THE RIP

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WHERE EAGLES DARE

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Rather embarrassingly I sometimes confuse this film with ‘The Eagle Has Landed’. Admittedly they are both classic WW2 adventures with similar titles - but even so. This film is described by Wikipedia as an ‘’action adventure war thriller spy film" which hints at why it is so beloved - over its 155 minutes it manages to span three or four popular genres. Which is not to say it needs all that runtime - it would be easy to cut 20 minutes or so.  For example, the sequences after  the moment when the chief goal of the mission has been accomplished could surely be trimmed. It is a measure of Richard Burton’s star power in the mid-1960s that all he needed to do was express a wish to be the lead in an action film (for Elizabeth Taylor’s children to enjoy) and hey presto a film studio makes it happen. I had assumed that this film was an adaptation of an existing Alistair Maclean novel but in fact he wrote the screenplay to order, in just six weeks (he then converted it to a novel). Giv...
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UNION PACIFIC

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To call this a Western would be to give scant justice to its epic scale, but then what else would you expect from a film directed by Cecil B. DeMille?  It has a running time of 135 minutes, extras fill the screen at every opportunity (even in the saloon scenes) and there are two spectacular trainwrecks along with all the other drama.  Considering it is ostensibly a celebration of the completion of a railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean it is a surprisingly entertaining film.   It is established early on in the story that a tycoon who pretends to be backing the Union Pacific Railroad secretly wants to sabotage the building of the track in order to make a huge financial killing (the details of which can safely be ignored).  To this end he employs shady gambler and saloon owner, Sid Campeau (Brian Donleavy), to use gambling, booze and women to cause trouble among the labourers. In response to the success of Campeau's efforts, the railroad company recruit...
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WICKED

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As someone who is suspicious of any film musical since 1979's ‘All That Jazz’ (a kind of high water mark), and as one who doesn’t feel that every villain needs a backstory, I approached this film with some trepidation, especially since I felt that  turning a stage musical into two lengthy films seemed self indulgent. Despite all of these concerns however, I enjoyed the ride.  It didn’t drag, it has some decent songs (and one very good one), and it wasn't as CGI-heavy as it might have been. It also sprung a few surprises. For example, it's very woke.  Not content with a main character, Elphaba, who is discriminated against solely because of the colour of her skin, the story gives her a sister in a wheelchair, as well as (another surprise) talking animals who are being persecuted. Their oppressor is of course the Wizard of Oz himself, but trying to explain to any young children watching this film why he is being so beastly to the cuddly animals might be challenging. ...
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