What have you watched recently? 3D!

PProject Hail Mary.

Thought it was very enjoyable in a 12 cert kind of way. Didn't realise there would be as much humour in it. Aimed at a younger audience?

Thought the ending was poor.

'The Walking Dead'

As a long time fan of the zombie sub-genre of horror, I was delighted to see that a major TV show was going to be made out of Robert Kirkman's comic of the same name. Kirkman's long running story - in print since 2003 - was produced on a healthy budget by AMC and premiered on Halloween night in 2010, and it did very well to capture the look and feel of the comic book that spawned it. The characters, too, were well defined and a decent effort was made to transfer the people from the page to the screen, albeit with some differences. It was also shot in grainy 16mm and had a suitably gritty look which greatly aided the post apocalypse atmosphere of a zombified Atlanta.

In the basic story of 'The Walking Dead' we follow former police officer Rick Grimes who (in a nod to both 'The Day of the Triffids' and '28 Days Later') wakes from a coma of indeterminable length to find that the recently deceased have returned to life and are attacking and eating actual living beings. In this nightmarish world he has awoken into he eventually manages to track down his wife, Laurie, and son, Carl, and then finds himself as the de-facto leader of a group of survivors who must do battle with the dead and adjust to their harsh new environment.

Kirkman, who was a fan of zombie movies himself, said that the point of his comic was to carry on the story after the juncture where most movies would end. In other words he wanted to see what happened to the characters after the credits rolled and everyone left the cinema. This idea, whilst initially intriguing, also turns out to be the story's biggest weakness because it sets itself up for a rinse and repeat situation where a limited scenario is the only one on offer. That limited scenario being the drama between a band of human protagonists and a band of human antagonists. It meant that once one bad guy was dispatched another had to be drafted in to replace them, otherwise you just end up with the living doing their best to re-establish a functioning society of sorts or else an enclave going under to the undead and the survivors have to move onto somewhere else.

And it was the "antagonist problem" that was to become one of the biggest criticisms that 'The Walking Dead' faced. Because whether it was The Governor, Negan, Alpha or even Pamela Milton (along with the secondary bad guys like Terminus), they all were variations of psychopath who had somehow managed to rise to the top of a large group of survivors despite being demonstrably awful people who would, more than likely, have been done away with by their own people. The most egregious example of this is, without doubt, Negan who is an absolutely loathsome character even if he's played in an eminently watchable fashion by Jeffery Dean Morgan. Now, real life examples of sociopath/psychopath leaders in the modern context aside, it's simply impossible to buy into someone like Negan who is a nutcase that takes glee in dispatching people with a barbed-wire baseball bat name Lucile and who also gets great pleasure in publicly burning the flesh off of people's faces with a hot iron. While something like that can make for dramatic TV it never sits well if we're expected to believe that a person like that would have a large amount of followers in a world where everything has gone to hell and there's no legal framework any more. It's impossible to believe that someone like that wouldn't have been on the end of a bullet or an axe long before Rick's group meets him because Negan seems to offer nothing but terror. Negan not only terrorises other survivor groups in the vicinity of his, but he also terrorises his own people and, into the bargain, thinks it's perfectly fine to keep a harem of sex slaves for his own use, which includes the wives and girlfriends of people in his entourage!

However, a bigger problem with Negan is the fact that the audience is expected to believe that a guy as far gone as he is would have the redemption he does in season's 9, 10 and 11 (regardless of the 'Here's Negan' episode which was supposed to act as some sort of "explanation" for his abject psychotic behaviour). Something like that just ends up being intellectually insulting, especially when the writers are constantly pushing him into scenarios whereby he has to interact with Maggie Greene, the wife of a man who's brains he graphically spilled a few seasons before. That kind of thing just never feels right at all. Even the fact that he remained alive after his defeat in season 8 was several steps too far, despite Carl Grimes' Mohammedan musings about mercy prevailing over wrath. This cheap dramatic device is made even worse in the spin off show 'Dead City' where Maggie and Negan are teamed up to go to a ruined New York to find her kidnapped son.

