Reviews

My wife's a fan of Scottish actor, "the wee man", Martin Compston, star of "Line of Duty" and we were recommended by friends towards this 6-part series where he tours our own native Scotland in the company of his friend Phil MacHugh. Phil who? You might be thinking and that's evidently what the show producers thought too, as the poor guy doesn't even garner a title credit despite this being the usual procedure in buddy-trip series like this, as he accompanies his more famous chum in all his travels here. The powers-that-be clearly thought it more important to get Martin Compston into the programme title than Martin and little-known Phil, effectively relegating the star's own best mate to "plus one" status.

I'll also say that these travel-lite shows, where a celebrity gets paid for a jolly, getting to see places and do things I never will but once I parked my inner Grinch, I quite enjoyed the duo's adventures as they traversed the length and breadth of old Caledonia, usually to the accompaniment of some cheesy tunes on their car stereo.

The two lads seem to get on well and pretty much throw themselves into everything put before them (apart from MacHugh opting out of a cramped climb up the inside of a wind turbine) before arriving back at Compston's hometown of Greenock for an emotional goodbye.

As this cheap and cheerful type of light entertainment goes, this was more enjoyable than most other programmes I've seen of this type, helped in that by both lads resolutely refusing to disguise their native accents.

The bromance in fact apparently continues as they've recently completed a similar tour of Norway, the neighbouring land across the water, which I'm pretty sure I'll take in soon enough.

I'm a sucker for the space-monster movies which landed in Hollywood in the early 50's and this one, helmed by specialist director Jack Arnold with a story devised by renowned sci-fi author Ray Bradbury, doesn't disappoint. The sub-genre was born out of two contemporary furores in America, one the reporting in the media of flying saucers and men from Mars and the other, more indirectly, the Red Scare which descended on Hollywood itself as Joe McCarthy and the HUAC grabbed the headlines with ever-more sensational claims of Communist infiltration into the entertainment industry.

This movie, sure enough, begins in time-honoured fashion with a UFO falling to earth out in the desert, close to the town of Sand Rock. First on the scene are the local astronomer Richard Carlson and his girlfriend Barbara Rush. A true believer, he gets up close to the craft but after it's submerged by a landfall, struggles to convince the local authorities that this may indeed be a close encounter of the third kind and that it doesn't deserve to be blown to kingdom come.

In due course, alien creatures do emerge where we learn that they have the ability to shape-shift as they assume the form of innocent individuals who get in their way, although it's conveniently easy to spot the possessed humans from their resultant robotic movements and speech. It turns out that the newcomers from the stars don't actually mean us any harm, they only want to repair their ship and get back home, but can they do so before the baying mob of fearful and ignorant townfolk get to them first or will Carlson's pleas for tolerance and goodwill save the day for them?

I really enjoyed this rollicking adventure. The B-list cast play it for all it's worth with plenty of tension and excitement along the way. The special effects are fine especially showing the spaceship's initial crash-landing, even if the depiction of the aliens themselves as something resembling a big, soft TV screen, which of course may also have been deliberately symbolic of the times, was more amusing than amazing.

With a soundtrack featuring an early use of the theremin which soon become the trademark sound of anything other-worldly and some mildly risible attempts at 3D effects, the whole film is a real hoot, ending on a memorable closing line just for good measure.

My wife and I recently visited the Schindler Museum and Jewish Quarter while on a visit to Krakow with both of us having an abiding interest in the Holocaust. This heart-warming movie is about the man dubbed the "British Schindler" with Anthony Hopkins playing the title role as a young London stockbroker who, when he learns that the then British government of Neville Chamberlain, in seeking to appease Hitler, has waived through his plans to reclaim for Germany the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. Knowing full well the implications of this, in particular for the Jewish population, the young Winton, played by Johnny Flynn, takes leave of absence from his job to aid the refugee effort on the ground by traveling to Prague. He's immediately struck by the obvious plight of the many young children there and comes up with a plan to take them out of the inevitable harm's way to resettle as many of them as possible in Britain, putting them with willing temporary foster-parents on a hopefully temporary basis until they can be repatriated again.

To do this he's helped immeasurably on the ground by existing relief workers Toby Chadwick and Diane Warriner played by Alex Sharp and Romola Garai and at home by his formidable mother Babette, played by Helena Bonham-Carter who does her considerable thing in spreading the word and convincing Government officials to obtain the visas and permits to allow the children to travel. Of course, when Hitler later invades Poland and triggers World War 2, the Nazis toughen up their attitude to the Jews in particular with obvious implications for the escaping children and the brave individuals helping them in this.

This remarkable story didn't fully come to light until the late 80's when the now retired Mr. Winton, seeking to find a home for the memorabilia he's hoarded on the project ever since, puts his scrapbook in the hands of the wife of the now-disgraced millionaire press-baron Robert Maxwell which snowballs into an emotional appearance by Winton on the popular BBC consumer affairs TV programme "That's Life" presented by Esther Rantzen, in a moment which will likely recall that at the end of "Schindler's List".

Mr Winton, a naturally modest man who never publicised the story, is played with gravitas by Sir Anthony Hopkins. He is well supported in particular by Flynn as his determinedly idealistic younger self, Bonham-Carter as his mother who likewise takes no prisoners in bending senior civil servants to her will and Garai as Warriner, a real tough-cookie, pragmatic foot-soldier operating in the actual danger zone.

The movie, as it makes clear in a note over the end-titles, of course has universal relevance considering the various humanitarian crises displacing millions in different parts of the world today. Whilst it may lack the emotional heft of Spielberg's masterpiece, it nevertheless unfussily and persuasively relates a story we're all the better for knowing about.

I've been binging recently on the Desi Arnez / Lucille Ball story. I'm currently listening to an excellent TCM podcast on their lives and careers , Season 3 of "The Plot Thickens" if you want to look it up and have also just watched Amy Poehler's archival documentary "Lucy and Desi" so I guess it was inevitable that I would end up at Aaron Sorkin's movie which intertwines a key week for the couple at the height of their fame with a potted history of their time together and experiences in Hollywood.

It's 1952, they're at the height of their fame but Lucy and Desi are confronted with and have to face up to not one but three crucial events in their lives. Firstly, Lucy's fury at the widely-read "Confidential" magazine's front-page exposé of Desi's philandering lifestyle, then a potentially even more damaging revelation by coast-to-coast broadcaster Walter Winchell of Lucille's past sympathy with the Communist Party, this when the Red Scare in Hollywood was also peaking and finally the news that Lucy herself was pregnant again and the ramifications of this for their runaway success TV show "I Love Lucy".

