Liveliest looking corpus I ever saw. Oh, and very delicti, if I may say so.

The Avengers

3.2: Brief for Murder

Now, this is much more like it. Brief for Murder comes courtesy of the reliable duo of writer Brian Clemens and director Peter Hammond. John Laurie, in the second of four Avengers appearances, is on inimitable form as one half of the Lakin brothers, a legal duo who have met with spectacular court room success after years of obscurity. It seems the only thing previously stopping them was their approach; I had half-expected some diabolical mastermind or intricate device bolstering them. But no, they’ve simply hatched the idea of defending those for whom they have planned crimes in advance, thus anticipating and undermining the prosecution’s case when it comes before the jury.

Steed: I want to commit a murder.

Miles Lakin: (offering him tea) One lump or two, Mr Steed?

Laurie’s Jasper Lakin is complemented by Harold Scott as distinctly non-Scottish Miles. They typify the loveable rogue types of Avengers-land, whose deviously deadly activities fail to prevent them from being wickedly likeable really. Indeed, it’s a joy to hear them treating their imminent prosecution as a challenge (“There is a precedent for this sort of thing…”)

Miles Lakin: (apologising for having Steed searched) Tape recorders, you know. They make them devilishly small these days, heh, heh, make everything smaller.

Steed: Except lawyers’ fees, maybe.

Miles Lakin: Oh. Ho-ho. Very good.

As is not infrequently the case, one or other of our avenging duo appears to be operating on the wrong side of the law, and also looks to be intent on killing the other. There’s some flair to the ruse here, with a winning opening reveal that Steed, or Jonno (“I wonder if there really was a man called Jonno”), got the accused off.

When Cathy finds out, Steed calls on the Lakins to facilitate her murder and ensure an innocent verdict in the subsequent trial (thanks in part to an oversized bowler hat); with no hat, no gun, and no body, he is scot-free. Well played this, as even though it’s pretty much a cert that they’re knowingly working together, Macnee and Blackman create sustained tension.

Cathy then calls on the Lakins (possibly careless of them not to know what their client’s victim looks like, but we’ll let that go) to aid and abet her in a fraud and business conspiracy, whereby she wishes to emerge exonerated while her two associates are implicated (“Why didn’t we think of this before? We could get anyone we wish disbarred. We could manipulate the whole courts system”).

Perhaps the means of getting one over on the Lakins isn’t quite as elegant as their own handiwork – they’re so diligent elsewhere that they shouldn’t fall for an elementary subterfuge – but Brief for Murder is pretty much a blast from start to finish. Which includes Steed visiting a yoga establishment where he is asked by principle Miss Prinn (Alice Fraser) if he believes in purity (Steed: A couple of baths a day, good soap”; Miss Prinn: I was referring to the spirit”; Steed: “I’m not so up in the spirit. A little sullied”).

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

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You're not only wrong. You're wrong at the top of your voice.

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
I’ve seen comments suggesting that John Sturges’ thriller hasn’t aged well, which I find rather mystifying. Sure, some of the characterisations border on the cardboard, but the director imbues the story with a taut, economical backbone.

She was addicted to Tums for a while.

Marriage Story (2019)
(SPOILERS) I don’t tend to fall heavily for Noah Baumbach fare. He’s undoubtedly a distinctive voice – even if his collaborations with Wes Anderson are the least of that director’s efforts – but his devotion to an exclusive, rarefied New York bubble becomes ever more off-putting with each new project. And ever more identifiable as being a lesser chronicler of the city’s privileged quirks than his now disinherited forbear Woody Allen, who at his peak mastered a balancing act between the insightful, hilarious and self-effacing. Marriage Story finds Baumbach going yet again where Woody went before, this time brushing up against the director’s Ingmar Bergman fixation.

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Doctor Who The Keys of Marinus
Most of the criticisms levelled at The Keys of Marinus over the past 50 years have been fair play, and yet it’s a story I return to as one of the more effortlessly watchable of the Hartnell era. Consequently, the one complaint I can’t really countenance is that it’s boring. While many a foray during this fledgling period drags its heels, even ones of undeniable quality in other areas, Marinus’ shifting soils and weekly adventures-in-miniature sustain interest, however inelegant the actual construction of those narratives may be. The quest premise also makes it a winner; it’s a format I have little resistance to, even when manifested, as here, in an often overtly budget-stricken manner.

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My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

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Blake's 7 4.13: Blake

The best you can hope for the end of a series is that it leaves you wanting more. Blake certainly does that, so much so that I lapped up Tony Attwood’s Afterlife when it came out. I recall his speculation over who survived and who didn’t in his Programme Guide (curious that he thought Tarrant was unlikely to make it and then had him turn up in his continuation). Blakefollows the template of previous season finales, piling incident upon incident until it reaches a crescendo.

There are times when I miss the darkness. It is hard to live always in the light.

Blake's 7 4.12: Warlord

The penultimate episode, and Chris Boucher seems to have suddenly remembered that the original premise for the series was a crew of rebels fighting against a totalitarian regime. The detour from this, or at least the haphazard servicing of it, during seasons Three and Four has brought many of my favourite moments in the series. So it comes as a bit of a jolt to suddenly find Avon making Blake-like advances towards the leaders of planets to unite in opposition against the Federation.

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989)
(SPOILERS) There’s Jaws, there’s Star Wars, and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy, to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “mainly boring”.

Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the system when Burton did it (even…

So you made contact with the French operative?

Atomic Blonde (2017)
(SPOILERS) Well, I can certainly see why Focus Features opted to change the title from The Coldest City (the name of the graphic novel from which this is adapted). The Coldest City evokes a nourish, dour, subdued tone, a movie of slow-burn intrigue in the vein of John Le Carré. Atomic Blonde, to paraphrase its introductory text, is not that movie. As such, there’s something of a mismatch here, of the kind of Cold War tale it has its roots in and the furious, pop-soaked action spectacle director David Leitch is intent on turning it into. In the main, his choices succeed, but the result isn’t quite the clean getaway of his earlier (co-directed) John Wick.

I take Quaaludes 10-15 times a day for my "back pain", Adderall to stay focused, Xanax to take the edge off, part to mellow me out, cocaine to wake me back up again, and morphine... Well, because it's awesome.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Along with Pain & Gain and The Great Gatsby, The Wolf of Wall Street might be viewed as the completion of a loose 2013 trilogy on the subject of success and excess; the American Dream gone awry. It’s the superior picture to its fellows, by turns enthralling, absurd, outrageous and hilarious. This is the fieriest, most deliriously vibrant picture from the director since the millennium turned. Nevertheless, stood in the company of Goodfellas, the Martin Scorsese film from which The Wolf of Wall Street consciously takes many of its cues, it is found wanting.

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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Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
(SPOILERS) My initial reaction to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was mild disbelief that Tarantino managed to hoodwink studios into coming begging to make it, so wilfully perverse is it in disregarding any standard expectations of narrative or plotting. Then I remembered that studios, or studios that aren’t Disney, are desperate for product, and more especially, product that might guarantee them a hit. Quentin’s latest appears to be that, but whether it’s a sufficient one to justify the expense of his absurd vanity project remains to be seen.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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