Performance Date: 27th May 2015
Location: Shaftesbury Theatre, London
Cast: Rachel John as Felicia Farrell, Jon Robyns as Huey Calhoun
After a poor choice of show last time my wife and I visited the West End (see my review of the stale Thriller), we were desperate to get it right this time. Visiting the West End is not a cheap experience, no matter where your seats are, and we wanted a feel-good show that would lift our spirits for the rest of the day. Memphis was the perfect choice and delivered on every promise the hype gave us.
The musical, set in 1955 Memphis, was written Joe DiPietro (book) and David Bryan (score). Huey Calhoun, a young white man from a poor family, is trying to make headway in the Memphis Beale Street clubs. He quickly becomes entranced by a young black singer named Felicia and they start a relationship, despite the protests from his mother and her brother. As his career leads him into being a DJ on a mainstream Memphis radio station, he becomes a champion of black R&B music and helps break it into the subconscious of the white masses. All is going well until their romance is halted by the devestating racial segregation rules of the state of Tennessee.
The plot itself feels slightly reminiscent of Hairspray, albeit from a more mature viewpoint. It elevates it above being a simple romantic tale by adding an element of period-based controversy in a way that just couldn’t be dealt with at the time. It’s a powerful piece of theatre and it was delivered perfectly by everyone involved.
In a way, this is all merely a platform for a huge amount of extremely powerful songs that blew me away throughout. The performance I saw was a Wednesday afternoon, meaning we didn’t see Beverley Knight. Instead, I was treated to the understudy Rachel John, who is destined to grow in popularity if the performance I saw and standing ovation are anything to go be. She has an amazing voice and, to be honest, I feel lucky to have seen her as she’s a perfect fit for the part. The usual male lead Killian Donnelly was also not present (he is soon to be replaced by Matt Cardle anyway), so we were able to catch Jon Robyns as the lead instead. Jon is, in my opinion, one of the West End’s most talented performers and he’s a perfect fit for this role. It’s a shame he’s slightly underused as an understudy but if you can work out when he’s on and get to see him you’ll understand why I’m singing his praises so much.
If you are yet to see Memphis, I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s a tough battle in the West End to get the tickets sold, but this should be on your “to watch” list if it isn’t already.
The second in the Mutual Comedies series (the first, The Floorwalker, I have previously reviewed), The Fireman is another great example of master craftsmanship from Chaplin. It involves an insurance fraud setup whereby a man (Lloyd Bacon) colludes with a local fire chief (Eric Campbell) to collect on the insurance money. However, things don’t quite go to plan when a real fire breaks out on the other side of town and the whole plot falls over to humorous results. Chaplin plays a fire engine driver who fails at everything he is involved with and this character is the source of most of the humour, especially in his interactions with the fire chief, played by the brilliant Campbell.
It’s not quite Chaplin at his best, nor is it really quite as effective as The Floorwalker, but it has its charm and is worth watching if only for the few big laughs dotted throughout. There are much worse ways to spend 28 minutes of your day.
I preferred the original Fotoplayer music and sound effects as performed by Robert Israel on this one, but both audio tracks compliment the original visuals perfectly well. It comes down to personal preference and I’m more of a traditionalist.
Charlie Chaplin – The Mutual Comedies is out now on BFI Blu-ray and DVD.
On 25th February 1916, Charlie Chaplin signed a $670,000 deal with the Mutual Film Corporation to produce a film a month over a one-year period. This made him the highest-paid entertainer in the world. The deal came as a surprise to the film industry; many had expected him to sign with a larger studio and Mutual hadn’t really been considered as an option. However, the money (according to Dollar Times online calculator it was equivalent to $15.2m in 2015) and the creative freedom swayed him and production began in earnest.
The first of these films, all of which were short comedies, was The Floorwalker, released on 15th May 1916. The basic story involves a department store floorwalker (Lloyd Bacon) who is involved with embezzlement of money with the store manager (Eric Campbell). When they receive a letter informing them that detectives are on the way to investigate the finances, they decide to run. However, when the floorwalker spots a near-perfect lookalike in a tramp (Chaplin), he decides to offer to switch personas with him, without realising that the tramp himself is in trouble with the police for property damage in the shop.
The film has a couple of classic Chaplin comedy moments. The first (which is reused throughout to great hilarity) involves the tramp’s inability to go up or down an escalator. It is just pure comedy gold and though it has been imitated many times over, never has it been done so effectively. Another set piece that has had its imitators over the years is the first meeting of the trap and the floorwalker, in which they become intrigued by one-another and begin to mirror the other’s movement. It requires perfect comic timing and is brilliantly executed. It is perhaps more fondly remembered in The Marx Brothers’ comedy Duck Soup, though the gag in that film involved a mirror so isn’t strictly a copy.
