1917

Looks abandoned?

 I remember my days at school, when we were forced to watch ‘The World at War’, a 1970s documentary series that our teacher believed would help seven-year olds not to forget about the Nazis and the second world war. School also taught us about the first world war, about the trenches, the mustard gas, the gas masks, the mines, the tanks, and the German ‘Hun’. It also made sure we knew that millions of soldiers died a horrible death to save us. 

Writer/Director Sam Mendez (Skyfall/Spectre amongst many) has managed an astonishing feat with his latest cinematic offering. By adding to the annuals of war movie history, his film ‘1917’ brings those 70s child-hood classroom horror stories agonisingly to life for the 21^st century. 

We know that war is hell there’s no argument, and our fascination with it, endless. Mendez knows this too, as he drags us like a warped holiday-ride attraction, through the battle lines of no-man’s land. 

On the surface, the story is a simple one, Lance Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Lance Corporal Schofield (George MacKay) have been set a goal by their commanding officer (Colin Firth in low-lit perfection). It could be medals or death. They have no idea what they are about to face, no one does, but they are not the architects of their fate, war will dictate that for them. Mirroring a sort of Odyssey quest, they seemingly overcome hurdles through sheer naivety.

It’s a war ravaged 1917 springtime landscape, where the cherry blossoms shed their petals onto the decomposing corpses of men littering the French countryside, as rats scamper about and peril lurks in the shadows. This film wasn’t conceptualized on a Dorset rifle range where CEOs spend weekends shooting paintballs for teambuilding. It’s edge-of-your-seat action-drama stuff, and then some.

 

What appears outstandingly like a continuous tracking shot, the action seems to have been filmed in one take. Often, you’ll feel as if you’re sitting on the shoulders of the protagonists as they splash their way through the muddied alleyways of the trenches, attempting to reach the front line and not knowing what they will encounter around the next corner. 

Outside of its ‘war’ genre, 1917 is an exceptional film, particularly for its technical production.  With sound, music, and editing, fuelling an experience of ‘being there’, it’s the Cinematographer Roger Deakins who should bag one of the ten Oscars it’s been nominated for. The film hasn’t been forgotten this awards season and is full throttle for bagging the main gong; ‘Best Film’. It might just get it. 

1917 is a stunning visual masterpiece of film making that is more than a war film. Keep an eye out for some of your favourite actors too, (Bodyguard anyone?) putting in their cameos, because that's what they are. The main feature IS the visual spectacle of the film - the entity itself! Highly recommended, especially for those who love drama and war movies but still understand the futility of it. Remember to pack plenty of water, and maybe a tissue. 


Writer / Director: Sam Mendez

Co. Writer: Krysty Wilson-Cairns

Cinematographer: Roger Deakins

Music: Thomas Newman

Editing: Lee Smith

Production Design: Dennis Gassner

The Fantastic Mr Fox!

Actor, singer-songwriter, and critical thinker Laurence Fox

It's awards season, and anyone that knows what I'm like around this time of year, knows that all I talk about is movies. However, 2020 is turning out to be a very different year.

My latest flame goes by the name of Laurence Fox. I apologise for my 'gushing' all over this British (mostly tv) icon, but he's really got people red faced, if not hot under the collar, with his latest TV appearances.

He's becoming quite the talking-point with his 'un-woke' comments on BBCs recent 'Question Time' (political chat) programme, and his subsequent interviews grabbing most of the headlines (let's not mention the Duchess of Deception Megs right now) and riding on the tail of controversy for click-bait and print coverage.

What I've liked the most about the recent talking points on his comments about racism and 'white privilege' is that there is someone in the Arts that still appears to have his own mind, no brain-transplanted... yet! He says what he thinks and makes no apologies. You gotta hand it to him, that's very risky behaviour in this climate of 'woke' aka 'brain washing of the masses'. Straying from the accepted narrative of 'all normal people think...', gets you into serious shit these days. The powers-that-be don't want you rocking boats and really waking them up! 

