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.

Man oh man! Folks claim Orson Welles only had one titanic film in him, and they couldn't be more wrong. Since he began his career with his most masterful work, the variants on his genius cinema sense are dismissed as lesser: completely erroneous-...
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Man oh man! Folks claim Orson Welles only had one titanic film in him, and they couldn't be more wrong. Since he began his career with his most masterful work, the variants on his genius cinema sense are dismissed as lesser: completely erroneous- they're just different in their own manner.

I watched "Touch of Evil" (1958) last night as homage to the late Charlton Heston, cast here in his most unlikely role ever (Mexican national) and once again thrilled to the sure touch of Welles, besides its prescience. The film itself has everything a modern viewer could want: sex, drugs, rock and roll, leather-jacketed delinquents, addiction, police procedural, wiretapping, romance, immigration problems, betrayal, duplicity and total grey-area ethos.

How the film looks while Welles juggles these modernistic ingedients is well nigh astounding. Like Kubrick and Kurosawa, every shot matters in its pure visual qualities to draw the viewer into some part of the bigger complications. One of the dang most famous shots ever in the history of all cinema resides here. The opening shot is a masterful four-minute long, without any cuts, wide-angle panning shot of Venice, California standing in for a seedy border town betwixt the U.S. and Mexico (which, pre-gentrification, it matched. It's also historic- half of what's depicted has been since destroyed,) all of which TOTALLY PROMOTES THE STORY. Wowza! Multiple orgasms in movie-making! Every shot's sheer composition is a frame-able winner. The film also stars some of the most popular, A-list actors of the 1950's (Heston, Leigh, Dietrich) alongside Welles' own lumbering misanthrope, ambiguous "Training Day"-worthy cop, and a pre-Robert Altman dialogue technique of people talking over one another's words occasionally, just like in real life. Ten star movie! Rent it ASAP! Even if you can only find the studio-bowdlerized version, it still stands up.

Many great reasons to watch this film about the weirdo world of Arthur Kane: I'ts an accurate documentary on a difficult subject with which to be objective: the post-rock-stardom life of a well known musician who bottomed out. Kane had been by far...
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Many great reasons to watch this film about the weirdo world of Arthur Kane: I'ts an accurate documentary on a difficult subject with which to be objective: the post-rock-stardom life of a well known musician who bottomed out. Kane had been by far the weirdest individual of one of America's weirdest bands, after all.

It provides the only cool footage of legendary USA glamsters of the early 1970's The New York Dolls besides Bob Gruen's excellent "All Dolled Up." It's a true bridge between organized religion and rock & roll craziness, the Apollonian/Dionysian ideal, insofar as the filmmaker, a fellow Mormon like the film's subject, had to travel the same psychic distance to understand Kane as Kane had to in order to understand his newly embraced religion. It shows the New York Dolls reunion in 2003 London, fun in iteself, with footage of an astonishing insight of understanding backstage. Flamboyantly extroverted lead singer David Johanson immediately intuits that he's gone too far teasing Kane about the latter's newly embraced religion, instantaneously does an about face, backs off and leads the band into a pre-gig prayer. I like this.

WAY underrated, due to variety of reasons, mainly that this screwball historical comedy didn't utilize its contemporary satirical context of the late 1960's (a la "M*A*S*H") and consequently was forgotten. Luckily a cult status of sorts...
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WAY underrated, due to variety of reasons, mainly that this screwball historical comedy didn't utilize its contemporary satirical context of the late 1960's (a la "M*A*S*H") and consequently was forgotten. Luckily a cult status of sorts caught up with it to ensure dvd release.

It remains a film that's guaranteed funny viewing in its own timelessness, rather like the Monty Pythons' oeuvre of historical comedies. An unholy mix of French Revolution **** helmed by Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland as four mismatched twins of divergent social status, it features a panoply of 60's character actors and icons in ludicrous situations ("Candy" 's nymphet Ewa Aulin tearing the clothes off a strange female, shrieking "I know you're my seeeester!") or Wilder punishing a captured, loud-mouthed Revolutionary spouting rhetoric because "she said she'd go quietly and she's not." Favorite lines: Wilder intoning "I could be . . .King!" with Sutherland, not missing a beat echoing " And I shall be Queen!"

