Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor directs Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis and Bill Strother in this slapstick comedy where a hapless department store clerk finds himself climbing all 13 storeys of the building’s exterior in an ill advised publicity stunt.
Iconic for a very good reason… nearly all the gags and stunts retain their reactive power a century down the line. Lloyd’s scraggly daftie is a bit wittier than Laurel & Hardy, earthier than Chaplin and modern than Keaton. The movie has similar sensibilities to peak Adam Sandler… generous ensemble work, the underdog in romantic chaos. Lloyd is a winning presence, constantly trying to trick or outpace the system. Fake It Until You Make It: The Movie.
Francis Lee directs Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Jones in this period romance where real life palaeontologist Mary Anning looks after and falls for a grieving rich man’s wife.
A cold film where the intimate moments are heightened tactile encounters. A muddy rock being carried. A fossil being scraped. A new hat that shares the spiral pattern of an ammonite in the stitching. I liked the restraint of most of it. But I loved the pent up thrill of eventually seeing Ladybird ride Rose from Titanic’s face. I’m only human and this worked just as grandly as an acting showcase for two of my favourite stars as it did lesbian cottage core slash fic with two of my favourite stars. A fine movie.
Darren Lynn Bousman directs Chris Rock, Max Minghella and Samuel L. Jackson in this horror whodunnit where an honest detective must figure out which Jigsaw copycat is torturing his corrupt colleagues to death.
Chris Rock is a fantastic but continually under-utilised big screen presence. When he is turning crime scenes into unlikely stages to try out his stand-up monologues, Spiral is at its most watchable. He ain’t the best actor though. So when he’s called upon to portray fear, confusion and emotional pain… well… he gives about as convincing a thespian effort as anyone else in the seventh or eight entry of a cash cow horror franchise. I checked out on Saw as a series around 3 or 4. Whenever this attempt to try something new reverts back to old nasty habits I was bored. If this really was intended as a course correction or a new direction, then they really shouldn’t have rehired the hack who made the bulk of the sequels. When we aren’t wallowing in inevitable and inescapable torture porn there’s a relatively decent murder mystery to solve. By the big finale you still have two or three big red herrings in play before the killer steps out of the shadows. It does a better job of keeping us guessing than Knives Out. Competent but unambitious.
Craig Gillespie directs Emma Stone, Emma Thompson and Paul Walter Hauser in this live action origins story of the villain from the Disney animated classic, One Hundred And One Dalmatians.
A big jerky afternoon devourer that delivers ritzy fun for all the family. If you were being generous you’d say this was Phantom Thread meets Kind Hearts and Coronets but it would probably be more accurate to include Todd Phillips’ Joker and The Devil Wears Prada as the overriding influences. This Cruella can be a little frustrating in how it can’t seem to bully its unruly but high quality ingredients into a great movie, especially considering the excessive length of it. The visuals are vibrant – Jenny Beavan’s Vivienne Westwood homages are revealed in a series of showstopping stunt reveals, fashion shows as daring heists. They explode the retinas. Expect applications to fashion design courses to go through the roof when the pre-teens who grow up on this come of age. The spectacular aside though, it feels like a film that constantly is trying to get started. 90 minutes in and it still felt like a pre-credits prologue. A problem inherent in the origin prequel perhaps? But then why is it so busy? Why does Emma Thompson’s memorable villain have four or five right hand men, on top of all those nameless henchmen. Why do the good guys have two comedy dogs? Adults are going to watch this for a full fat Emma Stone performance and worry she is getting lost in the mix. While she always looks iconic, she does seem to struggle with a script that can’t decide if she is good or evil, misunderstood or not quite there yet. The constant jukebox soundtrack does a lot of heavy lifting here to brush over any moral ambiguities but you know that Stone would be more than capable of making us care about an absolute rotter… even a dog killer… if she were given a little clarity. Whoever decided to write Cruella de Vil quite so conflicted and wishy washy deserves to be taken out and skinned. Whoever decided to make the memorable title credits a Bondian homage of excess and visual pizazz, on the other hand, deserve a lovely fur coat for their endeavours. Cruella Before Kennels doesn’t always work but I’d struggle to think of anyone who wouldn’t be fitfully entertained by it all.
George Gallo directs Nicolas Cage, Dana Carvey and John Lovitz in this Christmas caper comedy where three hoodlums brothers rob a small town’s bank but then cannot seem to leave the heartwarming community.
Man, post Wayne’s World I would have watched Mike and / or Dana in anything. I travelled deep into the centre of London to watch this at the Whiteleys Odeon… Nic Cage was not the reason for the pilgrimage. What a wasted trip. Midnight Run screenwriter George Gallo does not a good director make. His directing career is a litany of “that guy” movies – goofy, schmaltzy crime feel good releases featuring supporting actors you like from better films and a direct-to-video air about them. He struggles to marshal the divergent acting styles here and it swamps the experience. Carvey does a retarded Mickey Rourke impression that goes nowhere… his rampant acts of background kleptomania are the only real chuckles. Lovitz does his wise guy Chevy Chase schtick which works fine in two or three scenes of a sitcom guest appearance but really grates when given the spotlight for two hours. Cage was pre-Oscar win and action hero reinvention at this point. A lot of his choices in this period erred toward forgotten screwball comedies. For every Honeymoon In Vegas, there’s a Guarding Tess. He should be the anchor here. He is absolutely untethered though. Swinging from straight man for the other delinquent Firpo Brothers to batshit mental line readings – the type he back then at least normally reserved for quirkier projects. “Key? KEY!…. Keeeeeeeaeeeeey!!” Allegedly Gallo refused to give his actors any hands on direction, so this mish mash of the leads’ worst instincts is the joyless result. A mugging fest that runs on half an hour too long… and then just switches off forgettably. Mädchen Amick is the lost in the shuffle romantic interest.
J. Lee Thompson directs Roddy McDowall, Austin Stoker and Claude Akins in this final chapter of the sci-fi saga where the apes live in a feudal society tentatively at peace with man and each other.
Apart from a scary chase through a bunker corridor, nothing much happens, slowly.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 