When she is forced to babysit her infant half-brother Toby, selfish teenager Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) invokes a goblin magic spell that summons Jareth, the Goblin King (David Bowie) to snatch Toby and take him to the Goblin Kingdom. Sarah has just thirteen hours to make her way through Jareth’s labyrinth to save Toby, or he’ll be turned into a goblin and will stay there forever.
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This will be a short one this week folks, as I’ve watched little and written even less. Don’t expect a great deal from me this coming week either, as I’m off on holiday in a few hours. Please insert the usual apologies and concessions of my uselessness and failures.
However, something I will take a moment to note is the passing of a friend and fellow blogger. Chip Lary, of Tips From Chip, passed away almost three weeks ago. He had been ill for a while, and had recently undergone an operation to remove his gall bladder, but it is unclear as to whether this was the cause of his passing. Either way, Chip was one of my first ever followers back on my Blogspot site, and was a very active member of the 1001 Movies community back when that was more of a thing, when The Film Vituperatum was more active. There were a few occasions when I became tempted to throw the whole 1001 List thing and blogging in general out the window, and Chip was always there with a helpful and motivational comment of some sort, or a suggestion to take a break for a little bit and come back refreshed, which I’ve done a few times and ordinarily works a treat. In all honesty I’ve not read much on Chip’s site for a while, but that’s more because I struggle to find the time to read anyone else’s site, which is something that desperately needs to change for me. Regardless, I’ll always be grateful for the help Chip gave me, the community he never failed to participate in, the endless spreadsheets he created for the 1001 List and beyond, and the kindness he showed to a writer just starting out. He will be missed. If you’d like to donate to a collection for flowers for his funeral, being arranged by Steve Honeywell of 1001 Plus, please head here: https://www.gofundme.com/2xkqxxjs.
Last year, when I asked some of my blogging friends to suggest some films on the 1001 List for me to watch, Chip submitted a not-at-all surprisingly really long list. I’ve still got 17 of those films to review, so I’ll be making an effort to watch those as a priority, despite them including some of the longer films on the list. Also, Chip is one of the few people I know to have completed the entirety of the 1001 List, so I’ve asked him what films were bad on there too. I’ve still got 18 of those to go (jeez) so those will be my priority “Bad” movie picks too. Steve, I’ll get back to your suggestions next year, I’m sure you’ll understand. You and Chip had a lot of crossover anyway.
So here’s what I watched this week:
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Wait, is it Friday already? Has it actually been an entire week since the last one of these was (supposed to be) posted? I refuse to believe this. 2016 is rolling past way faster than it should be, and that’s the only reason I can think of for why I’m behind on everything. There’s no possible way that seven whole mornings, days, evenings and nights have just happened. Nope. Something is seriously wrong here.
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Progress remains slow and disappointing here at Life vs Film, and the realisation that my targets are out of my grasp becomes ever clearer, and as much as I’d like to either a) knuckle down and get on top of them or b) let it go and take what is essentially my own blog upon which I make all the rules, I seem unable to stop stressing about everything in a way that makes no sense and will be of zero benefit to anyone, with the distinct exception of some inevitable therapist who will profit handsomely from my myriad of psychological issues. What I need to do is focus on the positives. Whilst I didn’t meet my targets for April, I still reviewed more 1001 Movies than in the previous two months. Whilst a couple of podcast episodes went disastrously wrong in terms of scheduling or losing the recordings, I still had a great deal of fun at the time. And whilst I neither enjoyed the new book or new destination this month, I’ve now taken one of the heftier tomes off my shelf and still found somewhere new to walk the dog in the future. Every cloud and all that. Here’s how the month ended up:
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This is one of those weeks where I’ve not got anything to say other than the usual lamentations on my lack of progress or the woes of international podcasting, so instead I’m going to highlight a podcast I’ve started listening to recently that you might like. I don’t watch a great deal of TV, but one of the few shows I’ve not only seen in its entirety but have revisited at least once is The West Wing, and one of its latter-season stars, Joshua Malina (he played Will Bailey), has recently begun a podcast called The West Wing Weekly, which he hosts alongside Hrishi Hirway, a self-proclaimed big fan of the show. On this show Joshua and Hrishi discuss an episode of The West Wing every week, in chronological order, occasionally with guests who were in some way involved in the TV show. So far they are six episodes in, and their guests have been Dulé Hill (who played Charlie Young), Janel Maloney (Donna Moss) and Eli Attie, a writer/producer who was also Al Gore’s chief scriptwriter. Whilst I’ve never been terribly interested in politics, especially that of another country, and one that seems to become more of a literal circus every year, my love of The West Wing stems from the characters, their interactions, relationships and dialogue. I discovered the show after watch Aaron Sorkin’s follow-up, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, which was criminally cancelled during the first season, and remains one of my favourite shows ever, one season or not. When I was denied further episodes, I sought out the next best thing. After recently lending the whole boxset to a friend, who returned all seven seasons in a matter of weeks, my partner has also shown an interest so I’m introducing her to the show whilst re-watching it myself, and at one-a-week it shouldn’t be too hard to keep up with the podcast.
