Reach out to the stillness of eternity.

The Avengers

3.14: The Secrets Broker

Wine seems to go down quite well in The Avengers (2.11 Death of a Great Dane, in which Cathy gets a bit blotto), and if The Secrets Broker isn’t quite of that vintage, it does involve a winning ruse (spiritualist séances as a cover for the passing of secrets) and several first rate performances, from Patricia English, Avice Landone and the inimitable, irrepressible Jack May.

Steed: I’m, uh, going to a wine tasting party.

Cathy: Do you really think you’ve got the palate?

May is Waller, the ringleader, but the group’s steeliest and most imperious member is Landone’s Mrs Wilson, effortlessly single-minded and callous whereas May, posing as the manager of a wine shop, is given to sucking a cigar and engaging in broad banter with Steed. “Wine and spirits” was probably the dubious connection that inspired writer Ludovic Peters (his only contribution to the show), and it works reasonably well, if entirely randomly, a sign of the eccentric arrangements that will become the norm.

Mrs Wilson: You think us fakes, yet we know so much about you.

The actual business being investigated is rather by-the-by, and not terribly intriguing, with a fairly involved plot in which two brothers, Frederick (John Stone) and Allan Paignton (Ronald Allen) are pressured into murder and theft (via instructions given at the séance; analysing quite why the séance is necessary will probably get you nowhere, even if adds to the heightened milieu). The wine shop produces a wine list that includes part of plans for a breach mechanism for an anti-tank gun; again, the intricacies of this are elusive (Steed surmises the full plans aren’t held so the instigators can’t double cross each other).

Cathy: (presented with a bottle of apricot brandy) What makes you think I have depraved tastes?

Steed: I can’t imagine, my dear.

Cathy goes undercover, as usual, at the research station where a colleague of Steed worked (Frederick’s victim). Marion (English) is working there, engaged in an affair with Allan, while her husband (John Ringham) remains oblivious; the villains’ aim is to steel plans, blackmailing Marion to cut the alarm system.

Waller: He seems like a gentleman of some means. I think, he might brighten up the proceedings a bit.

Steed’s interaction with Waller is a delight, as the former casually orders bottles of plonk and they discuss Rieslings and hocks. Steed arrives in the cellar for the showdown and, asked what the devil he’s doing there, advises he came for the wine list (“Oh, very droll” responds Waller). While fighting Steed warns “Mind the burgundy, Mr Waller” and is told “It’s a bad year, Mr Steed”. May comes across like a Peter Cook who can act, while given to the kind of hearty dialogue chewing that would make Iain Cuthbertson proud.

The rest of the cast is also memorable, with English (previously in Mission to Montreal), offering a believably beset turn as a woman caught in an unenviable predicament and a loveless marriage. The scenario of spying through stagecraft rather recalls The 39 Steps (the Hitchcock version).

Waller: Mrs Wilson and her daughter, Julia. Help yourself to anything you fancy, Mr Steed.

Steed: (eyeing up Julia) That’s very generous of you.

Steed is on particularly suggestive form, be it making innuendos about Cathy’s character or getting all Sid James over Mrs Wilson’s daughter. It must be all that vino (“Partaking of a few wines, in the company of Frederick Paignton” he informs Cathy: “What, again?” she responds wearily), particularly given the coda in which he and Cathy imbibe some of Waller’s cellar that got away.

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

I think I’m Pablo Picasso!

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) (SPOILERS) I get the impression that, whatever it is stalwart Venom fans want from a Venom movie, this iteration isn’t it. The highlight here for me is absolutely the wacky, love-hate, buddy-movie antics of Tom Hardy and his symbiote alter. That was the best part of the original, before it locked into plot “progression” and teetered towards a climax where one CGI monster with gnarly teeth had at another CGI monster with gnarly teeth. And so it is for Venom: Let There Be Carnage . But cutting quicker to the chase.

I don’t think Wimpys still exist.

Last Night in Soho (2021) (SPOILERS) Last Night in Soho is a cautionary lesson in one’s reach extending one’s grasp. It isn’t that Edgar Wright shouldn’t attempt to stretch himself, it’s simply that he needs the self-awareness to realise which moves are going to throw his back out and leave him in a floundering and enfeebled heap on the studio floor. Wright’s an uber-geek, one with a very specific comfort zone, and there’s no shame in that. He evidently was shamed, though, hence this response to criticisms of a lack of maturity and – obviously – lack of versatility with female characters. Last Night in Soho goes broke for woke, and in so doing exposes his new clothes in the least flattering light. Because Edgar is in no way woke, his attempts to prove his progressive mettle lead to a lurid, muddled mess, one that will satisfy no one. Well, perhaps his most ardent fans, but no one else.

It looks like a digital walkout.

