One should be a fan of British cinema, retro pop culture, fantasy/folklore, and personal auteurship for maximum enjoyment of this likeable but format-challenged film from the late 1960's/early 70's. I sure am, and as such quite savored this...
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One should be a fan of British cinema, retro pop culture, fantasy/folklore, and personal auteurship for maximum enjoyment of this likeable but format-challenged film from the late 1960's/early 70's. I sure am, and as such quite savored this cinematic retelling of the Tam Lin ballad. It's sufficiently enjoyable that I immediately tranferred it to dvd for future viewings. One suspects it had been slated for same, what with its 17 minute director's introduction, but remained lost in the ether of Republic Pictures' post-demise assorted distribution deals. One further suspects that its release under of aegis of an Ava Gardner tribute series was the ticket for its seeing light of day at all post theatrical debut. It's been written that Roddy McDowell lost control of this, his only directed film, with it subsequently languishing in drive-ins of the 1970's under such noms-du-exploitation as "The Devil's Widow!" As McDowell's sole direction job, this is a movie one ever so wants to be as good as Charles Laughton's similar solo effort "Night of the Hunter," which it isn't and cannot be, as few films can match "Hunter's" expert, mannerist weirdness. McDowell's is a B+ to Laughton's A+. What is it does share is the quirkiness of a singular vision, seeming unlike anything else of its respective era while still conforming to mainstream requisits, and the retelling of a dreamy but occasionally frightening fairy tale in modern clothes, with assorted decidedly odd touches. A true loss to cinema that both actors never directed another film. Simply put, it's the ballad of Tam Lin (its original title in fact) retold with late '60's characters, and peopled with a cast of still working, familiar British names like Ian McShane (representing the titular captured knight Tam Lin,) Joanna Lumley and Stephanie Beacham (the Hammer horror ingenue, here as the ballad's Janet) with both Cyril and Sinead Cusack in tow. Gardner as the controlling "Faerie Queen" seems an apt focus of the swirling debaucheries and cruelties rationalized as group activity fun. This, strangely, isn't so much part of the fantasy as modern viewers might conclude: some of us who were adolescents in the '60's remember the genuine, wealthy older types lending their mansions to us young'uns in order to share in the decadent fun, whether vicariously or actively. In "Tam Lin" you'll find a little seen but quite good updated fairy story, plus amusing music from jazz to the Pentangle, great costuming, retro period fun, gorgeous Scottish border scenery and an always amusing to watch cast. Time for whoever owns Republic this week to fund that dvd release.

The subject is American, but his pre-eminence was strictly European. Fans of "Absolutely Fabulous" should remember Patsy's older sister claiming she was the subject of a Scott Walker song, fans of director Minghella's first (and best)...
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The subject is American, but his pre-eminence was strictly European. Fans of "Absolutely Fabulous" should remember Patsy's older sister claiming she was the subject of a Scott Walker song, fans of director Minghella's first (and best) film "Truly Madly Deeply" (comedy-tragedy-ghost story: deserves own eventual blog) should remember the woman and her ghostly dead lover singing a raucous cover of "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore," while fans of oldskool retro-60's classics on classics radio should recall "Make It Easy On Yourself" plus many anthemic others done with the same sonorous baritone over an orchestral sweeping vista.

The film is "30 Century Man" and the subject is Scott Walker. Once upon a time in the 1960's, three typical tall, skinny Sunset Strip denizens with long hair and bangs past their eyebrows plus failed C.V.s as musicians moved to England, wherein the intrinsic lack of tall, skinny Sunset Strip denizens with bangs past their eyebrows would allow them to actually stand out. And they did, to eventual mega-stardom. Precursors of the Ramones' hat trick, these unrelated chums named themselves the Walker Brothers, surrendered to mainstream pop, and had enormous hit after enormous hit there, with their flagship sound of Scott Walker's baritone crooning. However mushy the MOR slop tended to be, at least it was interesting having "one of our own" youth culturers singing this way, and all three looking so shaggable. Believe me, David Bowie was listening INTENTLY to this particular sound, and you can hear it every concert he sings to this day.

