herbiehancock

No 233 - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Director - Steven Spielberg Well... Whilst the sight of a Nazi's face melting off may be a dark ending to Raiders of the Lost Ark, it is nothing compared to the outright horror that makes up Temple of Doom.... We are in for some rough times in our PG rating. Some tough times indeed. However, firstly, Spielberg lulls us into a false sense of security by offering what must be the campest introduction in all of his career: So... we're in the fab 30's before war has broken out and before Raiders has taken place... And Indy is getting himself into trouble - and after an awesome little shoot out we are saddled with Indy's new sidekicks for the film.... and this is where Temple of Doom falters. After the excellent double bill of Sallah and Marion, leaving us with Willie and Short Round feels like a punishment. Especially as most of their character seems built around screaming. In fact about 95% of Willie's screen time is scream...

No 2 - Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark Director - Steven Spielberg A hand brushes through the jungle. The brim of a fedora throws a strong jaw into shadow. A leather jacket is seen through the dense foliage. A gun is produced and then WHIP CRACK we see our hero... Much like the introduction of James Bond (something I know a lot about now thanks to BlogalongaBond ) - Spielberg teases the audience before finally unveiling his hero. It is that subtle and masterful presentation (and a fucking cool crack of the whip) that makes a star. And Indy is a star. And... lets be honest... Harrison Ford is the kind of awesome that means you can fully imagine his classrooms filled with dreamy eyed girls going all gooey over him and his brainy tweed and spectacles. - I also like the Superman- esque imagery of it all. How by donning glasses, he can put on a disguise of academia and mask the fact that he is a globe trotting bad ass. And yet a bad ass who is prone to mistakes (which is impo...

No 276 - Layer Cake Director - Matthew Vaughn Layer Cake is the film which bridged Vaughn's 2 careers. Moving away from the go-to producer for London gangster films (though he does still have his hand in them) to become.... Layer Cake might still be in the genre which Vaughn was most familiar with, but - for a first film - it highlights a lot of style and prowess. And yet, you can see that he has learnt from the directors he has been around, and whilst his films are stylish and visually impressive, they lack the gimmicky feel that is present in Guy Ritchie's gangland films. Instead he lets the occasional visual flourish wrap itself around a twisty turny story of deals gone wrong, double crossing, crossed wires and other 'heist gone wrong' cliches. In fact, the only real constant I can think of in Vaughn's films is the casting of Jason Flemyng in tiny tiny roles. Where this film really blossoms, is in the cast. There are some excellent turns in this and there was ...

No 118 - Withnail and I Director - Bruce Robinson Oh dear oh dear oh dear My notes for this film include such gems as: I am very drunk.... this is a good thing for this I think Eggs and things. Thay are food (sic) The next day I awoke to this: We didn't play the Withnail and I drinking game .... Thank God. But we did take to the spirit of the film. So we have a film about a relationship. One that feels true and real. One that is utterly self destructive and one that needs to change. By the end, I think it does a bit. But until that point we get to see the glorious excesses of alcohol. Withnail could drink Bernard Black under the table without breaking a sweat.... It is infamously quotable and it celebrates a very middle class squalor of struggling actors and whacked out drug dealers who return in Wayne's World and who managed to get a friend of mine a job on the tellybox . The film manages to glorify the dangerous excess of Withnail and Marwood (the titular I) without sug...

No 190 - Big Director - Penny Marshall I have been in Canada.... but I got better and I'm back back BACK. On the plane I sat through one of the most harrowing (but excellent) double bill s ever - and then found a list film amongst all the new rom com nonsense. Big.... It is a magical film (complete with Zoltar - the terrifying plaything of SATAN) - and it is a brilliant performance from Hanks who manages to be massively likable and beautifully naive throughout the whole thing. For most of the film you really believe him to be a slightly geeky 13 year old kid - and there is a small moment of toy piano tomfoolery which is not only glorious, but which has become a staple of FAO Schwartz toy shop's daily routine. It is great to watch. The magic in the film does mean you can overlook how easily Josh makes his way up the corporate ladder of business. How he can be come a company executive just by saying he likes toys... At times, he comes of as a bit simple... at other times he co...

No 392 - Paris, Texas Director - Wim Wenders I began my journey with this film as a mildly confused man, I thought I had a basic idea of what the film was about, but that didn't connect to LOVEFiLM's categorisation of this as a documentary. But then I saw that the film starred Dean Stockwell , so I cheered up and settled in. Well, firstly it very much isn't a documentary. Secondly, it doesn't really star Dean Stockwell either. The film really stars Harry Dean Stanton, as Dean Stockwell's brother. A man who has lost his memory and goes on a journey which helps him rediscover his family but also himself. Whilst that mind sound a little unimpressive, please accept that I'm being deliberately vague. This is a beautiful film, and it is through the simple journey which we get to have some real powerful emotion. However, before I speak about that (as it is the end of the film) I want to speak about the film's palette. As the name implies, this film has large se...

