A Cinematic Advent Calendar 2021

[CelestialAgent]

Watched:



Night Train Murders is so unrelentingly brutal, it can feel like a festive Clockwork Orange. Two disaffected young men co-opt fascist imagery (they salute “heil Hitler” to a group of older Germans on the train), attack women no matter their age on the street, rape, murder, mutilate genitals, act as voyeurs. It also ends with a return to a house seen earlier in the film, as a setting for a confrontation. The harmonica becomes pretty sinister. The film also has a surface similarity to The Odessa File: it begins at a Munich Christmas market, with a pop song appropriate for the time of the year playing over the opening.

Some of the most harrowing scenes are

[Show spoiler]two parents arriving at the train station with no idea where their daughter and her friend are, when the viewer knows they are dead. Another harrowing scene features the father learning of her death over the radio, without authorities contacting him first.

In her interview on the disc, Irene Miracle talks about meeting Pasolini, Antonioni, Bertolucci, and not realising they were all filmmakers, asking what they did for a living. She also says how she was given the film without a script and thought it was just about two girls on a train, and doesn’t understand how anyone can enjoy a film with knives, rape and murder.

I have no issue with the master on 88’s disc, however the subtitles are distractingly cast in turquoise, and justified to the position of where each character is speaking. They’re also SDH, subtitling the opening song and exchanges that don’t need to be subtitled, like [NO AUDIBLE DIALOGUE], [SPEAKING IN ITALIAN], [SPEAKING IN GERMAN]. Unsure on the quality of the English dub which the disc defaults to.



The ending is a bit of a confusing dead end, but the drive makes it worth it.



Ant-Man, Iron Man and Spider-Man in a film together against a winter backdrop!



Trading Places is a film where perhaps the only honest character is Jamie Lee Curtis’ character of Ophelia, a sex worker with friends and a business plan. But even she frames Winthorpe at the start of the film, taking his fiancée away from him, because she was bribed. Aykroyd’s Winthorpe comes from a racist, wealthy family, without any real friends as he is laughed at as he begs for money at the tennis club, than never thinks to give to the poor and never changes his ways (quite a different Christmastime story to A Christmas Carol), and calls the cops on a Black man (Valentine, played by Eddie Murphy) who holds his briefcase for a few seconds after bumping into him, who arrive with loaded guns pointed to his head and quickly send him to jail. Though Valentine’s panhandling goes to extremes - he poses as a blinded Vietnam veteran with no legs - I also don’t think the homeless begging for money should be criminalised. That said, it seems absurd he accepts being bailed out by two rich business partners who view him as a child who doesn’t understand stocks, and essentially an animal to play a eugenicist social experiment game - nature vs. nuture - on based on an article in a science magazine. Eventually he realises he’s being played, but the fact he sticks by Winthorpe - posing as a African student with a traditional costume and stereotypical accent on the train, with Winthorpe adopting blackface and a Rastafari hat - suggests he cares more about wealth even when the joke is at his expense. Of course Coming to America would reteam Landis, Murphy and the Dukes in a cameo in New York, but I’m not sure that film has aged so well either.

As both a Christmas and New Years film it succeeds though, with the iconic image of Santa stealing food from a platter that he eats on the bus (before being ejected by his fellow passengers’ discomfort), and swigging alcohol.

[CelestialAgent]

Watched:



Nothing more festive than overcooked, steamed carrots and sprouts amid the cold snowstorms, coats and heaters of the North Pole, and the sound of a wailing newborn with occasional biblical invocations!



What better way to get into the spirit of the season by watching cops pull guns on a father celebrating Christmas with his daughter, or shooting dead Father Christmas trying to bring joy to the children of the orphanage?

While the film leans into exploitation elements - tits and gruesome, creative deaths - it still manages to also contain a exploration of childhood and sexual trauma and the inability of nuns or coworkers or Catholic doctrine to address its pervasiveness into adulthood.

It’s absurd that the film was boycotted because of radio and TV ads during the holiday.

on

Not quite Christmas, but the film concludes only a couple of days before Christmas Day. I figured it would be a shame to watch the decade old HD master when the 4K UHD has had several releases, so I decided to watch the open matte 4:3 Retrofassung on the Turbine Media Psycho Legacy Collection.

