Holiday on the Buses (1973)

1973 was a vintage year for film-goers: The Exorcist, The Sting, Magnum Force, Enter the Dragon, Amacord, Badlands, Coffy, The Crazies, Don't Look Now, The Holy Mountain, The Wicker Man, The Stone Killer, Live and Let Die, The Asphyx. Hammer Films managed to keep its end up with the mighty Holiday on the Buses. The original On the Buses series ran from 1969 until 1973, starring Reg Varney and Bob Grant as a couple of sexual predators, who use their jobs at a bus depot as a licence to pull the birds (who are invariably half their age and clad in the miniest of mini skirts).

The series contained all that British comedy held dear at the time: sexism, racism, homophobia, toilet humour, the crudest of double entendre, hackneyed stereotypes and rotten acting. Watched nowadays, the series is, admittedly, mediocre. The film adaptations, however, are far better stuff. On the Buses and Mutiny on the Buses are supremely watchable, but Holiday is the true masterpiece. The Carry On films were running out of steam and the Confessions... films were looming on the horizon, but possibly the best comedy of the 70s had arrived.

The beauty of films like this is the ability to sit agog at the parade of offensive jokes, women screaming at spiders and and men nearing retirement still living with their mothers. The cast of the series are transplanted to a holiday camp in Wales, but the jokes are the same. Over the next 85 minutes suitcases will fly into a river, toilets will explode, subtle seduction techniques are rebuffed, Arthur Mullard will dance and a bus will be abandoned on a beach.

The plot is, essentially, irrelevant. Stan and Jack (Varney and Grant) wave it at anything in a skirt, with varying degrees of success. Wannabe nymphomaniac Olive appears in cinema's most horrendous swimsuit, accompanied by the silver screen's biggest twat, husband Arthur (who gets most of the best lines). Blakey continues to hate Butler and so on. The decline of the British film industry was, by then, pretty inexorable, and films like these act as a time capsule for pre-Ben Elton comedy, and in their own way kept the industry going for a while. I remember walking past the Plaza Cinema (sadly now a snooker hall), which showed nothing but soft core 70s sex films. The posters normally had a badly done painting of a partially unrobed Mary Millington on them. For reasons that have never been made clear, they once showed the Disney cartoon Pete's Dragon in the late 70s.

I remember trooping into a dark auditorium, with ripped, stained seats and a then-unidentifiable smell in the air (I was only 6 at the time!). There were no curtains on the screen and not even the pre-feature adverts for local Indian restaurants. When the film had finished, a queue of shifty-looking patrons were outside, presumably waiting for the latest David Sullivan epic. Its a strange concept that these seedy wankers were keeping Hollywood at bay for a bit longer.

Its not a subtle film, as the photo above shows (talk about punching above your weight), but Holiday is a long way from the Confessions films or Come Play With Me. However, for a film that's usually screened in the afternoon on ITV 2, there is a goodly amount of flesh on show, with a parade of mini skirted girls, who are probably now as old as my mum, and a few bra and knickers shots (the bras are inevitable the twin-pyramid style as seen in the old Cross-Your-Heart adverts).

There are several classic scenes, including the aforementioned exploding toilet, a nookie-wrecking bout of sea-sickness, an old-time dancing lesson (complete with a Jim Davidson-style joke about 'fairies') and a leg-over session in a nurse's office. Wilfred Brambell's ageing Irish roue seems a little sinister now though. The mysterious animal magnetism of the two stars is still as incomprehensible as ever. As my wife says, "He [Jack] looks like a fucking horse". Perhaps his face isn't his only equine quality. If you can take the dodgier aspects of the film as being 'of their time', then you can't spend a Sunday afternoon in a better way.

Quick round-up of films I've watched this week

I've managed to squeeze in a bit of film watching this week, but haven't had the time to do any proper reviews, so here's a few capsules:

Paul (2011)

 Pegg and Frost fail yet again to replicate the impact of Shaun of the Dead. Having said that, the film starts with a very funny, Galaxy Quest-type pisstake of a Sci-Fi convention. I know its an easy target, but the sight of a dozen Princess Leia slave girls always gives good value. Seth Rogen is a touch irritating as the voice of Paul, but the CGI is brilliant, Sigourney Weaver is obviously enjoying chewing the scenery, and a fundamental Christian has her beliefs shattered by the big-eyed bastard. Paul is nothing earth-shattering, but its far, far better than I expected and worth a look when it comes to TV.


Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

Another one I wasn't expecting much from. Its a solid Western, with aliens instead of Injuns. Daniel Craig is particularly impressive as the amnesiac abductee, a slightly less taciturn Harmonica. The cinematography is good and the aliens themselves are vicious devils. There are a few plot holes, including the ease at which Craig escapes the spacecraft, but on the whole, its surprisingly enjoyable.

Snake Strikes Back (1981)

 A Godfrey Ho bit of Kung-foolery. In a triumph for fat bastards everywhere, the secret to martial arts prowess is a huge beer gut. The comedy is a little strained, and the cross-eyed imbecile is not exactly politically correct, but the choreography is passable and the dubbing will provide a few laughs. As in most of these films, the women are eye catching and the haircuts are of the pudding basin variety.

The Exterminator (1980)

 I remember watching this as a teenager, and for years, all I could remember was a guy getting his head sliced off and an industrial mincer. When it was released on DVD, I bought it again and was surprised by how good it actually is. Robert Ginty is a good, low key action hero and, while the direction is terrible, I love it. The car/motorcycle chase is an excellent example of sheer incompetence in film making, but any film which contains the line "That nigger was my best friend, motherfucker!" has got a lot going for it in my book. Paedophiles are murdered and hookers are suitably sleazy-looking. The climax is a touch of a let down though.

Puce Moment (1949)

 A film I watch at least once a month, and is the perfect short film. Anger is one of my favourite directors, and this is his greatest moment. The best 6 minutes you could possibly have. Great music, stunning visuals, sad and euphoric at the same time.

Apollo 18 (2011)

Conspiracy theories concerning the moon landing have been around for decades. The most popular being that the Apollo 11 moon landings were faked due to the technical shortcomings of the day. The official photographs, certainly, raise a few interesting points and the Van Allen Radiation Belts would sure give a kick to anyone travelling through them. There still is an intruiging 'tennis match' between both sides of the argument, with plausible data coming from both believers in the conspiracy and their detractors. Most such theories are based on an innate disatisfaction with the powers that be, a situation that has probably been around since we came out of the caves. The political landscape in America during the 50s, 60s and 70s, with the politically (as ever) motivated Red Menace; the assassinations of public figures, both home and abroad; Nixon and the Foreign-Policy-gone-hopelessly-awry Vietnam War gave a fertile atmosphere for the Conspiracy Theorist. Disbelief in the official verdicts in the three great assassinations of the 60s, JFK, RFK and MLK, is practically de-rigueur, and the current, rather dubious, reports on the deaths of Bin Laden and Gaddaffi carry on this theme. The veracity of such things is outside of our remit here, but it does make for a certain public mindset.

Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego's Apollo 18 uses the claim by some that Apollo 11 astronauts spotted evidence of extraterrestrial activity on the lunar surface as its plot device. Rumours abounded on the internet that the 'found footage' style trailer was purportedly real, suppressed film of the supposedly-cancelled mission. This type of viral marketing was seen during the advertising of The Blair Witch Project, where a team entered the woods and never returned. Only their film was retrieved. This device is nothing new, and Ruggero Deodato's 1980 classic Cannibal Holocaust and Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler's The Last Broadcast from 1998 use a similar theme.Whilst the Blair marketing fooled the credulous, given the massive success of the film, it is curious that people were fooled again by an identical technique. No doubt the hugely grossing Paranormal Activity franchise played a part in Apollo 18's inception, it perhaps says something interesting about our thoughts on our govenors when a film openly features an Governmental conspiracy.

