Absolute Beginners, 1986

ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS was not quite a success in 1986, but Julien Temple's film is a fizzing delight now, perhaps a proto music-video film. It looks fantastic with all those day-glo colours and is quite impressive with those recreations of Old Compton Street in London's Soho, and the seedy tenements of Notting Hill and Portobello Road. It is 1958, so racial tensions are simmering as the new teenagers discover all that new music .....

A musical adaptation of Colin MacInnes' novel about life in late 1950s London. Nineteen-year-old photographer Colin is hopelessly in love with model Crepe Suzette, but her relationships are strictly connected with her progress in the fashion world. So Colin gets involved with a pop promoter and tries to crack the big time. Meanwhile, racial tension is brewing in Colin's Notting Hill housing estate...

Temple (I loved his documentary LONDON THE MODERN BABYLON a few years ago, and his pop videos include Bowie's JAZZIN' FOR BLUE JEAN and Culture Club's DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HURT ME?) has a great eye for staging numbers, brings in an eclectic cast to support his leads: Eddie O'Connell as the young photographer hero and young Patsy Kensit - a perfect Bardot type here - as the aspiring designer. There's Ray Davies of The Kinks doing a terrific number and none other than Mandy Rice-Davies as his wife. James Fox is the reptilian fashion designer. And then there is David Bowie as the slick ad man. One watches entranced, THEN Sade comes on to deliver that slinky number "Killer Blow". So, whats not to love?  One to re-watch again soon. 

The return of the man who fell to earth ...

Its back, in a new print, to commemorate its 40th anniversary. Is it really that long since that hot summer of 1976, when we loved TAXI DRIVER and Nick Roeg's THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH .....  

A maverick film director, an emaciated rock star (who it seemed lived on Corn Flakes, milk and small mountains of cocaine) and who had never acted in a full-length film before - both in an inhospitable location in North America and New Mexico, plus a script heavy on allegory from a novel considered unfilmable - but somehow it all came together in another Roeg masterpiece, following his success with DON'T LOOK NOW. 

THE MAN WHO ... is now considered a cult classic, up there almost with 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY in its prescience on how we live now: information overload, digital cameras, endless television channels, machines that play music on shuffle, sinister worldwide corporations, surveillance, drought, global warming - its all here, and it should look terrific in a new print. Also of course Bowie dying this year adds extra resonance ... here he is the alien (great special effects from that pre-CGI age) who comes seeking water for his dying planet but get seduced by Earth's alcohol and human relationships, as that corporation seeks to take over his patents for new gadgets, leading to some razor-sharp images and cutting. It will be fascinating to see it again at this remove. There is also that fascinating documentary CRACKED ACTOR which the BBC made on Bowie at the time and during the filming. That should be included in the new package too. 

Vanity Fair 2016 Hollywood

But first. another look at that 2001 cover for their first music issue.  Interesting seeing David Bowie and Joni Mitchell side by side here - flanked by Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, Emmylou Harris etc. (Joni it seems is now doing well, according to Chaka Khan who is doing a tribute album on her). 

The 2016 Hollywood issue is not quite as good as their previous, but has a few good features, including one on those Sixties British movies like BLOW-UP, THE KNACK, ALFIE, A HARD DAY'S NIGHT - nothing new, but nice to see them featured, and also a history of THE MALTESE FALCON. The layout, again by Annie Leibovitz, features a collection of Hollywood ladies - including this year's Oscar nominees, box-ended by Jane Fonda and Diane Keaton - who seems to have been photoshopped in at the end - I'm afraid Diane hasn't been in anything relevant for years .... again one wonders if all 13 ladies were there at the same time, maybe 3 or 4 at a time perhaps as part of a composite whole ?

Nothing though tops their 2001 issue, where Sophia Loren, Catherine Deneuve, Meryl and Vanessa were the highlights surrounded by those newer girls: Blanchett (who gets to be a lot of covers), Winslet, Paltrow (ditto), Kidman, Cruz .....

