Those who watch a lot of mystery and police procedural programs emanating from the United Kingdom gradually develop an appreciation for the distinctly regional flavors of shows like Taggart (filmed in Scotland), Single-Handed (Ireland), and A Mind to Kill, set in South Wales.

Indeed, A Mind to Kill was unusual in that it was filmed in both English and Welsh (and known in that language as Yr Heliwr), with each scene shot twice using the same actors. (It’s not clear, however, if non-Welsh-speaking guest stars such as David Warner were replaced for the Welsh version, spoke in English with Welsh subtitling, or if they spoke their Welsh dialogue phonetically. Anybody out there know for sure)

The series had a respectable run, with 21 feature length (92-97 minutes) episodes produced between 1994 and 2004, as well as a 1991 pilot movie not included in this set. When it was new A Mind to Kill struggled to find an audience. After debuting on S4C, a Welsh-language network, it ran in its English version on Channel 5, the newest and least-watched of Britain’s television networks, a network who’s most popular shows were reruns of American imports like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Ironically, A Mind to Kill was part of a wave of more graphic, more realistic crime series including Prime Suspect and Trial & Retribution that predated, directly led to and undoubtedly influenced flashier but more derivative American shows like CSI. A Mind to Kill isn’t up to the high standards of Prime Suspect, but it’s solidly constructed and star Philip Madoc is excellent in the leading role.

He died almost a year ago at the age of 77, but must have been gratified that in recent years his series found a much larger, even worldwide audience on cable TV (reportedly it’s been dubbed into at least a dozen different languages). A Mind to Kill – Complete Collection, is a repackaging of three DVD sets released in 2010-11. Confusingly, the program is packaged as a three-series set even though it actually ran five: the three shorter series 3-5 have been grouped together as a single “Series Three.” In any case, all 21 episodes (less the pilot film) have been assembled here, spread across 11 DVD with a total running time of approximately 34 hours. Alas, the original Welsh version of Yr Heliwr is not included, though a short except from that version is tossed in as an extra feature.

“Edrychwch ar y gwerthiannau DVD!” star Philip Madoc seems to be saying.

Madoc plays 60-ish Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Noel Bain. Like the later Inspector Lewis, Bain is a widower, and there’s a very similar, series-long undercurrent of Bain struggling to come to terms with his wife’s death. And, in another parallel that couldn’t be mere coincidence, there’re also vague suggestions of a romance between Bain and middle-aged pathologist Professor Margaret Edwards (Sharon Morgan), a relationship only slightly more explicitly dramatized between Inspector Lewis and Dr. Laura Hobson (Clare Holman). And, like the later Lewis, Bain has an adult daughter, Hannah (Ffion Wilkins). In the first episode they butt heads over her schooling and his intentions to sell their now-too-big family house, but by the final seasons she becomes a Woman Police Constable (WPC) in the same precinct and they often work together, a contrivance not really believable but dramatically acceptable.

Philip Madoc is not widely known outside of Britain, save for his numerous appearances on various British sci-fi shows like Doctor Who and Space: 1999. But he was a fine actor, a kind of Welsh Spencer Tracy-type who’s main appeal is as an understated reactor. His DCI Bain is a man of few words; the fun is watching his mind at work, playing his cards close to his chest interviewing suspects, sometimes with a Popeye-like squint, apparently the actor’s trademark.

Other than Madoc, the series is good but not particularly noteworthy. At the time its far grittier, more graphic approach contrasted milder, export-minded fare like Midsomer Murders but times have changed so that what was almost shocking then now plays as rather ordinary. The program is mildly political in content here and there, such as the series one opener, “Black Silence,” set against a coal miner’s strike, about the abduction of a prostitute witnessed by a scab simultaneously beaten and left for dead across the street.

Making this reviewer even more anxious to watch the Welsh version, in addition to studying the differing performances, is the fact that its guest stars include such familiar Welsh actors as Siân Phillips (I, Claudius), Ioan Gruffudd (Hornblower), and John Rhys-Davies (Raiders of the Lost Ark). (Those who know Rhys-Davies primarily for his portrayal of an Arab in the Indiana Jones films may also be surprised that, in addition to being Welsh holds controversial, extremely conservative anti-Muslim views.)

Video & Audio

　 A Mind to Kill – Complete Collection appears to be nothing more or less than a simple repackaging of previously released material in a new paper case to hold it all together. The single-sided discs present early episodes in 4:3 standard format, with the last set of shows in 16:9 enhanced widescreen. Series 2 and 3 (i.e., 3-5) are in Dolby Surround and the audio is up to standards of the period. English SDH subtitles are included throughout.

Extra Features

Modest extras are highlighted by a seven-minute excerpt a Series Two episode, “Head of the Valleys,” with optional English subtitles. The clip is presented in widescreen while the English version of the episode in 4:3 full-screen. What to make of this Was Series Two shot with protection for both formats or one or the other Text material, notably “The Women of A Mind to Kill,” featuring commentary by some of the women in the cast, is also included.

Parting Thoughts

Worthwhile if not earth-shaking, A Mind to Kill is a solid murder mystery/police procedural with much to recommend it, particularly the always engaging Philip Madoc.

　

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes film history books, DVD and Blu-ray audio commentaries and special features. Visit Stuart’s Cine Blogarama here.

“I know: the rest of the world thinks Americans are arrogant. And to be fair…f*ck you.”

In its own way…just as enjoyable as the original British series. The BBC, through Warner Home Video, has released Top Gear: The Complete Second Season, a 4-disc, 16-episode collection of the popular History series’ 2011-2012 season. An Americanized version of the international smash hit car show from England, hosted by Tanner Foust, Rutledge Wood, and Adam Ferrara, this U.S. version of Top Gear took a lot of flack from fans of the Beeb’s original (myself included), but once you get into its American context and quit comparing the hosts to their British counterparts, it’s a lot of fun. Over 90 minutes of extras and outtakes are included here in this sparkling widescreen transfers.

When NBC first announced they were going to do an American version of Top Gear in 2008, I couldn’t see how they would duplicate the original’s success, since so much of the appeal of the U.K. version lies in that distinctively British smash-up of its delightfully bickering, insulting hosts James “Captain Slow” May (the marching-to-a-different drummer plodder), Richard “The Hampster” Hammond (the peripatetic tiny person), and Jeremy Clarkson (towering, sneering public school bully git). So when the U.S. version of Top Gear finally wound up on cable in 2010, I made the mistake of tuning in and expecting either a complete overhaul of the format to appeal to U.S. audiences (which the producers slavishly didn’t do), or a reasonable facsimile of the original, right down to the same kind of waspish cum juvenile/destructive humor…which wasn’t there (sophomoric, yes…but too sweet and cuddly initially for my liking–the American version wanted to be liked; the U.K. version said, “Bollocks to you.”). I pretty much checked out of those first two seasons, but my high school son asked me to watch a few of the third season episodes with him, and I found myself, surprisingly, enjoying this American version quite a lot.

Maybe that’s because the third season has dropped some of the more clunky components of the BBC version. They’re still here in this second season–the completely superfluous live audience, the “Big Celebrity in a Small Car” lap trials, and the Stig (at least I don’t think the Stig is on anymore…). By this second go-around, it’s clear that the genial hosts have developed a smoother chemistry together, and the challenges are inventive and well-executed, but the above-mentioned elements seem present merely to ape the original, with no real purpose except to ultimately gum up the works. Who cares if an audience is behind the hosts for their unnecessary segues between sequences Who gives a sh*t how fast some D-lister drives, or what collector car they’re able to buy now, or what project they have coming up (in one episode here, one of those Harold or Kumar douchebags talks about his Prius and U.S. foreign oil dependency. Shut the f*ck up). And if you can’t use the Stig the way he’s used in the British version (a creepy, funny butt of jokes/supernatural entity) …what’s the point of having him show up here All any of this stuff does is take more time away from cars blowing up.

And blow up they do here…and crash, and grind, and smash, and disintegrate. What I like best about the American Top Gear is the emphasis on tinkering, on modifying and engineering the cars into freakish, gimcrack monsters that you know are eventually going to fold up like a cheap suit after inhuman punishment. That celebration of Yankee know-how and can-doism, wedded to the equally quintessential American spirit of making things bigger and badder, permeates the show, and gives it a hands-on feel the British version doesn’t come close to. Add to that the expansive feel of the wild American locales featured, and always the feeling that the hosts are going on some kind of exploration/journey/roadtrip (the heart of the “mother road” American mythology), and the American Top Gear takes on an almost epic feel compared to its more confined and hampered British cousin (they always have to leave manicured, cramped England to get a bit of scale and scope to their challenges).

As for the hosts, they’re an engaging trio, with Foust the cocky-but-well-mannered, non-threatening pro driver, Wood the even more polite, cuddly tech wonk, and Ferrara the goofy Barbarino-Lite of the bunch. If they’re faking mutual frat bro affection, they’re good actors, because they really seem to get along with each other, and that’s key to creating TV-friendly programming that people will want to welcome into their home week after week (my kids love this show, and especially now that they can hear the swearing on the DVDs). If at times the guys sound a tad too scripted here, I blame the producers for keeping Top Gear so relentlessly polished, ultra-smooth and over-produced (and I don’t need the obviously manufactured “accidents,” either). Sure it’s gorgeous to look at (in a processed-food, picture postcard way), and everything from the challenges to the dialogue is designed for maximum flow with minimal hitches. However, I wish they’d just let the hosts go and get a little wild and wooly, a little funky and unstructured in their horseplay and particularly in their bantering (like in the outtakes and extras presented here). If they’d try that, the show might really challenge its better-received British host.

The DVD:

The Video:
The anamorphically-enhanced, 1.78:1 widescreen transfers for Top Gear: The Complete Second Season looks quite crisp, with strong, correctly-valued color, a sharp, sharp image, and little if any compression issues. Nice.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English stereo audio track is healthy, with discreet separation during those burnouts, and a heavy bottom. English subtitles and closed-captions are available.

The Extras:
In addition to the 16 episodes here, you get an additional 90+ minutes of extras, outtakes and deleted scenes that are quite fun (too bad the show can’t be the outtakes and flubs and pissed-off epitaphs at least once…).

Final Thoughts:
Funny, engaging hosts who clearly seem to be having a good time acting like sophomoric asses with each other, consistently entertaining, cleverly engineered challenges, and an American context that emphasizes not just destruction but high-energy, optimistic re-construction, makes the U.S. version of Top Gear a whole lot of fun. I’m highly recommending Top Gear: The Complete Second Season.

Paul Mavis is an internationally published movie and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.

 

Loyal readers with way too much time on your hands, gird your loins for the shortest review I’ve ever written….

20th Century-Fox’s Cinema Archives vault of hard-to-find cult and library titles has released 23 Paces to Baker Street, the 1956 British mystery thriller from screenwriter Nigel Balchin and action director Henry Hathaway, starring Van Johnson, Vera Miles, Cecil Parker, Estelle Winwood, and Liam Redwood. Although I’ve never seen it, 23 Paces to Baker Street, shot in CinemaScope on location in London, looks exactly like the kind of movie I enjoy. Too bad I didn’t watch more than two minutes of it, though, because Fox has released this in a grainy, muddy, blown-out, softly-focused 1.33:1 pan-and-scan botch that completely undermines the whole point of their Cinema Archives concept. Whether or not they did this deliberately, or because this is the only print that was available, is beside the point: the era of asking collectors to go along with a pan-and-scan version of a widescreen movie is long over (collectors are the only people buying a title like this; it’s manufactured on-demand, for god’s sake). So no need to review the movie itself. Bad move, Fox. Skip this release of 23 Paces to Baker Street.

 Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.

 

Director: John Carney
Starring: Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova

Once in a while a film has an effect on you. It happens. No one is immune. Something about a particular film gets to you in a particular way. Maybe you can’t explain it, maybe you don’t understand it, but you feel it, and that’s enough. Once in a great while one film has that effect on millions of people all at the same time. That’s when you know something special has happened; when so many people, critics, audiences, everyone, feel changed by a film. Once is that movie. It is that feeling. And it’s undefinable. But isn’t that what makes it wonderful

The Movie

A simple love story, simply told. Glen Hansard plays an unnamed Irishman trying to make a living in Dublin. A self proclaimed “broken-hearted Hoover-fixer sucker guy”, he works in a vacuum repair shop with his father part-time while playing guitar on the streets for money. At night he plays his own music, songs he thinks no one wants to hear. But he’s wrong; at least one person in Dublin is interested in his talent. Marketa Irglova plays an unnamed Czech woman, equally poor, equally lonely, and equally in love with music.

The two start a strained relationship, made difficult by his desires (a woman who hurt him but fuels his passion) and her responsibilities (a fatherless child and a meager existence). Music ties them together and brings them closer each day, as they begin to collaborate and combine their talents into something special. When the opportunity arises to work on an album together, a mismatched band is formed and the pair begin a new phase in their professional and possibly romantic relationships.

There are so many different parts to this film that are excellent, it’s difficult to know where to begin. For amateurs, the acting is great. It helps that Glen and Marketa are basically playing themselves; struggling musicians attempting, as we all are, to survive. No other characters really jump out, but that’s actually a good thing in a movie such as this, where the two mains carry the entire story. The dialogue is spot on as well; no forced lines, easy conversation, and a natural chemistry.

All of that is well and good, but the music makes the movie. Not only are the songs phenomenal, but their passion drives the plot and creates that magical feeling that captured so many viewers. Written by the actors, songs like ‘Lies’, ‘If You Want Me’, ‘When Your Mind’s Made Up’, and the main track ‘Falling Slowly’ will haunt you and get stuck in your head until you have got to buy the CD.

The production of the film was surprising good. Scenes were flawlessly tied together with music, they fit together nicely, they never dragged or felt forced. The movie is only 85 minutes long, short for a modern movie, but it had a nice pace and didn’t need to be any longer. I can’t think of much that would improve Once, and it seems as if critics and audiences both agree. It is an excellent film, one that is worth a watch by movie buffs, music lovers, Irishman, it doesn’t matter. Good movies speak for themselves, and this one speaks loud and clear.

The DVD

Video: At an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, the entire film was shot on a single Sony HVR-Z1. To put that into perspective, Inception was filmed using 8 different cameras and 13 different lens series’. Video quality was poor, but intentionally so. It added to the raw feeling of the movie, and brought you closer to the action.
Audio: Using Dolby SR, viewers can hear the film using either English Dolby Surround or Spanish Dolby Surround. Subtitles can be chosen in English, Spanish, or French. Sound quality is excellent, as it, not the camera work, quickly becomes the focal point of the film.
Extras: There are two types of commentary to compliment the story: a typical commentary with Carney, Hansard, and Irglova, or a musical commentary, in which they discuss each song as it makes its first appearance in the film. “Making a Modern Day Musical” takes viewers through the making of the film. “More Guy, More Girl” explains a little of the motivation behind the scenes and the story. You can watch a hand drawn comedic bit in “Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy”, and you can download the song ‘Falling Slowly’ if your computer has a DVD-rom drive. There are also four trailers available: “Amazing Grace Trailer”, “The Commitments”, “Blind Dating”, and “2 Days in Paris”.

Final Thoughts:

Highly recommended. The movie is excellent. It has a vibe, a sound, a feeling, that most films can’t even begin to grasp. The story, the music, and even the acting are exactly what you should find when you go searching for a high-impact film. The DVD is good. It has unpolished camera work, but it is to add to the film, not detract from it. Sound quality is great, and the DVD extras are interesting, if not exemplary. All in all, a movie I have seen and would see over and over again.

Olie Coen
111 Archer Avenue
111aa.blogspot.com

Robin Hardy’s name will be familiar to horror fans, thanks to the 1973 classic The Wicker Man. The protagonist of that film, Sgt. Howie, enters an unsettling community made up of people who are totally disconnected from reality, and quickly begins to lose his patience trying to communicate with them. Having since seen The Wicker Tree, that film’s atrocious sequel, and now The Fantasist, Hardy’s 1983 follow-up, it seems as if The Wicker Man was not a fleeting glimpse of genius, but a coincidental case of Hardy’s very specific talents lining up with a project.

Patricia Teeling (Moira Harris) is a farm girl by upbringing, but thirsts for a taste of the so-called real world. Shortly after getting her degree, her uncle offers to let her move in at his ranch with an eye toward taking over when he kicks the bucket, but she asks for a year in the big city, exercising her skills as a teacher, before settling into a long-term gig. In addition to new scenery, she’s also looking for a beau, and finds several unusual men, including Robert Foxley (John Kavanagh), a fellow teacher with fetishes that include balloons and rubbing other people’s bellies, and neighbor Danny Sullivan (Timothy Bottoms), a would-be author who has anger issues, and who hits the nightclubs pretending to be an Albanian osteopath in order to pick up women who are not his wife. She’s also being stalked by a serial killer, whose M.O. is to call local girls pretending to be a secret admirer. He’s being tracked by Inspector McMyler (Christopher Cazenove), a disabled detective trying to ensure that Patricia isn’t next.

In the same way that Sgt. Howie is an increasingly frustrated voice of sanity in a city full of crazy people, a viewer of The Fantasist will quickly lose patience with the characters, who are all completely unhinged. How else to explain the scene where Foxley explains to Patricia that the idea of rubbing people’s bellies appeals to him because his mother often did it to soothe his gas problem as a child Or the scene where Danny uses a dowsing rod to locate Patricia’s bladder, then asks her to undress in order to help inspire him to write his novel, only to have Patricia furiously flash her panties at him when she catches him verbally abusing someone over the phone in his fake Austrian voice Even Patricia herself seems strange, thanks to Harris’ curiously stiff line readings.

Direction-wise, Hardy isn’t up to much. Aside from an early POV sequence to hide the killer’s identity as he toys with a victim, the staging of the scenes is fairly straightforward, aside from his apparent lack of understanding of rational human behavior. The film approaches nearly everything in such a bland way that the viewer is left dangling for a minute wondering if Foxley gargling the wine on a dinner date is meant to be off-putting or endearing. Information will be included in the frame without explanation, such as a police car visible as Patricia and Danny walk through the park, talking about rats. It eventually drives close enough that the characters really ought to comment on it, given they’re in a place that cars probably don’t often drive through, much less with flashing lights on, but they ignore it as it rolls right by them. Scenes begin and end abruptly, including a completely random snippet of McMyler in an unidentified room, addressing unidentified, off-camera people, about the mysterious stalker.

Then again, the irony is that without these inexplicable eccentricities (and many more which I’m dying to bring up, but can’t without giving away the ending), The Fantasist would probably a completely forgettable slasher / thriller. Anyone who’s ever seen one of these before will immediately get a sense of who to rule out as a suspect, and the screenplay (by Hardy himself) doesn’t have much thematic depth, although it seems to want to try and explore female sexuality in an intriguing way (Patricia’s roommate is a virgin also looking for a man, and the two share some interesting conversations about their suitors). The mysterious mixture of good and bad performances, strange characters and stranger scenes that Hardy has concocted here may not constitute a good movie, but it’s certainly a unique one.

The DVD, Video, and Audio
DVDTalk was sent a check disc of The Fantasist, so no definitive comment can be made about the technical merits of the disc or the packaging, although the final product should be approximately 1.66:1 pillarboxed with anamorphic enhancement and Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. Should the check disc be accurate, the image here is limited, looking soft and faintly VHS-like during the daytime scenes, and overly noisy during the nighttime scenes. No subtitles appear to be included.

The Extras
The Fantasist is one of Scorpion’s “Katarina’s Nightmare Theater” titles, featuring hosting segments by Katarina Leigh Waters. Much like her bookend segments on Savage Strets, the first half of the introduction is basically a goofy sketch, and the second half is basically Waters reading from the actors’ IMDb pages. One of the clips included also basically spoils the ending.

Trailers for Death Ship, Mortuary, Nothing But the Night, The Devil Within Her, Double Exposure, The Hearse, Terror (possibly a direct inspiration for Edgar Wright’s Don’t!), The Survivor, and Satan’s Slave are accessible from the menu. No trailer for The Fantasist is included.

Conclusion
Fans of weird cinema might enjoy The Fantasist as a curiosity piece, but anyone who chooses to skip it isn’t missing anything.

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