Like a Robert Mapplethorpe Exhibition with moving pictures, Zach Snyder of comic-to-Movie Watchmen uses the SFX of comic-to-Movie Sin City to recreate the Graphic Novel by Frank Miller of comic-to-Movie The Spirit.

Best Historical Drama Ever since Up Pompeii.

The Story:

A naked boy kills a giant skinny black wolf, becomes a Scotsman who leads Sparta, married to a frightfully Englishwoman, with lots of American and rural counties friends. Fights Persians and ninjas. Dies in a style just like the end of Gladiator. Without the tractor tracks in the cornfields.

The Good:

Giant Man God King Xerxes who is a cross between the transvestite in The Crying Game and Vin Diesel in The Chronicles of Riddick.

Battle elephants like in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Battle rhinoceros like battle polar bear in The Golden Compass.

Slo-mo fight scenes: all bloody and all close-up.

Metrosexual –ahem- buff and tanned bodies all shot like the photography guy was colour-blind.

The Bad:

Giant skinny black wolf is not as good as skinny yank werewolf with a thing for Jenny Agutter from The Railway Children in An American Werewolf In London.

Too many story parts got in the way of all the lovely violent slo-mo fight scenes.

The Verdict:

About 22 Pigs. Even the boring bits were only about 9 minutes total of the running time.

It's lovely to look at it - the colours vibrate in the costumes and scenery: and when the children visit the railway line the sky always seems a warm and generous blue, like the natural world around them is glad to be alive.

A note about the DVD: I got this today from amazon, and I was disappointed that there are no extras whatsoever on the disc. The Sunday Times called The Railway Children "One of the best children's films ever"; and my copy of The Radio Times Guide to Films 2008 says it is "simply the finest children's film ever made in the United Kingdom". So you'd think with such a reputation the DVD would honour it with a commentary with Jenny Agutter, perhaps. Or a commentary with Bernard Cribbens, maybe. But no. Nothing. Nada. What a shame.

But the picture is sharp and it's still a great film. And Jenny Agutter is still superb in her warm delicateness as Bobby. And who can forget this tear-jerking moment?

Well, what with all this mad crazy summery sunshine (did you catch the perfume smog that enveloped the centre on Sunday, along with all the heat-maddened shiny shirt zombies jumping out into the roads?), I've having a quiet evening in with the fan on full blast (okay, if we're being strictly honest, it's on the first setting of three, but sheesh, get over yourself with the to-the-letter truthfulness) and a cruise through some all-time favourites. Tomorrow will be misspent drinking al fresco, methinks, so tonight is all about the chill.

Hence An American Werewolf In London. (And yes, I am aware I've done this before. It's simply a fucking awesome film, though.)

AAWWIL: Lunar cycling through 28 reasons why it is the wolf's bollocks

1. Jenny Agutter. As a nurse. "Nurse Price shall see to all your needs" indeed! And lest we forget, "You put me in a very awkward position..."
2. Waking up naked in London Zoo, and the exchange with the deadpan balloon kid...
3. Brian Glover in his prime - post-Kes, pre-Tetley.
4. The whole crossover angle with the Muppets!
5. The way David and Jack's backstories are only ever implied, and yet we still get a sense of who they are - like the banter at the beginning, and David's brief conversation over the phone with his ten year old sister (okay, ten-and-a-half year old sister) to say goodbye, after he's decided to commit suicide - of which we only hear one end.
6. Dr Hirsch trying to order a Campari and soda at the Slaughtered Lamb (where, we may remember, they serve only beer, spirits and tea), and his subsequently rising and falling half of Guinness.
7. The soundtrack - only five tracks, three of them different versions of the same song, but all moon-related, and all fitting perfectly into the film.
8. See You Next Wednesday, the porno movie-within-a-movie, and the 'Naughty Nina Carter' News Of The World TV advert.
9. The dude from the American Embassy trying to talk to a majorly freaked out David - "I appreciate how upset you are, but this is no reason for hysterics!" Because waking up in hospital following an attack by a werewolf which has killed your best friend and turned you into a lycanthrope really needs to be put into perspective...
10. The Underground chase - how terrifying is that, and with no gore! "I can assure you that this is not in the least bit amusing!"
11. The Slaughtered Lamb - a typically inviting northern hostelry. Probably a three star gastropub these days.
12. "I think he's a Jew..." :o
13. Taking the piss out of postcard punks on the Tube.
14. Benjamin, the smiley kid in the hospital who would only say 'no'.
15. "The police say they were attacked by an escaped lunatic..."
16. Elmer Bernstein's frantic cues (sounding not a little like they were recycled from The Great Escape, which is no bad thing).
17. "If I survived Rommel, I'm sure I could survive another excruciating evening with Roger Matheson!" You tell her, Dr Hirsch :D
18. Superintendent Brownlow, the louche Sun Hill commanding officer in The Bill, turning up as the constable in Trafalgar Square who won't arrest a guilt-stricken, upset David, despite his treasonous and Tourette's-like outbursts ("Queen Elizabeth is a man! Princes Charles is a faggot! Shit! Fuck! Cunt! Shit!")
19. "You ever talk to a corpse? It's boring!"
20. The clumsy copper who knocks over the kidney dishes and annoys his guvnor being, in essence, completely correct about everything.
21. The wild venison buffet.
22. The increasingly shocking nightmare scenes (as teefed for Weird Science?), with proper jump-out-your-seat moments.
23. "But there's only one bed..." Crikey!
24. A dead and decomposing Jack - "a walking meatloaf" - constantly appearing and trying to convince David to kill himself before he completely turns.
25. The exuberant (and still convincing, in small doses) make-up and effects, and especially David's terrifying first full transformation, to the tune of Blue Moon. And the inspiration for this blog's header logo.
26. The cabbie - "Puts you in mind of the days of the old Demon Barber of Fleet Street, dunnit..."
27. The Piccadilly Circus finale - total carnage!
28. Did I mention Jenny Agutter? As a nurse?