My foreknowledge of events probably helped me to follow the action and I was thus able to recognise the sequence of events depicted even as I recognised in places the dramatic licence inevitably taken in some cases by Sorkin. Probably the most unusual plot-point he employs in the film is Lucy's insistence on effectively rewriting the next episode of the show, which while done to no doubt demonstrate Ball's intelligence and insight into how comedy works is also used to highlight her deflection of all the combined trauma of these potentially career-threatening incidents.

Try as I could, I just wasn't convinced by Nicole Kidman as Lucy. For me, she doesn't nail Ball's distinctive appearance or voice. Javier Bardem's Desi I felt was a better fit, his swarthy good looks and natural Latin-tinged accent worked better in his portrayal of Desi. J. K. Simmon's part as "I Love Lucy" co-star William Frawley on the other hand to be afforded over-prominence to me, do much so that it almost like a directorial sop to the actor himself. I also felt the recreated modern-day anecdotal interviews of the actual show's producer and writer to be distracting rather than helpful.

Sorkin's direction is stylish if prosaic at times as he carefully overlays his interlinked narratives. I also felt his dialogue sometimes came over as often unrealistic and stylised, with almost every line uttered by his characters straining for pith, wit and of course humour. I personally doubt that comedians and script-writers are always so erudite, a bit more mundanity would have made the characterisations more credible I felt.

I've been binging recently on the Desi Arnez / Lucille Ball story. I'm currently listening to an excellent TCM podcast on their lives and careers , Season 3 of "The Plot Thickens" if you want to look it up and have also just watched Amy Poehler's archival documentary "Lucy and Desi" so I guess it was inevitable that I would end up at Aaron Sorkin's movie which intertwines a key week for the couple at the height of their fame with a potted history of their time together and experiences in Hollywood.

It's 1952 and they're at the height of their fame but Lucy and Desi are confronted with and have to face up to not one but three crucial events in their lives. Firstly, Lucy's fury at the widely-read "Confidential" magazine's front-page exposé of Desi's philandering lifestyle, then a potentially even more damaging revelation by coast-to-coast broadcaster Walter Winchell of Lucille's past sympathy with the Communist Party, this when the Red Scare in Hollywood was also peaking and finally the news that Lucy herself was pregnant again and the ramifications of this for their runaway success TV show "I Love Lucy".

My foreknowledge of events probably helped me to follow the action and I was thus able to recognise the sequence of events depicted even as I recognised in places the dramatic licence inevitably taken in some cases by Sorkin. Probably the most unusual plot-point he employs in the film is Lucy's insistence on effectively rewriting the next episode of the show, which while done to no doubt demonstrate Ball's intelligence and insight into how comedy works is also used to highlight her deflection of all the combined trauma of these potentially career-threatening incidents.

Try as I could, I just wasn't convinced by Nicole Kidman as Lucy. For me, she doesn't nail Ball's distinctive appearance or voice. Javier Bardem's Desi I felt was a better fit, his swarthy good looks and natural Latin-tinged accent worked better in his portrayal of Desi. J. K. Simmon's part as "I Love Lucy" co-star William Frawley on the other hand to be afforded over-prominence to me, do much so that it almost like a directorial sop to the actor himself. I also felt the recreated modern-day anecdotal interviews of the actual show's producer and writer to be distracting rather than helpful.

Sorkin's direction is stylish if prosaic at times as he carefully overlays his interlinked narratives. I also felt his dialogue sometimes came over as often unrealistic and stylised, with almost every line uttered by his characters straining for pith, wit and of course humour. I personally doubt that comedians and script-writers are always so erudite, a bit more mundanity would have made the characterisations more credible I felt.

Nevertheless, he brings all his elements to a suitably dramatic conclusion ending on a final shot which somehow reminded of one used by Orson Welles in "Citizen Kane's" opera scene. Interesting to watch as it was, in the end however, I'd have to conclude by saying that I liked rather than loved this portrayal of Lucy.

Nevertheless, he brings all his elements to a suitably dramatic conclusion ending on a final shot which somehow reminded of one used by Orson Welles in "Citizen Kane's" opera scene. Interesting to watch as it was, in the end however, I'd have to conclude by saying that I liked rather than loved this portrayal of Lucy.

I came to this movie after watching the excellent 2016 "De Palma" documentary, even if it was only allocated some five minutes discussion time and more pertinently, the recommended podcast "The Plot Thickens" series two, devoted to "The Devil's Candy", journalist Julie Salomon's best-selling account of how this big-budget blockbuster tanked so badly at the box-office.

Based on Tom Wolff's best-selling novel, which I've not read, reportedly a scabrous takedown of the shakers and movers in the overheated New York money-markets, what I saw instead was a rather crude farce filled with rather detestable people in mostly un-comedic situations with a tagged-on morality-stoking ending.

Like the scenes where Melanie Griffith's character's ancient, cuckolded husband literally talks himself to death in a swanky restaurant or when an old flame of Bruce Willis's gonzo-journalist wants to pass to him a piece of hot gossip but feels the need to do so by first photocopying her bare behind in front of him. What's the saying, laugh i nearly cried or died, either works in this case.

Tom Hanks plays the hot-shot bond-trader who's day goes from bad to worse when after he accidentally reveals to his wife that he has a mistress, then ends up in the Bronx in the wee small hours where, to escape a car-jacking by two young black youths, Griffith drives his car over one of their attackers, who later dies from his injuries.

The point is made, forcibly, that money is the root of all evil as everyone and his mom, piles into this bottom-of-page-5 story to magnify it for their own gain, most notably Willis's washed-up journalist, but also the local black religious leader, the conveniently up-for-re-election D. A. and yes, even the dead boy's mother. The narrative slithers along until Morgan Freeman's almighty judge gets to tie everything up in a big bow with his "let's all be nice" grandstanding speech at the end which, given all that's gone before feels like an almost Capra-esque attempt to right all the previous wrongs and send movie-goers home in a better mood but it's akin to taking a swig of mouthwash after gorging on a triple-hamburger, you're never going to get rid of that nasty aftertaste so easily.

It wouldn't be a De Palma movie without some cool visuals and camera set-ups but really the movie is all glitz and no grit, all harsh and no heart and ultimately all smoke and no fire.

Tellingly, this documentary on the career in pictures of Brian De Palma began with an excerpt from Hitchcock's "Vertigo". Hitch is my favourite director, especially due to his visual mastery and as De Palma says himself near the end, he appears to be the only subsequent director to continue the dark practices of the Master.

He hasn't directed a feature since this filmed interview took place in 2015, which gives the piece an almost valedictory feel to it. Of course, he came through in the early mid-70's with his New Hollywood contemporaries and often good friends Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola and even if his films rarely achieved either the box-office, critical acclaim or Academy recognition that theirs did, I know whose name I'd prefer to see behind a film by any of them.

