I’m currently working my way through a three-months-for-the-price-of-one offer from those nice people at and consequently watching far more movies than usual.

This week’s two films would struggle to be more different: bona fide 1950’s classic All About Eve and 1998’s slasher Bride of Chucky. What they have in common is that both are surprisingly funny.

Having enjoyed Bette Davis’s peformance in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? I ordered All About Eve, which reignited her career in middle age. It tells the story of stage star Margo Channing (a scene-stealing Davis) and her adoring fan and budding actress Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). George Sanders also stands out in a strong cast, which features a small role from Marilyn Monroe. It’s a drama and filmed in a stagey style, with some rooms noticeably filmed from one side only, but given the subject matter of actors and actresses and some sensibilities of drawing room comedy, this is not a problem.

The real star, alongside Davis herself, is writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz extremely sharp script right from the conversational opening narration. The film buzzes with one-liners, witty retorts and sparkling badinage, and the actors lap it up. The result is a funny but dramatic story, mostly told in flashback, ending with one of cinema’s classic shots. My only criticism was that the second half was slightly long for my taste (the film is over two-and-a-quarter hours long), but arguably that’s just more bang for your buck. I blogged back in spring 2005 that I’d seen less than half of the IMDb‘s 100 then top-rated films. I haven’t made much advance since then, but at least I can tick off All About Eve and I heartily recommend it.

One film I wouldn’t have predicted a few weeks ago that I would be watching is Bride of Chucky, aka Child’s Play 4. Child’s Play 3 is a particularly notorious video nasty in this country and, not a massive fan of slasher films, I’ve never been tempted to watch any of the series. Recently, though, I read somewhere a review of the fourth film that indicated it was, unlikely though it seems, an entertaining change of direction for the series and worth a look, so I took advantage of my unlimited rentals to watch it.

And the review was right. Whereas the earlier films (so I read) concentrated on being violent, Bride of Chucky is a comedy first and a horror film second. It’s self-deprecating (on seeing the doll a chracter remarks, “Chucky? He’s so 80s!” while Chucky comments later “If this were a movie, it would take three or four sequels to do it justice”). As horror comedies demand, it parodies the genre, including visual references to Hellraiser, Bride of Frankenstein – obviously – and Psycho. It’s no more violent than some of the Scream movies and, to my surprise, manages to be funnier.

The cast includes Gordon Michael Woolvett off of Andromeda, Sunset Beach‘s Nick Stabile and Family Guy‘s Jennifer Tilly, with rent-a-madman Brad Dourif (off of Babylon 5 and Lord of the Rings amongst others) returning as the voice of Chucky. Coincidentally, Peter Preston’s Observer review draws comparisons between Tilly and Bette Davis – and, as if to prove this film is worth a try despite its pedigree, Peter Bradshaw hated it.

If you’ve seen the excellent US animated series Family Guy, you may be familiar with this clip of Stewie Griffin performing a version of Elton John’s Rocket Man:


Naturally I assumed when I first saw this that the writers had come up with this particularly absurd performance. How wrong I was. Back in the dim and distant past (the 1970s), some fule invited (or possible allowed) host William Shatner, notorious “interpreter” of hit songs, to, er, perform this track at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards. We are blessed that a recording of this momentous event has survived. Do watch it all the way through to fully appreciate its, um, brilliance.

I took advantage of a day off today to watch my favourite episode (so far) of Adam Adamant Lives!, a 1966 Austin Powers-esque series about a swashbuckling Edwardian hero who is frozen in time and wakes up in the swinging sixties.

This particular episode is called To Set a Deadly Fashion and involves an absurd spying plot involving haute couture dresses containing hidden bugging devices which are sold to diplomats’ wives – and which can also kill. We never find out who the secrets are being sold to but it doesn’t really matter – the episode is carried by Adam Adamant himself and Roger Clair, the villain. Gerald Harper (right – he has something of the David Tennant about him) plays the title character perfectly. He’s charismatic and poised, but thrown by the modern world: in this story, he finds himself sitting beside the catwalk at a fashion show at which models in swimwear are paraded in front of him. Appalled, he averts his eyes.

