Robert Altman‘s The Player is a great little dig at the movie industry and to add authenticity he roped in a bunch of his film star pals to lurk in the background…a few more props for the set-decorator to carefully position around the set…”we’ll have a couple of tables there and if you could put a Cher over here”.

So Burt Reynolds and Angelica Huston are carefully placed to give the film that real Hollywood feel and Rod Steiger lurks and Andie MacDowell and John Cusack look uncomfortable. And, while it might be fun to spot them, it ultimately becomes an annoyance. Rather than authenticity you get stars as distractions, and rather than making the scene look real it ends up looking smug and phony (which possibly means that it worked perfectly)…

The film is still great despite this and a lot of that is because of Tim Robbins and Cynthia Stevenson (because I ♥ Joy Lass) and not so much because of Greta Scacchi whose role doesn’t really get the depth it ought to have.

But by the end the film was straining and struggling to resolve the bloody silly killer-cheese storyline and suddenly you wished that they had tried a little bit harder with the story so that they didn’t need to let the film fizzle out the way it did.

If ever there was a film that was crying out for a special edition DVD this has to be it…so if someone could sort that out I’d be grateful.

It just looks silly – Hazel said it already so I don’t have to

The biggest problem I’ve had with this is finding a picture to illustrate just what bothers me about Shelley and her ears – because I’m sure her ears are just fine really…it’s the way her ears peek through her haircut that bothers me. We get a hypnotizing and distracting glimpse of an ear every time she moves her head. I guess that sticky-out ears and straight/flat hair just don’t mix (see also Joni Mitchell).

The Shining must be one of the scariest films ever made. Jack Nicholson overacts like he always does and just for a change it’s just the sort of film in which Jack’s overacting can work (normally Jack appearing in a film is reason enough to not watch it – although there are of course exceptions). Shelley too, hams it up and the film gets no worse for any of her screaming and jittering about. The kid could use a haircut but even that doesn’t bother me as much as bad-haired-kids often do. I must admit that I haven’t sat through the whole film for a few years. First time I saw it I was bothered more by how different it was from the book than by Shelley’s ears.

The Shining on IMDB
The Shining on Wikipedia

But…in amongst it all is Ruby Keeler…poor Ruby with her squawky irritating voice (both while singing and speaking), her ungainly, clunky hoofing and her vacant “acting” – it’s laughable to think that anyone, at any time thought it was anything but insane to cast such a talentless chump in the leading role. But there she is…she squawks, she clunks, she looks vacant and she makes us all yearn for the cardboard cutout skyscrapers to come and swallow her up…

42nd Street on IMDB
42nd Street on Wikipedia

John Hurt lies writhing on the table – held down by his shipmates and with his chest/stomach moving in a very scary way – suddenly with a vile splatter of blood this cute little alien shoves its way out of his innards – looks around gives a little squeal of delight and belts kermit-like across the room. Tale away the blood and the screaming and throw in some coloured fur, a pig and a Swedish chef and we’d have Saturday teatime viewing.

Alien on IMDB
Alien on Wikipedia

Black Narcissus is an astonishing film. The casting for the most part is perfect, the colour photography is gorgeous, the painted backgrounds are stunning, the plot is engrossing and wonderfully acted BUT for the so much of the film I am hypnotized by Mr Dean’s shorts, a little too short and pulled up a little too high. He wears them for a large part of the film and even towards the end turns up wearing those shorts and precious little else.

I could of course extend this to the whole of Mr Dean’s wardrobe – the ridiculous hat he wears most of the time and the even sillier fur coat he digs out at Christmas…but the short shorts are undoubtedly the very things that send poor Sister Ruth around the bend…

Honourable mention also goes to May Hallet for the very annoying Ayah but her performance is too similar and not as annoying as a later entry in this series.

• Black Narcissus on IMDB
• Black Narcissus on Wikipedia
• Black Narcissus – Criterion Collection on Amazon.com
• Black Narcissus on Amazon.co.uk

It might seem a little churlish to suggest that Oliver almost ruined the fantastic Oliver! but for a film so perfectly cast poor Mark Lester seems a little too angelic, a little too naive, a little too clean. Maybe it’s just that he had to act alongside the fantastic Jack Wild (as The Artful Dodger) that exposed these inadequacies or maybe the producers thought that in amongst all the grimy urchins they needed someone to stand out. Sadly he stands out like a sore thumb rather than a shining beacon.

Thankfully the rest of the cast and the phenomenal sets, songs and choreography make Oliver’s wetness nothing more than a mild irritant.

Adam’s school just put on a performance of Oliver – it was a valiant effort to cram as much of the story and the songs as they could into an hour. I enjoyed it but wished they’d found a way for it not to seem quite so rushed, they were too busy getting the songs and story in that they forgot to have any fun with it.

• ‘Consider Yourself one of the Family!’ a fantastic collection of stills and publicity (where I pinched the picture from).
• Oliver! on Wikipedia
• Oliver! on IMDB