When I met Richard Kiel, I talked to him about that. Turns out he was already signed to be Jaws when he did Silver Streak. Also, great performance by Richard Pryor. The scene where they steal a car from the dealership is classic.
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I agree with many of your points, however, I did wonder if this film works because of the MCU, as much of it is “okay…but on the other hand”
So much of the film is a counter argument that I doubt it would work in the era it’s set, or, potentially, 30 years from now when society and the film industry are at different places.
Watch it now, and it’s a scathing indictment of where we are.
Watch it in 2040 and it’ll seem like a brilliant performance with a lot of padding.
This is not a criticism of the film, this is saying, watch it NOW if you want to get the films full effect.
1917
A visual achievement in filmmaking, that sacrifices plot and character development for gimmicky film and special effects.
Roger Deakins is once again in top form, while Thomas Newman’s score for the most part is magnificant.
For the most part, the first half is gripping and believable, the second part however, descends into melodramatic cliches, and checks off the standard list of war film requirements.
Was expecting much more from a Best Film winner.
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I got for Christmas a complete The Professionals dvd set.
Wow! This is great! I don’t know if this show was ever broadcast on Dutch television, but I never saw it, only years later I saw a couple of repeats in the night on German television, but in German it is not the same.
It’s a great show with three excellent leads in Gordon Jackson, Martin Sheen and Lewis Collins, I now completely understand why people think Collins would have been a great Bond.
Great theme by Laurie Johnson, who also did ofcourse the themes of The Avengers and The New Avengers with Patrick Magnee as Steed.
A lot of famous and not so famous people in smaller and bigger parts, including the guy who played Brezhnev in Octopussy and last but not least Star Wars’ own Palpatine as a sniper!
It’s very addictive: three, or four episodes in a row in the late evening is common practise the last few weeks, I will miss it when I have seen them all!
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It’s a bona fide high point of British tv.
Collins was the stand out - so much so that it apparently vexed Shaw, who was obviously peeved that Collins abundant charisma was getting more headlines than his acting chops.
Martin Campbell directed on the show, giving him the perfect experience for GE and CR.
They tried to reboot it (in the late 90s I think), but that tanked. The Professional’s success wasn’t so much about the format, but the group of talented actors and directors it assembled. If they want to reboot it again they need to heed that, rather than depend upon a title and a great theme (probably my favourite tv theme).
Oh, and it made ford capris sooooo cool!
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You should have bought the blu ray set. The picture quality is amazing…
Can you imagine Lewis Collins in FYEO kicking Loque over the cliff, really running up the stairs before, directed by Martin Campbell?
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I can and it’s bloody great!
Finally got to see The Rise of Skywalker with my kids, who absolutely loved it, and went off to play it in the garden afterwards!
I really liked it. It was a kind of Greatest Hits package for Star Wars fans. Great camaraderie on the Falcon, Lando, more dialogue for C3PO, the return of an iconic villain and some great lines.
It was a present, so I’m not complaining and in The Netherlands you only have the dvd set. The picture quality of the dvd’s is also excellent! I have no complaints.
If you haven’t already, you should check this out , there are a lot of what if moments for us Bond fans…
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It’s far better than one would expect. Collins is on top form, the villain is great and the action skews to realism which hits the right note in a movie about the SAS.
And it has a fantastic score by Roy Budd which I prefer to many a bond score (he also did Get Carter’s iconic score).
Oh, and apparently Kubrick was a fan of the movie.
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The film has 11 Oscar nominations, more than any other film this year.
Joaquin Phoenix joins Heath Ledger in getting an Oscar nom for playing The Joker…Jared Leto must feel like crap right now.
“Wait 'til they get a load of me!”–Jack Nicholson’s Joker.
Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Carrie Fisher
Dir. J.J. Abrams
Dir. J.J. Abrams
A mixed bag of a film if there ever was one, which, I suppose, makes it the perfect ending to what has been very much a mixed bag of a triilogy.
J.J. Abrams returns to the director’s chair after the departure of Colin Trevorrow and with the fan backlash to The Last Jedi clearly in mind, delivering a film that feels like the safest possible landing for the franchise’s finale.
This is both the film’s strength and its weakness, as the return to the safe storytelling of The Force Awakens brings some wonderful nostalgic moments to the table while also making the film feel as though it’s spending most of its time trying to appeal to the fans that felt “betrayed” by the risks The Last Jedi took. In the end, this makes for a film that spends a bit too much time looking back than it does looking forward to a satisfying conclusion, which is something that, unfortunately, ultimately escapes this film and, therefore, the main saga of this franchise.