[CelestialAgent]

Watched:



Set across November 1931 into the new year of 1932, Death Hunt has the trappings of a western: Charles Bronson as the lead, a town store, crowded watering hole, settlers establishing themselves in the wilderness, lawmen, drinking by the fire in the night, gunfights, explosions, a menace killing across the town, a First Nations woman who sleeps with one of the white men. Rather than the desert, the terrain is instead snowy mountains. Released and set more than a decade after perhaps the most famous latter day western, The Wild Bunch, as with that film the modern world begins to encroach, spelling the end of an era of a way of life - machine guns, biplanes, photographs, two-way radios. Indeed, Death Hunt is set about simultaneously to the emergence of the cinematic western, and only a decade before WWII would transform the world (WWI is called back to through the Tracker’s backstory). Though as is clear by the German title, the Yukon setting means this is more of a Northern, with Bronson’s Trapper Johnson fleeing north across the Yukon towards Alaska, with the RCMP and Alberta shooting locations central to the film.

Produced by Golden Harvest and released through 20th Century Fox, Koch’s German Blu-ray is licensed through Fox/Hollywood Classics, and unfortunately chances of a reissue are about as remote as the Yukon itself. Both Koch’s and Timeless Media Group’s region free US release are long OOP (the latter including two commentaries, a brief interview with Albert S. Ruddy and a newer master), though thankfully I managed to find this used after a long while on eBay from Momox/Medimops. Though a decade old disc that could look better, the master on this release is still quite solid and serviceable. Koch’s disc offers multiple language options, with English, German and Italian soundtracks, and English and Italian subtitles.

The extras on the disc include a 27 minute Showbiz America radio interview by Larry Turner with Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson (broadcast after Marvin’s 1987 passing, with his interview recorded at the press conference at a film festival around a screening of the film) with German subtitles. Bronson is quite honest here, speaking about his relationship with critics, having not done his best role yet, being inhibited to have to fulfil a “more of the same” character role for the public, and feeling pushed into Death Wish II to address the state of crime. Also includes a well edited 4:3 trailer.

[sjt]

Originally Posted by Aclea

Because nothing says Christmas like a syphillitic inbred drug-addicted heir to a dying European dynasty riddled with insanity topping himself and his teenage bit on the side in a hunting lodge. Goes light on the literal physical decay of the Habsburg empire (by this time they would strategically stand footmen against the walls of the ballroom to hide the cracks and peeling wallpaper) to play up the opulence and spectacle but plenty of shots that would make good Christmas cards. Much better than its reputation with a nice transfer that does Henri Alekan's ravishing Scope photography justice but forced French subs.

Somewhat paradoxically, it's a ballet rather than a film that really nails the poisonously louche world of late C19th Vienna (where I should be right now if it weren't for some obscure inconvenience): the Royal Ballet's staging of Kenneth MacMillan's Mayerling. A world in which the empress Sissi is very busy with her lover Colonel Bay Middleton (an Englishman: our part in their downfall) whilst the emperor Franz Josef proudly presents his mistress Katherina Schratt, an opera singer, to the whole court, wife included. Meanwhile, Rudolf's teenage Belgian bride is forced to watch the endless procession of her husband's *****s, including the plainly barking Mary Vetsera whom he'll kill before shooting himself. Classic Christmas fare, in a word.

As indeed is Terry Gilliam's Brazil, the latter stages of which are all set against a yuletide background of partying and present-giving....

[CelestialAgent]

Watched:



Love & Peace doesn’t become a out and out Christmas film until its second half, but it creates a sense of hyper-Christmas with absolutely everything you could ask for in a Christmas film: Santa Claus, department stores, toys, children, red dresses, magic, music, reindeer, a sleigh, snow, glitter, stars, love. But the film establishes itself as a Christmas film long before then, with a toymaker repairing his own underground Island of Misfit Toys, toys that were discarded after Christmas and birthdays but want to return to their owners. From the start, there’s a sense of the magical, with multicoloured potions and bright lights. Though Love & Peace is a last minute substitution by the band’s manager, it encapsulates what Christmas should really stand for.



Though the German release also has a healthy amount of extras, the Korean release from PLAIN Archive could be considered the best worldwide. Outside of Korean language films, it’s rare that a PLAIN release is able to be better than a US release, at least in terms of on disc content - some notable exceptions are Rudderless, I Killed My Mother, which don’t have US releases. This release features both a lengthy EPK interview gallery, B-roll and the extras from the US and UK releases. It has a nicely designed cover with the iconic poster design and shiny red lettering, and comes with a few of Therese’s photos.

