Day: Oct 25, 2016

Fastback Flashback

We attempt to remain aloof to the Rover SD1’s visual appeal, but like the car itself, we fall at the final hurdle.

Image: stubs-auto.fr

When it comes to legacies and reputations, has sufficient time elapsed to talk about the Rover SD1 without falling into the usual narrative tramlines? It’s a tricky one isn’t it? After all, the big Rover remains a deeply likeable car with much to commend it. Yet at the same time, although it never quite attained Lancia Gamma levels of toxicity, it became the living embodiment of British Leyland’s genius for snatching defeat from the cusp of victory.

It’s easy to Continue reading “Fastback Flashback”

Theme : Film – Cop Out

DTW fearlessly exposes the possibility of widespread corruption in the TV Police Force.

It's been going on for ages : 1960s Los Angeles Homicide Police Captain Amos Burke and his unmarked car.
It’s been going on for ages : 1960s Los Angeles Homicide Police Captain Amos Burke and his unmarked car.

Film-makers are sometimes depressingly conservative, sometimes surprisingly ambitious. One particular bit of audaciousness is the conceit that you can take a book that took 2 years to write, that would take 2 weeks to read and boil it all down to a 2 hour movie, maybe less. Without that juicy rights cheque, how many authors would let that happen? But despite this, there are screenwriters who make a reasonable fist of the job, creating at least a shell of the original, or maybe a pared-down alternative.

One of the difficulties in doing this is the representation of a character. A novelist can spend several pages, using the protagonist’s inner thoughts, in order to give the reader a pretty good idea of who they are. In a movie you can’t Continue reading “Theme : Film – Cop Out”