The Damned United (2009)

The Damned United is a semi fictional biopic about English football manager Brian Clough, based on the novel by David Peace, probably best known for his Red Riding quartet of novels.

Michael Sheen, who makes a habit of being cast as real people (Frost Nixon, The Queen, Fantabulosa) does a very convincing job of portraying "old big 'ead".

For those unaware of who Brian Clough was, he was a very talented striker with an incredible scoring record, whose playing career came to a premature end after picking up a bad injury. He went on to be one of English football's most successful managers. He was a very outspoken and eccentric character who was always good for an insightful/controversial/amusing quote.

The film covers the period of Clough's career between 1968 and 1974, the story is told in flashback, starting with Clough's appointment as manager of league champions Leeds United. Going back in time we see Clough's early days in charge of Derby County, then languishing in the second division, they get drawn against Leeds in the cup, and so begins a bitter rivalry between Clough and manager of Leeds at the time Don Revie.

Brian Clough was a man of principal and firmly believed that the game should be played in an entertaining way, whereas Revie, a dour man, didn't care if his team were universally hated for their strong arm tactics and down right cheating as long as they continued to win.

After what Clough perceives as a personal slight against him by Revie, he becomes obsessed with making his team the most successful in England, and so begins a sequence of events which sees some incredible highs and devastating lows.

When Revie is offered the job of England national team manager, Clough risks jeopardising the friendship of his coach Peter Taylor, and his own career, when he accepts the vacancy at Leeds, inheriting a team of players whom he offends from day one, when he tells them they might as well throw their medals in the bin, because they won them by cheating.

The assembled cast are very good, aside from Sheen, there are good performances from Timothy Spall, Colm Meaney and Jim Broadbent. And director Tom Hooper (The King's Speech, Longford) does a great job of capturing the authentic look and feel of England in the 1970s.

I remember seeing Brian on numerous occasions on TV as a kid, and he always stood out from his contemporaries as a supremely eloquent speaker and a unique personality who invariably left his interviewer lost for words.

Even if you don't really know anything about football, it makes for entertaining viewing.

Podcast Episode 2: I, Claudius

In this episode Mark is joined by Erik Stadnik from The Doctor Who Book Club Podcast.


Up for discussion are Robert Graves' seminal books I, Claudius and Claudius The God, and the subsequent award winning BBC television series. 

Fright Night (2011)

If you have seen the original Fright Night, which was very well received back in 1985, you might look upon this modern remake differently, I hadn't seen it prior to watching this new version so I didn't go in to it with any preconceptions.

Anton Yelchin (Chekov in the Star Trek reboot & soon to be seen in Odd Thomas) plays Charley Brewster, a teenager who is a bit of a nerd and has recently been accepted into a group of "cool" kids. Ed played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse used to be good friends with Charley, but they have drifted apart as Charley has been distancing himself from his former geekery.

Weird stuff begins to happen in their neighbourhood, the boys' schoolmates start disappearing, and someone has moved into the previously vacant house next door to Charley and his mother, there are plenty of signs of someone taking residence, but no one in the street has met the mysterious neighbour.

Ed is convinced that a vampire is hunting down the kids in the neighbourhood and killing them off, which Charley initially laughs off, but he starts to take this theory more seriously when Ed goes missing.

David Tennant as Peter Vincent

Fearing the worst, Charley and his girlfriend attempt to enlist the help of Peter Vincent played by David Tennant, who has a magic show in nearby Las Vegas in which he theatrically dispatches sexy lady vampires. And as it turns out, Charley's problems are closer to home than he first realised....

After the trend for gross out "torture porn" horror movies such as the Saw series, I'm glad to see a return to what I would call "shock horror" (see also The Woman In Black) with plenty of moments that make you jump out of your seat, that's not to say there isn't a fair amount of blood flying around, but not so much that it makes you feel physically ill.

Anton Yelchin is very good, even though he acts like a bit of a dick to Ed (who in fairness is sometimes a bit obnoxious himself), you end up rooting for him. I didn't have a strong opinion either way about Colin Farrell before watching the film, but he was very charming, and suitably creepy as Jerry Dandridge, the neighbour from hell.

For me, the stand out performance was that of David Tennant as potty mouthed Peter Vincent, for those of you acquainted with his portayal of Giacomo Cassanova, it's not a million miles away from that, and he certainly gets the best of the one liners.

There's a good deal of humour in the film, which in my opinion, makes it all the more enjoyable, a real modern day gothic treat.

First Trailer For Doctor Who Series 7 Unveiled

The BBC have released the first trailer for series seven of Doctor Who, which will again feature Matt Smith returning as the eleventh Doctor, and will see the departure of Amy and Rory.

Doctor Who will return to BBC One and BBC One HD in the autumn.


 

AFI 100 Movies #26 Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Peter Sellers stars in director Stanley Kubrick's black comedy about nuclear war.

U.S. airforce General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) goes a bit loopy and decides to launch a nuclear assault on the Soviet Union. Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers in one of many roles) is on an exchange programme from the Royal Air Force, and is convinced that the air strike has not been authorised, and sets about trying to halt it.

The aircraft given the mission, goes into attack protocols and blocks off all communication with the outside world, in case the soviets should try to intercept them and try to dissuade them from their mission. There is, however, a secret three digit code which would allow the bomber to receive radio transmissions, a code only known to General Ripper.

What follows is a classic farce with a cold war twist. Sellers also gets to play the president of the United States and the eponymous Doctor Strangelove, a former Nazi scientist, and now scientific advisor to the U.S., with a right arm which involuntarily does a Nazi salute!

