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Daddy_Bear
Reviews
Jacqueline (1956)
Heart-warming film from a rather sombre storyline, thanks to a few rather engaging characters.
I stumbled across this film on television quite by accident today, whilst flicking through channels for something to watch. What began as a quick 30 second appraisal of plot and the setting had me glued to the screen for the entire movie. I was quickly and thoroughly hooked by the engaging characters and the, at times, rather sombre storyline.
Set in Ireland, the film centres around Mike McNeil (John Gregson) and his relationship with his family during difficult times. Mike is a gifted but out-of-work farm hand, forced to relocate his family to a coastal town to find work at a shipyard. He takes the only job he can find, working on precarious tower at the nearby shipyard despite a morbid fear of heights that often renders him physically ill. To cope, he quickly resorts to drinking, often consuming much of his wages, placing additional pressures on himself, his relationship with his wife and even affecting his son's chances to pass his school exam. Of course Mrs Flannagan, the very snipish local gossip, and her daughter live next door to the McNeils and they gleeful take every opportunity to add insult to the McNeils' injuries.
Only McNeil's daughter, Jacqueline (of the film's title), seems to accept her father unconditionally, entirely unwilling to accept what others in town have to say about him. Her stance provides some entertaining exchanges between her and Mrs Flannagan's spiteful little girl, Sara.
Considering the fairly depressing nature of Mike McNeil's situation - a talented worker forced into the wrong job to make ends meet, turning to drink and placing his entire family under financial and emotional strain as a result, a disapproving and interfering mother-in-law determined to break up their marriage (and an old admirer of McNeil's wife, Elizabeth, more than willing to lend a hand) - and the film's being shot in rather harsh B&W tones, you might be forgiven for thinking this would be a depressing film.
It's not. While there is more than an occasional light-hearted moment, it does get quite serious at times as McNeil fails time and again to live up to everyone else's expectations of him (and him of himself), but there is a much more positive side to this story that prevents it venturing into maudlin.
You see, young Jacqueline (Jacqueline Ryan) - a right little liar by nature, but with a good heart - even in the face of damning evidence, refuses to see her father as anything less than the noble figure she believes he could be ("My dad doesn't drink - not a drop. Mr Owen even said so") and it is she who develops the most influential, if somewhat incongruous, relationships in the film with diverse characters as Owen (the local priest), the finger-pointing Sara Flannagan and even Mr Lord, her father's employer.
John Gregson, playing Mike McNeil, excels in this film. In fact, I enjoyed him in this film so much that, though not normally a fan of the genre, I shall be keeping an eye out for more of his films from now on.
Not at all the film I expected at all from those first 30 seconds. Despite the emotional weight of some of the subject matter, I found this a very heart-warming film (and one I will watch again if it ever reappears on TV or DVD).
Space: 1999 (1975)
2001: A Space Odyssey meets Star Trek: Voyager - only 20 years too early
I missed the first episode of this series when it first aired on television. I still fell in love with the atmosphere of this series as I pieced together what had actually happened in that first episode to force the Earth's moon out of orbit and out of our solar system. It was actually many years before I managed to catch that first episode (only around eight years ago, in fact) and I reverted instantly back to my childhood for the duration!
I've always been what I would call a fan of this series (yes, particularly the first season), but it was only recently that I discovered there are many others like me out there. Via the internet, I've seen the criticisms and comparisons that were levelled at the show in the seventies when it was released and I've been baffled by most of them. The single thing that probably irks me most though are the constant comparisons (both positive and negative) with Star Trek. This is no Star Trek - in my opinion it's a lot better. I can't imagine what the world will be like in 200 years time - nothing like Star Trek's federation, I'll bet. But back in 1975 it seemed quite feasible that we could have a moonbase up there by the 90s. And I could always relate to the realism of this show - space ships and equipment that looked... well... industrial... and a sterile, artificial environment that looks and feels just like a... sterile, artificial environment.
I've seen the show attacked by Trekkie fans for having artificial gravity inside the base, while there is minimal gravity outside. Yet when I see "First Contact", I see gravity inside the ship and magnetic boots being worn outside. I hear complaints about terminology such as "black sun" in place of "black hole", yet our knowledge of physics and the terminology that goes with it changes all the time - is it so unacceptable that in '75 someone thought they might be called "suns" rather than "holes" in '99??
