Local Hero (1983)

When the American Oil Company, Knox International, wants to develop a pipeline from Scotland, the head of the company Felix Happer (Burt Lancaster) dispatches MacIntyre (Peter Riegert) to a small village on the North East coast to convince the residents to sell up. MacIntyre slowly falls in love with the village though, and despite the residents being very enthusiastic about selling up, moving away and becoming millionaires, the pipeline depot idea is shelved and the area is saved.

This is one of those films that is nothing spectacular, but captures the imagination of viewers and has become lodged in the hearts of fans. The picture that it paints of Scottish rural life in an isolated community is fairly twee, but never pokes fun at it; the heart of the story being driven by great characters. Peter Riegert is good as MacIntyre, the oil executive charged with going out to Scotland because of his "Scottish heritage". He certainly isn't the fish out of water that he might be expected to be, and is as quick witted as he presumably has to be in the oil industry back in Houston. Dennis Lawson is great as Gordon Urquhart, who runs the local hotel and is the accountant for the village. MacIntyre's local contact Danny Oldsen, played by Peter Capaldi, is perhaps the stand-out character though. Though he is Scottish, he is a city boy, and is far more the fish out of water than MacIntyre, and watching him bumble around the shoreline trying to win the affections of marine biologist Marina (Jenny Seagrove) is hilarious. This is about as far removed from his character in The Thick of It or In the Loop as he could be.

Surprisingly for a story where a multi-national oil company wants to buy an unspoiled part of Scottish coastline and turn it into a pipeline hub/processing plant; the local residents are all on board. You might expect the regular arguments about "having lived here for generations"/"my whole livelihood is here", but this is restricted to Fulton Mackay's character. Don't get me wrong, I hate seeing multi-nationals buying up local areas/companies, but in term of Local Hero, the accepting attitude of the residents allows for a far more jovial atmosphere rather than an antagonistic one.

A heart-warming and enjoyable film, great characters and well made. By the time the credits roll, along with Mark Knopfler's iconic tune, you wish that you were part of this small community.

The Sunday Scene #4 Gladiator

What we do in life, echoes in eternity.



When I first saw Gladiator at the cinema I turned up late and had to sit right in the front row. I thought that I might be annoyed by this; what I hadn't expected was to be sucked into the opening battle scene! To say that the battle is great is an understatement. Ridley Scott seems to have become very proficient at producing amazing action sequences (Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven).

The atmosphere of Germania is wonderfully shot thanks to cinematographer John Mathieson; you can completely imagine how the average soldier must feel; freezing cold standing around in mud for hours until General Maximus turns up. Maximus is a character who commands great respect among his army, a great warrior but Russell Crowe also allows him to be down to earth and to understand people; when Quintus says "People should know when they are conquered", Maximus replies "Would you, Quintus? Would I?"

Of course after this all hell is unleashed, and the battle commences. The action is brutal, bloody and downright spectacular; and being sat right at the front of the cinema made it all the more disorientating and confusing, which I can only imagine is what it might be like in the midst of such a battle.

While all this carnage is unfolding, another of Hans Zimmer's brilliant scores is playing (which hopefully you're listening to now). Taking enormous great wodges of inspiration from Holst's The Planets: Mars, the music is suitably dramatic for the battle; but given that Mars is the Bringer of War this is entirely appropriate.

Adding everything together produces a tremendously cinematic opening to a epic film.

Buried (2010)

Ryan Reynolds is Paul Conroy, an American truck driver working in Iraq. Following an attack on his convoy he is kidnapped, and the film begins with Paul waking up in a coffin, buried 6 ft under. Director Rodrigo Cortés has made a remarkable film, he has managed to make a 90 minute film about one man in a box; and he has made it exciting and gripping too! Via some ingenious film-making and engineering techniques (apparently seven coffins were built), Cortés really leaves no part of the coffin un-explored. There is quite a tremendous moment when the camera tracks 360° round Reynolds, yet the coffin walls are all intact when we view the side opposite; very clever.

I have only recently seen Reynolds in Green Lantern, where I thought he looked bored most of the time; and a long time ago I saw him in Van Wilder: Party Liaison. In Buried he's fairly brilliant; it's just him, a phone, a Zippo, some glow-sticks and a torch for 90 minutes. He starts out desperate, and becomes increasingly desperate throughout the film; he is intense, very convincing and you don't for a second of his performance imagine that a camera and half a dozen people are looking in on him.

