Lord of the Fans

This Is Cinema!

British cinema has given us many movies with an edgy feel. It seems that our filmmakers are obsessed with dealing in controversial subjects. Hollywood will also tackle similar themes sometimes, but it tends to glamorise everything or to even make it look cool. There is something incredibly gritty about British film which is perfectly suited to handling difficult themes and a great example of this is 2006’s, ‘This is England’.

If you are old enough to remember the eighties then you will know just how accurate this movie is. The makers have gone to extraordinary lengths to keep it all realistic and it pays off big time. The whole thing reeks of the early eighties.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that this is a film entirely about racism. Sure, it centres on a bunch of skinheads, but they are not all colour blind and there is a lot more to it than that. The main point of the story is to show us how easily misled a child can be. That may sound obvious, but ‘This is England’ covers the subtle as well as the blatant.

Racism should be addressed in film; it is still a big problem in society, even now. ‘This is England’ has some very uncomfortable moments but it is not a vehicle for unnecessary violence. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the type of movie to watch with your grandma and there are a few unpleasant scenes; although there are just as many deeply sensitive ones.

‘This is England’ has some very good morals in its story. It covers loyalty, friendship and the use of intuition. It is a rollercoaster of emotions, right from the hilarious to the downright upsetting, but it is very much worth the ride. One of the best British films in years.

Lesley’s surprise engagement party: I think I know what we should sort out. Who would be up for a surprise trip and spending a bit of money on some time at chalet val thorens for the happy couple?

Hammer To Fall.

When you look back at British films it is impossible to do so without seeing Hammer. They churned out an amazing amount of movies and when the studio finally closed its doors in the mid 1980s it was a very sad day indeed.

They gave us some wonderfully scary films and some truly great characters. Who can think about Count Dracula without seeing an image of Christopher Lee, or Van Helsing, without remembering the brilliant Peter Cushing?

Today’s horror movies make the old Hammer flicks look tame but it wasn’t all about the scariness. Those old movies had a great deal of style and class about them which cannot be found today. And we may have modern actresses with perfect bodies, tans and teeth, but they do not have the appeal of Hammer’s beauties. Ingrid Pitt, Yvonne Furneaux, Joanna Lumley and Yvonne Monlaur were all incredibly sexy and could even manage to speed up the heart rates of the living dead.

There was a certain class about the movies from the house of Hammer. It didn’t matter if some of the lesser known actors were not so hot or that the blood used for gore was the wrong sort of red because the films themselves were great. Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, Donald Pleasance and Christopher Lee all became household names largely because of their involvement with Hammer Studios. And many other famous faces cropped up in their films over the years; Joan Collins, Ian Hendry, Roy Castle, Ralph Bates, Michael Gough, Andre Morrell and Nastassja Kinski, the list goes on.

But the good news is that we may be seeing the return of Hammer films. The studio has been taken over by new owners and there is talk of investing around £25 million into the production of a new batch of horror movies. Just how it will all turn out is anyone’s guess, but if it is anything like their films of long ago then we could be in for a treat!

Final thing I have a quick and rather odd favor to ask all of you. A close friend of mine is employeed by a theatre and wants to get a set of shutters for this play that is opening next week. If any of you has any for cheap please get in touch.

Get Watching ’Get Carter’!

Michael Caine has made a hell of a lot of movies over the years. Most of them are good, a few of them are amazing and one or two of them are pants (not a lot of people know that). But out of every film that Michael Caine has ever done, the one that sticks out in my mind is, ‘Get Carter’ by director, Mike Hodges. They just don’t make films like this one anymore.

Set in Newcastle in the seedy world of gangsters, pornography and prostitution, it is a very gritty film that doesn’t always make for comfortable viewing. Caine is brilliant as Jack Carter and the other actors are also on top form. There is great support from, amongst others, Ian Hendry, Britt Ekland and George Sewell.

As Jack Carter pokes around in Newcastle’s underworld, trying to find out why his brother was murdered, he upsets quite a few unsavoury characters. The story is gripping, the script is witty and Caine’s stoic manner is perfect for the role. Out of every character that I have seen him play, I think that Jack Carter’s definitely suited him the best.

The only other film I’ve seen that has a similar atmosphere to this is also directed by Mike Hodges. If you enjoyed ‘Get Carter’ then the chances are that you will also like ‘A Prayer for the Dying’ with a young Mickey Rourke in the lead role.

Hollywood, dunderheads that they so often are, decided to do a remake of ‘Get Carter’ in 2000. It starred Sylvester Stallone as Jack Carter, was set in Los Angeles rather than Newcastle and went down like a lead balloon. If something like the original British version of ‘Get Carter’ is so good then you really should just leave it alone…

The old adage applies here; ‘If it’s not broken, don’t fix it’.

Now for the work update (and a bit of bragging to boot), if any of you are curious, check out the new images that just went up for exhibition stands. That was my trained hand at photoshop!