James Clay Stuff

December 8, 2012December 8, 2019

Cinematic Advent Calendar #08 – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Indiana Jones is a film series which for many reasons should have failed. It was based on the 1930s adventure serials that were shown in the cinema at that time and into the 1950s. It was a retro adventure film, why would it have appealed to a modern audience? In many ways, despite the story, the quality of the filming and action sequences; I am sure the main reason that initially the film was successful was down to George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford.

George Lucas was well known for Star Wars, and had huge success. Steven Spielberg had made Jaws and Close Encounters and Harrison Ford had been the real star of Star Wars. This combination was going to attract an audience regardless of what the film was about. Raiders of the Lost Ark was a hit in 1981, it was obvious that there would be a sequel and The Temple of Doom followed in 1984. The Last Crusade came five years later in 1989.

This film choice was a bit of a tough one, in many ways the first Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark is a much more significant film, and really in some aspects probably a better film. However out of the first three Indiana Jones’ films, the one I like the most is the third one.

It’s probably for a range of reasons: I like the opening sequence from when Indy was a young lad. It’s nice to gain a better understanding of the motivations of the character and the origins of his trademark hat, whip and fear of snakes. There is Sean Connery playing Jones Senior. I do like films with Sean Connery and the relationship between dad and junior adds a fair bit of humour to the film.

There is a scene in Venice and that is one of my favourite places in the world. It also features Petra and I really quite like that part of the story (no spoilers here).

Like a lot of people I wasn’t too impressed with the recent fourth Indy film, but I certainly didn’t hate it as some did. It’s an enjoyable romp, but is nowhere near the quality of the films from the 1980s.

I wonder with the purchase of Lucasfilms by Disney whether they will take the risk and do something with the franchise. Unlike Star Wars, the real draw these days with Indiana Jones is Harrison Ford, he is getting older and I don’t think he can play the part in the same way he did with the original three films. It will be a risk if they recast, but it could work. What do you think?

Get Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at iTunes.

Get the entire collection of Indiana Jones films at Amazon.

December 7, 2012December 8, 2019

Cinematic Advent Calendar #07 – The Eagle has Landed

There are quite a few films in this advent calendar that have significant memories over and above the film itself. Queuing for Star Wars was significant for example. With The Eagle has Landed I went to see it at the Aldeburgh cinema with my grandparents.

Looking back I was seven (maybe eight) when I went to see it, which when you consider the current certification of 15 was way too young! What I do remember was that whenever there was a scene with blood, my grandparents would say to me, that’s tomato ketchup! I think because I saw this film at the cinema that it is one of my favourite films and in this list.

The film covers an attack by German paratroopers on Winston Churchill. From the initial planning of the attack this film is a fast paced adventure.

There is a great cast, Michael Caine plays the lead role Colonel Steiner, and Donald Sutherland is perfect as the smooth talking Devlin.

I remember reading the book many years later, this as you may expect has much more detail than the film. What I did like about the book was the way in which it was written as though it was based on true accounts.

Unlike some other films of that era, I think this still stands up and is an enjoyable film despite the age.

Download The Eagle has Landed from iTunes.

Get The Eagle has Landed at Amazon on DVD, Blu-Ray or Amazon Video.

December 6, 2012

Cinematic Advent Calendar #06 – Pulp Fiction

I am sure that most people who went to see Pulp Fiction had probably seen Reservoir Dogs first. I didn’t. I did see it after seeing Pulp Fiction and out of all of Quentin Tarantino’s films, the one i like the most is Pulp Fiction, much more so than Dogs or to be honest any of the stuff he has done later.

I love the storytelling approach that Tarantino takes with Pulp Fiction, it was extremely clever to intertwine the various stories in the way that he does. What I think was innovative was the way that the stories don’t follow a linear path. Before Pulp Fiction this would have been done through the flashback, what Tarantino does is to just tell the stories and ignores the fact that the stories aren’t told in order or in a linear fashion. This could be somewhat confusing, and in many ways a second viewing does help, but due to though the stories intertwine they are really individual isolated stories.

Pulp Fiction doesn’t hold back the punches, there is violence, there are drugs. This does however make it a very powerful film and at times uncomfortable to watch. I certainly feel that it doesn’t glorify the use of drugs, or even violence, it is shocking and I think it works well on that level.

In terms of cast, it is full of stars. At the time many of them were on a downward track, this is the film that helped many of them to be reinvented or refreshed.

Another facet I like about Pulp Fiction has to be the soundtrack and I suspect that this was a contributing factor to the success of the film.

Download Pulp Fiction from iTunes.

Get Pulp Fiction at Amazon.

December 5, 2012January 1, 2020

Cinematic Advent Calendar #05 – Leon

I have found when watching films there are a few that really showcase a director or an actor, as a result I make an effort to seek out other work they have done. To give you an example, after watching the Shawshank Redemption I did go our of my way to find films starring Morgan Freeman. Likewise Devil in a Blue Dress was the film that made me appreciate Denzel Washington as an actor.

