Vesper Nocturne
I am the catnip
Did someone say gladiators? I’m all in
Lucifer Sam
الموت لأمريكا
Napoleon (2023). Majestically filmed but otherwise pretty poor. With so much expository dialogue, it should've been the world's most expensive documentary: cut out the tedious melodrama of Napoleon and Josephine, put a voice-over narration to the big-budget war scenes, and maybe have something educational. I don't know why I agreed to this movie since grandiose battle scenes disinterest me, and whenever horses are involved, I get distracted thinking about all the war horses who died gruesome deaths throughout the long history of humans exploiting horses for battle. At some point Napoleon is called "a Corsican thug," and the movie was boring enough that I spent several minutes not paying much attention, trying instead to remember the song that has the lyric "he's just a slob of a Corsican junkie." I thought it might be Elvis Costello and tried mentally fitting it with the melody of various Elvis Costello songs before exhausting them and having the satisfying eureka moment of realizing it was Soft Cell: L'Esqualita. Good song.
I noticed that Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby looked to be about the same height, which would be correct, since the emperor is supposed to have been short, and we assume Josephine average. For this reason I thought Kirby was tall, and was perhaps cast in part to make Phoenix look diminutive, but looking her up she's an average 5'6". Surprisingly, Phoenix is on the short side: he's 5'8", only a mere inch or two over the historical Napoleon. I wouldn't have thought this; his screen presence has always seemed physically imposing. Now Alan Ladd was a short actor. There's an apocryphal story that when he acted with Sophia Loren, their mismatch was so outrageous that for one scene the film crew had to dig trenches around Ladd for Loren to walk in.
goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
Wild Tales (2014)
Trailer
Gripping, primal and intense series of six scenes. Very satisfying! I'm not alone. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wild_tales
Argentinian composer Gustavo Santaolalla wrote the theme music, and he was also involved in music on Morrissey's Swords album, and the single, All You Need Is Me - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_(album)
Trailer
Gripping, primal and intense series of six scenes. Very satisfying! I'm not alone. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wild_tales
Argentinian composer Gustavo Santaolalla wrote the theme music, and he was also involved in music on Morrissey's Swords album, and the single, All You Need Is Me - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_(album)
Barking
Boomerrissey Bored Me
Falcon Lake.
I liked it. Some first class teenage acting in there.
( yes that's my review. )(Can't say much more without spoiling it, you'll have to watch it.)
I didn't want to behead anyone in there. There were a couple of annoying guys that were meant to be nondescript jackasses I guess. Maybe even Greek tragedies had them. Who knows.
Most annoying thing was I couldn't identify their accent, in Canadian French or American English.
Maybe they were really Greek.
I liked it. Some first class teenage acting in there.
( yes that's my review. )(Can't say much more without spoiling it, you'll have to watch it.)
I didn't want to behead anyone in there. There were a couple of annoying guys that were meant to be nondescript jackasses I guess. Maybe even Greek tragedies had them. Who knows.
Most annoying thing was I couldn't identify their accent, in Canadian French or American English.
Maybe they were really Greek.
Requiescant
You Should Not Go To Them, Let Them Come To You...
'Gojira'(1954)
The Japanese Kaiju(Giant Monster) film genre may well be the least appreciated category of movie there has ever been. Serious film critics and scholars won't acknowledge them, and even seasoned genre movie champions like Danny Peary, author of the 'Cult Movies' series of books, gets all sniffy and questions how on Earth they ever became popular. Even Spaghetti Westerns, Eurospy movies, and British Sex Comedies fare better in the journals and tomes of your average film writer. And while I have to confess that some of them are borderline unwatchable, there are many that are at worst, cracking entertainment.
And then there's 'Gojira'....
'Gojira', released in Japan in 1954, then re-edited and released world wide a couple of years later as 'Godzilla, King Of The Monsters', is a bit of a shock if you tune in expecting the usual men-in-rubber-suits careering around a miniaturised version of Tokyo, getting into what looks like Sumo Wrestling scrapes with other unconvincing rubber suits, all set amid storylines that beggar belief. For a start, Gojira is deadly serious! There is not a single laugh, unintentional or otherwise, in the whole movie. The entire project is a parable on atomic weaponry, filmed and set in a country that had just experienced first hand, the horrors of a nuclear attack. Gojira(the monster) is a metaphor for nuclear energy, and the footage of the dead and wounded bestrewn across the streets of Tokyo is eerily reminiscent of the footage from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is also no doubt who is responsible for all this...mankind! Undersea testing awakens the prehistoric Gojira from it's millennial slumber, and its subsequent rampaging(quite mercilessly) through Tokyo. The scenes of human carnage at the hands(or more, feet) of Gojira is quite grim; a train full of carefree commuters heading home from work is derailed, crashed to the ground, then picked up and chewed by the monster; a mother tries hopelessly to shield her three children from the monster's onslaught, telling them "Don't fear, we'll be with Daddy in just a few seconds"(the fact that this scene isn't concluded leaves it hanging in disturbing ambiguity).
