Although I have number of films to record it cannot be described as a film fest.
I begin with an end of the world forecast film which combines the Mayan Calendar with the Planet X or Planet Niburu forecast resulting in the films 2012 which as will be recalled featured volcanic and earthquake eruptions as the earth alters its axis following major solar flares and leading to a second great flood with the creation of several great Ark Ships so that humanity survives, and Deep Impact where a seven mile comet impacts with earth.
The Mayan calendar is said to end on December 21st 2012 along with less precise forecasts of other ancient peoples where as the Planet X being on a long rotation around the sun due to come close to the earth in 2012 with damaging consequences is more the notion of a 20th century individual who believed they received messages from an mind implant (upon which a large part of the X files was based)
The film is called the Doomsday Prophecy and was part of a week long series of disaster movies on a free film channel on Sky, free in the sense that an additional payment is not required.
Two individuals receive summons to meet a recluse professor living in the outback. One is a specialist in investigating ancient artefacts including the famous Mayan statues on Easter Island. Why they were there and how were they created? The other works for a publishing company who sent to meet the recluse who has offered to give to the company the exclusive rights to publish his latest manuscript forecasting the future following the success of an earlier publication along the lines of Nostradamous which can be interpreted as forecasting events that have already occurred. He aks for the young man to be his contact. Why these two individual should have been selected to meet with reclusive professor is subsequently revealed.
When the two reluctant would be saviour of humanity meet they are suspicious and hostile pulling in opposite directions when they arrive at the home of the Professor and find him murdered The clue is a kind of ancient rod which enables the recipient to receive visions of the future. And as the two subsequently find the use has the effect of destroying the brain and therefore the body of the user as it reaches the point where the world is due to end unless certain action is taken. The Professor points the way for the two to solve the mystery adn save humanity.
Meanwhile there are two developments which add to the pressure upon the couple. The first is that a series of catastrophes occur of increasing magnitude which includes the destruction of central New York, the disappearance of the Italian peninsular and such like. They are also pursued by a special Presidential Task force who have been monitoring the Professor and those he has contacted. A leading general in national security instructs a agent commander on the ground that it is the national interest to kill the two chosen ones and retrieve the rod, although it is never explained about how the General got to know about the rod and its powers.
The chosen young man has used the rod twice, the first unintentionally when he picks it up out of curiosity on finding the body and then intentionally when he understands it potential significance. He realises that for some reason the authorities are enemies while the young woman wants to get into contact with them and reveal all. Eventually they are able to persuade the lead pursuer that they must carry out the mission although they remain unclear what it is. They are assisted by an elder of the local indigenous people and his daughter who form part of the second visions as does leader of the pursuers.
What emerges is that the world was in a similar peril thousands of years before and that the Mayan statues were part of a device by an other world civilization which creates a force field when the rod is inserted in one of the heads and which counters the force directed at the earth which is potential creating its end. The rogue General wants to be the one to hold and control the power but when he does so he finds that it does not work for him.
The reason is that young man is the son of the Professor adopted as an infant and has inherited the power although how the Professor came to have the rod and the power is never explained. In the spectacular finale they are able to raise a new set of Mayan type figures which emerge from the ground in the area known to exist by the indigenous elder. The earth is saved from complete destruction although it is a close call.
This is good point to introduce a mini series of three separate but connected films under the banner heading of Jack Hunter with each film titled the Lost Treasure of Ugarit, The Quest for Akenaten’s Tomb and the Star of Heaven.
The main story is the search for two artefacts which combined become an extraordinary weapon in the form a nuclear laser which turns rock into molten lava. There are various interests in the search of the two artefacts. Jack is a treasure seeker who works for a National USA intelligence service which operates with dozens of operatives keeping watch via satellites on banks of computer screens and led by a comparatively young woman who has a love hate relationship with Jack. He has a history love and sexual adventures although it is not clear which affair is what.
In the first he teams up with a US educated Syrian Nadia who is only interested in preserving the ancient artefacts and preventing them in being misused when their potential power is understood. She is accompanied by a driver who is a stupid and nervous coward who is intended to provide comic interludes. He does have his moments which makes his usefulness worthwhile and at the end of the series Jack and Nadia are present at the airport when he goes to greet his long suffering and separated wife anticipating she is the small height challenged and large weight challenged person who appears to open her arms to him but is for another while his wife turns out to be a beautiful beauty queen type.
