Tuesday 19 March 2024

Madame Web (2024)

This blog is a comfort for me. It helps me put my thoughts together, it contains a path of memories that can help me remember individual movies from the thousands I have watched, and it is sometimes the only thing that helps me endure a film that is mind-bogglingly abominable. As other people have already made clear, Madame Web is mind-bogglingly abominable. As the bad reviews started to pile up, I found myself wondering how bad it could be. It was even worse than I thought.

Okay, let me give a very quick plot summary, because anything more detailed would make me feel as if I did more work in writing this than anyone did on the script. Dakota Johnson is Cassie Webb, a woman who finds out that she has the gift of premonition. Initially assuming that she cannot change the future, a pigeon interfacing with her window helps her to realise that destiny is not set in stone. That puts her on a path to confront a powerful villain, Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), a man who is determined to kill three young woman (played by Sidney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O’Connor) he had foreseen being the cause of his own death. Emma Roberts is onscreen to play the mother of an un-named child people can figure out will be Peter Parker, Adam Scott is “uncle” Ben Parker, and the whole thing feels like a desperate attempt to profit from the Spider-Man universe without being able to feature Spider-Man in it.

Although it seems difficult to imagine anyone coming out of this well, it’s strange to see almost everyone sleepwalk through something so dire. The messy script, as inane as it is needlessly convoluted, was written by a whole load of people, including director S. J. Clarkson, and it never gathers any momentum. In fact, this is a film in which everyone feels as if they are wading through a pool of dark and thick molasses, either due to the direction or the cast being unable to work up any enthusiasm for it.

Johnson can do good work onscreen. That is not the case here. As bad as the film is, she matches it with a charmless lead performance. Sweeney, Merced, and O’Connor do a little better, although they get even less to work with (seriously, if you can tell me their names after the end credits, or even after any scene in which they have just been featured, then I will give you a chocolate treat). At least Scott and Roberts have enough presence to make their smaller roles feel like sips of water in a scorching desert. As for Rahim, it feels bad to blame someone for a performance that was so obviously reworked and redubbed when the plot was chopped and changed around, so I will just say that he needs to wipe this film from his C.V. and line up numerous future projects that can help us all quickly forget that he is in this.

Almost every main scene has at least one moment vying to be the worst moment of the film. I think a personal favourite of mine was Cassie being told “when you take on the responsibility, great power will come” (yes, really), but an entire book could be written detailing every flaw and misjudgement. If Clarkson has nothing else lined up yet, it may be some time until she gets to helm something of this scale. It may also be some time until she wants to ever try it again.

Memorable for all the wrong reasons, this is a new contender for the dubious honour of worst superhero movie of the 21st century. Someone should have seen that coming.

2/10

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Monday 18 March 2024

Mubi Monday: Drive-Away Dolls (2024)

Although Drive-Away Dolls is full of talent, some may say it's a bit too full (sickeningly so), it's hard to ignore the feeling that it's just not very good. Director Ethan Coen, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Tricia Cooke, seems to be a bit lost at sea, metaphorically speaking, and I am sure many will watch this and wish for Ethan to swiftly return to movies co-created with his brother, Joel.

Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) are two friends who fancy a bit of a break after various stresses in their lives. They pick up a car that needs to be taken to Tallahassee, blissfully unaware that the trunk contains something very valuable that means a couple of amusingly incompetent "heavies" end up trying to track them down. As destiny creeps closer and closer to them, Jamie and Marian start to break down the thin barriers between them, and decide that it may be time to transform their friendship into something else.

The fact that this film is such a mess, and squanders so much potential talent, makes it clear to me that every main issue I have with it stems from the script. It’s not as funny or quirky as it thinks it is, nor is it half as clever or subversive as the films that Cohen and Cooke are clearly trying to emulate, and it feels like one wrong decision after another was made in transitioning the material from page to screen.

I have enjoyed both Qualley and Viswanathan in other movies, but they struggle to impress here. The former is particularly irksome in a role that desperately needed some more work to help viewers appreciate her viewpoint and approach to life a bit more. Colman Domingo isn’t used enough, his smooth-talking head honcho trying his best to resolve a situation that just keeps getting messier by the hour, and Joey Slotnick and C. J. Wilson are inept henchmen without enough wit in their abrasive antagonism towards one another. Matt Damon pops up in a cameo that allows you to say “there’s Matt Damon”, Miley Cyrus pops up fleetingly and allows you to say “there’s Miley Cyrus”, and the only cast member who actually gets to be as good as they can be is Beanie Feldstein (playing an angry ex-lover who follows our main characters in order to hand back an unwanted pet).

I was really hoping to like Drive-Away Dolls, considering everyone involved, but it started off weak and then never really developed into anything worthwhile. In fact, the finale of the film feels like a punchline and rushed resolution offered up by someone who thinks they are being edgy and hilarious while the reality is that they’re about a decade or so out of touch. It’s all a bit lazy and misguided, at best, as well as being strangely prudish and conservative, considering the aim of the film-makers was to make something very much at the other end of that spectrum.

At least it has a fairly short runtime, even if it feels as if it drags on longer. Don’t bother hitching a lift with these ladies though. Wait to see whatever better films they star in further down the line.

3/10

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Sunday 17 March 2024

Netflix And Chill: Irish Wish (2024)

I get it, I do. We brought some of this upon ourselves. Streaming services making their own movies leads to a larger selection of films that feel more obviously like "content" than proper movies, but that's not always a bad thing. People want content. They will happily accept some disposable fare that allows them to spend time with familiar stars or familiar genre tropes. Something like Irish Wish is worse though, because it really feels sub-par. In fact, it feels like the kind of Hallmark or Lifetime TV movies made before they honed their craft to what it is nowadays.

Lindsay Lohan plays Maddie Kelly, an editor who has a crush on her main client, author Paul Kennedy (Alexander Vlahos). She doesn't say anything though, and Paul doesn't appreciate her. He appreciates her friend, Emma (Elizabeth Tan), though, so much so that the two are eventually due to marry. In Ireland. That leads to Maddie sitting in a wishing chair and wishing that she was the one marrying Paul. Can you guess what happens next? Yes, Maddie wakes up to find that she is the one due to marry Paul. Paul may not really be the man she wants him to be though, and they may not be destined for a life together. There's something about the handsome photographer, James (Ed Speleers), hired to document the wedding though, and Maddie ends up connecting with him in a way that adds to the growing doubt she has about her wish.

This is the second film directed by Janeen Damian (her first was another recent Lohan vehicle in this vein, Falling For Christmas), but she has been a writer or producer on many movies almost just like this one. A lot of those movies were set at Christmas though, which allows viewers to forgive such silly and lightweight plotting. And if Irish Wish had also mixed in some festive trimmings then I would have allowed myself to be won over by this. There's none of that, sadly, which makes the script, written by Kirsten Hansen, feel lazy and charmless, and any enjoyment you may glean from this is all down to the gorgeousness of the setting and the work done by the main cast.

