The Charge of the Light Brigade

HI very much like a movie that inspires me to want to learn more about an event. Last night I watched the 1968 version of the film The Charge of the Light Brigade starring David Hemmings and Trevor Howard, directed by Tony Richardson. The movie is a reasonably accurate depiction of the tragic 1854 British cavalry charge led by Lord Cardigan (Howard) against the Russians during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War.

Watch the trailer ...


Prior to this I had only a sketchy knowledge of this event derived mostly from the epic poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Consequently, I wanted to know more about this incident in history.

Of the more than 600 cavalry troops who rode into the "Valley of Death" that day about half were killed, wounded, or captured. The brigade, led by Lord Cardigan at the front, displayed great courage in the face of overwhelming fire raining down from three sides. However, the charge violated sound military principles and was destined to catastrophic failure by incompetent leadership and petty jealousies and rivalries at the command level.

An interesting fact I learned from the film is that officers' wives traveled with the troops. But not all wives. According to the movie, only one in six wives were permitted to make the journey with their husbands.

Made at a time when when the Vietnam War was raging in southeast Asia the film includes themes such as class distinctions in Britain, racial and social prejudice, and the glorification of war.

Read the Wikipedia entry for The Charge of the Light Brigade.

Read an eyewitness account by London Times correspondent William Howard Russell

See a virtual movie of Tennyson reading his poem on YouTube
See a copy of the poem hand-written by Tennyson

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Image via Wikipedia

Turner Classic Movies recently showed two versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the 1931 film which starred Fredric March and the 1941 version starring Spencer Tracy. I DVR-ed them and watched each on consecutive nights. The storylines were very similar, but I rather prefered the Fredric March version to the Spencer Tracy edition.

I could never really buy into Ingrid Bergman as the dance hall girl, Ivy. Miriam Hopkins was superlative in that role in the earlier movie. Also, the Jekyll-Hyde transition effects in both films were crude by modern standards, however, I thought the 1931 provided a more convincing changeover. I did feel that Spencer Tracy's Hyde character was more believable than March's.

As I had enjoyed watching both films, I chose to download and read the Robert Louis Stevenson novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from Project Gutenberg. I was quite surprised to find that the story told in the 1888 novel was very different from that presented in the films. The relationships between Hyde and Ivy and between Jekyll and his fiance (Muriel Carew in 1931, Beatrix Emery in 1941) were central to the films' storylines. In the novel, neither Ivy nor Muriel/Beatrix ever existed.

If I were to quantify the degree of similarity on a scale from 0 (virtually nothing in common) to 5 (nearly identical), the similarity factor of the two films would be 4. The similarity of the novel with either film, I'd rate as a 2.

The next theatrical version written by, directed by, and starring Mark Redfield was released in 2002. I have not seen this version, but I feel it might be interesting to take a look at it some time soon.

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Netflix Watch Instantly Revisited

Image by via CrunchBaseA couple of weeks ago I posted a piece about Netflix Watch Instantly becoming available to Mac users like myself. After having had some time to play with it, I'm more convinced than ever that this is a really good thing. I've had a chance to browse the available titles. There is a lot of TV as well as theatrical films. I don't know the total number of available selections, but I'm pretty sure you'll have no trouble finding something you like.

As a fan of British TV, I was pleased to find a fairly respectable catalog of comedies and dramas, including a large selection of Dr. Who episodes. The quality is reasonably good, even in full screen. The load time is quite short. In a few minutes you'll be watching your selection.

I don't think you can watch part of a movie now and pick it up where you left off later. I need to experiment with that some more. I do like that you'll get a tip when a movie in your rental queue is available for instant viewing.

I am very pleased so far, now I need to get the mindset that I can watch movies any time I want to.

NetFlix Watch Instantly For Mac

I was delighted to see earlier in the week that after a very long wait, NetFlix instant movies had finally come to the Mac community. It does requires a download and install of Microsoft Silverlight before you can watch.

I grabbed a BBC import and started watching in less than a minute. No ads. Reasonably good full screen quality on a 17" iMac. There were two brief periods where the video was choppy and in the second half the audio and video got out of sync. But, it is a beta app with expectation for improvement.

There's no limit to how many instant movies you can view as part of your existing subscription. I haven't yet look at how many instantly viewable movies are currently available. It's not the entire NetFlix library.

All in all, it seems the wait may have been worth it.

Posted with LifeCast

I Am Legend

The 1954 novel I Am Legend by Scott Matheson has spawned three feature films ...

The Last Man on Earth (1964)
The Omega Man (1971)
I Am Legend (2007)

Preview the book, I Am Legend, at Google Books.


Last summer, I watched all three movies and, in my opinion, found the most recent iteration, Will Smith's 2007 film, I Am Legend, to be the best effort. Naturally, the effects were better, but I felt the story was more believable. I could better identify with the central character, Robert Neville. I hope to read the book this winter.

Today, I saw the new X-Files movie The X-Files: I Want to Believe starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, stars of the original Fox TV series.