Added to all this is a love triangle that involves the hero(Ogata), the anti-hero(Sherziwa)(who caused the awakening of the monster), and the girl(Emiko) who loves them both. In the finale that starts of bleak, then gets increasingly grimmer, the hero and the anti-hero(who has now invented an Oxygen Destroyer(!?), the only thing that might kill Gojira) dive beneath the sea and, in one of cinema's greatest acts of shithousery, sneak up on Gojira while he/she/it(Gojira's sex is matter of serious debate among Kaiju fans) is sound asleep. In the final act the antihero sacrifices himself so that the hero can return to the girl. Not exactly a 'happy' ending, but as this doesn't have a happy beginning or middle, what did you expect?
Shot in stark black and white, totally sobering like all the best Science Fiction should be, and with one of the greatest music scores to grace ANY film, plus a haunting 'Prayer For Peace' performed a by an all female choir, this isn't just a masterpiece of genre or Kaiju cinema. This is a masterpiece....full stop!
The Prayer For Peace
And that incredible main theme
The Japanese Kaiju(Giant Monster) film genre may well be the least appreciated category of movie there has ever been. Serious film critics and scholars won't acknowledge them, and even seasoned genre movie champions like Danny Peary, author of the 'Cult Movies' series of books, gets all sniffy and questions how on Earth they ever became popular. Even Spaghetti Westerns, Eurospy movies, and British Sex Comedies fare better in the journals and tomes of your average film writer. And while I have to confess that some of them are borderline unwatchable, there are many that are at worst, cracking entertainment.
And then there's 'Gojira'....
'Gojira', released in Japan in 1954, then re-edited and released world wide a couple of years later as 'Godzilla, King Of The Monsters', is a bit of a shock if you tune in expecting the usual men-in-rubber-suits careering around a miniaturised version of Tokyo, getting into what looks like Sumo Wrestling scrapes with other unconvincing rubber suits, all set amid storylines that beggar belief. For a start, Gojira is deadly serious! There is not a single laugh, unintentional or otherwise, in the whole movie. The entire project is a parable on atomic weaponry, filmed and set in a country that had just experienced first hand, the horrors of a nuclear attack. Gojira(the monster) is a metaphor for nuclear energy, and the footage of the dead and wounded bestrewn across the streets of Tokyo is eerily reminiscent of the footage from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is also no doubt who is responsible for all this...mankind! Undersea testing awakens the prehistoric Gojira from it's millennial slumber, and its subsequent rampaging(quite mercilessly) through Tokyo. The scenes of human carnage at the hands(or more, feet) of Gojira is quite grim; a train full of carefree commuters heading home from work is derailed, crashed to the ground, then picked up and chewed by the monster; a mother tries hopelessly to shield her three children from the monster's onslaught, telling them "Don't fear, we'll be with Daddy in just a few seconds"(the fact that this scene isn't concluded leaves it hanging in disturbing ambiguity).
Added to all this is a love triangle that involves the hero(Ogata), the anti-hero(Sherziwa)(who caused the awakening of the monster), and the girl(Emiko) who loves them both. In the finale that starts of bleak, then gets increasingly grimmer, the hero and the anti-hero(who has now invented an Oxygen Destroyer(!?), the only thing that might kill Gojira) dive beneath the sea and, in one of cinema's greatest acts of shithousery, sneak up on Gojira while he/she/it(Gojira's sex is matter of serious debate among Kaiju fans) is sound asleep. In the final act the antihero sacrifices himself so that the hero can return to the girl. Not exactly a 'happy' ending, but as this doesn't have a happy beginning or middle, what did you expect?
Shot in stark black and white, totally sobering like all the best Science Fiction should be, and with one of the greatest music scores to grace ANY film, plus a haunting 'Prayer For Peace' performed a by an all female choir, this isn't just a masterpiece of genre or Kaiju cinema. This is a masterpiece....full stop!
The Prayer For Peace
And that incredible main theme
goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
The Ladykillers (1955)
A very delicious charming canny piece of entertainment! From one of Morrissey's past film lists.
It delivers the comedy moments as frequently as The Importance of Being Earnest. It reminded me of several 'amateur dramatics' plays I attended in the past few years, when the theatres would be guaranteed ti be booked out, due to quality of acting. local hero lure, and type of play chosen, sure to have popular appeal. A Londoner pointed out to me that Ealing Studio, which produced the film, was then a fairly new major national film-making centre, and probably sought homegrown actors from a variety of backgrounds just so long as they did it well.
A very delicious charming canny piece of entertainment! From one of Morrissey's past film lists.
It delivers the comedy moments as frequently as The Importance of Being Earnest. It reminded me of several 'amateur dramatics' plays I attended in the past few years, when the theatres would be guaranteed ti be booked out, due to quality of acting. local hero lure, and type of play chosen, sure to have popular appeal. A Londoner pointed out to me that Ealing Studio, which produced the film, was then a fairly new major national film-making centre, and probably sought homegrown actors from a variety of backgrounds just so long as they did it well.
gordyboy9
He Punched The Highlights Out Of Her Hair.