The idea here is simple and effective. Sit the subject down and encourage him to talk about all the movies he's made from start to finish. Back his conversation up with judiciously selected clips from his own movies and also those which inspired him and for a cine-buff like me, it's like the perfect "An Audience with..." only you're the whole audience. So, no irritating interviewer going off at tangents, no talking-head analysis by "experts" or even wheeled-out anecdotes from past collaborators, just De Palma talking about his movies, what a simple concept.

Funnily enough, the pared-back format reminds me most of the famous Hitchcock - Truffaut interview filmed in the 60's. With loads of insights into his craft, candid opinions on other actors and directors, all delivered in a manner-of-fact style, he owns up to enjoying filming women, often in a state of undress, even as he accepts that he often treated them terribly in his films.

I've seen a lot of his movies but was reminded here of a few that I haven't which came as a bonus to me and which you can bet I will go some way towards rectifying in the near future.

As for the makers of this film, wouldn't it be good if they could get the likes of Coppola, Spielberg, Scorsese et. Al to talk us through their own back pages the way De Palma did so entertainingly here.

As I watched "Dune Part One", I found myself wondering if there were any other people out there like me who were completely unaware of the whole Duniverse. I'd never read the Frank Herbert novel nor had I seen the David Lynch movie adaptation in 1982. So, if that was you too, you have my sympathy, especially the way we were thrown into it without any kind of background story or explanation as to how we got here. Even "Star Wars" had its "Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." prologue. I felt like I was playing catch-up from about ten laps back.

I can't honestly say I did catch up with it but I will say I hung on in there as best I could. This isn't one of your flashy, all-out action-based sci-fi blockbusters, it's much more "Lord of the Rings" than "Harry Potter" in that respect, although it too is centred around a young protagonist.

Timotheè Chalomet it is who plays Paul, the son of the ruling Duke, devoted to, but still independent of his father and with a slightly testy relationship with his mother. He seems to have hidden powers including that of precognition through his dreams and is suspected of being a long-awaited Messiah-type figure. Their race of the Atreides has been allocated by the almighty Emperor Shaddam the planet of Arrakis to colonise and hopefully prosper from the manufacture of its highly valuable Spice artefact. However, this won't be easy, for one thing, the naturally unhappy dispossessed former occupants the Fremen have left the place in a parlous, run-down state and secondly, there's danger in the desert, not least from the enormous worms which rise up from beneath the sands to wreak havoc on the interlopers. Worse than that, the planet is coveted by the hulking race of the Harkonnens, setting the scene for treachery, murder and war, with David and his mother the Lady Jessica at the centre of the action. And just who is the young woman who appears in his dreams and wants to lead them on a further journey.

I must admit when the dream-girl Zendaya manifests into reality right at the end and says "This is only the beginning...", my heart sank. Not that I wasn't impressed by the set design with its evocation of the desert, the monumental buidings, the thrilling flying machines which it seems can land on a sixpence and especially the terrifyingly massive worms but as I struggled at times even to decipher what was being said never mind what was actually going on, I think this is one big-budget franchise I'll leave to the avids.

An empty, meaningless title for what I found to be an empty meaningless movie - and this is only part one?!

I grew up watching as a boy the original TV series but have long ago accepted that this cinematic "Cruise-controlled" version bears almost no relation to what was originally a tightly-scripted, plot-led and character-driven show. Yes, there are still nods to the source with the use of the theme music, dizzying pre-highlights reel and the masks, my God the masks, but these are perfunctory and what we have now is a pumped-up beyond all recognition stunt-fest staged in exotic locations - this time around say hello to Rome, Venice and the Orient Express.

Here, Ethan and his team are racing around daft trying to track down a new invention called "The Entity" which naturally guarantees world domination to its eventual owner. Cue much mayhem as one unlikely action set-piece is piled onto another, including the obligatory crazy motorbike / car-chase, this time around Rome, a frantic on-foot pursuit through the side-streets of Venice and culminating in mayhem on the Orient Express, with Cruise literally crash-landing to the rescue before the celebrated train goes literally off the rails and down in instalments at the supposed cliff-hanging ending.

For me, it was all way too much and just came across as a massive ego-trip for Cruise determined to prove he can still run like the wind (and yes, he gets to run a lot as ever) and personally carry out every other out-there stunt imaginable. In the end, I felt jaded rather than exhilarated by a movie which just didn't know when to stop. The next impossible mission it seems to me will be when Tom, like the MCU and DCU, has to face up to the realisation that times have changed and that audiences are now fatigued by over-the-top action features like this.

More really is less in this case.

So this is obviously where the phrase comes from. The thing is though that you have to wait until the last minute to hear it and to get there you have to wade through a strange, awkward movie which seeks to combine a detective thriller with sci-fi.

Charlton Heston is yet again the out-of-time main character as he plays a police detective Thorn who lives in near-penury with his old chum, forensic investigator Sol, played by Edward G Robinson, in what sadly proved to be his final movie role. It's 2022, the population has clearly boomed with New York now containing 40 million inhabitants and it and everywhere else is in an ecological crisis with abnormally high temperatures and good and water shortages. I almost expected appear to tuck Chaplin-style into a pair of old boots at one point.

Thorn is assigned a murder case of a prominent individual named Simonson played by Joseph Cotten, which is linked to the production of the mass-made artificial food known as Soylent with its new flavour Soylent Green having recently been launched on the public. Cotten lives in relative luxury with a young live-in mistress / concubine, Leigh Taylor-Young's Shirl, it seems that all the best apartments have one. These women are quite literally part of the furniture. Also on the scene is Chuck Connors Fielding bodyguard, who Thorn suspects as the inside man on the job.

Anyway his and Sol's investigation leads them literally up the food chain to a revolting truth which is only revealed at the enigmatic conclusion of what was for me, a rather weird abd confusing viewing experience. There are some interesting predictions in the narrative which are now having their day, such as global warming and assisted suicide, but the idea of women being relegated to a property add-on fit only one purpose is certainly a distasteful one, especially considering that women's liberation was picking up speed at the time the film was made.

I found the direction to be a little stilted throughout and would have welcomed a little more exposition at times. Heston, Robinson and Cotten do their best with this unusual material but in the end I just found the film to be literally too distasteful for my palate.

Just a wee bit of exaggeration in the title to this documentary, methinks. The night in question related to the date in early 1985 when effectively the American version of "Live Aid" was recorded, at a studio in L. A. featuring some of the best known popular music acts past and present Stateside.

