Star Trek: The Motion Picture (4 Stars)

There are two conflicting opinions about the Star Trek films. Some people say that the odd-numbered Star Trek films suck. Others say that they all suck. Both opinions are generalisations that I can't accept, but I do have to admit one thing: none of the Star Trek films are as good as the television series that they're based on.

I don't blame the writers or directors of the Star Trek films. I blame the source material. Even though the original Star Trek series, broadcast from 1966 to 1969, was made up of standalone episodes, we still needed to watch a lot of episodes to get to know the characters. This is in contrast to films, where only a few minutes are available to introduce characters before their story begins.

This film was made in 1979, ten years after the last episode of the TV series was broadcast. This anniversary is only a coincidence. In the late 1970's there were plans to make a new Star Trek series featuring the original cast. After the massive success of "Star Wars" in 1977 the studios decided they could make more money with a film than with a new series. They were probably right. A successful film earns millions within a few weeks of being released, more than a successful TV series earns in years. It's a shame that money is the most important factor when it comes to making art. A new TV series would have been far superior.

The film assumes that the viewers are already familiar with the TV series. That was a reasonable assumption. Despite being prematurely cancelled because of poor viewing figures, throughout the 1970's the series was being repeated on American television all year round. The popularity was surging. In the 1960's Star Trek was ahead of its time, but in the 1970's audiences were catching up. For this reason, none of the members of the original cast are explicitly introduced. We know who they are. As soon as we see William Shatner walking through Star Fleet headquarters we immediately know that he's Captain James Kirk. We're only slightly wrong. We're told that he's been promoted to the rank of admiral.

Leonard Nimoy returns as the half human, half Vulcan Spock. He seems colder than he was in the TV series. Maybe this is deliberate, because Spock has spent the last few years further suppressing his emotions. Maybe it's just Leonard's personal interpretation of the role changing over the years.

DeForest Kelley is third of the main trilogy of characters from the series in his role as Leonard "Bones" McCoy. In the film his technophobia is exaggerated, making him a caricature of his former self. He's more of a moaner and a whiner than he was in the series.

I'm glad to see that Nichelle Nicholls is back as Uhura. She hardly aged in her ten years. My only problem is the uniform. In the series the women wore super-short mini-dresses that hardly covered anything. Now the short dresses are gone and she keeps her legs covered. Why? Are uniform regulations changed so often in Star Fleet? The new Star Trek films also get the uniforms wrong.

This screenshot of Uhura from the original series shows what the Star Trek uniforms should look like. This is how the women should dress in all future films and TV series. No excuses allowed!

Despite his relatively small screen time in the TV series, Scotty, played by James Doohan, was always one of my favourite characters. I can relate to him, because he talks the way I did in my career as a programmer. He says he needs 48 hours to do a job; he's told he only has six hours; he complains that the new schedule is unrealistic, but he manages to do the job in six hours anyway.

One of the standard themes of the original Star Trek series was that on their journeys the crew of the Enterprise regularly met alien races who were so far superior that they could barely be understood. This aspect was toned down in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (TNG). In TNG there are occasionally far superior beings, such as Q, but humans are generally shown travelling in space as equals to the other races that they meet. In many episodes the races encountered are culturally and technologically far inferior, which is why the Prime Directive is mentioned a lot more frequently in TNG.

In this film we return to the theme of the Starship Enterprise unfathomably superior beings. A creature is travelling across space destroying everything in its path. It's heading towards the Earth, because it wants to merge with Earth's creator. Didn't anyone tell him that God is dead?

"Star Trek: The Motion Picture" isn't a bad film. I enjoy it. But it's not up to the level of the TV series. Not even close.

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Spider-Man 3 (5 Stars)

Whenever I talk to friends about this film I go off on a rant. I've heard so many people call this a bad film that I want to strangle anyone who dares repeat it in my presence. "Spider-Man 3" is a brilliant film that neatly concludes the Green Goblin trilogy. Following films directed by Sam Raimi would have ascended to new heights, but it wasn't to be. Sam Raimi was fired, "Spider-Man 4" never happened, there was a new Spider-Man and Ben Parker had to die again, this time with an annoying sub-plot about Peter Parker's parents that was left unfinished before it got too embarrassing.