Thankfully, the main cast all do decent work. Lohan has to overdo her bemusement and wide-eyed sense of wonder whenever she is seeing new delights around her (in the Irish locale or in the people around her) and she does just fine with that, although I am also in line with the people out there who are just happy to see Lohan back on a decent career path after some time in the wilderness. Vlahos has to be selfish and inconsiderate, but is allowed to do so in a way that doesn't turn him into a complete panto villain, and he's a decent secondary male to Speleers, who has the charm and sensitivity expected of the man that our lead is ACTUALLY destined to end up with. Tan is fine, and is also spared from being turned into any kind of obvious villain, and there's a decent selection of little moments for Jane Seymour (playing the character of Maddie's mother, with all her scenes obviously having been filmed quickly and separately from everyone else).

I expected this to be cheesy, but I still hoped I would enjoy it. I knew it would be full of stereotypes, I knew it would be a predictable rom-com, and I knew how it would all end before it had even fully started. None of that would have been a problem if it didn't also feel so cheap (one taxi scene has truly dire greenscreen work) and forced into a template. It's a square peg in a round hole, sadly. Or maybe you could say it's a pint of Guinness served in a faded eggnog tumbler.

3/10

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Saturday 16 March 2024

Shudder Saturday: First Contact (2023)

I may have mentioned them before, but there are one or two studios/distributors that have me rolling my eyes when I see their logo appear before any many feature. One of them is Wild Eye Releasing. The other is Uncork'd Entertainment. The latter distributor is the one attached to this movie, so my expectations plummeted not long after pressing play. I then saw, however, that this was another film written and directed by Bruce Wemple. Wemple may not be a name familiar to you, but he's an independent film-maker who has managed to deliver one or two gems throughout the last decade (including Monstrous, one of a few films made about a dangerous Sasquatch).

As the title may have already informed you, First Contact is about potential first contact with visitors not from this planet. Casey Bradach (Anna Shields) and Dan Bradach (James Liddell) are siblings trying to get to the bottom of just what their late father (Dr. Ian Bradach, played by Paul Kandarian) was obsessing over. What they discover may just be something important enough to share with the entire world. If they survive their journey.

I'll be brutally honest here, First Contact isn't very good. It certainly pales in comparison to the much more enjoyable creature features that Wemple used to focus on. Having said that, it's also far from atrocious, although I am sure that less forgiving viewers will give up long before the end credits roll and rush to name it as one of their "worst movies ever made". Wemple just cannot quite make things work, despite being a pretty dab hand at making the most of a low budget and limited resources. He needs a better selection of special effects and cast members for First Contact to work as well as it needs to. And some tweaking and editing to help the pacing wouldn't go amiss.

Shields and Liddell do okay, but they're unable to detract from the many moments that feel like too much filler in between the few better moments. Kandarian plays his part as expected, the typical genre doctor who seems to be talking nonsense until people get enough context to help them heed his warnings. Elsewhere, Chris Cimperman has fun being covered in decent make up, Caitlin Duffy does well with her lesser role, and the other supporting players all do what is asked of them.

The special effects are a very mixed bag, but some of them are all the more impressive when you consider what budget Wemple would have been working with, and the horrors of the scenario are presented in an effective way. It's not enough though. Sadly, Wemple covers territory here that has been much better-served in many other films (as well as on TV). It's uninspired, almost consistently dull, and everything leads to a final act that is hard to care about, despite what is at stake. 

I wouldn't say this is awful, and I will always make time for the efforts of Wemple. But, as I already stated a few paragraphs ago, it just isn't very good.

4/10

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Friday 15 March 2024

Atragon (1963)

Having now already managed to watch a good ten or twelve Toho movies this year that were all from the '50s and '60s, I am very comfortable with the ways in which they aim to entertain. Some of them have had a fantastic monster at the heart of the action. Others have had a sci-fi plot that features a cameo from whatever creature they place in the third act. Atragon falls into the latter camp, but it's still very entertaining stuff.

The surface of Earth is visited by an inhabitant of the underwater Mu empire (kind of like Atlantis, but without calling it Atlantis). The Mu empire wants everyone on the surface to meet their demands, which includes stopping any and all work on the Atragon submarine, Gotengo. The Gotengo is a threat to the empire of Mu, but it may also be the only way to protect everyone from potential invasion. There's tension between Captain Hachiro Jinguji (Jun Tazaki) and the others around him (including his daughter, Makoto), there's some nice underwater action, and you eventually get to see a wonderful underwater beastie named Manda.

It's Ishirô Honda once again in the director's chair, a man who deserves to be mentioned alongside many other greats of cinema due to his fine work on a number of the most enduring Toho classics, and he does just as well as you'd expect. The screenplay, by Shin'ichi Sekizawa, blends together a couple of different source novels to create something entertaining and surprisingly intriguing (especially throughout the opening act, in which the Mu agent keeps popping up as a mysterious stranger). Although it feels light and fantastical throughout, there's also an edge of very real threat to our main characters, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the interactions between the humans here, to the point that I had managed to forget a big beastie was still due to appear onscreen some time before the end credits.

Tazaki is very good as the stubborn and determined Captain Jinguji, Fujiyama has a believably strained relationship with him after years of distance between them, and Tadao Takashima is very likable as Susumu, the photographer who ends up in at the heart of the intrigue and peril. Tetsuko Kobayashi and Hideyo Amamoto are very enjoyable playing, respectively, the Empress and High Priest of Mu.

If you like the Toho movies from this time then you'll enjoy this. I'd also recommend it, for obvious reasons, to fans of Stingray. It's lively, it's paced well throughout, and the eventual appearance of Manda is a real bonus, thanks to the design and the special effects showing it threatening the Jinguji-helmed submarine.

8/10

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Thursday 14 March 2024

Saps At Sea (1940)

There are many Laurel & Hardy fans around the world, and rightly so. The two stand tall as one of the best comedy duos of all time. And I have barely scraped the surface of their filmography, despite treating myself to a nice boxset of their work some years ago. There are two reasons for that. First of all, so far, I don't love them quite as much as the other stars from that era (Chaplin, Keaton, and Harold Lloyd got to me first, and Abbott & Costello delivered verbal routines I am still impressed and amused by to this day). Second, they're not the easiest films to discuss and review. The plots are often very slight, and fans of the stars will already know much more about their work than I do.

As is so often the way, Stan and Ollie play, well, Stan and Ollie, this time around trying to keep themselves employed in a horn factory. Unfortunately, there's one horn that tends to drive workers into a nervous breakdown when it is tested too often, and this happens to Ollie, leading to a doctor ordering him to have a break. The two men treat themselves to some time on a small boat, but the peace is ruined by the presence of an escaped criminal.

