De Niro and De Palma: The Early Films (2018)

De Niro and De Palma: The Early Films (2018)

Dir. Brian De Palma (obviously).

When I plan to cover a sizable portion of a director's filmography, like I do with Brian De Palma, I prefer to start with the earliest one that I own and move forward chronologically. The pictured box set contains three such works. Each one also stars actor Robert De Niro.

01. Greetings (1968) is a satirical 'comedy' about three men trying to avoid getting drafted into the Vietnam War and is De Niro's first screen credit on a full-length feature film.

As a fan of the director's more dramatic works, from Sisters (1972) onwards, it was interesting to experience his developing working method and spot references to things that would evolve into career defining traits, but the film itself was a struggle for me to sit through.

Chocky (1968)

Chocky (1968)

Author: John Wyndham | Page Count: 164

"An open mind is a difficult thing to keep."

My first experience of John Wyndham's fiction was the 1984 children's TV drama adaptation of his Chocky novel. Now, a great many years after that memorable encounter, I enjoyed it again in its original medium.

It's the story of an adopted eleven-year-old boy named Matthew Gore. Like many youths his age, Matthew has an active imagination. When his father overhears the boy holding what seems to him to be one side of a two-way conversation, he suspects it's that aspect in play. The truth, however, turns out to be much stranger.

The father, David, is the narrator of events. We learn about Matthew both through his personal observations and those of his wife, Mary, when the two compare their feelings and fears about the boy's changing behaviour.

Godzilla: Shōwa Era Films (1954-74)

01. Godzilla (1954) 

Dir. Ishirō Honda

NOTE: for simplicity's sake I've used English language titles for each of my Godzilla reviews, but it's always the original Japanese language versions of the films that I refer to.

The monstrous growl that's heard over the film's opening credits foreshadows what's to come, which can be summed up as the Japanese people facing a monstrous terror that the rest of the world has never seen. It begins at sea and then moves inland.

The creature responsible for the inhuman roar — the monarch of kaijū eiga — is a force to be reckoned with, for sure, and is more than just an excuse to have a guy in a rubber suit trash tiny models. You don't need to be a history scholar to pick out the many wartime parallels: nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific, irradiated wells, air raid sirens, and footfalls that sound like distant bombs impacting and exploding are all highlighted.

The HAMMER Collection: Part 2 of 3 (1966-68)

The HAMMER Collection:
DVD Box Set - Part 2 of 3 (1966-68)

A twenty-one disc DVD box set containing some of the best and worst films that the legendary HAMMER studio made before it succumbed to financial trouble and was forced to put away the costumes and close its doors.

I'm splitting the collection into three parts with seven films apiece and in chronological order.

That's not the order they're arranged in the box, but it makes sense to me, more so than the unusual order they're presented in the actual collection, and means that the post for each of the three parts will be roughly equal in size.

Thoughts on the second lot of seven films can be found below the cut. Part 1 of the collection can be found HERE, while Part 3 is HERE.

The Prisoner (1967–68)

The Prisoner (1967–68)

17 episodes, approx 50 mins each.

In the opening credits of The Prisoner we witness a man driving to what we will soon presume to be his place of work. It's a building somewhere in London. The man enters through the OUT door, storms purposefully into an office and slams on a desk an envelope upon which hand-written text can be seen. He then leaves the building via the same route, drives home and hurriedly packs a suitcase.

Sometime thereafter the unnamed man reawakens in a furnished house in a populated village and the series begins proper.

The credits are the viewer's back-story, and everything that follows is the man's here and now. We come to know him as Number 6.

If asked to compile a list of perfect castings in TV history, alongside the likes of Mr. T as B.A. Baracus (The A-Team), Brent Spiner as Data (Star Trek TNG), Andreas Katsulas as G'Kar (Babylon 5), and Ian McShane as Al Swearengen (Deadwood) my list would definitely have Patrick McGoohan as The Prisoner's Number 6.

The Tyrant King (1968)

The Tyrant King (1968)

Dir. Mike Hodges / 6 episodes, approx 24 mins each.

Adapted from a 1967 children's adventure book (The Tyrant King - A London Adventure by Aylmer Hall, a pen name of Norah Eleanor Lyle Cummins), the story follows three bored British teenagers, siblings Charlotte and Bill and their friend Peter, who overhear a shady man's phone conversation while exploring a stranger's house (aka trespassing).

Overcome with curiosity, and partial good intentions, the trio make it their business to solve the cryptic coded words of the mysterious stranger.

The tagline promises 'A Prog Rock Odyssey Through Swinging London', which is glamorous speak for what's essentially a visual tour of the city incorporated into a Children's TV show.

Planet of the Apes: The Original Films (1968-73)

01. Planet of the Apes (1968)

Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner

The original Apes movie that started the hairy ball rolling is the best of the lot.

Charlton Heston is our guide. He's Taylor, the everyman; albeit an everyman who can pilot a spaceship, has a cynical disposition, a will of iron and some well-groomed chest hair.

He and three other crew members are testing a scientific theory about time dilation aboard a US space shuttle. But something goes wrong, and they crash-land on the titular planet.

The story, based on Pierre Boulle's novel La Planète des Singes (1963), isn't just sharp social commentary (including powerful observations on such topics as the crippling consequences of having a government that places science and religion in the same bed, and the murky moral waters that too much pride can place a people in), it's also cold, hard science fiction that holds a mirror up to modern life, showing self-evident truths that, despite having been made in the late 60s, are still a part of how we live today.

Gamera: Shōwa Era Films: Part One (1965-68)

Gamera (1965)

Dir. Noriaki Yuasa

All eight of the original Shōwa era Gamera films are available on Blu-ray for a very affordable price thanks to Mill Creek Entertainment. They're split over two volumes, of which this is the first, with each release containing four remastered Japanese originals on one Blu-ray disc. Four films on one disc would ordinarily make me cringe, but the truth is they look just fine. What's equally important is that, even though it states on the reverse that they're Region A, they are in fact Region FREE.

Created to cash in on the success of Toho's Gojira (Godzilla) franchise, the first Gamera movie contains within it enough unique elements to differentiate it from Godzilla.

True Grit (1968)

True Grit (1968)

Author: Charles Portis  | Page Count: 227

“You go for a man hard enough and fast enough and he don’t have time to think about how many is with him, he thinks about himself and how he may get clear out of the wrath that is about to set down on him.”

Though it won't matter very much to anyone reading this, I've been a fan of the Western film genre for almost thirty years (thanks, mom ♥ ) but until picking up True Grit for the first time last week I'd never actually read a Western novel, unless you count Stephen King's Dark Tower series, but the magical realism aspects of it complicate any kind of straight-up classification.

The reason I mention that is to point out that an enjoyment of one isn't dependent on a love of the other. The book and its characters are so well-written that they'd stand head and shoulders above thousands of similar types regardless of year or setting.

HAMMER: Dracula Films (1958-74)

Dracula (1958)

aka Horror of Dracula (in the US)

Dir. Terence Fisher

It took huge liberties with Bram Stoker's original story, but otherwise Hammer's first flirtation with the Dracula figure is the best vampire film they ever made.

The elaborate sets are beautifully lit. The creeping strings and timely crashing cymbals of James Bernard's score lift everything from routinely dramatic to legendary heights.

What gets the most attention, deservedly so, is the addition of Christopher Lee in the lead role and Peter Cushing as his nemesis, the pursuant Dr. Abraham Van Helsing. Pitting those two against each other is like having mountains collide amid a thunderstorm.

The ending is the most memorable of any vampire film I've ever seen.