David Bowie, RIP

It is not often a celebrity death pulls one up short - our favourites do get old and die - but putting on the television this morning for the news and weather, and seeing that picture of David Bowie (left) with the tag 1947-2016 made one gasp - rather like learning about the deaths of Princess Diana or John Lennon or Elvis back in the '70s - and get tearful seeing all those clips and innovative videos. One just did not think of Bowie as 'old' - he seemed a timeless, current artist - with that new album two years ago, and the latest one just out, which I have not even heard yet, but have just seen that astonishing video for "Lazarus".. Perhaps not being so visible in recent years had a lot to do with it - the internet will go into overdrive about him now and expect all those albums to be selling again. Would the sudden passing of Jagger, McCartney or Dylan be as newsworthy?, as the TV stations here are preparing tributes ... 

Of course I spanned the Bowie era, in the '70s we had to have those influential albums, and iconic singles. After he left Ziggy Stsrdust behind Bowie developed into a fascinating man and artist as he turned to acting and taking up soul and dance and then that Berlin period .... I loved the YOUNG AMERICANS album which I had on cassette and played all the time, and STATION TO STATION: "Golden Years", "Fame", "Win", "Fashion", "Blue Jean", "Boys Keep Swinging" etc. I loved his version of the ballad "Wild Is The Wind", and then the 80s glossy look of LET'S DANCE with Nile Rodgers, and those collaborations with Queen: "Under Pressure".(love his and Annie Lennox's version), with Jagger in the fun throwaway "Dancing in the Street", and "Hello Spaceboy" with the Pet Shop Boys. The Berlin albums though, with Brian Eno, will prove more infuential - LOW, HEROES, LODGER ... I love his "Putting out fire with gasoline" used in Schrader's CAT PEOPLE. 

The movies were varied too, from Roeg's THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH to the vampire gloss of THE HUNGER and with Marlene Dietrich for a few minutes in JUST A GIGOLO in '77 (where he is in Berlin and she is in Paris). The tours were amazing too, as The Thin White Duke took to the road - Serious Moonlight indeed.  His later years seemed more relaxed, living in New York with Iman and family and then suddenly putting out that new music, and keeping his illness secret. David certainly knew how the play the fame game. RIP indeed to a giant of popular culture and a true enduring legend. 
I worked in Regent Street, in London, for over 20 years and Heddon Street was just behind us - even then tourists would be looking for the exact spot where they shot the iconic cover for the ZIGGY STARDUST album ...
My first longtime partner (from 1974-84) is full of surprises. This, from him today:
"Sad about Bowie. I briefly worked with him as a Saturday boy at Brixton Market greengrocers stall, he had lied about his age and was sacked after two Saturdays. He had to be 14 , I think he was 12". He never mentioned that during our decade together when I was playing Bowie a lot!   

Stylish horror for Halloween ...

We don't do tortureporn or slasher moves or teen frightmares here at the Movie Projector, but we do like  good stylish horror fantasy, particularly if starring one of our favourite French ladies - or Vincent Price, or a deliciously twisted item from Roman Polanski .... Let's recap a few favourites:   
We had to re-visit the deliciously camp BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN from 1935 too, a James Whale classic, lovingly spoofed by Mel Brooks in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN in 1974 where Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Terri Garr and Marty Feldman are all ace.

THE HUNGER. It was nice to have another look at Tony Scott's THE HUNGER too, that popular vampire flick from 1983, capturing that early '80s look nicely. That terrific opening scene at the nightclub looks like the old Heaven club in London, as our vampires prey on urban clubbers and pick up another couple, while Bauhaus intone "Bela Lugosi's dead" on the soundtrack ..... David Bowie and Deneuve are perfect casting - Bowie though is ageing rapidly and will have to be placed with the ageless Miriam's past lovers locked away in their caskets - I liked that quick flashback to Ancient Egypt with Miriam in full vampire mode. 
Then there is that great scene with Susan Sarandon who asks the piano-playing Miriam if she is making a pass at her to which Miriam cooly replies "Not that I am aware of, Sarah" .... love that final shot too of the new ageless vampire looking out over her new domain ... its a glossy exercise in style of course, but it certainly satisfies the eye. Deneuve's vampire is the equal of Delphine Seyrig's countess in DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS (see item below). Sarandon was amusing in that THE CELLULOID CLOSET documentary, noting that her character had to be drunk to allow herself to be seduced by Catherine Deneuve, one of the great beauties of the movies!  