All twelve films from the Mutual Film Corporation period are collected in an excellent Blu-ray (and DVD) released by BFI this month. The presentation of each includes two scores (all have one score by Carl Davis and an alternative score by a range of composers), an audio commentary and a brief discussion in the extensive booklet. The restorations are evidently full of care and attention to detail, which I’ve come to expect of BFI releases but will never stop appreciating.
Go out and buy a copy now and support the important restoration projects for classic cinema. You won’t be disappointed with this release.
Charlie Chaplin – The Mutual Comedies is out now on BFI Blu-ray and DVD.
Earlier today, my wife and I found ourselves walking on the red carpet, alongside Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Jude Law, Miranda Hart and Peter Serafinowicz, for the UK premiere of new film Spy. It was at the ODEON on Leicester Square. Here’s a photo of me on the red carpet.
I’ve been on the red carpet a couple of times before and it’s always a lovely experience. Of course, nobody cares who we are, though that doesn’t mean we didn’t ham it up a little. [1]
There’s been quite bit of interest for the film over the last few weeks and the anticipation was well justified. We laughed so much our faces hurt.
McCarthy and Law are hilarious throughout.
Spy is an action comedy about office-based CIA data analyst Susan Cooper (McCarthy), who is forced to go out onto the field when her partner Bradley Fine (Law) disappears and the identities of other top field agents – including Rick Ford (Statham) – are compromised. Going undercover to attempt to infiltrate arms dealer Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne) with the help of her office friend (Hart), the story is the perfect platform for some caper-based hilarity.
I was a little apprehensive going into it as the premise is quite familiar and hasn’t been done well for a long time. I was immediately pleasantly surprised, with an opening scene that sets the story up well, falsely draws us in to a serious film, then slaps us in the face with a huge laugh.
Jason Statham has never been so likeable. His character can best be described as Jay from the Inbetweeners if he somehow became a CIA agent. You can see he’s flexing his comedy muscles and really trying hard to make his co-stars laugh whilst holding back himself. His character is a highlight.
The real star, of course, is Melissa McCarthy. Her comic timing is impeccable and it’s easy to see this film becoming a critical and commercial success with her out front. She has had several opportunities to show us what she’s got, but she has fallen slightly short on several occasions (see Identity Thief). This is a comic actor at the top of her game.
The rest of the cast are excellent, especially Serafinowicz, and you can see they’re enjoying such a fun script. I can’t recommend it enough. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the start of a franchise.
[1] About a month ago I speculatively tweeted a review of Furious 7 as an entry to a competition run by Stella Artois and Film4. Actually, it was a review of the trailer. I’ve not seen the film, nor have i seen the trailer. Indeed, of all the films in the series I’ve only seen Tokyo Drift. I didn’t think much of it. Anyway, that’s why I’m here. I’ve included the review here, in case you’re interested.
The Video Game E.T. the Extra Terrestrial is an infamous piece of video gaming history. Everyone knows how it went: in 1983 Howard Scott Warshaw (Yars’ Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Ark) was given five weeks to produce a game for the Atari 2600 system alongside the release of the film and in time for the Christmas market. An over-confident board pushed to produce a market-saturating amount of cartridges based on the game being a best-seller, but when the reviews came in and everyone discovered that the game was terrible, the sales dried up. Atari started getting large amounts of returns of the cartridge and realised they were haemorrhaging money, so (the legend has it) they decided to dump some 700,000 cartridges in a landfill in New Mexico.
This film covers the history of the gaming industry, specifically Atari, the background to the game’s release and Howard Scott Warshaw’s part in the game. The main point of interest, though, was built around the highly anticipated excavation of the landfill to uncover the truth behind the cover-up and see if the burial really happened. I won’t ruin the result of the excavation, though it was a huge news story when it happened.
A happy treasure hunter. I guess he could now “go home”.
The film was of huge interest to me and the subject matter was something I was happy to dedicate an hour of my life to. The director, as the film clearly lays out, is of great stock, having recently help screenwrite several huge Marvel films (including The Avengers). However, in comparison to Blackfish (which I watched in the same sitting), the storytelling failed to get me hooked. It has a short running time so there was no padding, but it just lacked the emotional power that is so evident in the great documentaries or modern cinema. There was nothing terrible about it – there was some good analysis of Atari in their booming year, a great side-story with Ernest Cline (author of the excellent Ready Player One) and a very brief cameo from George R.R. Martin. I just didn’t make the connection I hoped I would.
