The BBC Television Shakespeare: As You Like It (1978)

Director: Basil Coleman

This is kind of where this Shakespeare series began, in that Cedric Messina had been using Glamis Castle and environs for another production and decided it would be a good setting for a version of As You Like It, whereupon he later had the further idea of doing the whole canon (this would be one of only two of the plays to be done on location). I gather this is one of Big Bill’s best-known plays but I’ve never actually read it nor seen any other versions of it, and didn’t even know what it was about, so I was really going in cold…

I was interested to find the story basically being a political intrigue at first; our hero is the son of a deceased duke who’s been dispossessed of his dues by his older brother, and there’s another duke usurping his brother and driving him into exile. This confused me terribly at first, cos this is one of Bill’s comedies (I at least knew that little about it) rather than his tragedies and yet the way it begins I felt it could almost be read as the latter at times during the first hour or so; I felt it wasn’t really until the action moved to the Forest of Arden that it really definitively settled on being a comedy. Found it quite off-putting, to be honest, and I never really engaged with it as much I would’ve liked.

Helen Mirren is our heroine, Rosalind, and is much the best thing about this production; Rosalind is a solid heroine who she makes the most of, and obviously the gender shenanigans she gets to engage in will be a big drawcard for modern audiences (even if I didn’t find them that convincing). I don’t recall anyone else in the cast making a comparable impression (though if, like me, you enjoy playing “spot the actor who was also in Doctor Who at some point” when watching things like this, then this episode offers some rich pickings) other than Richard Pasco, and that not in a good way, really. Jaques is apparently considered one of Shakespeare’s juiciest parts, he has the famous “all the world’s a stage” speech and is meant as a sort of cynical voice to undercut the otherwise lightness of the play, but Pasco (who we’ll see again next time in Julius Caesar) plays him as a kind of tedious brown note of much less interest than the characters seem to think he is. (Well, most of them; Orlando does get to say to him at one point “I do desire we may be better strangers” which is my favourite line in the thing.)

As for the location shooting, at the time it was considered it actually kind of overwhelmed the story and the actors but I liked it; it looks as good as I supposed it could’ve done being shot on video rather than film in 1978—even if it’s kind of shot in studio style, multicamera long takes and so forth—and it probably wouldn’t have looked any better had it been done in studio without going to a lot of expense. Unless they went for something really stylised and artificial, and the BBC weren’t quite ready to go there just yet. I can’t say I greatly liked this production, but it has its points of interest, and I suspect it’ll benefit from a rewatch where I know what to expect next time round…

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Police Academy (1984)

Director: Hugh Wilson

On TV tonight, haven’t seen in I don’t know how many years. Possibly not this century. I wrote on here some years ago that I might actually still like this (though I was and am nonetheless kind of embarrassed to admit I’d seen the series up to the fifth film—remember, even Steve Guttenberg didn’t go that far—and had actually seen four and five at the cinema when they were new), and tonight I had the opportunity to find out… And I think it’s been long enough between drinks and enough water has gone under the bridge, and my use of metaphor has clearly become sufficiently debased, that I have a much better idea than I once did of just how bad it is, really… all the subtlety and sensitivity of a Tsar Bomba to the testicles and about as much intelligence, vulgar and crass but still weirdly afraid to be quite as vulgar and crass as it could be if it just tried a bit harder, and just… well… eighties. If the year 1984 could be summed up as one film, this could be the one. MICHAEL WINSLOW, for fuck’s sake. And having watched it again for the first time since I don’t know when, yeah, I actually did kind of like it. I mean, it’s not really that good, it’s fairly average, but it’s well enough done that it’s also kind of painless. I don’t regret watching it again, in a way I’m sure I would regret watching the sequels…

Artists and Models (1955)

Director: Frank Tashlin

For reason that I can’t work out, Jerry Lewis died today. I mean, we can probably guess the reasons for that, but it’s how he managed to live so long that has me perplexed… we’re talking about a man who had an assortment of health woes throughout his life and suffered his first heart attack in 1960 when he was just in his mid-30s. He did fairly well to make it into his 90s, all things considered. And, for reasons I also can’t work out, I’ve never actually seen an actual proper Jerry Lewis film until now; I’ve only known him as a sort of pop culture figure usually invoked in bafflement about French tastes in film comedy, but never actually seen him at work. I mean, I’ve seen The King of Comedy and Funny Bones, both of which he’s in but neither of which I’d exactly call a “Lewis film” as such… so I suppose the time is right? And there’s a few Lewis films in the 1001 Films list, so also an opportunity to make another dent in that…