Fans of the magnificent, and superior, Modern Times may already get the feeling that this is wandering through similar territory, and that's quite correct. That's not to say that one film was aiming to copy the other, however. It's just that factory roles made up a large part of the employment sector at that time. It's the same way now, although I hope that most people can work in slightly safer conditions, and watching films from this time can serve as a depressing reminder of how little progress we have really made when it comes to forcing workers to keep up with the optimum output of various machinery and automated processes.

With a quartet of reliable writers having worked on the screenplay, as well as input from our leads (of course), director Gordon Douglas, who did a lot of work with the "Little Rascals" before helming only a couple of Laurel & Hardy films, knows that he can generally sit back and relax while his stars make the material shine, and that's exactly what happens. Douglas doesn't do a bad job, and I don't want to minimise his contribution here, but a Laurel & Hardy movie rests on how often Laurel & Hardy create the laughs. This 56-minute feature has a very healthy gag rate.

As for the cast, Richard Cramer is suitably menacing as the dangerous escapee, Ben Turpin is good fun as a cross-eyed handyman, there's a goat added to the small ship's "crew" to add to the fun, and our leads are (as expected) effortlessly brilliant throughout. 

This is great fun for fans of the leads, but also could serve as a nice introduction for anyone who has yet to explore the rest of their filmography. I am not sure how it is viewed by those who are already familiar with the entire Laurel & Hardy filmography, but I thought this was pretty great.

8/10

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Wednesday 13 March 2024

Prime Time: Freelance (2023)

An action comedy that puts John Cena in the lead role, but forgets about giving him any decent action or comedy moments to work with, Freelance is the movie equivalent of a very wet raspberry blown in the face of unsuspecting viewers. I had already heard some negative opinions on it, but I made the common mistake of thinking "how bad could it be?" It was bad, very bad indeed.

Cena plays Mason Pettits, an ex-special forces man who takes on a routine job that should give him a large payday for very little effort. Yeah, like that always works out. He is escorting a journalist (Claire Wellington, played by Alison Brie) on her way to an interview with a dictator (Venegas, played by Juan Pablo Raba). Unfortunately, all three find themselves in trouble when they end up amidst a military coup. Pettits needs to keep people safe, despite wanting nothing more than deadly revenge against Venegas, due to the dicactor causing the death of a number of his military colleagues some time ago.

Although director Pierre Morel has been helming various action movies for the past two decades, he doesn't seem to have the ability to fix a weak script, and Jacob Lentz makes his feature film writing debut with one hell of a weak script. The characters are paper-thin (Pettits is unhappy with his later career choice while he is "just" a lawyer, and he has a wife and daughter to consider nowadays, while both Brie and Raba seem to have one main moment each, a point in their journey that changes the direction of their lives), the comedy is non-existent, and the plotting is lazy and careless. Not one of the action sequences impress, and it's generally impossible to care about main characters who seem quite invincible from their first moments onscreen anyway.

Cena is a fun and likable screen presence, and can also be very funny, but you wouldn't get that impression from this film. There are a lot more laughs gleaned from his role in the 2024 Oscar ceremony than there are gleaned from this. This is a laugh-free zone. Brie is someone I have enjoyed in a number of roles, but she struggles to do as well in feature films as she does on the small screen. Maybe I am forgetting some of her better work, maybe she just isn't a good fit for lead roles like this one. Raba is the most fun of the three, simply due to his character being so exuberant and unguarded, especially compared to how others expect hiim to be. Christian Slater has a couple of minutes of screentime, Marton Csokas is the coup leader, and Alice Eve and young Molly McCann play the wife and daughter, respectively, of our main character, with Eve reduced to being the kind of female who asks her husband to leave their home before spending most of their time worrying about when her husband might return safely.

Although I know that I'm exaggerating, I feel that I've taken at least just as much time and care writing this review as Lentz took in writing the script. It's not laughably incompetent, nor is it unwatchable. It's just thrown together, a collage of beige made from the paint samples left at the very back of the B & Q stockroom, and many viewers will struggle to even stay focused on it as it weaves a sleep-inducing spell.

3/10

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Tuesday 12 March 2024

Flora And Son (2023)

Writer-director John Carney has made his name with quirky and heart-warming modern musicals. They may not have any big song and dance numbers, and you may get to the end credits without thinking that you've watched a musical, but that's what they are. He knows that great songs, just like great movies, have the power to transport people, to help our emotions soar or plummet, and to boldly underline our lives if they occur at just the right time when we need them.

Flora And Son may be the weakest film yet from Carney, but that's not to say it's a bad film. It's just a testament to how great his other films have been. Eve Hewson plays Flora, a single mother having trouble keeping her young son, Max (Orén Kinlan), on the right path. Max's father, Ian (Jack Reynor), isn't helping, and her latest gift idea, rescuing a guitar that she finds being dumped, doesn't make the impact she hoped it would. Flora decides to use the guitar herself, picking an online tutor named Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Despite Max not seeming at all interested, music does start to form a bridge (no pun intended) between mother and son. 

Although all Carney movies feel small in scale, they are about personal joirneys rather than world-altering events, Flora And Son suffers slightly from feeling smaller than usual. The fact that Flora and Jeff communicate throughout most of the movie via a computer screen feels like an easy option for Carney, although there are moments depicting the characters imagining themselves sharing the same space together, and it undercuts the usual sweetness and ultimately uplifting nature of his films by serving as a reminder of the recent pandemic time we all shared together trying to spend time with other people via our phone screens and computers.

Hewson does a very good job in her first role that feels like a full feature lead, although she has been acting in shorts, TV, and movies for well over sa decade now. She's good enough to keep viewers onside for most of the runtime, despite being quite unlikable and conniving at certain times, and watching her develop a better relationship with Gordon-Levitt's character as she develops a better relationship with music, and subsequently a better relationship with her son, is as satisfying as it is predictable. Gordon-Levitt has to look cute and capable of being passionate about music, not much of a stretch for him, and he's perfectly cast here. Kinlan manages to play his moody teen in a way that doesn't make him too unbearable, helped by a script that show how his circumstances/home life have massively affected him, and the natural charm of Reynor allows him to play his douchebag absent parent in a way that is similarly easier to tolerate than he otherwise could have been.

If you like the films of Carney then you will find plenty to like here. He works just as much to a formula as many other film-makers, but a movie formula is much easier to accept and enjoy while it keeps working (just look at the first decade or so of the MCU). While this is slightly more bitter than his previous films, it's still a (kind of) low-key musical that will have you smiling as the end credits roll.

7/10

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Monday 11 March 2024

Mubi Monday: Face (1997)

Another one of those films that I watched, enjoyed, and then almost immediately forgot about for well over two decades, Face is a British crime thriller that feels enjoyably removed from so many other British crime thrillers from this period. It helps that it appeared the year before Lock, Stock, And Two Smoking Barrels (a film that, for better or worse, would lead to many trying to replicate it), and the main cast are also a large part of the appeal.

