No.284 : Wild River (1960)

Wild River at the IMDb

Set in 1931, the film opens with some back and white archive footage of the terrible damage and loss of life suffered when the Tennessee river bursts its banks. This sets the scene for the drama which follows which sees Montgomery Clift’s Tennessee Valley Authority trouble shooter's attempt to clear a valley before the dam causes the area to be underwater. As normally happens in such situations everyone has sold up and moved on apart from one settlement.

This is run by a fearsome octogenarian who along with her simpleton son and granddaughter, Lee Remick, runs a slick operation that sees all the tenant farmers do all the work. This is the deep south remember so don’t tread here if you can’t take some pretty on the nose racial abuse. Grandma isn’t keen to move so Clift tries to undermine her by paying all her workers an eye watering $5 a day to help clear the land ahead of the flooding.

Huge mistake! The locals don’t like the black workers receiving the same pay and the local chamber of commerce worry that this fat pay day will ruin the local economy, which relies on the virtual slave labour of the black community.

Not being too worried about all the bother he’s causing Clift soon gets friendly with the widow Remick and lives up to his character’s name ‘Chuck’, as he chucks it up her with indent haste - this is the 1930’s remember.

Things come to a head as the US Marshalls are sent in for an eviction and the Good Ole Boys lay siege to Clift’s love nest. Will the old lady leave? Will the valley be flooded and will race relations be settled once and for all?

Directed by Elia Kazan (’Streetcar’, ’Waterfront’) this was a superior offering and, although it did dip in the middle a bit, it was engaging and tense.

Clift was good in the lead and I liked that he wasn’t a butch hero as he got his clock cleaned every time he squared up to the local bullies. He was clearly a lover more than a fighter as he was invited to stay overnight in Remick’s shack the first day he got her off the island. The cantankerous old granny was good fun with her nastiness clearly been brought about by fear of change.

The film was a bit dated in it’s depiction of black workers with many simpering to Clift with questions about where electricity comes from "do you wring it out the water?" one asks. To be fair Clift’s character is a progressive offering trips to the dam and fair pay to one and all. This approach is a bit naive and he does concede at one point that he forgot he was in the south.

Remick is a bit simpering in the female lead and too keen to fall into Clift’s arms and desert old grandma. The showdown at the end was good although they didn’t hold true with the premise of Chekhov’s gun - a big shooter was found and fondled after an hour, but never seen again!

This was an interesting production that will serve as a historical document detailing the real life efforts to bring safety and electricity to a bunch of yokels who were fine as they are thanks very much, and to a film made 30 years after the event which would be radically different if made today.

Best Bit : Here‘s $4 get the best bottle of wine you can find.  17/23

No.283 : Winter’s Bone (2010)

Winter's Bone at the IMDb

The title here refers to being tenacious, like a dog trying to get at a (frozen) bone in the ground. Our heroine, Ree, certainly displays tenaciousness and you will too, if you manage to sit through this grim but enjoyable offering.

Jennifer Lawrence plays the 17 year old Ree, who is the eldest of three siblings. Mum is a basket case and Dad hasn’t been seen for a while, as he is being pursued by the cops for cooking meth. Ree has to live off the land - mainly squirrels - and the kindness of neighbours as they are saving up to have a pot to piss in.

A bad day gets worse when the cops show up to advise that Dad is due in court in a week and if he doesn’t show the family will lose the house which he has put up as a bond. Ree sets out to find the errant parent and what follows is a big game of hide and seek as she asks round the neighbourhood for her dope fiend Dad.

Everyone is poor but offers a drink or a doobie, but also a warning to stay well away. The code of silence is strong and to talk to the cops would be a death sentence. Ree’s uncle Teardrop says he thinks his brother's dead and tries to put Ree off by taking her to the site of a meth house explosion saying that’s where he died. Ree isn’t convinced and knows that if Dad is dead, proof will be needed to satisfy the bail bondsman.

She heads off to the local kingpin of crime but gets a solid kicking from the womenfolk for her trouble, and is only saved by the intervention of Teardrop who promises to be responsible for her actions. Running out of options Ree looks to enlist in the army for the $40k incentive and to tries and place her siblings with her neighbours.

But wait! A chink of light is offered that may get her out of her predicament. Unfortunately it’s a grim and nasty chink of light but we’ll take what we can get. Will Ree manage to save the homestead and escape from her grim reality?

This was a horrid slice of life from modern day Missouri. The film is shot  vérité style with a dull palette and genuine backwater types filling out the cast. The grinding poverty was well realised with some dead squirrels the equivalent of the big shop.

Lawrence does well in the lead but is a bit pretty despite her unflattering wardrobe. Her Southern drawl is a somewhat distracting but she’s not shy in getting her hands dirty or of taking on some questionable tasks.