Roman Polanski's 1967 (though I think it was 1969 when it played in British cinemas) spoof DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES or THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS is still an absolute delight - and should really be seen on a large screen as it's widescreen images are just marvellous - I particularly like that moment when Polanski (he plays Alfred, the bumbling rather dim-witted assistant to Professor Abronsius himself) is fleeing from Count Von Krolock's son ("a sensitive youth" as his father, the leader of the vampires, says) and he - Polanski - runs all around the four sides of the castle cloisters to return to the point he started from where the vampire son [Iain Quarrier] is waiting for him .... delirious stuff.

This was Polanski still in English movie mode, after REPULSION and CUL-DE-SAC before heading to America and ROSEMARY'S BABY, so it was made with his usual collaborators, writer Gerard Brach and composer Krystof Komeda. Veteran actor Jack McGowran is the dotty professor hunting for vampires in Transylvania with his assistant Alfred. They stay at an inn where everyone is superstitious and afraid of vampires. Alfred gets to meet and fall for the inn-keeper's daughter Sarah (Sharon Tate, quite lovely here) who has also come to the attention of the mysterious Count whose eerie castle is outside the village. Sarah is addicted to taking baths and during one the Count enters and takes her away. Alfred and the Professor follow but not before the inn-keeper (who is Jewish, played by Alfie Bass) also falls victim to the vampire, as does his busty barmaid/mistress Fiona Lewis.

This is all spendidly realised with great sets for the inn and the castle. They find the resting places of the count and his son but it too late as the sun goes down ... Count Von Krolock materialises and has his own plans for the Professor and Alfred who can provide some intellectually stimulating company for them during those long winter nights as the centuries pass by. The son Herbert takes a shine to Alfred and there is that delicious scene as Alfred sitting on the bed as Herbert gets closer realises his is the only reflection in the mirror ... hence that chase around the castle. So we have a Jewish vampire and a gay vampire, both hilariously done, and Ferdy Mayne is a perfect arch vampire.

Sarah will be initiated into the vampires during the great ball held once a year and there is that great eerie moment as ancient tombs covered in snow open as the rather decrepit vampires emerge for their ball. The ball is a delight with everyone dancing but the large mirror only shows Alfred, Abronsius and Sarah .... they manage to get away as the vampires give chase in some very funny scenes and the ending is quite nice, while Komeda's score is just right.... It is all just a perfect delight from start to finish and one I can relish any time - a key Polanski movie too, before those later darker movies like his MACBETH and CHINATOWN or THE TENANT, or THE GHOST (WRITER) (see Polanski label). Back in '69 or '70 when I was living around Chelsea I turned from Sloane Square into Kings Road and there was Polanski in front of me talking to someone - you could never mistake him for anyone else!

We have already covered Harry Kumel's 1971 perverse delight DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS here, see recent post below, and we reviewed Franju's 1959 EYES WITHOUT A FACE too. 

Roger Vadim's 1960 BLOOD AND ROSES delighted me when I saw it in my early teens, when living in Ireland, and it has eluded me since, but I now sourced a copy, and it is a mysterious and erotic as I remembered. 
Made after his Bardot films and before the Jane Fonda ones, it featured his then wife Annette Stroyberg, a rather passive beauty - who also featured in his previous film, LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES in 1959, but Jeanne Moreau and Gerard Philipe walked away with that one. BLOOD AND ROSES is adapted from Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla" by Vadim who creates a perverse darkly romantic love story with that Gothic atmosphere. Elsa Martinelli and the dull Mel Ferrer are the engaged couple, but her friend Annette is jealous ... It is simply one of the best vampire movies ever made, miles better than those silly Hammer soft core items of the early 70s. The best Hammer vampire is BRIDES OF DRACULA in 1960, with the marvellous Martita Hunt - as per my review, Horror Label. 

