X-Men: First Class

And, predictably:

Vic Armstrong: Hero. Legend. Blower Of Own Trumpet.

I just read Vic Armstrong's autobiography, the modestly-titled 'The True Adventures Of The World's Greatest Stuntman: My life as Indiana Jones, James Bond, Superman and other movie heroes'. I don't know why he didn't just carry on listing movie heroes. What difference is another few dozen words going to make on the end of that long-winded title?

To be fair to Armstrong, he probably is The World's Greatest Stuntman. Not only has he doubled as all the aforementioned legendary characters, but he also went on to become a stunt co-ordinator and 2nd Unit Director of some repute, almost single-handedly responsible for many of the greatest action sequences Hollywood has produced over the past thirty-odd years.

I've been familiar with his work since watching The Making Of Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom on ITV when I was about eleven, and even at that tender age his role in creating the image of one of my biggest heroes was plain to see.

I was quite excited, then, to get hold of a copy of his book, written "with Robert Sellers". Sellers is a successful film journalist, and this feels a lot like a transcript of a series of interviews rather than something Armstrong sat down and banged out himself. It's not written flamboyantly or with wistful nostalgia, but instead reads like the anecdotes of a man who's done more or less everything except master the art of writing books. And why should he? He's Indiana Jones, James Bond and Superman for Christ's sake.

In fact he's been so many heroes and worked on so many films there's a danger of overload in his book. Each bite-sized chapter contains several tales of derring-do, and by the end you're almost exhausted by it all. As a result some stories fall a bit flat, but for the most part it's hard not to admire and envy the man. He's mates with EVERYONE (most chapters end with "Great guy, Arnie", "Wonderful guy, Harrison", "Amazing guy, Tom", and so on, although he's less complimentary about costume designers and art department grunts) and was present at the birth of some of cinema's most iconic set-pieces.

Some of his anecdotes are the stuff of men's changing room legend: a troubling amount of gory fatal and near-fatal accidents are recalled almost in the same breath as tales of Telly Savalas' cock and Oliver Reed's flaming blow jobs. All of a sudden the life of a stuntman doesn't seem that enviable after all.

If Armstrong achieves one thing here, it's bigging himself up. But if he achieves another, it's highlighting just how responsible 2nd Unit Directors are for the bits of blockbusters you remember the most. Sequences like The World Is Not Enough's Thames boat chase and M:I III's bridge carnage apparently had very little to do with those films' respective directors, and it's amazing Armstrong's kind don't get more credit.

So give it a whirl if you're an action flick geek like what I is; you might learn something. Least of all what it's like to come face to face with Little Kojak.

I ♥ Geena Davis Circa 1986-1996

You know what's sad? What's sad is that you don't see much of Geena Davis these days. What's also sad is that she made less than twenty films in her career as a massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful actress.

In honour of Geena's 55th birthday, which was exactly four months and eleven days ago, I decided it was time to take a long, dreamy look at her in six of her greatest films from the undeniable purple patch that emerged from a telepod with The Fly in 1986 and died screaming with The Long Kiss Goodnight ten years later.

*FAIR WARNING: CONTAINS LOVE FOR CUTTHROAT ISLAND*

The Fly (1986)

Geena plays massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful, spectacularly-monikered science journalist Veronica Quaife in this cautionary tale about the dangers of two people with identical hairstyles falling in love. She may not be as memorable as the inside-out baboon or the pickled todger in the bathroom cabinet, but The Fly brought Geena to the attention of Hollywood, and as a result she owned the next decade. And when I say "owned", I mean "starred in some more films during".


Moment Of Geenius: The heartbreaking finale in which Geena forces herself to shoot a giant rubber special effect lent pathos to what could have been one of cinema's most ludicrous scenes.

Beetle Juice (1988)

Geena plays massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful but tragically deceased housewife and useless ghost Barbara Maitland in Tim Burton's 'spooktacular' (kill me now) comedy. As if that wasn't bad enough, she's also married to Alec Baldwin and is trapped in the afterlife in the world's frumpiest dress. Still gorgeous though, even at the end when she becomes a shrivelled, crumbling cadaver. Yeah, I dig corpses. I suppose that's frowned upon these days, is it?


Moment Of Geenius: I bet Helena Bonham Carter couldn't do this:

Thelma & Louise (1991)

Geena plays massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful put-upon housewife Thelma in this Ridley Scott masterpiece. From frilly doormat to gun-toting convenience store-holder-upper, Geena is completely believable as she careers further along the road trip from hell, and was bastard unlucky to be up against Jodie Foster for the Best Actress Oscar. Still, it was this role that meant she got equal billing to Tom Hanks, Matthew Modine and Samuel L Jackson in the future, such was the value of her stock. Plus! She wears some really small pants.