The Fantastic Mr Fox's Wiki page goes someway to explain why I like him:

Fox is the third of the five children of actor James Fox and Mary Elizabeth Piper. His father James was the son of Robin Fox, a theatrical agent, who married Angela Muriel Darita Worthington, daughter of the playwright Frederick Lonsdale. Laurence Fox was born in 1978 in Yorkshire. At the age of 13 he was enrolled at Harrow School at which point he was, as he later recalled, "shy around women, sensitive and a bit naïve".

Although he made friends and liked the drama teacher, he hated the school's strict regimen and felt despised and out of place among pupils with titles and wealth. 
Constantly in trouble for smoking, fighting, going into town and seeing girls, he was expelled a few weeks before his A-levels. According to him, "It was something to do with a girl at a dance. I went back to take the exams, but I wasn't allowed to speak to anyone." With hindsight, Fox has said that his experience at Harrow enabled him to portray "toffs" – the upper-class boys looking down on him and whom he disliked – with much insight and cynicism.

He later told an interviewer that despite doing well in his A-level examinations he was unable to obtain a place at any university, because of a report about him from Harrow. After working as a gardener for two years, and a stint as an office worker which he loathed, he discovered that he preferred acting and enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). During his time there he appeared in numerous theatre productions, including the lead roles of Gregers Werle in Ibsen's The Wild Duck, Marcus Andronicus in Titus Andronicus, and Stephen Daedalus in an adaptation of James Joyce's novel Ulysses. 

However, he was disappointed to find that, as an "Old Harrovian", he was treated "like a nonce". He made himself more unpopular by being outspoken and taking on stage and movie roles in his second and third years despite this practice being banned by the academy. One of these was his first break into film – the horror-thriller The Hole (2001). Fox feels that in landing the role his name "probably helped – it's a combination of timing, luck and contacts". Nonetheless, "the name opens some doors, but then you have to show you can do the job".

Someone said he'd make a nice James Bond, I agree, but then I would!

If you'd like to know more there's plenty here: https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/22/laurence-fox-receives-death-threats-battling-insomnia-controversial-race-row-question-time-children-12100572/

That other Mr Fox, less cuddly though!

Mr Narwhal says Merry Christmas!

Toy characters from that Christmas classic movie 'Elf' (2003 Year of the Narwhal) ...who knew this was even a thing!

The Lion and the Unicorn... London Bridge is Falling

Since very late last night I have found myself censored from Twitter, unable to post anything with the London Bridge Shooting or London Bridge Attack hashtag… it appears someone reported me. I’ve hit a nerve with my questions.

By now I’m sure you’ve seen all the videos, or most of them, and have heard the official narrative about this latest ‘London Terror’ incident ironically putting the ‘Black’ into Black Friday.

There is a lot of info out there if you can be bothered to read through it. This latest story of bloody Mid-east terror intrigue to put the fear back into the population (for good reason, turning them away from their Brexit meltdown, or Royal controversy) has more twists than any best seller.

I’ll break it down into small chunks for those of my Tweeters that hate, so chew on this…

Cambridge University were holding an ‘event’ in Central London, at the Fishmongers Hall, north of London Bridge. It was a ‘Prisoner Rehab Program’ called something like ‘Learning Together’, where ex-cons and convicted terrorists attended together.

The first victim of the terror attack was Rehab Course Coordinator Jack Merritt (25) who was knifed somewhere in a downstairs room of the Hall, where other attendees then dragged the assailant, Usman Khan, out into the street. It’s not clear who or how the other (female) victim was killed. Nor is there, as yet, any information on the other victims who are apparently seriously ill in a London hospital somewhere.

Mystery victim

A convicted murderer (unnamed) was one of several people attending the conference who tussled with the assailant Kahn towards London Bridge and tried to stop him from going on a ‘rampage’ apparently. He is the man seen in videos ‘sitting’ on Khan moments before the Police open fire. Another man (unnamed) used a fire extinguisher to force Khan to the ground.

Another man, Polish chef (unnamed) had grabbed a ‘Narwhal Tusk’ from the wall of the Hall and use it as a weapon against Khan. He is seen in the videos holding something that looks like a long white pole and poking it at the assailant.

