Alas, the content doesn't seem to be working... Again.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Mark- in aid of men's health, continue the growth for...MOVEMBER.



www.movember.com

Content doesn't seem to be working, Ah come on Mark, I need my fix from the good doctor.

Nothing to do with the video. But take a look at this guys attack on Mark. It comes in about 5.50



WHO THE HELL ARE YOU MARK KERMODE:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLDYR2xwYsU

Mark

Its very hard to get to film 24 from your blog. the link on the right is alwasy out of date (at the moment it links you to the antichrist edition), and when you search 'film 24' on bbc.co.uk you get no where near the programe. Can you please fix this?

melver12

Ah, nice story. Women and horror films, two of the finer things in life.

Wow, bestdays2, that was really something.

Mark, if you're reading this, I don't think you're a Nazi. Hope that makes you feel better.

Aaaagh, I really want to watch this! Why can't I? Is it the fault of the program? Or is the BBC site itself having some technical problems?

Melver 12, try this link (and then save it to your favourites)



https://search.bbc.co.uk/search?tab=av&q=Film+24



Once you've arrived successfully, you can also search for specific film by adding the title to the search box like this



Film 24+imaginarium

I have no problems with the content; I use Firefox 3, Windows XP and cable broadband.



Have you all got the latest Flash player? (You'll probably get prompted to upgrade now and again if you have it, and most PC's have.) If the problem persists then you may have a problem with your machine.



As people seem to think its time for werewolves to make a comeback, here's the trailer for The Wolfman remake due 2010.

Be careful what you wish for. . .



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS02xaTIdRI&feature=PlayList&p=AC982E38B4A85627&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=3

Ouch! Dr. K, That beard looks painful!



None the less, I was highly surprised to hear that you had ACTUALLY WATCHED a T.V, program! I must say that 'Hush' was thoroughly entertaining, and I enjoyed it very much!



However, I do understand your point on how the 'Emo fashion' has influenced modern cinema, but as always, I feel this is just a trend... along with the train of vamp movies.

The beard doesn't suit you - though I like the subtle homage to David Lynch in the way you shot it :)

Very bizarre ... just seen/heard Mark Kermode on The Culture Show claiming that the childhood habit of 'Trick or Treat' only appeared in the UK as a result of inspiration from 1980s 'Halloween' genre films imported from the USA!



Hmmm ... well I'm 60 years old and I can still recall that during the 1950s my brother and I dressed as 'ghosts' and made impish threats to our Liverpudlian neighbours every 'Mishchief Night'! We were generally given either pennies (d ... as in £.s.d) or treacle toffee and told to "go away". Failure to comply with our demands for treats meant that we would remove peoples' garden gates, or tie their door knobs to a nearby tree (so that the door couldn't be opened).



My old Mum (aged 84) remembers doing something similar on the last day of October during the late 1920s/early 1930s.



'Tis true that Halloween has become increasingly commercialised during recent years ... by the sale of purpose-made battery-lit plastic pumpkins; ready-to-wear witches outfits; Happy Halloween Greetings Cards etc ... but the 'celebration' certainly existed in the UK long before those dreadful American fright-fest films were shown in our cinemas.

Mark, one vampire movie that I really enjoyed was Michael Almereyda's "Nadja", in which Elina Lowensohn attempts to find the dead body of her father, Count Dracula, in New York and take it back to Transylvania in an attempt to resurrect him, pursued all the while by Peter Fonda's Van Helsing, and Van Helsing's nephew played by Martin Donovan who is eager to try and get his fiancee, played by Galaxy Craze back on the straight and narrow a dalliance with the titular bloodsucker. This moody, eccentric and occasionally pretentious film has stayed with me ever since I saw it on television six years ago. It may have slipped off the radar given that Abel Ferrara made a stylistically similar film, "The Addiction" which was also shot in black and white, in New York, and featured similar moments of wildness mixed with pretension a short time before it.

However, I never took to "The Addiction", which I felt got rather bogged down in its own nihilism and torpor as Lili Taylor angonized over whether or not she wanted to be a vampire or not. "Nadja" despite occasional moments of tricksyness went along at a good lick and featured a wonderful soundtrack to complement its mood of a city and creatures that never sleep.



1987's "Vamp" also sticks in the mind but only because of its awfulness.

