Donald Cammell directs Anne Heche, Joan Chen and Christopher Walken in this erotic thriller where a money laundering banker moonlights as a call girl.
Infamous for having three versions. None of which make much narrative sense and the one the producers released may have contributed to Cammell’s suicide. Any version you watch is an incoherent soup of concepts and wildly off beam acting styles. I will say the lengthy centrepiece sex scene between Heche and Chen is very steamy. Everything flopping around it? Dreck.
Eva Victor directs themself, Naomi Ackie and Louis Cancelmi in this comedy drama about a young academic slowly recovering from a trauma.
Not entirely sure what the fuss is about here despite it giving a measured voice to themes of distress and healing that don’t get aired enough in cinema. Some of the tonal shifts are mired with smart alec-cky wish fulfilment. That’s OK for a movie like Fletch or Bottoms but here it doesn’t ring true. You can’t be deadpan twisting the emotions one second then snarking the next. Even if your target audience craves the small victory. Not the ‘new classic’ it is framed as being by the critics but quite affecting in spurts. Victor’s performance has depth and is quite pleasingly stoic, John Carroll Lynch has a brilliant one-scene only pop- up.
Brandon Trost directs Seth Rogen, Seth Rogen and Sarah Snook in this time travel comedy where an immigrant worker at a pickle factory is accidentally preserved for 100 years and wakes up in modern-day Brooklyn.
One of those “lost” Covid movies released when multiplexes needed content once they reopened but the studios refused to give ‘em anything big like Bond or Top Gun after Tenet struggled. I think we are finally back at a point where cinemas are busy and not just for the opening weekend of hyped blockbusters. I went to a screening of The Invite this weekend (Hello again, Seth) and it was full. Toy Story 5 was full. Obsession and Backrooms were probably still doing very healthy business. Felt like 1999 in terms of deep programming footfall. Anyway, this is a sweet comedy. Quite in tune with Mel Brooks and Albert Brooks at their most mainstream. Millennial concerns are reframed through the eyes of an Eastern European pre-Soviet union serf. Things go wild. Rogen has built up an impressive body of accessible, lowkey satires between all those dick and weed joke vehicles. We went to see Unhinged back when the Vue Ocean Terminal reopened. We probably should have went to see this too.
Natalie and I went to see Roger Deakins in conversation to promote his new autobiography / coffee table book; Reflections this week. He packed the Assembly Rooms out. In the build up we had ourselves a Deakins season. No Country / Shawshank / Fargo obviously. Here are some other beautiful movies we caught up on as part of our sofa festival.
Do I like it more than original? Debatable. Do I think it is a gorgeously shot Western with a pitch perfect child performance from Steinfeld? Yes sirree Bob! This was a star making turn for her, a true rarity, and she breathes life into the twisty rat-a-tat-tat dialogue.
8
The Hurricane (1999)
Norman Jewison directs Denzel Washington, Vicellous Shannon and Deborah Kara Unger in this biopic of Rubin “The Hurricane” Carter, a former middleweight boxer who was wrongly convicted of a triple murder in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey.
A little creaky in its approach but houses one of Denzel’s most complex performances. Deakins goes back to prison after Shawshank. He is particularly good at making modern history seem simultaneously lived-in and mythic. This is a very “right on” “liberal” movie but that shouldn’t completely devalue its technical merits or the story’s power.
8
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (2007)
Andrew Dominik directs Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck and Sam Rockwell in this western following the final months of infamous train robber Jesse James and the acolyte who betrayed him.
One of the finest, most ambitious Hollywood films of the 21st century. So many iconic shots: The snakes in Pitt’s hand. The night time train robbery. The breakdown in the theatre. Up there with Barry Lyndon for painting with the light. Affleck and Pitt probably do their finest thespian work here. You really get into the mindsets of two horrifically flawed human beings. And who doesn’t love an epic western that is as much a Shakespearean tragedy as a six shooter actioner?
9
The Reader (2008)
Stephen Daldry directs Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes and Bruno Ganz in this controversial love story set in post-war Germany.
Almost by accident the last two movies we watched as part of the season tunnel further and further into moral quagmires. The Reader is purposefully cold, almost clinical film. Troubling! It centres on a potentially exploitative sexual relationship AND Germany’s holocaust guilt. There are also themes about class and the power of literature bubbling throughout the stark erotic drama. Kate Winslet gives a deservedly humane award winning performance while Deakins films her. Let’s give him his dues as a collaborator. By being super prepared with the technical stuff, he gifts the actors space to do their optimum work. Again and again!I really like this one, warts and all. I read the book it is based on in my early twenties. I have always been a Winslet fan and it feels like she comes into her own here. It has a whole lotta nudity and some of the wobbliest old age make up you’ve ever seen. I appreciate the fact it offers no definitive answers, no absolutism. Just bleak, distant questions and concerns. Deakins only lensed half of this. Allegedly it was a chaotic shoot and he found delays meant he had to leave to fulfil other commitments. Chris Menges took over the reigns.
