2009 Films LXXIII-LXXII
LXXIII: Surveillance (Paul Oremland, 2007)
Is this the first ever gay thriller? Or first thriller with a gay protaginist? Surely not, but I can't think of earlier ones. (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang? Maybe. Bound? Ish.) Adam (Tom Hrper) is an IT teacher and sports teacher at a public school, who one night picks up the son of a media mogul, Jake (Sean Brosnan), and accidentally take his mobile phone. In his attempt to return it, Adam witnesses Jake being kidnapped, and later discovers that he has had a famous lover. Then he finds himself at the centre of a web of intrigue, and turns to an old university lover and journalist, Amy (Dawn Steele), who is encouraged to investigate by her boss, the media mogul.
The film is meant to be slotted together from surveillance footage, whether police, secret service or media paranoic's, and slides in and out of documentary mode. It becomes in fact a tension between the ability to find information and the need to keep secrets - although in the end the conspiracy is as much about making the secret known, although whether it is revealed and who has performed the kidnap remains vague. A pleasant enough 90 minutes, with Simon Callow stealing the middle of the film with a cameo role.
LXXIV: Slaughterhouse-Five (George Roy Hall, 1972)
Between Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The StingSlaughterhouse-Five, largely with unknowns. I've seen this twice before, I believe - once on TV and once on video - and have spent twenty years failing to buy it for various reasons. Now I reckon I'm going to start my sf course with it. H'mmm.
It's a faithful and no-prisoners adaptation of the Vonnegut novel, in which Billy Pilgrim comes unstuck in time - travelling to random points in his life - surviving the Second World War, Dresden, an air crash and kidnapping by aliens. There's space, I guess, just about, to read it as a fantasy of escape rather than real time travel, and of course the mechanism is never explained. I'm less comfortabe now about the Tralfamadorian philosophy of concentrating on the good times and forgetting the bad - it feels like a counsel of stiff upper lip and denial. But it remains the blackest of black comedies.
Totals: 74 - [Cinema: 21; DVD: 50; Television: 3]
Is this the first ever gay thriller? Or first thriller with a gay protaginist? Surely not, but I can't think of earlier ones. (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang? Maybe. Bound? Ish.) Adam (Tom Hrper) is an IT teacher and sports teacher at a public school, who one night picks up the son of a media mogul, Jake (Sean Brosnan), and accidentally take his mobile phone. In his attempt to return it, Adam witnesses Jake being kidnapped, and later discovers that he has had a famous lover. Then he finds himself at the centre of a web of intrigue, and turns to an old university lover and journalist, Amy (Dawn Steele), who is encouraged to investigate by her boss, the media mogul.
The film is meant to be slotted together from surveillance footage, whether police, secret service or media paranoic's, and slides in and out of documentary mode. It becomes in fact a tension between the ability to find information and the need to keep secrets - although in the end the conspiracy is as much about making the secret known, although whether it is revealed and who has performed the kidnap remains vague. A pleasant enough 90 minutes, with Simon Callow stealing the middle of the film with a cameo role.
LXXIV: Slaughterhouse-Five (George Roy Hall, 1972)
Between Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The StingSlaughterhouse-Five, largely with unknowns. I've seen this twice before, I believe - once on TV and once on video - and have spent twenty years failing to buy it for various reasons. Now I reckon I'm going to start my sf course with it. H'mmm.
It's a faithful and no-prisoners adaptation of the Vonnegut novel, in which Billy Pilgrim comes unstuck in time - travelling to random points in his life - surviving the Second World War, Dresden, an air crash and kidnapping by aliens. There's space, I guess, just about, to read it as a fantasy of escape rather than real time travel, and of course the mechanism is never explained. I'm less comfortabe now about the Tralfamadorian philosophy of concentrating on the good times and forgetting the bad - it feels like a counsel of stiff upper lip and denial. But it remains the blackest of black comedies.
Totals: 74 - [Cinema: 21; DVD: 50; Television: 3]