I agree with you Mark about how influential ET was on a generation of British children who did not previously have a trick-or treat tradition. What we had in the North of England [40 years ago for me] was Mischief Night on All Hallows Eve - the last vestiges of a folk religion that acknowledged the darker side of the spirit world on a particular date as a counterpoint to the following days Christian celebration. It had a darker edge to it than trick or treating.

I'm glad you referenced The Wicker Man as THE groundbreaking British film, which works on so many levels and directly taps into that spiritual vacuum created by the decline in institutional religion and the rise of interest in paganism and 'nature' religions which began flowering in British culture in the more permissive 60's and 70's.

Other adult British films of that era do mirror this cultural shift,[The Witches; Witchfinder General come to mind - there must be others, perhaps from the Hammer catalogue...?] but not as explicitly.

What we find in the films from America [like ET] is a New World development of a culturally ancient British tradition - which has in transition become tamed, something for the family. The new breed of American horror films focussing on Halloween seek to subvert its own domesticated tradition.

I look forward to your blog about Christmas.

Just a quick shout out to The Omega Man with Charlton Heston fighting the undead/vampires/zombies in the first I Am Legend adaptation. Sure it's a bit pants and, after Bowling for Columbine, its Heston's worst on screen moment but I did like the vampire design in it. Sort of like medieval zealots with bad skin completions.



I think if this vampire trend is going to continue movie makers should start thinking about original and new looks and characteristics for their vampires to have. Not just capes, fangs and slick back hair or sulky, good looking teenagers. I enjoyed Thirst's take on it by dispensing of the fangs. But let's get something truly original on the table.



P.S: Lol at the bedroom Danny Devito throwing a wobbly at Mark Kermode. Think that made my day.

D'awwwwww.



Wonderful.

I have to say: the beard kicks ass. In a good way.

I personally dislike the Twilight series but I understand Mark's point of view. Mark is looking at it as a film and nothing else, the problems with Twilight are from the book and I personally think the film fixes a few of these so it can work as a film.



I am curious what Mark thinks about films that build up to things that don't happen. I say this because one of the Twilight books (Breaking Dawn) has this problem and it's one of my biggest problems with the Twilight series.

I have to just say in disagreement to the beard & stubble haters, I really think it suits you alot mark, you should keep it, but maintained of course! :-)

Going to agree with Gaiash here - the Twilight books are terrible, terrible abominations of literature which should never have been published. However, I guess the film does cater to its audience. That said you shouldn't be liking a movie just because it "works for its audience", as there's a Pirates of the Carribean, Titanic, and Bride Wars audience out there too.

This thing with the content not working is happening a lot. I'm sure it's not that I have the wrong flash player as sometimes I can get these videos to work.



Hint: Look it up on youtube.

BBC: Sort it out.

You can watch this blog on you toob

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YHEw5njmIc&feature=channel

I'm liking the stubble upgrade, Mark. Keep it - you look younger. Plus, you can now stab Len Wiseman with your face as well as your words.

Hey, Mark has a whole channel on YouTube too - cool.

The picture quality is better too.

https://www.youtube.com/user/kermodeandmayo#p/a

Tinkererer, a very good point about 'works for its audience'. Kind of blows most criticism out the water though. The only solution is to say 'I wouldn't watch it, but if others want to it's harmless.' Bride Wars, however, isn't harmless.

First of all, the stubble is pretty awesome and you should not shave it off.



Second, this is off-topic but you mentioned in another video how the trailers for Roland Emmerich's latest symphony of destruction (2012) has already started to bore you. I don't know if you've seen the film yet or not, but in case you haven't I though I would give you a little heads up... it's 160 minutes long! That's right, 160 minutes of stuff blowing up and John Cusack outrunning tsunamis. Could it potentially be worse than Transformers 2?



Is it just me or is popcorn movies just becoming longer and longer? These days it feels like every blockbuster or effects extravaganza are two and a half hours or longer.

I heard Mark recently talking about Hallowe'en and expressing the view that this was festival had only recently been introduced via USA. That there was no such thing as trick and treat when he was young. Well I am probably over twenty years older than Mark and we celebrated Hallowe'en when we were young. We dressed up, including as ghosts and witches, went out to our neighbours homes and reeived an apple or some monkey nuts after performing a song. For example: I'm an Aberdonian I come from Aberdeen and all I want to ask you, can I have my Hallowe'en'. We made lanterns from turnips with a face cut out and a candle inside.