Anyway, enough of TV, here are the films I watched this week:
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Whilst attending a carnival, well-to-do surgeon Mr. Treves (Anthony Hopkins) sees John Merrick (John Hurt), a 21-year-old man born with such severe physical disfigurements that he is displayed as “The Elephant Man”. After Merrick receives another in a series of beatings from his “owner” Bytes (Freddie Jones), Treves takes Merrick into the hospital and cares for the man, slowly uncovering the person behind the appearance.
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This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review.
Two boys, Alfredo and Olmo, are born within minutes of each other in January 1901. Alfredo is the grandson of landowner and family head Alfredo Berlinghieri (Burt Lancaster) whilst Olmo’s grandfather, Leo (Sterling Hayden), is a peasant and Alfredo Sr.’s foreman. The two boys grow up together, never forgetting their respective places within society and, once grown (into Robert DeNiro and Gérard Depardieu) they find themselves on opposite sides of a class struggle, exacerbated by the presence of fascist guards led by the new foreman, Attila (Donald Sutherland).
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I love podcasting, I really do. Recording the weekly Lambcast is amongst the highlights of my week, even when the calls drops a dozen times and Skype needs everyone to update at varying points during the show, I still love doing it. So much so that I often think about starting new podcasts. I think it’s a common issue once you’ve caught the podcasting bug, and the trick seems to be keeping that desire contained and constantly reminding oneself that there’s just not enough time in the day. Fortunately I’ve never been one to let my desire to do something have any impact on whether I’ll do it or not. If I could though, oh if I could. I’d podcast for a living if I could make it work. I’m particularly a fan of the Movie Minute podcast format, wherein films are looked at a minute at a time on a daily basis. So far I’ve listened to Star Wars Minute (Episodes 4–6, currently nearly finished The Phantom Menace) and Goodfellas Minute, and I’m 40+ minutes into Back To The Future Minute. Gutterballs looks at The Big Lebowski a minute at a time, always spending well over an known looking at each minute with the various tangents that come along, and they don’t release that on a daily basis (they’ve been going since 2012 and haven’t finished yet) so I’ve not listened to much of that one just yet. Obviously I’d love to start Jurassic Park Minute. I think about this often, daily sometimes. But I just do not have the time. As with Star Wars and Back to the Future, the plan would always be to move onto the sequels, and as much as I dislike Jurassic Park 3 I’d still love to spend months really digging into my problems with it and trying to find positives. And once I’d finished Jurassic World Minute I’d move on to something else. Probably Pixar Minute, starting with Toy Story Minute and continuing right through them all, even Cars 2 Minute.
The other show I’d love to do, and this is one that got closer to happening – we even recorded a jingle – is Jay and Robert Talk Time Travel (JARTTT). The jingle was the title, sung to Troy and Abed in the Morning from Community. This would have been a show recorded every 2 weeks, looking at a different time travel movie each show. My co-host would have been Robert Zerbe from To The Escape Hatch, who was my co-host for a spell over on the Lambcast. He and I both obsess over time travel movies, and there’s a heck-load of them we could talk about, from Primer to Looper through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3. Again, it’ll never happen, at least not whilst I’m hosting the Lambcast and running this blog. Sometimes I think I’d have just about enough time to stay on top of everything if I dropped the blog and the podcast. That might give me a chance of keeping the dog walked and fed, house tidy, DIY in hand, garden in order and possibly even allow me the chance to go for a run now and then and go out once in a while. Instead all of the above, including the podcast and this blog, receives a rotating degree of being ignored every now and then. Such is my life. Anyway, here’s what I’ve watched this week:
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Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) is the head, or Godfather, of his family and crime syndicate in 1940s New York. He receives a request to move into narcotics by up-and-comer Sollozzo (Al Lettieri), but when Vito declines, the Tattaglia family, with whom Sollozzo is in business, attempt to kill Vito and break the Corleone family apart. With Vito in hospital, it is up to his children – headstrong firebrand Sonny (James Caan), simple Fredo (John Cazale), newly married Connie (Talia Shire), war veteran Michael (Al Pacino) and adopted Tom (Robert Duvall) to resolve matters.
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After an upper class dinner, the hosts and guests all adjourn to the parlour for after-dinner drinks and discussions. When the hour becomes late, the guests all decide to stay instead of heading home, sleeping on chairs and the floor instead of to some of the numerous bedrooms. Come the morning, still none of them leave, and they soon begin to wonder if perhaps there is some unseen force keeping them retained within the room.
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Life Vs Film 