Hello everyone, it is the Classic Film Kid here once again! Yes, it’s been a while and I am very sorry about that but last year was an absolute mess for everyone so we’re back in 2021 starting afresh and for this review, we’re doing a slightly different format than usual. So, instead of me creating loads of long articles focusing on all of the stuff I’ve been watching since the start of the pandemic. which would take forever to get them out and I would also forget what I’ve watched, I’ve decided to condense some of them into a big roundup. This will cover classics, TV shows, and any other thing that’s worth talking about. This won’t cover everything I’ve viewed but consider it a collection of the best stuff. I’ll give quick thoughts and then a rating out of 10 as per usual.
Here we go in no particular order starting with…
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
Early on in the lockdown, I had a bit of a Bond movie fix and since this was one of the only ones I hadn’t yet watched, I decided to give it a try considering its reputation as one of the more underrated. It’s certainly a more interesting one – the pace is slower, the tone more serious, the action less overblown. It took some time to adjust to that but it was fascinating to see the excess of the previous Connery films stripped back to make something more tragic. That said there is something that feels off, not just in Lazenby’s performance – I mean he’s no Connery but he just about manages to hold his own. It’s more in the look and the feel, as there’s still an extravagant villain and bombastic score, something that doesn’t necessarily fit and makes the tone a little jarring. It doesn’t help that there’s still some attempts at Bond one-liners – “he had lots of guts” was one that was particularly cringe-worthy as Lazenby can’t quite pull the charismatic agent off. But the love story is really intriguing, Diana Rigg’s probably the best Bond girl in the series and the ending was a really emotional goodbye. While not a masterwork, it is certainly underrated. 7/10
Battle Royale (2000)
I was completely bewildered when this movie started, as I thought that this was a classic of the Japanese samurai genre and made by Kurosawa or someone like that.
Instead, we get a super-fun and grisly action thriller with plenty of gore and a relentless pace. The characters aren’t exactly brimming with personality but there’s just enough to latch onto in the beginning to make the unpredictability of who will die a gruesome horrible death next all the more exciting and thrilling. The formula has now been done to death in more ways than one (e.g the biggest multiplayer game ever in Fortnite) but Battle Royale is the best of the genre, boiled down to the basic elements, ramped up to 11 with loads of blood to spare. What’s not to like? 8.5/10
Black Books (2000-04)
This is one of the endless TV shows that I binged for the first time. This was completed in about late May-early June and as someone who very quickly fell in love with Father Ted and IT Crowd, I decided to give it a shot. And yeah it’s funny, very funny. I wouldn’t say that it’s hysterical like the other two shows I just mentioned, but there are certainly moments of that type (one where Dylan Moran’s Bernard has been locked out of his own shop and is screaming at Manny through a soundproof door is a highlight). Bill Bailey and Tamsin Greig are also great as Manny and Fran respectively and each character has their own quirks and charms just like what every sitcom needs. It’s not top-tier, but it is undoubtedly very funny and in that two week period of me watching it, I had a brilliant time. 8/10
Favourite episode = The Big Lock-Out (honourable mention going to “Blood” in series 2)
TENET (2020)
The first big “new” movie to come out in cinemas in months was naturally one that I was interested in seeing. I haven’t been that impressed with Nolan’s stuff at least what I’ve seen of it, but TENET did provide some good fun, even if it made absolutely no sense and had some God-awful sound design. The action scenes were utterly breathtaking and mind-bending which is par for the course for Nolan, and while the story feels like it was cribbed from about nine different Red Dwarf episodes (the most notable being the infamous Backwards from Series 3) and becomes very convoluted in places, you just about manage to grasp things like character motivations and some of the twists involving time are really clever. Utterly nonsensical but good fun. Seriously though, what the hell was up with that music? You could barely hear some of the exposition. 7/10
Parasite (2020)
Let’s travel back to the last film I managed to see in cinemas before we all got trapped indoors. This I wanted to see purely based on all of the Oscar buzz, and while sometimes the Academy Awards can get it wrong, Parasite is phenomenal. It’s a mix of very dry black comedy with some genuinely alarming moments and while it’s over two hours it honestly never felt like it dragged, and it snapped your attention back again just when you’d thought it was out of tricks. I don’t want to spoil things plot-wise, but let’s just say when you hear a doorbell ring about an hour in it cues one of the most ridiculously fast-paced and intense bits of film I’ve ever seen in my life. The direction was top notch as well – Bong Joon-ho has a very distinctive style and it worked wonders here, managing to tell the story and present the social commentary in great ways. 10/10, and that’s not putting it lightly.
Total Recall (1990)
Why don’t we end things on an absolutely insane note? Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi action film from 1990 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger may have occasionally been a bit overwhelming, what with some huge plot twists and revelations in the second act, but on the whole was really fun to watch. There were some really great sci-fi concepts in here such as memory implants, humans who have become mutants from radiation poisoning, and big evil bosses all of which meant the movie never really had a dull moment and was constantly moving. It does sometimes feel like it’s being weird for the sake of it but it had an engaging plot, the action scenes were really satisfying to watch, and indeed the climax wrapped everything up really nicely while also leaving some things open to interpretation. So yeah, a great watch. 8/10
And there we go, that’ll do for now. Thank you for reading, I apologise that it’s been nearly six months but trust me we are going to get the ball rolling again with reviews of Nightmare On Elm Street, Buffy The Vampire Slayer (because yes I am now in that rabbit hole and I’m never getting out of it again) and Doctor Sleep coming your way. It feels good to be back. This is the Classic Film Kid, signing off!