I perhaps wonder whether the short running time wasn’t enough. there was easily a further ten minutes on each of the two main topics: the history of Atari as a company being the first and the excavation of the landfill site being the second. I left wanting to find out more and though the information is available on the internet I don’t think there was a better platform than this to tell the whole story.
For a more engaging and humorous take on the excavation, check out Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, which pays no attention to the facts and spends its time trying to keep us entertained instead. Atari: Game Over counts as a near miss for me.
David Bowie has made a career out of reinventing himself. In his early days, it felt like he was creating personas simply to discard them at the peak of their popularity: The Thin White Duke, Aladdin Sane, Ziggy Stardust and, most famously, Cobbler Bob. He didn’t simply create the characters – he lived them. The belief he had in these characters seeped into the psyche of the general public in a way no other popular artist has achieved since.
Whilst these great creations don the designs of shirts the world over (or maybe just in Camden and Topshop), and at least one has become ironically infamous, many of Bowie’s ventures and guest appearances have fallen by the wayside, perhaps a little too weird for the average Bowie fan to comprehend.
Here’s a countdown of the weirdest and most wonderful Bowie moments over the years.
1. David Bowie and Tina Turner star in a Pepsi advert together
Whilst Tina Turner’s popularity arguably hasn’t followed the same trajectory as David Bowie, in 1987 she was a big crowd-puller and on a par with Bowie. Pairing the two together after the ill-fated Michael Jackson commercials was a match made in heaven. Unfortunately David Bowie was accused of sexual assault during his Glass Spider Tour and although all charges were later dropped, so was the advert seen above as Pepsi panicked about being associated with a high-profile court case. It’s a huge shame because the ad, which riffs on the 1985 John Hughes film Weird Science, is a great piece of pop music history.
2. Boz in the video game Omikron: The Nomad Soul
Yes, that’s right. In 1999, Eidos released a not-very-popular title called Omikron: The Nomad Soul on PC and, later, Dreamcast. David Bowie had a considerable amount of input into the storyline and design, plus he provided several songs for the soundtrack (most of which were reworked for his then-upcoming album Hours… or released as b-sides for the associated singles). In addition to performing in the in-game band The Dreamers, he features as Boz (see the above video), a mystical figure that appears digitally at various points in the game. It’s hardly Bowie’s finest moment but worth seeing to imagine what it felt like in 1999 when these graphics were cutting edge.
3. The original video for Space Oddity (1969)
I think if you’ve got this far down the article and you’re still reading you probably have already seen the famous video for “Space Oddity”. If you’re in any way interested in the history of Bowie, you’ll recognise the persona in this video as Aladdin Sane, which Bowie had assumed for his sixth studio album in 1973. However, on 2nd February 1969 David and his then-collaborator John Hutchinson recorded a video using an earlier version of the song, and that’s what you can see above. It’s quite different and entertaining in its own right, and a fairer reflection of what he was like at the time the song was recorded. By 1973, Bowie was a completely different person and his backing band had changed, so it’s nice that there is preserved a more accurate visual representation of the track.
4. Crystal Japan sake adverts
There’s not much to go on in this advert. Just a bit of Bowie at a piano playing some ambient music followed by him drinking some sake. And a pyramid thing with the top chopped off. So…
5. Jazzin’ for Blue Jean
Back in 1984, David Bowie was riding high off the back of one of the most successful albums of his career, Let’s Dance, which hit number one globally to positive critical reviews. Such was the popularity, a decision was made to rush-release a new album, Tonight, which featured three covers and a couple of collaborations. Sales-wise it was successful, but poorly-received critically. One curiosity from it is the promotional video produced for the song Blue Jean. Clocking in at over 20 minutes, Jazzin’ For Blue Jean allowed Bowie to explore his acting abilities under the guidance of British filmmaker Julien Temple. Unfortunately, the results were less than impressive.
In it, he plays Vic, a window cleaner desperate to impress an unnamed girl played by Louise Scott. To win her heart, he pretends to know popular musician Screaming Lord Byron (also Bowie) and takes her on a date to see him perform. It’s going through the motions for the most part the performance of the song as Byron near the end is vintage Bowie. Perhaps that’s why it was cut into a three-minute conventional video for use on MTV.
It’s a tough watch now but worth checking out if you are really keen.
