Film Review: The King’s Speech

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 28th December 2010.

According to reports, the most “Oscar worthy” film of the Boxing Day releases is The King’s Speech. Focusing on King George VI’s struggles with a stutter and his interactions with Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue, the performances of lead actors Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush are already being touted for Oscar nominations. In order to properly review the film, I thought it was important to appraise The King’s Speech from a cinematic and therapeutic perspective so I enlisted Sydney speech therapist Lyndal Sheepway to join me for an expensive but comfortable Gold Class Boxing Day screening.

The Story

Peter says: The triumph over adversity storyline is nothing new, although this is a little known true story. Apparently when approached by the filmmakers, The Queen Mother gave permission for the dramatisation but only after she was dead, so traumatic was the actual event. To me, the stakes were simply not high enough. A rich, powerful monarch with a speech impediment is not quite My Left Foot or Rain Man is it?

Lyndal says: I was reasonably unfamiliar with the storyline before seeing the movie but thought that anything involving a speech therapist was surely going to be interesting! Unfortunately it didn’t really pack a punch for me. Like Peter, I didn’t think the stakes were high enough, and the final triumph wasn’t all that triumphant.

The Performances

Peter says: The disability card has certainly worked well Oscar-wise for Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man), Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot), Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump) and Geoffrey Rush (Shine) but a stutter is completely treatable. If Mr Darcy deserves an Oscar, it should be for his sublime performance in last year’s A Simple Man. Aussie Geoffrey Rush plays, well, an Aussie Geoffrey Rush. After stints at Hogwarts and Wonderland, Helena Bonham Carter returns to her strengths, playing a stoic English upper class lady. Guy Pearce is surprising effective in the small but important role of King Edward VIII who abdicates the throne for American socialite Wallis Simpson.

Lyndal says: I really wasn’t convinced by Colin Firth’s stutter. A little boy who plays one of Geoffrey Rush’s clients does a more convincing job. Geoffrey Rush plays the same character he often does, but called this one a speech therapist. Helena Bonham Carter definitely shows her versatility playing the wife of a king, while in the cinema next door she’s a Death Eater fighting Harry Potter. The best Australian accent in the film comes from an artificially aged Jennifer Ehle (Elizabeth Bennett to Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy) who plays Geoffrey Rush’s wife. Also great to see Guy Pearce back on the screen, even if only for a short time.

The Speech Therapy

Peter says: I’m not a speech therapist but I’m pretty sure jumping up and down whilst humming and rolling around on the floor are not part of today’s speech therapy techniques. The King’s Speech and Drama Coach is more like it.

Lyndal says: Peter’s right. Some of the techniques used in the film are rather dubious. We now know for sure that stuttering is not caused by anxiety or childhood experiences. Therapy during the days of King George VI was based on this incorrect assumption. The techniques are essentially ineffective – The King’s stuttering doesn’t improve all that much, and he insists that his therapist should be with him all the time. These days we help people so that they don’t need us around all the time. Speech therapy has definitely come a long way since World War II. And most of us are more attractive that Geoffrey Rush!

Overall

Peter says: I’m sure Mrs Rush would disagree with you. This film is all a little too low key for me. Just like The Queen, this would make a riveting TV movie, but besides the scenes in Ely Cathedral (standing in for Westminster Abbey), the picture is simply not cinematic enough to deserve the big screen. This film is definitely not in the same league as The Hurt Locker or even Slumdog Millionaire. I’m sure it will be nominated as Best Picture but it shouldn’t win. That honour should be reserved for Yogi Bear 3D.

Lyndal says: Can I review Yogi Bear with you too, Peter? Seeing The King’s Speech was a good way to spend an afternoon, but it would be just as enjoyable on DVD. For me, it lacked a hook. The improvement in the stuttering wasn’t strong enough, the bond between the king and his speech therapist wasn’t strong or convincing enough, and the country’s fear about the impending war wasn’t communicated through the film at all. It doesn’t get my vote for an Oscar.