Also in the '60s of course we had Roger Corman producing in the UK those two Vincent Price classics THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH with its great imagery and sets, and colour by Nicholas Roeg, with Price in his element as evil prince Prospero with those rooms in different colours, and the lovely young Jane Asher as well as stalwart Hazel Court, and the stylish THE TOMB OF LIGEIA was just as good. Price though was utterly terrifying as the THE WITCHFINDER GENERAL in 1968, a grim look at life back in the Civil War with superstitious villages isolated from each other. It's young director was Michael Reeves whose early death was surely a great loss to the horror genre, but Vincent was soon back in high camp mode in THEATRE OF BLOOD and the DR PHIBES films. WITCHFINDER GENERAL though is terrifying in its depiction of sheer cruelty as old women are dragged away to be hanged as witches or ducked in rivers to see if they sink or swim - either way they are doomed. The Witchfinder Matthew Hopkins is making money from it all as he goes from village offering his services as a persecutor of witches, and soon alights on the village where Rupert Davies is the priest and Hilary Dwyer his comely daughter who is in love with solder young Ian Ogilvy, whose sidekick is young Nicky Henson. It builds to a terrific climax as the Witchfnder is hacked to death by the enraged Ogilvy after seeing his girl tortured by his sadistic helper, who also gets his. It remains a savage disturbing film. 

Showpeople: Annie and David

Annie Lennox and David Bowie duetting on "Under Pressure" at the Freddie Mercury Memorial Concert in 1992. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCP2-Bfhy04

 (I was introduced to the real Freddie by his pal Jim Hutton, who I used to know in clubland, at Heaven nightclub, must have been early 1985 - but was too bombed to realise who he was, so we just said "Hi Freddie" and continued dancing...).

I saw that Freddie Memorial Concert at the time, but have just had to order the dvd. Annie's new album NOSTALGIA will be playing today ... 

That Hemmings chap

David Hemmings directs David Bowie and Kim Novak in JUST A GIGLO, 1978

While discussing those Sixties favourites (Julie, Terry, David Warner, Malcolm McDowell, Richard Warwick, Vanessa et al, below) a few further thoughts on that very individual David Hemmings - the first of the People We Like on here, a particular hero of mine ever since seeing him in Antonioni's BLOW-UP when I was 21 back in 1967. I never met David but had a very nice evening chatting with his then girlfriend Jane Merrow back in 1966 when I was 20, about the time he was filming the Antonioni opus ...

What an varied career he had, a child actor and young opera singer for Benjamin Britten (in his TURN OF THE SCREW), then those early 60s movies where he is rather insignificant - I did not spot him at all in SINK THE BISMARCK! on again the other day (left), and there's PLAY IT COOL, SOME PEOPLE (more on these soon), WEST 11, TWO LEFT FEET, and one of the gang in THE SYSTEM in 1964, where lead Oliver Reed romances rich girl Jane (Merrow). 
Then he is in EYE OF THE DEVIL in 1967, just before he burst on screen as the idol of the zeitgeist in BLOW-UP. (Left: Terence Stamp in the 1993 BBC documentary series HOLLYWOOD UK, where he states that he had been promised the role in BLOW-UP. Hemmings was also interviewed for the series, below, as per label.).

David's memoir, which he completed before he died in 2003, is great on all these and living the high life in the 1960s. Films like CAMELOT, THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (he was iconic also as Captain Nolan in that hussar uniform, I had a poster of it on my wall - he called his son Nolan too), BARBARELLA, ONLY WHEN I LARF, ALFRED THE GREAT etc. He turned to directing with RUNNING SCARED in 1972, and there's his oddity JUST A GIGOLO in 1978, where he deftly merged David Bowie in Berlin with Marlene Dietrich in Paris (it was Marlene's final outing, as per review at Hemmings/Dietrich labels).  And we mustn't forget his madly camp act as the gay fashion photographer in the deliriously awful Trash classic THE LOVE MACHINE, in 1971, with the hots for John Philip Law - review at Hemmings/Trash labels).
 

