Once it's lost, innocence cannot be found again.

The Valley (Obscured by Clouds)

(1972)

Barbet Schroeder's second film and something of a continuation of the deconstruction of the hippy ideal sighted in Easy Rider. But more articulate than a "We blew it", as one character (Michael Gothard) expounds on why he and his companions are nothing more than tourists in a society of even greater restrictions and oppressions than the one they are seeking to drop out from.

This is low-key filmmaking, Schroeder hanging back with the camera and taking a semi-documentary approach, particularly in his observation of the behaviour and traditions of the actual Papua New Guinean tribe that features. The lead, a bored spoilt diplomat's wife (Bulle Ogier in one of only two film roles) on a quest for illegal plumage, comes on as something of a cliché, but naturalistic performances help to sell the hokier elements. She becomes attracted to the quest (Led by Jean-Pierre Kalfon) for a mythical uncharted valley where utopian dreams may be fulfilled.

There's a Pink Floyd soundtrack, but it's more of a book-end than a constant presence (it makes an effective contrast to the observational visual style).

***1/2

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So you made contact with the French operative?

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Poor Easy Breezy.

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I was vaguely familiar with the title, not because I knew much about Jordan Belfort but because the script had been in development for such a long time (Ridley Scott was attached at one time). So part of the pleasure of the film is discovering how widely the story diverges from the Wall Street template. “The Wolf of Wall Street” suggests one who towers over the city like a behemoth, rather than a guy …

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(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

Dude. You’re my hero and shit.

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(SPOILERS) I was going to say I’d really like to see what Vince Gilligan has up his sleeve besidesBreaking Bad spinoffs. But then I saw that he had a short-lived series on CBS a few years back (Battle Creek). I guess things Breaking Bad-related ensure an easy greenlight, particularly from Netflix, for whom the original show was bread and butter in its take up as a streaming platform. There’s something slightly dispiriting about El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, though. Not that Gilligan felt the need to return to Jesse Pinkman – although the legitimacy of that motive is debatable – but the desire to re-enter and re-inhabit the period of the show itself, as if he’s unable to move on from a near-universally feted achievement and has to continually exhume it and pick it apart.

Well, it seems our Mr Steed is not such an efficient watchdog after all.

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A title suggesting some variety of monstrous aquatic threat for Steed and Julie Stevens’ Venus Smith. Alas, the reality is much more mundane. The Decapod refers to a Mongo-esque masked wrestler, one who doesn’t even announce “I will destroy you!” at the top of his lungs. Still, there’s always Philip “Solon” Madoc looking very shifty to pass the time.

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The trail leads to wrestling bouts at the public baths, where the Butcher…

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This really oughtn’t to work, seeing as it finds The Avengers flirting with youth culture, well outside its comfort zone, and more precisely with a carefree biker gang who just want to have a good time and dance to funky music in a barn all night long. Not like the squares. Not like John Steed… who promptly brings them on side and sends them off on a treasure hunt! Add a into the mix couple of dotty old dears in a windmill– maybe witches – up to who knows what, and you have very much the shape of the eccentric settings and scenarios to come.

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(SPOILERS) In which we find Sean Connery – or his agent, whom he got rid of subsequent to this and Cuba – showing how completely out of touch he was by the late 1970s. Hence hitching his cart to the moribund disaster movie genre just as movie entertainment was being rewritten and stolen from under him. He wasn’t alone, of course – pal Michael Caine would appear in both The Swarm and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure during this period – but Meteor’s lack of commercial appeal was only accentuated by how functional and charmless its star is in it. Some have cited Meteor as the worst movie of his career (Christopher Bray in his book on the actor), but its sin is not one of being outright terrible, rather of being terminally dull.

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Flawless (2007)

The present day framing of this nifty little heist flick knocks a star off it, since it's truly lousy. Natalie Dormer is a horrendously annoying reporter interviewing a rather ropily aged Demi Moore, neither of them helped by atrocious dialogue. Back in the '60s Moore fares much better as a much passed-over aging manager in a diamond business who is tempted by Caine's cleaner into cleaning the place out.

Caine's on good form; nothing he hasn't done a hundred times, but full of energy, and the plotting makes it as much fun to work out how he done it as it is to watch the actors. Joss Ackland is surprisingly cast against type as an evil South African while Lambert Wilson has fun as the man investigating who stole what.
***

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