Leon was awash with great actors, and Luc Besson is briilant as both director and writer. This was the film that made me find other films by Luc Besson and others starring Jean Reno. It was the also the film that made me appreciate what an excellent and versatile actor Gary Oldman is.

Leon is a hard violent film, but is also a very powerful story with a fair few amusing and thought provoking scenes. Jean Reno is in many ways typically Jean Reno, from his facial expressions, to the way he portrays the cold calculating killer, who over time is softened into a fatherly figure by Natalie Portman’s character.

Beautifully filmed, the film’s story is one of revenge and the cost that it has on people’s lives.

Download Leon from iTunes.

Get Leon at Amazon.

December 4, 2012December 4, 2020

Cinematic Advent Calendar #04 – Star Trek VI

“Guess who’s coming to dinner…”

There have been a fair few Star Trek films, out of all of them the one I like best is number six. It tells the story of the thawing of relations between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. With overtones of the Cold War, this story about an old starship crew (making no apologies for the ageing cast) been put into a situation that isn’t what they are use to or expect is gripping and humourous at the same time.

I do think it was the best of the “old cast” films, I did like IV with the whales and time travel, but at the end of the day, of all of them VI wins out. I do like how Sulu now has his own ship. There is a great supporting cast too with Christopher Plummer and David Warner playing the Klingons with great effect.

It’s hard to believe, but the film is over twenty years old now. So is this one of your favourites, or is it one of other films?

Download Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country from iTunes.

Get Star Trek VI at Amazon.

December 3, 2012

Cinematic Advent Calendar #03 – Star Wars, A New Hope

As a young kid I didn’t go to the cinema very often, but one film I did go and see, and had to queue all around the market square in Cambridge for, was Star Wars.

I didn’t go to the cinema very often when i was young, but I never remember really long queues for films, the queue for Star Wars was unprecedented, it was huge. I have never seen anything like this again.

Star Wars was, and still is, an amazing piece of cinema. When you read the back story you realise that when they were making the film, they had no idea how big it was going to be, many of the cast and crew thought it might be a flop. There were disasters on set, including massively destructive sand storms in Tunisia.

The story was simple in many respects, but this is a true cinematic film. That opening sequence with the never ending huge Star Destroyer set the tone for the rest of the movie. I really loved the retro feel of the technology and this slightly worn, aged tech look was used again many times by other films and television series. Battlestar Galactica is an example of copying the feel and style of Star Wars tech, so much so, there was a court case about it.

There were spaceships, battles in space, jedi mysticism, sword fights (well light sabre fights), monsters, aliens and a authoritarian empire bent on destruction.

The one thing that you can say about Star Wars was the impact it had on science fiction films and television, it made them mainstream. It was only a couple of years later and we had Star Trek films, there was also a range of science fiction mainstream television series too, as well as the aforementioned Battlestar Galactica, there was Buck Rogers. Some were good and some were downright awful.

Of course Star Wars became so much more than the one film from 1977, three years later there was the Empire Strikes Back (which I didn’t see at the cinema, but many say is a better film than the original) and then in 1982 we saw Return of the Jedi. I did see that at the cinema, but there wasn’t the queues there was in 1977 and in many ways was nowhere near as good as the original film. I remember going to see the “enhanced” versions in the 1990s before the release of the prequels and I did enjoy watching those films again in the cinema. There is something very different about the cinema experience over watching something on the telly or an iPad. I remember really enjoy Empire Strikes Back at the cinema.

I’ll be honest I was not that impressed with the prequels, they didn’t have the magic that we saw in the original three films and the use of CGI did not improve the movies, many of the effects shots were too “clever” and didn’t progress the story, whilst I thought many of the CGI sets looked rather fake. For me they weren’t Star Wars, they were another science fiction film.

Get Star Wars at Amazon.

December 2, 2012

Cinematic Advent Calendar #02 – When Harry met Sally…

Last year I did a musical advent calendar that I posted to Google+ and a final summary on this blog. This year on a similar theme I will be posting a cinematic advent calendar of twenty four films. It is in no particular order and I make no apologies for the films that I am posting. These are films that I really like and have enjoyed at the cinema. Some have been sheer enjoyment and others have had more of an impact.

My second choice for the calendar is When Harry met Sally… Can men ever be friends with women? This very funny film explores that very question with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. Set over a fair few years from when they first met on a road trip to New York through chance encounters, this take of two friends is both amusing and sentimental. It is also quite funny. It is one of the few films I probably watch every year and enjoy it every time. There are also strong performances from Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby as friends of Harry and Sally.

I have considered going to New York based on this film alone, but of course the New York now is very different to that one back in 1989. The film certainly doesn’t show the hustle and bustle of the New York that you see in many films, there is a calmer and more hip version of New York. Reminds me of Clifton in Bristol when I watch.

If you like romantic comedies then you probably have seen this, made in an era of similar films, this was a little sharper and tougher than the types we have seen in the last ten years.

I nearly put City Slickers into this list of films, but recalled it was When Harry met Sally which introduced me to Billy Crystal, so if you do watch When Harry met Sally and enjoy it, take a look at City Slickers too.

Download When Harry met Sally… from iTunes.