Peter says: So you have voting rights? Go Yogi. Thanks for joining me. Ha-ha-happy new year!

Lyndal says: Thank you for the Gold Class experience! And the sundae!

Published in: on December 27, 2010 at 23:27  Comments (1)  
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I hate Christmas shopping

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 30th November 2010.

It’s a big shame that Christmas falls at such a busy time of the year. Moving it to a quieter month would give me much more time to do my shopping.

I was in a fancy candle shop this past weekend, purchasing a Christmas tree shaped candle. Don’t ask me why. I suppose I’ll be able to experience the spirit of Christmas next time there’s a blackout. Anyhow, the shop assistant approaches me and asks if she can help. I ask her if she’ll do my Christmas shopping. She looks unimpressed, although not nearly as unimpressed as when she took my EFTPOS card and asks what account I would like it on, and I replied, “Yours.”

It was during this shopping trip I realised that with so little time left until the big day and with so many presents to buy, plus the fact that I hate present shopping, I should come up with a plan to purchase as many gifts as possible in one transaction.

I didn’t last much longer in the candle shop. Giving someone you love a Christmas themed candle on December 25 is pretty much a gift for the year after, much like giving someone a Christmas album. You also need to consider that no matter how beautiful a fancy candle may be, once it has be used, it will look exactly the same as every ordinary candle. Coincidentally, I’ve been told that after too much beer and turkey at Christmas time, and no exercise, my body resembles a melted candle, but that’s a different story.

Why not give everyone a calendar? They’re practical and unlike Bieber fever, will last a whole year. The problem is too much choice. There seems to be more calendar themes than there are people to buy them. Is there really a market for that,” Black Cats Looking Rather Startled and Slightly to the Left of the Camera” calendar? And I object to paying full price for something that will be heavily discounted eight days later, on January 2.

Gift vouchers can be awkward. Not only does the recipient know how much, or how little, you have spent on them, but it also indicates a lack of trust. “Here, instead of giving you money to buy whatever you want wherever you want, I’m going to force you to buy something in the store of my choosing, and you only have six months to do it or you miss out. Merry Christmas.”

Those charity cards are a great idea, but not necessarily a great gift to receive. Basically, you give somebody a card that says that you have bought a goat for someone in Africa. They’re a worthy concept, but a complete non-event in terms of Christmas excitement. I tried them on my family a few years ago and they were not impressed. I’m pretty sure the only way they could have been more unimpressed was if I actually bought them a goat each.

With Christmas ever looming, I decided that my only course of action was to bite the bullet and set myself a challenge. I went on one shopping trip to one store with two hours to buy all of my presents. I picked one of those big chain bookstores that also stocks movies, music and giftware. Two hours, one transaction and five shopping bags later, I was out the door and Christmas shopping 2010 was done.

So this Christmas time, why not save time and effort by purchasing all of your gifts at the one time with as little thought as possible? That way, you can spend your time enjoying the finer things in life, like relaxing by the pool, watching the cricket and laughing at people who still haven’t started their Christmas shopping.

Published in: on December 19, 2010 at 20:15  Leave a Comment  
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The Joys of Christmas

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 7th December 2010.

Don’t you just love December? Who doesn’t look forward to the warm dry summer weather, cicadas buzzing from every tree, cherries for sale on street corners and Australia dominating at the cricket? OK, so only the cicadas have eventuated this year so far but December also brings with it several other seasonal traditions, all of which I could definitely live without, namely bad television, Christmas music and movies.

Last year I wrote about some of the worst Christmas albums ever. They truly are a money grabbing exercise from our friends at the multinational record companies. What is the point of an album that is only useful for a few weeks a year? You know that it is all about the money when Kate Cerebrano releases a Christmas album. I didn’t realise that Scientologists celebrated Christmas. Maybe Xenu and Jesus have the same birthday.