The plot is simple enough. A group of career criminals work together for what should be a big payday. Unfortunately, the cash grabbed isn't as much as they had hoped it would be. That isn't the main problem though. The main problem is someone wanting to keep all of the cash, instead of sharing, which leads to theft, division in the group, and death.

Written by Ronan Bennett, this is a fairly straightforward film that feels like much more than that thanks to the writing of the characters and the central group dynamic. The people here all know what they're getting into, and all of them push back against the idea of being seen as any kind of enviable rebel, but they also continue to slightly delude themselves that they can enjoy the mythical notion of the "one big score".

Director Antonia Bird only helmed about ten features during her career, and most of those were TV movies, but everything she did was worth checking out (especially the film she would deliver immediately after this one, Ravenous). She does an excellent job here of turning a gritty Brit-flick into something interesting, and even occasionally surprising (especially during a face-off with the police that feels like a low-budget and small-scale homage to the brilliant shoot-out in Heat).

The cast certainly don't hurt either, with Robert Carlyle adopting an English accent and taking on the nominal lead role, heading up a crew made up of Ray Winstone, Steven Waddington, Phil Davis, and Damon Albarn. Yes, Damon "Blur/Gorillaz" Albarn, who I forgot was in this, but who also does a better job than many other singers who have tried their hands at acting. There's also a welcome supporting role for Lena Headey, who I will keep emphasising should have had many more rewarding film roles throughout her career, and small moments for Andrew Tiernan, as well as potential national treasures Sue Johnston, and Peter Vaughan.

Far from perfect, especially when there's a feeling that Bird is trying to force some ill-fitting style over the perfectly fine substance, Face is also pleasingly deceptive in the way that it moves from being fairly mild to a tiger with a burning tail for the third act. While I wouldn't make a case for it being a forgotten classic, it certainly deserves a bit more attention and appreciation than it has received over the past quarter of a century.

7/10

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Sunday 10 March 2024

Netflix And Chill: Adventureland (2009)

Director Greg Mottola has been consistently entertaining for almost three decades now, on both the small and the big screen. I cannot comment on his short films made in the 1980s, but I don't think there's too much to be overly critical of from The Daytrippers (1996) onward. I'm not saying he has made classic after classic, and, as we can say about everyone, some will hate his work, but he's been doing very solid work throughout the majority of his career. This coming-of-age story remains one of his best.

It's 1987. Jesse Eisenberg plays James Brennan, a young man who ends up reluctantly taking a job at a local amusement park. His parents (played by Jack Gilpin and Wendie Malick) can't necessarily afford all the plans that James had in mind for his future student life, much to the surprise and disappointment of James. Unhappy with his role, things soon start to look up when James meets Em (Kristen Stewart). But can he make a good impression when everyone at the amusement park seems to be overshadowed by the cool and handsome Mike (Ryan Reynolds).

With Mottola taking on both the directing and writing duties this time around, showing that he's equally good in either role, what you get here is a sweet and amusing comedy drama that won't necessarily be embraced by those seeking out the very next feature from "the director of Superbad". Not that you can't see any connective tissue (Mottola knows how to show the insecurities of young characters as they make mistakes and stumble into what they think the next stage of their life should be), but this is actually a fair distance removed from that film, more in line with films such as The Way Way Back and The Kings Of Summer.

Eisenberg is a great choice for the lead role, bringing his usual mix of cockiness, intelligence, and the ability to be occasionally knocked down while he finds out that he doesn't always know more than everyone else around him. This is up there with his very best roles, and he's complemented by a pretty perfect selection of supporting performers. Stewart is equally good as Em, a young woman making her mistakes without the relatively comfortable background that James has, Margarita Levieva is well-cast in the role of another desirable young woman, Lisa, and Martin Starr excels as the more experienced park worker, Joel, who really should have moved on to something else by now. Gilpin and Malick are good fun in their few scenes, Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are scene-stealers, as expected, any time they appear as the husband and wife park management team, and Reynolds is brilliantly utilised, with his charisma and good looks helping to soften the edges of someone who can viewed as very sad and quite awful, a man able to play at being king amongst youngsters who cannot smell the whiff of his BS.

The 1980s time period allows for a couple of great hits on the soundtrack (and I continue to be a big fan of Rock Me Amadeus, as performed by Falco), a main plot point allows for numerous Lou Reed tracks to be sprinkled throughout the film, there's a nice visual style that manages to feel both soft and crystal clear, and an air of authenticity runs through everything, from the content to the presentation. I highly recommend this, especially to anyone who has spent years avoiding it under the misapprehension that it was in the same vein as Mottola's previous teen movie.

8/10

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Saturday 9 March 2024

Shudder Saturday: This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967)

Although I had heard of the character, I spent far too many years not having experienced the movie magic of Coffin Joe. That changed when I finally watched At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, the Brazilian horror that I enjoyed enough to remind myself that I should check out as many of the instalments in the movie series as possible. It's been six years since I watched that earlier movie though, which just shows how bad I am at following up on my own mental "to do" list, and how hard it is to keep making progress through my ever-growing watchlist.

Following on from the events of the first film, although this works as a fairly standalone feature, Coffin Joe recovers from his injuries and returns to his village. He remains determined to find the perfect woman to bear his child, a plan that will lead to more deaths and more nightmarish visions for our dark and dangerous main character. That's pretty much all you need to know. Highlights include more diabolical use of spiders, a character literally caught between a rock and a hard place, and a vivid sequence that may or may not depict an actual trip to hell.

Once again directed by the star, José Mojica Marins, who also co-wrote the screenplay again, this time with Aldenora De Sa Porto, This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse is an even deeper journey inside the troubled mind of Coffin Joe. Although it's all plotted well enough, and has a narrative that is easy enough to follow, there are a couple of scenes that are brilliantly hallucinatory, blending with the other-worldly presence of Joe to deliver something that feels like one extended fever dream. That fever builds and builds, culminating in a fantastic and satisfying final sequence (although it should be noted that one main element was forced upon the film by Brazilian censores, and Marin was strongly opposed to it).

The cast all do good work, with both Nadia Freitas and Tina Wohlers impressing as two different women that have a strong effect on Joe, Antonio Fracari a strong presence as a thug who is tasked with taking down our devilish lead, and Nivaldo Lima is very Igor-like as, of course, a hunch-backed assistant named Bruno. Marins makes the right choice in giving himself the lead role though, and he's a captivating and consistently interesting presence, whether relishing in his diabolical plans or being scared out of his wits by visions of ghosts and Hell. 

I seem to like this film more than many other people, from a very quick glance around at some of the other reviews available for it, but maybe that's down to me waiting about six years since watching the first film. I won't be waiting as long to get to the next film though, especially after having treated myself to a gorgeous boxset full of Coffin Joe goodness [although we're all still waiting on that replacement disc from Arrow Video].