There is also someone with wealth and the ability to hire hundreds of Russian type young hoods and he employs a former associated and friend of Jack which leads to the friend not killing Jack when the opportunity arrives in each of the films, sometimes on more than one occasion. There are also corrupt officials who with the prospect of Treasure also become involved. The antiseptic death rate is ginormous but remains suitable for Saturday morning Children‘s cinema. The films are allegedly set in various historical sites around the Mille East and also in various cities including Paris and Istanbul.
In the end the one of the main villains kills the other and just when it looks as if he has been successful using the weapon to destroy just about everyone and everything in sight there is an eclipse which means that the weapon cannot draw on the required energy from the sun and Jack is able to part the weapon for the surviving villain who falls into magna river he has created. Moreover Nadia is able to get hold of the weapon and throws it into the Magna causing a nuclear type of explosion. There is not much else which needs to be said. In fact there is nothing else to be said.
London Boulevard is described as a 2010 British Film noir. Perhaps it is, but for me it is another violence exploitation movie in the genre of Lock Stock and Two Barrels which appeals to the weekend lads and lasses. Colin Farrell plays a contemporary East End criminal released from prison who wants to go straight, or at least not return for any more porridge and evening pint mugs of cocoa. He is collected by a former friend and associate Billy who says he can stay at his flat which is decidedly up market because it has been provided by the man he now works for the notorious Rob Gant played by the ubiquitous crime boss Ray Winston.
At first Farrell as Mitchell (any connection with the Mitchell’s of the Old Vic is coincidental) resists the offers from Winston and investigates the offer of a security guard to Keira Knightly who is well suited for playing Charlotte your today’s flat chested stick actress model and creative artist who cannot go anywhere with anyone because of the paparazzi who have somehow persuaded the owners of a neighbouring building to allow them to camp out on the roof so there is are only a couple of spots in the garden of the West London house where she resides and shares with Davis Thewlia who plays an disturbed business manager.
The absurdity of this aspect of the plot but one of several similar aspects of film which is all about slick appearance over substance. In reality she would have vacated the premises long ago to something offering greater internal security or have taken appropriate injunctions. The idea of someone like Jordan being such a successful business manager is also pure fantasy. She also has a grand county house in need of renovation but again without adequate securing fencing and screening.
What Mitchell is not aware when he arrives is that she is suffering after a date rape in Rome when the perpetrator another fashionista film producer I think, is dealt with by the businesses manager although I not sure if he was murdered or severely harmed. There are two attractions to the job. The first it has accommodation and the second is that he is a stupid man as well as a criminal and takes a shine to the lady of the house because she is fascinated by his ruthless hard man criminality. He is a dangerous thug no different from the crime boss who recognises this and offers to take him under his wing.
Winston is no nonsense crime thug who likes to order scampi and chips with beer at posh nosh restaurants and uses his money and reputation to bully everyone into submission. Farrell turns to him for help when a tramp he knows, although it is not explained why he would ever take an interest in the tramp, is murdered by two young Turks from a local estate one of whom is a professional footballer which I suspect is supposed to surprise teenage viewers.
In the event Winston’s henchman picks up the wrong man but this does not the boy being tortured and killed. The film also features a corrupt policeman Detective Inspector Bailey played by Eddie Marsden. So how does it all end well DI Bailey gets ambitious and is murdered by Thewlis as Jordan. Farrell and he take the body to the water system at the country house so the body will enter the adjacent lake/river. He also murders Winstone in a shoot out where he knocks out Winstone’s whore and so that it looks as if she had killed the security guard who is made to look as if he has killed Marsden or vice versa.
Farrell is then knifed to death by the footballer he is trying to find while fortunately for her Keira as Charlotte is able to show she had nothing to do with any of this by being on a plane to the USA for an engagement there. And the moral is? Criminals are no different from crooked police and overpaid footballers and fashionista personalities together with red top papers paying the paparazzi. They are all scum bags who meet early bloody deaths. While the former may be true that latter is sadly not.