There’s nothing that inspires me more when I’m doing my compulsory Christmas present shopping than some upbeat festive tunes piped into the shops. That is, inspires me to rip all of my hair out and stick hatpins into my ears. There are Christmas decorations everywhere. Santa hats and stupid t-shirts abound to reinforce the fact that it is Christmas. I do not need Mariah Carey screeching her way through All I Want for Christmas Is You to remind me that it is December.

How do retail staff stay sane with Christmas tunes on constant rotation all day? Surely this breaches occupational health and safety regulations? It must be even worst with those elf ears on. Imagine hearing Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime all day through gigantic super sensitive ears. I’d certainly frequent a shopping centre that uses the marketing ploy of “We know it’s Christmas, so do you, let’s not speak of it again, carry on as usual.”

December is also the time when the TV ratings people take some time off, leaving us to watch repeats, “summer editions” and all those shows that were axed after a couple of episodes in the US. Thank goodness for pay TV. How else would I get my fix of umpteen episodes of The Simpsons each day? Actually, the festive break is a good time to break out the DVD box sets and catch up on all of those shows I didn’t have time to watch during the year.

It is such a shame that the Cops LAC box set has been indefinitely postponed, due to lack of interest. I was really looking forward to reliving Kate Ritchie trying to be a hardnosed cop. Actually, I was looking forward to reliving Kate Ritchie trying to act. Poor Kate, even the Brady Bunch Variety Hour got a DVD release!

Christmas movies are another December inevitability. Personally, I like to watch movies to escape from reality. When I’m panicking about shopping, cooking and seeing my family, the last thing I want to do is see a Christmas movie about people panicking about shopping, cooking and seeing their families.

I’ve made a list and checked it twice. These Christmas movies are terrible.

1. Jingle All The Way (1996): Arnie struggles to find a Turboman doll for his son, and with the English language.

2. The Santa Clause 1, 2 and 3 (1994 – 2006): A trilogy? The Lord of the Rings and old school Star Wars deserve to be called trilogies. This should be known as a “we-accidentally-made-three-of-them-ogy.”

3. Christmas with the Kranks (2004): What is it about Tim Allen and bad Christmas movies? Unbelievably, this was written by John Grisham. Yes, that John Grisham.

So this December, bring on the warm weather. Actually, forget the heat. I just want it to stop raining. You’ll find me away from the shopping centre and television, enjoying the sun with my friends, being deafened by cicadas and eating cherries until I puke. I love Christmas.

Published in: on December 19, 2010 at 20:12  Leave a Comment  
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A Year In Film 2010

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 14th December 2010.

With the end of the year looming and it becoming very clear that my crazy Christmas schedule will not allow me to see the inside of a cinema before Boxing Day, here are my top five films of 2010. I haven’t frequented the flicks as regularly during this past twelve months compared to previous years so I have also listed what I think will be the critics’ top five picks, the majority of which I haven’t seen, but hope to, eventually.

My top five

5. Daybreakers – Directed by the talented brothers Peter and Michael Spierig from Brisbane, this clever Australian flick turns the vampire mythology upside down by creating a world populated by the undead with humans being the endangered food source. Featuring international stars Willem Dafoe and Ethan Hawke, with local actors Sam Neill and Claudia Karvan, this is a vamptastic sci-fi horror. The feature length making of documentary included on the blu-ray is fascinating.

4. Piranha 3D – Forget your lush alien planets and their blue skinned residents, this is exactly what 3D cinema should be about. It was crass, bloody and deliberately badly acted, and I loved it. A hoard of hungry, primeval flesh eating fish get unleashed upon a lake full of nubile teens celebrating spring break. Ok, so it’s not Shakespeare but you’ll laugh and scream as various body parts jump out of the screen at you.

