What have you watched recently? 3D!

Marvelous and the black hole

Pulls on the heart strings but also delivers laughs. Story of a Grieving young girl being brought back to life by a newfound passion for performing magic. Indie production swinging above its weight 8/10

Yeh, a few people I've talked to have a problem with the middle section. That's the part I enjoyed the most. It was actually the most authentic feeling of the whole thing. Contrary to popular belief, most Norse weren't all violent warriors and they certainly were not the buffed up supermen that the beginning section of Eggers' movie would have you believe. They were farmers, traders, seafarers, businessmen. Viking settlements, including our own in Dublin, were based in trading with the locals (or at least the people who got there before they did). It wasn't about going somewhere and knocking the shit out of them all the time. The Vikings prospered the most when they built trading colonies and their raids (mostly on small, undefended, villages and towns) were often a poor return for the effort. But because of their mastery of the sea, the Norse could gather together valuable trade goods from distant lands, which the locals of a given country found exotic and very desirable. Indigenous people (or at least the wealthy landowners) would often be happy enough to let a Viking settlement stay if the trade remained healthy. The foreign trade goods would be then taken back to home and sold.

As to the dithering that Amleth engages in, that's down to his indecisiveness over his surprise of finding his mother living with Fjölnir in Iceland, and like Hamlet, is somewhat at a loss on how exactly to proceed. Plus, his fate dictates that he must face his uncle on a "lake of fire" for a sure victory and entry to Valhalla, and anything else may go against the wishes of the gods. Amleth believes that an exact fulfilment of his fate must occur if it is to play out successfully.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have made its money back. So whether studios will be enticed by such a similar project in the near future remains to be seen.

Sure. In Norse religious belief a person's fate was controlled by the Norns. A set of deities that had higher power than the gods. It's fair to say that Norse society, at the very least, paid significant lip service to their religious customs and ideas. But, like all ancient cultures, the degree to which everyone in Norse society actually believed whole heartedly in such things remains debatable. Much like today, there were probably a considerable number of people who merely hedged the bets, as it were, and were neither believers or non-believers. There were plenty who would simply nod to the priest and attend the odd mass to put it in today's understanding, but in private thought that the whole thing was a load of cobblers.

We went to Everything Everywhere All at Once at the cinema last night. I wouldn't even attempt to describe it, but we thought it was excellent. It does what it says on the tin. My daughters made an interesting point that they were glad they saw it in the cinema because if we tried to watch that at home they would have their phones out and lose concentration.

I saw Psycho at the cinema last week.

it is doing the rounds after a 4K restoration - which strangely spoils the big twist in the story

I hadn’t seen it in years and there was a lot that I had forgot like the PI, the sherrif and his wife and the conference at the end with the doctor. Lila being so sure that “something isn’t right” at Bates Motel without ever being there or meeting Norman is a bit annoying and Sam seemingly having never heard of the Bates or the motel in that small town is a bit silly.

Sti great movie though after all these years. Was hoping it would lead to more Hitchcock at the cinema.

It hadn’t occurred to me until seeing it this time that Psycho is the original slasher movie and has been copied countless times.

'Top Gun'

A film I'd not seen since its original release in 1986 and I thought it was terrible then. It's still terrible. But what is most fascinating about it is the apparent hold it has over some people. There are those out there that truly love the movie and I'll never figure out why, because 'Top Gun' dribbles along inanely when everybody is on the ground and the only thing it has going for it is its aerial scenes which, in fairness, were relatively entertaining if terribly cliched. The Tomcats, Tigers and Skyhawks are all nice to watch flying around, but everything comes to a crashing halt back on Terra Firma.

The reason for this is the unbelievably turgid story that plays out with lamentable predictably and Top Gun's juvenile dialogue doesn't help either. Its romance between Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis never once feels like it's anything more than a 9 year old's impression of what men and women do and the obvious drama involving Cruse's "Maverick" and Anthony Edwards' "Goose" is just another layer of trope in a movie that's full of them. Cruise's "Maverick" is an insufferable git, into the bargain, but remains completely in line with the characters that Cruise had in his limited repertoire during his rise to megastardom in the 80's and his childish rivalry with the equally obnoxious "Iceman" (Val Kilmer) makes "Goose" all the more likeable. It's hard to believe, for a single second though, that Kelly McGillis's character would touch any of these clowns with a ten foot barge pole.

'Top Gun' is an incredibly cheesy movie and one that drips with cheap machismo to a point where it all becomes extremely camp. But not camp in a funny way, like 'Plan 9 From Outer Space', but more in a way that seriously makes you ask yourself what was director Tony Scott going for here? It all serves to create quite a bizarre world where navy pilots ponce around locker rooms and play beach volley ball when they're not gripping tightly to their joysticks. You wonder who, exactly, was the target audience that this movie was intended for.

The soundtrack, too, is deeply entrenched in terrible 1980's AOR and throwaway pop and the likes of Kenny Loggins, Harold Faltermeyer and, one hit wonders, Berlin fill out the audio when the jet engines are switched off and it's amazing to think that the mediocre music from the movie also made a ton of money as well. It's also astonishing that 'Top Gun' was the No1 movie of that year, when in reality it's an incredibly bland, ho-hum, by-the-numbers Reagan era junk.

3/10

'The Maltese Falcon'

For me the best film of the 1940's, John Huston's 'The Maltese Falcon' never fails to entertain. A classic in the true sense of the word, Huston's film remains as engrossing today as it was over 80 years ago and features Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, a wise cracking San Francisco P.I. who gets entangled with a strange bunch of nefarious characters who are all looking for a mysterious ornamental bird of great value and will do anything to get hold of it.

The Dashiell Hammet story may not sound like much, but it's the characters that bring it all to life and coupled with its slow unfolding, it makes for a compelling view. Alongside Bogart, who is at the top of his game, are the likes of Mary Astor as the scheming and thoroughly untrustworthy Femme Fatale, Peter Lorre as the equally dodgy Joel Cairo, Sidney Greenstreet as the leader of the pack and Elisha Cook Jr. as his young gunsel. Everyone is brilliant and there isn't a step out of place. The actors in the film embody their characters so well, that it's impossible to imagine anyone else doing these parts, even though Huston's effort was actually the third time Hammet's story was put through the Hollywood mill. Plus the fast talking dialogue is never anything but excellent, albeit within the confines of a 1940's Hollywood noir. Of course, nobody in real life would have ever talked like people do in 'The Maltese Falcon', but it completely suits the story's setting and feel.

'The Maltese Falcon' is rightly hailed as one of the best Hollywood movies ever made and it's difficult to believe that anyone wouldn't get some joy out of in in some way, regardless of what their general tastes may be.

10/10

On her Majesty's secret Service

I'd never seen this and Omniplex are having a Bond season at the moment so off I went........I absolutely loved it. Really didnt expect to. I thought George Lazenby was a great Bond, he had the physicality in spades, I mean the opening scene just hooked me in. Very well paced, I wasn't bored for even second. The stuff with him undercover as a genealogist at a secret base, high up in the Swiss Alps, surrounded by a bevy of supermodels, was gas. It was like that movie The Beguiled.......a film within a film so to speak. Anyway I thought it was a belter, shame Lazenby shot himself in the foot and refused to go again, I think he could've had a good innings as Bond.

That ain't gonna work El. I'm beyond redemption. 😁

Just wait til you hear what I have to say about 'Iron Eagle'. ☺️