Stephen Hopkins directs Jeff Bridges, Tommy Lee Jones and Suzy Amis in this crass actioner where an Irish bomber targets an old foe in Boston.
Blarney Stone Speed with Batman Forever plotting. The mad accents and up to 11 performances should have garnered this at least a cult following. Hey, Tommy Lee Jones I see you sanctioning buffoonery, ya hypocrite. On paper this should be a blast, genuinely curious as to why it’s quite so turgid and off putting. The set pieces are more ridiculous than exciting. I went to the West Ealing flea pit to see this one… maybe my last trip before they closed it down? What a shitty swan song to a fag smoke shithole. Give me a Time Machine I’d live that day again note for note.
Terry Zwigoff directs Max Minghella, Sophia Myles and John Malkovich in this campus comedy where an art student finds themselves enrolled in a ghetto of an art college.
This wants to be a satire but I’m not sure it really has the right concentration at what it wants to lampoon. Firstly, John Water’s Pecker did this all far more jollily, with dirty affection. Secondly, the serial killer subplot distracts from what we bought a ticket for, a key sign that Clowes / Zigoff didn’t think there was enough here as a one-of-a-kind experience. Thirdly, as a quasi sequel to Ghost World (same source author, humour, attitude, style) this just proves what lightning in a bottle casting Thora, Scarlett and Steve all were. If Zwigoff just stuck to his preset objectives there is a better film here. Malkovich and Myles understand the assignment.
“Legend has it it was written by the dark ones. Necronomicon Ex Mortis. Roughly translated – Book of the dead. The book served as a passageway to the evil worlds beyond. It was written long ago, when the seas ran red of blood. It was this blood that was used to ink the book. In the year 1300 AD, the book disappeared…”
This one looks the absolute tits. Feels like that missing puzzle piece, a belated entry in the American Zeotrope classic horror adaptation cycle that included Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow. All keen Nineties Neo- expressionist Victoriana gorefests. As either a shocker or a romp it goes off the boil. The second half is unmemorable and it feels like Del Toro is a bit suffocated by the trappings.
6
Saturday The 14th (1981)
Howard R. Cohen directs Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentiss, and Jeffrey Tambor in this horror spoof where a suburban family inherits an old mansion which houses the dangerous ‘Book of Evil’ that all the ghouls want.
Absolutely guff horror comedy with blandies doing sub-sitcom delivery of non-jokes while occasionally actors in rubber suits have a party in the kitchen. Remember the naff hand-drawn box art from my first visit to the videoshop back in the day.
2
Dracula (1931)
Tod Browning and Karl Freund directs Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler and Dwight Frye in this classic Universal vampire adaptation.
I haven’t watched this one since I was a teenager. After an eerie opening act (surprise armadillos) it becomes a filmed stage play. Very creaky, with perhaps the most abrupt wrap-up I have ever witnessed to a movie. At least Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye both fill the screen with their creepy personalities. Why bother with this museum piece though if you have Eggers’ Nosferatu on your physical media shelf?
6
Burnt Offerings (1976)
Dan Curtis directs Karen Black, Oliver Reed and Bette Davis in this chiller where a family moves into a large old mansion in the countryside which seems to have a mysterious thrall over all their behaviour.
A big influence on The Shining with a remote house essentially possessing a family… eventually tearing the unit apart. Reed gives one of his best performances. On screen, he and Bette have nice chemistry. It was a shame to read in the trivia that they hated each other on set. King definitely took notes on this one. A hedge even comes alive at one point. Creepy in a PG sorta way.
6
Trick ‘R’ Treat (2007)
Michael Dougherty directs Dylan Baker, Anna Paquin and Brian Cox in this crisscrossing anthology flick set on October 31st.
Very comic booky… Creepshow / Tales From The Crypt. It never truly comes alive beyond being a five finger exercise but Anna Paquin looks nice in a Red Riding Hood costume. The chapter about the little kids visiting a gorge on the edge of town to prank their touched neighbour is the only above average entry.
6
Anguish (1987)
Bigas Luna directs Zelda Rubinstein, Michael Lerner and Talia Paul in this mind bending meta horror where a controlling mother uses telepathic powers to send her middle-aged son on a killing spree.
Wild times at the Filmhouse for my birthday movie. I always associated Bigas Luna with saucy Spanish sex comedies so this breakthrough flick with Hollywood character actors was a shock in more ways than one. I won’t ruin any big formal surprises but this is a movie that often takes you out of your comfort zone then keeps turning those self aware screws. Possibly will only work the once but what a ride. Not for the easily queasy.
7
The Devil’s Rejects (2005)
Rob Zombie directs Sid Haig, Sheri Moon Zombie and Bill Moseley in this western horror sequel to House Of A 1000 Corpses.
I’m a Rob Zombie fan. I like his house sauce. It is spicy, chunky and very bad for you. There ain’t no allergens warning in this BBQ pit. The Devil’s Rejects is his most accessible, most traditionally competent project. Sid Haig gets a decent amount of screentime, Bill Moseley gives his most sinister performance. The gruelling motel hostage sequence is emotionally unsettling. Will push your buttons!! The jukebox Seventies shitkicker soundtrack stomps ass and takes names. The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd are put to perfect use. This one gets the heart thumping. An absolute, gritty grubby blast that owes as much to Peckinpah as it does to Hooper.