"Spider-Man 3" might be slightly weaker than the first two parts of the trilogy, but it's still better than any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films made since 2008. Only the last two Captain America films come close. What makes the film so good is that Sam Raimi has the mentality of an early Marvel writer. I can imagine him sitting in the bullpen writing a new script in the early 1970's. Sam Raimi has a deep respect for the source material of the original comics that the later directors, even Joss Whedon, don't have.

There was something about Marvel comics that was strongest in the 1960's, continued into the 1970's, but then grew gradually weaker. I sum up this something with one word: the comics were corny. That isn't a criticism, it's intended as high praise. Stan Lee's stories were full of tropes that made the stories predictable, but in such a way that we turned each page hoping for something to happen, and we weren't satisfied until we got what we wanted. There are the awkward romances. The heroes rarely got the girl, they were too shy and introspective, or they were afraid that anyone they were close to would be in danger from their enemies. The enemies, powerful super-villains, were driven by revenge, so after a few stories they're no longer committing crimes, they're obsessed with attacking the heroes. Another common trope was the rivalry between the super-heroes, leading to frequent fights. Spider-Man fought the Human Torch, Hawkeye fought Captain America, and the Hulk battled with every other hero as time went by. Then we had the super-villain team ups, which almost always started with the words, "We don't like one another, but we have a common enemy, so let's team up to fight <fill-in-the-blank>". This led to unlikely pairings like Doctor Doom and the Submariner, or the Sandman and Blastaar.

Sam Raimi understands this. "Spider-Man 3" is corny, down to the core. Peter Parker ended the second film in a happy relationship with Mary Jane Watson, but in "Spider-Man 3" he ruins it. Venom and the Sandman teamed up because, well, it's what super-villains do. It's corny.

So much is going on in "Spider-Man 3" that I initially thought the film is too short. In a past review I said that it should have been half an hour longer. I'm no longer certain. The chaotic mix of different subplots is typical for the 1960's Spider-Man comics. Peter Parker's life was a crazy soap opera with exaggerated melodramas overlapping one another. Sam Raimi has captured this, maybe even more successfully than in the previous two films.

The lack of realism is also part of Marvel's inherent corniness in the 1960's. Most of the Marvel films attempt to make scientific explanations to make the source of super powers credible. Why is that necessary? Stan Lee never tried to explain. Bruce Banner was exposed to gamma rays and became the Hulk. Reed Richards and his fellow astronauts were exposed to cosmic rays and became the Fantastic Four. What are gamma rays? What are cosmic rays? Who cares? So many of the super-hero origin stories are ridiculous if they're analysed, but the readers accepted them unquestioningly. The origin stories were corny. That made them good.

We see this in the scene where Flint Marko becomes the Sandman. He falls into a pit where scientists are doing a ridiculous looking experiment on sand. He's bombarded with some sort of rays. I'm sure Stan Lee would have a name for them if we asked him. The rays make him able to turn his body into sand. His shirt also turns into sand and can later become cotton again. This means he's doomed to wear the same black and green striped shirt for the rest of his life. I challenge anyone to write an explanation of how this could happen, even using scientific phenomena that we haven't yet discovered. It's all so corny.

"Spider-Man 3" is corny, from beginning to end. Marvel needs to hire Sam Raimi again. He's the only one who can make truly great Marvel films. Films like "Spider-Man 3".

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Kiss and Kill (4 Stars)

This is another erotic thriller from Dean McKendrick. The DVD cover photo that I've reproduced above has nothing to do with the film, but you have to admit that it looks sexy.

Katy Fletcher is a bored housewife. On the face of it she has everything. She's married to the owner of a large chemical company. She lives in a big mansion and has more than enough money. However, she's sad because her husband has no time for her. He's constantly flying from one part of the world to another, and when he returns home he has no time to have sex with her. All he can do is grab a few hours sleep before his next flight.

As is to be expected, Katy has trouble remaining faithful under such circumstances. She meets a man called Mark in a bar and has a one-night stand. Just one night. She loves her husband, so she doesn't want to carry on. But in this case once was too much. Her sexual encounter with the man was filmed, and she's blackmailed. Mark and his girlfriend Megan have already blackmailed other women. Megan says that if Katy doesn't pay $6000 her husband will find out what she did.