Anyway, he was still with Dean Martin when he made this, though not for much longer (a line Dino’s character has early on about them needing a divorce is weirdly prescient); I’ll take the 1001 Films book’s word for it that this was Martin & Lewis’ finest hour cos I obviously have no other experience. It’s… curious, isn’t it? Frank Tashlin, of course, began life as a cartoonist and animator, and I’ve seen it said that even when he moved into live action in the 50s he never entirely left that cartoon background behind. That seems like a fair summary of this film, with such details as Lewis dressed as a giant mouse and terrifying a cat, Martin’s reflection in a mirror duetting with him, that sort of thing… but also the way the plot develops from the romantic foursome of the first two-thirds of the film into the frankly weird spy thriller of the last third, which revolves around Martin writing a comic book based on Lewis’ dreams, but the dreams somehow contain part of an actual secret government formula which attracts the interest of the Russians and OY. Never quite as wholeheartedly bizarre as it could and perhaps should’ve been, but reasonably funny on the whole, blessed more by Shirley MacLaine as one of the female love interests than it is by Lewis, whose appeal I found kind of baffling. Maybe I need to see Jerry solo instead? I don’t know. At some point I’ll be doing that for the purposes of this list anyway…

Batman (1966)

Director: Leslie H. Martinson

SBS recently announced that they’ve purchased the 1960s Batman TV series, which announcement comes… unfortunately timed to coincide with the death a few days earlier of series star Adam West. Not SBS’ fault, I’m sure, cos I’ve no doubt the negotiations to buy the series would’ve begun some time before West’s passing (I don’t think you just casually do that sort of thing even these days), but still. Anyway, to warm us up for the series ahead of it starting next month, they gave us the movie tonight, which I may not have seen since, well, the 1980s, which was probably also the last time I saw the series (I have the latter on DVD but haven’t watched it yet)… Basically the film was produced as a sort of introduction to the series (filmed after the first series had completed shooting), but then the series launch date got moved way ahead of its original schedule so the film had to be held back, rendering it a bit useless for its intended purpose. Still, on its own terms it’s a huge lot of fun… I know the series copped flak for years for being an exercise in camp rather than evincing the pulp grittiness of the original comics, but let’s face it: the comics by that time were hardly masterpieces of noir, even before the CCA neutered comics generally in the 50s, DC were taking their own initiatives to tone Batman down within months of his first appearance and wouldn’t toughen him up again until the 70s. So the film is really just of its time in that respect, and it knows the basic strangeness of the whole superhero/supervillian narrative and it runs joyously with its own ridiculousness; everyone involved hits the right comedic pitch (the bomb scene is an outstanding setpiece), and West’s ability to keep a straight face is genuinely admirable at times. Much fun, and though I’ve got the series on DVD like I said, I’ll probably watch it on TV anyway…

Life of Brian (1979)

Director: Terry Jones

This film contains one of the most outstanding silences in any film (well, any sound film, obviously) I’ve ever seen, i.e. the bit where Brian shouts “NOW FUCK OFF!” at his suddenly acquired mass of followers, and they pause before, about eight seconds later, John Cleese’s disciple asks him how they should fuck off. It’s one of the most beautifully timed jokes in a film that swarms with them; watching it again tonight for the first time in several years (the first film I’ve watched in months, obviously, except for repeats of Flash Gordon and Heavy Metal which obviously didn’t need to be reviewed again here) was a great reminder of just how thick and fast the comedy comes, and how absurd baffling the controversy the film generated back in the day (still does? Apparently the town of Bournemouth only lifted their local ban on the film as recently as 2015, and even in this country it actually got upgraded from an M rating—which is the one my DVD copy bears—to an MA for its blu-ray reissue. Unless that was on account of the bonus features?) was. Even allowing for changes in attitudes over time, it seems bizarre that people could seriously accuse it of blasphemy; it clearly doesn’t have a go at that Jesus fellow in any way, the one scene in which Jesus appears—i.e. the Sermon on the Mount—plays him straight and the humour comes from the crowd who mishear what he says. And that’s the real root of the film’s satire; it’s not taking the piss out of Jesus, it’s taking the piss out of his followers, as witness the speed with which Brian’s disciples not only attach themselves to him for no good reason, then become divided as to whether the gourd or the shoe (and indeed whether it’s a shoe or a sandal) is his true sign, and finally not only misunderstand but actively ignore what he actually says… Come to think of it, maybe that’s really why people took such offence to Life of Brian back then, cos they recognised it was about themselves rather than their Lord…