8
The Haunted Palace (1963)
Roger Corman directs Vincent Price, Lon Chaney Jr. and Debra Paget in this gothic horror about a couple who inherit a lynched to death warlock’s castle.
Influenced by both Edgar Allen AND H.P., this period literary chiller has two unnerving scare sequences and a grand castle interior set. Plus The Tiger Of Eschnapur’s Debra Paget looks resplendent in her final role. Vinny Price gives a deliciously evil performance when possessed by his ancestor. Heartless, determined. What else would you expect? Corman was a fine director and his entire Poe sequence deserves more admiration than mere praise from cult circles.
Na Hong-jin directs Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung and Jung Ho-yeon in this epic South Korean sci-fi alien invasion chase movie.
Jaws on intergalactic uppers. 30 – 40 minute long adrenaline fuelled action sequences. A pace so persistent that sometimes you’ll just tap out and let it wash over you. A horse riding and car jumping finale that matches only 20th century Cameron in its bravura kinetic chutzpah. An ending that sees the new settlers given a voice and narrative supremacy while the dogged human survivors can barely put their threatened existence into words. We see the colonisers become the storytellers and the ragtag bedraggled indigenous displaced. Is this our future? Is the subtextual message possibly a wee bit racist… or at least nationalistic? At times gleefully puerile, other times distracting lore heavy. The two things we can all agree on is there HAS to be a sequel and the daffy / beautiful Jung Ho-yeon proves her movie star bonafides with aplomb.
Paweł Pawlikowski directs Sandra Hüller, Hanns Zischler and August Diehl in this historical drama where German author Thomas Mann returns to both new Germanys with his daughter at the start of the Cold War.
Beautiful monochrome photography and accurate visual recreation. Fatherland is a more obtuse experience than Ida or Cold War even if they are set in the same post-WWII milieu. More about questions and alienation than emotions and connections. A wonderfully made piece of arthouse but the purposeful intellectual distance will hold me up chasing down a rewatch.
I was a Street Fighter II kid. I was never particularly good at it. E Honda was my guy. I put many 30ps into the cabinet in the corner of my newsagent, I still play against Natalie and she beats me 8 out of 10 fights. Did I care about the property so much that I rushed out on opening weekend to see a new cinematic incarnation though? Never before… This is the first time I have. From the trailers the reboot looked like a colourful riot. And it is. David Dastmalchian gives fine self aware villain as M Bison. The casting works, making the characters more important than the actors and non actors behind them. The lady who plays Chun-Li and wrestler who plays Guile are particularly memorable. It moves like a big gaudy shark. It would die if it stopped so it doesn’t. Instead it makes fun of itself while delivering all the 16 bit, 90 second bouts you can handle. Clearly made by fans for fans it made me feel like 13 year old all over again. The movie is set in the Nineties and has a very Nineties sensibility about its humour, production, soundtrack and standards. Cliffhanger? Roll on Champion Edition, please.
Paul Greengrass directs Andrew Garfield, Jamie Bell and Thomasin Mckenzie in this cinematic retelling of the Wat Tyler rebellion of 1381.
Mixed bag with some moments feeling very much like those uncanny character monologue screens in museums (“We’re losing control. We’re losing control. The mob are killing Flemish merchant down at the docks.”) and others like the start of the Robin Hood cinematic universe. The historical epic meat of it though is both educational and stirring. It ain’t no Braveheart but I like Garfield and am pleased with how he continually cashes in his fame on unfashionable but decent projects like this.
Ben Affleck directs himself, Kerry Washington and Gillian Anderson in this drama where a political candidate’s son is kidnapped on the eve of an election.
Affleck takes the same essential plot of King’s Ransom / High & Low / Highest To Lowest and aims for a solid chamber piece. The lengthy middle act is essentially an one room play about responsibility, corruption, control and ethics that takes in both Los Angeles immigration hypocrisy and fidelity in marriage… as well as the bog standard anxious phone calls with anonymous criminals. Is it all very worthy? Does it play out like a more focussed update of Oscar bait Crash? The more thriller orientated set-up and wrap up are worth the admission. Affleck gets a subplot where he rekindles his character’s bedroom life with Kerry Washington’s before the guns come out. I wouldn’t put it past Ben to greenlight an entire project just so as he can share a duvet with her. I’d vote for him. Finally, Gillian Anderson is having a fantastic run right now at being hands down the standout in so many flicks.
Woody Allen directs Martin Landau, himself and Angelica Huston in this drama where, at the end of an affair, a well respected doctor edges towards the murder of his mistress.
Often when I watch movies of this era I realise I have seen them as a child. Or at least parts of them. Possibly with no idea what they were. Or at least little real understanding of their adult themes. Again… here… huge moments of déjà vu during this one. But I also found it also very dry and obvious. The distance is too clinical. Many people praise C&M for getting the balance right between Allen’s intellectual comedy schtick and his aspirations to be the Manhattan Bergman. I found both plot strands a little preposterous and indulgent. A disappointment aside from Angelica Huston’s (short lived) vivacious yet sad turn.