Much of the movie is spent showing how completely blinkered and idiotic both sides are. A scene where Mandrake is desperately trying to make a phone call to the president of the United States from a pay phone, but is twenty cents short, and his American colleague, even with the fate of the world at stake, baulks at having to break into a Coca Cola vending machine to get some change, is a perfect example.

There are some movie greats amongst the assembled cast, apart from Mr Sellers, there's George C Scott as General Buck Turgidson, James Earl Jones (yes, the voice of Darth Vader) as the Bombardier on board the B52 bomber and a memorable performance from Slim Pickens as Major T. J. (King) Kong.

One tends to think of Stanley Kubrick as a very serious film maker, and of course the subject matter of this film is deadly serious, the humour is handled very deftly, here below, is probably my favourite scene in the film:

As for the finale, it is probably one of the most iconic images of 20th century cinema.

The Woman In Black (2012)

I'm not going to go into too much detail about the plot of this movie as I think it deserves to be seen without knowing too much before hand.

Daniel Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a widower with a young child, who is struggling to come to terms with his bereavement and jeopardising his career as a consequence.

He is given one last chance by his employer, and if he messes up, he's fired. He is sent to a remote village in the north of England to clear up the paperwork pertaining to the estate of the recently deceased Alice Drablow, whose former home is situated on an island off the coast, which is only accessible at low tide.

The locals aren't exactly friendly, and young Mr Kipps ends up spending a lot of time alone in a very creepy deserted house.......

So, how does Daniel Radcliffe fare in his first film since the end of the Harry Potter franchise?




I have to say, I really liked it. As horror films go, it sits in the "Boo! made you jump" category, which makes a pleasant change from the recent trend for "torture porn" flicks. Radcliffe puts in a good performance, my only minor criticism is that he seems a fraction too young to play a widower, although as my wife pointed out, in that period people didn't live as long as they do now, and a great many women died in childbirth that may have survived had modern medical technology been available.

The supporting cast are weird and wonderful, Ciaran Hinds as Sam and Janet McTeer as his unstable wife Elizabeth are very entertaining, I loved the scene at dinner, with the twins. I was also pleasantly surprised to see Jessica Raine, who plays Jenny in the BBC's Call The Midwife, in the role of Joseph Kipps' nanny.

The eponymous woman in black is used sparingly, and used well, by director James Watkins, in the first high profile release from the newly resurrected Hammer films, after the fairly low profile releases of Let Me In (eloquently reviewed by Andrew Lewin over at Taking The Short View), The Resident and Wake Wood. The visual style harks back to the classic Hammer films, given a modern twist by today's special effects. Hammer is back, and in some style!

If you are after chills and thrills, this could be just the thing you're looking for.

Doctor Who: U.N.I.T. Files Box Set

This box set has a slightly less tenuous connection when compared to, say, the Earth Story box set from 2011.

The set consists of two classic series stories: Invasion Of The Dinosaurs from 1974 with Jon Pertwee and Lis Sladen, and The Android Invasion from 1975 with Tom Baker as the Doctor with Lis Sladen again.

Invasion Of The Dinosaurs is quite a fun story, the effects are a little bit wobbly in places, but the plot has some neat twists.

This is Elisabeth Sladen's second story, and she seems very assured in the role of Sarah Jane Smith.

It also features our first glimpse of the third Doctor's new car, the Whomobile. He has obviously decided that Bessie was a little incongruous while driving around the streets of London, and therefore decided to drive something a little more low key!

Mike Yates and Sergeant Benton get their opportunity to be a little more centre stage in this story compared to most U.N.I.T. episodes, this being Richard Franklin's almost swan song, before returning one last time in Jon Pertwee's final adventure Planet Of The Spiders.

This DVD release features a version of episode 1 with the option to view it with colour restoration, this however, isn't quite up to the very high standards set by the restoration team on Planet Of The Daleks, but if you really can't stand black and white programmes this option is for you.

In terms of extras, it's pretty well served: There is a commentary with Richard Franklin, Peter Miles, Richard Morris, Terrance Dicks and Paddy Russell, moderated by Toby Hadoke. And John Levene does a 10 minute mini commentary on his own.

There is a very entertaining making of documentary, an interview with Elisabeth Sladen, a clip from Billy Smart's Circus featuring Jon Pertwee and the Whomobile, deleted scenes, Now And Then revisiting the locations used during filming, Radio Times listings, info text, a photo gallery and an Easter egg.

Although I much prefer Tom Baker's take on the role of the Doctor, The Android Invasion is, in my opinion, the weaker of the two stories, that's not to say there is nothing to enjoy about it.

There are plenty of twists and turns in the plot to keep you guessing, for me what lets it down a little, are the Kraals, who I don't think were particularly well realised, coupled with one or two notable plot holes. But Tom and Lis are on good form which helps to bring the viewer back on side.

In terms of VAM (value added material) this DVD has a commentary featuring Milton Johns, Martin Friend, Marion McDougal and Philip Hinchcliffe, again moderated by the erstwhile Toby Hadoke.

The Village That Came To Life is a very interesting making of documentary presented by the voice of the Daleks from the new series, Nicholas Briggs. Life After Who is a look back at the career of producer Philip Hinchcliffe, featuring clips from many classic British television programmes.

There is a TV advert for Weetabix breakfast cereal, featuring collectable Doctor Who games, which I have vague childhood memories of. There are Radio Times listings, info text, a photo gallery and an Easter egg.

Both stories have their issues, but dedicated Doctor Who fans will be able to see past them and enjoy these two memorable tales from the U.N.I.T. Files.