'Gojira'(1954)
The Japanese Kaiju(Giant Monster) film genre may well be the least appreciated category of movie there has ever been. Serious film critics and scholars won't acknowledge them, and even seasoned genre movie champions like Danny Peary, author of the 'Cult Movies' series of books, gets all sniffy and questions how on Earth they ever became popular. Even Spaghetti Westerns, Eurospy movies, and British Sex Comedies fare better in the journals and tomes of your average film writer. And while I have to confess that some of them are borderline unwatchable, there are many that are at worst, cracking entertainment.
And then there's 'Gojira'....
'Gojira', released in Japan in 1954, then re-edited and released world wide a couple of years later as 'Godzilla, King Of The Monsters', is a bit of a shock if you tune in expecting the usual men-in-rubber-suits careering around a miniaturised version of Tokyo, getting into what looks like Sumo Wrestling scrapes with other unconvincing rubber suits, all set amid storylines that beggar belief. For a start, Gojira is deadly serious! There is not a single laugh, unintentional or otherwise, in the whole movie. The entire project is a parable on atomic weaponry, filmed and set in a country that had just experienced first hand, the horrors of a nuclear attack. Gojira(the monster) is a metaphor for nuclear energy, and the footage of the dead and wounded bestrewn across the streets of Tokyo is eerily reminiscent of the footage from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is also no doubt who is responsible for all this...mankind! Undersea testing awakens the prehistoric Gojira from it's millennial slumber, and its subsequent rampaging(quite mercilessly) through Tokyo. The scenes of human carnage at the hands(or more, feet) of Gojira is quite grim; a train full of carefree commuters heading home from work is derailed, crashed to the ground, then picked up and chewed by the monster; a mother tries hopelessly to shield her three children from the monster's onslaught, telling them "Don't fear, we'll be with Daddy in just a few seconds"(the fact that this scene isn't concluded leaves it hanging in disturbing ambiguity).
Added to all this is a love triangle that involves the hero(Ogata), the anti-hero(Sherziwa)(who caused the awakening of the monster), and the girl(Emiko) who loves them both. In the finale that starts of bleak, then gets increasingly grimmer, the hero and the anti-hero(who has now invented an Oxygen Destroyer(!?), the only thing that might kill Gojira) dive beneath the sea and, in one of cinema's greatest acts of shithousery, sneak up on Gojira while he/she/it(Gojira's sex is matter of serious debate among Kaiju fans) is sound asleep. In the final act the antihero sacrifices himself so that the hero can return to the girl. Not exactly a 'happy' ending, but as this doesn't have a happy beginning or middle, what did you expect?
Shot in stark black and white, totally sobering like all the best Science Fiction should be, and with one of the greatest music scores to grace ANY film, plus a haunting 'Prayer For Peace' performed a by an all female choir, this isn't just a masterpiece of genre or Kaiju cinema. This is a masterpiece....full stop!
The Prayer For Peace
And that incredible main theme
im a huge godzilla fan,always have been.godzilla minus one is being called the best film of the year,deals with japan after the second world war,going to watch it this afternoon.
Requiescant
You Should Not Go To Them, Let Them Come To You...
Yeah, I've always loved the kaiju films, almost in spite of the critical hatred and snobbery fired at them. I think of the Godzilla films in the same way as the 'Carry On' films(stick with me on this one), when I was wee they both were absolute favourites, but then when you hit your teens/twenties you get a bit sniffy and snobby about them and pretend you never liked them in the first place. Then of course you come back round to them again, and you love them all the more.
It helps that they've (mostly) all been remastered and 4K scanned as they now look absolutely amazing. I got the two Gamera box-sets for my Christmas, so plenty to be going on with there
(Off topic) How do you see the game going tomorrow? We need to win, if for nothing else to stop them leap-frogging us. It could be a bit of a toil if they get ahead of us. I'd take a scrappy, boring, flukey 1-0 win all day, just for the points HH
gordyboy9
He Punched The Highlights Out Of Her Hair.
i watched carry on abroad last night,still hilarious,i wll defend the carry on films till the day i die,as for the gamera box sets,enjoy.Yeah, I've always loved the kaiju films, almost in spite of the critical hatred and snobbery fired at them. I think of the Godzilla films in the same way as the 'Carry On' films(stick with me on this one), when I was wee they both were absolute favourites, but then when you hit your teens/twenties you get a bit sniffy and snobby about them and pretend you never liked them in the first place. Then of course you come back round to them again, and you love them all the more.
It helps that they've (mostly) all been remastered and 4K scanned as they now look absolutely amazing. I got the two Gamera box-sets for my Christmas, so plenty to be going on with there
(Off topic) How do you see the game going tomorrow? We need to win, if for nothing else to stop them leap-frogging us. It could be a bit of a toil if they get ahead of us. I'd take a scrappy, boring, flukey 1-0 win all day, just for the points HH
a fellow hoops fan,i will be watching from behind the couch for this one,something is missing this season.
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Requiescant
You Should Not Go To Them, Let Them Come To You...
Yeah, totally agree. I too would defend the Carry On's, as well as Benny Hill from the culture-fascists. The 'Woke Generation' can pretty much go and f*ck itself. We seem to have become a nation, if not a world of Mary Whitehouses! Comedy is going to die out because you can't say anything without apparently offending someone these days. But it's pretty simple; if you don't like, or feel offended by the Carry Ons, Benny Hill, Bernard Manning, Jerry Sadowitz, Keith Lemon, or Frankie Boyle, then don't watch them!! Don't cancel them just because you don't like them.