The film features totally convincing replications of the authentic (or was it) Apollo footage, complete with grainy, high contrast visuals of the Moon's surface from the lunar module. There are a few errors, most noticeably the lack of  time lag between the radio transmissions from the lunar surface, to Houston and back. The total distance is approximately 500,000 miles, radio waves travel at about 186,000 miles per second, so there should be a lag of around 3 seconds at least. Only a small point, but noticeable. Ron Howard's Apollo 13 featured an excellent approximation of the claustrophobic confines of the spacecraft, and a similar feeling is present here. The discomfort and forced camaraderie which must have been present is very well portrayed, as is the ennui of the astronauts.

It is difficult to relate much of the plot without giving the game away, but it is probably safe to say that extraterrestrial life is encountered on the surface, and things do not go well for the crew. The physics look as they should, and the freezing temperatures and total darkness of the craters is addressed in a nicely-done sequence lit by the flash of a camera. There are far less jumps than, say, Paranormal Activity,  but there are the same fleeting glances of something seen via a grainy, indistinct monitor. The alien activity is understated, without the CGI creatures you would expect, and an abandoned Soviet lunar module looks surprisingly like a Cylon from the Battlestar Galactica re-imagining. The fact that a NASA-trained astronaut could fly a Soviet lander is not particularly convincing, but the ending is ambiguous, in a Blair Witch-type way.

All in all, Apollo18 is an enjoyable experience. Not earth-shattering and certainly inferior to the Paranormal Activity franchise. There are effective moments, and the acting and production values are excellent. The Government's betrayal of the crew, and subsequent cold-blooded reaction to their plight is totally convincing, and that's probably the scariest thing of all.

Melancholia (2011)

The end of the world has long been a staple feature in cinema. There have been the good: Romero's early Dead films, Dr. Strangelove, a whole raft of 50s films; the bad: Armageddon, 2012, The Day After Tomorrow; and the ugly: Deep Impact. The Danish auteur Lars von Trier, who is definitely not a Nazi, would seem an unlikely choice to make an apocalyptical film, but his latest offering could be the best of the lot. After making intensely personal and intimate films, such as Dogville, Breaking the Waves and the controversial The Idiots, the conventions of the disaster movie should not lie easily with his usual style. Melancholia, however, while dealing with the usual exigency (this time a planet is on a collision course with Earth), von Trier uses it as an exploration into the workings of the mind of a depressed woman (Kirsten Dunst).

The eventual fate of Earth is revealed at the beginning of the film, and so the usual last-minute attempts to rescue the situation can be dispensed with, and the main focus can be on the characters. The opening, wordless sequence of disparate images is reminiscent in feel to the earlier Antichrist, with the use of slow-motion photography and seemingly meaningless imagery. Of particular note is a brilliantly posed reference to Millais' Ophelia. While lacking the wince-inducing scenes, Melancholia is an equally disturbing piece of film making. As always, von Trier is more interested in subtext and artifice, which is exemplified by the cracks in the veneer of Dunst's wedding to Zoolander's Alexander Skarsgard. Based on the director's own struggles with depression, the wedding slowly degenerates into rejection, anxiety and a brilliantly-worded resignation.

Not helped by her father (John Hurt) acting the twat, her mother (Charlotte Rampling) pouring distain on the whole event, or her sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) manically rushing the couple through the timetable, Dunst's wedding is over almost as soon as it has begun. The camera is kept close to the actors and the lighting is fantastic, especially in the exterior scenes, with faces lit by orange lamps in contrast to the darkening sky. Von Trier's use of the female face has been, rightly, compared to his compatriot Carl Dreyer, with both Dunst and Gainsbourg given no place to hide. The male characters, including a monumentally pissed off Kiefer Sutherland and a very funny Udo Kier are secondary to the actions of the two sisters as the titular planet approaches.

 Von Trier and his cinematographer, Manuel Alberto Claro, use the camera beautifully, even as Dunst's mental state reaches its nadir. In a particularly arresting shot, she is seen, naked, bathing in Melancholia's sickly blue light-a neat visual metaphor for the character's eventual acceptance and utilisation of her mental state. Several intruiging notions are hinted at. In Antichrist, Willem Dafoe used his psychoanalytical training in a disasterous attempt to help his wife. Here, Sutherland, an amateur astromoner, acts as the voice of reason with his assertion that the scientists have got it right, and all will be well. The failure of science against the forces of nature is complete, and as the fox said in Antichrist: "Chaos reigns", and it seems that von Trier agrees. Despite the nihilistic vision, both films end in an almost serene, Zen-like acceptance of reality. The Taoist concept of wu wei or non-action seems appropriate in both cases.