7/10

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Friday 8 March 2024

Anatomy Of A Fall (2023)

In an ideal world, Sandra Hüller would have swept numerous awards throughout the cycle of this current season. Not to take away anything from the other great actresses in contention, but Hüller has been a shining star in two incredible films recently, with both this and Zone Of Interest. And it's difficult to pick one performance from the two that would be a clear favourite, although her turn here feels a bit more nuanced and allows her to command the screen a bit more.

Although the title is Anatomy Of A Fall, this really turns into an anatomy of a relationship. Hüller plays Sandra Voyter, a woman who finds her life put under an unflattering microscope after the death of her husband. Did he fall, or was he pushed? Without anything here overtly telling viewers if Voyter is innocent or guilty, the film forces viewers to question themselves as/if they constantly question her integrity and character.

Having been a fan of director Justine Triet for a number of years now, who also once again shares the writing duties with Arthur Harari, this feels like an impressive career high (for now, it would be great to see Triet continue making films at the same height of this magnificent plateau). Part character study, even larger part exploration of the highs and lows of relationships, I envy anyone who can watch this and not feel even the smallest amount of worry about any of their own conversations and arguments being read out in a courtroom without the context of everyday life around it (as is happening to our lead). The need to grasp for specific phrases in specific languages, Voyter speaks English, French, and German, underlines the gaps that can often lie between our inner thoughts and how things are effectively conveyed to others.

It feels redundant to heap more praise upon Hüller at this point, after my first paragraph echoing what so many have already said about her in the past year, and for some time beforehand. Her performance is absolutely perfect throughout, and her screen presence is so riveting that the film often feels like a one-woman play. This is despite a number of excellent supporting players, including both a child actor (Milo Machado-Graner, playing Sandra's son, Daniel) and a very well-trained dog (Snopp, played by a border collie named Messi).

Working on both an emotional and cerebral level, although the poise and calm, for the most part, of the main character, may have people thinking otherwise, Anatomy Of A Fall shows someone being judged by people who can't ever know every nuance and moment of the life being dissected. And, by extension, it reminds us of how little we know about everyone we may judge or view in certain ways without having anywhere close to a full picture of them. The more I think about it, the more I love it. Despite the 151-minute runtime, it's one that I know I could easily rewatch any time.

10/10

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Thursday 7 March 2024

Gorath (1962)

Having been on this cinematic journey for some time now already, I can safely say that I seem to be prepared for everything that these films throw at me. There is either a stat creature/personality or some interesting creation allowed to cameo, there is always the potential for a large-scale catastrophe, and many of the actors are kept busy playing people I don’t really care about in between the tense set-pieces.

That causes me a problem, of course, as I struggle to write something in-depth about each of these films, and also struggle to write something that doesn’t feel just copied and pasted from previous reviews.

Gorath was a film that I had a lot of fun with, and I suspected I would enjoy it when I saw the main creature (one named Maguma, and it basically looks like a huge walrus). It also helped that I discovered quite early that Gorath is the name of a runaway star that is on a collision course with Earth. Gorath is smaller than our planet, but it has 6000 times the gravity. Viewers will remember this because it is stated at least half a dozen times in the first quarter of the movie, or so it seemed. After one spaceship is destroyed, another heads off on a brave quest to monitor the situation. Meanwhile, Earth scientists hatch a plan to move Earth just enough to avoid the star. What this will mean for the future of the planet is unknown, but it becomes more problematic when they wake up Maguma, who wanders around angrily for a few scenes.

With director Ishirô Honda once again at the helm here, and a script written by Takeshi Kimura (another familiar name to fans of this kind of fare), this is comfortable and enjoyable entertainment. The focus throughout remains on the impending disaster, with a small diversion when Maguma is woken up, and watching the plan be conceived and put into practice is surprisingly entertaining.

While the cast includes Ryô Ikebe, Yumi Shirikawa, Akira Kubo, Kumi Mizuno, and numerous others, none of them make much of an impression juxtaposed against the vastness and potential danger of our universe. Some extra drama, revolving around an astronaut with memory loss, feels like nothing more than an irritating delay in between the big planet-in-peril moments.

I may not rush to revisit this one, and it’s a shame that there wasn’t more screentime for the wonderfully goofy Maguma, but I enjoyed it while it was on. I am sure it won’t be a firm favourite for anyone, but it does enough to make it memorable and worth your time.

7/10

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Wednesday 6 March 2024

Prime Time: Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000)

Although it seems to be largely forgotten nowadays, The Nutty Professor was a fun remake of a classic Jerry Lewis vehicle. It wasn’t a masterpiece, but it updated the story well and packed in a decent number of laughs. Tom Shadyac directed well enough, and Eddie Murphy was on good form when not in the scenes that had him playing multiple roles.

The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps doesn’t realise what worked in the first film though. We now have Peter Seagal directing (someone who has helmed a handful of decent comedies) and even more scenes allowing Eddie Murphy to act alongside his favourite scene partner, Eddie Murphy.

Murphy once again plays almost every member of his family, the Klumps, but this time around the plot sees Sherman thinking he has discovered a scientific fountain of youth. He also aims to remove any shred of Buddy Love from his genetic material, and he is in love with a colleague, Denise (Janet Jackson). Things start to go wrong, of course, once Buddy is separated from Sherman. Not only do the two end up competing over Sherman’s new scientific miracle, but Sherman starts to lose a significant amount of brain cells, meaning that he actually needs to incorporate Buddy back into his system if he wants to keep his intelligence and his career.

There isn’t really too much that needs said about this. It is another Eddie Murphy vehicle that ends up being both helped and hindered by the leading man. Segal directs competently enough, but he cannot overcome a script that relies on numerous fart gags, dream sequences to give Murphy more screentime (and more fart gags), and a number of sniggers at the idea of a man being sodomised by a giant hamster. I am sure Paul and Chris Weitz, two of the co-writers on this, don’t have this at the top of their CV.

Murphy does well enough in his various roles, and it’s hard to watch this even today and not appreciate the skill required to interlock his various performances, with the only major mis-step being Buddy Love, who is as annoying as he was the first time around, but also has some extra canine DNA mixed in this time. Jackson is very sweet and appealing, taking on a thankless role that is made even more thankless while she takes a backseat to the multiple Murphys. And then we have poor Larry Miller, a man who has to suffer the indignity of being the “punchline” in that aforementioned hamster sequence.

While it remains far from the worst Eddie Murphy vehicle, and that is a low bar indeed, this just isn’t very good. But, even worse, it’s a disappointingly huge step down from the previous film. That felt like an attempt to update an old film into something that would entertain comedy fans. This feels like an attempt to simply entertain Murphy.