David, as per his memoir, had various problems and went off to America where he directed lots of episodes of THE A-TEAM, MAGNUM P.I. and other series, and turned up in lots of series including MURDER SHE WROTE, and in films like Ken Russell's THE RAINBOW or, re-teamed against Oliver Reed, in that terrible '70s version of THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER. 
An actor with no vanity at all, he had a comeback in the 2000s (before his death aged 62 on a set in Bucharest, in 2003) with roles in LAST ORDERS, THE MEAN MACHINE and some high-profile movies like Scorsese's THE GANGS OF NEW YORK and Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR where his old hell-raiser pal Oliver died during filming. One got the impression from the book that David lived life to the full. 

Catherine Deneuve: from Indochine to Place Vendome

INDOCHINE

How good to see Catherine Deneuve still very busy filming with several items lined up after 50 years in cinema. Like Cate Blanchett (post below), she would be on my list of 10 important actresses working today. I remember as a teenager seeing those arthouse posters for her early films like VICE AND VIRTUE and SATAN LEADS THE DANCE. Then of course the hit of UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG followed by Polanski's REPULSION, and Demy's LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT - with her late sister Francoise Dorleac, whom I like as well - see reviews at French, Demy, Denueve, Dorleac labels, plus those hits with Bunuel: BELLE DE JOUR and TRISTANA, and Truffaut's LE SIRENE DE MISSISSIPPI which suited her cool personality perfectly. 
Some indifferent international films followed where she was often just a beautiful blank: THE APRIL FOOLS, HUSTLE, LE CHAMADE, BENJAMIN, MAYERLING etc. Then of course that great renaissance in the 80s and 90s and beyond - as she did lots of varied films like THE HUNGER and Von Triers' DANCER IN THE DARK with Bjork, and several with director Andre Techine. I loved her recent one POTICHE with Ozon, where she is hilarious out jogging and communicating with nature before taking over her ailing husband's role at the factory, and she is fun too in his 8 FEMMES. I now have a clutch of later Deneuves to get through, so lets start with INDOCHINE ...

INDOCHINE. This was a free dvd in one of our newspapers a few years ago, but I never bothered watching it till now. I like it a lot, it plays like a French GONE WITH THE WIND or a David Lean film with those crowd scenes and sampans sailing on marvellous landscapes .... as directed in 1992 by Regis Wargnier.

Indochina during the 1930s: One of the largest rubber-tree plantations is owned by French colonist Eliane who lives with her father and her native adopted daughter Camille (Linh Dan Pham). Elaine gets to know young French officer Jean-Baptiste (Vincent Perez); after a short affair she refuses to see him again, as Camille falls deeply in love with him. Elaine gets him transferred to a far island where Camille goes in search of him, despite an arranged marriage. Her saga is rivetting and engrossing, as the fates of the three leads play out, rather like a parable of France's place in Indochina and Vietnam. It looks marvellous - Deneuve is perfect in those 30s clothes, and striding around her plantation in jodhpurs. Colonial life is nicely depicted showing also the brutality meted out to the peasants (like that family Camille travels with to that island).

It is a vast, panoramic love story set in the twilight years of French Indo-China. Comparisons with David Lean are inevitable, considering director Régis Wargnier's use of the setting as a backdrop to the love-triangle between the three main characters. Catherine Deneuve gives a strong, emotionally restrained performance as Eliane, the plantation owner whose colonial paradise is slowly falling apart. Linh Dan Pham is affecting as Camille, Eliane's adopted daughter whose journey from aristocratic ancestry to Marxist induction personifies the changing face of South-East Asia in the period around World War Two. It won the Oscar for best Foreign Film of 1992, and Deneuve was nominated as Leading Actress. 

PLACE VENDOME. A 1998 French thriller with a great role for Denueve. She plays the mainly alcoholic widow of a diamond dealer who has commited suicide after a shady business deal; she finds his secret stash of 7 perfect diamonds and decides to sell them herself as she re-enters the diamond business world of Place Vendome. Nicole Garcia’s thriller is nicely paced, does not rush anything and showcases Deneuve with a great ‘look’ here, as the world-weary woman slowly putting herself back together. Jacques Dutronc and Emmanuelle Seigner co-star, and English Julian Fellows (now creator of DOWNTON ABBEY) and Larry Lamb are in there too. It’s a stylish, moody piece of Gallic chic and thrills.