There's been precious few modernish films for adults that do not rely upon action histrionics: imagine how rare that so secular and restrained a work like "The Insider" originates from Michael Mann. Everything about the film resonates...
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There's been precious few modernish films for adults that do not rely upon action histrionics: imagine how rare that so secular and restrained a work like "The Insider" originates from Michael Mann. Everything about the film resonates with excellence in filmmaking, and that it is about, at its core, the hitherto unworkable premise of the thought process itself remains all the more miraculous.

Yes, there's some action, a lot of intrigue, office politics, political maneuvering, betrayals right and left, relationships and relationships strained, but what this film portrays most memorablye is thinking itself. I've never before seen a film wherein the thought process itself is so beautifully realized, and believe it or not it furthers the story exponentially. The seen where Crowe realizes he's lost everything that meant anything to him in life just by doing the right thing is a powerful one, testiment to Crowe's skill, and a fascinatingly modern music choice underneath.

A marvel alltogther.

Never, ever, ever watch this film if someone you love recently has died. With that caveat aside, enjoy "Truly Madly Deeply" as the most intelligent, funny, bittersweet and yes, in the lexicon of most movietomers, awesome ghost story of...
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Never, ever, ever watch this film if someone you love recently has died. With that caveat aside, enjoy "Truly Madly Deeply" as the most intelligent, funny, bittersweet and yes, in the lexicon of most movietomers, awesome ghost story of the modern film era.

This is director Minghella's debut, and as such I far prefer it to his later fare. Here we have personality quirks, true as opposed to stagey-affected torment (as in "The English Patient," ptooey,) left field humor, and a genuinely touching quality throughout.

Juliet Stevenson's longtime partner has died suddenly. Even a year later, she's coping horrendously badly, although this is understandable since she has lost Alan Rickman at this most warm and charming. She is in fact coping so badly that he comes back, as a never-explained entity for her to return to their domestic ways of old with, making love, living together, etc. And annoying one another. In fact it becomes obvious to everyone but Stevenson that there is an important reason that Rickman inserts himself back into her now dysfunctional life, and that's the plot of the film. Please bear with the first 20 minutes of Stevenson's palpable torment until the "ghost" arrives. In between, you'll be treated to the two leads joyiously singing the fabulous Walker Brothers hit "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More" as if they were were trying to out-belt every karaoke bar extant, Rickman (now known for villain and wizards) at his most warm, charming and eccentric, Stevenson embodying pain to an almost clinical degree, and wacko asides like the ghosts friends all coming to visit so that they can watch videos they can't get in the hereafter...

Ptooey. Few films save those on the subject of simpletons have offended as much as this one. The actors convince me not, and their characters make disasterous decisions at the speed of light. Not entertaining.

If you wanted a David...
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Ptooey. Few films save those on the subject of simpletons have offended as much as this one. The actors convince me not, and their characters make disasterous decisions at the speed of light. Not entertaining.

If you wanted a David Lean-type film set of the late 20th century set in desert exotica, go for the mastery of "The Wind & The Lion." Milius' take on history is cool, and everything E.P. isn't.

I'm a fan of great silent movies because they're like time machines, letting us watch people like ourselves who, however, lived about 90 years ago or slightly less. Haven't you ever wondered what it would be like to watch your great-grandparents'...
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I'm a fan of great silent movies because they're like time machines, letting us watch people like ourselves who, however, lived about 90 years ago or slightly less. Haven't you ever wondered what it would be like to watch your great-grandparents' world in news footage? What if your great-grandparents were from the decadent world of post-Weimar Germany? Not fiction like "Cabaret" but really? And what if the central personality in the movie you watched in this degenerate post WWI environment had as modern an acting style as Robert DeNiro instead of the antiquated, overly melodramatic/overly stylized hamminess that folks usually associate with silent films? Friends, try to rent a copy of "Pandora's Box" starring Louise Brooks, a late silent film (1929) made in Germany but starring this American actress.

Louise Brooks, who, 70 years later turned out to be as intelligent a film writer/historian as the best of 'em, with her memoir "Lulu in Hollywood," was a post-flapper silent film actress of unbelievable beauty, a timeless sort of it that looks pretty modern today with her chopped, straight MTV hair and black-Goth eye makeup. Her acting had no relation to silent movie acting at all, no overblown gestures from theatre playing to the back row. She was like a great modern actor that convinces you they are a real person in the role, not an actor. You can't anticipate what she's going to do any more than you can a stranger.