Free Guy (2021) (SPOILERS) Ostensibly a twenty-first century refresh of The Truman Show , in which an oblivious innocent realises his life is a lie, and that he is simply a puppet engineered for the entertainment of his creators/controllers/the masses, Free Guy lends itself to similar readings regarding the metaphysical underpinnings of our reality, of who sets the paradigm and how conscious we are of its limitations. But there’s an additional layer in there too, a more insidious one than using a Hollywood movie to “tell us how it really is”.

The voice from the outer world who will lead them to paradise.

Dune (2021) (SPOILERS) For someone who has increasingly dug himself a science-fiction groove, Denis Villeneuve isn’t terribly imaginative. Dune looks perfect, in the manner of the cool, clinical, calculating and above all glacial rendering of concept design and novel cover art in the most doggedly literal fashion. And that’s the problem. David Lynch’s edition may have had its problems, but it was inimitably the product of a mind brimming with sensibility. Villeneuve’s version announces itself as so determinedly faithful to Frank Herbert, it needs two movies to tell one book, and yet all it really has to show for itself are gargantuan vistas.

Give poor, starving Gurgi munchings and crunchings.

The Black Cauldron (1985) (SPOILERS) Dark Disney? I guess… Kind of . I don’t think I ever got round to seeing this previously. The Fox and the Hound , sure. Basil the Great Mouse Detective , most certainly. Even Oliver and Company , so I wasn’t that selective. But I must have missed The Black Cauldron , the one that nearly broke Disney, for the same reason everyone else did. But what reason was that? Perhaps nothing leaping out about it, when the same summer kids could see The Goonies , or Back to the Future , or Pee Wee’s Big Adventure . It seemed like a soup of other, better-executed ideas and past Disney movies, stirred up in a cauldron and slopped out into an environment where audiences now wanted something a touch more sophisticated.

Monster nom nom?

The Suicide Squad (2021) (SPOILERS) This is what you get from James Gunn when he hasn’t been fed through the Disney rainbow filter. Pure, unadulterated charmlessness, as if he’s been raiding his deleted Twitter account for inspiration. The Suicide Squad has none of the “heart” of Guardians of Galaxy , barely a trace of structure, and revels in the kind of gross out previously found in Slither ; granted an R rating, Gunn revels in this freedom with juvenile glee, but such carte blanche only occasionally pays off, and more commonly leads to a kind of playground repetition. He gets to taunt everyone, and then kill them. Critics applauded; general audiences resisted. They were right to.

It becomes easier each time… until it kills you.

The X-Files 4.9: Terma Oh dear. After an engaging opener, the second part of this story drops through the floor, and even the usually spirited Rob Bowman can’t save the lethargic mess Carter and Spotnitz make of some actually pretty promising plot threads.

Three. Two. One. Lift with your neck.

Red Notice (2021) (SPOILERS) Red Notice rather epitomises Netflix output. Not the 95% that is dismissible, subgrade filler no one is watching but is nevertheless churned out as original “content”. No, this would be the other, more select tier constituting Hollywood names and non-negligible budgets. Most such fare still fails to justify its existence in any way, shape or form, singularly lacking discernible quality control or “studio” oversight. Albeit, one might make similar accusations of a selection of legit actual studio product too, but it’s the sheer consistency of unleavened movies that sets Netflix apart. So it is with Red Notice . Largely lambasted by the critics, in much the manner of, say 6 Underground or Army of the Dead , it is in fact, and just like those, no more and no less than okay.

Oh hello, loves, what year is it?

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) (SPOILERS) Simu Lui must surely be the least charismatic lead in a major motion picture since… er, Taylor Lautner? He isn’t aggressively bad, like Lautner was/is, but he’s so blank, so nondescript, he makes Marvel’s super-spiffy new superhero Shang-Chi a superplank by osmosis. Just looking at him makes me sleepy, so it’s lucky Akwafina is wired enough for the both of them. At least, until she gets saddled with standard sidekick support heroics and any discernible personality promptly dissolves. And so, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings continues Kevin Feige’s bold journey into wokesense, seemingly at the expense of any interest in dramatically engaging the viewer.

What about the panties?

Sliver (1993) (SPOILERS) It must have seemed like a no-brainer. Sharon Stone, fresh from flashing her way to one of the biggest hits of 1992, starring in a movie nourished with a screenplay from the writer of one of the biggest hits of 1992. That Sliver is one Stone’s better performing movies says more about how no one took her to their bosom rather than her ability to appeal outside of working with Paul Verhoeven. Attempting to replicate the erotic lure of Basic Instinct , but without the Dutch director’s shameless revelry and unrepentant glee (and divested of Michael Douglas’ sweaters), it flounders, a stupid movie with vague pretensions to depth made even more stupid by reshoots that changed the killer’s identity and exposed the cluelessness of the studio behind it. Philip Noyce isn’t a stupid filmmaker, of course. He’s a more-than-competent journeyman when it comes to Hollywood blockbuster fare ( Clear and Present Danger , Salt ) also adept at “smart” smaller pict

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog