The Fugitive

Director: Andrew Davis

Writers: Jeb Stuart, David Twohy

Starring: Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Jeroen Krabbe, Joe Pantoliano

Released: 1993

In case you don't know, The Fugitive was a phenomenally successful action remake of the 1960s TV show of the same name, about a doctor (Dr Kimble, played by Harrison Ford) wrongly convicted of murdering his wife. Escaping from custody when the bus transporting him (and other convicts) to death row crashes following an escape attempt by his fellow prisoners, he goes on the run, determined to find the "one-armed man" who killed his wife.

A group of US Marshals, lead by Deputy Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), show up and begin the hunt for Dr Kimble, and almost corner him on a couple of occasions; however, Dr Kimble always finds a way to escape and continue his hunt for his wife's killer.

Using fake ID, Dr Kimble is able to get into his former hospital posing as a janitor and is able to get a list of suspects from the prosthetics department. Chasing down the leads, as he is himself chased by the US Marshals, Dr Kimble gets closer to his wife's killer and uncovering the conspiracy behind her murder...

This is a very well made action thriller. Favouring mainly tense chase or hide-and-seek scenes rather than big action set pieces (i.e. car chases, shoot-outs), and with an engaging storyline, the film stands out in its field as an example of how to make a good big budget action movie that isn't just mindless CGI violence (Michael Bay take note). Filled with several memorable scenes (Harrison Ford escaping the bus as a train approaches, jumping into a dam, and others) that have since been lovingly parodied on many occasions (especially on The Simpsons), and with good lead performances from Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones, this is a very entertaining film that will keep you gripped until the end.

That's not to say that the film is not without flaws; the ending, when Harrison Ford confronts the man behind his wife's killer, turns into a pointless and overlong fight, designed I think just to add some more action to the film, but adds nothing. Furthermore, it isn't too great a surprise when you find out who the man responsible is. Also, the ending adds a conspiracy to the murder which seems a bit tacked on and overblown, given that it isn't alluded to at all in the fim before then.

Despite these gripes, this is a good film with a good cast, including Joe Pantoliano (in a terrible wig) and a young Julianne Moore in supporting roles. Definitely worth watching, if you're one of the few people who've never seen it.

Random fact: after watching this film at the cinema back in 1993, one of my friends went out and bought the novelisation. I don't know if he ever read it.

Rating: 3.5/5

Die Hard 2

Director: Renny Harlin

Writers: Steven E. de Souza, Doug Richardson

Starring: Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, William Sadler

Released: 1990

As the latest Die Hard sequel is out in cinemas, I thought I'd watch the first sequel, to see how it holds up.

You know what it's like: it's Christmas, you're waiting for your wife's flight to arrive at the airport, but a bunch of terrorists show up to liberate an international dictator/drug lord, who is also in custody on a flight to the same airport.

Taking place on Christmas Eve, one year to the day after the first film, Die Hard 2 follows a similar formula; John McClane must save the day by beating the terrorists on his own, he doesn't get help from incompetent cops who don't believe him, his wife is in peril beacuse of the terrorists; etc.

Whereas setting the first film in one enclosed building added a sense of claustrophobia and suspense, setting this film in an airport doesn't really add anything. Furthermore, the continued stupidity of the police (as in the first film) gets very annoying very quickly. The ease with which the "terrorists" liberate the dictator is also pretty ridiculous; I don't think the American government would be quite so slack. A lot of the action in this film is also pretty dull; it's a lot less tactical than in the first film, here it's just a straightforward matter of McClane just going along killing anyone in his way.

On the plus side, the cast are pretty decent for an action film like this, and the film does get better as it goes along. There are also some rather bizarre scenes, which don't really fit the film, but are quite funny, in a "wtf" kind of way; an old woman on a plane telling McClane's wife about her electric stun gun (that she has somehow carried onto the plane), which she killed her pet dog with; there is also a scene near the beginning of the film featuring a naked William Sadler in a hotel room doing some strange exercises and poses.

Overall, this is an average film, and nowhere near as good as its predecessor, though by all accounts, the best of the bad bunch of sequels.

Rating: 2.5/5

Total Recall

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Writers: Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, Jon Povill, Gary Goldman

Starring: Arnold Scwarzenegger, Michael Ironside, Sharon Stone

Released: 1990

Arnie plays Douglas Quaid, whose job seems to be hitting rocks with a pick-axe. Having recurring dreams about being on Mars with some "sleazy" woman or other, he decides to visit a company called Rekall, who implant memories in lieu of fantastical holidays. The procedure goes wrong however, and Quaid is soon being chased by co-workers, his wife (who's not really his wife), and various baddies, all under orders from the corrupt governor.

After discovering a message from himself, saying that he is an agent who worked for the governor, but wiped his memories for self-protection, Quaid decides to go to Mars in person to investigate what is going on, where he gets involved with "mutants" and revolutionaries.

This film is a lot of fun, if not completely ridiculous. Featuring a lot of Paul Verhoeven's trademarks, including OTT violence and satirical TV adverts, the film never lets up its non-stop action and plot "twists". The film looks good, though some of the special effects haven't aged too well, and because it's so fast-paced, it doesn't leave you too long to worry about some of the logical flaws in the story and characters' motivations.

Rating: 3.5/5

RoboCop 3

Director: Fred Dekker

Writers: Frank Miller, Fred Dekker

Starring: Robert John Burke, Nancy Allen, Rip Torn

Released: 1993

The third and final RoboCop film sees RoboCop (now played by Robert John Burke, replacing Peter Weller) join the resistance movement against the "Rehabs", an armed militaristic unit who are replacing the police force and trying to relocate residents of certain parts of Detroit.

This is a pretty lame film. As the producers wanted a lower certificate following the relative failure of the second film, most of the darker edges of the first two films have been removed, as have most of the satirical adverts and news clips. Instead, this is a straight up "the people and RoboCop are good" and "corporation are bad" film with little subtlety.

About the only interesting idea here is the notion that OCP has been taken over by a larger Japanese corporation. However, this isn't developed at all, save for the arrival of some Japanese ninja cyborgs, who do little in the film except chop a few things with their swords then get killed by RoboCop.

Also confusing are the reasons for giving RoboCop additional technological add-ons; he gets a screw-on gun and jetpack. The way RoboCop embraces these again goes aginst the idea of the first film that he gradually becomes more human over the course of the film; over the second and third films he seems to have regressed back to being a monotone robot.

The special effects are also not that great. The scenes where RoboCop flies in particular aren't very good.

Overall, this comes across as a rather cheap and pointless sequel. Not very good.

Rating: 1.5/5

RoboCop 2

Director: Irvin Kershner

Writers: Frank Miller, Walon Green

Starring: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Tom Noonan

Released: 1990

Centred (at least initially) around a drug called "Nuke", and the "cult"(!) who produce it, RoboCop 2 sees corporation OCP moving towards taking over the whole of Detroit as the city defaults on payments to the corporation. They also introduce "RoboCop 2", a bigger, more powerful cyborg cop.

The flaws in this film are many: the film starts with RoboCop being given a restraining order to stay away from his ex-wife, hinting at a greater exploration of the existential dilemmas facing him. However, this is then not followed up at all in the rest of the film. RoboCop then seems to regress to how he was when first created, less human and more robotic, doubly confusing considering he had become much more "human" as the first film progressed.

Similarly, after RoboCop is all but destroyed and rebuilt, he is re-programmed into a more "caring" and less violent police officer. Again, this takes about five minutes of the film before RoboCop electrocutes himself and loses these new directives, making the section kind of pointless.

The pacing of the film is also very erratic; long periods are spent with the baddies as they develop their drug and business, leaving RoboCop's role mainly to be to turn up occasionally to kill/arrest people.

Also, the head of OCP, who was shown to be at least slightly caring in the first film (he ditched ED-209 after its "glitch"), is much nastier and greedier this time around; no reason is given for this and he seems like a completely different character.

OCP's new "RoboCop 2" is also quite strange. Although undeniably powerful, the idea that OCP would use the brain of the fim's main protaganist, cult leader Cain (Tom Noonan), within it is rather strange; it was obviously going to lead to disaster. How OCP didn't see it happening is a mystery. Furthermore, having a child replace Cain as cult leader is also kind of strange; the ease with which he bosses people around (and they follow his orders) is equally bizarre.

Ultimately, RoboCop 2 has several interesting ideas but doesn't really follow them through, or explore them enough. It's not terrible, but isn't as good or focused as it could have been. The satirical elements are still here, and still work fairly well, although they seem more random this time around (i.e. adverts for sun block). Overall, a missed opportunity.

Rating: 2.5/5

RoboCop

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Writers: Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner

Starring: Paul Weller, Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox

Released: 1987

After literally being shot to pieces by a criminal gang in Detroit while out on patrol, policeman "Murphy" is resurrected/reconstructed by corporation OCP (who run the police, and much of the city) as a cyborg, named RoboCop.