You'll need to do better research next time, Mark.

My favourite vampire film of all time is Ferrara's masterpiece 'The Addiction' featuring a spell-binding performance from Lily Tomlin, later to star in Six Feet Under written by Alan Ball who also created True Blood (do you see the link copper??!).



The Addiction infact parodies the sex theme of most vampire stories and relates vampire mythology to serious philosophical/theological discussion (this being one of the reasons many don't like them film). Yes, it's pretentious and frequently full of itself but its overwhelming sense of melancholy, doom and eventual redemption all inside just 1hr 15mins is a marvel to behold.



Also, any film starring Christopher Walken has to be awarded an extra star. Unless it's The Deer Hunter which was racist garbage (I'm sorry Mark, you know I'm right).

'Roland Emmerich's latest symphony of destruction ... That's right, 160 minutes of stuff blowing up and John Cusack outrunning tsunamis.' angrycinephile



Probably be like the '70s disaster flick 'Earthquake'.

120 minutes of scene settling with a few false alarms, then 20 minutes of stuff blowing up followed by 20 minutes of people going on about how the human spirit can't be vanquished etc.



I'm already looking forward to the sequel - '2013 - the year everything goes on as normal'.

Really disappointed Dracula (1958) hasn't been mentioned in this video. I went to a BFI screening of that classic vampire film last year and only 4 other people were in the cinema, all of whom were much older than myself. I'm in my twenties and think that my generation aren't very aware of Hammer films. There is a real danger they will simply be forgotten. Dracula 1958 must surely be ranked as one of the top Vampire films ever, with brilliant acting, great soundtrack and a unique British quality.

So, to rehash the tv vs. film/movies discussion,



firstly, where do we place mini-series such as Band of Brothers or Lonesome Dove? They were aired on television, but they have an undeniably cinematic quality; especially when watched on DVD. Lonesome Dove, in particular, used mostly film actors and had that old-fashioned western movie feel to it.



secondly, if you haven't already, you really need to watch HBO's The Wire, I am certainly not alone in saying it is the best tv series of all time.

"I went to a BFI screening of that classic vampire film last year and only 4 other people were in the cinema, all of whom were much older than myself. I'm in my twenties and think that my generation aren't very aware of Hammer films. There is a real danger they will simply be forgotten. Dracula 1958 must surely be ranked as one of the top Vampire films ever, with brilliant acting, great soundtrack and a unique British quality." Harker.



You're absolutely right. I've seen this happen in my lifetime. How many films of the 40's, 50's, 60's or even 70's & 80's are now shown on TV?

Some classic films, now only mentioned in cinema books or seen by a handful of cinephiles through specialist screenings or dedicated DVD buying, and classic film stars (now known only from photographs, movie clips or impressions) and directors rather than their actual films.

Before those were the films of the 30s, 20s and before. Phenomenally popular in their day.

I know many people today that now refuse to watch a black and white film; as for a silent film. . . !



It will happen to today's films, stars and directors; and in your lifetime too.

A major actor will die and people will say 'who were they?'

Mention a film you really like and people may know only of the later remake, if one was made.



Cherish the ones you see and your reaction to it. It's not important that you might not find people in future to share that film's memories of with, but that you saw it and what it meant to you that matters.

The same goes with film stars for that matter. I've grown up, and older, watching the films of Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman for example. Great talents, but to today's youngsters just old men now. As for Rod Steiger . . . In his day a major character actor, now virtually forgotten; and before him...



BTW. Agree about the 1958 Dracula (and some other Hammers; but they weren't all great or even interesting).

Dracula was directed by Terrence Fisher. I went to a regional BFI screening, aged around 17, back in the 1970s (it was old then) with Mr Fisher on stage introducing it. It's like seeing the Sex Pistols on stage (they weren't that good), but its my memories of and responses to it that matter.



One day people may ask you: 'who was Clint Eastwood, Matt Damon, Johnny Depp - and Mark Kermode?'

I think David Beckham did a better Hugh Jackman impersonation.