There is more weight to Love Field a 1992 released USA independent film with Michelle Pfeiffer and Dennis Haysbert who are two individuals with spectacularly different reasons for taking a Greyhound bus from Dallas heading for connections to Washington DC. Michelle plays a housewife beautician, suffering the loss of a pregnancy and married to a stereotype male more interested in beer, watching games on TV, having his wife cook and tend to his needs on demand. He does not share her enthusiasm for JFK as the only politicians she ever voted for and adores his wife with scrapbooks filled with pictures and articles.
She takes time off to help a neighbour who is wheelchair bound to go to Love Field, the name of the airport, to see the President and his wife arrive. Because of Traffic problems they arrive just as the plane lands and a security man/policeman enables them to stand at the barrier with a good chance of shaking the hand of Jacqueline as she walks their side of the line. Unfortunately the woman she accompanies has dropped her purse (handbag) and while she is retrieving this the President’s wife shakes the hand of her companion and she misses close contact.
Later she arrives at the hairdressers/beauticians and notices crowds outside a TV shop window and they learn the news of the assassination. She is devastated and decides she must attend the funeral and makes plans to attend the funeral when it is known where it will take place. He husband refuses to take time off so he can drive her despite the incentive of staying at the same motel they used on their honeymoon so she goes off without his knowledge taking the Greyhound.
She sits at the back just in front of the seats used by “the coloureds” with Haysbert in what one critic described as a Sydney Poitier standard role but as with Pfeiffer both actors quickly transcend the stereotype characters that have been created for them. She is talks without thinking at great speed, jumping to conclusions and judgements emotionally on impulse without rational basis echoing the prejudices of upbringing and lack of education. She is a typical while working class American of that era.
Haysbert plays a father who was not ready to marry the mother of their daughter when the pregnancy was determined. When the mother died the child appears to have been cared for by the maternal family or foster parents who mistreated her physically so that she flinches when anyone goes to touch. Ffeiffer discovers this when the toilet for ‘the coloureds’ is closed and she take the child into the ‘whites only’ and discovers bruising. She accurately assumes that the child is being kidnapped and the man is the perpetrator and contacts the police giving her particulars. She breaks off and quickly learns that that the story that the father had undertaken his national service and on learning of the death of the mother had gone to find the child and immediately discovered the ill treatment. He was able to show pictures of the girl as a baby with her mother and himself to confirm the story and that because he was not the legal father he taken the child without going through the legal process to immediately protected. The days before DNA!
The coach is then forced off the road to avoid an accident and they are taken to the nearest Bus and Coach station to await a relief vehicle. Because from his rear seat he had noted a drunken driver trying to overtake he is required to give evidence and the local police become concerned as an officer has gone to the address of the Ffeiffer and alerted the husband to where she was and the possible destination. They decide to jump the bus leaving her case on the vehicle but he has his own and the child’s clothing with them.
They steal a clapped out car that only does 40 MPH but they get this fixed along the way but eventually it breaks down and they have to overcome an attack on him by three white men while she is away trying to get help and the girl hiding in the car. Fortunately she has a distant relative in the area and they are taken in while he recovers. The woman cooperates with keeping silent when the local sheriff calls to enquire among all the isolated properties in the area because they are on the look out for the threesome after it has been established that the man was involving in the kidnapping of the children and was being helped by the white woman.
This relative contacts the husband who comes to take his wife home but she refuses and it is evident this marks the end of the marriage. There is to be no happy ending though as such because the couple recognise the inevitable when attempting to get to the Presidential funeral at Arlington. He is given a custodial sentence but in the Washington area when Ffeiffer also settles and keeps in contact with the girl. The final scene is his release. Ffeiffer is divorced but managing on her own with the road trip having enabled her to stand on her two feet, grow up and understand more of the reality of the society and the prejudice that existed and continues to do so. Her performance led to a nomination for an Academy Award for an actor in leading female role.
I have previously mentioned before the other film which deals more directly with the day of the Assassination of President John F Kenney entitled Interview with an Assassin. The film is made in the style of the Blair Witch project with a hand held poor quality camera and sound work and as a ‘mocumentary’. I hated the Blair Witch as did the majority of the audience on a weekend evening because it was badly made and ineffective as a scare movie. The style of this film also results in a lack of credibility if one sets aside the boredom and persists in viewing. It could have been a much better if not great film because it deals with one of the great cover-ups of all time. The Assassination of JFK and the cover up by the Warren Commission. It is unlikely that the US government will ever come clean that there was more than one shooter and that the bullet which causes the fatality came from what is known as The Grassy Knoll on the other side of a roundabout and where the shot was most likely fired from behind and above the fencing.
