Comments for A Left-Handed Form of Human Endeavour

Comment on The Boys From Brazil (1978, Franklin J. Schaffner) - SPOILERS by John Hodson

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:07:25 +0000

Excellent Mike; good to see you back.

It’s the score, I think, Goldsmith’s fabulous ‘waltz of death’ that really saves the film. The boy really is the big problem isn’t he, his scenes set my teeth on edge, but Olivier makes up for him.

I have no problems with the daftness of the premise. I *like* a daft premise and few can put one over like Levin (IIRC, the film is quite faithful to the novel), but I’d snap up an anamorphic DVD in a heartbeat. The upcoming HD release is almost enough to turn me to Blu-ray.

Comment on Back to Basics… by Mike Sutton

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:36:47 +0000

Thanks for the comments guys.

John - I will be putting something together about The Searchers, I promise…

Clydefro - Interesting point about modern directors. I suppose No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood are good examples of auteurist cinema, although it’s perhaps no coincidence that both movies, for better or worse, could have come straight from the seventies.

Comment on Back to Basics… by clydefro

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 05:08:44 +0000

I hope you do make it back to regular posts here, as I’d like to see some focus from the Film Journal brethren on less recent films. I too try to adhere to auteurist leanings, but I think Chinatown is a perfect example of the many troublesome bumps in that road. I’m not sure I can subscribe to that theory regarding modern auteurs unless the director’s also involved in the writing process, save for a select few.

Comment on Back to Basics… by John Hodson

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:36:07 +0000

Mike, for starters, nothing obscure I’m afraid, I want to read your views on ‘The Searchers’ please (I couldn’t give a toss about the colour of any DVD, BTW…)

Comment on DVD Times and Me by Michael Brooke

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:31:44 +0000

I’m hugely flattered by the compliment, but it’s only fair to return it by saying that your reviews were one of the major reasons why I picked DVD Times as an outlet for my various wibblings in the first place.

And I wasn’t anything like as experienced as you make out - I’d spent a decade working in distribution and exhibition, but I’d actually done very little professional writing beyond cinema programme notes. My major advantage in 1999-2001 (when I wrote most of my DVD Times pieces) was that I had a lot of time on my hands - I was living alone, and was doing a series of strictly 9-5 jobs.

But I absolutely echo your thanks to Colin - although my writing is almost exclusively for filthy lucre these days and I’m infinitely busier with family and work commitments, I do still do the occasional DVD Times piece out of gratitude, as I probably wouldn’t have got to that stage if it hadn’t been for this regular outlet while I was still finding my feet.

Comment on The Way We Were (1973, Sydney Pollack) by Mike Sutton

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:53:24 +0000

Yeah, I was thinking about “Big Jim McLain”, a film so incompetent that it suggests that the HUAAC didn’t need any critics - it was quite capable of ridiculing itself.

But we’ve heard all about the period from the victims and very little, at least on a mature and intelligent level, from the perpetrators. It may well be that there’s no defence at all but an examination of the issue which looks at how reasonable concerns about Communist expansionism became hysterical terror would be interesting.

Comment on The Way We Were (1973, Sydney Pollack) by John Hodson

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:42:13 +0000

‘I’d love to see a genuinely complicated film made about McCarthyism from a right-wing perspective…’

Hmm; me too. I can’t believe there simply is no case for McCarthyism beyond ‘Big Jim McLain’, but then again, maybe not…

Comment on DVD Times and Me by Tiffany Bradford

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 15:23:00 +0000

I always found it rather stunning, that you were so self-effacing about your writing. It was obvious to the rest of us what a brilliant writer you were and I put your insecurities about it down to false modesty. You, Gary and Michael gave DVD Times huge amounts of credibility and class and you will always be one of the best writers there. I think the main reason you never received the positive feedback that a lot of the lesser-gifted writers got, was because you were writing world class cuisine for a predominantly McDonald’s-consuming readership. I miss you lots Mike!

Comment on Deliverance - the paradox of modern man. by Nat

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 20:28:44 +0000

Terrific piece on this important and, you’re right, unforgettable film. I will always remember the line one character says as they’re burying Drew: ‘He was the best of us.’ It’s almost unbearably sad, because in a sense it suggests that Drew, being in many ways the gentlest and most sensitive of the four, has to die in order for the others to make it. Without getting too analytical about it (or rather, GETTING too analytical about it (!)) if you view the four characters as being different psychological aspects of one person, then Drew is the part that is destroyed by the brutality of what they all experience, the innocence destroyed by war. What a great performance from the always reliable (and still, I see, incredibly busy!) Ronny Cox.

Comment on Deliverance - the paradox of modern man. by JohnH

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 14:23:36 +0000

That’s a fine, thoughtful piece Mike on a marvellous film that raises a number of uncomfortable issues; is it Reynolds best role? Just give us that rumoured S.E. DVD…