Things start well for RoboCop; he starts to clean up the streets; however, he starts to have dreams about his previous life (his memory was supposedly wiped when he became RoboCop). Things are compounded further when he comes across one of the gang who killed "Murphy". Investigating the gang, he finds that they work for the second-in-command of OCP, who opposed the construction of RoboCop in favour of his own ED-209 idea, scrapped because of glitches.

Set in a near future where crime is rampant and much of the world seems to be in a state of (readiness for) war, RoboCop is a film that can be enjoyed on many levels. It can be watched as a straight-up action film; you can see it as a satire of "Reaganomics" and 1980s capitalist greed; a religious allegory; an existentialist story of the nature of being human or alive; and even more.

In terms of action, RoboCop is brutal, especially in the director's cut. When people get shot, it is very graphic; blood and limbs splatter everywhere. Especially gruesome is a scene where a malfunctioning ED-209 fires hundreds of rounds into a boardroom executive, continuing to fire long after he's dead (this scene is even longer in the director's cut). Very graphic too is the scene in which Murphy is killed, getting his hand, then arm, blasted off, before getting shot countless times more.

The satire in the film is mainly aimed at Ronald Reagan, and his business and foreign policies. From the obvious of having corporation OCP running hospitals, police etc, there's also news inserts in the film regarding American military intervention and a story about a "star wars" satellite going haywire and firing lasers at Earth, killing innocent civilians. The way these stories are casually reported like they're almost humorous is also, I think, taking a shot at mass media and people's desensitisation towards violence and death, which also plays well against the very violent nature of the film itself. There's also funny TV adverts (and references in the film) about a new gas-guzzling car, described as "bigger is better".

There are lots of religious themes here; on the making of feature on the DVD, Verhoeven goes so far as to call RoboCop an "American Jesus". Aside from the obvious resurrection story, there's a section where RoboCop's own people turn on him; there's also imagery like Murphy getting shot with arms outstretched and RoboCop seemingly walking on water. I don't really remember Jesus going back for revenge with guns (but then I've never read the bible), but you get the point.

The existentialist element of the film is also something that is fairly well handled. As the film goes along, RoboCop remembers slightly more about his "human" life (although mainly just flashes); he laments that he has some feelings about his wife, for example, but can no longer remember who she was. This element of the film adds some emotional depth, and a kind of sadness, to RoboCop, heightened as he tries to find out about his past and inadvertantly meets people (such as his former partner and the people who killed him) who conjure up memories within him. By the end of the film, he has enough memories and self-awareness to call himself Murphy, though the question obviously remains about how "human" he really is, even then.

Overall, I would describe RoboCop as brilliant, brutal and funny. Despite its slightly silly premise (and low budget), it's one of the best films of the 1980s. This is a multi-layered action film which is a lot better and deeper than people give it credit for. A must see.

Rating: 4.5/5

Judge Reinhold

One time in my youth, my friends and I went to see 'Beverly Hills Cop 3' at the Odeon cinema in Stoke. It goes without saying that it's a pretty shit film, and at our post-film visit to McDonald's, one of my friends, let's call him Lou Diamond Phillips, was unusually angry about the film. And he seemed to be taking his blame out on Judge Reinhold in particular. "Fuck the Judge," Lou kept saying. "Fuck the Judge!"

Quite why Lou Diamond Phillips had it in for Judge Reinhold I don't know; in the 'Beverly Hills Cop' films, he's little more than a sappy side-kick for Eddie Murphy. Really, Eddie Murphy or the film's director should be the one getting the anger.

"Fuck the Judge!"

Anyway, a few weeks later, we were round at another friend's house watching TV, flicking through the channels, when a certain Judge Reinhold popped up. "Fuck the Judge," Lou Diamond Phillips said again.

On that day we made a pact that we have to say, out loud, even if there's other (non-pact member) people around, "Fuck the Judge". And this is if we're together as a group or on our own.

I still believe in the pact, although there was a several long gaps without sightings of Mr Reinhold, owing to a deterioration of the quality and size of films that he frequents presently, though he did guest in a few episodes of 'Arrested Development', much to my sweary delight.

Introducing The Band

Towards the end of high school, before we all went our separate ways in life, my friends (who I shall call John, Paul, George and Ringo) and I decided that we needed to form a band.

The fact that none of us could play any instruments was going to hold us back. I had a guitar, and one of my friends had a younger brother who had three guitars and a drum kit, which worked out perfectly as there were five of us, although we were a bit guitar heavy. As Ringo was the member of our "gang" we always picked on and made him do the things no-one else wanted to do, we made him the drummer.