The strength of The Rise of Skywalker lies within its lead performances. Daisy Ridley is a standout here, bringing Rey from her humble, plucky origins in The Force Awakens to her place as the would-be Jedi savior in The Rise of Skywalker. She’s the heart of the film, and indeed the sequel trilogy, giving the viewer something original to hold on to as the film’s core in what is otherwise an exercise in nostalgia. She continues to be the best thing about the sequel trilogy, giving the franchise a hero worthy to succeed Mark Hamill’s Luke. Ridley’s performance allows Rey to rise above the somewhat inconsistent directions they’ve given the character over the three films.
Her best moments are the ones she shares with Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren, especially those where they have their long-distance conversations. That concept is handled especially well in The Rise of Skywalker, giving the film something that feels unique to it, even though we had seen this concept in the other films, it’s taken to a different level here. Driver once again excels as Ren, giving the film the conflicted villainous presence it needs against what is otherwise a backdrop of cartoonish bad guys. The best thing about this film is the tension between the two and, while there is plenty of it in the film, it’s something that I wish that the trilogy had been a bit more fearless in exploring.
The rest of the film is what you’d expect it to be. Having completely botched The First Order as a villainous outfit, it was fairly obvious that Abrams would reach back into the franchise’s past for a villainous presence in The Rise of Skywalker. While welcome on a fanservice level, it’s not a particularly original or exciting revelation, and one that leads the viewer to ask as many, if not more questions than they have answered by the end of the saga. Along with it come “revelations”, if they can be called that, that not only could even the least discerning viewer among us see coming from some miles away, but also seem to fly in the face of what had come before in the sequel trilogy.
The rest of the gang is back and are in fine form once again. It’s better this time around to see Finn and Poe alongside Rey as opposed to their spending the bulk of the film apart. This is one of the times in which the obvious course correction from The Last Jedi is a welcome part of the film. It should also be said that Abrams and company do an admirable job recreating footage of Carrie Fisher from The Force Awakens to allow her to have a part in this film. While it is an admirable job that they do with what they had to work with, it is somewhat distracting and even slightly uncomfortable, but given the options that they had, short of recasting the part, I think that they did the best that they could do with what they had to work with.
From a story perspective, The Rise of Skywalker is both your typical Star Wars fare, and also its weakest element. The plot is about what you’d expect from these films at this point. The heroes are sent on what amounts to a fetch quest, trying to find something just this side of a McGuffin that will allow them to get to the place that they want to go. This would all be fine if it led to something truly magnificent at the end. While the ending of The Rise of Skywalker is undoubtedly its narrative strength, it isn’t the kind of grand climactic moment that a nine-film saga like Star Wars deserves. A much more epic conclusion, one that didn’t draw on several of the other villainous schemes that we’ve seen before in the franchise, would have lifted the film to the level that it deserved go to. Instead, the film builds up to a climax that feels much smaller than a story nine films in the making deserves.
At the end of the day, the sequel trilogy will no doubt be hailed as a success for Disney and Lucasfilm. It successfully washed the bad taste out of the mouths of Star Wars fans, the taste put there by the abysmal prequel trilogy. Even still, there are missed opportunities strewn about the new trilogy, and that is especially the case with The Rise of Skywalker. We’ve been given some of the franchise’s best moments thanks to Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver, but at the same time, the number of missed opportunities here is staggering, with the nerves needed to take risks with such a franchise seemingly having been shot by the fan reaction to The Last Jedi. While this is largely a satisfying film on its own, it also stands as slightly disappointing considering what it could have, and should have, been.
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I finally have seen all episodes of The Professionals, it took me a month and I finished it last night. Wow! What was this great!
My question: was the show canceled suddenly, because the last episode was just a regular one and had no real ending, or one last memorable scene, or something special.
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The cast apparently didn’t get on, Shaw being an ACTOR desperately trying to leave for at least 4 seasons, as soon as he could be was gone, I believe they then do don’t bother trying to renew with a new actor. Shaw then stuck the knife in by refusing to allow repeats for a very long time.
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I forgot to say they finished filming in 1981 but stretched those episodes into another couple of series, so it was on air till 83
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Also, did British telly really do ‘finales’ in those days. Everything was very much ep of the week - no story arcs - and kept on going until it didn’t.
Off the top of my head the only 70s/80s show I recall having a proper finale was Blake’s 7.
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I seem to recall reading there was a huge sense of Star Trek The Next Generation season 3 being a surprise, mostly because end of season cliffhangers weren’t really done, and that was American TV.
In regards to Brit Tv, I seem to recall even as near as 2004, there was a general assumption of you’re either stand alone story of the week episodes, if you were going for multiple series, or you were what’s now seen as a limited series, with a firm start, middle and end with no intention of a second series.
Oddly, Good Omens, The Night Manager and Dracula would be series in recent memory that still fit that mould, yet, for all, there was an expectation for second seasons, even before they were aired.
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