4/10

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Tuesday 5 March 2024

Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

The feature debut from director Zelda Williams, who has already amassed a number of shorts and music videos to her name, Lisa Frankenstein is a film I have been keen to see since I first heard about it. It stars Kathryn Newton (a plus), it is another horror comedy written by Diablo Cody (another plus, and I am someone else who always enjoyed Jennifer’s Body, please enjoy that rough and brief review), and it has a late 1980s setting and vibe (plus). This should have been a home run for me. It was not.

Newton plays Lisa Swallows, a young woman who doesn’t feel as if she fits in anywhere. She doesn’t have her own people at school. She keeps engaging in an exhausting battle of wills with her step-mother (played by Carla Gugino). She doesn’t even seem to enjoy living as much as most people, and that is how she is well-suited to becoming a friend to someone who unexpectedly returns from the dead (Cole Sprouse). Can this other outsider help her resolve a number of issues, or will he just make Lisa more determined to loathe those living their lives in relative bliss.

It is all too easy to review this movie by making the obvious comparisons to Frankenstein’s creation. The tonal shifts are jarring, a number of elements don’t work as well as they could, and it is constructed in a way that leads to a clumsy and ugly result. Nobody should want to lead an angry mob to set this on fire, but I can certainly see why it hasn’t been a roaring success (although I am sure it will do better in the home rental/retail/streaming market).

Unlike her previous work, Cody doesn’t seem to know what main points she wants to make here. There’s no obvious target, although the scattershot approach tries, and fails, to hit a number of small bullseyes. Williams does nothing to help, seemingly focused on the style and aesthetic ahead of a cohesive and satisfying narrative through-line, so it’s up to the cast to lift the film up.

Fortunately, Newton is an absolute star. Sprouse, limited by the character he is playing, also does well, but the film brightens up whenever it stops just to let Newton shine brighter, which she gets to do on a few different occasions (a rendition of a well-known ‘80s hit being the highlight of the whole film). Gugino is fun, as is Liza Soberano (playing Lisa’s sister, Taffy). Henry Eikenberry also does well, playing Michael, the object of Lisa’s unrequited affection, and Joe Chrest is an amusingly passive father. None of them rival Newton though, and I continue to look forward to watching anything that she’s in.

I still found enough separate elements here to enjoy, but it was hard work. There are so many decisions made here that fall short of the mark, from the soundtrack to ineffectual backstories for our leads, from the awkward early scenes to a bold, but slightly mishandled, ending. Some will be able to overlook the main failings and love it, and I already know one or two friends who had much more fun with this than I did, but I was saddened to find that the bad counter-balanced the good throughout, forcing me to mark this as an absolutely average viewing experience.

5/10

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Monday 4 March 2024

Mubi Monday: The Machine To Kill Bad People (1952)

AKA The Machine That Kills Bad People.

Another serving of neorealism from Roberto Rossellini, this time mixed with a healthy dose of comedy, The Machine That Kills Bad People is an enjoyably simple idea that allows for the director to keep everything deceptively light and frivolous until hammering home one or two main points in the finale.

Gennaro Pisano plays Celestino, a photographer who lives in a small fishing village in Italy. He encounters a man who claims to be Saint Andrea (I am still trying to identify that cast member), and is subsequently given the titular item. Taking a photograph of someone else can lead to their demise, and they will pass away in the same position as their photographed pose. With this power in his hands, Celestino could help his village by getting rid of bad people and working towards equality for all. Unless that is impossible.

Written by a handful of people, seven are credited with the story idea and development, the film works thanks to the many characters it brings onscreen to illustrate the problems that stem from judging others, as well as the problems that stem from trying to force change in a society that needs more than a metaphorical wave of a magic wand.

Rossellini directs with his usual light touch and expertise, although I say this as someone yet to explore so many more titles in his filmography, and those who appreciate his style should find this as worthwhile as anything else he helmed. It is a comedy though, albeit a dark one with a lot of social commentary, and some may be slightly put off by that. For all the praise heaped upon him, Rossellini is rarely mentioned in conversations about humour.

Pisano is a delight in the lead role, going through a number of stages as he disbelieves his new “gift”, plans how to make the best use of it, and eventually sees how his best-laid plans may be seriously flawed. There’s also an opportunistic local mayor, a number of American tourists, and one or two others who may or may not end up victims of the machine, all played well by the assembled players. And old Saint Andrea himself, an imp who spells out the main points of the film, is brilliantly portrayed by [place holder here, I WILL find out the name of this actor].

I enjoyed this well enough as the first half played out, but I incorrectly viewed it as something light and disposable. The second half really impressed me though, and made me feel slightly foolish for underestimating the skill and intelligence of those behind the camera.

8/10

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Sunday 3 March 2024

Netflix And Chill: Spaceman (2024)

A sci-fi drama that makes good use of Adam Sandler in another of his impressive dramatic turns, Spaceman is an American film that feels like an ill-judged remake. It isn't an ill-judged remake, actually being based on the book, "Spaceman Of Bohemia", written by Jaroslav Kalfař, but it's very interesting to find elements here that weren't changed to keep the whole thing feeling more obviously American in origin.

Sandler plays Commander Jakub Procházka, a cosmonaut who is due to investigate a large dust cloud just beyond Jupiter. He is far from home, all alone, and suddenly not receiving any messages from his estranged wife, Lenka (Carey Mulligan). There has been a message sent to him, one telling him that Lenka is leaving, but Jakub's commanding officer, Commissioner Tuma (Isabella Rossellini) decides to hold it back, figuring out what is best for Jakub's mental health and wellbeing. Maybe it's too late for Jakub though, considering that he starts to wonder if he's hallucinating when he encounters a telepathic spider-like creature that ends up being named Hanuš (voiced by Paul Dano). This encounter leads to a number of conversations that force Jakub to face the reality of his decisions and emotions.

The second feature written by Colby Day, Spaceman is a deep well of ideas and potential that is sadly never as good as it should be, and a lot of that feels down to the writing. Day doesn't do anything wrong by the characters, but the one idea being focused on is a bit too slight without adding more to it, making the 107-minute runtime feel overlong as a number of the main moments between Jakub and Hanuš feel repetitive and unconstructive, especially while the former fights against his own regret and sorrow.

Director Johan Renck has no other features in his extensive filmography so far, but one look at the many music videos and TV shows he has worked on shows someone who should have been given a film project many years ago (he's worked with Chris Cornell, Madonna, Kylie, and David Bowie, as well as being at the helm of episodes of The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Bates Motel, Bloodline, and all 5 episodes of the absolutely astounding Chernobyl). He assembles a solid cast here, gets some lovely cinematography from Jakob Ihre, and a fine score from Max Richter, so it's a shame that the material is lacking that special something.