3. Kick-Ass – Based on the Mark Millar comic book, this smart action comedy directed by Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake and Stardust) subverts the standard super hero movie genre and shows that actions have real consequences. Starring Nicholas Cage hilariously channelling Adam West’s Batman and featuring a breakout performance by Chloe Grace Moretz, don’t be distracted by the controversy regarding the use of a certain sensitive word, Kick-Ass is exactly what it says on the tin.

2. Toy Story 3 – The perfect farewell to some very well loved characters. Pixar continue their unbroken run of beautiful, near perfect pictures that somehow manage to reach out to the child in all of us. Released theatrically in 3D, nothing is lost in the two dimensional version now available on DVD and blu-ray. I may have shed a tear at the end but I’ll deny it if you ask me.

1.5 Scott Pilgrim vs. The World – Alright, so I can’t count. From the director of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, Edgar Wright, comes the strangest romantic action comedy of the year. Scott Pilgrim, played by Michael Cera, who hopefully has gone to the wimpish nerd character well for the last time, must fight off the seven evil ex-lovers of the beautiful Romona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) in order to win her heart. A flop at the cinemas, this is destined to be discovered on DVD and will soon be regarded as a classic.

1. Animal Kingdom: Wow, a home grown film as my number one. This Aussie crime drama will devastate you. With outstanding performances by Ben Mendelsohn, Guy Pearce and newcomer James Frecheville, this is Jacki Weaver’s movie. Her portrayal of the matriarch of a crime family is stunning. I know that Australia has gotten a bit of a reputation for producing depressing drug and crime dramas lately but you simply must see Animal Kingdom.

My predictions for the critics’ top five

5. Let Me In

4. The Social Network

3. Toy Story 3

2. The King’s Speech

1.5 Sex and the City 2 (just kidding)

1. Inception

Published in: on December 19, 2010 at 20:07  Leave a Comment  
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Classic ABC Filler Music Videos

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 23rd November 2010.

In my column last week, I took a trip down memory lane, or in my case, Olola Avenue, Castle Hill, and reminisced about my favourite ABC kids afternoon programs from the eighties. That little adventure awoke another remnant of a memory.

During the late seventies and eighties, the ABC wasn’t the slick operation it is today. There were no promotional ads for upcoming shows, and so the couple of minutes left between programs were filled with early music videos. These videos ran repeatedly whenever there was time, and so I guess over many viewings, they became the basis of my love for music, or at the least, one hit wonders.

All of these music videos are burnt into my brain. I remember the tunes, the words, and pretty much every detail of the music videos. If only I knew the names of the songs.

A little research online gave me the names and artists of each music video, with the exception of one elusive clip. This one was an instrumental, kind of a sea shanty, and the video featured a bunch of women doing some sort of traditional dancing in a white room, while the musicians looked on. Ten points to you if you already know the answer.

And now, direct from 1980 or so, via my rather poor memory, are those pesky music videos that eluded me for so long.

Bright Eyes was the theme song from the 1978 animated film Watership Down, based on the Richard Adams book of the same name. Art Garfunkel, of the little known musical duo Simon and Garfunkel, performed the song in his famous falsetto. The song was composed by Mike Batt, who was also responsible for discovering Katie Melua and writing The Wombles hit novelty albums.

Even today, Bright Eyes haunts me. The book is depressing and sad. The tune is depressing and sad. The video, which features cute animated rabbits happily hopping around fields and then being caught in snare traps and dying, is depressing and sad. As a six year old, the sombre nature of the music video was certainly not lost on me, and I’d often be found sitting in silence, thinking about “those poor Bright Eyes rabbits.”

Love Is All was a popular single from the rock opera concept album, The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshoppers Feast, which was composed by Roger Glover, of Deep Purple fame. With glass shatteringly high lead vocals from Dio frontman, Ronnie James Dio, the animated music video features a cavalcade of animals singing and dancing.

