The Management Mythbuster

Any film that starts in Macclesfield must be good!

Forget Get Smart and Johnny English, if you want to see a good film rent "Control" directed by Anton Corbjin which tells the story of Ian Curtis, the English Jim Morrison, who fronted the seminal post-punk band Joy Division only to die young (don't they all?) in 1980 at the age of 24 when he committed suicide.

Curtis grew up in Macclesfield, England known as the Silk Town courtesy of its textile heritage and only nine miles from my own home town of Congleton and about twenty miles from Manchester and forty from Liverpool (Beatlesville).  Curtis grew up in the grey seventies (the film is in black and white but that makes no difference) as did I. There the similarities end - Curtis could write and sing - I can't. He was also possessed by demons that I can only imagine.  He went to same grammar school as my Dad - that's definitely all they had in common and was treated in the same hospital that my Mum died in - again all they had in common.Of course, being the movies they create the fictitious Macclesfield District General Hospital as a stand in for Macclesfield Royal Infirmary but I know the truth.

He wrote some great songs, the best of which was Love Will Tear Us Apart which was released only a month before he ended it all.  The lyrics reflect the impending break-up of his marriage and eerily foreshadow his suicide.  It must be the best song ever to only reach #13 in the UK charts.

Watch the film it's brilliant even though I'm not in it.

Get Smart Vs. Johnny English -- the numbers do lie!

Made a rare visit to the movies the other day as the Axson clan spent north of $30 for the four of us to see Get Smart - very funny but also very derivative - but I guess that applies to every film these days. At least it wasn't Get Smart IV although that is surely on the horizon.  On leaving, my clan all commented on the similarities to a not much noticed (in the U.S.) film from 2003 - Johnny English.  The characterization and many of the jokes were identical - although the accents were different!

Johnny English grossed a whopping $28 million in America (it added another $132m internationally - proving something about American taste!) and received pretty scathing reviews.  Its star was Rowan Atkinson, best known here as Mr. Bean but to me forever Black Adder -  a role Steve Carrell could easily play.  It was a brilliant parody on Bond, with John Malkovich as the bad guy, a Frenchman trying to steal the British throne as opposed to KAOS seeking world domination in Get Smart.  The babe interest was provided by Natalie Imbruglia as opposed Anne Hathaway - both looked very good in black and their roles were nearly identical.  So why has Get Smart grossed over $100 million to date?  I give up trying to fathom American taste - NASCAR, beef jerky, iced tea - anyone. So, if you haven't seen it, get Johnny English and LOL.

The Long Good Friday

Spent a very pleasant couple of hours over the weekend reacquainting myself with the brilliant British gangster film from the late-1970's, The Long Good Friday.  Set in the gritty (every gangster film must be set in a "gritty" location) East End and Docklands of London a few years before the renovation of the area into a major financial and business center and soon to be site of the 2012 Olympics.  The film accurately predicts this growth and also provides a funny and brutal portrait of the London gangland. Watch the film and its easy to see where Guy Ritchie (Mr. Madonna) got much of the inspiration for Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - another cool gangster film.

Beyond the plot and a great performance by Bob Hoskins (Mona Lisa, Who Framed Roger Rabbit), the film is worth watching simply for the the gangster's moll, played by the soon-to-be Oscar winner, Helen Mirren, and very sexy she looks too. There's an interesting cast of supporting characters portraying a cadre of not very intelligent but loyal thugs. Of course the only one with brains turns out to be the bad guy. Notwithstanding their collective IQ's they are impeccably turned out in suits and ties, today's baddies simply have no style! 

I highly recommend a viewing - see if you can spot a pre-Remington Steel and James Bond version of Pierce Brosnan in a bit part...

Brokeback Mountain - me no film critic!

My wife and I finally got around to watching Brokeback Mountain last night on DVD. We expected an outstanding film as it did win three Oscars. Well after 2 hours and 14 minutes waiting for something to happen I realized for about the zillionth time that the Academy will never ask for my opinion. 

This was a second rate love story memorable only for the fact that the lovers were gay and the great scenery (nature should have won at least one Oscar for the sets).  As the alternative source of companionship on the eponymous mountain appeared to be sheep this was probably a tough choice.  The film moved at a glacial pace and was, once the basic premise had been established, wholly predictable.  Boys fall in love, each marries someone else, struggle with fond memories, arrange illicit trysts over many years, one dies and the other regrets the lost love of his life.  I suspect this in the top ten movie themes of all time, right up there with ugly girl becomes beauty and exacts revenge on former tormentors, and underdog from the wrong side of the tracks snares upper class privileged mate despite social rejection.

Well after two film reviews in one week it is probably best for me to retire my cynical jaundiced view of the entertainment industry until I waste yet more money on over-hyped, formulaic entertainment that conspicuously fails to entertain. Oh I am grumpy today aren't I?

My alter ego - James Bond!

While I consider myself a renaissance man with "modern" views on equality, diversity, freedom of speech, globalization and religion I cannot deny that there is a part of me (probably quite a big part)that does dream of being James Bond.  Ever since I first saw Ursula Andress, or Angela Undress, as we immature 12 year olds used to call her, rise up out of the surf in Dr. No I have been a Bond fan.  I devoured all the original books, which long since ceased to be the basis for the films, and had a massive crush on Honor Blackman, well Pussy Galore actually.  What a glorious name, so right for the sixties; yet Pussy was no Bimbo pushover, although she did of course succumb to James' charms. Not surprising really since Bond was played by Sean Connery, who my wife insists is still the sexiest man alive despite being over 70 - a great boost to my ego that is I can tell you! 

I did wander a little bit during the Moore, Dalton and Brosnan years but still made the effort to see every film - Halle Berry certainly helped maintain my interest.  Today I took my 11-year old son to see his first Bond film at the cinema (he is already well indoctrinated on Goldfinger at home). 

Casino Royale introduces a new Bond, Daniel Craig, and I think he will turn out to be the best since Connery, despite his blond hair he has a ruggedness and lack of pretty boy sensibility that were either lacking or too obvious in his predecessors (by the way I actually liked George Lazenby in his one outing as Bond). The film was good but not great - the action sequences were excellent and not too far-fetched and some of the dialogue very sharp, I particularly liked two lines, one from the new Bond Girl Eva Green where she states that, "Even accountants have imagination" and one from Bond when asked, as always, whether he would like his martini shaken not stirred and he replies, "Do I look like I care?"  However, the film was about 20 minutes too long mainly as a result of the long, slow sequence showing us Bond's frailty in falling for Eva (not sure why that makes a man frail, it seems quite reasonable to me!) and how his trust is then betrayed making him even more of a dispassionate killer than before. 

Given a tighter script, Craig should be very watchable in the next two installments, and my fantasies can be further embellished...