I think, I ruminate, I plan.

The Avengers

6.5: Get-A-Way

Another very SF story, and another that recalls earlier stories, in this case 5.5: The See-Through Man, in which Steed states baldly “I don’t believe in invisible men”. He was right in that case, but he’d have to eat his bowler here. Or half of it, anyway. The intrigue of Get-A-Way derives from the question of how it is that Eastern Bloc spies have escaped incarceration, since it isn’t immediately announced that a “magic potion” is responsible. And if that reveal isn’t terribly convincing, Peter Bowles makes the most of his latest guest spot as Steed’s self-appointed nemesis Ezdorf.

Tara: You don’t believe in invisible men, do you?
Steed: Only when I can’t see them.

Don Sharp (Invasion of the Earthmen, The Curious Case of the Countless Clues) directs his final entry for the show, and perhaps my only carp in this respect is that the reveal of the disappearing act is a rather ungainly jump cut, when something a little more elegant would have been preferable. Still, the method the escapees have of pulling up their collars and crossing their arms before vanishing is way cool.

Ezdorf: It amuses me to tell you now. It is you, Steed. You are my target.

As with Split! one can’t help but think some of the answers should have been reached a little sooner, most notably Ezdorf revealing that, after Rostov (Vincent Harding) has disposed of Steed’s friend George Neville (Terence Longdon) and Lubin (Robert Russell, the Caber in Terror of the Zygons, Laran in Cygnus Alpha) has done likewise to Paul Ryder (Neil Hallet, 1.23: Dead of Winter, 5.6: The Winged Avenger), Steed is his target. Well, would you believe it? And that had them stumped for years, eh? And Steed’s conclusion regarding teetotaller Lubin starting on the voddy (I should think Lubin turned to drink out of sheer boredom”) is really beneath him.

Steed: There is a difference. I kill when I have to. You, because you like it.

On the other hand, during his regular chats with Ezdorf, who is significantly more inflated by the notion that he is a match for Steed than the other way round (he’s clearly very impressed by our debonair spy), Steed explicitly announces some rarely expressed morality, a sign of carelessness perhaps on the makers’ part; I find it preferable when his scruples are implied.

Ezdorf dipping in a bath full of vodka – or pigment plastoid-infused vodka – is somewhat mundane after his previous mockery of possible escapes, during which he pours vodka next to the door – both a curious waste of precious vanishing fuel and a moment that has the appearance of something to do with the escape bid, but isn’t.

I haven’t mentioned the location of the prison, which poses as a monastery. At least, the keepers are decked out in habits (Baxter, William Wilde of Frontier in Space; Price, Michael Culver also Captain Needa in The Empire Strikes Back; James Andrew Kier of 5.1: The Fear Merchants).

Steed: Lizards and their… habits?
Tara: I’ve read it. It’s really rather intimate.
Steed: Disgusting habits?
Tara: Awful. And very crafty.
Normal forms of escape eliminated – Professor Percival Dodge (Peter Bayliss, 4.2: The Murder Market) is consulted – the means to the formula is located in a copy of Bryant’s Natural History Magazine, each copy found in the cells having pages 23-26 missing. Tara attempts to contact the publisher Bryant (James Belchamber, 4.20: The Quick-Quick Slow Death) but Lubin gets to him first. However, a saved copy reveals an article on lizards and their habits and an advert announcing “Runaway People Escape – with Lizard Vodka”. It’s quite a neat little set up of clues, in which Code Breaking For Beginners proves less successful than her intuition (the roman numeral note found in the escapee’s shoes instructs which pages to focus on).

Ezdorf: Very impressed. Steed’s taste obviously extends beyond the more bourgeoise trappings of life.

Tara is very much secondary to Steed in priorities here, although gets a nifty fight with Lubin in which the latter is ultimately catapulted through a window. Otherwise, her presence is rather objectified in unfortunate ways throughout, though, reflecting poorly on the imbalance in the show’s leads at this point. An early scene features drinks between John Steed, Paul Ryder and George Neville… Which makes Tara Ringo? This trio of middle-aged men ogling Tara is a bit queasy, particular as it comes across more than ever that she’s Steed’s bit of young totty, for which he is roundly congratulated. Even Ezdorf’s at it.

Steed: It seems I appeared in the nick of time.
Tara: I preferred you in pine.

The coda continues this rather unfortunate line of presentation, with Tara turning up at Steed’s flat with a new costume (“I bought it especially for you”). Steed meanwhile is behind the sofa in another “youthful” shirt and announces the most bizarrely innuendo-laced ending of the show so far. So much so it’s almost beyond innuendo. They both disappear out of shot to examine the problem…

Steed: I’ve got a leak in my tuba.
Tara: Where?
Steed: Here.

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

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

Other monks will meet their deaths here. And they too will have blackened fingers. And blackened tongues.

The Name of the Rose (1986) (SPOILERS) Umberto Eco wasn’t awfully impressed by Jean Jacques-Annaud’s adaptation of his novel – or “ palimpsest of Umberto Eco’s novel ” as the opening titles announce – to the extent that he nixed further movie versions of his work. Later, he amended that view, calling it “ a nice movie ”. He also, for balance, labelled The Name of the Rose his worst novel – “ I hate this book and I hope you hate it too ”. Essentially, he was begrudging its renown at the expense of his later “ superior ” novels. I didn’t hate the novel, although I do prefer the movie, probably because I saw it first and it was everything I wanted from a medieval Sherlock Holmes movie set in a monastery and devoted to forbidden books, knowledge and opinions.

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

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

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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