, as I was working at Enfield Rolling Mills, in the Electronics Laboratory, putting little bits of automation on metal processing machinery.
There was a mixed-sex group of us at school, who spent time together and went to parties, plays and events. Some of us may have gone to see the film together after the summer. We did go to see the Beatles in Hammersmith that Christmas, which was a night I’ll never forget.
But whenever and wherever I saw Hard Day’s Night for the first time, it had a tremendous effect on my life.
I often wonder, if I’d not seen the film and the Beatles live, whether I would have ever considered going to Liverpool University. If I hadn’t, I’d have never met C and my life would have been completely different.
Since that first viewing, wherever it was, that film has always been one of my favourites and I’ve seen it many times. But not as many times, as I would have liked, as C never liked to see a film too many times.
So it was an absolute joy to see the film last night.
The cinema was surprisingly full for a Monday night and the audience was generally about fifty upwards, although there were a few children and teenagers there, with a sprinkling of twenty- and thirty-somethings.
The film still has all the power to delight and inspire and I suspect it will be doing so for many years yet.
As I said to a young couple as I left the cinema last night, the film proved to me that we could all have dreams and live them! I certainly have lived my life to the full!
Without the Beatles and a Hard Day’s Night, the world would be a very much poorer place.
I’d probably have gone to a third-rate University and ended up back in Felixstowe in a semi with a thick ugly wife and 2.4 children. Perish the thought!
If Hard Day’s Night comes to a cinema near you in the next few months, then go and see one of the most significant films of the 1960s, that did a lot to redefine modern cinema.
Now That’s What I Call A Turkey
The title is Kate Muir’s headline for her film review in The Times of Walking On Sunshine, which she thinks is worth just a single star and could be a strong contender for Worst British Film of 2014.
I shall not be going!
Worst Day For Films?
I thought it might be nice to see a film, but The Times has reviewed ten films and gives them an average of 2.4.
So not much joy there!