The air of menace in every character was good and you got the sense that life was cheap. Even the police with their old cruisers and their complicit actions weren’t immune from the general malaise on show, and I liked that the grimmest possible conclusion was eked out for the ‘where’s Dad’ mystery reveal.

The ending does offer a smidgen of hope for the future, but you get the sense that that will soon be overtaken with some new desperate situation. Not an uplifting tale but an interesting and engaging one.

Best Bit : ‘Pass the chainsaw’ 19/23

No.282 : Whistle Down the Wind (1961)

Whistle Down the Wind at the IMDb

Black and white English drama now as we enter the exciting worlds of kittens and people who may, or are most likely not, be Jesus Chirst. The caption card for the film reads ‘This is a Beaver Film’ - flagrant false advertising if you ask me.

We open with the henpecked Dad off ‘Fawlty Towers’ carrying a sack whilst being tailed by three young children. He chucks the sack in a pond, but this is recovered by the kids who find three kittens inside. The kids all live with their widowed Dad ( ’M’ of the James Bonds - must be deep cover) and their aunt on a farm with the attempted kitten drowner being their labourer.

The kids can’t keep the kittens and receive a few rejections including one from a Salvation Army lady who tells them that Jesus will look after them. As he isn’t immediately available the children hide the kittens in a box in the barn.

Later that night the oldest girl, Kathy (Hayley Mills) returns to feed them only to discover a bearded man in the barn who exclaims ‘Jesus Christ’ before keeling over. Taking this as an introduction rather than an expression of surprise, Kathy is convinced that their guest is the second coming and soon returns with her sister and her Dad’s best bottle of port and some bread. You know, Jesus food.

Over the course or three days the three children run errands for Jesus such as getting him some cake and fetching his gun from a railway tunnel. Meanwhile the police have a manhunt on for a murderer - could these plot threads be related?

Despite a vow of silence the kids soon blab after some encouragement from the school bully. Soon a dozen or so disciplines show up and are read to by Jesus from the holy text of ‘Shirley‘ magazine. Cracks start to show however when ‘Jesus’ lets a kitten die and the police dragnet is closing in. Will we get a massacre or is the kitten the extent of the deaths on show?

This was a nice film about innocence and about how gullible children are. That’s not fair actually, the man on the run, played by Alan Bates, never claimed to be Jesus, the kids just assumed he was. Beards must be rare in Barnsley.

The kids were all excellent and a great selection of urchins and cherubs was offered. Alan Barnes was great as the five year old Charles and it’s a pity he only made one other film. Hayley Mills does most of the work as the oldest daughter and she seemed a bit old to be so naive. I guess she just wanted to believe.

There was mild menace as the cops closed in, but I think it was good that the murderer was softened by the children rather than have him murder some in a desperate bid for freedom. No small sacrifice given this was the time of capital punishment.

The credits list Bates’ character as ‘The Man’ but the cops call him ‘Blakey’ I 'ate you credits writer!

In the end it transpired, as you’d probably have guessed, that Bates’ wasn’t Christ, he was just a naughty boy.

This was an enjoyable film which, although slight on plot, had some great performances and cracking locations.

Best Bit : ‘Get me my Jesus gun. And some fags’.  19/23

No.281 : Who’s Your Daddy? (2002)

Who's Your Daddy at the IMDb

Back to school once again in this straight to video romp that more or less follows the plot of every rags to riches film you’ve ever seen. Indeed it is a near carbon copy of recent ‘W’ movie shitefest 'Whatever it Takes‘ which preceded this effort by a couple of years. Despite it having a plot revolving round a porn empire this one is worse, a lot worse.

Our hero is Chris a senior at high school who looks about 30. The actor, whose career was pretty much killed by this film was in fact 22, but a lot older looking that his supposed 18 years, which makes it extra creepy when his mother walks in on him choking the chicken. He hangs around with the usual cast of dweebs and losers and fantasies about the hot girl in school, whilst failing to notice the cute school paper editor has the hots for him. Sound familiar?

We get a full half hour of dorky activity such as the gang trying to entice girls to their party and Chris being hit on the head by a ball three times in one scene. It wasn’t funny the first time but let’s see if repetition adds anything?

Eventually a lawyer named Mike Hunt (Thanks ‘Porkies’) shows up and tells Chris that his natural parents have died and that he is now the owner of the leading stroke mag in the country ‘Heaven’. All is not well however as the lawyer and an evil Uncle are trying to cheat Chris out of his inheritance. It’s like the script was on autopilot!