Given a cast like this, it is unsurprising that the acting is uniformly excellent. Sutherland is a slightly less homicidal Jack Bauer, Gainsbourg shows again the depths of hysteria and Dunst is truly mesmerising. Wasted for years as screaming meat in the Spiderman trilogy and a string of forgettable pap, she moves from happiness, through to mild depression, into an almost complete mental breakdown and out the other side to become, perhaps, the most sane person around. Her character is stripped of all glamour, and clothes occasionally, and the anguish behind her facade is brilliantly portrayed, especially in the first half of the film.

Melancholia can certainly be seen as a final parting of the waves for von Trier and the naive Dogme 95 movement. As in all rigid belief structures, the rules were broken almost immediately (in the first Dogme film, Festen, in fact), and Melancholia's elaborate CGI effects and highly effective use of the music of Wagner would hardly adhere to the Vows of Chastity. Where, perhaps, von Trier follows the spirit of the movement is his fixation on character and storyline in the face of a catastrophe which is almost incidental.

Yes, the whole film does look as good as the image above, but all is not perfect. Alexander Skarsgard's beard is possibly the most feeble in the history of cinema.

Drive (2011)

The 80s has never seen a particularly cool decade. The 70s was a time of Scorcese coming up to speed, Argento was making good films, the Star Wars saga was born and the most frightening film ever, Jaws, was released. The 90s was a time of Britpop, Tarantino and me leaving university. Scratch beneath the surface of 'Greed is Good', terrible fashions and doing chemistry A-level, and there were a few high points during 1980-89: the Smiths, Stone Roses, Pixies, The Goonies, Raging Bull and Ghostbusters.

My interest was piqued when I heard good reviews of an 80s-inspired car film from Nicolas Winding Refn,  the man behind the excellent Valhalla Rising and the unseen by me, but highly praised Bronson. Given the nature of the country, American cinema has been in love with the car almost since its inception, and many memorable films have resulted: Bullit, Two Lane Blacktop, Vanishing Point, even the execrable 2 Fast franchise. So, a talented director, funky leading man (Ryan Gosling) and a great piece of eye-candy (Carey Mulligan) allied to a retro feel should give us a winning combination. Unfortunately, despite the hyperbole surrounding Drive, it is pretty standard stuff. Cinema is full of nameless, enigmatic characters: the Narrator in Fight Club, Clint Eastwood in the Dollars Trilogy, Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West, and so on. Gosling is a similar, rootless American Adam, with very little characterization or back story, whose character is referred to simply as 'the Kid'.

Although set in the present day, the influence of the 80s hangs heavily over things, including the Pretty in Pink-style credits and a particularly horrendous bomber jacket with a scorpion print on the back. The opening sequence is a brilliantly staged, almost dialogue-free bank job, introducing Gosling as a Stuntman Mike-style guy who moonlights as a getaway driver. Gosling's nascent professional race driving career is sponsored by dodgy Mafia-types, including the always-fun-to-watch Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks. Mulligan is effective as  a fairly standard, helpless housewife married to a minor criminal, who's homecoming from prison goes spectacularly wrong. Shades of Pale Rider can't be avoided, as Gosling becomes embroiled in an increasingly vicious tussle with the mobsters, albeit without the stetson but with a great pair of leather driving gloves.