It’s a wonderful romance and period piece, but I’m also a little upset Akerman’s adaptation never materialised due to not having the film rights.

[HotRats]

One of the best Christmas films isn't always recognised as one because it isn't set in snow and the film company released it in May of 2005. Millions is a thoroughly likeable film about two boys who find a large bag of money and have different ideas about what to do with it, but time is running out as Britain is due to join the Euro (that certainly dates it) on the last day of the year, making Sterling invalid and someone is looking for the money (a splendidly menacing performance from Christopher Fulford). This and The Beach are the only Danny Boyle films I can think of that have never had a blu ray release but there is an HD download from Amazon that is reasonable if a bit dated.

[CelestialAgent]

Originally Posted by HotRats

One of the best Christmas films isn't always recognised as one because it isn't set in snow and the film company released it in May of 2005. Millions is a thoroughly likeable film about two boys who find a large bag of money and have different ideas about what to do with it, but time is running out as Britain is due to join the Euro (that certainly dates it) on the last day of the year, making Sterling invalid and someone is looking for the money (a splendidly menacing performance from Christopher Fulford). This and The Beach are the only Danny Boyle films I can think of that have never had a blu ray release but there is an HD download from Amazon that is reasonable if a bit dated.

Remember watching the film and reading the book in high school! Likely my first exposure to Boyle and I would be curious what he would do with other family works.

[Aclea]

Anyone who's ever had to slog through his soul-destroying ITC or Cannon-years output will find it hard to imagine that there was ever a time when Charles Bronson was a half-decent actor who not only made films that were actually released in cinemas, but good ones at that. Breakheart Pass is probably the best of the last burst of quality output in the actor's oeuvre that also saw Hard Times (aka The Streetfighter) and the whimsical From Noon Til Three; for that matter, the last good Alistair MacLean screen outing before what seems like an eternity of formulaic made-for-TV efforts with C-list casts.

The plot has all the MacLean staples - sabotage, secret identities, wolves in sheep's clothing and a plot where no-one and nothing is what they appear to be. The only novelty is the location, a train rushing through the old West to bring medical supplies to a cholera-infected fort through strikingly snowbound mountain countryside beautifully captured through cinematographer Lucien Ballard's lens. But the fact that so much of the film is simply one of the author's beloved WW2 plots with outlaws and Indians instead of Nazis doesn't matter: it's the telling that counts, and with a tight script and strong direction from Tom Gries that is equally adept at the mystery (more a 'what the heck's going on?' than 'who's behind it all?') as action (most notably a good rooftop punch-up and a spectacular wreck) it's never a dull ride.

Bronson, still making an effort in those days, comes over well, while the strong supporting cast (including John Ford and Sam Peckinpah regular Ben Johnson, as well as Richard Crenna, Charles Durning and Ed Lauter) add a pleasing layer of professionalism and credibility. Even Jill Ireland, never the most interesting of leading ladies, acquits herself well here. Everyone here has done better work (check out Gries extraordinarily affecting Will Penny or Ballard's work on The Wild Bunch), and it's not a life-changing experience, but that's not the point. This is an audience picture that sets out to entertain you for an hour-and-a-half, and succeeds admirably. And Jerry Goldsmith's terrific and exhilaratingly exciting score – along with Wild Rovers his best in the genre - is the icing on the cake.

Eureka's Bluray has a better encode than Kino's first Bluray release, but it's still a problematic older master, especially in the first half hour where faces occasionally have a waxy quality (though not as waxy as the first Kino disc) and the actors' makeup seems very noticeable (something an old school cinematographer as good as Ballard would have been unlikely to ignore), but for the most part it's an appreciable upgrade on the old MGM/UA DVD.





Lampooning the paranoia that swept America in the weeks after Pearl Harbor, 1941 is a hard film to make a case for, but it’s the kind of film you can like in spite of its many flaws. Parts of it (much of the first half of the movie, in fact) are truly atrociously directed and despite a script by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, Spielberg’s epic live-action cartoon is rarely ever particularly funny. A big part of the blame comes down to Spielberg’s inability to properly time or stage many of the gags at that point in his career. But what Spielberg can do is stage the spectacle, which the film has in spades, as if compensating for the lack of jokes with an excess of explosions and destruction. And excess is what 1941 is ultimately all about. It may not be terribly good, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had amid all the wreckage.