The film concerns an out of work camera man Ron Kobeleski who is contacted by a neighbour and retired marine Walter Ohlinger who prefers to be called Barry. Barry alleges that he is dying of cancer and wants to confess a secret which he has kept for forty years. He says he was the gunman that fired the fatal bullet and he shows Ron the bullet casing which he kept after it was fired before making his escape. He persuades Ron to take it to a specialist laboratory who are able to confirm that it is similar to the weapon used to kill the President but it would be necessary to compare with casing with the bullet to confirm it was the precise weapon. For some reason Ron leaves the casing at the laboratory which later disappears.
Given the significance of such a story if it was true Ron does not go immediately to the authorities and goes along with Barry’s assertion that to do so would endanger both lives and the family of the camera man. They go on a tour of the area and to find others who were involved in the conspiracy and still alive. Barry’s ex wife says her husband is a lunatic and a fraud while others appear to add credence to what the man says. However there are two twists as the film ends. Ron finds himself involved as Barry cleverly gets himself into a position where he attempts to assassinate the present day President. Barry says he just wanted to prove that he could do it to confirm his story about the killing of JFK. The second twist is that Barry then attempts to kill Ron who manages to wound Barry.
The film ends with a policeman saying to the incarcerated Ron awaiting trial that he could help his case by revealing the location of the tapes and the account of what was said to have happened re JFK and their subsequent research. Ron says that would end his life and that of his family. Ron is therefore telling the tale to us after his release from prison and it is mentioned that Barry died in prison not from cancer but mysteriously and allegedly by other prisoners. The film attracted interest in Texas and was made with a budget of just $1 million. It showed.
Both films are about how characters whose live are significantly changed from the interaction with strangers, one for the better and one for the worse.
Just two to go with Un Posto all’inferno, A place of Hell, an Italian 1969 released film which has recently been successfully dubbed in English. Most dubbed films are awful as those undertaking the dubbing fail to understand the idiom of the original language with some excruiating results. It was only at the end of he film that I discovered it had been dubbed.. It is set on a small Pacific Island where the indigenous people are held captive by the Japanese during World War II. On the island is a British Officer who has been responsible for setting up the new radar system and which has now fallen intact into the hands of the enemy.
There is also a small group of American soldiers where the officer holds the rank as War Correspondent.
Typical for this kind of film in which the allies provide heroic sacrifices by wounded individuals who enable their companions to escape from advancing forces by holding their position for a time despite mammoth odds against them. They are assisted by heroic villagers and they are able to carry out major assaults such as the destruction of the radar system with minimum casualties compared to those of the enemy who also speak perfect English,
The final sequence of the film as a surreal quality as an indigenous young woman bravely explores each of the hut dwellings at the waters edge to ensure it is as deserted as it appears. Her search takes several minutes. However when the remaining soldiers reach the centre of the village and approach the small sea going patrol boat they find that they are surrounded but several dozen enemy troops who have buried themselves in fox holes and covered pits in the sand. They are all killed but even after this the remaining men are attacked by two sailors on the patrol boat so that in the end only two survive including the war correspondent who surveying the beach covered with bodies comments about the cost of war and its futility.
The Square is an Australian film which was shelved by its author because he considered it not strong enough but was persuaded to make the film by his brother. He should have trusted his instincts.
Raymond Yale is a contractor working on the site of a new development who accepts substantial backhanders from sub contractors. He is having a passionate sexual affair with a young neighbour who is married to a criminal. He promises to leave his wife and set up home separately with the young woman as soon as he has amassed sufficient funds start a new life.
The young wife discovers that her husband has hidden the substantial proceeds of crime in the loft of their home. She devises a plan for the lover to set fire to the home after they have removed the money. Unfortunately a relative is in the home when the fire is started and dies so the couple have become murderers along with accomplices involved. There then follows a series of misadventure which descend into farce in which several people are killed. Finally there is confrontation between the criminal and his crime partner which appears to be settled when the crime partner is killed however as the lover wrestles with criminal over the possession of the weapon it goes off and shoots the young woman in the head killing her instantly. And the moral is.