The story sort of doesn't matter, although in its turgid German way, its deliberately degenerate world shows us gold-diggers, murderers, pimps, showgirls, bourgeois a-holes, and filmdom's very first attempted lesbian seduction. You watch this movie to watch the astonishing Louise Brooks in action, and you're mesmerized.

My favorite scene was when she was caught en flagrante by both the son and fiancee of her sugar daddy. She stops, looks up at them, and gives the most "cat caught with the canary in her mouth," utterly unashamed, knowing half-smirk. It is so modern a reaction, completely out of context for that world at that time, like "you're surprised I'm with him? That's your problem, not mine." Rent the movie. This is a fascinating female heroine to know about anyway, like Isak Dinesen. A beautiful, rebellious iconoclast who was a smart cookie in real life, a celebrated hottie (and purportedly a bit of a slut). Do you remember the scene in "Citizen Kane" where Jed Leland, Kane's best friend and drama critic, hates Kane's girlfriend's opera that he must review so much that he gets drunk, passes out, and Kane spitefully finishes the intended bad review himself, signs Leland's byline, and fires him? That's based upon "Citizen Kane"'s real scriptwriter, Herman Mankewiecz's real life experience with Louise Brooks. They saw a play, he passed out drunk, and she playfully wrote his review for him trying to imitate his prose style by using words like "paradigm." Which subsequently was published!

A favorite compulsion of mine is to recommend or gift "Serenity" to scifi fans who've somehow missed out on the Firefly phenom, claiming this is the best film you've never heard of. All fall in line accordingly.

Besides...
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A favorite compulsion of mine is to recommend or gift "Serenity" to scifi fans who've somehow missed out on the Firefly phenom, claiming this is the best film you've never heard of. All fall in line accordingly.

Besides all the familiar attributes of Whedonverse, i.e. fabulously witty dialogue and unlikely, difficult to predict scenarios, "Serenity remains one of the few films to have an adult, mutually protective brother and sister relationship at its core. As I share this in my private life, it makes this film all the more endearing.

My all time fave documentary- "Dogtown and Z-Boys" for the way it approached young physical talent, encroaching aging quelling dreams, my hometown, all done so very lyrically at pace mimicing the original source of skateboarding-the...
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My all time fave documentary- "Dogtown and Z-Boys" for the way it approached young physical talent, encroaching aging quelling dreams, my hometown, all done so very lyrically at pace mimicing the original source of skateboarding-the ocean, but with a kick-ass score!

To paraphrase Joss Whedon, Best. Animated Film. Ever.

Why? It is everything super in animation, whether oldskool or new. It stretches what the imagination can visualize. It entertains, it soothes, it experiments, it startles. It...
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To paraphrase Joss Whedon, Best. Animated Film. Ever.

Why? It is everything super in animation, whether oldskool or new. It stretches what the imagination can visualize. It entertains, it soothes, it experiments, it startles. It presents compelling images once seen that are never forgotten. "Fantasia" is my Chuck Berry, to borrow that quantity which musicians most reference. The proto-Goth "Night on Bald Mountain" influenced my live rock music photography, with its shadowy chiaroscuro. The dinosaurs hatched my lifelong interest in paleontology (not to mention Stravinksy.) The mythological equines were my proto-"my Little Pony" as a child. And "Dance of the Hours" humorously confirmed that not all of our body types were born for the ballet.

If you're expecting wham-bam, short attention span modernism, leave the room. If you want timeless superlative animation, "Fantasia" (the original) can be your Chuck Berry too.

Based on the book by James Fox (not the handsome English actor of a certain age) this film is hard to pin down: it's part murder mystery, part sociological study, part history of pre-WW2 East African colonialism, part romance, part dionysian orgy...
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Based on the book by James Fox (not the handsome English actor of a certain age) this film is hard to pin down: it's part murder mystery, part sociological study, part history of pre-WW2 East African colonialism, part romance, part dionysian orgy (really), part Evelyn Waugh/Somerset Maughm, part romance, part.... etc. etc. And it's all true. Yes, the actors are more spectacular looking than their real life counterparts (particularly Scacchi, seldom more ravishing-appearing.) And most folks who didn't swim through the primo decadence of the 1960's firsthand might be appalled at what passes for entertainment in British colonial East Africa of the 1930'/40s. But what you'll get for your treasure hunt (this is a hard film to find) is the truth of a murder mystery, weird but real characters, a slice of history, all against the gorgeous panoply of Kenya, despite all its troubles one of the most beautiful spots on the entire planet, all shot on location right where the real events unfolded.

