Matthew Reilly directs Elsa Pataky, Luke Bracey and Aaron Glenane in this Die Hard On A Missile Base where a whistleblowing officer starts her new post on the very day terrorists hijack her base, launch 15 nukes at America and drag up the workplace sexism she suffered.
Clunky. The storytelling is inelegant in every respect. The missile base control room where 90% of the action happens looks like a Saturday afternoon TV show set from the Ninities. The exposition is painful. Hard to say whether the acting or the dialogue makes this all seem so amateurish. I can take or leave the unexpected #metoo stylings. I understand why they are here, and they are give the right amount of screentime to not feel solely like a cynical bolt on to the main plot, but I doubt very many are selecting this on Netflix hoping for a topical debate or searing insight into US military gender politics. The fact such heavy chew is explored in between the bullets and bombs is more down to this being an airport thriller writer’s big foray into movies. Matthew Reilly’s novels will no doubt have his protagonists overcoming past trauma as they defuse bombs or find treasure… so why shouldn’t his movie debut give his muscular cypher some kind of ripped from the headlines internal struggle? I, however, turned up for a light retread of Clancy / Crichton / Hunter and this just about delivers. For all its flaws and junkiness, it manages to meet its cheap Under Siege remit whenever it gets kinetic. Whenever the control room is breached, whenever smackdowns are dealt out or whenever trash needs to be talked over the intercom, Interceptor has the goods… just about. The countdown finale builds to a decent head of steam. It ain’t beer and pizza movie heaven but it is one of the more adequate examples I’ve clicked on in a while.
Cy Endfield directs Michael Caine, Stanley Baker and Ulla Jacobsson in this war movie recreating the attack on Rourke’s Drift between the Zulus and the British Army.
John Barry’s wide reaching and hard thumping score, a patient threat. Stanley Baker and Michael Caine squaring off marvellously in a quiet class war. The lush on-location cinematography from Stephen Dade. Gold old British military heroic tragedy. The singing. Top notch afternoon killer filler.
Aleksei Balabanov directs Sergei Bodrov Jr., Viktor Sukhorukov, and Svetlana Pismichenko in this low key gangster flick where a unassuming ex-soldier travels to St. Petersburg and becomes his criminal brother’s secret muscle.
All Daniela wants to do is listen to local pop on his discman. Yet the dude is like a John Wick or a Léon in a damp sweater when called upon. He hangs about with tramps, all women love him. His untrustworthy brother uses him like a tool. There are sideswipes about Russian culture post the Fall. Daniela interacts with pretty much every strata, seems fascinated and appreciative of how the non-violent live their lives. This is pretty spaced out and sly. Like Jim Jamursch’s genre experiments. Deceptively simple, with tense set pieces. Likeable lead Sergei Bodrov died in an avalanche making another movie only a few years later. He has real charisma.
7
Perfect Double Bill: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (2000)
Amy Heckerling directs Alicia Silverstone, Brittany Murphy and Paul Rudd in this era-defining teen movie that updates Jane Austen’s Emma to a California High School.
Josh: If I ever saw you do anything that wasn’t 90% selfish, I’d die of shock. Cher: Oh, that’d be reason enough for me.
OK… so its not quite Austen… but it is pretty, pretty witty most of the time.
The Nineties were never like this, I was the same age as these kids and the closest I got to a cellphone was a BT Pager. This is some kind of hyper reality. The candy colours pop, the vacuous rich kids form tribes, maybe only in Hollywood. It is very funny. But the look of thing, like a Rubik’s Cube fucked a Versace shirt, and the child was pure cinema. Amy Heckerling started developing this up as a TV show pilot. “Twentieth Century Fox said they wanted a show about teenagers — but not the nerds. They wanted it to be about the cool kids.” Cool obviously equals wealthy here.
Silverstone is irrefutably hot. This is an iconic breakthrough. She never got close to hitting this hard again. For every Cruise and Winona, there’s a Judd Nelson or a Phoebe Cates. There’s part of me that wonders about Silverstone? Lightning in a bottle? The right role at the right time? Clean, sexy, adorable, funny. The outrageous outfits help, the self-awareness of the script is killer. But she has rare chemistry. Not just with the cast, but with us the audience. You couldn’t imagine Neve Campbell or even Sarah Michelle Gellar making the same impact in the role. A one-off magic occurs. She’s become indelible with the role even thirty years later. Multiplex landmark. The sleeper box office success brought the then-largely unknown Silverstone to international attention and earned her a $10 million, multi-picture deal with Columbia TriStar. As far as I can see the studio only got Excess Baggage for their money. Expect to see that on The Worst Movies We Own podcast later this year… Nobody has hooked us quite so hard with one killer movie since. Is Julia Stiles or Minnie Driver an equivalent household name even though their purple patch churned up far many more hit movies?