I begin with an end of the world forecast film which combines the Mayan Calendar with the Planet X or Planet Niburu forecast resulting in the films 2012 which as will be recalled featured volcanic and earthquake eruptions as the earth alters its axis following major solar flares and leading to a second great flood with the creation of several great Ark Ships so that humanity survives, and Deep Impact where a seven mile comet impacts with earth.
The Mayan calendar is said to end on December 21st 2012 along with less precise forecasts of other ancient peoples where as the Planet X being on a long rotation around the sun due to come close to the earth in 2012 with damaging consequences is more the notion of a 20th century individual who believed they received messages from an mind implant (upon which a large part of the X files was based)
The film is called the Doomsday Prophecy and was part of a week long series of disaster movies on a free film channel on Sky, free in the sense that an additional payment is not required.
Two individuals receive summons to meet a recluse professor living in the outback. One is a specialist in investigating ancient artefacts including the famous Mayan statues on Easter Island. Why they were there and how were they created? The other works for a publishing company who sent to meet the recluse who has offered to give to the company the exclusive rights to publish his latest manuscript forecasting the future following the success of an earlier publication along the lines of Nostradamous which can be interpreted as forecasting events that have already occurred. He aks for the young man to be his contact. Why these two individual should have been selected to meet with reclusive professor is subsequently revealed.
When the two reluctant would be saviour of humanity meet they are suspicious and hostile pulling in opposite directions when they arrive at the home of the Professor and find him murdered The clue is a kind of ancient rod which enables the recipient to receive visions of the future. And as the two subsequently find the use has the effect of destroying the brain and therefore the body of the user as it reaches the point where the world is due to end unless certain action is taken. The Professor points the way for the two to solve the mystery adn save humanity.
Meanwhile there are two developments which add to the pressure upon the couple. The first is that a series of catastrophes occur of increasing magnitude which includes the destruction of central New York, the disappearance of the Italian peninsular and such like. They are also pursued by a special Presidential Task force who have been monitoring the Professor and those he has contacted. A leading general in national security instructs a agent commander on the ground that it is the national interest to kill the two chosen ones and retrieve the rod, although it is never explained about how the General got to know about the rod and its powers.
The chosen young man has used the rod twice, the first unintentionally when he picks it up out of curiosity on finding the body and then intentionally when he understands it potential significance. He realises that for some reason the authorities are enemies while the young woman wants to get into contact with them and reveal all. Eventually they are able to persuade the lead pursuer that they must carry out the mission although they remain unclear what it is. They are assisted by an elder of the local indigenous people and his daughter who form part of the second visions as does leader of the pursuers.
What emerges is that the world was in a similar peril thousands of years before and that the Mayan statues were part of a device by an other world civilization which creates a force field when the rod is inserted in one of the heads and which counters the force directed at the earth which is potential creating its end. The rogue General wants to be the one to hold and control the power but when he does so he finds that it does not work for him.
The reason is that young man is the son of the Professor adopted as an infant and has inherited the power although how the Professor came to have the rod and the power is never explained. In the spectacular finale they are able to raise a new set of Mayan type figures which emerge from the ground in the area known to exist by the indigenous elder. The earth is saved from complete destruction although it is a close call.
This is good point to introduce a mini series of three separate but connected films under the banner heading of Jack Hunter with each film titled the Lost Treasure of Ugarit, The Quest for Akenaten’s Tomb and the Star of Heaven.
The main story is the search for two artefacts which combined become an extraordinary weapon in the form a nuclear laser which turns rock into molten lava. There are various interests in the search of the two artefacts. Jack is a treasure seeker who works for a National USA intelligence service which operates with dozens of operatives keeping watch via satellites on banks of computer screens and led by a comparatively young woman who has a love hate relationship with Jack. He has a history love and sexual adventures although it is not clear which affair is what.
In the first he teams up with a US educated Syrian Nadia who is only interested in preserving the ancient artefacts and preventing them in being misused when their potential power is understood. She is accompanied by a driver who is a stupid and nervous coward who is intended to provide comic interludes. He does have his moments which makes his usefulness worthwhile and at the end of the series Jack and Nadia are present at the airport when he goes to greet his long suffering and separated wife anticipating she is the small height challenged and large weight challenged person who appears to open her arms to him but is for another while his wife turns out to be a beautiful beauty queen type.
