Nostalgia

Last week I picked up a copy of Albion: Origins off the sale shelves at Forbidden Planet. A snip at £3.99 rather than the £14.99 “recommended” price. Frankly, it’s not worth the full price, but it contains enough nostalgia to warrant acquiring at the sale price.

A lot of the characters used by Alan Moore, Leah Moore and John Reppion in their limited series, Albion, are based more or less closely on classic British comic characters of 40-50 years ago and the origins book reprints some of the original characters’ stories.

When I was a kid, my Uncle Des used to buy Valiant every week and I’d get it a week later. I loved some of the strips in it, Captain Hurricane, The Steel Claw, Kelly’s Eye and so on. Albion: Origins includes a Kelly’s Eye story and reprints of such worthies as Janus Stark, Cursitor Doom and The House of Dolmann. I’m not familiar with most of them, but I remember Kelly’s Eye - Tim Kelly, who found a gem called the “Eye of Zoltec” in South America, which made him invulnerable to harm as long as he wore it.

I thought it was great when I was a kid, but even then I recall thinking that he ought to take more care of it. The chain/string that held it around his neck was always breaking and he would suddenly be normal again just at the moment it really mattered. What I hadn’t remembered or remarked upon when I was young, was just what a numpty Tim Kelly really was. Bad enough that he didn’t take steps to safeguard the Eye, but it turns out that he had some kind of bizarre compulsion to show it to every shady and/or disreputable character he ever met and say something that was essentially:

”Hi, my name is Kelly. I don’t know anyone around here at all and I just happen to have this gem, which I carelessly keep on this thin chain around my neck, or occasionally in my very shallow pocket. Not only is it priceless, but it protects me from any kind of harm at all!

You look line a decent bloke, Mr No-Nose McGruder, why don’t you and your equally decent looking chum, Knuckles Biggs hand around in this seedy out of the way café for a chat?”

Really, you can take show and tell rather too far. Tim Kelly was not quite the full ticket. I look forward to seeing just how dim the otherwise solid heroes of the age were, too.

I have to find reprints of Captain Hurricane; his ragin’ furies used to make me laugh out loud.

We're going to the movies

Tonight, all being well, we are scooting off early and disappearing off to the new Westfield Centre in Stratford to watch Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. This could be the first time since we left Whetstone there’s been a movie that we have managed to organise ourselves to see. We have intended to go to the movies quite often, but not managed it for one reason or another.

We could have gone to the local cinema in Ilford, but this is an excuse to look at the offerings of the new centre and get a bite to eat, too. We have deliberately left off going to Westfield before to let (hopefully) the initial crowds subside.

I don’t recall ever watching the original TV series of TTSP, though I was certainly aware of it. I have the vague feeling that I didn’t have a TV at the time. Anyway, that’s a good thing, because it means that I can enjoy the movie on its own merits and not get trapped by pointless comparisons between Gary Oldman’s or Alec Guinness’ respective portrayals of George Smiley.

I can’t remember the last time I watched a good old-fashioned British spy movie. I have a horrible suspicion that it might be DVDs of The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin. I’m deliberately excluding the Bourne movies, because good as they were, they were hardly old fashioned spy movies. And Bond has never counted in this context.

Ronin is an excellent movie too, but again I’m not sure that it’s entirely the genre I mean. It has more of the feel of The French Connection (which, in any case, is American and based in America), The Odessa File, or Day of the Jackal (the proper one with Edward Fox) and in any case, each of those is getting a little long in the tooth. There are some splendidly atmospheric French movies with Alain Delon (?), but I think they may be more police investigative offerings.

So: looking forward to it.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

As a regular reader of this enthralling journal, you will be aware that we went to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy this evening. A couple of LJ chums have asked what I thought of it and I thought that I'd say here rather than in the comments of my previous entry.

So. Visually it looks the part; for those of us who remember London before it was physically cleaned up in the mid to late 80s, it's all there, soot stains and all. The use of low lighting and leached out colours adds to the period feel. It's spot on - and for those who say it wasn't all glumness in those days, let's remember that the film is set in ancient government buildings and faded areas of the city. The cheerier places don't come into it. And the city was heavily redeveloped in the years following 1973, when it's set.

The acting is uniformly excellent. Gary Oldman is outstanding. Who would have though Kathy Burke could do a 'posh' voice?



The pacing, however, is slow. Arthriticly slow. I found my attention wandering at several points and had to fight against closing my eyes. I'm sure I missed a couple of clarifying plot points that would have made the narrative clearer as a result. Furtle gave up the unequal task and dozed a couple of times.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is around 100 minutes of engrossing and well-acted story. The film is 127 minutes long. It could have lost a half hour and been much the better for it.

And somebody please explain the point of the fat school kid with glasses?

Overall, 3 stars from a possible 5. And that's mainly because of Gary Oldman's performance. I doubt we'll buy it on DVD; I couldn't sit through it again any time soon.