The plot is standard stuff, with the Driver, who isn't afraid to smack his bitch up, matching the villains for ferocity, particularly in a nicely nasty head-stomping in a lift. The whole thing is well acted, and the direction and cinematography are professionally done, but despite the rotten electro-pop soundtrack, there is no Miami Vice-type sheen, which would at least make things interesting. Instead, there is an almost 70s feel to things, with gritty visuals and washed out colours. Apparently, Refn was inspired by films such as The Day of the Locust and the works of visionary film maker Alejandro Jodorowsky, and the scorpion jacket was a reference to Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising, but Drive simply cannot compare to company like this. Essentially, its a workmanlike thriller, with some memorable moments (especially the knife fight near the end: the lighting and camera angle reduces the protagonists to Giacometti statues) and capable performances.

Scandinavian-style Existentialism notwithstanding, the film is a little dull, with no memorable dialogue and a predictable plot. Refn's prior Valhalla Rising had a similar main character (in fact, Mads Mikklesen had absolutely no lines at all), but the fantastical plot and spectacular visuals came together in a seriously underrated work. A taciturn, enigmatic character who can explode into violence when the situation calls for it. Unlike Valhalla, I came out of Drive disappointed. What looked like a knowingly retro take on a well-known genre was, to me, a TV movie with a few set dressings. The 80s-style soundtrack is pointless, and the whole thing feels like an extended cut-scene for the old PlayStation game, Driver. Refn is obviously a considerable stylist, and his cast are all proven performers, but Drive is less than the sum of its parts. The hype around the film, while undeserved, at least will raise the profile of the lovely Ms. Mulligan, so its not all bad.

I Saw the Devil/Akmareul boattda (2010)

South Korean cinema, whilst not perhaps quite gaining the same overseas recognition as that of  Japan, continues to produce a great deal of interesting films. Bong Joon-ho's The Host was a sizable success in the West, and Park Chan-wook's Vengeance trilogy contained the film buff favourite, Oldboy, which gave star Choi Min-sik an international reputation. Kim Jee-woon's latest offering, I Saw the Devil, is a partial return to form after the wildly overpraised The Good, the Bad and the Weird. Whereas his Tale of Two Sisters was a superbly creepy tale of child abuse and aberrant psychology, The Good... was an unfocused Kimchi Western, which meandered like a cheap Leone pastiche.

Choi Min-sik returns here as a brutal serial killer, Kyung-chul, in the vein of Kevin Spacey in Seven, with added brutality. Kyung ill-advisedly murders the pregnant fiancee of a secret agent, Soo-hyun (A Bittersweet Life's Lee Byung-hun), who, predictably, uses his expertise to hunt down and torment Kyung . Much has been made of the film's excessively violent set pieces and neutral moral stance, but the bloodletting is far more restrained and realistic than it could have been, and the good-guy-becomes-a-monster-in-order-to-kill-a-monster is hardly new or innovative.

The hyperbole surrounding Kim's latest appears to be solely due to the presence of  Choi Min-sik, who undoubtedly is an icon, but the film itself, while competent, is wholly unremarkable. Kim, for certain, is a talented director. In the first half of the film, he positions his camera almost square-on to the actors, who deliver their dialogue directly to the viewer, and most of the violence occurs just off-camera. In the latter stages, he doesn't pull away from the bloodshed, which looks authentic and painful. Choi's performance stays just on the right side of plausible, but occasionally drifts into caricature, while Lee makes an underwritten part interesting.

The clockwork behind the scene can be heard at several points. In order for the plot to develop, Kyung has to suffer several horrific injuries, including a broken arm, severed Achilles tendon and a beating to the head which would kill a gorilla. Unfortunately, Kyung has to recover supernaturally quickly from what would hospitalize someone for weeks, if not finish them off altogether. This may work in Wolverine, but in a serious film, it just appears ludicrous. Further suspension of disbelief is required as Soo-hyun allows several women to be degraded and two men killed in order for his hunt to continue. A superbly staged double murder in a taxi is undermined by a seriously implausible discovery in the boot, and Kyung manages to fire three shots from a double-barreled shotgun, without reloading, with a broken arm.