On review, the video is not just animals singing and dancing. The video has serious psychedelic overtones. That’s not just a frog playing a guitar leading the animal parade. That’s a frog that turns into a shrub which then sprouts five singing frog heads. I’m sure some serious drugs were involved in the making of the album and video. Not that I’m complaining. Anything is better than the dead rabbit song.

OK, so I’m sitting in a car with a close friend chatting about these mysterious videos. I mention the elusive mystery one and she pops up with the answer immediately. “Oh that’s Portsmouth, by Mike Oldfield,” she says. Sure enough, there was the video on YouTube, just as I remember it, except for the multiple musicians watching the dancers. Only Mike Oldfield appears in the clip, playing different instruments in different shirts, obviously over multiple takes.

And thus another one of my life’s great mysteries has been solved. If you know of any other music videos from that era, drop me a line via my website. And whatever you do, avoid Watership Down.

Published in: on November 22, 2010 at 19:45  Comments (164)  
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After-school ABC TV in the eighties rules

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 16th November 2010.

Growing up in the eighties, I have vivid memories of racing home from the school bus every afternoon to make sure that I didn’t miss a moment of the ABC’s early evening programming. Now this was well before pay TV where kids (and stoners) have access to cartoons all day every day. There was only one timeslot each day for the latest Japanese anime series followed by an endlessly repeated BBC show.

I recently attempted to revisit some of my childhood favourites to see if they still held appeal. The results were disappointingly mixed. Perhaps I should’ve left my rose coloured glasses on.

At four thirty, my afternoon TV fest usually started with a dubbed Japanese cartoon. My favourite was Star Blazers, a space opera that focused on the journey of the starship Argo and its crew to Iscandar, a planet with the resources to save Earth from the evil blue skinned Gamilons. Star Blazers was one of the first animated series to have major storyline arcs and an episodic structure. In my head, the show ran for months and months. In reality there were three seasons with a total of seventy seven episodes.

I bought the season one box set this year. I made it through two episodes before the box was put on the shelf for eternity. The show is humourless and overly dramatic with terrible voice acting. Just add Kate Ritchie and you’d have Cops LAC.

Other animated shows from that timeslot include Astro Boy and Voltron. The latter was a daily toy commercial and it certainly worked on me. Between my brother and I, we had the complete set of lions that joined together to form Voltron, a giant robot warrior. If I had a time machine, I wouldn’t try to prevent JFK’s assassination, I’d go back and tell my ten year old self to keep those Voltron (and Star Wars) toys in their boxes. Mint toys from that era are worth a fortune.

At around five o’clock, the BBC shows would start. Metal Mickey was a sitcom that starred a man in a giant robot costume. Every episode would end with a “hilarious” disaster where the very clumsy robot would accidentally smash through Styrofoam walls to blatantly canned laughter whilst the catchy theme jingle played. The show is available on DVD in the UK but after catching a few clips on YouTube, I decided against paying big bucks to watch an expressionless robot who occasionally says something funny. Insert your own Kate Ritchie joke here.

Doctor Who was on perpetual repeats in this slot too, usually from the Tom Baker era and in my mind, usually The Ark in Space story. You know, the one with the dodgy giant space caterpillars. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to sit through that one, but I’ll never look at bright green sleeping bags the same way again. I really enjoy the new Who, but I probably could live without another journey to the alien planet where the balsa wood walls shake every time you walk past them.

The Goodies and The Kenny Everett Video Show also usually aired just before Peter Russell-Clark’s Come and Get It, a five minute cooking show that signified the end of the kiddie programming for the evening. I still adore Tim, Graeme and Bill. I own several Goodies DVDs and could probably watch their exploits on repeat and find something new to laugh about each time. I’ll also perform the Funky Gibbon song on request.

The Kenny Everett show was an interesting choice. It’s a racy sketch comedy starring a gay comedian featuring the sexy and nubile Hot Gossip dancers. What perfect programming for kids. Actually, that might explain an awful lot about my sense of humour, and my dancing. I look forward to putting a few Kenny Everett DVDs on my Christmas wish list.