"It's a full moon..."
[Chorus] "Beware the moon"
"...And stick to the road... [Looks down] ...Oooops..."

Directed by Nicolas Roeg

Starring Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg

Well it looks like it's going to be Down Under week on My Queue as the slate of films I have planned all come from Austrailia or New Zealand. We'll start out with one of my favorites, brought to my attention again because it's scheduled for a Blu-Ray Criterion re-release. And naturally, that made me immediately think about Jenny Agutter. Anyone who's seen this movie, Logan's Run, or an American Werewolf in London is gonna know what I'm talking about.

She fine.

Anyway, Walkabout follows the journey of two children who are stranded in the Austrailian wilderness by their deranged father. They befriend an Aboriginal boy who teaches them how to survive in the wilderness and leads them to an abandoned farm house. He tries to court the girl through dance, but when she doesn't understand his meaning, wanders off and disappears, only to be found later dead, hanging from a tree. Eventually the two children find rescue, but secretly long for their simple days of survival in the wild.

Walkabout is lyrical and ingeniously edited, Roeg juxtaposing life among nature with shots of life in civilization demonstrating the similarities and disparities between the two. It is cinematically gorgeous and Agutter is captivating to watch.

Other Notable Films by this Director: The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

Wir befinden uns in der Zunkunft ..genauer gesagt , wie der Titel schon verrät im 23. Jahrhundert. In dieser fernen Zunkunft leben die Menschen von der Aussenwelt völlig isoliert in einer gigantischen Glaskuppel , welche sie aber als ihren natürlichen Lebensraums ehen , weil sie es nicht anders kennen. Auch herrschen dort andere Sitten .Monogamie gilt als verpöhnt , Drogen und andere Rauschmittel gibt es überall ...das ganze hat nur einen Haken , niemand in dieser "Stadt" darf älter als 30 Jahre werden . Und um das zu kontrollieren trägt jeder Bewohner einen Lebenskristall in seiner Handfläche ....der in den verschiedenen Jahren die Farbe wechselt , bis er dann anfängt zu blinken ..Wenn dies geschieht , werden die Betroffenen in das "Karussell" gebracht . Alle sehen darin ein religiöses Zentrum , wo sie ,w enn sie eintreten in eine höhere Ebene des Bewusstseins gehoben werden .....doch eigentlich werden sie dort nur unter viel Show hingerichtet ,ohne das es die anderen mitbekommen.

