The Assistant (2019)

Never sit on the couch.  Recent North Western graduate and aspiring film producer Jane (Julia Garner) just landed her dream job as a junior assistant to a powerful entertainment mogul at a famous production company. Her day starts before dawn, making coffee, ordering lunch, making travel arrangements and taking phone messages. But as she follows her daily routine, she grows increasingly aware of the abuse that insidiously colors every aspect of her workday, an accumulation of degradations against which she decides to take a stand when she meets inexperienced waitress Sienna (Kristine Froseth) and takes her by taxi to the Mark Hotel and later her office colleagues (Noah Robbins and Jon Orsini) joke that that’s where their boss is spending the afternoon. It dawns on her what’s happening. She takes her complaint to company human resources officer Wilcock (Matthew McFadyen) who persuades her that she’s actually jealous:  Don’t worry about it, she’ll get more out of it than he will. Trust me. He is clearly well aware of his boss’ predilections as is everyone at the company while her colleagues get her to apologise by email to Him … I don’t think you’ve anything to worry about. You’re not his type. The #MeToo era has finally pulled back the curtain on the raging sexist bullying of the media business, not that it was ever going to be a surprise for any woman who has ever had that particular experience. In other words you didn’t have to work for Harvey Weinstein to know that that is how things go, it’s just that he’s the most egregious example and a clear influence on this striking debut by writer/director/producer (and documentary maker) Kitty Green. It’s a small and personal work, focused on the reactions of the protagonist and the only voice that’s raised is that of her nameless boss, behind closed doors, on the phoneline, never seen directly, communicating via Non-Disclosure Agreements, the semen stains in his office, the Viagra bottles and the parade of young women leaving, eyes down, from his office which is clearly modelled on Miramax, now bust, toxicity emanating in the air from his vile presence. Garner’s face does so much of the dramatic suspense for the story – absorbing the psychological sucker punch of what she’s inadvertently arranging for her boss – assignations of rape and sexual coercion. Structured like a mystery over the course of a day in which Jane has to piece together the bigger picture from hints and clues, this is subtly shocking and impressive as an admirably controlled commentary on the abuse of power and its widespread acceptance and nurturing by fawning sexist corrupt help, the kind you find in every office. A quiet scream.  I’m tough on you because I’m gonna make you great

A View to a Kill (1985)

A typical Reds to riches story. Bond (Roger Moore)returns from his travels in the U.S.S.R. with a computer chip. This chip is capable of withstanding a nuclear electromagnetic pulse that would otherwise destroy a normal chip. The chip was created by Zorin Industries, and Bond heads off to investigate its owner, Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), first encountering him at Ascot where despite the form of competitors his horses win against the odds. Zorin is really planning to set off an earthquake along the Hayward and San Andreas faults, which will wipe out all of Silicon Valley, the heart of the world’s microchip production. As well as Zorin, Bond must also tackle his sidekick, hit woman May Day (Grace Jones) and equally menacing companion of Zorin, while dragging State Geologist Stacy Sutton (Tanya Roberts) along for the ride… Well my dear, I take it you spend quite a lot of time in the saddle. Written by Richard Maibaum and producer Michael G, Wilson, this is the fourteenth Bond and the seventh and final to star Moore and is adapted from Ian Fleming’s story From a View to a Kill. Unusually violent for the series, with Walken machine-gunning large groups of people in a mass slaughter, albeit his origins as the product of a Nazi experiment explains the high body count. It’s more than redeemed by an awesomely staged pre-titles ski chase and another genuinely impressive chase through Paris, commencing on the Eiffel Tower and continuing with Moore following Jones in a parachute but on the ground, in a car gradually broken up (literally) in traffic before he jumps onto a bateau mouche, only to watch Jones escape in a speed boat piloted by Walken: David Bowie and Sting were first offered the role of Zorin who is perhaps a little too light although his sinister laugh paradoxically suggests the requisite insanity. In a Freudian touch the scientist responsible for him is his in-house scientist. It’s nice to see Walter Gotell returning as Soviet General Gogol while Lois Maxwell makes her final appearance as Moneypenny. The weakest acting link is Roberts but you can blame the screenplay for her shortcomings. There’s a great role for Patrick Macnee as 007’s sidekick (for a while!) Sir Godfrey Tibbett and Patrick Bauchau makes an appearance as Zorin’s security chief, Scarpine.  Dolph Lundgren makes a brief appearance, his debut, as Venz, one of Gogol’s KGB agents. There’s a welcome appearance by David Yip as the CIA agent who assists Bond in a return of the action to the US and the climax at the Golden Gate Bridge is well done. All in all it’s a bright and colourful outing for our favourite spy. The stonking title song is performed by Duran Duran who co-wrote it with John Barry. Directed by John Glen, his third time at the series’ helm. What would you be without us? A biological experiment? A physiological freak?

Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)

Our gorgeous lie did not even last the night. Hong Kong 1949. American journalist Mark Elliott (William Holden) is covering the Chinese civil war. Undergoing a trial separation from his wife, he meets beautiful Dr. Han Suyin (Jennifer Jones), a widowed Eurasian physician originally from mainland China. As the pair fall in love, they encounter disapproval from both her family, his friends and Hong Kong society about their interracial romance … I have my work and an uncomplicated life. I don’t want to feel anything again… ever. This outrageously beautiful melodrama lingers long in the memory for its Widescreen Deluxe images, shot by the great Leon Shamroy, including two weeks on location in its Hong Kong setting; and its cast. Adapted by John Patrick from Suyin’s 1952 autobiographical novel it’s a pulsatingly lush romance, played to the hilt and given gravitas with its issues of race against a background of the war in China leading to a takeover by the Communist Party. The subject matter meant there was trouble getting it off the ground in those censorious days. The production was no less troubled, with the stars eventually coming to loathe each other. None of that matters because the performances sing in a carefully dramatised story that boasts some of the most romantic scenes in either of their careers. All those love letters, kissing on hilltops, swimming … it’s a spectacular and vivid epic, sad and tender. And was there ever a more impressive hunk of sexy mid-century masculinity than Holden?! There is a strong supporting cast including Torin Thatcher, Murray Matheson and Isobel Elsom, rounding out a snapshot of colonial life in those post-WW2 days. Ornamenting the gorgeous score by Alfred Newman is the title song by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster, one of the great movie themes, and it’s sung by The Four Aces. It was an enormous hit, just like the film.  Patrick would write another Hong Kong-set romance starring Holden, The World of Suzie Wong. Directed by Henry King, who had a knack for making beautiful films, with second unit location work by Otto Lang, who is uncredited. Love is nature’s way of giving a reason to be living, The golden crown that makes a man a king