There is also someone with wealth and the ability to hire hundreds of Russian type young hoods and he employs a former associated and friend of Jack which leads to the friend not killing Jack when the opportunity arrives in each of the films, sometimes on more than one occasion. There are also corrupt officials who with the prospect of Treasure also become involved. The antiseptic death rate is ginormous but remains suitable for Saturday morning Children‘s cinema. The films are allegedly set in various historical sites around the Mille East and also in various cities including Paris and Istanbul.
In the end the one of the main villains kills the other and just when it looks as if he has been successful using the weapon to destroy just about everyone and everything in sight there is an eclipse which means that the weapon cannot draw on the required energy from the sun and Jack is able to part the weapon for the surviving villain who falls into magna river he has created. Moreover Nadia is able to get hold of the weapon and throws it into the Magna causing a nuclear type of explosion. There is not much else which needs to be said. In fact there is nothing else to be said.
London Boulevard is described as a 2010 British Film noir. Perhaps it is, but for me it is another violence exploitation movie in the genre of Lock Stock and Two Barrels which appeals to the weekend lads and lasses. Colin Farrell plays a contemporary East End criminal released from prison who wants to go straight, or at least not return for any more porridge and evening pint mugs of cocoa. He is collected by a former friend and associate Billy who says he can stay at his flat which is decidedly up market because it has been provided by the man he now works for the notorious Rob Gant played by the ubiquitous crime boss Ray Winston.
At first Farrell as Mitchell (any connection with the Mitchell’s of the Old Vic is coincidental) resists the offers from Winston and investigates the offer of a security guard to Keira Knightly who is well suited for playing Charlotte your today’s flat chested stick actress model and creative artist who cannot go anywhere with anyone because of the paparazzi who have somehow persuaded the owners of a neighbouring building to allow them to camp out on the roof so there is are only a couple of spots in the garden of the West London house where she resides and shares with Davis Thewlia who plays an disturbed business manager.
The absurdity of this aspect of the plot but one of several similar aspects of film which is all about slick appearance over substance. In reality she would have vacated the premises long ago to something offering greater internal security or have taken appropriate injunctions. The idea of someone like Jordan being such a successful business manager is also pure fantasy. She also has a grand county house in need of renovation but again without adequate securing fencing and screening.
What Mitchell is not aware when he arrives is that she is suffering after a date rape in Rome when the perpetrator another fashionista film producer I think, is dealt with by the businesses manager although I not sure if he was murdered or severely harmed. There are two attractions to the job. The first it has accommodation and the second is that he is a stupid man as well as a criminal and takes a shine to the lady of the house because she is fascinated by his ruthless hard man criminality. He is a dangerous thug no different from the crime boss who recognises this and offers to take him under his wing.
Winston is no nonsense crime thug who likes to order scampi and chips with beer at posh nosh restaurants and uses his money and reputation to bully everyone into submission. Farrell turns to him for help when a tramp he knows, although it is not explained why he would ever take an interest in the tramp, is murdered by two young Turks from a local estate one of whom is a professional footballer which I suspect is supposed to surprise teenage viewers.
In the event Winston’s henchman picks up the wrong man but this does not the boy being tortured and killed. The film also features a corrupt policeman Detective Inspector Bailey played by Eddie Marsden. So how does it all end well DI Bailey gets ambitious and is murdered by Thewlis as Jordan. Farrell and he take the body to the water system at the country house so the body will enter the adjacent lake/river. He also murders Winstone in a shoot out where he knocks out Winstone’s whore and so that it looks as if she had killed the security guard who is made to look as if he has killed Marsden or vice versa.
Farrell is then knifed to death by the footballer he is trying to find while fortunately for her Keira as Charlotte is able to show she had nothing to do with any of this by being on a plane to the USA for an engagement there. And the moral is? Criminals are no different from crooked police and overpaid footballers and fashionista personalities together with red top papers paying the paparazzi. They are all scum bags who meet early bloody deaths. While the former may be true that latter is sadly not.
