Category Archives: Britain
The Eagle Has Landed (1976) is a middling affair.
You standard old-fashioned wartime thriller which acts as a serviceable but inferior companion piece to The Day of the Jackal (1973), you’re aware of the outcome but the suspense is in getting there. Unfortunately, the exposition in this one is intriguing enough but by the halfway point it’s a snore. And then Larry Hagman appears as an inexperienced American colonel and it descends into silly comedy which I suspect today wouldn’t survive a pre-production script cull; we all know assassination attempts are no laughing matter.
Thank the heavens for Donald Sutherland. This is another case of Donald Sutherland being hired because only he can play a Donald Sutherland type. He’s fabulously nuts in everything and his career appears to be a personal mission in walking off with the movie. His supporting roles always suppose a spin-off picture with him at the fore. He even made the stinker that is Virus (1999) almost bearable.
Bruntsfield, Edinburgh.
This area is a bubble of sorts, with a Notting Hill (1999) vibe to all proceedings. I’ve never seen a tracksuit or a fight, and the locals can string sentences together.
I find it extremely disconcerting.
Robin Hood Gardens gave me nightmares and I’ve only ever seen the photos.
This has to be one of the ugliest and most depressing constructs I’ve ever seen. It defines ‘eyesore’. Some cursory research and I find it beguiling that this was once trumpeted as social housing magic, the architects banging on about it as a solution to societal ills. Architectural determinism is real, and this … thing completely disregards the ‘Eyes on the Street’ element to design as illuminated in Jane Jacobs’ masterful The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
It’s tragic how buildings like this happened.
This bloke, he nails it:
Further reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/dec/05/robin-hood-gardens-east-london
Edinburgh. Winter. Snow. A castle.
And slipping on one’s arse.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 