The Admiral, or Isoroku Yamamoto, the Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet to give it it’s full title, tells the story of Japan’s chief naval officer during the second world war. Admiral Yamamoto’s has appeared in several films before – often played by the legendary Toshiro Mifune – but few films have shown the man beyond the uniform and the procedure of going to war. This is the man who gave the orders for the bombing of Pearl Harbour, sent squadrons of kamikaze pilots to their deaths and was a key player in The Battle of Midway. A sprawling two hour plus narrative should have ample time to show these events and the agonising decisions made to send men to their deaths.
This truly is a film of two halfs. Well a quarter and three quarters. One quarter of the time we are watching aerial dog fights, suicide attacks and bombings. The other three quarters involve people sat around tables discussing things. In one regard this highlights that a large part of the war machine does involved old men deciding the fate of the soldiers and officers in the thick of it. For the first half hour or so these scene remain quite interesting, especially in the build up to Pearl Harbor (personally I didn’t know that the Japanese declaration of war arrived an hour after they had already bombed) but afterwards there seems to be no end to scenes sat around tables with Admiral Yamamoto (a stoic Koji Yakusho) sat patiently listen as over marshals scream frantically. The rest of the time we see a journalist sat around a table writing, or discussing stories with his colleagues. Then there’s the journalists friends who he meets in a bar to discuss the events of the war with who cheer and over act like characters from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Yamaguchi Tamon, the journalist (Hiroshi Abe) acts as our opening and closing narrator added some back story and epilogue to the tale but other than that his character seems merely present to pad out the story. His plot thread does show the workings of a Japanese newspaper in war time but it feels like another movie in itself. Here in this story of Yamamoto it comes across as misplaced and frankly dull.
There also seems to a third movie in the scene involving the kamikaze pilots. In classic Star Wars mode it’s hard to tell the pilots apart and with little to know time to get to know them their deaths do not feel nearly as shocking as they should do. Indeed most of the pilots who plow into battleships and air craft carriers do so with a defiant smile. Perhaps more emotion would have been garnered by showing the torment and anguish some of these young men went through, bing forced into giving their lives. It made me think that I would rather be watching a film about that rather than The Admiral.
The aerial scenes are certainly beautiful to watch, albeit for slightly ropey CGI at times. Vast shots of aircraft engaged in dogfights are well photographed but fail to engage on a visceral level. Maybe the filmmakers thought an action packed plane battle would be too much of a shock after having sat watching a meeting of admirals for the past twenty minutes. Despite the poster promising action packed aerial gun fights, Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbour does win for the more balls-to-the-wall action approach – depending on your moral stand point this good be good or bad.
Central to these moments of action, scenes of people talking at tables and people talking for what seems like no reason is Yakusho’s performance as Yamamoto. The Admiral is portrayed as a man of intense honour and fairness. His decision to bomb Pearl Harbor is shown to be gut wrenchingly difficult to decide, almost to the point where it looks like he’s talked into it by his officers. He’s also shown to be a man who feels life is precious but still waves off dozens of pilots to their certain fate. When in uniform the performance is so stiff it is hard to find the humanity or even interest to watch him. The real moments where Yakusho comes alive as performer and Yamamoto as a man is in flash backs showing him interacting with a small girl who is spooked by his missing digits. This scenes are brief which is a shame because it would have made the later years and decisions that more intense to have seen more of his mild mannered side.
The Admiral is ultimately a disappointment all round. Scenes showing the politics and committees of warfare are tiresome. I mean, there really is a lot of men sat down talking at each other. The aerial scenes are stunning to look at but flat emotionally and it is littered with unnecessary characters. Surely a man as important as Admiral Yamamoto deserves a fuller telling of his story.
Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go to a boardroom and discuss things with some men for seven hours. Might be a bit more interesting.
It has been announced that October 5th, 2012 will be Global James Bond Day, a day-long series of events for 007 fans around the world.
Commenting on Global James Bond Day, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, producers of SKYFALL, said, “We are absolutely thrilled to be celebrating James Bond’s golden anniversary on film with this special day of events for Bond fans around the world.”
Worldwide events celebrating Bond’s golden anniversary include a global online and live charity auction event organised by Christie’s in London, a global survey to discover the favourite Bond film country by country, a film retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, a Music of Bond night in Los Angeles hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Designing 007: 50 Years of James Bond Style opens at TIFF in Toronto. Leading up to Global James Bond Day, for the first time ever fans can own all 22 films in the franchise on Blu-ray in one comprehensive collection with BOND 50, releasing worldwide beginning September 24th. Further updates by country will be announced in due course on 007.com and facebook/JamesBond007.