Moment of Geenius: Having spent most of the film being more of a hindrance than a help, Thelma finally takes charge of the situation by pointing a revolver at a particularly wet cop. Which isn't to say this is how one should prove that one is in control, but if you're Geena Davis you can lock me in my boot any day.

A League Of Their Own (1992)

Geena plays massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful baseball playeress Dottie Hinson in this perfectly adequate chick flick slash sports movie that I absolutely did not cry at whilst watching recently. With her carefully applied dirt make up and glorious auburn locks tumbling playfully over her sculpted shoulders, Geena is officially the sexiest female baseball player in movie history. Although her nearest competition is Madonna, and I wouldn't touch her with yours. 


Moment of Geenius: The splits catch. If I lived with Geena I'd constantly throw valuable breakables at her so she did this all the time.

Cutthroat Island (1995)

Geena plays massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful "notorious lady pyrate" Morgan Adams in this tragically underrated swashbuckler that beat Pirates Of The Caribbean to the screen by eight years and (controversy alert) is more enjoyable than any instalments of The Jack Sparrow Show. Geena's hubby Renny Harlin directs, ensuring plenty of slow-motion close-ups of his missus, and the film is all the better for it. What's more, she does plenty of her own stunts and fights, and she's bloody good at it.

Moment Of Geenius: The amazing climactic half-hour battle features some choice Geena action as she buckles her swash and rogers her jolly, or whatever you have to say in blog posts about pirate films these days. Whatever, she'd kick Keira Knightley's skinny ass right off the plank.

The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)

Geena plays massive-mouthed, doe-eyed, phenomenally leggy, heartbreakingly beautiful amnesia chick Samantha Caine - and her alter-ego, assassinatrix Charly Baltimore - in this rollicking action flick from Renny Harlin, by now known as 'Mr Geena Davis'. As the cuddly and lovable housewife Geena's hardly stretching it, but by the time she's bleached her hair, gone mental with the eyeliner and shot everyone in sight she's completely convincing despite playing against type. If I could swap my parents for anyone in the movies, I'd have Charly Baltimore and Mitch Henessey.

Moment Of Geenius: There are so many: firing a gun while leaping out of a building; firing a gun while ice skating; firing a gun while hanging from fairy lights and yelling "DIE SCREAMING MOTHERFUCKER!!". But the moment Samantha finally 'becomes' Charly, firing a gun while strapped to a water wheel and being dunked in near-freezing water, is Geena's greatest moment in this film, and probably ever.

Tragically Geena's post-'96 screen future held little more than Stuart Little films and TV shows, but I think she'd be comforted to know that there will always be a small corner of the internet devoted to her greatest work. And, of course, a small shrine made of some of her hair, toenail clippings and possibly some sanitary items in a cupboard somewhere in North London.

Alice In Weirdoland

The BFI, as part of their mission to continue being completely brilliant, recently released Czech fruitcake Jan Švankmajer's Alice on DVD and Blu-ray. It's a loose adaptation of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures In Wonderland' filtered through the marbles of a man whose films are the surrealist nightmares of a unique kind of demented genius.

For those unfamiliar with Švankmajer's work, may I refer you to this short film, and the following stills, all of which are considered completely normal in his world:

With this in mind, it will come as no surprise that Švankmajer's Alice, made in 1988 when most people were watching Die Hard, is an insane work of brilliance and a flawed but undeniably powerful adaptation of a dark childrens' classic made even darker by a man who's undecided whether his film is aimed at the playschool or the asylum. As Alice herself says at the beginning: "Now you will see a film made for children... perhaps".

Švankmajer's trademark stop-motion animation and disconcerting editing technique (displayed amazingly in another BFI box set) are in full effect in his first feature length film after nearly 25 years of equally disturbing short films. With a cast of one human, several animals (live and stuffed) and one or two items of clothing, this version of the classic tale is much weirder than anything Tim Burton could ever have dreamt up for his cack-handed adaptation.

Alice herself is played alternately with wide-eyed awe by Kristýna Kohoutová and by a mildly terrifying doll, and is ably supported by sock caterpillars, fish skeletons with legs and birds with monkey skulls for heads. It really is that kind of film.

At its heart, Alice is a surrealist meditation on dreams that just happens to use Lewis Carroll's work as a starting point, but it's also a fine example of the kind of avant-garde cinema that you might only be exposed to on a Film Studies course. It's not perfect - the Mad Hatter / March Hare scene seems to repeat itself interminably - but it is enjoyable, eye-opening bonkersness, and it's exactly the kind of thing we should be cherishing the BFI for making available to us. Stick it on your DVD rental list and impress your friends. Unless you're Helena Bonham Carter.