7
Doubt (2008)
John Patrick Shanley directs Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams in this drama where a Catholic school principal questions a priest’s ambiguous relationship with a troubled young student.
… And then we have Doubt! One of the most puzzling Oscar bait movies ever released. Formally this is perfect. But it is a riddle of an experience. One of my favourite Streep performances – is she a reactionary monster or an inflexible hero? So many moments are open to vivid interpretation. Fingernails, long but kept clean. Up there with Do The Right Thing in terms of “What would you do?” and “Who is in the right here?”. Landscape nostalgia. Clean clear empty spaces. Light as an interrogation into a soul. It is all here. All of Deakins’ inimitable craft and artistry.
Andrew Niccol directs Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law in this sci-fi set in the future where career options and opulent lifestyle are the privilege only of the genetically perfect.
Beautiful looking movie from the writer of The Truman Show. Future noir. Sleek yet brutalist. Almost the opposite of high concept as the plot would take a few sentence to do justice. It isn’t perfect. It feels a little too much like a calling card spec script that got greenlit on the first draft. And it is more of a mystery than a romp. A mystery with no real enigmas. To wit the characters remain cyphers. Pieces on a board moving towards a rigged end game. Still, I have youthful nostalgia for Gattaca.
Craig Gillespie directs Milly Alcock, Matthias Schoenaerts and Eve Ridley in this Kara Zor-El stand alone space adventure.
The Woman Of Tomorrow comic book run by Tom King & Bilquis Evely is one of the best I have read post-Covid. It felt oven ready for direct translation to the big screen. The end result after the cook all feels… alright. Just too repetitive. One Mos Eisley cantina scene homage is fine and fair… and even expected. Every other scene? Nope. And then the action is the same rumble fake oner over and over too. Hmmm… There is a better film here. I actually think the chunky, dirty space visuals are stunning but I’m in the minority. Alcock is fine but is coming up to the plate too soon after Melissa Benoist did six home run seasons in a row. Her telly show was sometimes a mess of ensemble character overload but she shone in that tiny red rubber miniskirt. Sunny and heroic. This alt take feels a little poseur in her wake. And David Corenswet’s pop in / pop out cameos just makes you want more Supes.
William Fruet directs Kay Hawtrey, Lesleh Donaldson and Barry Morse in this Canadian slasher where a young woman arrives at her grandmother’s house, which used to be a funeral home, to help her turn the place into a bed-and-breakfast inn but people keep getting killed.
Low budget spin on Psycho. “Converted B&B” may be a less marketable title but also less of a swizz. Diverting, a little better plotted than, say, a Friday the 13th.
Ben Affleck directs himself, John Goodman and Alan Arkin in this Best Picture winning movie where a CIA agent launches a dangerous operation posing as a sci-fi movie producer to rescue six Americans in Tehran during the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran.
Many Oscar years the best film nominated doesn’t win but the most solidly made, least offensively spirited does. It doesn’t hurt if the trophied flick paints Hollywood as the protector of western values and freedom. This delivers above average drama and above average peril for a steady two hours. There’s some Sorkin-esque dialogue and Lumet lifted storytelling. But the lark is with Goodman and Arkin’s gregarious La La Land hustlers and Affleck struggles to keep them in play after the second act. We’ll always have “Argo fuck yourself.”
Colin Higgins directs Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase and Dudley Moore in this romantic comedy thriller where a librarian is pursued by killers who keep covering their tracks before the police can turn up.
A massive hit back in the day, this was in heavy rotation on TV when I was too you to get it. A light spoof on Hitchcock (think Charade) but with memorable bursts of wackiness. Then goes for the What’s Up Doc? demolition derby car chase finale. Screwball can roll too long, y’know. Goldie is game and perky. This is her at her apex. There probably isn’t enough Chevy for them to share equal billing. The younger generations might appreciate his reduced presence but I missed him when he wasn’t about. Afternoon delight.
Wes Craven directs Michael Beck, Beatrice Straight and Laura Johnson in this supernatural thriller where a dying corporate exec wakes up after being cryogenically frozen – ruthless and quite possibly soulless.
So boring it uncannily feels like being cryogenically frozen for 10 years.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 