(off topic) Well, we won! We won ugly, but how many times have we lost pretty? The main difference yesterday is that our forward line had Kyogo, while theirs had Dessers. Dessers must be the worst forward ever in the history of Scottish football. Still three points is three points, and we go into the New Year on top, looking down on the Rangers. As it should be. HH
ZOOM FROM GLOOM
LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA!
Yeah, totally agree. I too would defend the Carry On's, as well as Benny Hill from the culture-fascists. The 'Woke Generation' can pretty much go and f*ck itself. We seem to have become a nation, if not a world of Mary Whitehouses! Comedy is going to die out because you can't say anything without apparently offending someone these days. But it's pretty simple; if you don't like, or feel offended by the Carry Ons, Benny Hill, Bernard Manning, Jerry Sadowitz, Keith Lemon, or Frankie Boyle, then don't watch them!! Don't cancel them just because you don't like them.
(off topic) Well, we won! We won ugly, but how many times have we lost pretty? The main difference yesterday is that our forward line had Kyogo, while theirs had Dessers. Dessers must be the worst forward ever in the history of Scottish football. Still three points is three points, and we go into the New Year on top, looking down on the Rangers. As it should be. HH
here’s a Moz favorite! …..
Requiescant
You Should Not Go To Them, Let Them Come To You...
here’s a Moz favorite! …..
Yeah, people forget just how funny he actually was. The Political Correctness brigade have permanently tattooed this misrepresentation of him into modern culture
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gordyboy9
He Punched The Highlights Out Of Her Hair.
well said req,agree with everything you said.Yeah, totally agree. I too would defend the Carry On's, as well as Benny Hill from the culture-fascists. The 'Woke Generation' can pretty much go and f*ck itself. We seem to have become a nation, if not a world of Mary Whitehouses! Comedy is going to die out because you can't say anything without apparently offending someone these days. But it's pretty simple; if you don't like, or feel offended by the Carry Ons, Benny Hill, Bernard Manning, Jerry Sadowitz, Keith Lemon, or Frankie Boyle, then don't watch them!! Don't cancel them just because you don't like them.
(off topic) Well, we won! We won ugly, but how many times have we lost pretty? The main difference yesterday is that our forward line had Kyogo, while theirs had Dessers. Dessers must be the worst forward ever in the history of Scottish football. Still three points is three points, and we go into the New Year on top, looking down on the Rangers. As it should be. HH
kyogo is the man,,,hail hail.
gordyboy9
He Punched The Highlights Out Of Her Hair.
here’s a Moz favorite! …..
a few weeks ago i watched a bunch of benny hill shows,thing i noticed was how long most of the sketches last,some are ten minutes long which is unusual for a sketch show,he was very clever,he died on good friday lying on his couch watching tv,how fitting.
goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
'Promising Young Woman'(2020)
Maybe the only film with a downer ending that has me punching the air with joy in it's final moments(although 'Three Colours White' runs it close).
A film about sexual assault that doesn't feature the 'R' word, has no nudity or sex scenes, no bloodshed(though tomato sauce and red wine act as fine substitutes), and is shot in retina scorching Pop Art pastels and neons. And yet the tension is ratcheted up to an almost unbearable level which allows the moments of jet black humour to act as a release valve.
The acting is off the scale, especially Carey Mulligan and Bo Burnham, although kudos to Clancy Brown and Jennifer Coolidge who deadpan it as the concerned parents.
Throw in the fact that this is the ONLY film in which the presence of Paris Hilton is welcome, and the best (non-camp) use of 'It's Raining Men' EVER, this is a film I've watched three times now in the last 12 months, and whenever that final shot comes up, I'm practically jumping round the room(in my head at least)!!
Promising Young Film-maker more like
I'm linking the review of Saltburn with Requeiscant's insightful one of Promising Young Woman because they're made by the same director, with similar genre-disrupting twists in each.
Hot Press has an excellent review and interview with the director that clears the mist quite a bit - https://www.hotpress.com/film-tv/em...ng-beautiful-strange-and-interesting-22996872
I found Saltburn both deep and vacuous at the same time! I suspect the overall message is intended to be something like the Korean movie Parasite from a few years ago was trying to portray about society. I presumed there was a lot of symbolism going on, mostly cleverly inserted within the drama. Rashoman-like play with perspective was very effective. It was a departure, very stylish yet quite disturbing in many aspects.
Lucifer Sam
الموت لأمريكا
Elvis (2022). Awful. God-awful. Just goes to show that even with the rights to the music and the blessing of the estate, you can still end up with an over-blown absolute piece of crap. I realize that "over-blown" is Baz Luhrmann's calling card: it's supposed to be dizzying, spectacular, glitzy, and empty-calories cartoony fabulous. The question is still: why? The last movie I saw of his was Romeo + Juliet (1997), and by Jove it should've stayed the last, but the allure of the King and the rave reviews piqued my interest. I should know better than to trust modern critics. Here the soundtrack to 1950s Beale Street is Doja Cat, and an early performance of That's All Right segues into power metal with slo-mo cinematography (I'm not making this up). I could go on, but what would be the point. Elvis deserves so much better.