Sandler is very good in the lead role, no surprise to anyone who has been appreciating his dramatic work throughout the past couple of decades, and Dano is an excellent foil for him, enquiring and commenting with a fairly flat and monotone voice highlighting their position as an impartial viewer keen to explore the loneliness of a fellow traveller. While Mulligan is also very good, she's stuck playing a woman who is often shown in memories and visions filtered through the eyes of the main character, making her feel like someone who is never fully real. Kunal Nayyar is also very good, playing a technician named Peter, and both Rossellini and Lena Olin are given just enough screentime to remind you that other people are trying to support both Jakub and Lena, and there is a wider world beyond our stranded cosmonaut and his, in a way, stranded wife.

Spaceman is good. It's worth one watch. But it's not one that I can see many people revisiting, and I don't think many people will love it. There's too much wasted potential, and it brings to mind one or two superior sci-fi tales, at the very least, that you could say cover very familiar territory. I know many people, like myself, who won't mind wandering through that kind of landscape though.

5/10

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Saturday 2 March 2024

Shudder Saturday: History Of Evil (2024)

Here is the single sentence plot summary of History Of Evil on IMDb: "A family on the run from a corrupt state takes refuge in a safe house with an evil past." I don't often make use of summaries available elsewhere on the internet, almost always preferring to convey my own interpretation of the main plot points, but I have shared a standard logline on this occasion because, well, I don't think I would have thought of it in that way. Because History Of Evil isn't very good, and it seems to forget what it is trying to do for the majority of the runtime.

The very opening of the film explains how it is set in a near future. Things haven't gone well for humanity. Some people are trying to make things right though, resisting against the horrors and oppression. They are known as The Resistance (a word highlighted in red for those who might otherwise struggle to realise what word is the best one to describe the characters we are about to meet). We then join Ron Dyer (Paul Wesley) as he attempts to get his "public enemy" wife, Alegre (Jackie Cruz), and their daughter, Daria (Murphee Bloom), to a safe house where they can await extraction to somewhere even better. They are being helped by Trudy (Rhonda Johnson Dents), eventually reaching their destination and then growing more tense and strange as the time keeps passing.

I could describe some more plot elements, but a) they are spoilers, b) they may make you think that this is a better movie than it actually is, and c) I cannot be bothered. This film, although competently made on a technical level, was so frustrating and unfocused that it proved a real chore to get through. I am just happy that the runtime clocked in at just over an hour and a half before the end credits started rolling.

Written and directed by Bo Mirhosseni, making his feature debut (which should come as no surprise to anyone who watches this), there are crumbs of good ideas scattered throughout this, but nothing is ever given enough time and attention. The world described to viewers isn't really shown, obviously due to a limited budget, the characters don't feel worth spending too much time with, especially when we don't get enough background information that might help viewers sympathise, empathise, or consider what they would do in the same scenario, and any apparent "plot twists" fall completely flat, being far too obvious and familiar to genre fans. To be fair, Mirhosseni may not have intended anything to feel like a twist or reveal, but it certainly feels that way as things play out.

Wesley is decent enough in what amounts to the lead role, but he shouldn't have necessarily been the lead. That should have gone to Cruz, or perhaps Cruz and Bloom together, mother and daughter struggling to maintain a healthy relationship and attempted normal life in the face of mounting danger. Cruz, Bloom, and Dents are all good, with all of the main flaws in the film stemming from the script and direction, as evidenced by the way the solid performance from Thomas Francis Murphy, playing someone else inhabiting the house, is consistently undermined.

I know why Mirhosseni made this film, and there's always potential in the idea of people repeating dark moments from history without learning anything from them, but I hope he takes some more time for his next project, perhaps getting someone else to look over his work and check that he follows enough of the breadcrumb trails he scatters around, and ensure that he picks the right lead character. This is bad, but there's promise within it.

3/10

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Friday 1 March 2024

The Three Treasures (1959)

It’s quite a coincidence that I spent time this week finally watching Poor Things, a Frankenstein-like work, and then made room in my viewing schedule for this, a film essentially about gods and monsters. The Three Treasures has some of the former, one of the latter, and a lengthy runtime that allows the director to give due respect to a creation myth that shows Japan being formed.

The great Toshirô Mifune is the lead here, an individual named Prince Osu who will soon become Prince Yamato Takeru. As Osu, he embarks on a deadly quest. As Takeru, he starts to evolve as he finds out more context about his place in the world, whether of his own doing or at the hands of others.

I am not going to lie. I watched this because it was on the list of kaiju movies I am currently using as a main reference point for my 2024 journey through the films of Godzilla and co. It wasn’t long until I realised that this was quite different to the other films I have been watching recently. This isn’t a monster movie. It is a classic tale, a hero’s journey that also includes a memorable encounter with a creature that is very close in design to the Hydra (although it “only” has eight heads, and is known as Yamata no Orichi). That creature is well-realised, Harryhausen-like in feel and execution, but it is one very small moment in a film that is more concerned with fate, selflessness, love, and fighting for your place in history.

Written by Ryûzô Kikushima and Toshio Yasumi, who both have MANY films worth exploring, this is an enjoyably overblown bit of melodrama, almost an entire film seemingly designed to celebrate the gods responsible for creating Japan, but it’s also a film that just reaches a bit too far. I never felt truly invested in the story, and I didn’t care for any of the characters, although I would remain interested in Toshirô Mifune simply due to him being Toshirô Mifune.

Director Hiroshi Inagaki looks to have made a nice little career out of churning out historical dramas for a decade or so, and there is clearly a good use of resources here to show every main set-piece, but the end result here doesn’t feel like the best work from anyone involved. Maybe, and it is a big maybe, a rewatch would be beneficial. Maybe watching it in a better presentation would help (this was hard to track down, but is tucked away on the Internet Archive). Sadly, all I have to go on is this particular experience, and it was lacking something special.

Mifune is wonderful though, and I will also mention the likes of Yôko Tsukasa, Kyôko Kagawa, Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura, and Setsuko Hara, and there are many more excellent performers in the stuffed cast, but very few get to make much of an impression amidst this sprawling tale of tales.

Certainly not terrible, and rarely dull, this just wasn’t as good as other historical epics I could suggest. And I’ll admit it, I was hoping for more screentime for that multi-headed snake monster, dammit.

5/10

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Thursday 29 February 2024

Poor Things (2023)

Another film from director Yorgos Lanthimos, who has delivered one stunning feature after another for the past decade (and even his earlier work is of interest to those who appreciate his strange look at the world), Poor Things is a film I wish I had seen sooner, but I just couldn’t schedule the cinema trip. I am now even more regretful of that missed opportunity.

Emma Stone plays Bella, a young woman who has been created, in a way, by Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). As she rushes through various stages of development, from learning language to eventually learning about the pleasures of sex, Bella accepts a proposal from Godwin’s assistant, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef). She feels as if she should see a bit more of the world first though, and ends up travelling for a while with the caddish (although a number of other adjectives could also be listed here) Duncan Wedderburn.