The antagonist, Roger (pretentiously pronounced Roget, like the thesaurus) Clair, is a fashion designer, who subverts the stereotype by also being a spy. This also subverts the stereotype for villains in this sort of adventure series: rather than shouting “Guards, seize him!” or somesuch, he snaps at his goons (“I’m in no mood for your sarcasm, Philip!”) and throws hissy fits. Colin Jeavons (left) pitches the role exactly right: just enough campness to entertain without going so over the top as to fall into the style of the contemporary Batman series. (He would go on to play the equally arch Tim Stamper alongside Ian Richardson’s Francis Urquhart in House of Cards and To Play the King, and was also in the Doctor Who story The Underwater Menace” and Who spin-off K-9 and Company.)

He is helped by some great dialogue. No Bond villain ever uttered, “Any more delays and I shall be absolutely furious, I know I shall,” or “Thank heavens for built-in bras.” Faced with Adam Adamant, he is frustrated more than anything else:

“My nerves are in absolute shreds but you will persist in being difficult. One more word, just one, and I shan’t be responsible for my actions.”

He can’t bring himself to kill Adamant simply, though, like all action villains and despite his sidekick’s urging. He instructs his goon to kill Adamant on a cue: when the fashion show announcer declares “…executed in Grecian drapes.” It’s little surprise that Adam Adamant Lives! was the BBC’s answer to The Avengers.

Nich has tagged me with Iain’s “Ten Things I Would Never Do” meme. This has taken me a while as I’ve found it quite tricky, being more of a “Never say never” chap (but definitely not a Never Say Never Again chap), so some of the list are on the Grumpy Old Men side. Without nicking too many from other people who’ve done this, here are my ten. I reserve the right to maybe do some of these things, and, more importantly, never to do other things not listed below.

1. Become vegetarian
   Short of some Survivors style disaster that wipes out all the animals (or at least all the tasty ones), I couldn’t be vegetarian. I can make do with a Quorn-based meal from time to time, but meat is too delicious and proteiny to lose from my diet. Mmm, poultry…
2. Join a religion
   Some nice buildings and music, but no thanks. I’ve tried in the past and I just can’t do it. I’d quote Fox Mulder’s “I Want To Believe” poster, but I really don’t.
3. Wear a beard to party conference
   I am a lazy shaver (I broke my razor last night trying to clear the thicket) but since my first party conference I have had a policy of going clean shaven so as not to reinforce certain stereotypes about the Liberal Democrats. That conference in Torquay did demonstrate, though, why I don’t shave often: shortly after arriving at my hotel, I had a shave and cut the hard-to-avoid mole on my chin, delaying my arrival at the conference itself by about an hour while I lay in my room waiting for the bleeding to stop and hoping not to pass out…
4. Buy organic food
   A seven-letter word used to con middle class worriers into paying through the nose in the belief they’re getting a better product.
5. Go to G.A.Y.
   Many times I have walked past the Astoria on Charing Cross Road and seen their cinema style “What’s On” sign advertising one of these godawful nights, most of which feature some desperate miming pop group hoping the fickle punters will fork out for their shoddy single, and promised myself that I would never be dragged there, not even “ironically”. (One of my friends did go and tells me she ended up having a lovely chat with Brian off of Big Brother, so that pretty much confirms my apprehensions.)
6. Use a Barclays Bank deposit machine
   This week’s mini crisis was Barclays losing a what I considered a significant sum of my money (although it pales in comparion to the five figure sum a colleague told me her bank misplaced!). They’ve since found it and agreed to refund the charge they made for causing me to be overdrawn but I’d rather not have a repeat.
7. Wear white socks
   Shamelessly nicked from inspired by Stephen’s list. I don’t and won’t. I would consider an exception were I to play sport, but I think we all know that Hell will host the Winter Olympics before that happens. I also don’t wear shorts, but I won’t quite rule out that ever happening.
8. Purchase music by a boyband
   Online purchasing may let you hide your shame, but I still just couldn’t.
9. Watch daytime talk shows
   Of the Kilroy/Trisha/Jeremy Kyle variety. Can’t see the attraction, even as car crash TV.
10. Dye my hair to hide the grey
    I’m partly relying on the expectation of not actually going grey. I might do it for fun though.

I don’t usually go in for tagging, trendbucking cool kid that I am, but I feel in the mood at the moment so I shall tag Gavin, Rob, Alan, and Lisa.