The Bishop on Iron Maiden: A Matter of Life and Death

Straight up: Iron Maiden have not had a decent record since Somewhere in Time, nor decent anything at all since 1986, but for two covers of their own songs.* They really haven't even hinted at a reason to go on, except to sell out several hundred European gigs a year—which might be reason enough, but still . . . The Bishop, ever hopeful, puts his ear to the door every now and then to hear a peep of what the lads have been up to, but the result is always archly disappointing, like inching closer to what portends to be a juicy bit of gossip, only to overhear a conversation about tax returns.

Need the Bishop say A Matter of Life and Death is no different? No different at all. If the track snippets available on Maiden’s site are anything to go by, your liturgical listener can only be thankful the band’s latest tour is called Somewhere Back in Time. It is as if someone for who knows what reason had sat through the whole second side of Piece of Mind, and decided a whole album like that would be a good idea. And that person was Jon Bon Jovi.

The Bishop understands that rock and pop musician have a limited pool of writing capability—in most cases enough for one song (in Jeff Buckley’s case half a song)—and that with around two dozen wonderful tunes under their bullet belts, Iron Maiden have not done too bad. But c’mon boys—it’s been twenty effing years since you wrote anything that doesn’t sound like the Grand National on guitar. If you don’t have one more ‘Trooper’ or ‘Total Eclipse’ in you, isn’t it time to hang up the football socks and striped pants rather than go on being the focus group–approved version of your former selves?

*This will get the Bishop caned by some of his fellows, but the 1988 remakes of ‘Prowler’ and ‘Charlotte the Harlot’ are better than the Paul Di'Anno versions—the production is powerful instead of violent, the guitar better played and the drum sound less rushed (this from a chap who prefers Clive Burr's inventiveness to Nicko McBrain's uber-physical technicality), and like it or not a real singer (Bruce Dickinson) adds something Di'Anno, for all his charismatic laddishness (and laddish charisma) could not.

The Bishop on silliness

28 Weeks Later, the sequel to you know what, is not exactly indefensible, but it is largely incomprehensible. Watch it if you like this sort of thing—it will pass the time. But be aware that almost no effort has been spared to eliminate anything that might make sense; not so much at the level of the story, which is workmanlike in the way council workers are, but moment by moment, shot by shot, action by action. One is not so much expected to suspend one’s disbelief as one’s understanding of the law of cause and effect.

There is little point in trying to list the many holes, as it is not so much a case of holes as one continuous gap, as though all the mortar had been removed from a brick wall. A single example of unintentional fun will suffice. It is made clear from the early going that the rage-infected zombies move relentlessly and at lightning speed. Yet, in a show of tension-building contrivance during the final chase, they can’t catch up to a young girl, a child and a woman with a limp. (The Bishop says 'final chase', but this is really one long chase, between film and audience.)

The direction and its partner in disinformation, the editing, leave no cut unjumped in proving that Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is exceptionally clever and has not a clue how to do his job. In essence, this is a ninety-something minute rock video in the nu metal, emo or some other over-painted vein, or would be, but that most rock video directors know to point their cameras at more than the ground, the foggy middle distance, and the bottom right hand corner of an actor’s face.

The performances are essentially harmless, but spongy, failing to hold water under even the slightest pressure. The Bishop had heard of Rose Byrne, but had never seen her before. Hopefully he will not again. Her army medical officer is supposed to be the film’s moral centre, which this self-important brunette interprets as an opportunity to pout and fawn. Imogen Poots is psychotically stunning, but something ungainly happens in the gap between her thinking words and actually saying them. Mackintosh Muggleton—cast, the Bishop assumes, primarily for his dome-headed pretty girl looks—is not a child actor to look forward to. Even Robert Carlyle can’t help much. He is engaging, as he often is, but his performance is so out of synch with the rest that it seems to be a hangover from an earlier, different and almost certainly more interesting version of the film.

The Bishop on fear

'Long Distance Call', an episode of season two of the orginal Twilight Zone, looks to be for all money in its first five minutes more mawkish guff in the 'Night of the Meek' vein, as lackadaisically obvious as 'The Eye of the Beholder', akin 'The Lateness of the Hour' in taking far too long to get to nothing much at all—so much so that an impatient Bishop started fast forwarding it. This was a mistake. Charles Beaumont (here writing with William Idelson) was never one to let his audience down, and gently sinister goings on follow what turns out to be an aspartane rather than saccharine opening act.

But the real reason to watch this is a moment from archtypal (though mostly unheard of) sixties blonde Patricia Smith. Marvellously young and beautiful and free of any sort of acting, prepare yourself as hard as you like for the moment she picks up her son's toy phone. It does not so much chill the blood as the cerebral fluid and curdle the placenta of pregnant women.