By the time this incident was in full swing, Police had cordoned off a large section of the city area, traffic onto the bridge had ground to a halt, Police had stopped a white lorry from trying to leave by doing a U-turn, and eye-witnesses on several London buses, and on foot, were filming/live streaming the incident only meters away, before armed Police moved them back.

The London Bridge location makes perfect headlines for the papers and is easy for an international audience to understand. Better than, say Westminster, or Tower for example. On viewing the videos posted during and after the incident, things begin to take on an even more surreal tone. Questions inevitably crop up.

The Assailant
Some of this if from The Guardian Online… “Usman Khan, 28, knifed five people before he was tackled and disarmed by brave witnesses and then shot dead by police at point-blank range.

He was armed with two kitchen knives and wearing a fake suicide vest when he launched his attack while attending the Learning Together event. Police said he acted alone.

Khan was a convicted terrorist released half-way through a 16-year prison sentence for a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange.

He was automatically released on licence in December 2018 after serving less than seven years and wearing an electronic monitoring tag when he went on the stabbing spree.

In February 2012, Khan, formerly of Stoke, was given an open-ended indeterminate sentence for public protection over his part in an al-Qaida-inspired plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange and build a terrorist training camp on land in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir owned by his family.

A list of other potential targets included the names and addresses of the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London, then London mayor Boris Johnson, two rabbis, and the American Embassy in London.

But the sentence for Khan, along with two co-conspirators, was quashed at the Court of Appeal in April 2013 and he was given a determinate 16-year jail term and freed on licence in December last year and made to wear the tag.

The Parole Board said it had no involvement in his release and that Khan "appears to have been released automatically on licence (as required by law), without ever being referred to the board".

Khan, of Stafford, struggled as he was pinned to the ground until armed officers arrived and shot him in front of dozens of witnesses as traffic came to a grinding halt on the bridge over the River Thames.”

Knives out! And a small bag of white stuff!

The Undercover Cop, the Knives and the White Packet

So, things now become weirder as you view more and more material on the incident you will find some high-strangeness. Several plain-clothed Police officers just happened to be in the area and joined in to bring the assailant down. In one video, an officer is seen picking up a white package from the ground next to Khan and putting it into his left pocket. Moments later he grabs the knife from Kahn and moves away along the bridge shouting something to his colleagues and then to bystanders to move away. As he does so he removes the white packet from his pocket and throws it to the ground.

Throwing the nose candy?

The Taser, the Shooting, and the Instagram Video

Police are clearly seen with their guns drawn (possibly SIG516s) pointed right at Khan only meters away. At this point Khan is on the ground kicking his legs up in the air, he’s being held down on the ground by the (unnamed ex-con murderer). One officer holds a Taser over Khan. However, this doesn’t appear to have been deployed, as the Police pull the ex-con murder from on top of Khan, and bystanders move back. One armed officer then shoots Khan in the back of the head as he attempts to get up.

Interestingly, late last night a Twitter poster re-posts a video found on Instagram which shows another angle. The time is unclear, but Khan is supposedly lying dead on the ground with no one (no one visible in the shot) around him. Khan then appears to actually get up. The video causes confusion but corroborates eye-witness statements that ‘several’ gunshots were heard and not just one or two. Khan was presumed dead but was then re-shot to make sure – the video shows that this was NOT at point-blank range. This is the Instagram video reposted but now removed from Twitter and Instagram. All messages and posts surrounding this video have been deleted by the users. My Twitter timeline no longer shows the video, the comments around it and the name of the original Instagram poster have simply vanished.

While in the midst of full-on Tweeting comments and re-tweets were disabled around this. A couple of other tweeters were actively trying to save the posts and video but were unable to, watching them disappear in front of their eyes. Social Media censorship in full swing.

I attempted to comment on someone’s thread that I didn’t believe this was a false flag operation but rather something else that has been obscured by clever media manipulation. However, I was immediately blocked from using any of the related hashtags. My attempts to save the comments and video were to no avail.