There are three great reasons to seek out this late 1940's British romantic drama.
1) Fans of Dame Wendy Hiller (the original Eliza Dolittle to Leslie Howard's Professor Higgins in "Pygmalian" as well as her star turn in...
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There are three great reasons to seek out this late 1940's British romantic drama.
1) Fans of Dame Wendy Hiller (the original Eliza Dolittle to Leslie Howard's Professor Higgins in "Pygmalian" as well as her star turn in "Murder on the Orient Express") will enjoy her strength of character and sublime performance here as elsewhere in her canon.
2) Fans of genuine Scottish scenery will cotton to the gorgeous vistas utilized in the location shooting of this beautiful film, a rarity for studio-set loving, budget-strapped Brit cinema of the post war era.
3) Enthusiasts of the gorgeous Scottish Deerhound breed (yay!) will see the single best sequence hightlighting these rugged hounds in the history of the movies. One of the (human) characters is a rugged, landed huntress with six spectacular deerhounds (of, in real life, the lineage of Scots aristo Anastia Noble's Arkinglas Kennel- what an amazing character- I actually met her.) And the deerhounds are seen to do exactly what deerhounds do in real life: barrel into the house en masse, sit on all the furniture, and sidle up to any humans for companionship. One even puts a paw on surprised actress Hiller. (For the uninitiated, deerhounds are gian dogs.)

"The President's Analyst," by the by, has been named the all-time best comedy of the pure Pop Art 1960's (as opposed to, say, "Some Like It Hot," early 1960's, best mainstream transvestite film ever.) "Pres-Anal" is...
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"The President's Analyst," by the by, has been named the all-time best comedy of the pure Pop Art 1960's (as opposed to, say, "Some Like It Hot," early 1960's, best mainstream transvestite film ever.) "Pres-Anal" is absolutely bonkers, and has it all, Pop Art look, spies, paranoia, James Coburn in a cool haircut, Joan Delaney who looked like a supermodel version of Joni Mitchell, betrayals, escapes, Russians, hippies, twists and turns leading to what esteemed film writer Leonard Maltin called the best comedic surprise ending ever. Which I won't reveal so that you can go rent this!

"A Boy And His Dog," story by Harlan Ellison, a 1975 film so misleadingly named that no one seems to have seen it. It has something for everyone: Sci-Fi post Apocalyptic scenario, "Demolition Man"-style satire of mediocrity...
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"A Boy And His Dog," story by Harlan Ellison, a 1975 film so misleadingly named that no one seems to have seen it. It has something for everyone: Sci-Fi post Apocalyptic scenario, "Demolition Man"-style satire of mediocrity winning over the future versus its chaotic opponents (although "New Topeka" is the underground bland society and the scavengers are on terra firma, vice-versa from "Demolition Man,"), a wonderful relationship between, yes, a young man and his dog (who is telepathic and MUCH smarter than the young man,) a not so wonderful attitude towards women to warm the cockles of insecure adolescents' hearts, and a young, incredibly cute Don Johnson to warm the whatevers of females. It's a great, unknown movie, sorta "Mad Max" but weirder. The voice of the dog is by the same actor who was a berserk surburbanite in "The President's Analyst."

I photographed the Happy Mondays in 1990, the film about the subject, its origin and expanded universe of its surrounding phenomenon came out in 2002, and the film's real life main character died about six months ago, completely off the map to my...
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I photographed the Happy Mondays in 1990, the film about the subject, its origin and expanded universe of its surrounding phenomenon came out in 2002, and the film's real life main character died about six months ago, completely off the map to my fellow Americans. I just saw the movie for the first time last night on cable. Are we all too late to the dinner table?