Let me give my readers a piece of advice. If you're ever blackmailed in any way, don't pay. You can't trust blackmailers. If you pay them you have no way of knowing they will honour their bargain, and it's possible they will demand more. You can pretend that you will pay to stall them, so that the police will have time to act. But don't pay. Never.

Katy should have listened to my advice. She pays the money, but a few days later Megan demands more. She's caught in a trap with no way out. Things escalate. Mark no longer trusts Megan, so he asks Katy to kill her in exchange for deleting the evidence of her affair. No woman could possibly be stupid enough to agree, could she?

This is the best of Dean McKendrick's erotic thrillers so far. I can only hope that many more will follow.

I almost forgot to mention that the film shows a newspaper article about a suicide case concerning a former victim of the blackmailers. What's interesting is that the article repeats the same paragraph five times. As if that's not enough, the text is repeated again below the centre page advertisement. That's sloppy.

The Walk (5 Stars)

On 7th August 1974 a man walked on a tightrope between the two towers of the World Trade Center, 1368 feet above the ground. Over a period of 45 minutes he walked backwards and forwards eight times. The question is: was he mad? Probably he was. No man in his right mind would put his life at risk to perform a stunt like that. But he did it, and the world is better for it. He put on a performance that was barely visible to the people standing far below. His friends and co-conspirators had binoculars to watch him, but most of the audience could only see a speck far up in the sky. He saluted the crowds below him, but in truth he wasn't a circus performer who was doing everything to entertain. The picture above, my favourite photograph taken on that day, tells the real story. Look at Philippe Petit's face. He's smiling, almost laughing. This was the crowning accomplishment of his life. He was doing it all for himself. If not one single person had been watching he would still have stepped out onto the wire.

In 2008 an award winning documentary was made about this feat, "Man on Wire". Some people asked why it was necessary to make a biopic about the event only a few years later. The answer is obvious. The records of the famous walk are limited. There are only a few photographs taken from a distance. They don't tell the full story. Look again at the photo above. For all you know Philippe might only have been 20 feet above the ground. The only person who saw what was really happening was Philippe himself.

"The Walk" puts that right. With the magic of computer technology the images are recreated on the screen in front of us. We accompany Philippe on the wire, and it terrifies us. When the film was shown in the cinemas people were throwing up because the scenes were too realistic for them. I feel it too. When I watch the film I feel a knot in my stomach as the camera looks down. I could never do something like that. Philippe was mad. I'm a coward. He's the better man.

Ever since I returned to Germany 18 months ago I've been trying to persuade my ex-wife Brigitte to watch "The Walk". She said it sounded boring. I didn't know how to sell it to her. The best films are often difficult to describe adequately. I almost didn't go to the cinema to see "The Walk" in 2015. I would have missed out. I practically forced Brigitte to sit and watch the film tonight. She's glad that I did.

Brigitte didn't believe that Philippe really lay down on the wire. She said it was just made up to make the film more exciting. Here's the proof.

The special effects of the walk itself are dazzling, but that wouldn't be enough to make it a good film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's cheeky acting makes us adore him from the early scenes. His background on the streets of Paris and his adoration of circus performers draws us in. If you haven't seen "The Walk" yet, what are you waiting for? The Blu-ray disc costs less than £5 from Amazon UK. You'll be enthralled from the first few minutes.

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Captain America: Civil War (5 Stars)

I saw this film in the cinema in May last year, and I voted it the third best film of the year. Watching it again today I'm asking myself whether I should have rated it the best film of the year. The Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe, have captured the essence of super-hero comics even more accurately than Joss Whedon. They've already been named as the directors for the next two Avengers films, which can only be good news.

The film is very loosely based on a mini-series published by Marvel in 2006. In the comics all super-heroes on Earth had to make the decision whether to register with the United Nations or not. In the film it's only a decision that has to be made by the Avengers.