There is more weight to Love Field a 1992 released USA independent film with Michelle Pfeiffer and Dennis Haysbert who are two individuals with spectacularly different reasons for taking a Greyhound bus from Dallas heading for connections to Washington DC. Michelle plays a housewife beautician, suffering the loss of a pregnancy and married to a stereotype male more interested in beer, watching games on TV, having his wife cook and tend to his needs on demand. He does not share her enthusiasm for JFK as the only politicians she ever voted for and adores his wife with scrapbooks filled with pictures and articles.
She takes time off to help a neighbour who is wheelchair bound to go to Love Field, the name of the airport, to see the President and his wife arrive. Because of Traffic problems they arrive just as the plane lands and a security man/policeman enables them to stand at the barrier with a good chance of shaking the hand of Jacqueline as she walks their side of the line. Unfortunately the woman she accompanies has dropped her purse (handbag) and while she is retrieving this the President’s wife shakes the hand of her companion and she misses close contact.
Later she arrives at the hairdressers/beauticians and notices crowds outside a TV shop window and they learn the news of the assassination. She is devastated and decides she must attend the funeral and makes plans to attend the funeral when it is known where it will take place. He husband refuses to take time off so he can drive her despite the incentive of staying at the same motel they used on their honeymoon so she goes off without his knowledge taking the Greyhound.
She sits at the back just in front of the seats used by “the coloureds” with Haysbert in what one critic described as a Sydney Poitier standard role but as with Pfeiffer both actors quickly transcend the stereotype characters that have been created for them. She is talks without thinking at great speed, jumping to conclusions and judgements emotionally on impulse without rational basis echoing the prejudices of upbringing and lack of education. She is a typical while working class American of that era.
Haysbert plays a father who was not ready to marry the mother of their daughter when the pregnancy was determined. When the mother died the child appears to have been cared for by the maternal family or foster parents who mistreated her physically so that she flinches when anyone goes to touch. Ffeiffer discovers this when the toilet for ‘the coloureds’ is closed and she take the child into the ‘whites only’ and discovers bruising. She accurately assumes that the child is being kidnapped and the man is the perpetrator and contacts the police giving her particulars. She breaks off and quickly learns that that the story that the father had undertaken his national service and on learning of the death of the mother had gone to find the child and immediately discovered the ill treatment. He was able to show pictures of the girl as a baby with her mother and himself to confirm the story and that because he was not the legal father he taken the child without going through the legal process to immediately protected. The days before DNA!
The coach is then forced off the road to avoid an accident and they are taken to the nearest Bus and Coach station to await a relief vehicle. Because from his rear seat he had noted a drunken driver trying to overtake he is required to give evidence and the local police become concerned as an officer has gone to the address of the Ffeiffer and alerted the husband to where she was and the possible destination. They decide to jump the bus leaving her case on the vehicle but he has his own and the child’s clothing with them.
They steal a clapped out car that only does 40 MPH but they get this fixed along the way but eventually it breaks down and they have to overcome an attack on him by three white men while she is away trying to get help and the girl hiding in the car. Fortunately she has a distant relative in the area and they are taken in while he recovers. The woman cooperates with keeping silent when the local sheriff calls to enquire among all the isolated properties in the area because they are on the look out for the threesome after it has been established that the man was involving in the kidnapping of the children and was being helped by the white woman.
This relative contacts the husband who comes to take his wife home but she refuses and it is evident this marks the end of the marriage. There is to be no happy ending though as such because the couple recognise the inevitable when attempting to get to the Presidential funeral at Arlington. He is given a custodial sentence but in the Washington area when Ffeiffer also settles and keeps in contact with the girl. The final scene is his release. Ffeiffer is divorced but managing on her own with the road trip having enabled her to stand on her two feet, grow up and understand more of the reality of the society and the prejudice that existed and continues to do so. Her performance led to a nomination for an Academy Award for an actor in leading female role.
I have previously mentioned before the other film which deals more directly with the day of the Assassination of President John F Kenney entitled Interview with an Assassin. The film is made in the style of the Blair Witch project with a hand held poor quality camera and sound work and as a ‘mocumentary’. I hated the Blair Witch as did the majority of the audience on a weekend evening because it was badly made and ineffective as a scare movie. The style of this film also results in a lack of credibility if one sets aside the boredom and persists in viewing. It could have been a much better if not great film because it deals with one of the great cover-ups of all time. The Assassination of JFK and the cover up by the Warren Commission. It is unlikely that the US government will ever come clean that there was more than one shooter and that the bullet which causes the fatality came from what is known as The Grassy Knoll on the other side of a roundabout and where the shot was most likely fired from behind and above the fencing.