Chris heads off to the Playboy, sorry Heaven mansion and meets all the ‘Angels’ - various women with their knockers hanging out - and Lin Shaye’s secretary who ill advisedly wears suspenders throughout. After a few fumbles Chris goes full on prick mode and starts lording it over his fat hanger on and his classmates. He hooks up with the hot girl who has her own agenda and dumps on the pretty school paper editor. She won’t remember!

Soon enough, the baddies wrest control of the Empire from Chris and he has to win it back. Can he and some bimbos and nerds produce a magazine in time and come up with some unlikely twists to regain control? Of course they can! Just in time to get the nice girl too - she didn’t bear a grudge!

This was an awful effort and you can see why it earned its ‘video premiere’. You’d think for a film with dozens of topless women high marks would be earned but the plot was so basic and dull no amount of eye candy could save it.

Chris was a terrible character both in nerd and prick modes and you genuinely couldn’t give a toss for his endeavours. There were some decent actors showing up such as the asshole reporter out o the ‘Die Hard’ Films but they’ll all have Tippexed this one off their CVs. Special mention to Patsy Kensit who must have experienced her career low here, fondling a giant butt plug and trying to sell herself as ‘Miss May’ at 34 amongst a gaggle on teenage and enhanced models.

The morals were all pretty dubious too, with the principled school paper editor happily taking over the porno shoot. The idea that the magazine’s subscribers would take to her tasteful shots and feminist articles was one of the few chortles in the script.

You’d probably do well to find a copy of this dud but if you see it in the charity shop save yourself some embarrassment and hide it in a copy of ‘Razzle’ when you take it to the counter.

Best Bit : Arriving at the mansion.  ‘W’ Rating 10/23

No.280 : War Horse (2011)

War Horse at the IMDb

It’s not often we get a tent pole release on the W movie blog but I had the Blu-Ray of this sitting on the shelf for ages, so let’s have a look.

Directed by Steven Spielberg, I would normally have looked this up before but the wife saw it at the cinema and had such a tearful experience that she didn’t want to watch it again. Still that’s what man caves and lock downs are for.

The film opens with a horse being born. Can’t fault them for missing bits out. The horse is sold to a pissed up Peter Mullan at market who has no business buying a thoroughbred at market, apart from noising up his landlord, David Thewlis. Thewlis is made out to be a bit of a dick for wanting his rent off the permanently pissed Mullan, but you can hardly blame him. Mullan’s son Albert takes charge of the horse which he calls Joey.

Joey manages to plough a rocky field against all odds giving the locals their best entertainment in years. ‘Love Island’ was still a madman’s dream. Despite its great work with plough, Mullen sells the nag to Loki when his turnip crop fails. Loki is the nicest man in the army who needs horses for the recently started first world war. He promises to keep in touch with Albert but that plan fizzles out when his and Dr Strange’s battle plan turns out to be a load of dated bollocks.

Joey then falls into the hands of the Hun but luckily it’s the nice Germans that we rarely see on film. After a short period of ownership the German owners get shot as deserters and the horse takes up boarding with an old French man and his granddaughter. After a two minute ride the horse gets captured again by the Germans and is tasked with pulling artillery. With its luck it must have done a dump on a leprechaun.

Meanwhile Albert has enlisted in the army and has a date at the Somme. Can the man and horse be reunited to live happily ever after?

This is a quality film with some cracking sequences and star names popping up at every turn. The scenes on the Somme were fantastic, especially when Joey loses a fight with some barbed wire. Once again the Germans turn out to be nice and that’s the pervading feel of the film. Everyone is decent really - surprised that they managed to start a war!

The horse itself doesn’t have much in the way of character but it’s used as a cipher to show the various theatres of war and the consequences of it. There was plenty of gruesome deaths and the trenches were well realised. The various vignettes showing the horse’s different owners were a good device for speeding the plot along and to keep us engaged. I don’t think I was ever that taken with the horse, which looked largely disinterested throughout, but the human interest angles were well done and it would be a man of stone who wouldn’t shed a tear at the sepia toned, sunset finale.

It is a bit long at 140 minutes but there is a lot packed in and practically every British character actor you can think of - I liked Eddie Marsan’s tough as nails but nice really sergeant and Davos Seaworth’s kill ‘em no cure ‘em doctor.

Overall this is an impressive and emotional ride on an old nag that they couldn’t put down.

Best Bit : The Major put in £10 - sob!  ‘W’ Rating 19/23

No.279 : Whatever It Takes (2000)

Whatever It Takes at the IMDb

Back to school now for a look at this formulaic but still fun high school film that sees early outings from Jesse Pinkman and James Franco. If you have seen any film where the prom is a feature of the finale you’ll have pretty much seen this, especially if you are a student of Cyrano De Bergerac and the all-time classic ‘Pretty in Pink’.