A new feature documentary from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Passion Pictures and Red Box Films, Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007, will also be unveiled (with country-specific release details to follow). Directed by Stevan Riley (Fire In Babylon), Everything Or Nothing focuses on three men with a shared dream – Bond producers Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman and author Ian Fleming. It’s the thrilling and inspiring narrative behind the longest running film franchise in cinema history. With unprecedented access both to the key players involved and to EON Productions’ extensive archive, this is the first time the inside story of the franchise has ever been told on screen in this way. Director Stevan Riley follows a story that begins with a groundbreaking spy thriller and continues six Bonds and five decades later. While Bond was saving the world from chaos and catastrophe on screen, this compelling documentary draws back the curtain to reveal the battles, threats and real stakes unfolding behind the camera.
Trouble In Paradise, for the first time ever will be on home video in the UK, released in a DVD edition on 12 November 2012.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest romantic comedies ever made, this Hollywood classic, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, legendary filmmaker behind Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner, and To Be or Not to Be stars Hollywood icons Herbert Marshall (Foreign Correspondent, The Fly), Miriam Hopkins (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Heiress), Edward Everett Horton (Lost Horizon, Arsenic and Old Lace), and Charlie Ruggles (Bringing Up Baby, Ruggles of Red Gap)
Jean Renoir once said of Ernst Lubitsch: “He invented the modern Hollywood.” And none of the director’s films has had greater influence or impact than Trouble In Paradise. With his first comedy of the sound era, Lubitsch created one of cinema’s supreme visions of shimmering romance and worldly sophistication.
When career thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) meets glamorous pickpocket Lily (Miriam Hopkins), their love soon takes on a professional dimension as they initiate a plot to rob beautiful perfume magnate Mariette Colet (Kay Francis). But as Gaston gets ever closer to his intended prey, his romantic confusion, as well as the threat that his past will catch up with him, throws their plan into jeopardy.
The Arena Hotel is a ground-breaking online project for The Space, the new digital arts service developed by the Arts Council in partnership with the BBC. For the first time, Arena, the multi-award winning BBC television arts series, is opening up its unique archive in an innovative and entertaining new format to offer audiences the chance to watch exclusive material.
In association with Apple Films, Arena has been granted unique access to some very special unseen footage of the Beatles during the making of a documentary about their 1967 film Magical Mystery Tour and is showing it exclusively at The Arena Hotel at thespace.org
Arena has cut this unseen footage to make a new short in which the Beatles take you on a magical coach trip from the Hotel to a classic British fish and chip shop. Shot en route to Newquay, the final destination of the Magical Mystery Tour, the film is available to view exclusively on The Space.
The film shows the Beatles relaxed and sharing fish and chips with their fellow passengers from the Magical Mystery Tour coach in a chippy in Taunton.
Magical Mystery Tour was first broadcast as the centrepiece of the BBC’s Boxing Day schedule in 1967. It confused and alienated audiences, was savaged by the critics and, aside from a muted appearance on BBC Two in 1979, has not been shown since.
From Tuesday, audiences can visit The Arena Hotel on The Space (www.thespace.org) to get their first glimpse of this never before seen footage from the cutting room floor of the Magical Mystery Tour.
And this Saturday 6 October at 21.45 on BBC Two, Arena: The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour Revisited presents a new documentary which reassesses the artistic merit and cultural significance of the film before treating viewers to the digitally remastered full length Magical Mystery Tour – for the first time in 33 years.
Arena Editor, Anthony Wall says, “Few people have seen Magical Mystery Tour in its entirety and the material in the chip shop has never been shown anywhere. It captures perfectly the fabulous world of The Beatles at this time. They’re happily sharing a simple meal with the other passengers on the coach as the astonished residents of Taunton gather outside and at the same time creating an extraordinarily avant garde film, which of course would soon be broadcast by the BBC to a dumbstruck nation.”
In a project exclusively for The Space, Arena is opening up its unique film archive to the public, and making it available through The Arena Hotel. Guests can browse clips from the programme’s archive of 600 films, presented in the fully immersive environment of a virtual hotel.
Anthony Wall continues, “The Arena Hotel is the perfect place to enjoy clips like this – it’s a philosophically different way of presenting and experiencing archive. We’re trying to offer a kind of matrix of material from which guests spin their own narratives. In this case they are free to make all sorts of unprescribed connections between the Beatles film and other weird and wonderful characters and phenomena that you can experience in the hotel.”
Watch the exclusive Beatles footage here. And the pics here.
Arena: The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour is on BBC Two, Saturday 6th October, 21.45 GMT
© Apple Films Ltd for all images.
