A New Year Resolution?

The plan for 2025...

I like New Year's Day. The tree's still up, although I'm typing this in my pyjamas, accompanied by a cheery bowl of smokin' Lemsip. Never was there such a Lemsip! As in the best houses, we don't take our Christmas tree down until Twelfth Night, the Epiphany, which is either the 5th or 6th of January, depending on Anglican or (Roman) Catholic tradition: Venetia bats for the other side. I don't get people who ditch their trees on Boxing Day. And then dump them on the pavement so that the mean streets of London are littered with browning foliage. If you're superstitious (count me in!), it's bad luck. On the other hand, I once had a friend who hung up a banner in his drawing room every December, declaring, Christmas Must Go! In my advancing years (I've finally reached Late Youth), I can now sympathise with his point of view.

Every year, I have to watch the New Year's Day Strauss concert, broadcast live by Eurovision from Vienna, beamed directly into our hungover hovel. I'm not entirely sure why I still watch it. It's a temple to kitsch. It goes on far too long. It's horribly jolly. I am allergic to audience participation and people clapping their hands in time with the music, which makes me want to run away and hide. It's like the proverbial pigeon landing on Wimbledon's Centre Court. It's coy. That bit when the naughty percussionist fires off a blunderbuss during the Hunting Polka, reducing everybody to hysterical laughter.

On the other hand, the New Year's Day concert is a triumph of Austrian-Japanese diplomatic relations. There are Loden coats, and sometimes — if you're lucky — there's Julie Andrews in the audience and pretty tourist stuff about the architecture of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, like an old ViewMaster reel or the promotional video one might watch on an aeroplane coming into land. It's a bit like the Boat Race or the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, broadcast every year on the August Bank Holiday, which again, for some inexplicable reason, I have to watch, expecting — over-optimistically, and in my naivety — stirring bands, the stiff upper lip and the splendid uniforms of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, or the Black Watch, like a 1950s shortbread tin in tartan, when the reality is more like a naff 21st-century wedding. I am appalled by the disco-dancing police troupes and corpulent US Marine Sergeants (sunglasses, like Miami Vice) belting out cheesy pop numbers or even — heaven forbid! — bearded Corporals playing the electric guitar.

Witchfinder General (1970)

But I do think it’s a good time to take stock, an excuse to delve into the WEEKEND FLICKS. archive over the last year, which now boasts some 109 film recommendations. And you know I like my lists. Oh, how I like a list! I don’t want to be too smug, but WEEKEND FLICKS. has done rather well actually. So thank you. And we had a significant surge in subscribers, both paid and unpaid, in the last few months. The very first post was published on December 6th 2024. It was Witchfinder General (1970), a nasty little film, now beloved of intellectuals and film critics, set in the bleak East Anglian countryside at the time of the English Civil War and starring a deliciously hammy Vincent Price as the diabolical Matthew Hopkins.

My inspired idea (which, like all the best ideas, came to me in the bath) was a feel-good thing, a film recommendation along the lines of a newsletter that I would very much like to receive myself: "Something for the weekend, Sir?" Like that glorious moment long ago when earnest Thames Television (as good as it was) handed over to the racier London Weekend Television on a Friday afternoon Teatime. I know that I've derived immense pleasure from cinema and television over the years, and it's fun to share recommendations with others, especially if a film you've known and loved for years is, for others, unseen. Serendipity! There's always something new to discover — even for the jaded who think they've seen it all. They haven't. And so, we have a post every Friday morning for the paid subscribers and then a free post every Sunday for all. Plus bonus posts on High Days and Holy Days — like this one. And I've stuck to that timetable like clockwork. Lemsip or no Lemsip. And shall continue to do so, God willing.

The Railway Children (1970)

Your favourite film so far? The Railway Children (1970) without any doubt. Heading for 2K views. You also liked (if viewing stats are anything to go by) From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), The Ipcress File (1965), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), The Walking Stick (1970), The Go-Between (1971), The Day of the Jackal (1973), Don’t Look Now (1972), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Another Country (1984), Withnail & I (1987), The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981) and Blow-Up (1968); and — curiously— the little known Hustle (1975), starring Catherine Deneuve as a French hooker and Burt Lancaster as a Los Angeles police detective.

The Blue Max (1966)

Of course, the stats may well depend on what's paid and what's unpaid — altho' this may change over 2025 as I gain more paid subscribers. But, on the other hand, it gives me an idea of what you like and what you don't like. And that's useful. Mister Bond, for instance. You love him. Always does well. Flagging audience stats? Pas de Problemo. Write about Bond. For like Sherlock Holmes, Mickey Mouse, Father Christmas, the Man in the Moon and God, James Bond is universal. Unlike the Smurfs. If the public starts to send in letters, you know you're onto something.

Did anybody write to Grandpa Smurf? And it's the same with Michael Caine. Anything with Michael Caine will do well. Even The Magus (1968). As will stylish Cold War thrillers. What surprises me, though, is your interest in war films, albeit intelligent war films. Seriously. I thought they would die a death? Instead, you went nuts for Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), Went the Day Well? (1942) and The Duellists (1977). Looking ahead, I'm not going to inflict four hours nineteen minutes of Gettysburg (1993) on you, as much as it floats my boat, but we may well have a look at further films of a militaristic bent. The Blue Max (1966) immediately springs to mind, a tale of daring German fighter pilots during the First World War, starring George Peppard, James Mason and Ursula Andress as an unlikely Countess. And to this, we might add Paths of Glory (1957), All Quiet on the Western Front (various adaptations), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Apocalypse Now (1979), Kagemusha (1980), Downfall (2004) and Joseph Losey's drama of the Great War, For King and Country (1964) with Tom Courtenay and Dirk Bogarde.