THE LAST METRO. I finally saw Truffaut's big hit from 1980 yesterday, despite having the dvd for years. and to my surprise I really did not like it at all.

Paris, 1942. Lucas Steiner is a Jew and was compelled to leave the country. His wife Marion, an actress, directs the theater for him. She tries to keep the theater alive with a new play, and hires actor Bernard Granger for the leading role. But Lucas is actually hiding in the basement...

It comes across as a banal bloodless story, with no tension or suspense about the German occupation of Paris (its a world away from Melville), there is even no tension about the husband hiding in the cellar - where they cook and have the run of the theatre at night. Its a good role for Deneuve in those '40s fashions, but Depardieu was rather a blank, there is no great passion between them either, and the ending is nothing special.  Perhaps its a valentine to the theatre, like his DAY FOR NIGHT was to movies. and as for the title  - the last train at night before the curfew - it has no bearing on the film at all ! Very pedestrian Truffaut then ...

GOD LOVES CAVIAR – a Greek curiosity from 2012 which I just had to see, as it features a sedate  Denueve as Catherine the Great of Russia! Shrewd casting. It is based on the true story of Greek pirate turned businessman Ioannis Varvakis, who made his fortune selling caviar in Russia and all over the world. This epic tale moves from Greece to the court of Catherine the Great in Russia and the shores of the Caspian Sea, and to the civil war in Greece and the fight for independence, during the Revolution of 1821 against the Ottoman Empire. It looks good as directed by Yannis Smaragdis. It reminded me of that 1959 Warner costumer JOHN PAUL JONES with that other adventurer at the court of the great Catherine (Bette Davis for the last 5 minutes).

THE HUNGER. It was nice to have another look at Tony Scott's THE HUNGER too, that popular vampire flick from 1983, capturing that early 80s look nicely. That terrific opening scene at the nightclub looks like the old Heaven club in London, as our vampires prey on urban clubbers and pick up another couple, while Bauhaus intone "Bela Lugosi's dead" on the soundtrack ..... David Bowie and Deneuve are perfect casting - Bowie though is ageing rapidly and will have to be placed with the ageless Miriam's past lovers locked away in their caskets - I liked that quick flashback to Ancient Egypt with Miriam in full vampire mode. Then there is that great scene with Susan Sarandon who asks the piano-playing Miriam if she is making a pass at her to which Miriam cooly replies "Not that I am aware of, Sarah" .... love that final shot too of the new ageless vamire looking out over her new domain ... its a glossy exercise in style of course, but it certainly satisfies the eye. Deneuve's vampire is the equal of Delphine Seyrig's countess in DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS (Horror label). Sarandon was amusing in that THE CELLULOID CLOSET documentary, noting that her character had to be drunk to allow herself to be seduced by Catherine Deneuve, one of the great beauties of the movies!  Below: back to REPULSION, 1965, and ROCHEFORT, 1967.

A clutch more Deneuve movies before too long: 3 by Andre Techine: THIEVES (LES VOLEURS), MY FAVOURITE SEASON and HOTEL AMERICA, as well as APRES LUI by Gael Morel (the lead in Techine's WILD REEDS - gay interest label) in 2007, LOVE SONGS (PAROLES ET MUSIQUE) from 1984, and Raul Ruiz's 1999 TIME REGAINED. Her book "Close Up and Personal" is an interesting collection of her diaries on various locations. Deneuve is still in her 60s but turns 70 later this month; we have grown up with her in the movies, unlike her sister Francoise whose career sadly barely last 5 years, but has left a lasting legacy too; they continue to fascinate like those other French legends Anouk Aimee, Adjani, Audran, Moreau ...

Silent running on a dark star

"Bombed out in space with a spaced out bomb"

SILENT RUNNING -Catching up with this1972 sci-fi drama now it plays as a serious fiction, not fantasy, about isolation, alienation, lost causes, and the inevitable future - directed by Douglas Trumbull, legendary for Special Photographic Effects Supervisors for Kubrick's 2001, as well as special effects on Spielberg's CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, and BLADE RUNNER and others.