Adapted from a novel by Alasdair Gray, Poor Things has a screenplay by Tony McNamara, wonderful cinematography from Robbie Ryan, and a suitably strange and wonderful score by Jerskin Fendrix. I am mentioning these people now before I forget them entirely, because my movie reviews simply don’t have the space to list every single person who contributed to this wonderful vision. Rest assured, however, that this is the kind of film that makes you want to take note of every name, from the production designers to the wardrobe department, from the make up to the lighting. It really is a brilliant group effort to deliver a vision that will be credited mainly to the director and cast.

Moving from what seems like a standard period drama setting to a cool, unexplained, steampunk sci-fi world, Lanthimos is once again having fun with an implausible concept that he can use to scrutinize the rules and hypocrisies of society. This would make an excellent companion piece to his masterpiece, The Lobster, covering the equally important topics of love and sex.

Stone is brilliant in the lead performance here, hilariously non-conformist and constantly questioning the rules and etiquette she sees as obstacles to her enjoyment of life. Ruffalo is equally good, and has many of the best lines in the film, swearing and klutzing his way through every scene as he tries to make himself out to be a much better man than he really is. Dafoe, working under some excellent make up, is as dependable as ever, even doing a decent job with what I think was meant to be a Scottish accent, and Youssef heads up a fine selection of supporting players, including Vicki Pepperdine, Margaret Qualley, and Christopher Abbott.

Simultaneously both funnier and darker than I expected, and also cruder and smarter, this has already been quite rightly praised as one of the best movies of 2023. It has plenty packed in every scene to reward repeat viewings, and I am already keen to make time for my own rewatch.

9/10

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Wednesday 28 February 2024

Prime Time: Upgraded (2024)

A misunderstanding that leads to someone trying to maintain an unrealistic image of their life, a number of coincidences making everything more complicated on the way, and one or two supporting characters doing their best to trip up our lead. Yes, we’re firmly in rom-com territory with Upgraded, a film that I saw someone else cannily sum up as a standard rom-com mixed with more than a hint of The Devil Wears Prada

Camila Mendes plays Ana, a young intern struggling to make the right impression in front of her boss, a hard taskmaster named Claire (Marisa Tomei). While heading to the UK to close a deal that will gain them a hefty commission, they are in the business of evaluating and auctioning art, Ana is mistreated at the airport so appallingly that she is upgraded to first class by a kind ticket agent. It is in this unfamiliar environment that Ana meets Will (Archie Renaux), getting on so well that she is befriended by his mother (Catherine, played by Lena Olin). Which is all well and good, until she starts to develop a busy social life that might create a clash with her work duties.

Writers Christine Lenig, Justin Matthews, and Luke Spencer Robert’s don’t have the most extensive filmographies, but it quickly becomes clear that each member of the team knows the formula needed at the heart of this film. There are some quirky supporting characters and some surprisingly funny lines of dialogue in the first half of the movie, but we all know where it needs to end up. The truth needs to come out, and at least one big romantic gesture is always welcome.

Director Carlson Young has a similarly small body of work, certainly in her directing role, but has been acting, mainly in TV shows, for a number of years. She is arguably best known for her role in the Scream TV series, where she played Brooke Maddox, but the skill and polish on display here bodes well for her future as a helmer of slick popular entertainment.

Mendes is perfectly fine in the lead role, and Renaux pairs up well enough with her. The two of them are as cute and safe as expected, but they actually feel like they have chemistry as their meet-cute turns into something more. Tomei has a lot of fun being the super-mean and super-demanding boss, Olin also seems to enjoy being a quirky and loving socialite/ex-model/actress, joined at times by a carefree and spirited artist (played by Anthony Head), and two “mean girls” are played well by Rachel Matthews and Fola Evans-Akingbola. There are also enjoyable supporting turns from Andrew Schulz, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, and Thomas Kretschmann.

Easy to enjoy, as long as you’re in the mood for this kind of thing, this is the kind of film that should manage to force a smile out of even the most resistant of viewers. You get a good mix of characters, the cast all seem to be enjoying themselves immensely, and the third act delivers one or two very satisfying moments. It’s not sophisticated, it’s far from perfect (I have already forgotten any of the score/soundtrack, for example), but it’s a bloody good time while it’s on.

7/10

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Tuesday 27 February 2024

The Zone Of Interest (2023)

If you want to go to the cinema and enjoy a fun bit of escapism then I don’t recommend rushing to see The Zone Of Interest. Director Jonathan Glazer doesn’t tend to deliver feelgood films. He does deliver greatness though, and I believe you could make a case for every one of his films to be considered a modern masterpiece.

In case you have missed any conversation about this one, The Zone Of Interest is the film all about Auschwitz that doesn’t ever show us the horrors inside the camp. We spend most of our time watching the house situated right beside the camp, the residence of camp commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), his wife (Hedwig, played by Sandra Hüller), and their young children. There are some other areas shown (an office and a basement “washroom” are used for one or two memorable moments), but the crux of the film is the idyllic family home juxtaposed against what we know is going on in Auschwitz.

We all know that Nazis were bad. We should all know that Nazis are still bad. I firmly believe in the “it’s always okay to punch a Nazi” adage, and I am constantly bewildered by people who try to use the freedom of speech argument to defend hatespeech and scapegoating a whole demographic to help turn everyone else against them. If you are reading this review, I assume we agree. So I can understand people rolling their eyes and sighing as they wondered why we even need this film. Well, I think it does a great job of highlighting just how evil deeds are normalised, and how a holocaust is propped up by the many people who decided to do nothing, either through ignorance, misplaced faith in others doing the right thing, or self-preservation.

Although both Friedel and Hüller are both excellent in their roles, with the latter having the kind of year, between this and Anatomy Of A Fall, that should take her career stratospheric, their performances are boosted by the location, and the atmosphere of dread and terror creeping around the edge of every frame. Whether it’s a shot of smoking chimneys or the top of a train arriving at the concentration camp, or even the constant soundtrack of muffled cries and pain, this is a film that knows the main character is Auschwitz itself, one of the most heinous places to have ever been constructed.

Glazer, adapting the novel by Martin Amis, knows exactly how to treat the material. The apparent banality of everything onscreen just makes you feel worse about what is going on “behind the scenes”, and some of the conversations, whether they are about increasing the efficiency of the death machine, being recognised for a job well done, or sorting through clothing, pack the kind of punch that may leave some viewers feeling slightly winded.

There’s a lot more I could say about this, despite struggling to find the right words and trying not to repeat myself too much, but I think the viewing experience speaks for itself. It would be good to think that we have learned from history, but a brief glance at the latest news headlines has me doubting that. Ah well, at least I have been reminded of my own willingness to punch Nazis. So maybe there is a bit of a feelgood factor to the film after all.

9/10

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