Rudd, Murphy and Dan Hedaya shimmy through their scenes with untouchable flair. A soundtrack of post punk and hip hop bangers seal the deal. A bright beacon to a time that never existed.
Dionne: “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, but thy eternal summer shall not fade.” That! Did you write that? Cher: Duh! It’s like, a famous quote. Dionne: From where? Cher: CliffsNotes.
Wolfgang Reitherman and David Hand direct Brian Bedford, Peter Ustinov and Terry-Thomas in this Disney animated classic where a fox with skill at archery steals from the rich to give to the poor.
Natalie has a long-standing crush on the vulpine lead. I can’t argue. Lithe, suave and smart. So the craft is noticeably scrappier than your traditional Disney classics, and the form is very freewheelin’… you still can’t help but like it. It is intentionally lower key – easy going fun, maybe that’s the true secret to its of its charm. When you watch Snow White you don’t want to miss a frame. This is far more leisurely, easier to dip in and out of, while never squandering your attention. Gentle adventure, familiar skits. A rooster is our narrator, a minstrel voiced by Roger Miller who supplies the music honky-tonk-influenced novelty songs. Real mellow. Setting the tone. Suiting the tone. Ustinov and Thomas make fine villains, they ain’t threats, they are goons for the pratfalls. Silver spoon voiced haughty naughties we want to see slapped about rather than plot instigating big bads like Shere Khan, Ursula or Jafar. The Merry Men are pointedly absent as Reitherman wanted a “buddy picture” reminiscent of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Again, something just a bit more lackadaisical, not strictly tied to myth and history. The long haired kids could chill out and chuckle along. Your traditional story highlights like the recruiting of Friar Tuck are edited out, amusingly Little John and Robin are introduced politely allowing each other to cross a log bridge first. Even the romance is put on the backburner, Maid Marian is barely present for three quarters of the run time. The old ground is scoffed at, this is about the ambiance, not fealty to the source. It is after all, at the end of the day, a medieval legend blended into an anthropomorphic fox fest. Disney animated classics weren’t blockbusters in this decade, they were made to be solid little programme fillers, this landed happily in at number 8 in its year’s Top 10 box office earners in the US. Set a new records for foreign profits. Maybe the people of 1973 wanted a soothing, undemanding family flick just as much as it wanted The Exorcist? Maybe everyone secretly fancied those foxes.
7
Perfect Double Bill: The Sword In the Stone (1963)
Betty Thomas directs Brittany Snow, Jesse Metcalfe and Ashanti in this teen comedy where the three most popular girls in school employ a new girl in a revenge plot against their shared lothario lover.
From Clueless to Get Over It many teen comedies from this era used a classic text as their narrative scaffolding. Shakespeare! Austen! Well, this is reverential to that truly canonical story… 10 Things I Hate About You. Clearly what was considered a fair game classic text was accelerated around 2005?! This feels almost like a direct lift at times… and there ain’t nothing all that wrong with that. Gag packed but they certainly are not all winners. Maybe one out of a dozen jokes land. But you admire its try-hard goofiness. And Snow is a fine all-rounder, the perfect lead for this brand of sexed-up fluff.. Someone should cast her and Anna Faris in a movie together as goofy sisters! AKA in Italy as Il mio ragazzo è un bastardo.
6
Perfect Double Bill: 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Halle Berry directs herself, Sheila Atim and Adan Canto in this MMA comeback story where an alcoholic, former UFC star begins to retrain for the ring after her estranged young son is plonked back into her chaotic life.
Swings for grit, connects with cliche. Miserable, overlong and with few surprises… yet Berry has an eye for casting. She garners memorable performances from pretty much everyone… with Shelia Atim, Shamier Anderson and Adriane Lenox excelling. Shame all around it is so dour and trite.
The Coen Brothers direct Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Paul Newman in this period pastiche comedy where a schmoo from Muncie finds himself the CEO of a major corporation in New York when the board of directors want to devalue the stock.