The Hangover Part II

As the world continues to tighten its belt, financially speaking, director Todd Phillips has done his bit for the economy by saving money on a new story for his crazy Wolfpack and curling out a near shot-for-shot remake of his overrated 2009 hit. He's even taken it as far as not spending any money on jokes, leaving one-man LOL-machine Zach Galifianakis to elicit laffs by doing hilarious things like speaking, falling over and having a big beard but no hair on the top of his head.

Perhaps worried that somebody might notice the deceit, Phillips has made a subtle change by relocating the action from Las Vegas to Bangkok, which is, like, such a mental place to be. I don't know where the series goes from here: The Hangover Part III will have to be set on Jupiter if it's going to top the sheer unbelievable craziness of being set in a place where everyone looks and talks funny.

Fortunately Thailand is a place with infinite comedic possibilities. You won't believe this because it's so mind-blowingly original, but there's actually a gag in The Hangover Part II that involves ladyboys. I mean, that's pretty out there, right? And what's so great about this gag is that it gives our lovable heroes the chance to carry out some shouting, which is funny in any language. That must be why there's so much of it in this film.

I didn't actually hate The Hangover Part II for the majority of its running time, despite it clearly being complete bollocks, I just didn't care about it. All that changed spectacularly in the epilogue when, for no reason at all, everyone's favourite ear-chewing convicted rapist made an unwelcome reappearance and delivered possibly the worst few minutes of cinema I've seen in a long time. Still, convicted rapists being lionised is funny in any language, right?

And then, just to ensure I left the cinema with a really bad taste in my mouth, one of the photographs of the "forgotten" night that plays through the end credits (you know, exactly like in the first film) is a played-for-laughs recreation of the infamous "Murder Of A Vietcong By Saigon Police Chief" photograph from the Vietnam War. Because parodying the appalling horror of war in a film full of dick jokes is funny in any language.

Final thought

The Godfather Part II is a portion of a whole that is separate or distinct. Back To The Future Part II is a portion of a whole that is separate or distinct. It's probably fair to say that even Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 will be a portion of a whole that is separate or distinct. The Hangover Part II, however, is absolutely not a portion of a whole that is separate or distinct. It's a massive pile of shit.

BlogalongaBond / You Only Live Twice: Sets Appeal

By 1967, the James Bond brand was so phenomenally popular that even if someone had produced an unofficial spoof 007 film with ten writers, seven James Bonds, six directors, one Ronnie Corbett and absolutely no redeeming features, it would still have become one of the year's highest grossing movies. Of course if such a movie were to exist, we would not speak of it here at The Incredible Suit, so let's move on.

The problem with this success was that it led to complacency: You Only Live Twice's screenwriter Roald Dahl was literally given a formula to stick to by producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and Ian Fleming's macabre meditation on death was jettisoned in favour of a breezy Japanese jaunt that attempts to recapture all that was popular in the previous Bonds simply by lazy repetition. As a result, almost everything in the film is a faded copy of one of its predecessors:

Fortunately director Lewis Gilbert moves everything along with such a light touch and a sense of fun that it's easy to forgive the film's shortcomings. You Only Live Twice cheerily bounces from scene to scene being ludicrous and enjoyable, despite the best efforts of the script and cast to drag it back down to Thunderball-esque depths.

One man who didn't get the memo about kicking back, enjoying the sake and taking it easy, however, was the man responsible for You Only Live Twice's most memorable elements. Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for production designer Mr Sir Ken Adam OBE.

Adam's angular, modernist sets had already graced three of the first four Bond films, but it was on You Only Live Twice that he truly outdid himself. What's especially pleasing about his work on this film is that each of his sets is more impressive than the last, as if he was gradually building up to a grand, mind-blowing finale. Which, of course, he was.

I don't know about you but I can feel "a closer look" at the great man's work coming on.

Adam's first, simplest offering is the site of the antagonistic meeting between stereotypes representatives of the USA (bullish, arrogant) and the USSR (sly, threatening), chaired by global peacekeepers from the UK (statesmanlike, measured). Note the latticework design, simultaneously dividing and uniting the three parties. I've no idea what the massive hole in the floor denotes. Subsidence?

Henderson's Tokyo apartment is a mix of eastern and western influences, as befits a westerner living in Japan. Zaisu seats (cushions with chair backs) can be seen in the dining area - sitting seiza-style, as the Japanese traditionally do, is probably tricky with a wooden leg - while the next room contains more comfortable plush armchairs and a four-poster bed. All of which are about to become completely useless to their owner. Serves him right for serving Bond's martini "stirred not shaken", the galloping ninny.

Tiger Tanaka, essentially a Japanese M, has a much more modern office than his stuffy British counterpart. And whereas M's office is only ever really seen in the background of a character's close-up, Tiger's is afforded lingering wide shots to ensure every penny is on the screen. Adam fills the room with his trademark obscure angles and cheekily sneaks a tiger rug (GEDDIT?) into the middle of the room. I'm not sure what the giant Jenga's for. Maybe that's how Tiger relaxes after a hard day's ninja-ing.