OK, so my tastes have changed a lot since then but at the time, these shows caught my imagination and probably influenced my growth, or lack of, somehow.

Published in: on November 20, 2010 at 12:33  Leave a Comment  
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Charity begins in the home (and in the shopping mall)

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 9th November 2010.

They say that charity begins in the home. In my case, that would be at around seven on a weekday evening just as I am about to sit down for dinner. The phone rings and it’s an annoying charity telemarketer. I’ve developed a tactic to avoid these calls. Usually there is a delay between the moment you pick up the phone and the salesperson at the other end speaking. That is because a computer randomly picks you and your number from a marketing list or the phone book, calls you and when you answer, it then connects you to a salesperson.

My unproven theory is that by hanging up during the delay, you get to avoid a long sales pitch but the computer still records you as a successful call connection with the telemarketer. So far, this tactic has worked well for me, with the exception of a few times when my mum was a little slow off the mark and I hung up on her. If a call does manage to get through, the promised two minute sales pitch is inevitably a twenty five minute one. I have taken great delight in allowing the telemarketer to give me his or her full length spiel about children in Africa with Bieber fever before calmly telling them that I wasn’t interested. For those short of time, dismissing them at the very beginning of the call works too. However, if the telemarketer gets to start their speech, it is pretty hard to cut in as I’m certain that their script is deliberately written to have no gaps. In that case, try snoring sounds or faking the engaged tone.

Those charity people in shopping centres annoy me too. I really don’t mind someone collecting money for a good cause, but these bubbly and friendly kids don’t want your cash, they want your bank details. They’re not working for the charity as volunteers either. For the life of your monthly payments, someone must be getting a commission. I’d rather my charity dollar go directly to a needy cause. Supporting backpackers is not a needy cause.

If you get a chance, watch the area where the charity folk are spruiking from afar. It is amazing how far shoppers will go out of their way to avoid them. Whether it is pretending to check out that really interesting walking frame in that window over there, or simply taking the scenic route, just as Darwin predicted, we’ve all naturally evolved to evade predators.

Have you noticed how they try to draw you in by saying something quirky to you as you pass, usually about your clothes? Last week I got, “Hello, Mr red shoes, baggy pants, fancy jacket and messy hair.” I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Perhaps Bozo the Clown was walking behind me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big supporter of charities and the work that they do. I just strongly feel that I should approach them to assist and not the other way around. Once I’ve shown interest in a charity, then sure, bombard me with information and requests for money but at least the initial contact wasn’t unsolicited.

If my call is going to be used for training purposes, then I trust that your trainer will use this recording to teach you the importance of not interrupting me when I’m trying to enjoy a meal with my family or friends.

Published in: on November 9, 2010 at 07:38  Leave a Comment  
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Classic Songs + TV Ads = Shite

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 2nd November 2010.

There’s nothing quite as crushing for a music fan than finding out that one of your favourite songs has been crudely converted into a jingle, hawking the latest triple double heart stopper burger or the like. What’s even more terrible is that a whole generation of children will only recognise the classics as “that song from the toilet paper ad.”

When I was growing up, I discovered and came to love the music of my parents’ generation by scouring through their record collection. When they were out I’d examine every detail on the gatefold sleeves before very carefully placing the needle on the vinyl, being especially careful not to scratch the record. This is how I discovered artists like Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones, sitting beside a tinny record player, following along with the lyrics over and over until I knew them by heart.

Dad also had two cassettes that he had on constant rotation in his green Carolla, Abba’s Arrival and a random Beatles compilation tape that I’ve never found in any official discography. I don’t care how much you remaster and clean up these albums, Dancing Queen and Hey Jude sound best to me through two mono car door speakers.

 That’s how great music should be discovered, not through a television ad.

