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david-ross1956
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No Drums, No Bugles (1972)
Why no DVD or download?
This film was shown in the UK many, many years ago under the title 'The Forests Are Almost Gone Now.' It made a profound impact on me in three ways. First, as a US Civil War movie which didn't rely on blood & guts, second as an (obvious) allegory on Vietnam and third, for the way in which it kept my attention from start to finish despite the lack of characters and action in the conventional movie sense.
Although it was made before Martin Sheen became a big name star, I doubt if he ever gave a better performance than in this movie.
I have been searching for it high and low and would have thought that in the era of DVDs & internet downloads, it would be readily available. Not so. The only format it appears to be available in is VHS formatted for the USA, and therefore incompatible with Europe.
Surely, someone, somewhere has (or knows who has) the rights to this. It wouldn't cost much to make it available as an Amazon or iTunes download and thus satisfy not only fans of the film who would love to see it again, but also introduced it to a new generation deprived of what is IMHO one of the best war (or anti-war) films ever made.
Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)
As bad as Braveheart - and that's B.A.D.
After the superb earlier Elizabeth movie starring Cate Blanchett I sat down to watch this expecting more of the same. Instead I saw Margaret Thatcher & Errol Flynn take on the dark lord Sauron as scripted by the Comic Strip.
I should have known from the opening scenes which depicted Fotheringay Castle as set in a lake and surrounded by mountains. The Northamptonshire Alps perchance? The 52-year-old Elizabeth (the film opens in 1585) is still busy looking for a husband and issuing public statements about her fertility. Enter Clive Owen as Errol Flynn as Raleigh (with a bit of Drake, Essex & Leicester grafted on so as to avoid confusing the viewer with more than one leading man). There's one ludicrous piece of outright Flynnery when Raleigh single-handedly sets fire to the Spanish Armada. Blanchett sounds like a strident renaissance Thatcher. Samantha Morton gives Mary, Queen of Scots a twee Scottish accent which it is highly unlikely the real Mary ever possessed, having been taken to France as a small child and subsequently spent less than eight years in Scotland. Philip II is shown as the evil mastermind, plotting- mostly in shadow - the downfall of Elizabeth.
After interminable scenes of dancing and Thatcher/Flynn flirting Mary is executed having been caught bang to rights up to her soon-to-have-the-head-separated-from-it-neck in plotting to kill Thatcher. None of the genuine historical ambivalence about her 'guilt' is displayed. I half expected Tom Hollander - her jailer - to shout 'you're nicked, chummy'.
Meanwhile Blanchett/Elizabeth/Thatcher morphs into Boadicea/Joan of Arc, dressed in full body armour and with her hair having grown three feet in a day and addresses her troops. The famous line about being a 'weak and feeble woman' is excised from the script, probably for fear of offending somebody. Drake gets a brief mention during the sea battle (which, conveniently, can be seen clearly from the shore by the Queen) but otherwise is non-existent.
Enough. I've wasted enough of my life watching this drivel without taking up more time writing about it. It really is as bad as Braveheart. I hope I haven't given anyone any ideas saying that. "When Wallace met Lizzie" may yet be made.