The film's premise is rather foolish, but it's typical of the foolishness in everyday politics. It's more typical of the reasoning of third world countries than big nations. Basically, the thoughts are:

1. An evil person (or group) threatens to kill many people.

2. The Avengers battle against the evil person to save people.

3. The Avengers defeat the evil person, but they don't save everyone.

4. The Avengers are blamed for the deaths of the people they couldn't save.

This is absolute nonsense. If the Avengers had never been involved millions might have died. Because they were involved only a few hundreds were killed. Why should they be blamed? There's only one possible answer: prejudice. The Avengers are a symbol of America. Over the last few decades America has repeatedly battled against countries with evil leaders, such as Iraq and Saddam Hussein. In their attacks civilians were killed as collateral damage. Even though the American involvement saved thousands of lives people blame America for the deaths of a few dozen civilians and say America should never have got involved. The people who make these accusations are so prejudiced in their anti-Americanism that they don't realise how stupid their arguments are.

But getting back to the film, the Avengers have been asked to submit themselves to the United Nations Security Council. Rather than deciding for themselves, the Avengers will be required to go into action only when the Security Council asks them to. This will be effectively never. The UN Security Council is too weak to act because any of the five major members can veto any resolution. Most commonly it's Russia and the USA who veto resolutions they consider to be opposed to their national interests. Because of the self-centredness of the world's two major powers the United Nations can rarely make decisions.

Tony Stark (Iron Man) agrees that the Avengers should submit to the will of the United Nations. Steve Rogers (Captain America) says that the Avengers should be allowed to make their own decisions. The other Avengers take one side or the other, dividing them into two teams of Avengers that fight against one another. These are the best filmed battles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far. Once more I praise the Russo brothers for their skill as directors.

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Sket (4 Stars)

This is another film that I found in the bargain bin of Saturn's Blu-ray department. I admit that I'm attracted by the covers more than anything else, but if a film costs less than three Euros I can throw it in the trash if I don't like it. That's less than the nine Euros I wasted going to see "Justice League" in the cinema. I can tell you now that "Sket" won't be thrown into my trash.

Kayla and Tanya are two sisters who move from Newcastle to London after the death of their mother. The actresses were aged 16 and 22 when they made the film, so I'm guessing that's the approximate ages of the characters in the film. The age difference makes Trey the mother figure in the new family relationship.

Kayla makes contact with a girl gang on a bus. Two young men assault Kayla, blocking her way and touching her when she wants to get off the bus. One of the gang members sees this and defends her. Kayla is fascinated by the sight of powerful girls who can beat up men. She wants to join the gang, but they reject her because she's too young and too weak. They have standards.

A few days later Tanya sees a drug dealer arguing with his pregnant girlfriend. She tells him to stop, so he turns his anger on her and seriously injures her. Tanya dies in hospital, but before she dies she tells Kayla the name of the man that she overheard in the argument. Kayla wants revenge. She knows she can't do it herself, so she goes back to the girl gang and begs them to help her.

"Sket" is at the same time exciting and horrifying, but it's also morbidly fascinating. It shows an urban subculture which people prefer to deny. The girls have banded together as a protection against male violence. As their leader Daze tells Kayla, any woman who isn't strong will be raped. That's a sad truth, especially in the poor areas of London.

I'd like to make a disclaimer about the screenshot I've posted above. I disapprove of smoking. I find women who smoke ugly. On a few rare occasions in my life I've kissed smokers, so I can verify that women who smoke taste bad as well. Smoking is an anti-social habit. If someone takes pills or drinks alcohol it's his own business and doesn't affect anyone else, but smoking is different. Smokers force non-smokers to participate in their vice. Most western countries have now banned smoking in restaurants and workplaces, but that isn't enough. When I'm at a bus stop smokers stand next to me, forcing me to move away. In the street smokers walk past me and blow smoke in my face. Smokers are dirty people. Anywhere you walk you see hundreds of cigarette butts on the floor. As soon as the streets are cleaned smokers throw more butts on the floor. Smokers have no respect for their fellow people. They think they're in the right and everyone else is wrong.

So look at the photo above. Five girls. Three are ugly, two are beautiful.

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Lost in New York (4 Stars)

This is an eerie short film made by Jean Rollin in 1989. Michèle and Marie are two young girls who live on the coast of France. Marie has a talisman which she calls the Moon Goddess. With it all their wishes can be fulfilled. The girls wish that they could visit New York.

