Terry Pratchett: Back in Black (2017)

Excellent. Loved Dennis Pennis as Pratchett. Many tears were shed.

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London Spy (2015)

I don't know what I loved more; Ben Whishaw, Edward Holcroft, Jim Broadbent or Jim Broadbent's beautiful house and car. Bloody good stuff! Minus a star for Adrian Lester, who I've never been fond of and the crappy, elegiac pop music in the final and slightly corny scene.

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What Women Want (2000)

Did Adam Sandler turn this piece of shit down or something?

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Cool Runnings (1993)

A fun film that fills the time.

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Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

... and again :(

[you need to read my first review to get this]
 

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Whistle and I’ll Come to You (2010)

James Parkin, having recently placed his wife into a nursing home, decides to head to one of their old haunts to try and recapture some sense of their past together.

This loose but interesting adaptation of the M.R. James short story is about loss. Loss of the wife he knew, loss of mental faculty, loss of time and place, loss of what was.

The small cast consisting of John Hurt, Gemma Jones, Lesley Sharp and Sophie Thompson are, as expected, terrific. There's a bit too much over-reliance on spooky objects for my liking and the ending is pretty obvious but this adaptation is very good nonetheless.

I have one whinge. Why doesn't the title sequence mention M.R. James? Is says "Written by Neil Cross" but there's no "Adapted from", "Based on" or anything! The only mention is in the credits, which, as far as I'm concerned, is not enough.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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Number 13 (2006)

How the opening of a hidden letter can seal a man's fate. A tale of curses, witchcraft and a missing room.

Whereas in previous adaptations, James's heroes/victims tend to be, with a few exceptions, fairly likeable academics caught up in their own little world, this time we have Greg Wise as Professor Anderson, an egotistical and supercilious historian. An easy man to dislike and to help us there's lawyer and bon vivant Edward Jenkins (played by Tom Burke), acting as a foil and irritating Anderson with his every act. David Burke makes a welcome return as the hotel landlord after his appearance in the previous A View From a Hill.

More heavy-handed (the sound design isn't exactly subtle and the feel of the film is reminiscent of The Haunting) than A View From a Hill but this works in the film's favour, slowly building the tension until the quite physical conclusion and the cracking of an Oxford don's empiricism. Good stuff!

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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A View from a Hill (2005)

Onwards to the newer, revival Ghost Stories for Christmas and backwards to M.R. James.

Museum curator, Dr. Fanshawe, borrows a pair of binoculars seem to show scenes from the past and thus starts a tale of the dissolution of the monasteries (nicely linked to the decline of the aristocracy in the early 20th century), obsession, hangings and rural horror.

Casualty's Mark Letheren puts on a good show as the uncomfortable fish-out-of-water Fanshawe. Pip Torrens as the local squire reminded me a bit of Hugh Laurie's characters from his days in Fry & Laurie and as Bertie Wooster. David Burke deserves a special mention as the stoic butler, Patten who provides the much-needed clues that bring past deeds to light.

There's some nice photography that captures the feel of the countryside in late winter (the Gorse is flowering) and the claustrophobic terror that a night in the woods can bring. For a change, we get good production values and some great props. It's also nice to see that they seem to get James's occasional and subtle humour.

While not particularly grisly, A View From A Hill is a fine James adaptation and a worthy start to the short Christmas Ghost Story revival.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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The Ice House (1978)

Another M.R. James'less story.

A country spa where the rich go to get away from it all and never want to leave.
More of a Tale of the Unexpected with touches of The Prisoner's surrealism than a Christmas Ghost Story.

The precise and formal dialogue works very well and gives the film an otherworldliness and constant sense of unease. In fact, pretty much every shiver the film delivers is conveyed by the dialogue and the way that it is spoken. Very clever.

The Icehouse is a very strange and creepy little film.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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Stigma (1977)

A modern tale of the desecration of an ancient stone site and the horrors that are be uncovered.

Filmed in the surrounds of the Avebury stone circle where the similarly spooky Children of the Stones was shot. The film juxtaposes the modern/artificial and the old/natural using close up shots of mundane household items combined with the camera continually looking out onto the standing stones. This combined with some great sound design create a real sense of dread.

Nowadays people would pay a fortune to have a stone like that in their back garden, but the seventies were a time of hardboard facings on beautiful panelled doors and boarded up Victorian fireplaces. Out with the old and in with the new, which, I guess, is very much the theme of this story.

While it may not be M.R. James (you would never get boobies in a James story!) it's still an excellent tale of terror and a more than worthy addition to the Christmas Ghost Stories strand.

Bloody good!

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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The Ash Tree (1975)

Oh, yea!, Oh, yea! Oh, yea!
Local squire desecrates grave!
Curse wreaks havoc with wildlife!
Buxom wench suspected of witchery!

A fine and haunted performance by Edward Petherbridge as the Squire. Lalla Ward makes an all too brief appearance. A good, solid entry in the series with a killer ending that bumps it up a half-star.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974)

A treasure hunt involving codes, in a monastery filled with cowled monks reciting Latin (and we all know how spooky Latin can sound). You know what this is, don't you? The Treasure of Abbot Thomas is a Dan Brown adventure! That is, if Dan Brown were any bloody good, it would be.