Get When Harry met Sally… at Amazon.

December 1, 2012December 8, 2019

Cinematic Advent Calendar #01 – Full Metal Jacket

Back in the 1980s there was a plethora of films about the Vietnam War, from the intriguing Apocalypse Now, the brutal Platoon and the lightweight Good Morning Vietnam, the one Vietnam War film I remember more than the others was Full Metal Jacket.

From the brutality of the Marine training camp to the pointlessness of the horror of Vietnam, this film for me covers the awfulness of war and the impact it has on the men and women who take part and the unfortunate civilians who get caught up in it all. The harshness of basic training reminds us that it is the very young that get sent to fight the wars, often they have no idea of what they are doing or why they are doing it. Joker’s helmet with the CND peace symbol and “born to kill” is a dichotomy that is often explored in the film. The futility of the fighting is demonstrated again and again with the subsequent waste of life on both sides. A film that shows off many of the horrors of modern warfare and the violence that one would see, there is within the film a lot of dark humour and you can feel guilty smiling or even laughing at the humour.

Beautifully filmed and very cinematic, from a technical perspective when you realise that most of the movie was filmed in the UK you can really appreciate the film makers art. The Norfolk Broads was where the paddy fields of Vietnam were filmed, whilst the ruined building scenes with the sniper were made in the London docklands!

As war films go this one is probably one of the best, it is a powerful, unsentimental assault on the senses and leaves one reeling. I don’t think I had the same feelings until I saw the opening sequences of Saving Private Ryan. Though it is nearly fifty years since the Vietnam War, it is still for many people one of the turning points in history, where popular opinion turned against the government policy of the day and ended an unpopular war. The films of the Vietnam war in the 1980s reminded a new generation of the horror of that war, sometimes we need reminding.

Download Full Metal Jacket from iTunes.

Get Full Metal Jacket at Amazon on DVD, Blu Ray or Amazon Video.

November 30, 2012

Almost viral

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=v3TPHAq_VN0

Made me smile.

November 29, 2012

Travelling stories

I recounted earlier this week the problems affecting my travels to work caused by the weather.

It actually hasn’t got much better.

On Wednesday I checked to see the trains were running and they seemed to be running fine. After changing trains at Bristol Temple Meads I arrived in Gloucester a few minutes late, but nothing too untoward. There were problems on the rest of the network, but it seemed to be restricted to Devon and a few other parts of the UK.

As it got to the time to leave work, I did check the departure board from my phone and it seemed that there were a few alterations, but nothing that would impact on me too much (I hoped).

I arrived at Gloucester station, checked the departure board, saw I had a 30 minute wait for my train, got an espresso from the Pumpkin Cafe and sat down with my laptop and the free wifi. After a minite or so and just as I was checking the e-mail, a CrossCountry Voyager came into the station, this was a bit strange as they generally avoid Gloucester these days. The station announcer came on and said “arriving platform two, an extra train to Bristol Temple Meads” well that was an unexpected opportunity. So I grabbed the coffee, my laptop and bag and got on the (quite) crowded train. Found the last remaining seat in Coach C and sat down.

One of the reasons that CrossCountry trains don’t call at Gloucester is that it isn’t on the main line from the South West to Birmingham. As you come down from Birmingham you swing right into Gloucester. To continue down to Bristol you reverse direction and swing back onto the main line. I recall catching trains from Weston to York and they would call at Gloucester, they would then detach the engine from the front of the train loop the carriages and couple it to the other end. With High Speed Trains (with a cab at each end) the driver needed to switch cabs. This of course would all take time, sometimes enough time to grab a coffee from the cafe – though I did sometimes worry about been left behind.

Today though you need to change trains at Cheltenham Spa or Bristol Parkway to get to Gloucester as the mainline trains don’t call there anymore, hence my surprise at the CrossCountry Voyager. So I was expecting the train to leave Gloucester from the same direction it had arrived… it didn’t! It left in the opposite direction to the way it had arrived at Gloucester. That wasn’t the way to Bristol, that took you to Lydney, Chepstow and Wales. I really did think for a while as the train travelled further into Gloucestershire, into Forest of Dean country that I had taken the wrong train, would have to pay a penalty fare and end up in Cardiff!

Eventually the train manager came on the tannoy and said there had been a landslip in Westerleigh. As a result the southbound mainline was closed. The train was going to go around the problem, through Lydney and Chepstow, under the River Severn and arrive in Bristol Temple Meads.

We eventually arrived in Bristol, five minutes later I made the connection home. What was slightly weird was I actually got home thirty minutes earlier than I normally would.

As a result today I decided to drive. This morning the motorway was a lot busier than normal and I suspect the railway problems contributed to that. However checking my National Rail app on the iPhone it was apparent that lots of trains had been cancelled, so train hadn’t been an option even if I wanted to try the train.

This evening though, sadly there was a six vehicle accident on the M5 which closed all three lanes for a time, so it took me over two hours to drive home, twice as long as it should take. There are lots of accidents on the M5, which is one of the reasons I recently swapped to taking the train.

Tomorrow?  

Well tomorrow is another day.