Minor villain Osato's office HQ is an explosion in a perspective factory. Film sets rarely include ceilings because it makes them tricky to light, but Ken Adam doesn't give a shit about "rules". And when the ceiling is this amazing, quite right too. The office also features a personal dream of mine, a walk-in drinks cabinet, conveniently large enough to store unconscious henchmen.

The undoubted star of You Only Live Twice is SPECTRE's ludicrously unlikely but eye-poppingly amazing secret base, improbably carved into the guts of a volcano, and is as audacious a villain's lair as it is an achievement of set design. Neatly, its dome shape reflects Adam's first, simplest set in the film, but whereas that was designed to bring the USA and USSR together, the volcano's purpose is to force them into war with each other.

More than this, though, the volcano represents the peak of extravagance that the Bond series had reached. With this ridiculously over the top set, the films erupted through the crater of believability they'd been bubbling up towards for five years. While earlier Bonds still stand up to scrutiny today, You Only Live Twice became the launch pad for a million spoofs, and the only way the series could survive was by paring down the nonsense, ramping up the tension and going back to Ian Fleming's dark literary roots.

James Bond was about to undergo the biggest change of his life.

The Kobe docks fight

Bond beats off nineteen Japanese dockers with his bare hands (which is odd, given that he had a gun in the previous shot) and a big stick he finds lying around, in an amazing 22-second aerial shot. It's not a particularly impressive scrap - most of the henchfolk opt for a nice lie down rather than fighting back - but it makes a refreshing change to the way most fight scenes are shot. Having done all that, Bond then gets whacked on the noggin by a bad guy hiding behind some sacks. Sloppy.

The assassination attempt

In one of the series' most unnecessarily elaborate attempts on Bond's life (he's asleep! Shoot him!), a SPECTRE type trickles poison down a length of string toward's 007's snoozing chops, only for him to roll over at the last moment and for obligatory sacrificial lamb Aki to taste the deadly juice. Perfectly shot (the lighting on the poison is key to making the whole scene work), edited and scored, it's moments like this that make the Bond films so memorable. Grosse Pointe Blank's loving homage to this scene thirty years later proves its iconicness, which is definitely a word.

The cinematography

Having shot the first four Bond films, director of photography Ted Moore was replaced on You Only Live Twice by genius cinematographer Freddie Young, still basking in Oscar glory from Lawrence Of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. He achieved the near-impossible task of successfully lighting the volcano interior, and romanticised the land of the rising sun to the point where, despite Connery's alarming Japanese "disguise" and unflattering turtle neck sweater, this may well be the most beautiful Bond film of all.

And finally: The one thing Thunderball lacked the most is back:

In Tanaka's bath-house, Bond is attended to by a bevy of bikini-clad beauties, who lather him up with foamy bubbles. Bond glances towards his crotch:

JAMES BOND

Don't get the soap in my eye, will you?

And even more finally: Mie Hama, who plays Kissy Suzuki, took such a fascinating path to making You Only Live Twice that somebody wrote a song about her many years ago. It didn't make it into the charts and its creator now lives a sad and pathetic life writing about films on the internet for a tiny and long-suffering readership.

"Face Like A Pig"

BlogalongaBond will return with On Her Majesty's Secret Service

What the hell is BlogalongaBond? I'll tell you.

Further BlogalongaBondareading here

The James Bond Books: Better In Croatia

Croatian book publishers Algoritam are doing wonderful things for the good of mankind. Specifically, they're getting shit hot Croatian photographers to create new covers for Ian Fleming's James Bond books.

Marina Filipovic Marinshe has gone to great lengths to ensure that each of her covers, depicting a different Bond girl, is as faithful to Fleming's descriptions as possible. So far she's shot covers for 'Casino Royale', 'Live And Let Die' and the short story collection 'Quantum Of Solace', and they're all amazing:

As the author intended: Vesper Lynd, Solitaire and Judy Havelock

By far the best cover so far, though, is Hrvoje Radeljic's recently-revealed 'Moonraker', featuring Gala Brand (a character who never made it to the filmed version) inside Drax's rocket shaft, staring up at the titular vessel of death. Made up and dressed in period wear to reflect the original publication time of the book, model Ana Kurobasa is every inch the 1950s British Special Branch agent of the novel, specifically the 38-26-38 inches Fleming specified. Whether she went as far as including the mole on the upper curvature of her right breast remains sadly unknown.

Amusing Footnote
The model on the cover of 'Live And Let Die' is called Ana Fuckar. Don't tell Roger Moore, he'll have a heart attack.