No 137 - Dances With Wolves Director - Kevin Costner I thought this was going to be another Avatar film, and to a certain degree it is... man becomes ingrained with the indigenous people and fights against his own kind. However, where it differs is that the fight scenes are so brief, they are merely moments in a story which follows one man's journey. It is not a journey leading to a battle - it is a journey which happens to feature a couple of battles in it. So, the American army isn't painted as all out evil, but they're certainly not painted in a good light. I think they're mostly shown as strange strange hicks. And a lot of them may be certified insane. One of the film's weirdest moments is one Costner's John Dumbar (before he has his new native moniker) is sent to his post by Major Fambrough .... Something seems to be wrong with Fambrough .... he represents the sheer loneliness of the Frontier - he represents what could have happened to Dunbar (and what pro...

No 406 - The Jungle Book Director - Wolfgang Reitherman I think I need to work through my Disney back catalogue, I'm rubbish with the early ones.... did they ALL start with books? Luckily... I can easily check this what with it being 2011 . Anyway, welcome to the jungle, we've got fun and games and (so it seems) shit loads of Jazz. This is one jazzy jungle. The story is the classic Rudyard Kipling tale - of a boy raised in the jungle by wolves. He manages to make a dashing pair of red pants somehow and goes off on adventures. But then a bad tiger wants to kill him and really he should go home to his race.... Many misadventures ensue with hilarious consequences. The film's triumph is in creating some fantastically bizarre and entertaining characters. Colonel Hathi 's Elephant parade is just weird (I think Disney liked weird elephants) and creates a great slapstick interlude as well as showcasing the pomposity of the British Empire and folks what were in In- Jah in tho...

No 336 - Titanic Director - James Cameron This is the only time I ever went to the cinema, where the film had an interval... I hadn't seen it since I saw it at the cinema, and much to my surprise, it was far better than I had ever given it credit for. I think the problem was the HYPE around the film.... and the general girlyness . To an 11 or 12 year old boy, it didn't hold much appeal. But....second time round, it deserves a bit more praise. However..... When I talk about James Cameron, I feel like in recent years (or, his last 2 motion pictures, over a decade apart) he has become more about scale and spectacle than the actual story. I mean, Avatar really doesn't deserve the heaps of praise which has been piled onto it . Yes, it is beautiful.... yes, the CGI is incredible and yes Pandora is a brilliantly well designed world which felt real, living and breathing and marvellous.... but the story is basically just Ferngully . Cameron's interests (and indeed his triumph) ...

No 319 - The Lion King Directors - Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff Man! I LOVE The Lion King! I was even willing to sit through the longest most OTT DVD menu with an annoying CGI Zazu to watch the film. So long that I can't find a YouTube video of the menu in its entirety.... but you can have a bit of the pre -film ordeal I sat through. That's dedication. So, the special edition DVD has been spruced up a little bit so we get a much sharper, crisper looking film, and that is OK with me, it just makes it a joy to watch. From the opening African chanting to the final Circle of Life.... this film makes me happy. So lets talk about the highlights, and of course the guilty admission that I do really like some Elton John songs - specially when blended in with the African tribal singing . Firstly this film has a star studded cast... and somehow, I had never realised that Matthew Broderick plays Simba ! Gosh. But look at all these others: What's great about this cast is that the...

No 78 - Rosemary's Baby Director - Roman Polanski After Psycho, lets continue the theme of weird psychological horror linked to motherhood... And a film which is principally there to create a sense of unease (and it does this very well). From the opening credits and the haunting hummed lullaby, it becomes clear that something isn't quite right. The film follows Rosemary and her husband as they move into a new apartment and Rosemary's husband Guy befriends the elderly tenants whilst Rosemary falls pregnant. The film is littered with unusual events. Nothing obviously supernatural, just little moments which don't feel right. From a jittery paranoid Guy to an oddly clingy and nosy bunch of elderly neighbours... there is also a suicide and the mystery of Tannis root . The odd moments happen in the background... as does every other character. This is Rosemary's film and all we do is follow her for the entirety of the film. Luckily... Mia Farrow is astounding in this f...

No 45 - Psycho Director - Alfred Hitchcock Psycho is one of those films that has already been analysed and discussed to an incredible degree. I don't feel like I'll really be able add anything that hasn't already been explained a hundred times before. So all I'm going to do is discuss the little magical moments which help make this such a brilliant film. The film follows Janet Leigh's Marion Crane as she steals some money from her work and proceeds to act very suspiciously. This means that (naturally) she attracts a lot of attention from the police and other types as she flees - initially you think this may be a bad thing, the fool is hardly subtle, but actually it turns out to be a good thing because it means there are a lot of people who remember her after the tragedy of meeting Norman Bates and his mother. The shower scene is probably the most famous part of Psycho, and arguably the most famous sequence of Hitchcock's entire career. Whilst people may not hav...