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Requiescant
You Should Not Go To Them, Let Them Come To You...
The Animals Film 1982 (Victor Schonfield and Myriam Alaux)
How do you even begin to try and describe this?
I should warn anyone who gets triggered by descriptions of unpleasant and distressing scenes should stop reading right away, for 'The Animals Film' is over 2 hours of animal cruelty, exploitation, experimentation, and killing.
Made in 1981 and released briefly the following year, the documentary was shown in full that year on Channel 4(in the UK) without commercial breaks. The film then disappeared following heavy censorship issues regarding footage supplied by the Animal Liberation Front. A 'Director's Cut' honing back the ALF footage, and providing a more optimistic ending was released in 2008. I never saw the original broadcast, but purchased the DVD(which contains both versions) in 2013, the same year I went from Vegetarian to full blown Vegan. Coincidence? Absolutely NOT!!! This was what tipped me over the edge.
This is no cheap 'scary' propaganda film, this is an intelligent and well assembled piece of work, featuring a narration by Julie Christie, a score by Robert Wyatt, and a theme song from David Byrne. The film features contemporary interviews by the film makers coupled with tons of archive footage.
So let's take a look at the film's content, and once again be warned, this will get deeply unpleasant.
The film begins with quirky old footage dating from the silent era; animals being used as stunt performers in old movies; dozens, maybe even hundreds of rabbits/hares being rounded up and bashed to death, their bodies thrown in a huge pile, some still twitching; a fox-hunt; a horrific dog fight(to the death), show-jumping and steeple racing horses crashing their legs against fences or landing on their necks at unusual angles as they fall over hurdles; living mice being put into some kind of liquid nitrogen deep freeze; and Thomas Edison showing off his new fangled electricity by killing an elephant by electrocution. All accompanied by David Byrne's jaunty theme song. I've often wondered about this opening sequence, but I think the film makers are saying "Trust us folks, this is as light-hearted as it's going to get. If you can't handle this, back out now!!".
And then we're plunged into almost two hours of genuine animal cruelty and suffering.
The film begins on the freezing streets of New York as stray street dogs, abandoned as Christmas presents are rounded up, given a brief window for adoption before being euthanized. The bodies are then unceremoniously crushed up to provide animal fats for make-up and "food". We are informed that there is a law trying to get passed to stop this.
Then it's into a large section on the meat industry. Cattle are shown in horrifyingly cramped and putrid confinement, never seeing daylight, never being allowed any kind of exercise, basically just living out a horrible existence until they're slaughtered. The main culprit of course is the company with the golden arches(I won't soil my article with their name, so I'll just call them McBotulism, which is nearer to the truth!) We're then given details of how veal is accrued, and it is REALLY unpleasant, so I won't go into detail. I'm not sure if veal is still eaten now, I never hear of it these days, but if you do eat veal....ABSOLUTE SHAME ON YOU!! Watch this film, THEN try eating it.
Next it's battery hen farming, every bit as horrible as the cattle sequence with poultry reduced to eating their own faecal matter out of boredom. There's also a sequence of baby chicks all being de-beaked so they don't peck each other to death in the cramped confinement they'll soon find themselves in. This scene is particularly horrible with the mono-toothed Billy Joe Jim Bob farmer casually listening to light country music while he mutilates a seemingly endless supply of fluffy baby chicks.
Then it's an almost obligatory traipse round the 'killing floors' as pigs, chickens, and cattle are all executed before our eyes. The guy trying to kill the cattle with an electric stun-gun is so useless he often misses completely, meaning the cows are terrified before they are killed. It's the laughable juxtaposition of the seemingly carefree farmers who seem to genuinely believe that the animals have a pleasant life, and humane death as the rivers of gore and offal flow by that hammers the point home.
Then we're on to hunting and the fur trade. Hunt footage is always unpleasant, but it isn't helped by some withered old harridan chuckling as she tells us she's hunted almost all her life. "The fox has an honourable death" she says. The interviewer counters "being ripped apart by a pack of dogs is honourable?" "Well, it would have happened in the natural world anyway" she goes on, Interviewer: "But it wouldn't have 50 men on horses chasing after it at the same time though, would it?" She rolls her eyes and giggles as if it's we who are the weirdos. A female hunt saboteur is seen being punched and sprayed with some chemical by one of these 'honourable' men.
Cut to women in fur coats preening about interspliced with footage of various animals being caught in medieval style traps that the Witchfinder General would probably find a tad savage. The women are asked if they are animal lovers, to which they reply they are. "Why are you wearing their skins then?" "I didn't buy the coat, it was bought for me" they uniformly answer, as if this somehow absolves them of guilt. This is also a similar answer given by 'animal lovers' who eat meat. "I wouldn't eat meat if I had to go out and kill it myself". Yeah, no shit Sherlock!
