Saturday Playlist #16: Bernard Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann was a bit of a genius, wasn't he? I mean, when your first film score is for Citizen Kane, your last is for Taxi Driver and in the middle somewhere are Vertigo, North By Northwest and Psycho then I think you've pretty much qualified as a genuine genius.

Herrmann is best known for his collaborations with fellow genius Alfred Hitchcock (with whom he would eventually fall out after Hitch called him "Bernie Hermie" once too often*), but his work on other landmark films like the theremin-laced score for The Day The Earth Stood Still and the bombastic cymbalism of Jason And The Argonauts proved him to be a master of all genres.

So pop yourself in the shower, take a string quartet and a sturdy kitchen knife with you and scream your tits off as you...

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO

SATURDAY PLAYLIST #16:

BERNIE HERMIE

BERNARD HERRMANN

*I have, in all likelihood, made this up

OH GOD JESUS NO MY EYES AAAGHH MY EARS PLEASE MAKE IT STOP IT'S TOO HORRIBLE BLEEEUUUURRRGGH

It's like 2010 all over again.

This Is BBC Bond

Because the BBC spends all its money on people like Bruce Forsyth rather than on trumpeting the amazing stuff buried inside its unfeasibly brilliant website, it falls to me to tell the world about the online Archive - specifically, the James Bond Collection.

The BBC Archive collects broadcasts from its 90 year history about various subjects and dumps them in a dusty corner of the internet for obsessive nerds to pore over at their leisure. The James Bond Collection is obviously its most exciting feature, the kind of thing that would give your basic Bond fan a week-long erection. I'm an advanced Bond fan so it only provided me with four or five days of uninterrupted tumescence but that was quite enough thank you very much.

There are currently fifteen separate radio and TV clips from between 1958 and 2008 in this collection, totalling over five hours of Bondeliciousness. And it's not the same old guff you've already seen on the DVDs - there are clips here even the most socially unstable geek (hello) probably hasn't seen before. Here are just some of the treats within:

Film '79: On Location With Moonraker (BBC1, 1979)

Pillow-faced legend Barry Norman presents his report from Brazil on the production of Moonraker. Bazza's film opens with some fantastically politically incorrect close ups of bikini-clad tits for no reason whatsoever, before he spends far too long asking Roger Moore if this will be his final Bond (he went on to make three more), attempts to get interview blood from a stony Cubby Broccoli and awkwardly over-compliments Bond girl Lois Chiles. You could do that in the 1970s and still be a national treasure.

Time Out: The Guns Of James Bond (BBC2, 1964)

None other than Sean Connery introduces this historically interesting but actually quite tedious piece in which luxuriantly-moustachioed gun nut expert Geoffrey Boothroyd goes on at great length and in worrying detail about Bond's choice of shooter before blowing holes in a defenceless tin of tomato juice. Worth watching just to see Boothroyd point out the errors in Connery's bizarrely inaccurate introduction, and to boggle at Sir Sean's insistence on pronouncing 'Fleming' as 'Flemmen'.

Back Row: David Arnold (Radio 4, 2003)

I nearly popped a sprocket when I discovered this. First off, The Incredible Suit interviewee and hero Joe Cornish interviews The Incredible Suit interviewee and hero David Arnold, who demonstrates his encyclopaedic knowledge of Bond music history and explains his approach to scoring Die Another Day. Then the show asks a selection of experts what the next step in the franchise should be - Cornish proposes a micro-scooter chase through Bluewater shopping centre while Mark Gatiss suggests calling the next Bond girl Mahogany Wasp or Kingdom Come. Fascinating, funny and a genuinely exciting find.


All of which would be flambasmic enough but the BBC Archive has bags more stuff like this on just about every subject in the known universe. So the next time some whining imbecile complains about the licence fee, sit them in front of a computer, go to www.bbc.co.uk/archive and smash their face repeatedly into the keyboard until they get the P key jammed in their eye.

A Helpful Reminder

I'm not going to insult you by re-reviewing films out in the next couple of weeks that I already reviewed last year when I saw them at the London Film Festival. Why, that would be far too much hard work. Instead, I'm going to insult you by providing links to those reviews, which requires far less effort.

Firsties, here's something you could go and see this from this Friday if you're not interested in self-dismembering adrenaline junkies or stammering monarchs. Only really recommended if you've never seen an indie film before or if you have 'special feelings' for Zach Gallifreynackers's quite marvellous facepubes (I'm impressed by beards, OK?):

Convenient link to

It's Kind Of A Funny Story

review

Secondings, here's something you could go and see from the Friday after if you don't want to look at Seth Rogen's irritating smug face even if it is hidden behind a mask, underneath a hat and inside a huge black car. This one is much more highly recommended than It's A Funny Kind Of A Funny Kind Of Story, Kind Of what with it being brilliant and all.

Convenient link to

Blue Valentine

review

It's called Recycloblogging. I'm doing it for the environment, OK?

127 Hours

I really think Danny Boyle needs to calm down. When you reach the point where you can't show somebody drinking from a bottle of water without sticking a camera in the straw you need to take a step back and check yourself.

If you don't know the entire story of 127 Hours by now then you must have been living under a rock for ages, ho ho ho. So it's a bit unnecessary actually going to see the film now, except to enjoy the sight of (spoiler) a man ripping his own arm off with a blunt knife. There's nothing else of any substance in the film - no real insight into James Franco's character, no revelatory spiritual journey for him to undertake while he's stuck in his horrific predicament and no sense that the whole experience changed him any more than leaving him a couple of kilos lighter.

All the trippy editing, innumerate fantasy sequences and flashy flashbacks do is remind you that YOU'RE WATCHING A FILM, and A DANNY BOYLE FILM at that, which kind of does a disservice to Aron Ralston, the man whose story was probably told perfectly adequately in his book, upon which the film is based.

Having said all that, 127 Hours is an entertaining and obviously, at times, challenging watch, but when a story's been Boyled this much it just feels like all the human drama has evaporated into hot air. Last year's best film, Buried, proved you didn't need visual Tourette's to skillfully and thrillingly tell the story of a man trapped in a confined space. Just confidence in yourself, faith in the story and respect for your audience. All qualities Danny Boyle began his directorial career with, but which he seems to have at some point amputated and left under a rock of box office success in the great crevice of cinema.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the worst metaphor you'll read today.

Pete Postlethwaite 1946-2011

"The Rex just fed, so he won't be hunting for a while."

- Roland Tembo, The Lost World: Jurassic Park

The Top 10 Movies Of 2011

Now that 2010 is mercifully behind us and everyone has bored everyone else to tears with infinite lists of varying unimportance, I thought I may as well get in early with my favourite films of 2011.

Now obviously I haven't seen any of these yet, so it's a largely unjustified - not to mention pointless - list, but I firmly believe this is exactly what my favourite films of the year will be come the end of December. If I'm wrong you are all welcome to write a lengthy comment about what a waste of time this post is, although if you're going to do that you may as well say the same about all the other posts and that would be an even bigger waste of time, only yours rather than mine. OH THE IRONY.

And before you go any further I would just like to briefly apologise on behalf of various film studios for not having any official title designs for certain films, rendering this post even more amateur than it already was.

1

Opens August 19th

2

Opens April 22nd

3

Opens April 8th

4

Opens September 16th

5

Opens June 2nd

6

Opens March 11th

7

Opens August 12th

8

Opens July 15th

9

Opens March 18th

10

Opens December 26th

Hmm. It occurs to me that I really am the definitive Empire magazine reader. Anyway, was I right? Come back in twelve months and find out! Or, you know, come back every day. That would be better.