A kind of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad War or The Japanese Are Coming, The Japanese Are Coming with the chaos triggered by Toshiro Mifune’s off-course out-of-date Japanese submarine surfacing off the West Coast and determining not to go back until he can find something honourable to “blow the **** out of,” it follows a group of disparate characters of various degrees of dementia through the resulting riots, chases, plane crashes and general wanton destruction: John Belushi’s insanely gung-ho fighter pilot, Warren Oates’ even more insanely paranoid colonel who makes Sterling Hayden in Dr Strangelove look rational, Tim Matheson’s randy military aide determined to join the mile-high club with Nancy Allen, Dan Aykroyd’s walking technical manual-cum-motor pool sergeant, Ned Beatty’s family man who can’t resist trying out the anti-aircraft gun in his back yard, Murray Hamilton’s aircraft observer stuck atop a Ferris Wheel with Eddie Deezen (looking alarmingly like a pre-bearded Spielberg) and his ventriloquist’s dummy, Slim Pickens’ unfortunately named Christmas tree salesman, Bobby Di Cicco’s jitterbugging fool and Treat Williams’ barely human egg-hating incarnation of the Tasmanian Devil among them. Christopher Lee, Lionel Stander, Lorraine Gary, John Candy, Elisha Cook Jr and Mickey Rourke, making his screen debut, are in there as well, with cameos by Sam Fuller, John Landis and even an unbilled James Caan as a sailor in the riot if you look quickly. But the film’s easily stolen by Robert Stack’s General Stillwell, crying as he watches Dumbo while a riot rages in the streets outside, a beautifully underplayed oasis of unimpressed sanity in the eye of the storm.



In all honesty, neither the 146-minute director’s cut nor the two-hour theatrical version works particularly well. While about ten minutes of footage from the uncut version could have been usefully included in the far too frenetically paced theatrical version, much of the deleted footage simply doesn’t work on any level: certainly scenes like the misfired setpiece built around stealing a Zoot Suit from a department store never translate from the page to the screen – you can see why it should be funny in principle, but it falls horribly flat in practice. It’s not until the halfway mark and the jitterbug contest, still one of Spielberg’s most accomplished setpieces, that the film really starts to find its feet (though an unsung Heath-Robinsonish series of accidents that contrive to revive an unconscious Treat Williams is almost equally impressive). From that point on, the film goes into full-on destructive overkill mode with all the frenetic pace and appetite for destruction of a classic Warner Bros. or Tex Avery cartoon, all to the accompaniment of one of John Williams’ best scores.

One of the last big Hollywood features to use a huge amount of model work, the special effects are variable but the mechanical ones are often generally impressive, whether it’s a dogfight over the streets of Los Angeles, the Santa Monica Pier Ferris Wheel rolling into the sea or a cliffside house falling into the ocean. And it’s not all models: one gag with Belushi’s plane landing at a gas station for a refill, recycled from Spielberg’s first screenplay, Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies and later recycled again in Octopussy, is played out for real, as is a plane crash on Hollywood Boulevard (they literally catapulted the plane onto the backlot set!). Of course, with such an emphasis on chaos and carnage it’s pretty clear that, as Spielberg admits, it’s only going to be loved by a small and insane group of people, but it’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime folies de grandeur that has to be seen at least once just for the sheer demented, wasteful audacity of it all.

[CelestialAgent]

Rewatched in Vue:



Far from the best Ron Howard film or The Grinch adaptation, yet it’s also far from the worst Dr. Seuss adaptation. It at least acknowledges the existence of the animated TV special with You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch played over a scene. I think part of the film’s strengths is the quirky, exaggerated production design of Whoville, and it’s something the next live action Seuss film, The Cat in the Hat, would only pivot into even more, but at the same time putting prosthetic noses on famous actors perhaps suggests animation and illustration is a more forgiving medium.

Though a Jim Carrey headliner, under the costume only a few of the gags and some of the intonations would let you know it’s him. Besides the little girl I’m not sure I would say the actors give great performances. Though Anthony Hopkins is good as the narrator. The zany comedy falls back onto the Grinch falling into a woman’s bosom, breaking the fourth wall as he mentions the harmful effects of TV and film and videogames, or adopting several personas from a crash test dummy to a film director inspiring his ‘reindeer’ (his dog) to get into character with his red nose, but it never really lands.