Nosirree. Share the fun in retrospect, for the film "24 Hour Party People" remains one of the alltime best music films ever, wholly successful in conveying its subject matter accurately- despite its Python-esque edge- and bringing to life a specialty music understandable to the non-cognescienti. It's also hilarious, insider-joke-heavy which matters not a whit to non-insiders cinematically overall, and features a commanding, intellectually fun and dry as champagne performance by its lead, Steve Coogan (already godhead to myself and others for his "Alan Partridge" satire on punitively vacuous talk shows.) "24 Hour Party People" traces the beginning, full flowering and decline of the Rave phenom,first pollinated in Manchester, England before germinating worldwide,as it was engineered by a single human being, Tony Wilson. Wilson found the bands, started the music label, owned the main music/dance club and held it all together, all the while keeping his "day job" as a British television personality, both reporting features and and even helming the U.K. "Wheel of Fortune!" The movie follows Wilson's dry-humored (over-educated Oxbridge bombast as sound bytes, and solumnly intoned asideswith narration like "This is my date Miss United Kingdom. I like her for herself. I know what you're thinking, and we're still together!") ascent and decline, and that of his colleagues, while being utterly true to its subject and as entertaining as if Monty Python fashioned a music documentary. Biographical depictions include Ian Curtis and Joy Division, Happy Mondays and New Order, all ascending and declining as well. Actor Andy Serkis (Gollum) turn as a renegade producer is a hoot, and the music is to die for (as Curtis unfortunately proved.) My personal ethos of non-censorship comes into play in recommending this picture whole-heartedly, since there's an animal cruelty scene that I personally must fast-forward, and a LOT of (don't do as we did boys and girls, do as we should have done) drug-taking, but these indeed further the story.And it's a singularly fascinating one of a lone, creative man finding himself, as he puts it, "in the right place, with the right music, the right bands, the right record label, the right club and the right drugs, all at the right time." The place was Manchester, England, the man was Tony Wilson, and the movie was "24 Hour Party People." They are still yours to enjoy immensely.

The Giant BEHEMOTH
I adore Willis O' Brien oldskool stop-animation of dinosaurs anyway, and the last fifth of this movie features some of Willis' best (considering he was responsible for "King Kong" this is high praise indeed.) [+] Read Full Review

The Giant BEHEMOTH
I adore Willis O' Brien oldskool stop-animation of dinosaurs anyway, and the last fifth of this movie features some of Willis' best (considering he was responsible for "King Kong" this is high praise indeed.)

This was UK sci-fi, to wit atomic radiation inspiring the enterprising saurian to stomp London and Londoners alike in 1959 Britain.

(Cue future theme song "Godzilla" by Blue Oyster Cult:
With a purposeful grimace and a terrible frown
He pulls the spinning high tension wires down
Helpless people on subway trains Scream to God as he chomps down on them
History shows again and again How Nature points out the folly of Men)

Other memorable aspects: there's no messy, tacked on love story, and the characters behave as if they're in a British murder mystery, fairly understated and inching towards discovery of the horrific unknown, black and white ambience, lots of fog and stormy seas; Behemoth has some personality for a Brobdignagian force of nature- he shreds aforementioned high-tension wires like an angry pitbull puppy; crowds of hundreds of extras flee in terror. I love seeing crowds fleeing in terror before giant saurians! I also named my ten years' running, for 500 of my closest friends, wild party thrown at my parents' house while they were out of town each summer, complete with live bands and movies, throughout the decade of the 1970's - The Behemoth Festival.

Looking for a family film that's different? Check out "The World of Henry Orient," 1964, with Peter Sellars as a superstar classical pianist portraying some unholy mix of Van Cliburn and Liberace, who is stalked by two teenage girls with...
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Looking for a family film that's different? Check out "The World of Henry Orient," 1964, with Peter Sellars as a superstar classical pianist portraying some unholy mix of Van Cliburn and Liberace, who is stalked by two teenage girls with vivid imaginations on overdrive. Great mix of teen angst with wild humor, a sterling Angela Lansbury performance, one of Peter Sellars' best and least known American film comic turns, fab outdoor NYC locations of the early 1960s, and a great mix of PG innocence inside of a larger nudge-nudge seduction plot with Paula Prentiss. Readily available on dvd, a great period piece imminently watchable by adults or teens interested in what their predecessors did. For instance, my friends and I as teens stalked the Beatles at their 1965 L.A. mountaintop rentals (with one getting through for her own mini-seduction.) This fictional following does then ring true. "The World of Henry Orient" was made right before the Beatles' initial breakthrough in the U.S., when checking out your favorite celebreties wasn't dangerous to either party, and Miss Pamela and the GTOs hadn't invented groupies yet. Addenda, despite the superb and utterly believable performances by the two unknown teenage actresses, they didn't prosper in the film business. One became a major political speech writer, hinting at the intelligence behind the two girls' innate instincts.