Much time we spent together as a band that summer, mainly arguing over what the band's name should be. I wanted the band to have no name, so that we could be the ultimate non-conformists. No-one agreed with me. John and Ringo wanted the band to be called "Meat and Four Veg", Paul wanted us to be called "The Ascent" and George wanted "The Hill Street Gang". Paul relented and backed me as he preferred no name to "Meat and Four Veg" but George refused to back down, leading to deadlock and the band officially having no name. Which is what I wanted anyway. John and Ringo still insisted on telling people we were called "Meat and Four Veg".

Our jam sessions consisted of us all being together, playing what we wanted, when and how we wanted. As none of could play, the usual constraints of music, like chords or melody, didn't apply to us, so we could create improvised, free-form rock epics. Or just all individually play what we wanted until we got bored.

And what happened to the rest of my band? Well, they only went onto become known as Oasis, you might have heard of them… not really, none of them ever picked up an instrument again and now have assorted middle class jobs that pay them too much money.

Britpop: The End

I've finally come to the end of my Britpop retrospective, after spending many pounds buying and several months listening to a whole bunch of albums, and many hours watching YouTube clips. I could have gone on forever really, but I really can't be bothered, and I think I covered all the important stuff really, but there were some artists I didn't cover, The Verve, Embrace, Kenickie and Catatonia probably being the main ones.

MP3s not pictured

The Verve pre-dated Britpop by several years and broke through as Britpop ended, so I didn't include them. Embrace and Catatonia I would consider as post-Britpop bands really, even though they are often included by some people. As for Kenickie, they were a band I loved at the time and will do a look back on them at a later date.

Overall, I enjoyed looking back at what was essentially the music of my youth. There were few surprises, most things were pretty much as I remembered them, good and bad.

If one thing was noticeable, it was that there were a lot of good singles, but most of the albums were fairly average.

Despite having reservations when I began, I would now conclude that Britpop was a good thing. No big cultural movement has really happened in Britain since then; the coverage Britpop got was fairly remarkable, and given what has happened to the media in Britain since then (few remaining independant radio stations, the decline of the music magazine industry, the lack of music coverage), one is unlikely to happen again. With all the coincidences involved with the rise of Britpop, such as the arrival of satellite TV, the move towards the mainstream of "alternative" comedy and the seeming return of British nationalistic pride, it makes it all the more amazing. If for no other reason, Britpop will probably be the last in the line of youth cultural movements (following things such as rock 'n' roll in the fifties, the swinging sixties, punk etc) to really sweep through Britain in such a big way, though I'll be happy to be proved wrong. The closest thing we have had recently I guess is the increasing obsession with celebrity culture and the rise of reality TV.

The Nearly Men

Before I finish my Britpop retrospective, I should mention some of the bands that didn't make it, or I just couldn't be bothered to buy any of their albums.

Dodgy were a poppier, summery sounding band, and were shit. They are regularly perceived as one the reasons Britpop was shit by haters of the period, and were seen as one of the dadrock-type bands that Chris Evans championed.

Like Dodgy, Reef were a band tainted by their Chris Evans associations, making their name when one of their songs was used regularly on "TFI Friday". Coming from the West Country, the band had a large regional fanbase, but seemed only to be liked by retro rock fans elsewhere in the country.

Sheffield's Longpigs were actually not that bad, having a couple of good singles and half-decent debut album. That said, I couldn't be bothered to buy the album again. The band are most notable today because they featured Richard Hawley on guitar, though when I was at school, it was rumoured that singer Crispin Hunt was originally from my home town of Leek (in Staffordshire), and formed the band when he went to university in Sheffield, though I've never been able to confirm if this is true or not.

Northern Uproar were one of the most hated of all Britpop bands. Seen as being a poor man's Oasis, due to kind of looking and sounding like a worse version of them, and the band were constantly mocked by music magazines and fans alike.

If one Britpop band were hated more than Northern Uproar, it was Shed Seven, though this was probably related to the fact that they were a lot more successful than Northen Uproar and a lot more people had heard of them. Singer Rick Witter's name became Britpop rhyming slang, and lots of stories went around about how the band got its name (because the singer was one of a family of seven that were born and lived in a shed, being my favourite). Like Northern Uproar, they were a crapper Oasis.

Scotland's The Supernaturals had a couple of poppy hit singles, then disappeared again. I can't really add any more than that.