Presented by the main driving source behind the enterprise, Lionel Richie, this was a sometimes sentimental, sometimes hyperbolic and if I'm being honest, often quite boring reminiscence of how the hit song "We are the World" came to be recorded. Bruce Springsteen, one of the major participants, makes the retrospective point, diplomatically you feel, that while the song itself might not be to everyone's taste, including his own you suspect, at least it did a lot of good with the substantial funds it raised to help feed the hungry in Africa.

As documentaries go, there's really not much to see here. Richie talks about writing the song with Michael Jackson, interestingly after Stevie Wonder was given first refusal and then corralling one of the top musical agents of the day, a guy called Ken Kragen to bring on board other big-name acts, including Quincy Jones as producer, to make it effectively an all-star affair.

Only of course it wasn't quite an all-star affair with no Madonna or Prince, two of the biggest stars of the day, despite the latter being invited. Still, they managed to enlist some genuine legends like Harry Belafonte, Ray Charles and Smokey Robinson who are put together alongside the young Turks of the day like Cyndi Lauper, Kenny Loggins and Huey Lewis, none of him, I think it's fair to say, will ever be called legends.

Amongst those lined up to look back today were Richie, Springsteen, who must be catching up with Rick Wakeman in the number of rockumentaries in which he's appeared, plus the afore-mentioned Lauper, Loggins and Lewis, as well as a bunch of technical guys who helped out on the session itself.

I'm not struck on the song personally although I likewise didn't care for "Do They Know It's Christmas" either, which reminds me that Bob Geldof makes a "no show without Punch" appearance very much as you would expect. Other moments of minor amusement occurred when Stevie Wonder tried to insert a line in Swahili, causing an obviously befuddled Waylon Jennings to promptly walk out - you just see his stetson disappearing into the foreground - Cyndi Lauper wearing about a million necklaces around her neck unaware they're causing sound interference every time she moves her head and best of all a completely out of place Bob Dylan who after Quincy tells them all not to sing if the key is too high, keeps his mouth firmly shut while all around him are emoting for Africa.

Like I said it was all for a good cause and maybe I'm being too critical but watching this bloated music video certainly wasn't the greatest night of my life.

Probably like most people outside of France, l knew and indeed still know little or nothing about the phenomenal long-term career enjoyed there by the singer Johnny Hallyday. I figured him as possibly a French equivalent to Britain's Cliff Richard, in other words a singer who started out as an Elvis copyist, but who somehow managed to maintain a successful, high-profile career almost sixty years later. But whereas Richard quickly converted himself to a bible-bashing, asexual family entertainer, Hallyday, at least from the evidence of this five-part Netflix series, went down a very different road. He did the whole sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll lifestyle, attempting suicide at one point, getting through five, often much younger wives as well as a host of other short-term affairs plus generally going mad for the drink as well as the drugs along the way.

He achieved remarkable longevity in his career by carefully selecting songwriting collaborators to reflect changing musical tastes but most of all, seemed latterly to revel in imagining the sort of larger-than-life live-show extravaganzas more associated with the likes of the Rolling Stones or David Bowie at their most megalomaniacal. His fan-base is remarkably loyal, manifested when twenty-two p!ane loads of them flew over to see him in 1996 perform a self-aggrandising one-off gig in Vegas, in so doing of course, emulating his hero Elvis. When he died in 2017, he was awarded a state funeral and the procession along and beyond the Champs Elysses was estimated at over one million.

And yet, even though he was almost unknown outside his home country, I can't think of anyone else in entertainment who seemed to impact so much with his public than Halyday. I wasn't really able to form an opinion on his music which sounded rather derivative no matter the musical era, but he was undoubtedly a strong vocalist, an energetic and charismatic live performer and as the phrase goes, a helluva guy too.

I'm not likely to acquaint myself with any of this music but I really enjoyed this high-octane, warts and all documentary on his wild life and times.

Vive Johnny!

I rather enjoyed the first Aquaman movie, which I understand was a commercial success, but like some other big budget blockbusters in the last year or so, I see that this sequel failed at the box office.

I think this film demonstrates pretty well why hero-fatigue appears to have set in with the public. It was obviously expensively made with practically every shot containing some kind of special visual feature and like before, I was impressed by the depiction of the deep blue sea and its myriad inhabitants. However I felt there were less of those type of shots this time, with a much greater concentration on action sequences and really once you've seen one crash-bang-wallop set-piece you've pretty much seen them all.

In this one, Aquaman faces off against Black Manta, still carrying a grudge against the superhero for killing his dad last time out. The baddie then finds an enchanted trident which can unlock a phantom king of the past and thousands of his troops as exiled by the Sea King's father years before. To combat this imminent twin threat, Aquaman has to team up with his truculent younger brother Orm to save the seas and also seek to peacefully co-exist in the future with we land-lubbers above.

Like its predecessor, the movie is played less than seriously with much attempted humour centring on the Sea King struggling to change his infant son's nappy and his initially testy partnership with his reluctant sibling, so much so, that after some time it seems as if he's trying to win the day by punning his opponents to death.

While the camera set-ups often did look impressive, I didn't feel I saw anything in them I hadn't seen before last time out. Jason Momoa, for a big guy, I have to say, demonstrates considerable agility in the title part.

Otherwise I have to report that the film rather washed over me like the sea on the sand, leaving no discernible traces afterwards.

I thought it was interesting that there was no teaser trailer for a further sequel over the end titles which makes me wonder just how well the previews went. I personally think that expensive spectacles like this are on the way out and wonder how Hollywood will move on from here. It just seems like I'm watching the same comic-based movie every time, whether it be about a DC or Marvel character

Now there is a task for a budding superhero or two...

This was an interesting idea for a music documentary. Rather than the usual focus on a name act, the director invites us instead to look twenty feet or so behind the main attraction to witness the good work done by the backing singers, although it's something I like to think I always did anyway.

Focusing primarily, if not quite exclusively on black female singers, underlining that point with a snippet at the start from Lou Reed's classic "Walk on the Wild Side" and its famous " ...and the coloured (sic.) girls sing 'Doo Doo Doo...." line, it engages in an exercise of "Whatiffery" as we're introduced to a series of undoubtedly talented backing singers who both never made it as headline acts or garnered the appreciation they were due.

The queen of the scene appears to be the great Darlene Love, who with her two girlfriends comprised the Blossoms, much used by Phil Spector, more than once recording the actual lead vocal on hits like "He's a Rebel" (a U. S. no. 1) and ,"He's a Fine, Fine Boy" and yet seeing the label credit and no doubt artist royalties go to the Crystals. In fairness, mad Phil did give her a few solo-credits back in the mid-60's, most notably on the classic "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" but she did at least have another go at the limelight in the 70's although regrettably not with any appreciable success. She was at last more recently recognised in her own right by gaining admission to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, if indeed that is an accolade, although it certainly seemed to mean a lot to her personally.