6. A strange tone for Jareth the Goblin King singing “As The World Falls Down”
We all love the Labyrinth. It was a childhood favourite of mine and in many ways hasn’t really gone into the ironic standing I’m sure it assumes for most people. After all, it’s a great fantasy storyline, the soundtrack is actually fantastic and it has David Bowie in it. What’s not to like? I’ll tell you what… if you take the track “As The World Falls Down” out of context and lay out the facts (as Bowie sings lovingly into the eyes of the girl he’s kidnapped, with those extremely tight trousers on, remember Jennifer Connolly was fourteen when this was filmed) it makes for interesting reading. Well, I’m being purposefully sensational here. There’s nothing terrible here. It’s a great song by a great artist in a great film. Stop fretting.
7. I Want My MTV
“Too much is never enough”, according to Billy Idol at the end of this video. David only appears briefly at the start of this video, but it’s still a wholly bizarre experience. Well worth 30 seconds of your life.
8. Bowie pokes fun at the Laughing Gnome
I remember the first time I heard The Laughing Gnome. It was particularly hard to track down for a quick listen: unavailable on YouTube or any of the streaming sites, the only way I could reveal the hilarity was to purchase it as part of the self-titled 1967 Deram album David Bowie – and even then only on the 2010 deluxe two-disc version where it nestled on the second disc (it strangely wasn’t actually included on the original album despite being one of the singles taken from it). It’s a shockingly awful novelty record that isn’t in keeping with anything else he produced before or since; even treating it as a children’s song you have to worry about how many of the puns would be understood by a child (for example, the “London School of Eco-gnome-ics” is mentioned). It is often misquoted as being Bowie’s first big hit, though it didn’t trouble the top of the charts until he’d achieved mega-stardom as Ziggy Stardust, reaching #6 in 1973 (six years after its original release).
So it’s highly pleasing to see the above video, taken from 1999’s Comic Relief push, where Bowie reveals a new song titled “Requiem for a Laughing Gnome”. It’s a song played exclusively on a recorder, “with choreography”, and a message pops up with a threat that it will continue for four hours unless the public donates more money. It’s always great to see interviews with Bowie from about 10-15 years ago – he’s actually a lot more sociable and friendly than most people imagine he will be.
9. Bowie talks about the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men
In Bowie’s very first television appearance at the tender age of 17 – as Davey Jones – he talks about the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men (presumably SPOCTLHM, pronounced spock-tull-hum”). It’s obviously a publicity stunt to get his face on TV, but a piece of rock history nonetheless.
10. Starring as Tesla in The Prestige
Whilst on hiatus between 2003’s Reality and 2013’s The Next Day, Bowie hardly made any appearances in public. However, in 2006 he found time to act in Christopher Nolan’s film The Prestige as Nikola Tesla. It was a pretty bizarre moment when I noticed this as I’d not seen the film at the time and had forgotten he was in it. He does a pretty good job too. Great film, great ending. Back when Christopher Nolan was good.
2015 looks set to be a huge summer for visiting the cinema. I’ve already been blown away several times at the high standard I’ve seen (Birdman, The Tales of Princess Kaguya, Whiplash and The Theory of Everything are all very special films, and Avengers: Age of Ultron blew me away too). Looking forwards, there’s plenty more to be excited about. Here’s some of the film’s I’ve got in my diary.
German Concentration Camps – A Factual Survey
Probably the most historically important film of the decade.
A British documentary film covering the exploration of the Nazi concentration camps. Fourteen locations were visited in Poland, Austria and Germany. The purpose of this film was that it would be shown to all the freed prisoners leaving the concentration camps and sites of atrocity after the fall of the Third Reich. Unfortunately there were delays in production and by 1946 it was deemed to be inappropriate and the footage was shelved.
Thankfully the footage has been finished off and there have been some screenings schedules around the UK (which can be found here). I can’t wait to see this historically important and inevitably moving film.
Jurassic World
Is this going to be the return to form we’ve been waiting for?
I’m sorry. We’re all thinking it. The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III were both utter dross. The first in the series was, in my opinion, one of the greatest films ever made. In the action genre it should be held up as a sepcimen of near perfection – its relentless and frequent peaks and troughs take you on an exhausting adrenaline rollercoaster as soon as things start to go wrong. It was also a hugely significant film in terms of advancing special effects. Since the sequels thus far have been huge let downs, the announcement of a new franchise reboot was met with groans across the internet and beyond. Then the trailer dropped and hope was restored. So far there doesn’t seem to be anything to quash the hope.