Again, a great cast, including the always spooky Anne Blake, but this time led by the wonderful Michael Bryant; whose character, while not as shouty as in The Stone Tape, is still very much assured in his beliefs.

The film captures the gentle humour in James' stories very well. The "slab cake" scene was hilarious. Plus there's a rather nice debunking of that most favourite of Victorian pastimes - a seance!

I do find it funny it's always M.R. James' religious characters who are supposed to be the rationalists :)

A rollicking good story with a few good scares!

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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Red Shift (1978)

It's time for some, possibly incorrect, physics tempered by poetic license. If you worked out the Earth's position in space 1000 years ago this would also give you a measurement of its position in time. So, ignoring relativity, the speed of light and a few other important physical laws, if we could look at this distant planet through the time/space continuum, we would, in effect, be looking back through time and seeing our ancestors red-shifted.

Great performances from the two leads, Stephen Petcher as Tom and Lesley Dunlop as Jan. Also included in the cast are a young Daragh O'Malley (Sharpe) and Ken Hutchison (Ladyhawke). The dialogue is pretty damn good as well - it manages to mix the natural with the poetic brilliantly.

I see so much of myself in Tom. As well as his implied autism (meltdowns, fascination with data, language and specialisation), I met my wife, Zoe, when we were both young and we're still together 30 years later. Hopefully, so are Tom and Jan.

You know when you see a film and it affects you deeply and for that moment in time it overcomes any of its shortcomings and, to you at least, it is a truly great film. Witty, clever, romantic, horrific, beautiful and deeply moving.

The execs from those studios that seem to endlessly churn out terrible romantic dramas could do with watching this little British film and paying close attention to the relationship between Tom and Jan. How much sweeter could you get than these two? None. None more sweet. And none more real.

Life goes on. Time goes on. Everything changes. Everything stays the same. Love endures.

"Crewe? I've never felt romantic in Crewe!"

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Lost Hearts (1973)

Eleven-year-old Stephen moves to stay with his elderly cousin, Peregrine Abney, in a remote country house but will he reach his next birthday?

Spooky in that Water Babies/Secret Garden sort of way and containing some startling imagery but badly let down by the clownish performance of Joseph O'Conor as Peregrine Abney, who displays the sort of forced eccentricity you'd get in a bad Dickens adaptation. Lost Hearts would have scared the hell out of me when I was a kid but now? Not so much.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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A Warning to the Curious (1972)

Atmospheric, steadily-paced, filled with dread and pretty gruesome for a TV adaptation of a James story, with a grisly billhook death at the very start.

Peter Vaughan leads a fine cast and is wonderfully understated as the down-at-the-heels, amateur archaeologist Mr. Paxton (it's always a treat to see Grouty in anything). After the previous year's The Stalls of Barchester, Clive Swift makes another appearance as the scholarly Dr. Black, subtly linking both stories. Make no mistake though, this is the far superior effort. Also worth a mention is Roger Milner as the odd antique shop owner.

A Warning to the Curious has one of the best scores I've ever heard, let alone on a television programme. Full of droned dissonance and rasping breathing that reminded me of the Nick Cave and Warren Ellis collaborations. Fucking brilliant!

Is it as good as Whistle and I'll Come to You? Maybe, maybe not, but it is a top-tier Christmas Ghost Story. Thank you, BFI for saving these wonderful programmes from the clutches of the ever negligent BBC.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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Robin Redbreast (1970)

A maid from up the road is affeared by our ways.

Even considering the extremely good cast, Bernard Hepton as the softly spoken, well-read and sinister cloam collector Fisher nearly steals the show.

Unsettling and primitive, a paganistic ouroboros and a corker of a folk/rural horror film. Bleedy ansome bird!

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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The Stalls of Barchester (1971)

A Poe-like tale of murder, blackmail and guilt. A straightforward telling but tense, with a real sense of foreboding and filled to the brim with spooky details.
Good to see a Hyacinth-less Clive Swift, expert on the longbow, Robert Hardy and an extremely snotty Thelma Barlow.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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The Signalman (1976)

In which isolation, confinement and impotence can light cinders in the darkest corners of the mind, cause vibrations in the soul and signal the most terrible of horrors.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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Whistle and I’ll Come to You (1968)

An academic old duffer pipes open the doors of perception and peers into the unknown.

Michael Hordern in an M.R. James ghost story, directed by Jonathan Miller. What's not to like? Beautifully unnerving although I kept expecting Hordern to exclaim "Bear!".

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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The Stone Tape (1972)

A great premise. An electronics company in the search for a new recording material, find that their new research facility, located in an old house, contains the very solution they've been searching for... walls so old and resonant that they've somehow been imprinted with the emotional history of the inhabitants.

I wouldn't be surprised if The Stone Tape had an influence on The League of Gentlemen as the engineers bore an uncanny resemblance to the LoG plastics company workers Geoff, Mike and Brian.

Warning: this programme contains an odious little shit!

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