As this film was compiled in 1981, circuses and performing animals are given little coverage. It wasn't until about a decade later that the whole story about what was going on with animals in circuses was eventually discovered, and now, thankfully, most circuses are animal free.
Performing sea life is missed out altogether. If you're interested in the mistreatment of 'performing' sea mammals, check out a documentary called 'Blackfish'. It shows the absolute distress Killer Whales go through in captivity. You learn three major things from 'Blackfish'; 1) Killer Whales are highly intelligent and don't like being separated from their family unit and kept in a small solitary cage for close on 23 hours a day; 2) no animal knows that it is 'performing', it is simply going through the motions it expects to be fed at the end of; and 3) Killer Whales are so called for a reason! Shamoo is not a toy, and 'Free Willy' probably had all kinds of maltreatment going on behind the scenes.
If you've stayed with me this long, then thank you, but we're now going into the part of the film that causes me the most upset; vivisection and animal experimentation.
And we're off to a flyer with tables of sliced open rats, cut from neck to tail, innards exposed, being shovelled up and dumped into black bags. Interviewer: "What are the rats used for?" Scientist: "I need to study the nervous system". I:"Why not use human beings then?" S:"It has to be living nervous systems". I:"And are rats nervous systems similar to humans?" S:"No, not really!" he shrugs. Other rats are deliberately given stomach ulcers before being 'killed humanely' with carbon dioxide. One rat valiantly struggles to breathe, before his last breath leaves him collapse in an anguished slump. And yes, it's every bit as heart-wrenching as it sounds.
A dog is seen lying on an operating table, it's beating heart exposed, with absolutely NO-ONE in the building checking on the animal. The footage was captured covertly by the Animal Liberation Front.
Then come the monkeys. When I first watched this film just over 10 years ago, it was the scenes with the monkeys that refused to leave my every waking hour, so it was with some trepidation that I allowed this sequence to unfurl before me once again. Most of the time the monkeys are confined in booths with their heads through a porthole which makes them look very vulnerable.
A monkey is dosed with LSD(we are not told the exact reason), and watching his confused, frightened face, eyes rolling in his head, as he tries to grab his swing bars with clearly no sense of distance or perspective is just soul destroying. The giggling, smiling 'scientist' who clearly thinks this is all a great laugh doesn't help. If I invented a time machine, I wouldn't go back and find all the winning lottery numbers; I'd go back and find this guy and set about him with blunt and rusty dental equipment.
Then, comes for me, the most troubling image of the whole film. Monkeys are deliberately stressed and anxietised to monitor behavioural patterns. One monkey curls into a ball, his hands cradling his head like a human suffering a migraine. It's unbearable. For years the image haunted me, and now I've exposed myself to it again, and it just doesn't go away.
Rabbits have chemicals injected into their eyes because they do not produce tears, so their eyes cannot naturally wash the pain out. So they suffer an agonising blinding just so people who feel they need to cake themselves in slap before they head out, won't get a runny eye.
No human has been cured of cancer because of monkeys, rabbits, rats or beagles being sliced, diced, driven to madness or blinded! Only 10% of animal research has ever benefited humankind in any way, and thankfully vivisection has diminished greatly over the years.
Next, we're plunged into the laugh-riot of nuclear testing, as goats, pigs, cows, and in one horrifying scene illegally procured from the American military, a dog are all placed in front of nuclear blasts on various atolls. Was this really necessary? Couldn't the footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prove what a nuclear blast does to the human body?
By the very nature of the film, we get the feeling the film-makers are keeping something special up their sleeve for the finale....and boy, do they deliver a doozy!!
I won't go into the exact specifics as, believe me, it will tattoo itself onto your retinas, so I'll give a rough description. It's set in China, it's in the 1950s, and it features a Russian scientist performing a breakthrough medical procedure. When you see it you will immediately think it is terrible prosthetics or cheap and nasty special effects....but NO...it's real. A quick scan of the internet shows that this was a genuine event. It leaves you genuinely speechless, its grotesqueness is almost too much to comprehend. You can't even imagine what is going through the animal/animals mind as four laughing Kim Jong-Un lookalikes, a couple in fur coats point and seem really proud of themselves. It's troubling, nightmare inducing images will plague you for years, and maybe that's the film-makers intentions.
A final wrap-up with members of the Animal Liberation Front sees member Ronald Lees, twice jailed for his covert activities say directly to the camera, "If I broke into a Nazi concentration camp, freed all the prisoners, and smashed up the instruments of death and torture, would I be jailed and given a criminal record? But that's what happens if you break into an animal testing laboratory!"
So, would I recommend this film to anyone? Of course not. This is not something you can put on for light entertainment. You would really have to WANT to watch this film, but who wants to watch over two hours of animal death and suffering? The reason I watched this again after over 10 years is because I felt I really needed a bit of a reminder of why I follow certain paths(veganism, animal welfare, anti-vivisection, anti-fur trade etc), but felt I was becoming complacent.
If you are considering becoming vegetarian, vegan or wish to take a pro-Animal Welfare stance, then I would say WATCH THIS FILM...but know your limitations. It's a struggle to get through, it WILL leave you sad and depressed, but hopefully it will spur you on to do your bit for the animals. As the Anarcho-Punk bands from the early 1980s Crass and Conflict used to say "Until we stop killing animals, we will never stop killing our fellow man!". These days that seems truer than ever.