Their wish is fulfilled, but it's not as they expected. They're no longer children, they've become young adults. They're both in New York, but they're separated. They're on opposite sides of Manhattan, one on the West coast, the other on the East coast. They wander through the streets day and night, trying to find one another. There are perils on the way. Marie is attacked by a female mugger, but she manages to overcome and kill her. Michèle meets a vampiress who feeds on women's blood. Michèle survives and continues her search for Marie.

Eventually they find one another, but they only spend a few minutes together. The spell wears off, and Michèle is transported back to France. Only Michèle. Marie doesn't come back. Michèle sits on the beach every day waiting for Marie to return. Finally, after 60 years, Marie returns. The two old women embrace one another and try to rekindle their friendship.

This is a very unusual film, even for Jean Rollin. It shows an unglamorous side of New York. We see the city centre briefly, but mostly we see the streets near the docks, the poor areas where the houses are in disrepair. This is a side of New York that tourists never see.

It's difficult to say what the film is about. The magic of youth and the disillusion of old age? Maybe. I don't know whether Jean Rollin ever gave any interviews about the film. I'd like to know why he made it. Whatever his purpose was, it's intense and haunting.

I bought the film on DVD ten years ago, but it's currently out of print. I hope it will be re-issued. It's an essential film for all of Jean Rollin's fans.

Model for Murder (4 Stars)

When I watched "Cosmic Calendar Girls" last week I said that I might re-watch the other two films in my collection starring August Ames. Here's one of them.

There's been a small war taking place on August Ames' Wikipedia page. On the one side it's the people who want to make the page as factual as possible; on the other side it's the cyberbullies and their supporters who don't want to be named as responsible for her death. The last edit was made only three hours ago, and I doubt it's the last version of the page. Let me state the facts here.

On December 3rd August Ames posted on Twitter that she didn't want to have sex with a man who regularly performed gay porn. She criticised her agent for signing her up for this film.

Bruce Beckham, the actor that she refused to have sex with, replied by calling her homophobic and uneducated.

Over the following two days a series of people, mostly gay men, attacked August on Twitter. The leader of the pack was Jaxton Wheeler, who called on August to swallow a cyanide pill.

On December 5th August Ames killed herself.

Bruce Beckham's initial reaction was to say that her death wasn't his fault. A day later he expressed regret and apologised for what he said. Several of his friends, including Dirk Caber, Conner Habib, Topher Drew and Mathew Mason, contradicted him and insisted it wasn't his fault.

Jaxton Wheeler, on the other hand, feels no guilt about his statements and continues to lie about his participation in killing August. In an official statement he says "None of my aggression was directed at August nor her ability to consent to who she decides to work with". I would quote more of his words, but I find them too sickening. He presents himself as a defender of the gay community to justify being responsible for August's death.

It's totally disgusting that a group of homosexual men ganged up on a sensitive young woman and drove her to suicide. Criticising these men doesn't make anyone guilty of homophobia, whatever they say. There are gay men throughout the world who would never have acted so badly. This whole catastrophe isn't about the pros and cons of homosexuality, it's about men being abusive to women. (If you check Jaxton Wheeler's Twitter account you can find examples of him talking badly to other women).

Now let's finally get back to the film itself. August Ames plays an upcoming model called Audrey Elfs. She's murdered early in the film, but she's shown taking part in a photoshoot at the beginning. I've reviewed the film elsewhere. Today I'll just publish some snapshots from the film's photoshoot.

August Ames
August 23, 1994 – December 5, 2017

Ninja Assassin (4½ Stars)

My guest writer Kaylena praised this as one of her favourite films six years ago. Normally that would have prompted me to watch it as soon as possible. I didn't, because I thought it was a Korean film. I don't know how I got this idea. The film's main actor, Jung Ji-hoon, is Korean, but it's an American film.

There are very few martial arts films made in America. There are lots of films where a character is a martial arts fighter, such as "Rush Hour" with Jackie Chan or "Unleashed" with Jet Li, but for me a martial arts film is a film in which the fighting is as important as the plot itself. Many films like that are made in China and Japan. Let's make my own personal definition of a "martial arts" film, which deviates from Wikipedia's definition, to explain what I'm talking about.

1. Both the good guys and the bad guys use a fighting style which originates in the far East.
2. The fighting scenes (including training and talking about fighting) make up at least 50% of the film's running time.