The TV series ended a bit more than six years ago (1993-2002), so I was unsure how it would play after such an extended hiatus. This film did not disappoint in any way. The aura of the original TV shows transitioned seamlessly into this movie. If you are a fan of the X-Files on TV, you're bound to enjoy The X-Files: I Want to Believe.

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Sabotage and The Secret Agent

Recently I read the Joseph Conrad novel The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale. The book tells the tale of an ordinary man who gets caught up in London's anarchist community in the late 19th century.

I had seen 1996's The Secret Agent starring Bob Hoskins, Patricia Arquette, Gerard Depardieu, Christian Bale, Robin Williams, and Eddy Izzard a couple of years ago. This film was well worth watching and true to the Conrad book. In fact, the movie spurred me to read the book.

Last night I watched Alfred Hitchcock's 1936 film Sabotage based on the Conrad novel. Starring were Sylvia Sidney and Oscar Homolka. I was delighted to stumble upon this old film and looked forward to watching it. I was disappointed that this movie did not stay very faithful to the book. This movie was rather superficial and the characters were not well developed. Had I not known something of the characters going in, I wouldn't have understood the motivations behind some of the events.

The Irony of it All

Does anyone else see the irony of having Dennis Hopper do commercials urging retirement planning?

"You gotta have a plan."

Wrigley Field Los Angeles???

I learned something I never knew from an old movie, Armored Car Robbery (1950). It was set in Los Angeles. That was made emphatically clear. But, some scenes took place at a ballpark called Wrigley Field. This seemed incongruous. But I Googled "Wrigley Field Los Angeles" and discovered there really was a Wrigley Field in south central LA. It was the home to some Pacific Coast League teams and, in 1961, was the home of the Angels. Learn something new everyday.

Hot Funn

Hot Fuzz is the most entertaining movie I've seen in some time. It's the story of London supercop Nick Angel (Simon Pegg) who is transferred to a small country village with an easygoing police force (sorry, service) where he's partnered with a lumbering partner (Nick Frost) who is fascinated by cop action films.

It's a tough transition for Sergeant Angel as a series of bizarre "accidental" deaths convinces him something really bad is going on in this seemingly perfect little village. Angel, however, is unable to convince anyone of his suspicions.

While Hot Fuzz is an hilariously funny spoof of the typical cop action movie, the crime story is intriguing and mysterious. It is a product of many of the same people who made Shaun of the Dead.

We have the technology ...

I just watched a powerful, important movie, Who Killed the Electric Car?, which I would vigorously recommend seeing.

At one time, General Motors, Ford, Honda, and Toyota were manufacturing and leasing all-electric plug-in cars, primarily in response to California's 1990 Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate. This film tells the history of the electric car in America.

Somewhat in the manner of a murder mystery, this informative, entertaining, and easily watchable film investigates the inception and demise of the electric car almost entirely through interviews with people from the auto industry, the oil industry, environmental organizations, government, and owners of electric vehicles.

For more information about electric plug-in vehicles visit PlugInAmerica.com.

Curve Game Movie

I've been working at learning how to make movies using iMovie HD which is included on all Macs. This is my most ambitious project so far, three minutes, made from five video clips, some stills, with sound effects, transitions, and titles.

The Two Lives of Hugh Beaumont

Last night I watched an old b&w movie, The Seventh Victim, from 1943. One of the stars of this picture was Hugh Beaumont. Beaumont played a lawyer secretly married to a member of a satanic cult. Through the course of the picture, he falls in love with the younger sister of his wife.

Hugh Beaumont is better known to most of us as the Beaver's father, from the TV series Leave it to Beaver.

The interesting twist, as I see it, is that the character from the film is named Gregory WARD while his TV character is named WARD Cleaver. Mere coincidence? I wonder.

Picture from filmbug.com

The Battle of Algiers

The Battle of Algiers is a 1966 Italian film about the Algerian war for independence from France between 1954 and 1962.

I had heard about this movie a few different times but had never seen it. I saw it was on Turner Classic Movies a few days ago and recorded it.

Despite being more than 40 years old, in the context of present day events in Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya and other places this black-and-white, subtitled film delivers a powerful but fairly balanced story about Muslim-Western conflict.

I don't know if history repeats itself or simply that nothing ever really changes. The conflicts of the mid-twentieth century are hardly distinguishable from those of the early twenty-first century.

I would highly recommend this movie as lending to a better understanding of today's world.

Snakes on a Plane

In Egypt, a man travelling to Saudi Arabia was detained by Cairo airport customs officials when it was discovered his carryon bag contained 700 live snakes including two highly poisonous cobras.

Where's Samuel Jackson when you need him?

Egypt: No snakes on a plane - USATODAY.com

To Each Other?

Bill of Divorcement, A
(1932)
A recovered madman learns his ex-wife and daughter are about to marry.
Cast: John Barrymore, Katharine Hepburn, Billie Burke. Dir: George Cukor. BW-70 mins, TV-PG

(Movie description from the Turner Classic Movies website)