Nun gibt es aber auch ein paar schlaue Köpfe , die hinter dieses System des Karusells gekommen sind , welche als Läufer bezeichnet werden und die das Gerücht in Umlauf bringen , das es ausserhalb der Kuppel eine Zuflucht gibt vor diesem Karussell ...Und dann gibt es die Sandmänner ...welche als Polizei agieren und auf die Läufer angesetzt werden ....Und wie es ja meist dann in solchen Filmen ist , läuft alles gut , bis eine Frau ins Spiel kommt , denn dann bekommt Sandman "Logan5 " den Auftrag herauszufinden , ob an dem Gerücht etwas wahres dran ist , verliebt sich aber und ist dann selber auf der Flucht ...Nach einer sehr aufregenden Flucht finden er und seine Partnerin die Zuflucht und treffen dort auf einen alten Mann ....So einen alten Menschen haben sie natürlich noch nie gesehen , sie bleiben eine Weile bei ihm , bis sie beschliessen die anderen davon zu überzeugen , das man auch ruhig älter 30 werden kann :)

Soviel zum Inhalt , nun zur Bewertung :)

Logans Run ist trotz der stellenweise primitiven Effekte [ hey , er kam 1976 raus ] ein grossartiger Film , die Schauspieler waren zwar alle nicht ursprünglich geplant von den Filmmachern , passten aber perfekt in die Rollen ....[ Michael York als Logan5 ,Jenny Agutter als Jessica 6 und Peter Ustinov als der alte Mann]

Fazit : kann man sich gern immer wieder mal angucken und gehört in die Klassiker Abteilung :)

Robert Fuest's first film, AND SOON THE DARKNESS, starts with two Brits, Pamela Franklin and Michelle Dotrice (pronounced "dough-treece") on the world's most boring holiday, cycling across a totally flat stretch of French countryside. They stop at a roadside bar ~

"Did you get your bum pinched?"

"No, that's Italy. They'll do anything in Italy."

"What're we doing in France then?"

This slightly smutty, un-PC girltalk gets things off to a good start, striking one as credible and well-observed, and the actresses handle it well. Franklin had played little Flora in Jack Clayton's THE INNOCENTS, and Dotrice went on to co-star in the hugely successful 70s sitcom SOME MOTHERS DO 'AVE 'EM, and both are terrific, naturalistic players, who always feel overheard rather than performative.

Fuest, fresh from designing and directing episodes of TV's The Avengers, has a passable thriller plot by Brian Clemens and Terry Nation (both from that show -- Nation also created the Daleks): Dotrice vanishes and Franklin finds the entire countryside is populated only with red herrings -- and one sex-killer.

The central premise sometimes feels like an expansion of the build-up to Hitchcock's cropduster attack in NORTH BY NORTHWEST -- unseen terror in a landscape of limitless,blank horizons. Though in fact the bright flatness does yield to tangled woods, presenting a contrast between total visibility with nothing to see, and dense impenetrability where something may be lurking millimetres away.

Fuest, one of the great director-designers, has handicapped himself with a film where there seems to be nothing to design, but he exercises his eye with strong compositions and a sensitivity to objects, both the shiny kind brought by the tourists, and the rusty local equipment.

He's also attentive enough, without being lecherous, to his leading ladies. They spend the whole film in tight, huge shorts -- this is a film very much focussed on the plump white thighs of young English womanhood, and white panties hung to dry on a tree are a major plot point, but Fuest's interest is frank rather than salacious. He doesn't have the slightly seedy intensity of someone like Nicholas Roeg, who is rather too concerned with the passage of Jenny Agutter's knickers up and down her thighs (Roeg was -- maybe IS -- a swinger, I've been told -- parties, car keys, the whole bit -- which makes total sense when you put it together with his films). Indeed, Fuest's DR PHIBES films may be proto-slasher movies, but they'd more concerned with killing esteemed British character actors than busty dolly birds, which makes them rather refreshing in their sadism.

The plot slips into variations on THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE -- of course she's going to cold-cock a suspected killer and run smack into the waiting arms of the real killer, but it has the benefit of that compelling news story subject: something nasty happening to normal young holidaymakers, and despite the title there's no darkness in sight -- Fuest's credit even appears over sunlight glinting through leaves, and the whole action takes place on a single day under blue skies... though a storm is predicted...

Suggested Fever Dream Double Feature: THE VANISHING (original Dutch version), or make it a Dotrice double with the mind-blowing ~

I had a go on Lara, made and ate a pasta bake which was the highlight of the evening to be honest, watched some TV and read in bed. I tried to do some writing but I couldn’t, not through lack of content, just desire. Last night was the equivalent of booting an empty coke can down an alley.

I had some extraordinary dreams though. In the past few months I've been starting to remember my dreams again, this probably has a lot top do with the general cutting back of the pop. Last night featured Jenny Agutter as she was in an American Werewolf in London playing the foreperson of the refurbishment of Wembley arena and Pete Doherty who was my best mate, we even kissed at one point (?) until he left me to start work as a recovery driver for the AA. The bastard, we could’ve made it Pete.