As a final thought, how good is Graham Chapman as Brian? I only discovered tonight John Cleese actually wanted the role, and had to be talked out of it with difficulty by the other Pythons. What a piece of potentially terrible miscasting that could’ve been; considering Cleese’s general Python persona and the other parts he plays in the film, I just can’t imagine him working as Brian. Chapman was so determined not to fuck it up that he overcame the alcoholism that had plagued him for years, and you can see that commitment in his performance. I mean, all the Pythons are good in their many and varied parts, but it’s Chapman’s film, really. Absolutely top stuff.

The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979)

Directors: Chuck Jones & Phil Monroe

Look, I know there isn’t much point in me watching this. I’ve got the big DVD box set with all the original cartoons on it (barring, notably, Hare-Way to the Stars, incomprehensibly excluded from the Golden Collection series) remastered and uncut (the editing performed here on Long-Haired Hare damages one of the best gags in it). It’s kind of outlived its usefulness in some respects, and there’s not a lot of point to watching it now, unless you really want to be faintly disgusted by the absence of Bob Clampett and Ben Hardaway among the list of Bugs’ “fathers” (the latter—who only gave the bunny his name, after all—seems to have been an honest mistake on Jones’ part, but the former was a deliberate act of spite by Jones, who had a notable grudge against him). And yet, when I was looking through the TV guide to see what was on today and I saw TBB/RRM listed there… how could I not watch it? Cos it’s great. The component parts are all great, some of them among the very best things to come from Warners’ animation department (and I’ve said for a long time now that the best of the Warner cartoons are among the best films made by anyone anywhere at any time), and it’s still a pretty amazing highlights package, markedly better than the other recycled compilations that followed it in the 80s, cos Jones and Monroe were careful to (mostly) leave the originals alone and limit the new material to essentially introductory links rather than trying to embed the old stuff as stock footage into a new story (cf. 1001 Rabbit Tales). I’ve loved this since I was little, and it still works for me now. It’s a joy to watch, basically, and I suppose that’s really all the reason you need to do so.

Big Ass Spider! (2013)

Director: Mike Mendez

Apparently this film’s distributors wanted to retitle it as Mega Spider, but director Mendez fought to keep his preferred title—exclamation mark and all—on the grounds that it was the “right” one. And that logic is hard to argue with, since Big Ass Spider! really is the right one; indeed, the exclamation mark is what makes it so. As with Zombeavers, the title sums up what’s on offer, in this case a MOTHERFUCKING BIG BUG running rampant… and yeah, I know I’ve spoken before about my, er, issues with the descendants of Arachne, but in this case we’re kind of in Horrors of Spider Island territory, where the beast is so patently not real (albeit not as unrealistic as in the older film) that it didn’t trigger the same sort of AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! response from me that a real one would do. In this case, the spider is an unfortunate side effect of an experiment in using growth hormones from alien biological material to create bigger and better food to solve world hunger; in short, not unlike Tarantula except played far more for comedy. Our hero is a kind of schlubby everyman, a pest exterminator called Alex who finds himself investigating an apparent big spider at a hospital and who finds it’s actually a lot worse than anyone realises. Alex and his ethnic comedy stereotype sidekick have to find a way to squish this thing, and fast, cos she’s growing exponentially and she’s got eggs to lay… Indeed, the astounding speed with which the initially smallish bug becomes big ass is kind of matched by the storytelling; it’s not done in “real time”, but it certainly doesn’t drag its feet in getting down to business, and all is admirably over and done with in 80 minutes or so. Unabashedly B, marred by particularly shitty CGI gore, but quite a fun watch.

