Thomas came and went

Film review: Porridge (1979)

Having just re-watched the series, a completist demands that we see the spinoff movie (so common for 70's British sitcoms) which I must have seen some time in the past, as I definitely recognized several scenes, and not just from reading the novelization (for some unknown reason) at some point in the indefinite past.  In general, it retains the charm of the series, and essentially all of the same cast - 'Orrible Ives, the illiterate "Bunny" Warren, Black Jock, et. al. (although I think the Prison Governor was new) with the addition of a new screw, there to be a toady for Mackay (the strict and pompous Scottish foil for Ronnie Barker's Fletch) and as a result, a punching bag for the lags.  I was surprised when re-watching the series to see how infrequently the sinister "Genial" Harry Grout 

(Peter Vaughn - I stood next to him in a pub in Santa Monica once, probably watching the cup final at some early hour of the morning), the real governor of Slade Prison, appears, given how large he loomed in my memory, but he plays a major role in the film.  A surprising percentage of these surprisingly large number of film versions of British sitcoms revolve around the cast going on holiday.  You'd think that's not really an option for a Prison film, unless...  And in fact the crux of this film is Fletch and Godber (played, of course, by Richard Beckinsale, who died suddenly of a heart attack between the completion of the film and its release, casting something of a pall over a light comedy) being dragged along on a prison break against their will (it's complicated) and having somehow to break back in to Slade Prison so that their sentences are not extended.  The film takes its sweet time getting there, though, which is fine, because you settle into the rhythms of Slade Prison like a warm bath.  Sideplots (besides a familiar one of Fletch being asked to read Bunny a letter from his missus and making up stuff about budgies with hemorrhoids and his wife having an affair) include a new young inmate being tutored by Fletch (including some lectures about how unsafe the bathrooms are that might not have made it to the TV version) and McKay trying to convert the fellow screws to the "joys" of his bleak new officer's club.  But eventually we find out that another new inmate, Oakes, wants out so that he can enjoy the fruits of his armed robbery and asks Grout to arrange it.  Grout then gets Fletch to suggest to the new screw the idea of a celebrity football team coming to play a Slade Prison eleven, and Fletch being put in charge of said team.  (Side plot of Godber sucking up to Fletch to get in the team, then becoming convinced it's not working and getting resentful of how Fletch has been exploiting him.)  Oakes is terrible, but has to be included in the team because of course, this is the escape plan.  Then, when the team arrives, thoroughly devoid of celebrities (not even the promised Michael Parkinson, David "Diddy" Hamilton, or even one of the Goodies) Oakes makes sure to get "injured" so he can be taken to the locker rooms where the bus driver (that 'Allo 'Allo! bloke) meets him and gives him his clothes and gets tied up in one of the stalls.  All is going to plan until Godber bangs his head on the goal post and has to be taken to the lockers, whereupon Fletch and Godber catch Oakes in the act, and despite Fletch's protestations (Godber is concussed and confused anyway) that they won't say anything, Oakes insists on taking them along.  Godber and Fletch are put in the luggage bay and the disguised Oakes drives the tour bus out of the gates.  (Why it would make sense for their bus to leave when the celebrity team are in the middle of a match is not clear, but never mind.)  He meets up with accomplices in a camper van in a nearby wood and Oakes is happy to celebrate with our heroes and tell them about his plan to head north to Dumfries, which the authorities will not suspect, before heading for the sunny Costa Del Crime.  However, Fletch laments that both he and Godber have less than a year on their sentences and no pile of money waiting to pay for things like plastic surgery, and eventually Fletch persuades Oakes to drop them off, in the middle of the chilly northern countryside.  Their adventures outside don't amount to much (stealing a bike from a vicar and apples from a barn, having to get past a farmer disguised as a boxer and his trainer - which doesn't fool the farmer one bit) and eventually they find the copse (swarming with cops) with the bus in it and sneak back in the luggage bay.  The apples provide the final payoff of the film when Mackay has made it clear that he doesn't believe that they were trapped by Oakes in the storeroom of his officer's club (forced to drink whisky to stay warm) and relates the strange reports he's heard in the village of stolen bike and apples.  Still, he admits he can't prove anything, and as he turns to leave their cell, Fletch and Godber each fishes out an apple and takes a big juicy bite.  Very satisfying, and in general, a fine coda to one of the classic British sitcoms of all time.