The release date is set for 10th June. The world is waiting!
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
I can’t wait for fourth film in the franchise to be released.
I’m a big Star Wars fan. I’m not the kind of person who knows the facts inside-out, certainly not on the same level as some people I know, but the original films are just absolutely fantastic action sci-fi films. It’s a shame that Episodes I-III were so dreadful. I do believe there is one good film to be found within their bloated running times. They just got them wrong.
The Star Wars community groaned when Disney bought the rights to Star Wars, but I immediately knew it would be a positive move. Disney know how to make a great live-action action film. The first three Pirates of the Caribbean films were actually not as bad as people have remembered them (our memories may be tarnished by the lackluster fourth installment). John Carter was actually far better than the first twenty minutes suggested. The Tron reboot wasn’t bad either. With a captive audience ready to give the new films a chance and no George Lucas around to mess things up, we’re set to finally be rewarded with a film worthy of the originals.
Terminator: Genisys
I do hope Arnie says “I told you I’d be back” just one more time.
I don’t think this will be the return to form as the two franchise reboots above, but it will be good fun to see how it turns out. Since his retirement from politics, Schwarzenegger hasn’t really done any films that fully stand up to his releases in the late 80s and early 90s. I hope this is the one that shows us he’s still got it and with Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones favourite Daenerys Targaryen) on board we should have something to keep us entertained for a couple of hours.
Ant-Man
Films like this are in short supply.
Paul Rudd, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. It’s Ant-Man. It has been a troubled creation process, but I still think this is going to find the balance of comedy and action that was sadly missing from The Green Hornet, the last superhero film that went down the comedy route. I’m hoping it’s successful enough to see him included in future MCU films. I guess time will tell.
I remember a couple of years ago when I saw the queues of young girls stood outside the theatre awaiting the release of the latest One Direction Movie, 1D: This Is Us. I’m pretty sure I passed a snide comment to whoever I was with at the time berating the popularity of the film, which was clearly not aimed at me. I wasn’t the “target audience”. Nonetheless, what a bunch of idiots standing there to watch such a rubbish film.
One for the fans
It took me until last night to realise how wrong I was to do this. My wife was out of the house and so I saw it as a perfect opportunity to finally watch the imported copy of Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie [1]. Alas, my wife returned home and walked in just as The Nerd threw up over a copy of Eee Tee 2 and the woman holding it. As I looked towards the door, I saw myself reflected back: bemusement, disdain and a lack of willingness to understand. I guess that means that I’m a teenage girl and James Rolfe is Harry Stiles. Maybe.
And that’s the point. This is by no means a film for everyone. It is specifically a film for the fans of James Rolfe’s character The Angry Video Game Nerd, the central character in his webisodic (it’s now a word) series in which he reviews terrible old games in a foul-mouthed and occasionally aggressive manner. It’s a film full of references to the series, made for the fans, and a pet project for Rolfe to flex his big-budget muscles and show exactly what he can do once he leaves his underground lair.
The storyline concerns the release of Eee Tee 2, the sequel to Eee Tee, the biggest flop in video game history (and barely hiding the reference to E.T.). The Nerd has always refused to review this game, but when an opportunity arises to go to New Mexico and dig up the infamous New Mexico Atari landfill as a tie in to the sequel, he agrees. The Nerd and his two assistants start the quest but are pursued by federal agent General Dark Onward, who believes The Nerd is trying to investigate Area 51.
It is quite a convoluted plot but it’s not really there to win any awards for screenplays. It’s a platform on which Rolfe bases some quite hilarious moments and I see the film as a success. Yes, it’s probably a little long but I can forgive Rolfe for this – he was bringing his own dream to life and wanted to make sure his fans got the most out of it. Some of the script feels a little like it’s deliberately trying to aspire to be a cult film, and it gets very silly at times, but it’s delivered with enough charm to be forgiven for a few misfires.
There’s a nice bonus at the end, where he finally reviews E.T. The Extra Terrestrial on the Atari, which he has never previously done. The bonus features on the disc are plentiful and give a bit of insight into the film (though many of the featurettes were previously available during the making of the film on Cinemassacre).
Steer clear if you have never heard of The Nerd before but if you want to see what he’s capable of it’s worth the plunge.
[1] For those in the UK, the best option to see the movie in HD is to import from Amazon.com. Be warned though – you will pay through the nose for the postage and then get slapped with import duty when it arrives. It’s expensive and if you aren’t fussed about the HD then you have an option to stream from Cinemassacre for a small fee.
Cinema, etc. 