Our hero is Ryan, a nerdy accordion player who is starting to outgrow his dweebish friends including Pinkman, doing a poor man’s Jeff Spicoli, and Tom Hanks’ son. He lives next door to Maggie and the two talk across their unfeasibly close balconies. From the first scene you know that they will end up together, but we’ve got 90 minutes to fill so let’s have them as just good friends for now.

Ryan fancies the high school sweetheart in the shape of the unobtainable Ashley, whilst high school jock Franco likes Maggie. With both men having no chance of landing their chosen babe they hatch a plan to help each other pimp out their friend so that some stranger can get his hole. Lovely.

There are some slim slide plots including Pinkman’s quest for a bit of a statue and a funny and sadistic games teacher played by that guy off ‘The West Wing’ who throws baseballs at the kids and tells them to “Walk it off”. Grrr hope he gets his comeuppance!

The sordid plan goes well but Ryan soon realises the hot girl isn’t all that. She has a hairy back and scabby feet. Seems nice enough though, until she disparages a midget at a carnival and pukes up, so she deserves all she gets. Meanwhile Ryan is feeding Franco lines so that he can make some headway with Maggie.

This involves the world’s oldest computer and a scene ripped off, fully intact from ‘Roxanne’, but soon we’re off to the prom. Who will end up with whom and will the mildly bad people get a fitting finale? Of course!

This was mild ‘12’ certificate fun but there was enough subversive humour to keep me entertained. Most of it was due to Pinkman in his first role, who has most of the best lines and, it looked like, the most fun. The lead is a bit dull and the hottest girl in school wasn’t all that - the blossoming next door neighbour looked a better bet from the start.

It was hard to care about a load of white privileged kids having their fancy prom but there were enough laughs to keep me invested. Not subtle stuff you understand but when the old woman farted when getting lifted to the toilet I did smirk. I’m not proud.

The cast was largely good and I enjoyed seeing several familiar faces including Champ Kind sporting the last traces of his hair.

The values espoused were dubious at best but love won out in the end and all the bad people got humiliated in public so that’s all right then. I don’t think Ryan earned his happy ending as he was a right prick throughout but when you mix a formula you have to stick to the recipe!


Best Bit :Prom over a swimming pool - what can go wrong?    ‘W’ Rating : 15/23

No.278 : Watermelon (2003)

Watermelon at the IMDb

Rochdale born actress Anna Friel mangles her way through this 2003 ITV TV movie with the worst Irish accent this side of the Blarney Stone.

Friel plays Claire who is meant to be a free spirit but just comes across as a total nightmare. She drags her dim-witted boyfriend from Dublin  to London on the pretext that she has a job lined up. Of course she doesn’t, and it’s only an interview which goes terribly apart from some flirting with a dishy young man on the panel. The interview ends suddenly when Anna throws up on some fish, but yer man isn’t put off and the two head to the pub.

After a full sesh she spurns the young man’s advances only to find that, in a surprising moment of wisdom, her boyfriend has decided to head back to Ireland. Without missing a beat Anna calls back the shorn suitor and the two spend the night together. Things are soon looking up, with Anna getting a photocopying job at the same magazine she threw up at along side the new smitten boyfriend.

But wait! We need drama, and Anna finds out she’s pregnant. The two move in together and in a quick montage we see Anna’s belly swell up so that she looks like the watermelon of the title - think I’d be taking my watermelon back to the green grocer if it looked like that! Anna knows the baby’s father is boyfriend one, but being a conniving wee cow, sorry free spirit, she doesn’t tell the hapless fool. Things come together when her waters break at work and she has to tell the hospital that she’s gone full term. Even the dopey new boyfriend manages to work out that he only started boffing Anna 7 months ago so he’s holding another man’s baby.

Mildly upset he stomps off and Anna heads back to Dublin and into the home of her shamed parents, including mum Brenda Fricker off ‘So I Married an Axe Murderer‘. Anna suffers some minor travails and Dad has a heart attack owing to his daughter being a tart and all that. She also bad mouths the innocent father who gamely offers to come back on the scene. Meanwhile, the London lover has shacked up with his frankly better option boss but loses the rag when she tries to repaint the nursery.

The scene is set for a big confrontation as the two men, for reasons unknown, vie for the affections of the free loving Anna and her screaming kid.

This wasn’t so much a modern day morality tale as some sink estate wish fulfilment. I couldn’t see any redeeming features in Anna’s character at all, although to be fair, she did do some excellent bath work. The two male leads were dreadful with neither having a spark of personality. The big restaurant denouement was a shouting match with handbags that was more cringey than gallant or brave.

Overall this was a throwaway piece of fluff that offered nothing in the way of social commentary or even entertainment. The character arcs were unbelievable and the happy ending didn’t ring true at all.

Best Bit : Bath Time! W Score 11/23