So here I am in the office, again. My cycle into work was fraught and awful, it’s July and it feels like fucking February, the wind made progress slow and boring and I’m on the brink of just using my black bitch again, fuck exercise.

The office is really getting on my tits, a couple of blondes have started here and the berk behind me has been flirting with them since their tiny thongs hit the chairs. It’s making my skin crawl, he has this fucking awful Star Trek fan laugh and delusions of luvviness which means formless ‘anecdotes’ and ‘knowing’ quips that are neither knowing or amusing in any way. These traits are sandwiched between is a deeply insecure and sad character who is perpetually being unkind to others behind their backs, at times he’s downright nasty, yet presents himself as this sweet old thing who would do anything for anyone. It makes me sick.

I think I need some time off, short Piqued today, I can’t be fucked.

Handsworth To Oxford

 Handsworth was a dangerous place in general in the 80s. There were race riots in 1981 and again in 1985. In the latter, an Asian family lost their lives. They were burnt alive above the Post Office they managed.

During the first race riot, I had to be "evacuated" from school. It was a Sunday and we had been playing cricket and had just returned to school in the mini-bus. Normally I would have made my way home by bus. But, on this hot, Sunday evening the riot was kicking off, prompted by the arrest of a local drug dealer. The school, being predominantly white, became a target. We had to be escorted out of school under police guard. It was quite exciting. It was quite frightening.

When we returned to school on Monday, Handsworth was a mess. The Soho and Lozells roads were littered with burnt out cars. School had most of its windows smashed. It was quite exciting swapping stories with the other kids, especially those who lived in the area. The Weir twins had been arrested and subsequently released. They claimed they had just gone to watch but got caught up in a police baton charge. They got a beating, but not from the police. They got their beating from their mom – five foot nothing of old-fashioned Jamaican maternal discipline. They were good lads and should have known better than to get involved.

Things were always a bit more tense in the area after that. I remember once bunking off with a mate and going to the local snooker club. It smelled of weed. Dope. Ganja. We were in there for just 30 seconds. We were the only white faces. Everything stopped. It was like a movie. It was like the pub scene in American Werewolf (Jenny Agutter. Since the Railway Children, I've never seen a film where she kept her clothes on. And, I'm not sure I want to. Sigh....). Nothing was said, but the look in their collective eyes shouted. We were not welcome there. We went back to school.

Suffice to say that at Grammar School I learnt to fight. I learnt to stand my ground. Actually, by building a certain reputation and by developing a certain stern look I managed, mostly, to avoid an actual fight. Normally the other guy would back down. Indeed I can still conjure that “stern look” today. I t is very effective when dealing with noisy teenagers in cinemas, or, when kids try to push into queues.

Fortunately, there has not been much cause for fighting since Handsworth. True my nickname at Oxford, at least within the public school circles of the “Iffley Yahs” was “The Inner City Lad”. It could have been worse though. They referred to one of my best mates from Birmingham as the “Neanderthal” (but if you had met him then you would have understood why)……I did get a bit “feisty” when captaining the so-called “Animals” football team. And, there was a time when I did terrorise one of the “Iffley Yahs” by pinning him against the college wall by the throat. Sorry Simon. I hope this does not explain your absence from the Friendsreunited website.

Otherwise, Oxford was pretty fight free. One of my duties as Social Secretary seemed to be to “intimidate” certain rowdy types to leave the Beer Cellar on “Sweaty Bop” disco nights. It was my experience that your average Oxford student was pretty easily intimidated. Your public school types are not so streetwise and tend to rely on their wits more than their fists. And, they are generally lacking in wits. Certain more direct pressure was brought to bear on one MD when he refused to leave my girlfriend alone.

Indeed, I only have few recollections of real violence while at Oxford. One was when I was back at college a year after leaving. We were there as part of the Old Members Football team playing the annual fixture against the current college team. I had to intervene between my mate (the Neanderthal) and a “Townie” who had insulted his fiancée. My mate knocked the “Townie” clean into the middle of the street (and next week) even though the “Townie” was wearing a motorcycle helmet. I stepped in, with the two other mates we were with, when he came back with a tyre lever. It was the night that Frank Bruno was fighting (and losing) against Mike Tyson in the World Heavyweight Championship. …Frank lost. The "Town v Gown" fight had been much more impressive.