I've heard it said that the Eagle Transporter craft aren't aerodynamic and therefore couldn't fly through an atmosphere as they have done in Space: 1999. Yet I saw an episode of Space: 1999 where they modified an invisible shield on board one of the craft (presumably they were all equipped with them), which formed an aerodynamic cone over the exposed part of the vehicle (rather like what researchers are currently working on, here on Earth).
And the most disturbing of all - the "dark side of the moon" argument, which states that there is no dark side of the moon there is only a "far" side of the moon. It concerns me greatly that this observation was made in a scathing attack of the series by Sir Isaac Asimov. I believe "dark" in this sense refers to "least accessible" (from Earth, eg. communications), much as in days gone by parts of Africa that were least accessible were referred to as "darkest Africa". We still refer to the far side of the moon as the dark side - when a space craft from earth orbits the moon, we lose contact with it once it disappears behind the moon. This is not an error of terminology and never was. Waste disposal area one/navigation beacon delta is not the only way to navigate on the far side, but being one of the few man-made structures it is much easier to recognise and navigate by. I have also read comments that since the waste disposal area two was on the dark (far) side of the moon, then the explosion should have forced the moon to collide with the Earth, not move it away. Well, the dark (far) side of the moon is pretty big - it covers around *half* the moon, forming a hemisphere, and waste disposal area two could be anywhere in that hemisphere. It is not located near area one on the dark side - when Simmonds asks what are the chances that area two might burn itself out just like area one, Koenig actually responds that they "are sitting right on top of it; there is no chance!". It is quite likely that the area sits right near the edge of the "dark hemisphere" and hence would generate force in a direction that would propel the moon tangentially from its own orbit. Add to this the momentum of the moon already revolving rapidly around the earth and you will see that there is no reason whatsoever to assume the moon should collide with the earth as a result of the explosion.
If there is a comparison to be made against Space: 1999, then it would have to be the Star Trek: Voyager series, which it preceded by some twenty years! In fact, in some ways, Voyager seems almost to have copied the storyline of Space: 1999, replacing the moonbase with a space ship and sending it on a reverse journey back toward Earth rather than away from it. Other than that, the premises underlying the two series' share a lot in common.
At over 1/4 million dollars per episode back in 1975, a time when science fiction still wasn't regarded as a saleable commodity, I think we got our money's worth. The techniques used in Space: 1999 paved the way for others such as Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, etc for years to come and would almost certainly have run over several series if it hadn't been "sabotaged" between the first and second series (if you don't know what I mean, read up about what actually took place).
The musical score (of the first series) is excellent and subtly establishes the mood for each episode before we even find out what the episode is about. Some of the acting I've seen (in the first series) is superior to any I have seen anywhere else in science fiction. And then some of it (in particular, Barbara Bain - both series) really isn't. Martin Landau really acts throughout. Perhaps they came as a package - they were married, after all.
My recommendation to anyone who has never seen this series: Watch it! But watch it with an open mind. Don't prejudge and don't compare - just enjoy.
The Dead Boys' Club (1992)
Smooth, haunting, stylish. Dead Boys gets thumbs up!
I have seen The Dead Boys' Club several times now and it has moved me deeply each time. Certainly it is the best film involving AIDS that I've seen, without actually being about AIDS which is a pleasant change. A haunting story coupled with stylish direction - Mark Christopher smoothly evokes both nostalgia and melancholy over the pre-AIDS gay lifestyle and superimposes it against the AIDS-aware sensibility of the 90's. A couple of the performances were mildly disappointing (Erik Van Der Wilden as Packard & Ari Benjamin as Charles). The rest of the cast more than makes up for it though, most notably Nat de Wolf in the lead role as Toby.
I never liked Thelma Houston's "Don't Leave Me This Way" until I saw The Dead Boys' Club. Now I don't think I'll ever hear that song without this film being brought instantly to mind. This is not a bad thing.
Take 25 mins out of your life and see this movie. Different people will see different things in it, I guess. But everyone will get *something* out of it.