Using this definition I can only think of three American martial arts films.

1. "Enter the Dragon" (arguable, since it was co-produced by Golden Harvest)
2. "Kill Bill"
3. "Ninja Assassin"

If you can think of any others that qualify as American martial arts films, please let me know. The comments box is below my post. If you don't see it, click on the word "comments" below the post. It's not difficult to find, but I get so few comments that I sometimes wonder if it's because my readers don't know how to comment.

The film is about a secret group of assassins based in Japan. The group is made up of nine clans, but we only see one clan in the film, the Ozuna clan. Orphans, male and female, are taken into the clan and trained to be killers. It's not about honour or philosophy, it's a purely mercenary operation. The clan will kill anyone, anywhere in the world, for 100 pounds of gold, or whatever the current market value is. At the time the film was made it was $1,556,000. This price has remained constant for over one thousand years. Naturally, there are cheaper assassins for hire, but the nine clans are the most efficient. If you want to kill a head of state who's surrounded by a hundred soldiers a typical contract killer wouldn't be able to do the job. The clans guarantee success after receiving payment.

The training in the Ozuna clan is severe. The students frequently kill or seriously wound one another. Anyone who is too weak to continue is killed. Anyone who attempts to leave is killed.

After completing his training Raizo (Jung Ji-hoon) is sent on his first mission. He has to kill the head of the Russian mafia in Berlin. He succeeds, but before returning to Japan he's asked to kill a young girl who has attempted to leave the clan. He refuses, which makes him an outcast. He tries to hide, but assassins from his clan keep coming to kill him.

Involved in the story is Mika Coretti -- an Italian? -- a Europol agent based in Berlin, played by the beautiful Naomie Harris. She has been investigating the Ozuna clan as responsible for the assassination of the Russian prime minister. What she doesn't know is that the CIA hired the Ozuna clan to kill him. Her superiors try to persuade her to stop the investigation, but when she continues the Ozuna clan is hired to kill her as well. Raizo considers it his duty to protect her.

"Ninja Assassin" has dazzling but bloody fight scenes from beginning to end. There's also a touching story of redemption, as Raizo tries to make up for his past. The plot can be criticised in a few points. For instance, I can understand why the Ozuna clan were hired to kill a prime minister, but were they really needed to kill Mika? A man posing as a CIA agent could have done the job for $5000.

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A Ghost Story (4 Stars)

This is one of the most unusual films I've seen for a long time. It's not the first time a haunted house film has been told from a ghost's point of view, but I've never seen it done so effectively. Supposedly the film's budget was only $100,000. How is that possible nowadays? The lead actors must have worked for free.

A young couple live in a small house in a rural area. They aren't named in the film, but in the credits they're called C and M. I'll use those names for the sake of simplicity. C is a musician. M seems to be an interior designer, but it isn't completely clear.

C is killed in a car accident. In hospital he wakes up as a ghost. A big light shines in front of him, signifying a call for him to move on, but he refuses to walk into the light. He goes back home to be with his wife. She can't see him, so he stands watching her as the days, months and years roll by. The only way he can make himself noticed is by making lights flicker and moving objects.

Eventually M sells the house and moves out. Instead of following her C remains in the house. A new family moves in. They leave after he scares them by throwing plates. A group of young people move in. Then the house is demolished and a large office building is built on the same spot. C spends years walking through the building.

This is a very emotional film. I could feel C's loneliness. He's desperate to make contact with the living, especially the people he loves, but whatever he does to make contact scares people.

Despite its slowness, this is a fascinating film. It'll make you think about it for a long time afterwards.

The Bar (5 Stars)

We all go to bars, cafes and restaurants. It's part of modern life. We either go in groups or alone. Even if we're sitting with friends we still don't know most of the the people around us. Next time you're in a bar look at the other people and ask yourself who they are. The outward appearances usually give clues, but even they can be deceptive.

There might be a millionaire businessman.

There might be an ex-soldier suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

There might be a suicidal housewife enjoying her last drink ever.

There might be a married man looking for a one-night stand.

There might be a psychopath looking for his next victim.