Some backing singers do push through to become successful solo artists, most noticeably the likes of Sheryl Crow and Luther Vandross, but they're obviously few and far between the defining factor here probably being that they also had the talent to write songs. I'd heard of some of the contributors here, like Lynn Mabry from having recently watched the Talking Heads feature "Stop Making Sense" and Merry Clayton for her other-worldly vocalising on the Stones' "Gimme Shelter", but meny others I have to say I didn't recognise such as Judith Hill, the Waters family of a brother and two sisters, Tata Vega and more.

They all undoubtedly have fabulous voices but the question remains as to why they failed to emerge from the background. Some of them appear to regret missing their chance of a life in the sun, while others are more sanguine about it, including one lady who's moved on with her life and now works as a Spanish language teacher.

Despite being talked up on-screen by some starry employers like Bruce Springsteen, Sting Mick Jagger and Stevie Wonder, I found it impossible to watch this documentary and not feel a little sad for them all even if one or two came across as a little bitter and self-pitying. A number of them did get to record solo albums and different excuses are laid out for their not breaking through, usually involving poor management or record label problems but sometimes it's just the breaks.

The documentary occasionally went unnecessarily off-subject into the subject of black politics, but on the whole made a compelling "What price fame" argument with one of their number saying that if she had indeed enjoyed solo super-stardom, she would likely have overdosed years ago.

Probably the biggest sadness is that like their fellow studio musicians, they would only have received session fees for their sometimes memorable input to a track (surely Merry deserved a co-credit for "Gimme Shelter"). But, in the end, harsh as it may sound, to paraphrase Sly Stone, not everybody is, or can be, a star.

Intrigued by its clever title and interested in the subject matter, I watched this documentary on the life and career of Rock Hudson with some anticipation. At the end, while I certainly knew more about the man than I did at the start, it seemed to me that the producers were far more interested in examining Hudson's legacy in relation to the LGBTQ+ movement than his artistic legacy as a popular actor on film and television for over thirty years.

Using as one of its principal devices the extraction of clips of Hudson in his movie roles in not the narrative here as if they were supposedly commenting on his own life, which must have taken hours of research, it has to be said that he did have to utter a lot of ambiguous statements which could have been interpreted as relating to his gay lifestyle, so much so that it made you wonder how many people in Hollywood were in on the secret. What's made clear is why he had to do so with the homophobia evident in an early 50's America, already whipped up to a frenzy by the House of Unnamerican Activities' Communist witch-hunt that it seemed to be as terrified of what they slightingly termed "pinkoes" as well as reds in the bed. Some of the things printed in the down-market magazines don't just border on hate-speech, they comprise a full-blown invasion.

With historic audio and occasionally video interviews with the main players in Hudson's life both inside and outside Hollywood, the wonder is that his secret was kept in the background for so long, right up until the headline-grabbing revelation that he'd contracted AIDS just before his death. As the first major celebrity afflicted by the terrible disease, the film then considers the impact of his going public with the news and in so doing "outing" himself as a gay man after years of playing the strong, masculine and what were presumed to be 100% heterosexual lead roles. There's the inevitable discussion as to whether he could or should have come out earlier but you only have to witness the trail of careers destroyed by doing so before to understand why he felt the need to cover his traces, even to the extent of going through with a sham marriage just before he turned thirty to pacify the gossip-mongers.

All this of course is fascinating in its way but for me, I found it imbalanced the film and would have appreciated if more consideration had been afforded to his acting ability and career in general. Yes, mention is made of the superb Douglas Sirk-directed films he graced in the 50's and also the remarkable John Frankenheimer movie "Accidents" which he made in 1966, but clearly the film-makers here had their own agenda in lining up a succession of his former boyfriends to relate their experiences with Hudson and even airing a privately taped telephone conversation with him actively procuring an obviously upcoming sexual encounter with a suitably qualified young male.

It's no surprise to learn that on-set Hudson garnered more sympathy and understanding from women than men, as witness the support received from the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day and Linda Gray. Much is made of him kissing the latter in an episode of "Dynasty" when he almost certainly knew he was carrying the AIDS infection, when he was at pains to do so closed-mouth. There probably wasn't time and it's unlikely in any case that Hudson felt the need to go completely public with a reveal-all interview, even as he surely knew he was dying. Could be have done more for the acceptance of homosexuality in society by so doing is the question this film wants to agonise over.

While I get the contemporary relevance of this, I personally prefer not to sit in judgement of the choices the man made in what must have been a difficult life and instead focus on the too-often underrated performances he gave in his long and distinguished career.

I'm not quite old enough to remember watching "I Love Lucy" or any of Lucille Ball's subsequent TV series but I am aware of how successful they were and how important a figure she was, especially as a trailblazing woman in the history of American television. Before that, she was a jobbing actress in Hollywood and as she honestly admits here, knew she was no beauty and basically took any part that was on offer. However, timing of course is everything and she was perfectly placed to play the goofy housewife for the new medium of television in early 50's America, which probably took her to their hearts and made the "I Love Lucy" sit-com the most popular programme in the medium.

Right there with her was her equally ambitious husband Desi Arnaz, a handsome young Cuban actor - musician she'd met in Hollywood. Finally able to spend some family time together, they made a busman's holiday out of the TV assignment to make "I Love Lucy", finally having a family-life together off screen and of course making a huge success of their fictional family life on screen.

This documentary on both their lives was directed by Amy Poehler, a successful female writer - comedienne from a different era. It has to be said it has something of the look and feel of an "authorised biography", as witness the substantial contribution to the narrative by their surviving daughter, who probably sees her job as protector of their joint legacy. More revealing are the spoken inserts from a stack of recorded audio tapes left behind by Lucille herself, which are appreciably more candid and less apocryphal, one suspects.

A big part of the story of course is how the couple came to be major power-brokers In the television world with the formation of their Desilu Production company which made a host of other iconic shows in the 60's, including two of the most long-lasting franchises still continuing to this day in "Star Trek" and "Mission: Impossible". It was Desi who took the presidential role in the company, a role he to which he in particular adapted with seeming ease, with Lucy as his vice-president.

Even though the marriage, broke up with both going on to other longer-lasting marriages with new partners, they continued as business partners and indeed stayed friends for the rest of their lives.

