Arctic Light

Callan
A 1960s-70s TV series about David Callan, government assassin. It seems not all of this survives, but some of it is available on DVD and we've been watching the black and white episodes. Some of them were evidently recovered in a slightly weird way and you get odd ghostly images and moments when the picture jumps slightly, but it didn't matter because it's very watchable. It's a tightly written, dark series about an unmentionable branch of the British government that does assassinations and other black ops. Callan is our expert, miserable, lonely assassin and general purpose operative, assigned to jobs like helping the Israelis abduct a Nazi war criminal for trial, or figuring out whether or not a young woman is about to leak nuclear secrets to the Soviets, or investigating the mysterious death of a French intelligence agent, or retrieving his new boss from East Germany through a minefield. Sometimes he's clearly doing something important, other times it's all a disaster, and when he can Callan makes his own decisions about who lives and who doesn't. The government department is extremely cold: they routinely torture people or question them under drugs, the commanding officer - always named Charley Hunter regardless of his actual name - has little regard for his men's safety or how many innocent people get hurt in the process of saving the nation, and Callan's fellow assassin is a very posh sadist. It's only by contrast with them that Callan is a nice guy. Callan's only friend is a shabby little petty thief known as Lonely who Callan bullies, insults and protects in equal degree and who can be relied upon to follow people, burgle houses, keep watch or know a fellow petty criminal who can do anything Callan wants done. In return Callan will fight anyone up to and including his fellow assassins and his boss to protect Lonely from harm, and also makes sure he eats and bathes occasionally. We've watched maybe a dozen of the episodes and they've all been very well done.


The Baader-Meinhof Complex (2008)
A German-language film about the Red Army Faction far-left terrorists of the 1970s and 80s. I didn't really know what to expect going into this, it's 18-rated which I tend to be a bit wary of, and there was a lot of very graphic violence. But it was absolutely fascinating, it's not a documentary or a biopic but it is attempting to stay very close to the historical events, showing very clearly both the understandable and even virtuous motives of the RAF and their reasoning behind their actions and the extent to which they had public support - and also the devastation they caused and the destruction of lives eventually including their own. A really good unflinching look at terrorism, and at a segment of history that I have read a little of lately but not in depth.


Design For Living (1933)
A film I have heard about for years and never watched, the classic OT3 of all OT3s. Based - loosely - on the Noel Coward play of the same title, this is about Gilda and the two young men, George and Tom, she meets in a train compartment. George is a painter, Tom a playwright, Gilda a commercial artist, and after Gilda goes out with both men simultaneously, they end up living in a platonic menage a trois. However, this falls apart when Gilda sleeps with one of the two, and after that the narrative tries out all the dyads possible: Gilda and George, Gilda and Tom, then Gilda decides to try being respectable and marries Mr Impeccable Virtue and Three Square Meals Plunkett leaving George and Tom alone together - but none of the dyads work and eventually the three of them drive off into the sunset together. The film is hilarious and adorable and tremendous fun to watch, I highly recommend it. I found it on Youtube here if anyone else wants to enjoy a hilarious and sincerely OT3 romp. And I shall have to try to track down the play to see what the differences are.


In other film-related news, Cub spent his Christmas money on a small projector and screen and has created a mini beanbag cinema, and therefore has suddenly taken an interest in watching films - he always refused to watch films before and said he didn't like them at all. Now, watching films on your own is boring, but watching films with Mum is a lot more fun especially if Mum can be persuaded to provide snacks too. Anyway, Cub is quite cautious with films and doesn't want anything with too much in the way of gore, emotional distress or kissing, and he does like war stories, so older war films of the more sanitised but still exciting kind are right up his street. He had a wonderful time with The Great Escape and We Dive At Dawn and Angels One Five and The Colditz Story and The Guns of Navarone, he liked Ice Cold In Alex too though it had a bit more kissing than he really wanted, but when I tried him on Master & Commander for a change of pace (and no kissing!) he found the whole children having their arms amputated aspect, plus a suicide, a bit too upsetting and didn't sleep well afterwards, and also while I tried to persuade him that it represented the pinnacle of technology at the time he wasn't having it; he wanted engines! The Imitation Game got points for being a true story and about computers, though he found the multiple threads confusing. He thoroughly enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick which has just about an acceptable kissing:aircraft ratio and we've just started Mission Impossible though this also has slightly more kissing than he really wants but also superb action sequences. I'd like to try him on Star Trek but so far he has been very resistant to aliens and spaceships as far too unrealistic, he likes stories about things that relate to the real world or to history best - he asked me suspiciously if Mission Impossible was superheroes when I suggested it, and he is very anti anything that involves fantasy. Obviously at some point I will have to introduce him to Bond. And I'll happily take suggestions for other things, especially if they're available on BBC iPlayer or one of the other UK streaming TV services.