But, irrespective of any character issues that I may have, for the first 6 or 7 seasons 'The Walking Dead' is excellent entertainment, even if season 2 did drag on a bit here and there. But it's around season 8 that the wheels start to come off and, speaking of dragging on, the whole Negan/Saviours story arc was on the boil for far, far, too long. In what could have comfortably been wrapped up in one season or season and a half, this arc gets stretched across 32 episodes and it really ends up feeling it by the time Grimes' people do away with Negan's. There are also too many bottle episodes and an utterly pointless new group introduced called Oceanside who eventually go nowhere and are quietly dropped later in the show.

By season 9 the cracks are really starting to show, even if some viewers felt that that season was a refreshing restart after the staleness of Negan's Saviours arc had been washed away. However with the departure of the show's lead, Andrew Lincoln, mid way through and the introduction of characters who were merely of secondary or even tertiary interest (most of whom I can't even remember the names of), plus the general awfulness of the Whisperers meant that the show was on life support from thereon in. If the show had dragged out Negan well beyond what it should have been, then the 62 episodes of seasons 9, 10, 11 made everything feel interminable and they are an incredible slog to get through. In addition, the last 3 seasons of the show never really feel like they're part of what came before, so much so that they end up feeling like they're one of the numerous and lesser spin off's that AMC have subsequently produced.

But while 9, 10 and 11 are the lowest points of the show, story wise, there are other problems concerning the lore of the world of 'The Walking Dead'. Early on the audience is led to believe that if you cover yourself in zombie guts that, somehow, the living dead won't be able to "smell" you and you can happily walk about with them. This idea, which was in the comic too, is one of the most absurd things about the show even in a horror story where the dead are returning to life. The fact that dead people would have a better sense of smell as to detect the living in amongst the overwhelming stench of their own hoard is utterly ridiculous and every time the characters did this manoeuvre I hated it. Plus, with the whisperers we get to an even more ludicrous idea that you can just wear the mask of a dead person and everything with hunky-dory too. You don't even need to cover yourself with their innards! These were dreadful ideas in the comic and they're dreadful in the TV show too. Worst of all, it gives the characters a two-bit way out of having to deal with their undead enemy. If such a tactic worked, then it would be used all the time by everyone. Whenever there was an issue whereby the living faced the dead, theoretically you would just have to cover yourself in their guts and walk away. Problem solved!

Also, people smash and bash "walkers" to pieces and get their infected blood over them, including in their mouths and eyes and don't get infected? Although, technically everyone is infected already. But surely getting that gunk in your mouth would mean certain zombification? However 'The Walking Dead' remains wildly inconsistent in this area as well. Getting zombie blood in your system by any means should an absolute no-no but the show seems to be very laissez faire about all of that.

But even with the number of problematic issues that 'The Walking Dead' possesses it does serve up some great TV, up until around the middle of season 7 when things all start to feel a bit fatigued. If I were tell someone who's never seen the show before where they should end things, I'd most probably say stop at season 8, where there's a logical end to the story of Rick Grimes as he embarks upon a new beginning. And while there are people out there that would have you believe that season 9 marked an uptick in quality, the viewing figures show that those people would be in a strict minority and by the time we get to season 11 there were barely over a million people watching. The scatter brained approach to stories, the character bloat of people nobody cared about, major characters leaving and unconvincing plot arcs made the show feel like a chore to sit through.

It's amazing that a show that many, including myself, started out loving became something that was, at best, merely endured to the bitter end.

Good analogy.

It's actually my second full watch through. I saw it when it was first broadcast and I did remember that somewhere along the way the show took a real downturn. But while there were moments that drag in S02, S07 and S08, nothing in them compared to the long winded nature of 9, 10 and 11. Honestly, if the show had been about anything but the zombie apocalypse I probably would have checked out long before. In fairness, the makeup and practical effects remain fantastic throughout. But given the fact that Greg Nicotero (whose been in that game since 1985) and his company were responsible, I'd expect nothing less.

'The Walking Dead' has a peculiar history in AMC as well. Frank Darabont, who was the showrunner on S01, was given the shaft early on and showed that the execs at the station weren't, shall we say, nice to deal with. AMC also seemed to be more interested in developing a "franchise" (the dreaded F word) more than developing a quality singular TV show. Hence, relatively quickly there was a spin off, 'Fear The Walking Dead', and right now there's several spin off TV shows on the go. The only ones I've looked at are 'The World Beyond' which was absolutely wretched, 'Dead City' and 'Daryl Dixon' which was mostly mediocre and I don't consider him much of a character to be all that enthused about. The latter two I stopped watching after one season.

The Drama in the cinema. Went in completely blind. I won’t say anything except it’s the best film I’ve seen in years. 9/10

Started a short series of 1970s films on BD.

Black Sunday (John Frankenheimer, 1977) - first rewatch for 30 years. My uncle gave me the Thomas Harris book when I was a teenager. Still a tense watch, if a little overlong. Great performance from Bruce Dern as the deranged Vietnam POW. Robert Shaw also pretty icy as the Mossad pursuer. Marthe Keller also well cast. The Superbowl scenes are really well done, all filmed in January 1976. 4 stars.

Tonight's BD

Man On A Swing (Frank Perry, 1974) - Director of two of my favourite films, The Swimmer & Last Summer. Man On A Swing isn't quite as strong but it's pretty effective. A thriller about the investigation of a murder and how a clairvoyant (played by Joel Grey - MC in Cabaret and still with us) knows more than he should. He helps the police chief (Cliff Robertson) who becomes increasingly frustrated - "all I wanted to do was help." . 4 stars.

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Rewatched Garage

It's not the worst and you notice some details, I'm guessing the friend with the dog is/was a sex offender as his only friend seemed to be Josie (Pat Shortt). Shows midlands life is a bit miserable at times

Excellent performances by Pat Shortt and Don Wycherley who played the local barstool creep

Garage is a great little film. You should check out 'Adam and Paul' is you get a chance too.

Love that movie, so sad about Tom Murphy who was a top actor

Didn’t realise this is the same universe, pops up in a few episodes

Redux Redux - a mother travels across the multi-verse to kill her daughters murderer infinite times.

Loved this movie. High-concept, simple and grounded execution, great performances.

Sci-fi technically, but really more of a drama about grief and finding peace.

Would highly recommend.

I remember enjoying the remake of "Assault on Precinct 13" aswell. It's been a few years since I've seen it, mind. Directed by the guy that did the excellent "Mesrine" films.

The 1970s season on BD continues

Across 110th Street (Barry Shear, 1972) - still as gritty as hell. Blacks v Italians and two parallel manhunts. A pair of unmatchable cops on opposite ends of their career and general attitude - played by Anthony Quinn and Yaphet Kotto. The film was the first to use an Arriflex 35BL camera, which enabled the extensive on-location shooting that the director wanted. New York never looked as crime-ridden as it does here plus the ending is suitably downbeat. 4.5 stars.

Last night's BD

The Don Is Dead (Richard Fleischer, 1973) - another Anthony Quinn appearance, The Don Is Dead was directed by the extremely versatile Fleischer. Al Lettieri (Sollozzo in The Godfather - an obvious influence here) is excellent as is Robert Forster. There's plenty action with three factions pitted against each other into a dual side face-off - all because of a lady. 4 stars.

Just wrapped up that '70s season with this

Johnny Got His Gun (Dalton Trumbo, 1971) - big screen adaptation of his own book, Dalton Trumbo only ever directed one film. He was a scriptwriter (Exodus, Spartacus) and had been blacklisted for "un-American activities". One of the finest anti-war films ever, this mixture of black & white (the present) and colour (the past) is impossible to forget. Timothy Bottoms in the lead role as a World War I soldier who has lost his eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and limbs. He's still conscious and able to reason, so becomes a prisoner in his own body. Donald Sutherland plays Christ. 4.5 stars.

Watched the first disc on the new CFF set over the weekend. It's great that the BFI are continuing with these.

Mystery On Bird Island (1954), One Wish Too Many (1956) and The Cat Gang (1959).

Egg thieves in the Channel Islands, a magic marble that magnifies toys and a dodgy gang with cat symbolism. Plenty of pluck from the plummy youngsters.