Filled throughout with contributions by the likes of Carole Burnett and Bette Midler, not to mention from the relatives of various contemporary contributors to the shows and dozens of clips from all of their joint film and TV ventures, you do get to see just how talented Ball was in particular. With her expressive face and penchant for physical comedy, it's easy to see why the nation loved her so much and for so long. I personally felt that more could have been said about her pioneering work in laying a future path for the likes of Mary Tyler-Moore, Roseanne Barr and of course Poehler herself, but that apart, this was still a very enjoyable if ultimately one suspects comfortable trip through the lives of one of the original Hollywood power-duos, way before that was even a thing.

Probably a better name for this movie would have been "The Sister" as, although we are initially introduced to the three daughters of small-town pharmacist Henry Travers and his fretful wife Beulah Bondi, it pretty much concentrates on the story of the eldest sister, Louise, Bette Davis's character. The doings of the other two sisters flit in and out of the narrative, but in truth, it's pretty much all about Bette.

Adopted from a popular romantic novel of the day, the timeline is framed by the elections of the first two US presidents of the 20th Century, Teddy Roosevelt and William Taft, in 1904 and 1908, as well as bracketing the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Punctuated throughout by close-ups of introductory chapter pages from the original book, no doubt to indulge the novel's fans although possibly for expository purposes too, what we have here is a glorified period soap-opera.

It has to be said right off that the attitudes shown in the film to women are very condescending indeed. One sister enters into a loveless marriage with a wealthy older man, presumably to keep her from remaining on the shelf, the other forgives her husband for running around with another woman even as we learn that the same scarlet woman has had flings, it seems, with every other so-called respectable male in the town. Talk about sauce for the gander.

Which brings us round to Bette, who's swept off her feet by Errol Flynn's handsome, ne'er-do-well sports reporter who breezes into town to meet up with his censorious old chum played by Donald Crisp. Soon enough, the star-crossed couple marry and set out for San Francisco, but naturally Errol can't change his wicked, wicked ways and before you can say Jack Daniels, is hitting the bottle and generally wallowing in self-pity, the final straw apparently being when his long-suffering wife takes the initiative and actually gets a job to earn the money her husband is drinking away. The very thought of a woman working and being the main breadwinner in a household! It all ends up a little too happily with a patched-on ending which apparently contradicts that of the novel.

Apart from the excitingly realistic earthquake scene, a coyou ple of voguish montage sequences and chaste sister Louise's unusual encounter with the local madame, I felt that director Anatole Litvak seemed rather constrained by the confines of the source material, subsiding too easily into a cosy, episodic, linear approach to the narrative. Davis enlivens things with a typically sparky performance but Flynn somehow never seems to engage with a part that on the face of it seems to reflect some of his real-life character traits. Travers and Bondi are appealing as the girls' parents, but neither of the other two sisters or their various beaus made much of an impression on me, which perhaps explains why none of them, male or female are much remembered today.

Still, in their different ways, the star-power of Flynn and Davis goes a long way but I've seen both in better movies than this.

I like a lot of classical music but have to confess that I draw the line at opera. The few excursions I tried to make into it saw me repelled by the histrionic singing, static action and sheer longevity of the pieces I saw. I might also add that my one trip to the ballet, I'm almost ashamed to say, likewise sent me to sleep.

So it was with some trepidation that I approached this ambitious movie by one of my favourite production teams of Powell and Prrssburger where they bring to the screen their dramatisation of Offenbach's operetta "The Tales of Hoffman". Now, having watched it, I'm still certain that opera isn't for me, but I'm also certain that this partnership could probably film the proverbial Yellow Pages and still make it entertaining.

Certain passages of the music I did recognise but most of it was unfamiliar to me plus, while I welcomed the translation of the libretto into English, I have to admit too that some of the singing, especially when performed in the higher register, rendered the words unintelligible to me.

And yet, still I found myself transfixed at times by the imagination and artistry which comes across in almost every scene. The set designs are wonders in themselves and deservedly won recognition from the Academy in its year, but in truth it's the almost non-stop invention in cinematuc terms by director Powell which sweeps the film along and keeps it interesting.

Hoffman's three dreams of his different idealised women are each rendered with colour, brio and individuality as Powell indulges every cinematic device at his disposal and probably invents a few more along the way, so that i found myself almost totally immersed in the drama, the closest thing to which I can equate it being, aptly, a fevered dream.

They even have their own take on the end credits quite openly and boldly owning up to the dubbing of the singing of most of the actors in the process. And I loved the cheeky nose-thumb to Hollywood with the "Made in England" stamp right at the end.

I perhaps wish I could appreciate more the skills of the performers and indeed the orchestra for what they do in front of the camera but for me the magic here and there's lots of it, emanates almost completely from behind it.

A remarkably brave film to produce, this is obviously where Moira Shearer's possessed red shoes eventually took her when they finally expired.

I've just lately watched the hour-long Channel Four documentary called "The Spy Who Died Twice" giving the real life version of John Stomehouse's remarkable story and felt it lacked a little detail. In unwittingly expressing a wish for a TV or movie dramatisation, little did I know that ITV had already done so last year with this three part miniseries starting Matthew McFadyen and Keeley Hawes which I somehow missed at the time.

I'm glad to say it filled in most of the blanks and more and very entertainingly too. It treats the story rather lightly and at times almost as a farce, which may in fact have actually been the correct approach to take. Here was an apparently successful, happily married family man, rising through the Labour ranks and indeed tipped for the premier'job himself, that is until his finances and soon enough his personal and political lives fell apart leading him to a desperate act of desertion, faking suicide on Miami Beach of all places and then heading to Melbourne under a false name, hoping his young secretary / lover Sheila Buckley would join him in a future life of invented anonymity.

It wasn't to be however and here he wasn't helped by the other recent high-profile disappearance of the time, that of the even more infamous gone-guy, Lord Lucan as he was picked uo by the local Aussie police on a tip-off that he might have been the missing Lord. He was eventually packed off back home to face the music where he later left the Labour Party (to join the fringe English National Party) and his wife in that order, before doing time in prison for fraud and on his release settle down to marry and have a child with Buckley before dying at age only 62 in 1988, an all but forgotten man.

I really enjoyed this three-parter, right from the 60's evoking titles (LWT.anyone?) and the sly references in the background music to "The Pink Panther" itself a celebration of another bumbling idiot although I doubt even Closeau at his dizziest could have fouled up as much as the hapless Stonehouse does here.

Matthew McFadyen plays the lead part in a wry, high-handed, self-mocking comic style (think Neil Hamilton crossed with Latka Graves - I'm serious!) and is well supported by Keeley Hawes as his long-suffering wife and Emer Heatley as the lisping lover, Sheila Buckley. As ever in productions like this, one or three of the "invented scenes for dramatic effect" come over as far-fetched, in particular a mutually-commiserating scene with Stonehouse and Prime Minister Harold Wilson the night before the latter's shock resignation in 1976, but on the whole I was highly entertained throughout and think that the production company set the programme up very well indeed.

