The Lost Fortnight

With my computer dying the death, it's amazing how many films I watched over the last two weeks as compensation. If truth be told there were a few which had totally slipped from my memory (and which I needed to look up on IMDb to refresh myself). Chances are I'll forget them again once today's blog is finished.

Let's save the newish and relatively mainstream ones for last and start with some of the oldies. "London Belongs to Me" (1948) is a lovely ensemble piece most notable for the great Alastair Sim (always watchable) playing a gold-digging phony medium and that late luvvie Richard Attenborough playing a criminal punk. "The Ruthless Four" (1968) -- a spaghetti Western also known as "Every Man for Himself" is worth a watch for pitting old-timers Van Heflin and Gilbert Roland against the young and amoral Klaus Kinski and George Hilton in the search for buried gold. "Salt of the Earth" (1954) has the dubious distinction of being the only movie ever banned in the U.S. It was made by a bunch of blacklisted Hollywood folk documenting a strike by Mexican workers at a New Mexico zinc mine -- and it is now on the National Registry! Then there was "The Devil at Four o'clock" (1961) memorable for starring Spencer Tracy's alcoholic priest with Frank Sinatra's career criminal as they work together to save a bunch of leper kiddies form a Southsea island threatened by an erupting volcano. (No, they don't make them like that anymore).

Then there were the foreign entries. Another oldie "The Devil and the Angel" (1946) with Erich von Stroheim in one of his rare film roles (and in French) as a disfigured forger deeply in love with a blind carnival worker; worth a watch. I caught up with Sky's weekly foreign offerings of which the Swedish flick "The Here After" (1915) was totally depressing and forgettable and the French film "The Connection" (2014) was not even saved by star Jean Dujardin. The French-Canadian "My Internship in Canada" (2015) with a Haitian go-getter acting as an intern in rural Quebec (the only MP who replied to his circular request) was mildly pleasant. Finally. the Russian "I Won't Come Back" (2014) where an ex-orphanage young girl runs away with a 13-year old desperate to reach her grandma in Kazakhstan was both involving and ultimately emotionally devastating.

The less said about the few television movies seen, the better, although one of them "Dreamhouse Nightmare" (2017) aka "Mother of the Year" was much nastier than the usual saccharine run.

I also watched three animations of which the Chinese-made "Unbeatables" (2013) about plastic footballers coming to life was pretty awful. However I found "The Secret Life of Pets" (2016) rather amusing and "Moana" (2016) potentially a Disney classic. I particularly enjoyed the demi-god's (voiced by The Rock) tattoos coming to life on his body -- a bit of hand-drawn animation amongst the computer-generated main.

I'm not sure I have the patience to say much about some of the more recent offerings on Sky. "Breaking the Bank" (2016) set in London has Kelsey Grammer as a pathetic failed banker -- and what kind of demented angel thinks that he can carry a movie nowadays? "A Street Cat Named Bob" (2016) is based on a true story of an ex-druggie redeemed by a stray; the cat was very good!  I did enjoy the new Marvel entry "Doctor Strange" (2016) with its largely European leads of Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejifor, Tilda Swinton, and Mads Mikkelson, although it looks like future outings will be as a part of the increasingly boring Marvel ensembles. Some others very briefly: "The Gift" (2015) directed and written by and starring Joel Edgerton (rather nasty); "The Stamford Prison Experiment" (2015) yet another nasty take on the oft-told tale; "Good People" (2014) starring two of my least favourite actors James Franco and Kate Hudson -- more nasty; "White Island" and "Laid in America" (both 2015) -- a waste of time; and "Finding Altamira" (2016) a watchable account with Antonio Banderas of the cave paintings found in Spain.

Had I in fact written last Friday, I probably would have picked "I am not a Serial Killer" (2016) for its unusual storyline and casting. It stars Max Records (far less cute than his appearance in 2009's "Where the Wild Things Are") as a death-obsessed and unpopular high school student, who works in his mother's mortuary in his spare time, and Christopher Lloyd as his spooky neighbour and an inveterate serial killer. The interplay between the pair once the kid has established that alerting the police will only result in more murders is a fascinating game of cat and mouse.

And that's about as up to date as I shall get....