There is an intriguing aspect in the violence: Kyung's murders are quick and shown sparingly, whereas the torture inflicted by Soo-hyun is prolonged, sadistic and shown head-on. Characters such as Oh Dae-su in Oldboy and Lee Geum-ja from Lady Vengeance are multi-faceted, complex personalities. Here, the players are little more than ciphers, and generate precious little empathy or interest. Technically, there is little wrong with Devil, but the plot is hackneyed and predictable, the film is about twenty minutes too long and the ending will surprise no-one. More could have been made of the battle of wits between the two, but, apart from the last ten or fifteen minutes, its all one-way traffic. Professionally done, well acted on the whole, but too generic to raise much interest. There's not enough blood for gore fans, and not enough innovation for genre fans. Don't believe the hype.

Mad Detective/Sun Taam (2007)

Detectives in fiction usually have major foibles, from Sherlock Holmes' drug addiction to Adrian Monk's OCD (and he must have been seriously deranged not to have a pop at the curly-haired temptress who tailed him). Directing duo Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai add another to the list with Chan Kwai-Bun, an ear-slicing, literally 'mad' former detective. The directors had previously come to my attention with the brilliant, Buddhist Running on Karma (although my favourite alternative title is An Intelligent Muscle Man) starring Andy Lau, and  Election. Impressive as these films are, Mad Detective is a step up both stylistically and thematically.

Whereas the Intelligent Muscle Man could see other people's past and future reincarnations, Bun (the ever-excellent Lau Ching-Wan) can see the different facets (represented by one or more people) which make up an individual's personality. While the psychology may be dubious, the visual effect is impressive, particularly in a scene where a suspect is shown as being split into seven distinct people (one of whom is Rikki-O's wonderfully named Lam Suet). The effect is a little disconcerting at first, but soon becomes a great game of  'guess the facet'. Any fan of Asian cinema will know that these are two gifted directors, but some of the static shots here are the epitome of balance. Where Takashi Miike's tableaus are, probably deliberately, usually asymmetrical and off-kilter, here they take on a Zen-like harmony of composition and stillness.

The plot, featuring missing policemen, gun serial numbers and possibly-murderous Indians, is a touch convoluted, but the sheer imagination of the film makers makes up for any shortcomings. The look of the film is, superficially, similar to David Fincher's Seven (no numbers instead of letters here!), with dark, rainswept streets and noir-ish characters. However, instead of being saddled with Morgan Freeman playing a slightly miserable Morgan Freeman, we have Lau Ching-Wan giving a superbly nuanced performance. Cinema hasn't, perhaps, been kind to mental illness over the years: treating it as a 'Movie of the Week' style issue, or as a reason for murder frenzies. In the annals of horror, trauma usually leads to a Michael Myers or Hannibal Lektor, but To and Wai give us a sad, dysfunctional man, living with his imaginary wife who has almost supernatural 'gifts', not a million miles away from Millennium's Frank Black.

Bun is bought out of retirement by Inspector Ho Ka-On (New Police Story's Andy On) to investigate the disappearance of a policeman during a chase in a forest with an Indian suspect. The policeman's gun went missing, and has subsequentally been used in a series of armed robberies. With a bizarre methodology, including being buried alive, Bun helps to solve the case. The climactic scene is hardly original (there has to be a Mexican Standoff in a crime film somewhere), is fantastically done. The setting has as many mirrors as Han's hideout in Enter the Dragon, but this gives the directors ample opportunity to use them as literal reflections of the protagonists inner personalities. The images look brilliant, but it must have been a nightmare for the cinematographer to position the camera out of sight.

Basically, Mad Detective could be described as The Three Faces of Eve crossed with Hong Kong Bronx, but the quality of the cast and direction give us a film that really is more than the sum of its parts. Tortured detectives have been with us since cimema began, but the genre just keeps on going. From the early Sherlosck Holmes adaptations, through the Maltese Falcon, many a Western (epecially the spaghettis), Dirty Harry Callaghan, the list goes on. Chan Kwai-Bun is, surprisingly, as original a character as you will get nowadays: mad, complex, delusionable, sad and brilliant. His sacrifice at the climax of the film is inevitable, but still moving, with a pleasingly practical touch in the rearranging of the crime scene.

Perhaps not the best starting place for newcomers to the world of asian crime thrillers, Mad Detective is certainly a brilliant piece of film makers craft.