Thank you for reading,
Requiescant
How do you even begin to try and describe this?
I should warn anyone who gets triggered by descriptions of unpleasant and distressing scenes should stop reading right away, for 'The Animals Film' is over 2 hours of animal cruelty, exploitation, experimentation, and killing.
Made in 1981 and released briefly the following year, the documentary was shown in full that year on Channel 4(in the UK) without commercial breaks. The film then disappeared following heavy censorship issues regarding footage supplied by the Animal Liberation Front. A 'Director's Cut' honing back the ALF footage, and providing a more optimistic ending was released in 2008. I never saw the original broadcast, but purchased the DVD(which contains both versions) in 2013, the same year I went from Vegetarian to full blown Vegan. Coincidence? Absolutely NOT!!! This was what tipped me over the edge.
This is no cheap 'scary' propaganda film, this is an intelligent and well assembled piece of work, featuring a narration by Julie Christie, a score by Robert Wyatt, and a theme song from David Byrne. The film features contemporary interviews by the film makers coupled with tons of archive footage.
So let's take a look at the film's content, and once again be warned, this will get deeply unpleasant.
The film begins with quirky old footage dating from the silent era; animals being used as stunt performers in old movies; dozens, maybe even hundreds of rabbits/hares being rounded up and bashed to death, their bodies thrown in a huge pile, some still twitching; a fox-hunt; a horrific dog fight(to the death), show-jumping and steeple racing horses crashing their legs against fences or landing on their necks at unusual angles as they fall over hurdles; living mice being put into some kind of liquid nitrogen deep freeze; and Thomas Edison showing off his new fangled electricity by killing an elephant by electrocution. All accompanied by David Byrne's jaunty theme song. I've often wondered about this opening sequence, but I think the film makers are saying "Trust us folks, this is as light-hearted as it's going to get. If you can't handle this, back out now!!".
And then we're plunged into almost two hours of genuine animal cruelty and suffering.
The film begins on the freezing streets of New York as stray street dogs, abandoned as Christmas presents are rounded up, given a brief window for adoption before being euthanized. The bodies are then unceremoniously crushed up to provide animal fats for make-up and "food". We are informed that there is a law trying to get passed to stop this.
Then it's into a large section on the meat industry. Cattle are shown in horrifyingly cramped and putrid confinement, never seeing daylight, never being allowed any kind of exercise, basically just living out a horrible existence until they're slaughtered. The main culprit of course is the company with the golden arches(I won't soil my article with their name, so I'll just call them McBotulism, which is nearer to the truth!) We're then given details of how veal is accrued, and it is REALLY unpleasant, so I won't go into detail. I'm not sure if veal is still eaten now, I never hear of it these days, but if you do eat veal....ABSOLUTE SHAME ON YOU!! Watch this film, THEN try eating it.
Next it's battery hen farming, every bit as horrible as the cattle sequence with poultry reduced to eating their own faecal matter out of boredom. There's also a sequence of baby chicks all being de-beaked so they don't peck each other to death in the cramped confinement they'll soon find themselves in. This scene is particularly horrible with the mono-toothed Billy Joe Jim Bob farmer casually listening to light country music while he mutilates a seemingly endless supply of fluffy baby chicks.
Then it's an almost obligatory traipse round the 'killing floors' as pigs, chickens, and cattle are all executed before our eyes. The guy trying to kill the cattle with an electric stun-gun is so useless he often misses completely, meaning the cows are terrified before they are killed. It's the laughable juxtaposition of the seemingly carefree farmers who seem to genuinely believe that the animals have a pleasant life, and humane death as the rivers of gore and offal flow by that hammers the point home.
Then we're on to hunting and the fur trade. Hunt footage is always unpleasant, but it isn't helped by some withered old harridan chuckling as she tells us she's hunted almost all her life. "The fox has an honourable death" she says. The interviewer counters "being ripped apart by a pack of dogs is honourable?" "Well, it would have happened in the natural world anyway" she goes on, Interviewer: "But it wouldn't have 50 men on horses chasing after it at the same time though, would it?" She rolls her eyes and giggles as if it's we who are the weirdos. A female hunt saboteur is seen being punched and sprayed with some chemical by one of these 'honourable' men.
Cut to women in fur coats preening about interspliced with footage of various animals being caught in medieval style traps that the Witchfinder General would probably find a tad savage. The women are asked if they are animal lovers, to which they reply they are. "Why are you wearing their skins then?" "I didn't buy the coat, it was bought for me" they uniformly answer, as if this somehow absolves them of guilt. This is also a similar answer given by 'animal lovers' who eat meat. "I wouldn't eat meat if I had to go out and kill it myself". Yeah, no shit Sherlock!
As this film was compiled in 1981, circuses and performing animals are given little coverage. It wasn't until about a decade later that the whole story about what was going on with animals in circuses was eventually discovered, and now, thankfully, most circuses are animal free.