Solaris (2002)

So far, so good. But before I get too cocky, what about the films which failed? Charles Chaplin's The Kid (1921) died a death. As did Solaris (2002). And Ex-Machina (2014). I'm surprised by this. I rate The Kid most highly, and the scene where cute little Jackie Coogan is removed to the orphanage (set to a sub-Tchaikovsky symphony rearranged by Chaplin) reduces me to tears. Every time. Without fail. Maybe it's too sentimental? Maybe it's too niche? Is silent cinema, like hardcore horror and nerdy science fiction, the stuff of which film buffs are made? A geeky sub-culture? Sad, anal, obsessive, middle-aged men who own Blu-ray machines and complain about transfer ratios in the comments section on Amazon? But the Solaris remake, in my opinion, is a bloody good film. Admittedly, I do have a thing about She Who Can Do No Wrong Natascha McElhone and once, by chance, sat opposite her in the Reading Room of the London Library (where her presence caused quite a frisson!) so far a highlight of my fifty-nine years on this doomed planet. So, for the Solaris recommendation, I posted a dreamy photograph of Natascha's doppelgänger looking out of the window of a spaceship.

On the other hand, a snap of Gorgeous George in his space helmet might have done the trick? Dunno. But for some reason, my instinct tells me that you don't go for science fiction. Even brainy science-fiction. Not just the baco-foil suits and sliding corridor stuff. And it's the same with horror and all things spooky. Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963) — a film I rate very highly indeed — didn't do especially well. And neither, for that matter, did Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone (1976). Another film I love. Is Bugsy too kooky for a modern audience?

But looking ahead, there's so much to write about. If… (1968), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Performance (1970), Get Carter (1971), The Belstone Fox (1973), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Educating Rita (1983), Heat and Dust (1983), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Room With a View (1985), Dreamchild (1985), White Mischief (1987), Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991); and then more Polanski: Repulsion (1965), Cul-de-Sac (1966), and more Losey: Modesty Blaise (1966) and Secret Ceremony (1968); Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971) — a superb performance, there, from Susan George — and John Boorman's Deliverance (1972). We may do a Town vs Country Double Bill. One of my pet subjects. And Quentin Tarantino: Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). And then there are disturbing films like Baby Love (1969), a work, in my opinion, of minor brilliance (but made in a different time and place) and now most probably taboo for a modern audience, even for the libertarian Substack.

Jane Birkin in La Piscine (1969)

I intend to cover more foreign language films too: Losey's Eva (1962), The Vanishing (1988) and The Lives of Others (2006) for starters; and French cinema: Caché (2005), Eric Rohmer's delightful A Summer's Tale (1996), Claude Chabrol's Les Biches (1968) and La Cérémonie (1995), with Jacqueline Bisset; Luis Buñuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) and Belle de Jour (1967) with Catherine Deneuve as the BCBG housewife turned lobotomised hooker — and La Piscine (1969) with Alain Delon, Romy Schneider and Jane Birkin. I mean, what more could you want? The only snag, though, and it's a significant snag, is that many French films are seemingly unavailable on digital download (at least here in Britain) and can only be watched by hideously expensive DVDs, which you have to order via Amazon or eBay. For one of the aims of WEEKEND FLICKS., right from the start, was to make cinema accessible and affordable to all. Even for the bankrupt, lazy and bone idle.

Dirk Bogarde and Wendy Craig in The Servant (1963)

It has also just dawned on me that, for some unfathomable reason, I have yet to write about Woody Allen. I adore Woody's films. So we can look forward to Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), Stardust Memories (1980), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Crimes and Misdemeanours (1989), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), the charming Everybody Says I Love You (1996) and the flawed, but likeable Matchpoint (2005). We might also have a shot at a Spaghetti Western or two, A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) — although I suspect you're not yet ready for a Giallo — and all that comes with it, despite the glorious music of Ennio Morricone: it's just too niche. Too nerdy. Too gory. But we might have another shot at the more sophisticated horror to see if this time round, I can persuade you to my way of thinking: Roger Corman's aesthetic take on Edgar Allan Poe; Donald Cammell's Demon Seed (1977) with Julie Christie, The Mephisto Waltz (1974) with the divine, She Who Can Do No Wrong, Jacqueline Bisset; Hideo Nakata's Ring (1998) and Takashi Miike's Audition (1999) — and the sexy vampire stuff: Nosferatu (1922), the uber-stylish Daughters of Darkness (1971) (the lesbian vampires drive a Bristol), and the pretentious, but entertaining The Hunger (1983) with Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie. We might even cover the deeply amusing, if deadly serious, Dracula A.D. 1972: Dracula hangs loose in Swinging London: "The Count is back, with an eye for London's hotpants… and a taste for everything."

And now that I’ve got a decent subscriber count, it’s time, finally, to release my three all-time favourite films: The Servant (1963), Sleuth (1972) and Walkabout (1971). So there you go. My plan for 2025. And please do let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment, below. Until Friday. Ciao.