The truth is, you just don't know who you're sharing a room with. Only a sudden crisis can force you together and make you talk to one another. That's what happens in "The Bar", a brilliant psychological drama made by the eccentric Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia. First the customers are sitting drinking a coffee or a beer, staring at the wall without talking to one another. Then an unseen sniper shoots two people as they leave the bar.

Panic!

Fear!

Within minutes the strangers in the bar are fighting for their lives, punching one another, strangling one another, pulling guns on one another.

"Fear shows people as they really are".

But it's better if we never find out.

The Mountain Between Us (3½ Stars)

Let's be honest. Any film that stars Idris Elba is worth seeing, whatever it's about. I prefer to see him as an action hero, but even in quieter roles he can express an emotional depth. He's one of the best actors in Britain today.

Two people meet at Boise Airport in Idaho on December 28th. Dr. Ben Bass (Idris Elba) is a brain surgeon, Alex Martin (Kate Winslet) is a journalist. They've both booked a flight to Denver. Ben has to perform an operation the next day, Alex is getting married. Because of heavy storms the flight has been cancelled. That's an emergency for both of them. They decide to split the cost of booking a small charter plane.

While flying over the mountains in Utah the pilot suffers a stroke and the plane crashes. The pilot is dead. Alex is badly injured. Ben is relatively unharmed, only suffering a few small bruises. Alex has to rest three days before she can walk. After that they begin to walk across the snowy mountains looking for civilisation, accompanied by the dead pilot's dog.

Prior to the release of the film there was some excitement about the dog, a Labrador who's only ever called Dog. The trailer gave the impression that the dog would die, which caused complaints in Internet forums. This prompted the studio to make a statement that the dog would not die. I'm not aware that a film studio has ever released an official spoiler like that before.

The film features exceptional performances by the two leading actors, underlined by breathtaking mountain scenes. The weaknesses are in the story itself. The epilogue, after the two return to civilisation, should have been short. Instead, it was painfully dragged out. The film could have come to a conclusion 15 minutes earlier.

One Million Years B.C. (4 Stars)

This film tells a version of prehistoric times that you didn't learn in school. One million years ago there were small human tribes scattered over the Earth at different stages of cultural development. They had to protect themselves from the dinosaurs which wandered around the wastelands looking for food.

The film's hero, Tumak, is the son of his tribe's leader, Akoba. There's no social justice in the tribe. When a wild animal has been cooked the strongest eat first, and the weakest have to fight over the scraps. Just because a man is strong now it doesn't mean he'll always be privileged. While he's at his physical peak he can do whatever he wants, but when he gets old the younger men bully him and don't give him enough food.

Tumak thinks it's his time to step up. He rips the food out of his father's hand, but he soon finds out that he underestimated his father. Akoba wins a fierce battle, so Tumak is banished from the tribe. Tumak almost perishes, but he's found by the women of a blond-haired tribe. They have different ways. They share their food fairly. They even bury their dead, instead of leaving their bodies as food for wild animals.

There's a love story. Dark-haired Tumak falls in love with blond-haired Loana, played by Raquel Welch. Was this the world's first interracial marriage?

"One Million Years B.C." was made in 1966, four years after "Dr. No", which I watched yesterday. Compare the pictures of Ursula Andress and Raquel Welch, both screenshots from the respective films.

There's an uncanny resemblance. Actually, they should be even more alike. Raquel Welch's skin is darker. She only looks pale because of the film's lighting.

But the similarity doesn't stop there. They sound the same in the two films. When "Dr. No" was filmed Ursula Andress's Swiss accent was too strong to be easily understood, so her voice was dubbed by the German actress Nikki van der Zyl. It's no good checking the voice with other films. Nikki dubbed Ursula's voice in her other English language films.

Raquel Welch's Latin American accent was also considered too strong, so Nikki dubbed her voice in "One Million Years B.C." I have difficulty understanding why. The film's dialogue is all in a primitive language which seems to have a vocabulary of less than 10 words, so it shouldn't have been a problem for Raquel to speak her own lines. Ah, the mysteries of cinema!

Nikki Van Der Zyl

There's another curiosity about the film. Among the promotional stills released for the film there was a photo of Raquel Welch hanging on a cross. She's wearing an outfit similar to the cloth bikini she wears in the film, but I can guarantee you that she isn't crucified in the film. It's a very sexy photograph, delightfully sacrilegious, but otherwise totally irrelevant.