Huge hits written by the era's best other songwriters, genuine Beatles-esque fan mobbing, compromises, breakdowns, supstance abuse, what photographer/director Larry Clark called "the usual betrayals in the music biz," then it gets weird. Prettiest boy and main voice Scott derails, joins a monestary, emerges as a Jacques Brel interpreter, then a techno-artist songwriter before there actually is techno, then avant-garde orchestrator cum performance artist for music that has no categorizing description, all of which he warbles the highest brow intellectual themes over. He releases his work maybe once a decade. This is the story of Scott Walker, a man rightly called the most enigmatic figure ever in the history of popular music, depicted from infancy to 2006 in "30 Century Man." The director gives us "listening heads" instead of the talking variety, what with David Bowie coming aboard, Radiohead, Brian Eno and others chatting about Walker's influence upon their own work. Even 60's compatriot Lulu inquires to the only director that's managed to snag an interview with Walker if he's still gorgeous (A: yes, in a tall, skinny, bit of receding hairline, wildly creative, intellectual mien way. Plus he's sober now for decades. The guy laughs a lot for a supposed morbidly reclusive type, too.) Many depicted fans of old don't "get" his newest work, voicing Luddite disdain for something so far ahead of what's going on now (whenever "now" is: that's the beauty of the avant garde) that they fail to embrace pure innovation for its own sake.

You'll see recent footage of him orchestrating in the studio (replete with a percussionist pounding a huge side of pork, or recording sounds under a wooden box,) and explaining his difficult themes with assured ease and aplomb. Thank God Scott Walker is still around, for this is one former pop star turned composer who is actually working at the peak of creative powers right here, right now, a massive acheivement for anyone, but especially former popstars. Trent Reznor should be so lucky when he's Walker's age. Check out "30 Century Man" when it's released to watch a fascinating musical journey.

Didja like "This Is Spinal Tap," comrades? "Still Crazy" is its companion film, done Brit-style, and with a soulful redemption story at its core. Rife with musician injokes like the former, it follows a reunion of 70's...
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Didja like "This Is Spinal Tap," comrades? "Still Crazy" is its companion film, done Brit-style, and with a soulful redemption story at its core. Rife with musician injokes like the former, it follows a reunion of 70's Brit-rockers 25 years later, which prompt fist pumping yells of "rock and roll!" to be immediately followed by doubling over in back pain, as we geezers are wont.

Great cast with Bill Nighy (better and more authentic than in "Love Actually"), Timothy Spall, Chis Rea amongst others, and a mysterious Syd-Barrett/Richie Manic character buried in ghosts from the past. Everything rings true, rare as we know in films about rockers. Treat yourself to a parallel universe "Spinal Tap."

Gosharooney, we still don't have the word "Coen-esque" in our cinema lexicon. When the brothers tackle comedy, the Capra-esque singularity of their style should conjure all manner of specific and style-centric wonders. Take yer...
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Gosharooney, we still don't have the word "Coen-esque" in our cinema lexicon. When the brothers tackle comedy, the Capra-esque singularity of their style should conjure all manner of specific and style-centric wonders. Take yer iconicness. In "The Hudsucker Proxy," we find Good and Evil literally and figuratively battling for the soul of the titular protagonist (as we found John Goodman playing The Wrath of God in "Raising Arizona.") We find Jennifer Jason Leigh in an absorbing homage to Rosalind Russell's and Katherine Hepburn's best career girls. We find Tim Robbins dissolving into his strange, naive character like melted sugar, a good thing. We find Paul Newman at his stylized best, Charles Durning as a lunatic CEO, even in the afterlife. We have dream sequences, hilarious headlines, visual and dialogue allusions to classic films, high style set dressing that never fails to intrigue, and new LOL laughs every different time one views the darn thing. This film should give the "Ed Wood" film fans of retro nostalgia alongside trenchant modern irony a new obsession. Why this isn't on everyone's Top Ten comedy classics is beyond me. An aside: Wham-o Toys proved incredibly wise in licensing the invention story to this fabricated tale. All p.r. is good p.r.