That said, I at least appreciate how the film shows the Grinch isn’t entirely a “mean one”, but he has a heart. Like other Christmastime characters like Kevin McAllister or Ebenezer Scrooge, he appreciates his own company and follows his own schedule, and though they undergo moral lessons I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the Grinch not liking Christmas. We’re shown it’s a result as childhood bullying and trauma, when he was mocked and laughed at by teachers and children at Christmas after trying to shave his Grinch beard. His rejection of the capitalistic avarice of Christmas, where goods are bought but then quickly discarded of, gathering up in the scrapyard where the Grinch can find his own use for them, definitely resonates. He experiences Christmas by force, not by choice, looking miserable in a Christmas sweater and undergoing the traditions of eating too much food. The Mayor of Whoville is far from a moral figure, making up his own rules against the Grinch while reading from the Book of Who (essentially a constitution rather than a religious bible), and using taxpayer funds to buy his girlfriend an expensive new car as an engagement present, before he has even popped the question. After the Grinch freely confesses to his crimes, he suggests the cop use pepper spray on him, even though he admitted without any force.

That said, though the Grinch is sympathetic, and he undergoes a redemption arc, he does have quite a number of sins from setting fire to a Christmas tree, shaving a man’s hair, stealing a car, trees, food and presents, and lying to a little girl and only in a children’s story could he be forgiven quite so effortlessly. But I do think the moral messaging is good, that Christmas isn’t about the presents but a community looking out for each other.

Rewatched in ODEON:



The first two Home Alone films can be considered siblings, if only because of Macaulay Culkin’s appearance in both, and can seem like they blur together when viewed at Christmas on the same TV channel or DVD set. It will probably forever be the best of the sequels, with a string of follow ups and bad TV movies in its wake. It mirrors the first film quite heavily, from Kevin being sent to his room for unfair reasons when his siblings are to blame, the family going away for Christmas with chaos running around the household to pack and the two vans bound for the airport, a rush to get there on time, a realisation on the plane, screaming “KEVIN!”, Kevin making the best use of his own time by fooling adults as he spends his own money pretending he’s with a parent, using standees and a tape recorder to suggest an adult is with him, using a 30s gangster picture to stage a shootout to dissuade intruders, speaking to an older person and inspiring them to reach out, foiling the Sticky Bandits (rechristened from the Wet Bandits) with hazardous traps.

But this is thoroughly a cartoon universe, with Tim Curry as a hotel concierge so obsessed with Kevin it borders on the absurd, treating a child with the same force and rage he would enact against an adult. The notion that a 30s low budget gangster picture got a sequel, and that the hotel has a copy of the VHS tape but the staff are still threatened by a fictitious gunman. But as a family holiday comedy film you just have to accept the contrivances. How many families would decide to do another expensive holiday at Christmas and not leaving with enough time or properly checking everyone is there after what happened last Christmas? How can they even afford the massive house and the amount on food or hotel rooms for such a massive family? Kevin gets lost because two separate planes depart from the same gate, yet they never think to ask the airline about these two flights departing at the same time (is there enough runway for it?), and the hostess never connects the dots to his family being on the other plane. The Sticky Bandits roam New York, sexually assaulting women and stealing from donation plates, but never attract the suspicions of any cops. Sex workers yell at Kevin, as though he could be a potential client. The city has a toy emporium, Duncan’s Toy Chest, yet it can survive as a business by donating all its profits to the children’s hospital. His sense of giving is so great he never mentions Kevin breaking his window with a brick to the cops, and gives half his inventory to the McAllisters as gifts.

But perhaps the biggest absurdity to accept is that the Sticky Bandits are immortal and invulnerable, able to withstand seven bricks to the head, a bag of tools, a bag of cement, a lead pipe, a burned scalp, an explosion, several falls from ceiling level, electrocution that reveals the skeleton inside, being covered in a kerosene rope, paint fumes, being eaten alive by a flock of pigeons and literally tarred and feathered. Kevin’s right to set these traps is perhaps more dubious than previously, destroying a car in the process, with a relative he hasn’t seen in a while’s house under renovation, based on a overheard conversation in a toy store he only just heard of, unlike the home invasion formula in a house he has lived in his entire life.

The “Pigeon Lady” with an Irish brogue has been mocked before but I think she’s the emotional heart of the film, and creates a sense of seasonal giving in the film. Kevin obviously comes from a well off family with a credit card, but reaches out to a homeless woman the concierge would consider a “parasite”, most of her money probably goes towards birdseed but she’s found a life for herself, watching concerts from the roof.