The situation is reminiscent of 127 hours and of James Franco's performance. However, where Franco's "journey" was edited along with flashbacks and self-analysis, there is nothing of the sort for Reynolds and nowhere for him to hide. Don't get me wrong I think Franco's performance is phenomenal too, it is just down to the different styles of story telling of Danny Boyle and Rodrigo Cortés.

Buried is really a wonderful example of inventive film-making: being able to make one man in a box fascinating is quite a challenge. Not just for director and actor, but DP, cameraman, sound department, everyone involved. The likes of Michael Bay could learn a thing or two; you don't need to just blow shit up to make an exciting film. Buried is a very tense, exciting and very well-crafted thriller, with quite an unexpected, memorable ending too.

The Thing (2011)

This version of of The Thing is a prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 classic; though it is still called The Thing, just to confuse people. It succeeded too. Is it a prequel? Is it a remake? Well it’s both! It is only really a prequel in that the story ends exactly where JC’s film begins; but otherwise it is a remake! Comparisons will always be made with the 1982 version, but the fact that it is almost a scene by scene remake doesn’t help. Most of the characters look as though they are lifted right out of JC’s Thing as well. Because of all this, rather than being an enjoyable (which it is) stand alone film, it invites criticism upon itself; and comparing it to the 1982 classic is never a good thing.

If JC’s The Thing had not been made, this would be a great film. Having said that, I have just this minute finished watching the 1982 movie, and strangely it has made me appreciate the 2011 version more. There are various things that happen in the Norwegian camp (axe gets stuck in wall, creature crashes through walls/ceilings leaving big holes) that are all there when Kurt Russell et al., visit in JC’s film. To me this demonstrates that at least director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. has really studied the previous version and made an effort to really fit in to the cannon.

In terms of the atmosphere of the film there is a goodly amount of tension, and the characters looked suitably terrified and had no idea what’s going on. This to me was the make or break of the film; zero tension would have ruined everything that was so good in the 1982 film. However, I didn’t feel that it was as claustrophobic as it could have been, which would have ramped the tension up even more. The “looking at each others fillings” scene was not nearly as tense as the hot wire blood test either. I didn’t think that Mary Elizabeth was a great leading actor though; she was fine, but didn’t have the leadership qualities or presence that Kurt Russell did (See, I can’t help but compare it to JC’s film).

A lot of the special effects were suitably gooey, but there was also some unnecessary CG, particularly the end sequence. Another scene that looked a bit cartoony was the guys heads merging together. Though I did like this scene because it is a really horrific, gross idea, and again it ties in nicely with the other film as it is this burned creature that MacReady brings back to the US Outpost. I think the only CG in 1982’s version is this:

and all the better for it. That does lead me to another point that my wife made: the 2011 version can’t obviously be dated. The computer images above clearly date the film to the early 80s, but the 2011 film doesn’t really have that. Rather than have a computer model of cellular imitation, we see it occurring down a microscope; this only dates the film to a time when such microscopy visuals could be generated for a film, but doesn’t date it the same way as having a chess wizard computer!

So, I did really enjoy the film. I expected crap actors, no tension, and all CG effects; so I was very impressed. Tense, mostly practical-looking effects, mostly good cast, and well integrated into the classic The Thing mythology. Overall an enjoyable updated though perhaps unnecessary film. Comparisons to JC’s film are unfair but inevitable.

The Sunday Scene #3 Star Wars

I was only 1 year old in 1977 when Star Wars was released in the UK, so I was not fortunate enough to be completely blown away by the opening scene on the big screen. I can only imagine how amazed people must have been. My Dad assures me that he took me to a double bill of Empire and Jedi, but it's possible I didn't see A New Hope on the big screen until the Special Edition in 1997.

So the opening scene of A New Hope is also in my top 3 favourite cinematic moments. The iconic text crawl, followed by the camera panning down to Tatooine is cool in itself; then a big spaceship (the Tantive VI Corellian Corvette to get all geeky!) flies overhead, Wow! As if that wasn't enough, a truly monstrous spaceship (the Star Destroyer Immortal) fills the shot. All the while John Williams' amazing score firstly fills you with wonder, and then suddenly becomes ominous as the size of the Star Destroyer becomes intimidating.

Various criticisms can be levelled at George Lucas in terms of losing sight of great characters, or his incessant tweaking and meddling in a much loved series of films. However, in 1976 he certainly knew how to shoot an action sequence and how to start a film!