Then Sky News joins the furore by Tweeting a clip of their documentary where they admitted that they were actually filing in real-time when the terror attack began:

The Sky News Documentary
@SkyNewsBreak

“This is the moment members of the elite Police Territorial Support Group responded to the London Bridge attack. Our Home Affairs Correspondent @skymarkwhite was filming with them when they got the call.”


As this is doing the rounds, other commentators state that there just happened to be a BBC reporter on the scene too, while others posting on the ‘London Bridge Attack’ thread with screenshots showing that the incident was reported online before it took place!

Time lapse?

This latest event ranks as one of the strangest yet. Some heavy high strangeness and synchronicity at work. The Narwhal tusk thrown into the mix, once thought to be proof of Unicorns back in the day, makes this a sort of fantasy fiction story, especially when you see that the Unicorn symbol, so beloved of kids these days, forms part of the emblem for the United Kingdom and on crests everywhere, including the London Police. The Lion and the Unicorn symbols full of esoteric meaning. The Police and the Public fighting a terror threat in full view of the world on a bridge in the middle of the most famous city in the world. You couldn’t write this stuff, but there it is on your TV news at two o'clock in the afternoon. Do you believe everything you see on TV these days?

Unicorn?

Joker Aside

Spoilers Abound
Forget dark knights and flying mammals, this is one sad/sick tale that ’al have you nervously looking over your shoulder in the day-time. It’s a reimagined Gotham City circa 1980. This is not from the annuls of the DC Comic Batman universe you know and love(sic). A stand-alone movie, Joker is a parallel universe much like the timeline disturbance of Back to the Future II, where that dark dirty violent world is actually your reality.

Writer/Director Todd Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver’s homage to movies Taxi Driver (1976) and The King of Comedy (1983) is obvious here. What’s not so obvious is the storyline and what it’s actually trying to tell us. Joker is subversive, perhaps one of the reasons it won the Golden Lion award at this year’s Venice Film Festival.  

Clown Wars - everything must go

Another reason could be Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck/Joker, the ultimate anti-hero. He puts up a mirror to the world and shows us that it doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, there are always forces with greater power out there. You beat them by destroying them and replacing them with something more powerful. Our protagonist Arthur knows the difference between right and wrong, Joker doesn’t, as he asks us to examine our heroes. Do we know who they are? The people we worship and love, are they worthy of our affection?

Arthur’s motives throughout are in fact honourable and good. He’s disillusioned he says because he doesn’t know he exists, but he also clearly advertises that he has a brain injury, while teasing the cops that he might not. His mother loves him though. (Frances Conroy as Penny, Arthur’s elderly mother, doing a sort of Room 237 prequal scene is so good here.) 

What happens to a mad man when he has nothing left to lose? Actions have consequences, however strange that may seem in this Joker’s universe, and those consequences lead to metamorphosis of a very menacing kind. Are we seeing reality from his point of view, is it all in the mind, just an illusion, a magic trick?

The way Phoenix handles Arthur’s depths of despair and the journey is awe inspiring too – from the nuanced looks to the way he smokes that cigarette, you gotta hand it to him, he’s as good as he was in ‘The Master’ (2012) and ‘You Were Never Really Here’ (2017). I had to look away at one ultra-close-up violent scene, as I’ve become squeamish to fake blood in my old age, not so desensitized yet.

Critics are divided on the influential nature of the violence portrayed in this movie. What can’t be denied is the orchestration and musical score, the soundtrack, complimenting a familiar skyline, that is not your usual superhero/supervillain landscape. Touching a little too close to home, where people wear their clown masks on the tube to demonstrations, like the 99% and Anonymous fans wore theirs once, while on their way to Manhattan or DC. The violence is straight from the streets of Paris at the weekend and Hong Kong last night.

When a dubious friend gives clown-for-hire Arthur a gun to protect himself, you know where that’s heading. The girl next door makes a joke about blowing brains out, you know where that's going, his idol takes him down on live tv… you know how that’s going to end up too. (Robert De Niro as Murray Franklin, who I’ve lost respect for, does a fine job).

Arthur writes in his daily diary that, “the worst thing about having mental illness is that people want you to act like you don’t”! This is the problem, no one is listening, but by the end of the movie they won’t be able to ignore him anymore. 