[Aclea]

After Lionel Barrymore dropped out due to health issues (but did appear in a fireside chat trailer promoting it) MGM demoted this to B-movie level budget quickie, but a Thirties MGM B-movie is still more lavish than other studios' A-movies. Very watered down - almost all the darker elements that forged Scrooge's miserliness are omitted leaving him someone who just forgot how to have fun - and better on the peripheries (Barry Mackay manages to make the usually bland Fred Scrooge the very spirit of Christmas more than the Spirit of Christmas himself). Nice extras package of the kind of goodwill shorts studios used to make - Judy Garland singing Silent Night in a choral setting, a 1931 Christmas Party short with Jackie Cooper persuading Norma Shearer to ask Mr Mayer to let his friends have a party on a soundstage where they're served by the studio's stars like Clark Gable ("How old is your sister?"), Ramon Navarro, Marion Davies, Jimmy Durante with Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler doing the cooking and, in a sadly unremastered SD presentation, the Oscar winning cartoon Peace on Earth. Most Harman-Ising cartoons are insufferably twee, but this seasonal warning from 1939 is a visually striking nightmarish apocalyptic vision of the human race becoming extinct through war and the cuter animals taking over - a sort of dystopian Planet of the Squirrels wrapped up in a cosy framing story where tin helmets become houses and bayonets lampposts. Hannah Barbera remade it in Scope as Goodwill to Men in 1955, but this is by far the better version.

[Aclea]

What could have been a nice little short film becomes a nightmarish journey of child endangerment through the nine circles of Hell - most of which resemble theme park rollercoaster rides - to Santy's Inferno to meet a solemn and joyless Mr C. Chilling stuff.

[AnnThrope]

Happy Christmas, Aclea

"A Merry Christmas to us all; God bless us, every one!"
(to quote Small Timothy)

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by AnnThrope

Happy Christmas, Aclea

"A Merry Christmas to us all; God bless us, every one!"
(to quote Small Timothy)

Muppets- Bless Us All - YouTube

Happy Christmas all.

[CelestialAgent]

Not even sure I was aware of Smallfoot when it came out a few years ago, but it looks like it could be quite charming.

And an adaptation of A Christmas Carol I didn’t know existed!

[moviegeek1992]

Originally Posted by CelestialAgent

Watched:



Night Train Murders is so unrelentingly brutal, it can feel like a festive Clockwork Orange. Two disaffected young men co-opt fascist imagery (they salute “heil Hitler” to a group of older Germans on the train), attack women no matter their age on the street, rape, murder, mutilate genitals, act as voyeurs. It also ends with a return to a house seen earlier in the film, as a setting for a confrontation. The harmonica becomes pretty sinister. The film also has a surface similarity to The Odessa File: it begins at a Munich Christmas market, with a pop song appropriate for the time of the year playing over the opening.

Some of the most harrowing scenes are

[Show spoiler]two parents arriving at the train station with no idea where their daughter and her friend are, when the viewer knows they are dead. Another harrowing scene features the father learning of her death over the radio, without authorities contacting him first.

In her interview on the disc, Irene Miracle talks about meeting Pasolini, Antonioni, Bertolucci, and not realising they were all filmmakers, asking what they did for a living. She also says how she was given the film without a script and thought it was just about two girls on a train, and doesn’t understand how anyone can enjoy a film with knives, rape and murder.

I have no issue with the master on 88’s disc, however the subtitles are distractingly cast in turquoise, and justified to the position of where each character is speaking. They’re also SDH, subtitling the opening song and exchanges that don’t need to be subtitled, like [NO AUDIBLE DIALOGUE], [SPEAKING IN ITALIAN], [SPEAKING IN GERMAN]. Unsure on the quality of the English dub which the disc defaults to.

88 Films’ release of Night Train Murders features dubtitles (meaning they’re subtitling the English dub of the film) rather than translating the Italian dialogue. Ironically these dubtitles can’t be played whilst viewing the English dub. Unfortunately this is best release available thus far as the US Blue Underground Blu-ray lacks the Italian audio and the French edition is not English friendly. I’d like Blue Underground to give this a 4K UHD release in the future complete with the Italian audio and newly translated English subs as this film is highly deserving of it - I actually prefer this to Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left, even if it is a knock-off.