What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

Directors: Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi

There was news a few days ago about this becoming a TV series, and somehow I wasn’t surprised to hear it; having actually seen the film now, I find myself even less surprised. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the film acts like a series pilot as I said about Megaforce the other day, cos it is pretty self-contained and doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be that. And yet, watching it, I couldn’t help but feel it’d actually work better in serial form. The premise is splendid, a documentary crew (who remain offscreen) follow a group of vampires (two of them played by the directors) who live together in a flat in Wellington, with complications ensuing when one turns a prospective meal into another vampire who then brings a human mate with him when they go on their nocturnal adventures, and who makes the even bigger mistake of, you know, actually telling people he’s a vampire. The film is pretty episodic and not really narrative-driven as such; it’s far more about the characters, and the characters are terrific, not just our three leads but the secondary ones as well… particularly the werewolves (“not swearwolves!”), who I can imagine being bigger parts in the TV version. There is much charm to it, a lot of fun to be had with the genre tropes (the vampires struggling to be invited into nightclubs, the werewolves dealing with practicalities like what clothes to wear at transformation time) and some fairly simple but great effects (e.g. when Nick starts turning into a vampire and his reflection in the bathroom mirror is out of sync with him). Going to be very interested to see how the TV version pans out.

Zombeavers (2014)

Director: Jordan Rubin

It was Tim at Antagony’s kind of glowing review that made me reconsider this one. Cos I’d seen the DVD on the shelves at my local JB Hifi and, you know, naturally assumed it had to be shit. You would, wouldn’t you? But Tim being into it made me think “hmm, must be something to it after all”, and so I bought it. I liked the fact that it was inexpensive, and I appreciated it being under 80 minutes long. And, well, yeah, it actually was worth whatever I paid for it, perfect for a Saturday afternoon. It’s… high-concept, to say the least. The title tells you absolutely fucking everything about the film; there’s no metaphor or subtext or poetry, it’s about beavers turned into undead horrors by chemical waste. You know EXACTLY what you’re in for, and the film delivers on its absurd premise with a kind of trashy magnificence. The impressive thing is that it’s quite watchable despite almost none of the human characters being particularly likeable, which is usually a sticking point for me, but they go about being unlikeable with some verve that’s kind of winning. Obviously this is not a film about which a lot really needs to be said—I direct you to Tim’s review above for more analysis if you want it—but it’s appealing in its low-budget ludicrousness and in the joy it takes in its own silliness, and especially the brevity with which it goes about its business: quick set-up, introduce characters and setting, sic zombie beavers on them, all over and done with in 77 minutes including credits and post-film bloopers. That sort of efficiency is something worth learning from.

Deathcheaters (1976)

Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith

After that bit of faux Trenchard-Smith the other night, let’s have the real thing now, and one that could actually benefit from a modern remake… You know how they say you should never remake a film unless it wasn’t up to much in the first place and could potentially be improved upon? Deathcheaters is exactly the sort of thing they mean. Very cheap (apparently $150,000-odd, which was certainly worth something in 1976 but still not a lot), very cheerful, fairly cheesy, and potentially an enormous hit if given to the right people to redo. TS says in the DVD commentary he set out to make what he describes as a “whimsical” film, an action comedy that’d be family-friendly (indeed, the film succeeded in scoring a G rating, as opposed to the R rating Man from Hong Kong earned the previous year), with a sort of semi-camp tone of the sort you found in TV programs like The Avengers. I think it’s fair to say this intention does come through in the finished product, in spite of, let’s be honest, a number of problems, the biggest of which is probably the opening chase (jumping from Kurnell to Northbridge to Warringah Mall) and the abseiling down the Hilton Hotel; it makes for such a good opening 20 minutes or so the rest of the film can’t really live up to it. Plus, although it does tick along at a fair enough pace, the film does take longer than necessary to get to the point—our two heroes (Grant Page and John Hargreaves), Vietnam vets turned stuntmen, are hired by a mysterious government figure (Noel Ferrier) to “acquire” certain papers belonging to a Filipino crime lord—and nowhere near enough on the mission (we never actually see said crime lord or really know much about him). And at the time there seems to have been some fuss over TS using actual Vietnam War stock footage in a couple of flashback scenes when the war was still, you know, a fresh memory. Still, it’s kind of fun, kind of charming, and the film communicates the enjoyment the people making it clearly had; plus the original will always have one advantage over any putative remake, namely the 70s fashion… that shirt Page wears at one point with the gigantic puffy sleeves is as jaw-dropping as the stunt work.