Midlands Review of The Flaming Gazette
midlandsmovies • October 27, 2021
The Flaming Gazette
Directed by Richard Steele
2021
Brunosaurus Productions
A jaunty 1950s-inspired ditty on a gramophone sets the stage of a new 11-minute short called The Flaming Gazette that takes a swipe at social media from the perspective of the past.
A quick intro of sepia-toned barges, train tracks and church steeples invoke a bygone era before we are introduced to a man reading a newspaper at home.
After finishing the daily news, he sits down at a desk and begins penning a letter addressing his thoughts to a councillor about a new road in the area that he’s just read about. The following day he strolls past houses, hedgerows and a steam train (a social media “platform”?) to post his letter in the village post-box.
The slower pace of life in the past is reflected with measured editing whilst an intertitle reminds the audience of the black and white style of vintage cinema.
But a sly nod to the slow delivery of post keeps it very much a gentle local affair. So, 8 days later, our protagonist receives a reply from the councillor who writes to correct his correction.
And after reading, our man immediately sits down again to write a follow up his reply with even more disagreement. And back he goes to post it before an indeterminant amount of time passes and another response is printed in the newspaper’s letters column. And so on.
This film has a terrific central idea that plays with the notion of the inescapable back and forth arguments on platforms such as Twitter. The script is a little on the nose with the voiceovers from the authors of the letters stating lines such as “my opinion is valid and should be accepted just as much as facts – be they right or wrong”.
Steele’s builds upon his previous work where his satirical eye has already taken a wry look at film openings with his earlier short Get On With It (our review) and he again looks at the changing nature of modern media.
A few areas of improvement could be shot and sound quality – although functional, both elements slip up at times. And the letter writing moments could definitely use more variation in shot choices as it’s never the most exciting thing to portray on screen.
The comedy moments increase though as the two writers’ informed debate devolves into petty squabbling and the name-calling of modern trolling. Later on, visual memes also appear around the village too – printed out and stuck to telegraph poles for the public to see. And we see the endless repetition of the whole ordeal at the film’s conclusion as it all begins again with a funny nod to emojis.
In the end, director Steele has gone all in on his idea and this focus on a straightforward conceit we can relate to today can really benefit low budget short filmmakers immensely. And his take on the futility of certain social media interactions (“a pointless ordeal”) is well explored using the context of the slow manual technology of 1953.
With a few rough edges, the short’s charm, heart and social media rebuff mostly absolves the minor technical issues making The Flaming Gazette a fun ride. And no matter what era we find ourselves “linked in” with each other, the short proposes people should maybe think twice about counterproductive nature of eternal arguing.
Michael Sales
Up! (1976) Dir. Russ Meyer Well, bi-Adolf Hitler BDSM is not something (a) I thought I’d ever see 5 minutes into a movie and (b) ever expected to write in my lifetime to be fair but this spicy start is pretty standard for the work of exploitation filmmaker Russ Meyer. Up! is a kind of r*pe-revenge softcore p*rn film (there’s gonna be a fair bit of self-censorship in this review so apologies in advance), the type Meyer is known for. I’d describe the plot in more detail but it’s mostly a convoluted and incoherent mess of double-crossing, murder, violence and lots and lots of humping. In short, a man called Adolph gets murdered and a woman investigates (kinda) the circumstances but as she does so, a group of locals blackmail, attack and screw each other with the murder mystery barely mentioned throughout. With so little narrative, it could be argued if it’s essentially p*rn? To be fair, not far off. It’s about extreme as you can go without simply making a s*x film. Is that a…no, it’s a belly button hole. Bookending the film (and also seen at various points throughout) is a Greek Chorus - simply a busty fully nude woman of course - who delivers dialogue like “Pummelling the scrotum with joyous supplication” and other such poeticisms. This artistic flourish is mostly pointless - the actress herself saying the words were tough to learn because it was utter nonsense. On a technical level, the editing is surprisingly well done and the 4k image is frankly fantastic. Someone somewhere must be putting together a post-modern take about the beautiful landscapes and cinematography of Meyer’s * ahem * output. But it definitely does have a kitsch artistry. It has certainly provided plenty of cinematic influence though. Elements of Tarantino grindhouse sensibilities are on show - Meyers likes bosoms as much as Quents likes feet - and there’s even a leather gimp early on. I can also see how its had an impact on Ti West X’s with a focus on sexuality and the body as well, more obviously, Anna Biller’s feminist-twist The Love Witch (2016). Suffice to say it’s not for the weak of heart. I think in this day and age you can’t go into this completely blind to its style, period and context though. It's an X-rated Carry On style that was bad taste then and it’s bad taste now. It revels in its sleaziness without a single hint of shame or apology. Simply saying 'deal with it'. The main negative though is the absence of plot - if the film can even be looked at like that - which is barely present. This is a shame as the whole thing could do with a bit more coherence rather than endless shagging. But it’s far from titillation, it’s mostly clowning - albeit a very adult version of it. More saucy than sexy. Trying to review this through modern sensibilities is almost impossible. It’s as offensive can be from the first scene through to the final credits - heck even this 4k menu is simply one of the film's many s*x scenes. But there are some progressive themes as it doesn’t shy from confronting sexual freedom, bisexuality, gay sex, BDSM and consensual exploration. There's moments of comedy thrown in and I enjoyed a frankly hilarious 5-minute monologue explaining the culprit’s intentions, which was a ludicrous way to deliver a slasher-style ending. I suppose the main thing about Up! (and Meyers’ work overall) is there’s a sort of love it or loathe it quality about the whole shebang. But it’s so unlike anything being made today - for good or bad - that it’s never anything other than unpredictably fascinating. More explicit than most Meyers films - in fact more than any film - it’s a lewd, rude and crude (s)exploration with a satirical edge and campy enjoyment bouncing from every frame. ★★★ 3 / 5 Michael Sales Severin Films releases Russ Meyers' UP! (1976) and MOTORPSYCHO (1965) on 28 April 2025 in newly restored and scanned 4k with hours of new and archival Special Features https://severinfilms.co.uk/
On the 24th of April, the Midlands Art Centre opened its doors to Gobby Flicks Productions for a night of live comedy. Proceeds were raised towards the production of new short comedy films, directed and written by women.
Ti West’s The House of the Devil makes a wonderful companion piece to his film The Innkeepers. Both maintain the director’s referential approach to horror, incapsulating it in a slow burning 90 minutes that manages to build and maintain tension while cheekily winking to the audience and showing the mechanisms behind the scares.
Read the full list of nominees for the Midlands Movies Awards 2025