One of the worst offenders this year certainly has to be the insurance ad that mutilates Moving Pictures’ What About Me. Prior to it being slightly tarnished by a Mr Noll, this was a timeless Aussie ballad with great lyrics and melody. How could one improve on this? Why not add horrible whiney lyrics sung in embarrassing ocker accents? I’d like to file a claim. Your ad sucks.

Brian Wilson is a musical genius who composed “teenage symphonies to God”. Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys is and will be my favourite album for all time. I’m sure Brian will be spinning in his grave or at least his sandpit if he heard the ad which features a bunch of overly excited salespeople prancing around to Good Vibrations. OK, so he’s not dead but you get my point. You know how the ads feature some customers who watch on with unimpressed looks on their faces. I’m pretty sure they aren’t actors. I’ll pay cash if you just stop.

 English ska band Madness produced some timeless pop classics in the eighties including Baggy Trousers and Our House. How pleased they must be to know that their perennial single It Must Be Love now features in an ad for nappies. A wonderfully romantic song that captures a beautiful moment in the human experience is now reduced to babies and bottoms. I’m sorry, but the nappies aren’t the only things being pooped on right now.

Writing of nappies, I’ve also noticed that MC Hammer’s You Can’t Stop This, which itself sampled Rick James’ Superfreak has now been converted to a jingle that features the line, “Stop, potty time.” OK, it’s far from a classic but even the man who composed the Addams Family rap deserves better treatment than this.

 Of course, I understand that there is big money in licensing these songs and songwriters and artists need to make a living. I just hate to see wonderful aural creations of art be trashed just to sell me some funeral plan insurance.

Published in: on November 9, 2010 at 07:35  Leave a Comment  
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Sherlock Holmes Reborn Again

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 26th October 2010.

Sherlock, the extremely enjoyable mini-series which aired over the past two weeks, is a modern adaption of Sherlock Holmes produced by the BBC. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement) as the Great Detective and Martin Freedman (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Office) as Dr John Watson, the three part series brings Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters to modern London, solving mysteries based on classic Holmes stories.

Cumberbatch’s portrayal of the eccentric genius, who solves brainbusting crime puzzles by deduction, is certainly a memorable one, but with a very long list of actors who have played Holmes, it is very hard to pick a favourite.

Not surprisingly, the character of Sherlock Holmes holds the record for the most portrayed film character with an amazing seventy five actors putting on the deerstalker cap over two hundred and eleven movies.

One of my favourite films in the eighties was Young Sherlock Holmes, produced by Steven Spielberg from a script by Christopher Columbus (Home Alone) and directed by Barry Levinson (Rain Man). The film centres of Holmes and Watson meeting as youths at boarding school. Starring Nicholas Rowe (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) as the title character and Alan Cox (Ladies in Lavender) as Watson, the movie is a little scary for kids and features the first CGI character ever, a supernatural knight who forms from shards of a stained glass window.

Jeremy Brett (My Fair Lady) starred as Holmes from 1984 to 1994 in the British TV series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. With his sharp, angular features, Brett’s portrayal is widely regarded as the best of his era. Brett was fully committed to his role and compiled a seventy seven page book, The Baker Street Files, which contained every possible detail about Holmes. He carried this book around on set to check every nuance before the cameras started rolling.

Basil Rathbone starred as Sherlock in fourteen movies from 1939 to 1946, opposite Nigel Bruce as Watson. These films firmly cemented the costumed Sherlock Holmes character, with his deerstalker cap and Inverness cape, in popular culture.  Rathbone had problems with typecasting after the films ended, but eventually went on to play Holmes in radio plays and on stage.

Last year, the character of Holmes returned to the big screen with Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) in the title role and Jude Law (Cold Mountain) as his faithful friend. Directed by Guy Ritchie (RocknRolla), the film recreates Holmes as an action hero, with fist fights and explosions galore. It was a big box office success and will be followed up by a sequel next year.