Vampire or Werewolf, If you think Twilight was a good film... bite me!

I think this stubble talk owes a lot to the twilight saga. Are we now Kermhards? Are you team follicle or team epidermis? WHAT HAVE WE BECOME? Next we'll be shipping* mark with the BFI building, WHAT NEXT?



One of my favourite vampire films was the Warhol/Morrisey BLOOD FOR DRACULA with Udo Kier. I love how it gets all its supposed depth out of the way in the first few scenes (that echoing and beautiful opener where a virgin-blood-deprived dracula is seen applying his make up so as he may appear in full glory, sad and poignant) and then the film descending into madness, horrible offensive dialogue and hilariousness as Dracula gets ill as the landowner's daughters are quite 'loose'. Horribly entertaining. Complete visible intended disregard for the potent mythology surrounding the vampire. A WAKE UP CALL TO ANNE RICE.











*Shipping being the process, in the land of fan fiction, creating, erm, romantic entanglements with characters who in the original series/novel/film wouldn't usually get together

Like the internet cartoon "are you coming to bed""I can't . This is important. Someone is wrong on the internet" I felt compelled to respond to Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's 3-D cinema discussion on the Culture show.



Hoping for an in-depth appraisal and encouraging speculation on what this could mean for the future of cinema I came away disappointed at the seemingly luddite view of Mark Kermode. I usually like his reviews, especially on films I don't care for, and of course I don't always agree with all his opinion. But on the future of 3-D cinema he displayed a surprising lack of understanding of what cinema has ALWAYS been about. It has first and foremost been about spectacle and illusion. From the very earliest film pioneers attempting to run us down with trains to flying us to the moon. The desire to fool the senses and engage the imagination in a way theatre couldn't do.



These most successful of these types of film require speed, depth of field, and space. Imagination doesn't hurt either or a style of film making that benefits the 3-D requirements.



Which is why the most successful 3-D films to date have been CGI animations. Disney himself pioneered the layered look of animation in SNOW WHITE, trying to make the film more dimensional. Ardman/ Pixar produce 3-D animation (albeit viewed in 2-D). For animation of this sort, It's a natural (and necessary) progression to 3-D cinema to properly showcase the format. But I believe it to more than just an evolution of animation.





Hitchcock was cited as a more successful user of the 3-D and interestingly his style of film making would answer the question what film would benefit from the technique over it's 2-D counterpart. VERTIGO is an obvious candidate. Standing on the dizzying edge of building looking into the abyss is captured perfectly in 3-D. Spacial scenes where depth is required such as in NORTH BY NORTHWEST with a distant featureless horizon chased by a crop duster or on immense stone faces of Mt. Rushmore. I believe Hitch would have embraced today's more sophisticated 3-D techniques and used them to tell better stories as are many of today's most visually imaginative directors. (Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Ridley Scott) Enhancing the moment has been a Holy Grail in the Cinema of the Spectacular, placing you in the film for today's illusionists.



I can think of numerous films that beg to be seen in 3-D. Any of the STAR WARS films (the canyons of the Death Star; the circling dog fights) SPIDER-MAN (and any super hero film where the grand battle on the roof tops takes place) SEVEN, BLADE RUNNER and GLADIATOR ( form the intimate tracking around a crime scene with spacial awareness to the towering cityscapes, rain of arrows and spears and colosseum grandure) Add Terry Gilliam to the list; BRAZIL's cloud soaring scenes and nightmare battles will have added depth. His film making is very theatrical.



Film makers gifted with a visual flair can see the future of the Cinema experience and can best tailor their films to it.



Doug Trumbull (of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame; a film that would benefit from 3-D) took what he had learnt on the film BRAINSTORM and applied it to Hollywood Roller coaster rides. He explored the science of perception and how the brain could be fooled by motion and imagery (film after all is just that, 24 frames per second trickery, although Trumbull discovered the real magic came at 60 frames per second!)