The film concerns an out of work camera man Ron Kobeleski who is contacted by a neighbour and retired marine Walter Ohlinger who prefers to be called Barry. Barry alleges that he is dying of cancer and wants to confess a secret which he has kept for forty years. He says he was the gunman that fired the fatal bullet and he shows Ron the bullet casing which he kept after it was fired before making his escape. He persuades Ron to take it to a specialist laboratory who are able to confirm that it is similar to the weapon used to kill the President but it would be necessary to compare with casing with the bullet to confirm it was the precise weapon. For some reason Ron leaves the casing at the laboratory which later disappears.
Given the significance of such a story if it was true Ron does not go immediately to the authorities and goes along with Barry’s assertion that to do so would endanger both lives and the family of the camera man. They go on a tour of the area and to find others who were involved in the conspiracy and still alive. Barry’s ex wife says her husband is a lunatic and a fraud while others appear to add credence to what the man says. However there are two twists as the film ends. Ron finds himself involved as Barry cleverly gets himself into a position where he attempts to assassinate the present day President. Barry says he just wanted to prove that he could do it to confirm his story about the killing of JFK. The second twist is that Barry then attempts to kill Ron who manages to wound Barry.
The film ends with a policeman saying to the incarcerated Ron awaiting trial that he could help his case by revealing the location of the tapes and the account of what was said to have happened re JFK and their subsequent research. Ron says that would end his life and that of his family. Ron is therefore telling the tale to us after his release from prison and it is mentioned that Barry died in prison not from cancer but mysteriously and allegedly by other prisoners. The film attracted interest in Texas and was made with a budget of just $1 million. It showed.
Both films are about how characters whose live are significantly changed from the interaction with strangers, one for the better and one for the worse.
Just two to go with Un Posto all’inferno, A place of Hell, an Italian 1969 released film which has recently been successfully dubbed in English. Most dubbed films are awful as those undertaking the dubbing fail to understand the idiom of the original language with some excruiating results. It was only at the end of he film that I discovered it had been dubbed.. It is set on a small Pacific Island where the indigenous people are held captive by the Japanese during World War II. On the island is a British Officer who has been responsible for setting up the new radar system and which has now fallen intact into the hands of the enemy.
There is also a small group of American soldiers where the officer holds the rank as War Correspondent.
Typical for this kind of film in which the allies provide heroic sacrifices by wounded individuals who enable their companions to escape from advancing forces by holding their position for a time despite mammoth odds against them. They are assisted by heroic villagers and they are able to carry out major assaults such as the destruction of the radar system with minimum casualties compared to those of the enemy who also speak perfect English,
The final sequence of the film as a surreal quality as an indigenous young woman bravely explores each of the hut dwellings at the waters edge to ensure it is as deserted as it appears. Her search takes several minutes. However when the remaining soldiers reach the centre of the village and approach the small sea going patrol boat they find that they are surrounded but several dozen enemy troops who have buried themselves in fox holes and covered pits in the sand. They are all killed but even after this the remaining men are attacked by two sailors on the patrol boat so that in the end only two survive including the war correspondent who surveying the beach covered with bodies comments about the cost of war and its futility.
The Square is an Australian film which was shelved by its author because he considered it not strong enough but was persuaded to make the film by his brother. He should have trusted his instincts.
Raymond Yale is a contractor working on the site of a new development who accepts substantial backhanders from sub contractors. He is having a passionate sexual affair with a young neighbour who is married to a criminal. He promises to leave his wife and set up home separately with the young woman as soon as he has amassed sufficient funds start a new life.
The young wife discovers that her husband has hidden the substantial proceeds of crime in the loft of their home. She devises a plan for the lover to set fire to the home after they have removed the money. Unfortunately a relative is in the home when the fire is started and dies so the couple have become murderers along with accomplices involved. There then follows a series of misadventure which descend into farce in which several people are killed. Finally there is confrontation between the criminal and his crime partner which appears to be settled when the crime partner is killed however as the lover wrestles with criminal over the possession of the weapon it goes off and shoots the young woman in the head killing her instantly. And the moral is.
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