Satisfying to finally see this movie, which I'd only known through playground gossip at the time of release - the depictions of street violence and liberal use of the c-word probably explain its appeal to tweenage boys - and charity shop shelves in the years since, presumably often donated by those same tweenage boys when they were a few years older.
I'm determined to look past the obvious bones of contention like Charlie Hunnam's East End accent. Structurally it feels…
It's very much like one series of a TV show has been condensed down into feature length for this one. Plonked in medias res, a few episodic showdowns ensue before narrowing down into a focused big-boss climax. A really nice balance of reverence and camp is struck - the faithful, 70s costumes look charming and a bit silly while they're so often framed by epic, wide, symmetrical shots. In a similar vein, plaintive episodes ruminating on life and death quickly…
Feels the most "Chaplin" of his films that I've seen so far, which makes sense, it being one of his first independently produced ones where he had the most control. Over feature length it allows a convincing bond to develop between the tramp and his kid. It has to be one of the most affecting and impressive performances from a kid that small, particularly when he's desparate not to be taken away to the orphanage, but also in the mannerisms…
Does an amazing job at recreating dream logic - the way discontinuities in space and time, lapses in the laws of physics, happen naturally and without comment, just like they do in real dreams. What I was surprised by, and what to me felt a bit oppositional to that, was how grounded in reality Alice's "Wonderland" is. So many objects, settings and characters are made of mundane objects, often ones that we are shown in the beginning sequence where we…