James Cameron has taken up the baton in the digital age with AVATAR. Unsurprisingly he has chosen a spectacular science fiction backdrop to showcase the technology (although he had used it to a lesser degree in GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS, taking you to a place you couldn't go; the Titanic)



This illustrates that pioneering film makers have always been striving to make the cinema experience as real as possible and will continue to do so. To dismiss it is to ignore the possibilities it can offer. To lump it with 50's gimmickry is to do it a disservice. it's not about poking you in the eye. It's about immersing the viewer in the films environment. It's not the showmanship of Sensurround; fleeting novelty. But one step closer to stepping through the canvas window into a virtual world. Whether or not you want to take that step is like deciding if you want to see a film of the book or radio play. Do you want the extra dimension? Imagination shouldn't be relegated to 2-D by dimensional fascists in the same way irrational supporters of literature and radio view film.



I think the hang up of those who see 3-D as a gimmick; the threat or unnecessary addition to the cinema experience betray the same fear of change theatre goers must have felt to the emergence of cinema. Yet 3-D cinema in time will get us back to that theatre experience. Except we're on stage, roaming the set, getting up close to the actors, and then being transported to locations as far as the poles, as far a space itself. To deny 3-D is to deny the evolution of the cinema experience that was formulated in its very early days.



3-D cinema requires a big canvas to truly work. The giant formats of the 50's like Cinema would have been ideal, filling the peripheral vision but that's an impossibly costly format change. The 3-D cinema of today is the compromise, not the ideal. Having to still fit within the constraints of conventional cinema. If anything, it's 2-D cinema that's the problem. The question shouldn't be when was the last time you saw a good 3-D film, more like when will there be a good cinema worth showing a 3-D film in? Currently the only answer lies with IMAX.





I think Mark Kermode needs to see a good 3-D movie in a good cinema made by a director who knows how to draw you into the picture. And if he is a luddite to the premise of 3-D cinema, then I am probably a philistine to film. I go to the cinema about 3-4 times a year and they are always the big spectaculars. A bunch of talking heads I can see on TV (the home of story and characters (;)) where I tend to get most of my film experience from). I look to the cinema for the "Big Screen" escapism, something todays TV's (at the moment) can't provide.



As an indication of how seductive spectacle can be, I will probably see 2012 at the cinema. I'm under no illusion that the story and characters will be secondary (if present at all). It'll be the CGI Apocalypse I'll be going for. And I'll probably think it would've been better in 3-D!

Placing you in the moment, in danger be it from a speeding train or collapsing world has been a part of cinema from day one. An equal and valid part as much as story and characters. The difference being in my case, 3-D will actually get me into the multiplex. The film industry will make money from me. It's show and business.



It's the future of cinema as we know it... until we get Holo-decks in our front room! (Now that IS the future!)

@ Mark Harrison



The problem here is, which is also, I think, the good doctor's problem: it's often putting style over substance. Up was great because of its characters, not because of its 3D. Like you said, 2012 will probably have glorious 3D, but a useless story and characters. By the looks of it, so will AVATAR. Yes, there haven't been really great 3D movies yet, but I don't think cinema is about spectacle and illusion at all. It helps, certainly, to propel a good (or even a bad) movie along, but the main reason cinema exists, for me at least, is storytelling.

again. content not working ... grmmbbbll.

My parents watched a vampire movie in the cinema on their first date. It was the fearless vampire killers. This movie must have meant a lot to my dad because he insisted on me watching it at the age of 5. Needless to say I've had some long nights shivering with fear, and vampires have turned up in my nightmares ever since. Though these days they dont frighten me at all.

It was in an issue of Empire where they asked a number of directors whether they would be embracing the 3D format that Sam Mendes gave the best response, "I have, it's called the theatre." I think that sums it up for me.



Back on topic: Glad to hear you've watched at least one episode of Buffy, Dr. Kermode. However you need to see the first three seasons to see why Twilight is very outdated.

Mark,



Just listening to your latest podcast, whilst day-dreaming at my desk about a film i saw for the first time this weekend - Near Dark.



No idea that you had all been rightly giving it the accolade this past week, and in logging onto your blog for the first time to say my bit about it, realised i was pipped to it by you and your following.



Great to see that the film (that i had previously no knowledge of) is recognised and appreciated by you all. For me it definitely ranks up there as one of the best vampire / occult films. Can't seem to stop thinking about it.



I saw that a remake is potentially in the works, but is on hold during the current Twilight releases... please don't! groan!

has anyone any advice as to how to vbiew this content?

thanks

Keep it Gothic, keep it sexy, keep it scary and spare me the teenage angst.