[CelestialAgent]

Do any other Italian films feature dubtitles only (especially with 88 releases)? That’s quite annoying, especially as sometimes the way the dubbers or translators will choose to convey a scene in a different language can be quite different. Of course it takes twice the work to create two different sets of subtitles, but I think it’s worth the effort, even if you can still enjoy the film with the subtitles not being quite correct (though an Italian speaker might be horrified!) I doubt they would make the same mistake now, this was at the very start of their Italian Collection. I’m sure the English dub is still listenable but I generally prefer Italian, especially considering the film’s setting (though there are still some lines of German in this dub). I suppose you can tell it’s dubtitles as it doesn’t always synchronise perfectly with the audio. My two complaints about 88’s releases is having English as the default track, and also how it never remembers your place - which can be useful if you take a bathroom or snack break and the player shuts off in the meantime and you have to find your place again.

Watched:



An awesome film with an amazing looking 4K transfer, though it doesn’t have every extra (like the audio commentary) from the French release. It’s Home Alone meets Silent Night Deadly Night meets Predator - the kid probably knows how to defend the mansion from all the action movies he’s clearly watched - and it’s so 80s it has two Bonnie Tyler needle drops and the Minitel as a central plot element!

I think I’ll keep this thread going with some New Year’s films, like No Surrender, In Search of a Midnight Kiss, Gremlins 2, Strange Days, The Poseidon Adventure, Bloody New Year. Not sure on any others? I suppose I could keep it going until Twelfth Night (5th January) but I’ll probably not have the time in the new year!

[Aclea]

The ultimate Christmas movie. Nobody gets what they want and they all try to kill each other.



"Well, what shall we hang, the holly or each other?"

Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without The Lion in Winter. It's 1183 and Christmas at Chinon and the ageing King Henry II of England ("I'm 50. I'm the oldest man I know. I've got a decade on the Pope!") has let his wife Eleanor of Acquitaine out of prison for the holidays. While he must choose whether to give his former ward and now lover, Alais (Jane Merrow), back to King Philip of France (Timothy Dalton) or to his successor in marriage as agreed or lose her dowry - the strategically important Vexin - Eleanor plots against him and his three surviving sons jockey for position for the succession: Anthony Hopkins' gruff 'fulltime soldier and sometime poet' Richard the Lionheart, John Castle's unloved Geoffrey ("It's not the power I feel deprived of, it's the mention I miss."), and Nigel Terry's rather too broadly drawn simple John ("My God, if I went up in flames there's not a living soul who'd pee on me to put the fire out." "Let's strike a flint and see."). He favors John, she favors Richard and nobody cares for Geoffrey.

Cue daggers, plots and reopened wounds as everyone tries to kill everyone else and nobody gets what they wanted for Christmas. Alliances are made and broken, guilty secrets revealed and brief moments of genuine affection flare-up between the conspiracy and the arguments. Although the script shines with effortlessly bitter wit - and even bedroom farce in Philip's chambers ("That's what tapestries are for," he smiles as yet another brother hides there) - the plotting and game-playing is intricate and intriguing but always carefully steeped in the characterisation.

Part costume drama, part Who's Afraid of Eleanor of Aquitaine? as these jungle creatures scratch and claw at each other's weak spots it's almost certainly a lot closer to history as it was lived than as it is written thanks to a truly great screenplay by James Goldman (who stumbled across the plot while researching a play about Robin Hood that would later become the sadly underrated Robin and Marion) that's done justice by it's cast. Aside from Terry and Merrow (who gives a performance as flat as her singing voice), who are required to be simpletons and ciphers so don't really get in the way, the performances are stunning, with O'Toole at the height of his powers reprising his role from Becket and walking the tightrope between bluster and tragic melancholy with an aplomb and gusto that is more than a match for Hepburn's breathtakingly devious Eleanor, who would surely have made mincemeat of many a lesser co-star. Their relationship of one-upmanship and deep hatred born of a once deeper love is beautifully observed in Goldman's wonderfully crafted screenplay. Terrific nasty fun and the ultimate family Christmas movie.

[AnnThrope]

Originally Posted by Aclea

The ultimate Christmas movie. Nobody gets what they want and they all try to kill each other.



"Well, what shall we hang, the holly or each other?"

Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without The Lion in Winter. It's 1183 and Christmas at Chinon and the ageing King Henry II of England ("I'm 50. I'm the oldest man I know. I've got a decade on the Pope!") has let his wife Eleanor of Acquitaine out of prison for the holidays. While he must choose whether to give his former ward and now lover, Alais (Jane Merrow), back to King Philip of France (Timothy Dalton) or to his successor in marriage as agreed or lose her dowry - the strategically important Vexin - Eleanor plots against him and his three surviving sons jockey for position for the succession: Anthony Hopkins' gruff 'fulltime soldier and sometime poet' Richard the Lionheart, John Castle's unloved Geoffrey ("It's not the power I feel deprived of, it's the mention I miss."), and Nigel Terry's rather too broadly drawn simple John ("My God, if I went up in flames there's not a living soul who'd pee on me to put the fire out." "Let's strike a flint and see."). He favors John, she favors Richard and nobody cares for Geoffrey.

Cue daggers, plots and reopened wounds as everyone tries to kill everyone else and nobody gets what they wanted for Christmas. Alliances are made and broken, guilty secrets revealed and brief moments of genuine affection flare-up between the conspiracy and the arguments. Although the script shines with effortlessly bitter wit - and even bedroom farce in Philip's chambers ("That's what tapestries are for," he smiles as yet another brother hides there) - the plotting and game-playing is intricate and intriguing but always carefully steeped in the characterisation.

Part costume drama, part Who's Afraid of Eleanor of Aquitaine? as these jungle creatures scratch and claw at each other's weak spots and almost certainly a lot closer to history as it was lived than as it is written thanks to a truly great screenplay by James Goldman (who stumbled across the plot while researching a play about Robin Hood that would later become the sadly underrated Robin and Marion) that's done justice by it's cast. Aside from Terry and Merrow (who gives a performance as flat as her singing voice), who are required to be simpletons and ciphers so don't really get in the way, the performances are stunning, with O'Toole at the height of his powers reprising his role from Becket and walking the tightrope between bluster and tragic melancholy with an aplomb and gusto that is more than a match for Hepburn's breathtakingly devious Eleanor, who would surely have made mincemeat of many a lesser co-star. Their relationship of one-upmanship and deep hatred born of a once deeper love is beautifully observed in James Goldman's wonderfully crafted screenplay. Terrific nasty fun and the ultimate family Christmas movie.

Nah, it's Anthony Hopkins as Edmund Blackadder in Blackadder The Movie.

[Aclea]

Which makes Nigel Terry Baldrick.

[Aclea]

It makes surprisingly little of its Christmas setting, but it's seasonal:



Fitzwilly aka Fitzwilly Strikes Back is a sprightly 1967 comedy that sees Dick Van Dyke’s butler and the assorted household staff running a neat line in grand larceny to keep Edith Evans in the style she is accustomed to and ignorant of the real impoverished state of her finances after years of giving away money she doesn’t have to good causes. It’s not exactly Robin Hood, what with its robbing from the rich to give to the former rich, but since she’s giving to the poor and it’s all so good natured that’s not really a problem. Naturally a fly turns up in the ointment when Evans hires Barbara Feldon as her new secretary for the dictionary for people who can’t spell that she’s writing: she just can’t figure out why someone as smart as Van Dyke would want to be a butler…

It’s more of a pleasant little movie (albeit lavishly mounted) than a laugh out loud comedy, the scams not always entirely convincing and the final heist at Gimbels on Christmas Eve having to be taken with the same pinch of salt as the film’s rather flexible morality. Mary Poppins fans will be pleased/horrified (delete as applicable) to note that Van Dyke’s cockaknee aksunt makes a return appearance in one scene, with the master linguist adding a bad French one to his repertoire along the way (it’s meant to be German but at least he’s on the same continental land mass) while Barbara Feldon sports a wardrobe, hairstyle and glasses that there is absolutely no way on God’s green Earth wasn’t the inspiration for Velma in Scooby Doo a couple of years later.

There are plenty of familiar faces in the supporting cast, from John McGiver and a young Sam Waterston among the staff, John Fiedler and Norman Fell among the marks and Cecil Kellaway and an unbilled Laurence Naismith in throwaway roles that don’t make even the slightest demand on their talents but doubtless helped them live in the style they were accustomed to. There’s also a jaunty score from John Williams in the days when he was still Johnny Williams to move things nimbly along.

Kino’s Region A-locked Bluray offers what appears to be, with slight tweaks, the same transfer as MGM’s US NTSC manufactured on demand DVD-R, which in turn seemed to be the same one used for the Laser Disc release offering an inconsistent but mostly more than acceptable 2.35:1 widescreen transfer with audio commentary and the specially filmed trailer as extras.