My wife and I were struggling for an appropriate film to watch this Easter, when I suggested Martin Scorsese's imaginative if controversial take on the life of Christ, rather than yet another trawl through "King of Kings" or "The Greatest Story Ever Told".

The whole movie really hinges on its last half-hour when Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader perpetrate their outrageous, and I'd imagine to many, blasphemous twist in the tale even if the device hadn't been slightly diminished by variations of it I've since seen deployed in any number of subsequent non-religious movies or TV shows.

Of course, Scorsese was at pains in the title card over the opening credits to explain that his feature was not really based on the scriptures at all, but rather on a recent novel with a radically alternative interpretation of events.

Even before it got to the bizarre, mind-bending finale, the film was definitely far removed from the reverential cinematic epics of yore and frequently took other liberties with the Biblical story. Here, Jesus is a young man who has no conscience about making full-sized crucifixes for a living and appears to have had a past relationship with the local prostitute Mary Magdalen. He's also fast friends with Judas Iscariot who encourages Jesus to rise up and lead their Jewish compatriots to rebel against the occupying Romans, although his pacifist friend preaches a doctrine of love and is starting to come round to the possibility that God's master plan may be for him to in fact become the Messiah figure and in so doing redeem all the sins of mankind.

Gradually, this conflictef Jesus begins to lean into this idea of his own divinity as God's only son, even denying his own mother in the process, as he and a mixed bag of followers travel to Jerusalem, confusedly preaching at different times both armed and passive resistance en-route. Thus we encounter in the narrative some of the best-known incidents in his life, such as conducting the service on the mount or throwing the money-lenders out of the temple, as well as accomplishing miracles such as turning water into wine or most notably the raising of Lazarus from the dead. However, others are omitted, such as the Nativity itself, the feeding of the 5000 or walking on water. Notably Scorsese doesn't employ any spectacular DeMille-esque set-pieces in the miracle scenes, indeed, he's at pains to make his depictions of events throughout appear as realistic as possible, even given our obvious distance from them. This isn't the immaculately conceived Jesus walking around with a halo around his head, instead he's portrayed as an ordinary man, struggling with his faith and ultimately his holy mission as it gradually dawns on him and subsequently plays out.

But I have to freely admit that I didn't see the big turnaround coming in advance even as I was mentally querying the reason as the movie went on, for the movie's title in the first place. I myself am an atheist and so was easily able to run with this out-there re-imagining of these to some sacred legends, although it's plain to see why the movie gained the notoriety it did on first release. You certainly don't expect to see simulations of sex, especially involving the Christ figure himself, in a religiously-themed Hollywood film such as this, never mind the excruciatingly realistic torture scenes mostly perpetrated on Jesus, right up to the crucifixion itself.

For all its realism, I did find the universal non-adoption by practically every actor of the native dialect to be a distraction, with many cast-members addressing "Gaad" in a way reminiscent of John Wayne's accidentally hilarious utterance more at the foot of the Cross more than twenty years before. As such, I found it hard to take seriously the ensemble acting although I'd make an exception for Willem Dafoe in the title role, if only for the remarkable physical effort and energy he brought to what must have been an absolutely gruelling part.

Anyway, when all's said and done, I'm glad that we ventured into this very different reimagining of Christ's life, although I can clearly see why it wouldn't be to everyone's taste, especially to the God-fearing amongst us.

As famous for inspiring the hit BBC comedy series, "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin", the mystery of the ex-Labour Government minister John Stonehouse's disappearance demonstrated that truth clearly was stranger than fiction.

A minister in Harold Wilson's government from 1967-1970, Stonehouse was strongly rumoured to have been recruited as a spy by the Czech security services in the early 60s, at a time of course when Czechoslovakia was one of the satellite countries of the then USSR. This now appears to have been corroborated by evidence emanating from four separate Czech agents all of them who claimed to be assigned to Stonehouse at that time.

It was however in December 1974 that Stonehouse really leapt into the headlines when he sensationally disappeared from his Miami Beach hotel, leaving behind him on the beach, only his clothes and passport in an apparent suicide. For days afterwards his name was everywhere on the news media until remarkably he was traced, alive and well in Australia where he'd started living under a false name. In the media scrum which followed as he was returned to England to face trial, details of his financial improprieties emerged as well as the revelation of an affair with his young, glamorous secretary, effectively humiliating his loyal wife who had been staunchly defending him from the beginning.

The point is made that the successive governments of Wilson, James Callaghan and even the Conservative Margaret Thatcher, were all happy to sweep any rumours of spying against him under the presumably red carpet, no doubt for reasons of national security, but in the end he was sent to prison for seven years for the deception he'd practiced, finally dying of a heart-attack at the age of only 62, his reputation by then in shreds, a sorry end for a man once tipped as a future Labour leader and possibly Prime Minister.

This hour-long Channel Four documentary, rather plays up the spy-element, even combining at least two James Bond titles in its name, but couldn't persuade either his wife or lover, later his second wife, or any other member of his family to make personal contributions other than on historical footage of the times. It relies instead on contemporary interviews with his then solicitor and other political commentators. Utilising a jazz-influenced influenced soundtrack as well as one of those voguish but sometimes confusing back and forward digital calendars rather than relating the story in linear fashion, this documentary probably did the best with what it had and just about got the job done, would be my verdict.

While watching it, I said to my wife that this would make a great movie or Netflix series and I see that in fact, this actually happened in 2023 in a high-profile ITV series which I somehow missed. Perhaps it will have a little more content than was seen here...

There's little doubt that Martin Scorsese sees this as one of his most serious films. Not only has he employed two of his pet male actors down the years, Leonardo De Caprio and Robert De Niro in lead roles (it's a wonder he didn't coax Daniel Day Lewis out of retirement) he confers a mammoth continuous running time to his subject, with no intermission, of almost three and a half-hours, even giving himself literally the last word in a brief acting part.in what is effectively an epilogue at the end. So I get it, the subject matter has obviously affected him personally and deeply and that certainly comes over loud and clear right from the first scene.

Of course, kudos are due to Scorsese for bringing to light this little-known piece of American history which shames the white man's treatment of the Native American Osage people whose only "crime" is that they strike the black honey of oil on on their own ceremonial lands which naturally attracts the venomous bees of the mendacious and rapacious white usurpers. This they do by equally appalling means, firstly by insidiously marrying themselves to the Osage women-folk to put themselves directly in the line of succession "head-rights" to inherit the land, then by the simple cold-blooded murder of anyone in their way and lastly, as personified by De Niro's monstrous Uncle Ben "but you can call me King" Hale character, by setting up as a great benefactor and philanthropist, learning the Osage language and building them houses and schools to effectively buy their unsuspecting hearts and minds while all the while plotting how to take over every last inch of their land.