No 284 - Scarface Director - Brian de Palma Well.... before I begin discussing this film, we have to comment on the fact that Brian de Palma made the most brilliantly bad film in existence . And for that very reason we must be eternally grateful. So now we move into surprisingly political territories, but I don't think it really is that much grittier. Or... if it is.... it is offset by the sheer 80's ridiculousness of it all - you can see how it inspired Vice City - all the bad suits and wide collar shirts and mindless excessive violence. It is the excess which is then mocked in films like American Psycho . What a cracking decade it was back then... This film is probably the best I've seen Pacino, his Tony Montana is a terrifying creation - he is a slurring power crazed madman. His quest for power and money - his belief that only this could ever make him happy - is terrible to watch but nowhere near as scary as the paranoia which seeps in once he HAS the power. Montana s...

No 203 - Life of Brian Director - Terry Jones Three wise men follow a star to a stable in Bethlehem where they find a small boy wrapped in swaddling clothes and offer him gifts of Gold and Frankincense and Myrrh. You just can't get any more Christmassy than that, can you? And so begins Life of Brian - a film about a young man who has spent many moments of his life being mistaken for Jesus. A film which is not blasphemous really. It isn't an attack on anyone's individual faith or an attack on anyone's individual beliefs, it is just a pretty acerbic (and surprisingly clever) look at organised religion as a whole. I don't think it deserves half the 'outrage' it received. Once you get over the religious undertones (if that is the thing which may rankle you) - you have Monty Python's most intelligent and well structured film. Both Holy Grail and - to a far more obvious extent - the Meaning of Life, are essentially sketch films, with a basic theme linking ...

No 481 – Topsy Turvy Director – Mike Leigh Well... I do love a good Victorian romp, and the world of Gilbert and Sullivan is surely (by its very nature) as rompy as you can get. Indeed, it took me roughly 45 seconds to fall in love with Allan Corduner's Sir Arthur Sullivan. Consumption riddled and dying but full of life and joy. He encaptures that almost mythical side to the period. The idealised view which is pushed to the 9 th degree by things like Moulin Rouge! I also liked the great prescriptions he gets for his consumption.... Get yourself some Brandy Mr Sullivan. Get yourself to the South of France Mr Sullivan. Bloody marvellous. Far better than mere penicillin. I don't know how correct the film is but I hope it is true – Sullivan's reckless fun loving attitude marks him out as almost a rock star. Especially when you compare him with the incredibly stiff and well... Victorian... Gilbert (he is very much about what is proper and what is right and decent). The...

No 455 – Top Gun Director – Tony Scott Can we just crack out some Kenny Loggins first.... Kenny Loggins – Playing With The Boys excellent.... Well... Really..... I can't take the piss out of the homoeroticism , all the obvious targets have been addressed so many times before. All I can say is that I really can't tell the difference between this film and Hot Shots! any more.... This is a ridiculous nonsense of a film. It is a film in which one requires nothing more than to sit back and watch the silliness and the pretty planes. The planes are really pretty and there is some incredible choreography up in them there sky. I don't mean to sound too dismissive – I love a big dumb action film as much as the next person. But there aren't any real character arcs amongst the flashy Jet porn and Tim Robbins in the background. This is a film that really only made it in as the top 500's guilty pleasure – and that doesn't seem right. Still its better than Superman ...

No 41 - Les 400 Coups (The 400 Blows) Director – François Truffaut So, I've been moving house and I've been playing Xbox games. My blog hasn't exactly been well kept. Like the Secret Garden it is full of aged and overgrown relics. It has seemingly ceased to grow. But fear not, here comes Dickon and he has used a knife to strip back the dead wood and show there is still life in the old blog. So soon we will be joined by a spoiled disabled boy and Wendy from Finding Neverland and the blog will flourish anew. Right.... that's one massively overstretched metaphor out the way – lets blog this classic piece of French cinema. Without my notes. So expect a sketchy and vague review of a film which follows a young boy's descent into full blown young offender shenanigans. The film works as series of snapshots, looking at how Antoine ( Jean-Pierre L é aud ) gets pulled further and further into petty crime. Made in 1959 it coincides with the birth of the teenager and th...

No 351 – Zulu Director – Cy Endfield Holy Fucking Moly : When watching a film which stars Michael Caine , there is one credit you don't expect to see: I thought Michael Caine had been in films since the dawn of celluloid. I wasn ’t expecting an ‘And Introducing’ credit. Bonkers. But…. Actually, that credit isn ’t the most bonkers Michael Caine element. The other point is that his character is quite effeminate and well spoken. Only the faintest trace of “ MY NAME IS MICHAEL CAINE ” here, for most of it he says things like “oh well done dear man” and other decidedly un -tough phrases. This is going to take some getting used to. The other thing that concerned me is after the big bombastic opening, which felt like a Western (thanks to John Barry's marvellous score), that the film would end up feeling quite a bit racist. For the majority of the film, my fears seem to be justified. The Zulu army have no real characterisation. they are neither portrayed as goodi...