In a future Earth barren of all flora and fauna, the planet's ecosystems exist only in large pods attached to spacecraft. When word comes in that the pods are to be jettisoned into space and destroyed, most of the crew of the Valley Forge rejoice at the prospect of going home. Not so for botanist Freeman Lowell who loves the forest and its creatures. He kills his colleagues taking the ship deep into space. Alone on the craft with his only companions being three small robots, Lowell revels in joys of nature. When colleagues appear to "rescue" him, he realizes he has only one option available to him.

Everything about this film works: music, effects, photography, sets, acting, editing, direction - there are no action sequences or stunning CGI but it does not need them to tell is simple story. It conjures up a dystopian future as we share life on the ramshackle space freighter with our bored astronauts zooming around in their little karts. Bruce Dern has his most iconic role as the one astronaut who loves the forests he tends and the animals with them - he is alone on screen a lot once the other guys are disposed of. Then there are the two drones Huey and Dewey, little robots .... The only annoying features now are the very dated Joan Baez songs, though they may have seen apt back in the early 70s. The final image of the forests being tended by the drone all alone in space is both moving and spell-binding. Its a marvellous companion piece to 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY or CLOSE ENCOUNTERS or E.T.

DARK STAR - John Carpenter's pulp science fiction classic - this brilliantly clever and funny parody of Kubrick's 2001 follows a warped intergalactic mission to blow up unstable planets. Four bored astronauts fill in time between missions catching up on their tans with the help of a sun-lamp, playing with a suspiciously plastic-looking alien  mascot they are taking back to Earth, and in conversation with their female version of HAL. Things start to go horribly wrong when the spaceship computer misfires and a 'smart bomb' thinks it is God. 

This was popular on the indie circuit back in 1974 and following years, before the arrival of STAR WARS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. We loved being in space with those spaced out astronauts, and that talking bomb that wants to explode, and the cute little alien, so obviously a rubber beach ball. Dan O'Bannion wrote the original story, and plays one of the 4 bored astronauts, as well as doing the production design and editing, before he went on to the ALIEN films, TOTAL RECALL (we loved that at the time), and others. DARK STAR is drollly amusing as our hippie astronauts cope with that talking bomb and the ending is just perfect. DARK STAR is of course amatuerish, but only 5 years later cinema had come up with those Spielberg, Lucas and Ridley Scott classics.... it and ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 set up John Carpenter for his his great decade.

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, 1976, turned up as well; screened last week by the BBC as part of a Bowie night, this was fascinating to see after some decades. 

Thomas Jerome Newton is a humanoid alien who comes to Earth to get water for his dying planet. He starts a high technology company to get the billions of dollars he needs to build a return spacecraft, and meets Mary-Lou, a girl who falls in love with him. He does not count on the greed and ruthlessness of business here on Earth, however.

Making apt use of the pallid, zonked-out look that its star David Bowie had at the time, Nicolas Roeg's arty sci-fi movie casts the singer as an alien who struggles to adjust to life on our watery planet. Even native earthlings might have trouble following the (wilfully) splintered narrative, but the film is a curio in all sorts of ways, not least as an example of how wayward movies were in the '70s. It is not though as accessible as Roeg's WALKABOUT, DON'T LOOK NOW or even BAD TIMING, that one that chilled us in 1980, but Roeg used the Bowie persona as well as he did the Jagger one in PERFORMANCE. For all its fascinating moments (the alien showing his real self to Candy Clarke, never better, who wets herself; the deaths of Buck Henry and friends, snippets of life on his planet, and that curious timewarp moment when he in his car and some earlier settlers see each other across time, plus the ageing of other characters), THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH is not a film one can actually like or want to see too often ..... despite its great sub-plots of big business taking over the alien's business ventures, its visuals and razor-sharp editing, but it seems to run out of steam eventually. Script by Paul Mayersberg from a Walter Tevis novel, it was good to see again at this remove.