I would have to say that my all-time favourite Sherlock Holmes is an animated one. Basil the Great Mouse Detective was a Disney animated film from 1986, and centres around a society of rats and mice living in Victorian London. Featuring the music of Henry Mancini and the voice of Vincent Price, the film is packed with classic hand drawn Disney cartoon goodness, with the title character names in honour of Basil Rathbone.

It seems that some iconic characters never die, they just get recast and readapted.

Published in: on November 9, 2010 at 07:31  Leave a Comment  
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Delayed Movie Sequels

This column was originally published in the Central Western Daily on Tuesday 5th October 2010.

The recent cinematic release of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps comes twenty three years after the release of the original iconic eighties movie, which spawned the much misquoted line, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” Directed again by Oliver Stone, with a returning Michael Douglas as greedy corporate raider Gordon Gekko, the film is set on the brink of the global financial crisis.

Whilst a plotline placing a recently released from jail Gekko in today’s financial climate is appealing, one has to wonder whether there is actually a demand for a follow-up movie so long after the original. Of course, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is only one of many much delayed sequels, all with mixed fortunes financially and critically.

The Blues Brothers 2000 dropped on audiences in 2000, eighteen years after the original. With director John Landis back at the helm, and Dan Aykroyd reprising Elwood Blues, the movie was hamstrung by the fact that the other Blues brother was dead. John Belushi passed away in 1982 from acute cocaine and heroin intoxication. John Goodman stepped in as new lead singer Mighty Mac McTeer, however, despite being on a new “mission from God”, lightning didn’t strike twice and the film grossed US$26 million from a budget of US$28 million.

Sylvester Stallone recently revived two of his franchises after lengthy hiatuses. Following a series of flops in the nineties, including Judge Dredd and the painful Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (it should’ve been titled Stop the Film or I Will Shoot Myself), Sly brought back Rocky Balboa for the imaginatively titled Rocky Balboa in 2006, sixteen years after Rocky V, and John Rambo for the even more imaginatively titled Rambo in 2008, twenty years after Rambo III. That was the one where Rambo single-handedly freed Afghanistan from the Russians.

The thoughtful and bittersweet Rocky Balboa was a critical and box office success grossing US$155 million, however, the return of Rambo was less successful, drawing much criticism for its grisly depiction of the titular character’s record breaking 236 kills.

Personally, I quite enjoyed Rambo. If you are going to depict violence on-screen, you should also show the consequences of that violence, although perhaps not over two hundred times. On a per exploding head basis, Rambo is great value.

2008 saw the return of whip cracking adventurer Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, nineteen years after the last instalment, the somewhat falsely titled Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Starring a geriatric Harrison Ford, the film was a huge success, becoming the 29th highest grossing movie worldwide. Unfortunately, most Indy fans were left cold by the George Lucus penned story and the film is regarded as a disappointing sequel.

Whilst I think any Indy is good Indy, I must admit that the alien storyline, the ending ripped off from the original X-Files movie and the surviving a nuclear blast by hiding in a fridge scene are cringe worthy.

Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace was released with much fanfare to huge anticipation in 1999, sixteen years following Return of the Jedi. Although technically a prequel, the origin story of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader went on to become the thirteenth highest grossing film ever, despite much fan derision for the annoying Jar Jar Binks and a silly storyline involving intergalactic trade disputes. That’s right, trade disputes. One of my most cherished films has its origins in a trade dispute. That’s like making a prequel to Romeo and Juliet that sees the Capulets and Montagues first go into conflict over bin night.

The record holder for the longest ever delayed sequel is the direct to DVD Bambi 2 which was released 64 years after the original. Strangely, this film is actually a “midquel” with its plotline taking place within the story of the original. Whilst I am not particularly excited to see the return of Gordon Gekko, the nerd in me is getting excited about the December 2010 release of Tron: Legacy which follows 28 years after the original Tron.

Published in: on October 19, 2010 at 11:11  Leave a Comment  
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