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Dr. No (4 Stars)

This is the first James Bond film, made in 1962. I can't help wondering if anyone imagined that the James Bond films would still be successful after 50 years. Ian Fleming's novels, on which the character was based, were only moderately successful at the time. They didn't begin to sell well until after the first few films were made. The initial public reaction to "Dr. No" was mediocre. Critics called the film silly.

Then the film received support from two unexpected sources. The Vatican condemned "Dr. No" as a dangerous mixture of violence, vulgarity, sadism and sex, and the Kremlin said that Bond was the personification of capitalist evil. After recommendations like that everyone wanted to see it, and it became a huge box office success, relative to its budget. The critics also sat down and looked at the film again, realising it was better than they initially thought. It now has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 96%.

What makes "Dr. No" so good for me is being to analyse it in retrospect after seeing the other films. I can't remember when I first saw it on television, probably in my early teens, but I'm sure I didn't enjoy it as much back then. There are certain recurring motifs that take place in all or most of the films.While watching the film this evening I found myself chuckling whenever one of the motifs occurred.

The first and most obvious motif in the film is James Bond flirting with Miss Moneypenny, M's secretary. She's madly in love with him, but for Bond she's just a plaything. Their relationship is never consummated. By that I don't just mean that they don't have sex; they don't even go on a date. Bond always has an excuse when she starts insisting..

The real reason Bond doesn't take it any further is that Moneypenny is too plain for him. He's only interested in glamorous women like Ursula Andress. When he meets a woman like her there's no hesitation and there are no excuses. He gets her into bed before the end of the film. That's another regular motif: the Bond Girl. In actual fact, most of the films have two or three Bond Girls. There's one good Bond Girl who assists him in his mission, and there's one bad Bond Girl who works for his enemy. In this film the good Bond Girl is Honey Ryder, played by Ursula Andress, while the bad Bond Girl is Miss Taro.

This film is guilty of  whitewashing. Miss Taro is supposed to be Chinese, but she's played by Zena Marshall, a white British actress. The title character, Dr. No, is supposed to be half Chinese, but he's played by Joseph Wiseman, a white Canadian actor.

The optional third Bond Girl is another good Bond Girl who is usually killed in the first half of the film. This procedure is called fridging. A woman is said to be fridged if she is introduced into a film only to be killed, so that the male hero is even more determined to catch or kill the bad guy.

The second good Bond Girl in "Dr. No" is Sylvia Trench. She isn't fridged, and she's actually unique among all the Bond Girls. She's the only Bond Girl who appears twice in two consecutive films. The reason is that she was originally intended to be Bond's regular girlfriend. After the second film, "From Russia With Love", it was decided that Bond didn't need a girlfriend, so she simply disappeared.

If there are three Bond Girls, which one does James Bond sleep with? All of them! In most cases Bond is such an incredible lover that the bad Bond Girl falls in love with him and turns against her master. But not this time.

That introduces the third motif: Bond is irresistible to women. Some try to resist him, but none can succeed. He only has to walk into a room and the women stare at him longingly.

The fourth motif is that Bond always wins in the casinos. He has skill at games like Poker, but even when he plays games of chance he never loses.

The fifth motif is that in each film he has to face a criminal mastermind with far reaching plans that can be anything from world domination to simply destabilising the world. In this film Dr. No only wants to ruin America's space program by making the moon rockets crash.

The sixth motif is that the evil mastermind never kills Bond when he has the chance. He spends time talking with Bond as if they were friends, boasting to Bond about all the details of his plans.

The seventh motif is a car chase in almost every film. The chase in this film is simple because of the relatively small budget. As the films continue the chases become longer and more extravagant.

The eighth motif is that the film ends with a big explosion. This almost didn't happen in "Dr. No". The budget was exhausted before the explosion could be filmed. The producer, Albert Broccoli, asked United Artists for extra money to film the explosion, and he was given another $100,000. That was 10% of the film's budget! Fortunately the explosion succeeded first time, or the film would have ended with a puff of smoke instead of a big bang.

That's all the motifs I can think of in this film. Others start later in the series, and I'll mention them when we get to them. Did I forget anything? Please let me know.

Success Rate:  + 52.1

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