Tag: lab

The Small Back Room

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 28 May 2024
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Directors – Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger – 1949 – UK – Cert. PG – 106m

*****

In London during World War Two, a back room boffin and bomb disposal man struggles with alcoholism – 4K restoration played at BFI Southbank on Tuesday, May 28th prior to release on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital on Monday, June 3rd

This black and white, post-war era drama isn’t the first film that comes to mind when people think about Powell and Pressburger – it was made immediately after what today are regarded as three of their best colour features – A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and their arguable masterpiece The Red Shoes (1948). And that was preceded by one of their finest black and white works, “i know where i’m going!” (1945).

In many ways, The Small Back Room couldn’t be more different. There’s a marvellous sense of whimsy about those films, even if the later ones are intense and savage in places. Like Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes – and, for that matter, Powell’s late solo masterpiece Peeping Tom (1960), an intensity lies at the heart of The Small Back Room.

Gone are the light, airy spaces of the earlier films, their sense of the outdoors expanse (and, in The Red Shoes, the expanded landscapes of the eponymous ballet sequence within the film).… Read the rest

Tags across the hallway, advertising, alcohol, alcoholism, Allies, ATS, barman, black and white, bomb, bomb disposal, booze, boss, carriages, Chesil Beach, Christopher Challis, Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds Of Powell + Pressburger, cinematographer, civil servant, claustrophobia, clock, colleagues, conference rooms, corporal, Cyril Cusack, dance, dancehall, dancehalls, David Farrar technical, department, drama, Emeric Pressburger, explosion, faces, false leg, field radio independent producers, flat, flats, German, German expressionism, girlfriend, government, hands, head of department, indulge, interiors, Jack Hawkins, jazz band, Kathleen Byron, lab, leisure time, local, London, London Underground, low, Michael Gough, Michael Powell, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Milton Rosmer, minister, Nigel Balchin, novel, office politics, offices, pain, partner, pebble, post-war, Powell and Pressburger, pub, pubs, relationship, Renée Ascherson, research, research lab, restaurant, Salisbury Plain, scientist, secretary, self-worth, Sid James, stoic, Ted Heath’s Kenny Baker Swing Group, temptation, test, thermos flask, ticking, tools, tube, UK, wartime, welfare, whisky, Whitehall, window, working life, workmen drilling, World War 2, World War II, World War Two, wrenches, WW2

Features Live Action Movies

The Wandering Earth II
(Liulang Diqiu 2,
流浪地球 2)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 27 January 2023
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(Liulang Diqiu 2,
流浪地球 2)
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Director – Frant Gwo – 2023 – China – Cert. 12a – 173m

***

Sequel – or rather prequel – wants to explain how it was that the Earth became the Wandering Earth, but instead throws convoluted plot, big budget effects and action set-pieces at us while not really explaining anything – out in UK cinemas on Friday, January 27th

Gwo’s mega-expensive, blockbuster franchise is back for a second instalment, this time at three rather than two hours in length. Surprisingly, II isn’t so much a sequel to The Wandering Earth as a prequel which attempts to explain its predecessor by exploring many of the events which take place leading up to it, including the attempt by the United Earth Government (UEG) to launch the Wandering Earth Project, the complex system of jet engines constructed around the Equator like a belt round a large man’s belly to enable the ecologically-damaged Planet Earth to be piloted through space in an attempt to find a new home for the human race.

As if aware that three hours of interpersonal drama and action sequences based around this might prove too much for even the franchise’s most ardent fans, Gwo and his screenwriters build in a second plot involving Tu Yuheng (Chinese megastar Andy Lau) whose wife and small daughter are killed in a road accident.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

This Island Earth

Director – Joseph Newman – 1955 – US – Cert. PG – 83m

*****

UK PAL laserdisc review, 1997.

Originally published on London Calling Internet.

Pioneer continue to plunder the Universal vaults for SF gems. I’d never heard of This Island Earth when a print turned up for a revival run at London’s late lamented Scala repertory cinema in the early eighties, but having seen it several times since it’s a film which stands the test of time admirably. Moreover, being an Academy ratio film, it doesn’t suffer either the necessary indignity of widescreening black bars top and bottom or the thoroughly infuriating cropping of picture sides that accompanies too many video releases. The digital remaster on this Pioneer disc looks superb too – This Island Earth may be a good deal more than merely the sum of its special effects, but it IS an effects movie and those effects are impressive by the standards of the day (even if they creak a little now). What’s more, most of them are on side 2 of this disc in glorious CAV.

Warning: (plot) spoilers.

Eschewing obvious alien invasion plot lines, the narrative has nuclear research scientist Cal Meacham (Rex Reason) slowly lured into an alien conspiracy alongside rival in his field of research Ruth Adams (Faith Domergue).… Read the rest