Performing sea life is missed out altogether. If you're interested in the mistreatment of 'performing' sea mammals, check out a documentary called 'Blackfish'. It shows the absolute distress Killer Whales go through in captivity. You learn three major things from 'Blackfish'; 1) Killer Whales are highly intelligent and don't like being separated from their family unit and kept in a small solitary cage for close on 23 hours a day; 2) no animal knows that it is 'performing', it is simply going through the motions it expects to be fed at the end of; and 3) Killer Whales are so called for a reason! Shamoo is not a toy, and 'Free Willy' probably had all kinds of maltreatment going on behind the scenes.
If you've stayed with me this long, then thank you, but we're now going into the part of the film that causes me the most upset; vivisection and animal experimentation.
And we're off to a flyer with tables of sliced open rats, cut from neck to tail, innards exposed, being shovelled up and dumped into black bags. Interviewer: "What are the rats used for?" Scientist: "I need to study the nervous system". I:"Why not use human beings then?" S:"It has to be living nervous systems". I:"And are rats nervous systems similar to humans?" S:"No, not really!" he shrugs. Other rats are deliberately given stomach ulcers before being 'killed humanely' with carbon dioxide. One rat valiantly struggles to breathe, before his last breath leaves him collapse in an anguished slump. And yes, it's every bit as heart-wrenching as it sounds.
A dog is seen lying on an operating table, it's beating heart exposed, with absolutely NO-ONE in the building checking on the animal. The footage was captured covertly by the Animal Liberation Front.
Then come the monkeys. When I first watched this film just over 10 years ago, it was the scenes with the monkeys that refused to leave my every waking hour, so it was with some trepidation that I allowed this sequence to unfurl before me once again. Most of the time the monkeys are confined in booths with their heads through a porthole which makes them look very vulnerable.
A monkey is dosed with LSD(we are not told the exact reason), and watching his confused, frightened face, eyes rolling in his head, as he tries to grab his swing bars with clearly no sense of distance or perspective is just soul destroying. The giggling, smiling 'scientist' who clearly thinks this is all a great laugh doesn't help. If I invented a time machine, I wouldn't go back and find all the winning lottery numbers; I'd go back and find this guy and set about him with blunt and rusty dental equipment.
Then, comes for me, the most troubling image of the whole film. Monkeys are deliberately stressed and anxietised to monitor behavioural patterns. One monkey curls into a ball, his hands cradling his head like a human suffering a migraine. It's unbearable. For years the image haunted me, and now I've exposed myself to it again, and it just doesn't go away.
Rabbits have chemicals injected into their eyes because they do not produce tears, so their eyes cannot naturally wash the pain out. So they suffer an agonising blinding just so people who feel they need to cake themselves in slap before they head out, won't get a runny eye.
No human has been cured of cancer because of monkeys, rabbits, rats or beagles being sliced, diced, driven to madness or blinded! Only 10% of animal research has ever benefited humankind in any way, and thankfully vivisection has diminished greatly over the years.
Next, we're plunged into the laugh-riot of nuclear testing, as goats, pigs, cows, and in one horrifying scene illegally procured from the American military, a dog are all placed in front of nuclear blasts on various atolls. Was this really necessary? Couldn't the footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prove what a nuclear blast does to the human body?
By the very nature of the film, we get the feeling the film-makers are keeping something special up their sleeve for the finale....and boy, do they deliver a doozy!!
I won't go into the exact specifics as, believe me, it will tattoo itself onto your retinas, so I'll give a rough description. It's set in China, it's in the 1950s, and it features a Russian scientist performing a breakthrough medical procedure. When you see it you will immediately think it is terrible prosthetics or cheap and nasty special effects....but NO...it's real. A quick scan of the internet shows that this was a genuine event. It leaves you genuinely speechless, its grotesqueness is almost too much to comprehend. You can't even imagine what is going through the animal/animals mind as four laughing Kim Jong-Un lookalikes, a couple in fur coats point and seem really proud of themselves. It's troubling, nightmare inducing images will plague you for years, and maybe that's the film-makers intentions.
A final wrap-up with members of the Animal Liberation Front sees member Ronald Lees, twice jailed for his covert activities say directly to the camera, "If I broke into a Nazi concentration camp, freed all the prisoners, and smashed up the instruments of death and torture, would I be jailed and given a criminal record? But that's what happens if you break into an animal testing laboratory!"
So, would I recommend this film to anyone? Of course not. This is not something you can put on for light entertainment. You would really have to WANT to watch this film, but who wants to watch over two hours of animal death and suffering? The reason I watched this again after over 10 years is because I felt I really needed a bit of a reminder of why I follow certain paths(veganism, animal welfare, anti-vivisection, anti-fur trade etc), but felt I was becoming complacent.
If you are considering becoming vegetarian, vegan or wish to take a pro-Animal Welfare stance, then I would say WATCH THIS FILM...but know your limitations. It's a struggle to get through, it WILL leave you sad and depressed, but hopefully it will spur you on to do your bit for the animals. As the Anarcho-Punk bands from the early 1980s Crass and Conflict used to say "Until we stop killing animals, we will never stop killing our fellow man!". These days that seems truer than ever.
Thank you for reading,
Requiescant
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