Greatest Movie of All Time of the Week: Excalibur!

Article theme: Excalibur - Headstone

Real Männerbund hours are now in effect.

Undoubtedly the greatest cinematic treatment of the Arthuriad, John Boorman's Excalibur eschews any modish notion of realism (read: everything looking grey and brown) for downright psychedelic aesthetic excess. Smoke, fog, flames, lightning, weird green glows emanating from the titular sword (or nowhere in particular) combine in a deliriously heightened fever dream. Performances are almost childlike in their raw emotion. Dialogue has a way of being pertinent to everything while specific to nothing, as in a dream you sense is laden with meaning you can't articulate; as when you briefly glimpse the worlds beyond the veil.

It's my position that Arthur was a real historical figure *and* his Britain had this stylised aesthetic, and I'm sticking to it.

Arthur (Nigel Terry) himself is decentred, appearing late in the game, a symbolic figurehead whose rise is engineered by scene-stealing upstart protagonist Merlin (Nicol Williamson) after the disappointment of his efforts to steer Uther (Gabriel Byrne) toward the same role. Merlin, against his reservations, helps Uther bang Lady Igraine (Katrine Boorman) on the condition that their child will be his - for this Merlin is all but stated to be a faery in the classic, pre-Disney sense of the word: an enigmatic woodland spirit who steals away human children for mysterious ends. He can see somewhat of the future, perhaps influence it in some ways, but for all his wisdom and insight cannot altogether change the course of fate.

Damn, Merlin, I'm on thin ice with the ADL as it is.

Under his guidance, Arthur sees off Saxon raiders and presides over a fleeting golden age (golden while?) which is doomed to end in dissolution and darkness. The essence of Arthur's arc is apprehending the true nature of his role, not as a man but as a beacon by which future generations, lost in the abyssal ocean of horror, might find their way.

It's never over.

Movie Thursday Presents: Point Blank!!?

Point Blank is the best movie ever.

I saw Point Blank by accident during a period of watching every movie on TV. And people said I’d never amount to anything that way. Well I proved them wrong: I saw Point Blank.

Point Blank stars Lee Marvin as the best character ever: WALKER. Walker is betrayed and left for dead during a heist in the classiest thriller location ever: Alcatraz. The rest of the movie is Walker hunting down and murdering everyone who betrayed him, except most of them end up killing themselves and each other in their panic over Walker.

In one scene he takes a car salesman out for a test drive and rams the car into everything, smashing it to bits. This scene probably (source) inspired Walter Hill’s movie The Driver, which you also should see. Oh yeah, and another time his girlfriend or whatever tries to beat him, so he just stands there until she tires herself out, and then goes to watch infomercials. Walker: 1, domestic violence: 0. Then she goes insane and runs around the house turning on all the appliances and hits Walker with a pool cue, but when he wakes up they’re already making out, because even unconscious Walker is the best.

The movie has witty socio-economic commentary too, like the scene where Walker tries to get his money out of someone who can’t pay him because it’s all tied up in overly secure investments. The movie explores the corporate nature of organised crime, and thus, by extension, the criminal nature of business. Even better, every shot in it looks super stylish, because it was the 60s. Point Blank makes your favourite movie look like bullshit.

Movie Friday Presents: ZARDOZ.

Quick, name the best movie ever mWRONG. ZARDOZ.

Actually set in 2293, which handily avoids the Terminator problem where we pass the future in real time. Also avoided sequels.

Zardoz is the classic science fiction fable from the mind of John Boorman (Point Blank). It was made in the 1970s, when everyone wore awful clothes, dropped acid and listened to Pink Floyd. This was the best era for ridiculous future-society epics, such as the dystopian classics A Clockwork Orange and Soylent Green, and the utopian classic Logan's Run, in which everyone is killed off at 30 (awesome).

Zardoz concerns Sean Connery's exploration of a future world divided between the Eternals, who live forever in an enclosed community called the Vortex, where they hoard all learning and knowledge and dress like one of those scary Greek college houses that are always covering up dark secrets, and the Brutals, who live outside the Vortex in poverty and ignorance, and dress like BDSM dungeon keepers. Sean Connery plays a Brutal given guns and instructed to act as an Exterminator by the flying stone head known as Zardoz (all capitalisation necessary for great scifi). Zardoz drops such Ingsoc-sounding wisdom as "The gun is good. The penis is evil", for great dystopia. Connery and his moustache must discover the connection between Zardoz and the Vortex, instigating a chain of events designed to bring down the Eternals' self-imposed dystopia. I won't reveal what happens but it's better than my life and twice as weird.

Zardoz is the most visually inventive movie ever made. Every frame looks like a prog rock album cover. Everything from time-lapse aging to the sum of human knowledge being projected on people's faces and reverse slow motion gets a look-in, making the last 36 years of Best Picture winners look even lazier by comparison.

One of the most amazing things about this movie is how many people seem to think it's unintentionally funny, like a kitsch embarrassment best forgotten, when in fact it's completely intentionally over the top. Like Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, it's a pretty overt satire using camp as a device, like mood lighting or soundtrack, to give a certain insight into the madness. One clue is when the floating head of Arthur Frayn says "it's a fucking satire" right at the start of the movie (aktyooal kwote). I think people who don't get that think that people in the 70s were stoopid, probably based on their clothes.

The themes of Zardoz concern class and social hierarchy, overpopulation, groupthink and politically correct consensus, length vs quality of life, and the importance of LSD in shaping the art and culture of the 20th Century. Zardoz is the classic time forgot. I can't even find a Halloween costume of it, while stupid shit like Avatar keeps shifting units every year. Let's bring back Zardoz, for great justice.