That's more like it

Second batch of wood

Film review: They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

 

This is a straight-to-Netflix film that doesn't feel like it.  It has very impressive production values - it builds a satisfying urban world that is simultaneously gritty but also unreal, in that it adopts the indeterminate time-setting that has become almost standard these days (see everything from It Follows to Severance) where modern technology mixes with cathode ray tubes and 70's/80's vehicles and clothing - and three excellent central performances, from John Attack the Block/Star Wars Boyega (doing an impeccable American accent and providing the pathos), Jamie Foxx (his pimp could easily have been purely a cartoon character, but he manages to deliver archly artificial and very wordy lines naturalistically and also convey gravitas when called for), and (the new to me) Teyonah Parris (as the aspirational, Nancy Drew-loving prostitute who emerges as the real hero).  

The basic plot is a sort of Get Out/Westworld/The Truman Show/Robocop hybrid, where it turns out [SPOILER] an entire ghetto neighborhood (called "The Glen") is actually an experiment in social control, with key figures actually clones, and black "institutions" like church, an insanely popular fried chicken franchise (the ads for which recall the "I'd buy THAT for a dollar" commercials in Robocop), a grape beverage ("drank") and a hair-straightening cream the mechanisms for mind manipulation.  

The presence of white people with afros dotted around the Glen is a clue, and elevators down to a massive underground complex reveal the true scope of the conspiracy.  Half outrageous satire (some of the dialog, especially from Foxx's Slick Charles and Parris's Yo-Yo is truly exceptional) and half serious commentary, this film sprays its fire in all directions, with Boyega's Fontaine forced to assess his own role in his community's subjugation.  I would say it's John Carpenter-esque except that it's considerably less cheesy than his movies (The Thing being the notable exception).  While it flags at various points in its runtime, and one key scene (involving an effective Kiefer Sutherland as a predictably loathsome but also scary white villain) strains credulity to the limit, it deserves mention up there with anything by Jordan Poole.  A truly excellent little hybrid film.  Put it alongside Barbarian - not quite as stellar, but with more things to say (not all of them coherent, but all of them entertaining), and just as bold a mashup of genres.  All the more amazing, then, that it was written by the writer of the recent Space Jam remake...

Oh, and you have to wait for the closing credits for Tyrone to make his appearance...

Last thought: why "Olympia Black"?  Here's one theory.

Feels more like April than December

Getting progressively balmier this week, until today it was in the 60s and Frederick wore shorts on our walk!

Film review: A Perfect Getaway (2009)

 

This is a perfect little B-movie (as you might infer from the generic title and poster), one that I'm shocked was even being made in 2009, and now would be a straight-to-Netflix production, if it wasn't an hour-long episode of a TV show.  But instead we get a surprisingly recognizable cast (Timothy Olyphant, Steve Zahn, Milla Jovovich, a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth) and it got a cinema release, although I don't remember hearing about it.  One shouldn't give away too much, but the essentials are: Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich are newlyweds Cliff and Cydney 

(we know this because we see their wedding from their point of view at the beginning of the movie) who are embarking on a dream honeymoon in a part of Hawaii that you have to helicopter into and hike 11 miles to a secluded beach.  While driving from the town to the start of the trail, our couple stop to pick up a slightly skeezy looking pair (Hemsworth's Kale 

and girlfriend Cleo), try to back out of it, get talked back into it by the girl, who shows them their wedding photos, only for Kale to sulkily insist on turning them down because he was insulted by their initial refusal.  It seems then that they have made enemies, and when later they hear news on the trail about a couple who butchered another pair of newlyweds on another island and are supposed to have hopped islands to where they are, they start to worry.  They are also passed by Timothy Olyphant's Nick, who's favorite exclamation is "outstanding!" and who likes to tell tales of his exploits as an "American Jedi" in the Persian Gulf, which earned him a titanium plate in his head that also allows him to sneak his favorite ankle-sheathed hunting knife through customs.  

He takes a shine to Cliff who is a screenwriter and keeps suggesting titles for the film of his (Nick's) life.  He also introduces them to his girl, Gina, who is clearly devoted to him, referring to him as "a man in full" (especially when he brings back a bow-killed goat for her to butcher (which she cheerfully does, noting that she worked in the meat department of a Piggly Wiggly once)) and also that he's very hard to kill (foreshadowing much?)  Olyphant is great at being casually sinister and Nick has soon overtaken Kale as prime suspect in Cliff and Cydney's eyes... at least until they are woken up early one morning by police in a helicopter come to arrest Kale and Cleo, who are camped nearby, and who find a tin of "mints" in Kale's pack that turns out to be human teeth.  Case closed, right?  Well, they certainly get to the beach with no more trouble and cavort on the beach with fellow holidayers.  And then a kayaking trip to nearby caves is suggested...

A great film for afternoon viewing on a day when you've got nothing to do.  You won't be bored.  I do feel like they copped out a bit with the ending - the villains could've got away with it...  A rewatch would probably reward one with a lot of signposts to the ending.  Thinking back, Kale was right about one thing in particular...

Snowvember