With titillating billboards lighting up the city streets, adding a comic touch to a tragic scene of murder and mayhem, the Joker is reborn. Culminating this surreal vision, Arthur Fleck is no more. 
The film reveals to us that we’re living in a sick world, and it’s no joke. Watch at your peril.

There's Always a Joker...

We're All Clowns!

By pure chance I heard an song sung by Anthony Newley on the radio this morning, called ‘There’s Always a Joker’ (from 1965 movie soundtrack of 'The Roar of the Greasepaint). Listening to the lyrics got me thinking about the upcoming movie starring Joaquim Phoenix, ‘Joker’, which I hope to post a review of, as soon as it opens here in the UK.

Loren Coleman just posted on his blog, ‘Twilight Language’, about the possibility of the ‘Copycat Effect’ being activated on opening weekend of the film in the US (or elsewhere). Strangely, or rather, predictably, Joker symbolism is now all over the place and slowly permeating the imagination of the population.

I’m seeing correlations appearing in the recent entertainment news with up-coming movies showing a distinct synchronistic flavour. Just a small selection below...

Anthony Newley as the Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland

 'Pure Imagination' from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory was co-written by Anthony Newley

Johnny Depp as Mortdecai, also known for Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, and Alice

Here IT is again

Ad Astra ...et ultra

Once upon a time... in a Galaxy...

-Spoilers Abound-
My love of sci-fi had me chomping-at-the-bit to see this movie. As soon as it opened at my local cinema I was there, I left work early especially to be one of the first people to see it.

Now this love of sci-fi stems from many things in my past. Mostly a childhood built around outer space adventures, dreams of world-saving heroes, and seeking out the mysterious, searching for answers to life’s unknowns. The trailer for Ad Astra, or ‘To the Stars’*, seemed to tell of just such a space adventure.

My love for Brad Pitt films on the other hand, well that’s quite a different story. I lost my interest after Ocean’s 11 and it’s taken a while to rekindle. Angelina had a lot to do with it, but I digress…

Ad Astra gives us a glimpse into a ‘near future’ where entrepreneur extraordinaire Elon Musk’s vision of space exploration has come true. So, we have a Subway sandwich to look forward to on the Moon among other things. 

All is not what it seems in this latest tale of man’s thirst to discover new planets, and new life. With an opening scene to die for, and a premise to intrigue, Ad Astra’s hero Roy McBride (Pitt) is on a top-secret mission, a quite personal mission, with a remit to save the universe.

Some fine acting on show here from the likes of Tommy Lee Jones as H. Clifford McBride, and a personal favourite of mine Donald Sutherland, as a rather worn-out companion/handler Thomas Pruitt. 

What I found exceptional about the film is the fact that it is full of homage to many other films on the subject, from the reflective visors and orchestrated space-station moves of Kubrick’s 2001:A Space Odyssey (1968), to mirroring Planet of the Apes, to styling ideas taken in copy from Chris Marker’s, La Jetee, (1962), of which Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys (1995) is based – coincidentally another movie featuring Brad Pitt.

This film is expertly executed by writer/director James Gray, with spectacular cinematography (a name and a half 'Mr Hoyte van Hoytema'). The action, when it comes, and goes, is thrilling, and you certainly want more of it, but as our hero approaches his goals, things turn dark.  Pitt is superb in the role for once, as he broods and mopes, stares into space, barely cracking a smile. 

Nothing beats that feeling of travelling through the solar system alongside our protagonist. The further away from earth he gets, the deeper into space he reaches, the more isolating and depressing it becomes. Earthlings are bad tourists, bringing their usual crap with them, when not at war, they’re disrespecting the environment.

With deep space comes deep sadness, ‘We’re all we’ve got’, Roy tells Clifford. There you have it, the denouement delivered deadpan by our hero, sealing the deal on this being one of the most interesting yet depressing sci-fi experiences. 


As a final note, I’ll leave a warning to any future space captains out there. When a national hero says, “You don’t need to answer that call”, listen to him, k?



*=Seneca: “Per aspera ad Astra.” Through Hardships to the Stars