Undoubtedly epic in scale, the film comes over as authentic down to the smallest detail as Scorsese painstakingly recreates the era. I also appreciated the way that he employs his two "name" stars as villains even if they are of the smiling variety and yes, he certainly doesn't miss his target in excoriating the white man's shameful treatment of the innocent and too-trusting Osage people. I had hopes initially that Lily Gladstone's Mollie character, who at first seems to be made of sterner stuff, might provide a stumbling block to De Niro / Hale's nefarious miscegenation plans, but sadly she too succumbs not only to future husband DiCaprio's dubious charms but also, almost, to the slow-poison he dutifully administers to her.

It was impossible not to be drawn fully into this horrific take of death and deception, with my only complaint being the inordinate length it took the celebrated director to tell his take. Perhaps he felt he had to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" in this, his valedictory statement, but for me the action too often went from profound to ponderous with too many characters saying too many words in too many scenes.

Nevertheless, I made it through to the end without a break and am certainly the wiser for having this darkest corner of American history brought into the light. I can also see the read-across relevance of the tale to so many other historical acts of colonisation around the whole world. Convincingly acted from the biggest star in the cast down to the briefest supporting role, it's just a pity that the undoubted weight of the subject matter appears to have overloaded Scorsese's directorial vision to the partial detriment of the end movie, noble and enlightening as that vision may have been.

This episode of "UFO" focused on Foster, who sees a colleague die in front of him on Moonbase Alpha from a sniper shot by an alien camped out there somewhere on the moon surface, which shatters a window and de-pressurises the room in which they were relaxing. Fuelled by revenge, he goes out, against Straker's better judgement, on his moon-buggy, accompanied by some colleagues, to hunt down the perpetrator.

Soon enough, they track down the alien vessel in the depths of a remote crater but Paul gets separated from the group during the search, injuring himself in the process. As time passes, it seems that there's no way back for him, leading Straker to even consider a replacement for him.

This introduces the episode's sub-plot, a rather heavy-handed homily on race-relations as the chap he asks to step into the role is black and it seems worried about the racism he might encounter in the job. Now this seems strange to me, as there have been no signs at all of any such behaviour exhibited by anyone in SHADO, be it on Earth or the Moon. In fact, I'd say it's the women who have a stronger case for discrimination. Having now watched five episodes in the series, I've yet to see a woman in a major role. They seem to exist merely to sit at their flashing consoles and fetch the Commander's coffee.

Anyway, Foster knows he's in trouble when he sees his oxygen supply has been damaged but who do you think comes to his rescue in a true "we're all brothers under the sun" (or should that be "moon"?) moment? There's one more mordant twist in the tale.however although it's stretching things a little that Foster couldn't make himself clear to his rescuers from inside his transparent helmet.

Like I said, I found the politics laid on just a little too thick here plus Foster's trek back to base seemed to take longer than the slowest boat to China. Certainly the lack of any panoramic camera-work either from height or distance didn't help convince me that his journey was especially epic.

That said, it was a reasonable enough episode although it did tend to highlight the setbound limitations presumably imposed on the show.

The original and for me, the best cinematic adaptation of HG Wells' classic yarn about invading Martians. Produced by George Pal and directed by Byron Haskin, it's a vivid, exciting and fast-moving adventure with terrific special effects for the time which still impress today.

The basic story must be almost universally known as a fleet of UFO's begins to land at different spots on the planet with our story concentrating on San Francisco. Unlike Wells' tripod-borne invaders these Martians pose an even bigger threat as they use flying machines to search and destroy. And search and destroy they most assuredly do, repelling everything our fighting forces can throw at them, all the way up to an actual atomic bomb while rasing whole buildings to the ground and reducing to dust any humans who unwisely cross their path.

Caught up in the middle of it all are scientist Gene Barry and Ann Robinson the pretty young niece of the local padre, both obviously inserted to provide a little human interest but the real attraction here is in the action sequences with the Martians in their bright green vessels and flame-orange disintegrating rays wreaking colourful havoc on the local landscape. There are also fine perspective shots of early 50's Frisco. The acting by the cast is a little stiff and at times you can almost imagine the director cuing "Action!" for some shots but the crowd scenes on the other hand are convincing.

The narrative fairly hurtles along and even up to the last five minutes you can't see where redemption will come from but reflecting contemporary, conservative attitudes towards religion, it just goes to show you what the power of prayer can do...I personally found that particular idea to be sillier than that of the men from Mars themselves but it can't detract too much from all the bangs and crashes which preceded it.

As good in its way as Orson Welles' celebrated radio version of the same story from fifteen years before, this remains the definitive take and is still one of the best sci-fi movies you'll ever see.

This three-part, rather cheaply-titled Channel 4 series was the culmination of a unique collaboration between the Somerset and Avon police internal investigations unit and a fly-on-the-wall television documentary team. Giving themselves over almost completely to the cameras, including their own body-cam footage, the force is exposed to trial by its own television with a number of cases selected from a great many more, for inclusion in the series.

The three programmes highlighted a number of cases taken at least some way up the line by their own investigators and as such seemed to be themed, the first concerning cases of sexual abuse on members of the public by serving officers, the second on demonstrations of alleged racial discrimination against minority groups and the third on what you might call blue-on-blue incidents where police officers perpetrated sexually motivated crimes against much younger female colleagues at police training college, including sexting and inappropriate sexual advances.

I'm going to come out and say that I wasn't convinced of culpability by all the cases shown here, especially those in the second show, but certainly most all of them did get results of some type usually involving the enforced resignation of the offenders although rarely resulting in any wider criminal convictions. In the first two episodes, the Investigation of Police Criminality Unit (IOPC) despite their diligent and sympathetic efforts to convict the accused usually failed to prove their case either to a court or to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Certainly the current female DCI seems determined to root out all the bad apples in her constabulary but it's clear she'll have the devil's own job doing not only that but of also conveying her internal spring-clean mission to certain strands of the wider community, some of whom seen to have their own anti-police agenda, admittedly born of years of perceived discriminatory attitudes against their own interest-group.

However, with the recent convictions of the likes of Wayne Couzens and David Carrick still very fresh in the memory as well as the damning statistics posted at the end of the final episode about how many complaints are made against police officers and the shockingly low conviction rate, there is clearly a huge amount of work to be done before anything like full confidence is restored in our police forces the length and breadth of the country.