“Pants!” Suddenly, Sidney J. Mussburger remembers. A mailroom idiot has all but destroyed his top floor skyscraper office, smashing a hole in a window that sucks out a vital contract into the ether. The grizzled executive, the bastard behind the throne at Hudsucker Industries, chases the scattered document into the vortex. He loses his footing, finds himself head first dangling 45 floors (“Counting the mezzanine”) above the sidewalk in thin air. The only two things stopping him from plummeting to his doom are the moron underling who caused all the chaos in the matter of a minute, and his pants, which said doofus has a hold of him by. Tailored trousers. Good quality too. Mussberger can afford the finest things in life. But then he remembers an offhand conversation he had with his genial tailor, we flashback to it also. When gently upsold the standard double stitch, a glowering, overly wise Paul Newman (playing marvellously against type) shuts the man down. He sees it as a frivolous expense. Why would he need to pay extra for pants where the stitching will survive anything? The waistband begins to tear as the single stitching gives way to the forces of gravity…
Miller’s Crossing was the VHS that tipped me into being a Joel & Ethan fanboy. The Hudsucker Proxy was the movie that felt like their own secret personalised gift to me. Nobody else seemed to know or care about it in my teenage movie lover world. It flopped in America, their first big Joel Silver produced, major studio budgeted, complete creative control moment of coronation and it made bupkis. Took a whole extra year to find a release date in the U.K. I only knew it was coming due to a massive poster on Notting Hill Underground station platform. But once I watched it, I adored it. Every moment, every montage, every bravura shot, every technical piece of wizardry, ever zing of the rat-a-tat, 160 word a minute, dialogue. I would have had little to no idea who Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, Alexander Mackendrick, Damon Runyon or Preston Sturges were in 1994. Their influences seem clear as a bell now but then, I was wet all over. Yet it sang to me. This is a spectacular, flawless piece of cinematic mastery. Some say Blade Runner, others The Shining, but I know The Hudsucker Proxy is the diamond with all 4cs. It is possibly the only film in my personal Top 100 that inches forward with each revisit, rather than loses its shine ever so slightly to other favourites in the ranking on occasions.
“You know, for kids.” Tim Robbins’ Norville Barnes isn’t the sharpest tool in the woodshed. But he has a bright idea. A circle. Drawn on a tattily folded piece of paper. Everyone he shows it to inside the movie just thinks its the final condemnation that this dork is truly a braincell shy of a lobotomy. Turns out in this reality Norville has invented the Hula Hoop. We, everyone outside the movie, know it is going to hit big, reversing Hudsucker Industries faltering stock position and creating an era defining fad. As sure as gravity. As sure as time. We watch the production of the Hula Hoop as it passes through the floors and departments of the corporation; accounting, marketing, , testing, factory floor, goods out. Music accompanies this prolonged moment of creation. Carter Burwell’s orchestral homage to Adagio of Spartacus And Phrygia gives way to Dance of the Young Mountaineers and once the hoop…eventually… takes hold of the young minds of America the relentless pulse of The Sabre Dance kicks in. After an hour of near constant, verbose, relentlessly spiffy dialogue… music and image hack the talk. It is possibly the finest individual montage sequence ever committed to celluloid, a marriage of sound and movement that seduces the senses. The contenders for its crown could be any of the other half a dozen immaculate set pieces within. This is breathlessly tight storytelling from credits to close.
“Finally there would be a thingamajig that would bring everyone together, even if it kept them apart spatially.” Jennifer Jason Leigh is glorious and sexy as she crackles her way through the labyrinthine dialogue. Rosalind Russell, Kate Hepburn and Jean Arthur ain’t got nothing on the bark and the spiel and the pelt of this gal. After a series of dark, adult roles… trying to shed her teen movie cutie image… she landed a doozie here. I’m surprised she hasn’t worked with Coens again as she wallops their mannered loop-the-loop parlance in a way I’ve only ever seen John Goodman do as consistently. Strange that J+E have never recast any of these three leads? Regulars John Polito and Steve Buscemi have memorable cameos though.
Essentially The Hudsucker Proxy, for all it spotless calibration, iconic FX works and memorable cult quotes is a battle of ups and downs, good and evil. The Brothers favour doinks as their protagonists; HI McDunnough or The Dude. People who move with their heart rather than their heads, Jobs or George Baileys who are unknowingly tossed and turned by the slings and arrows of misfortune. Smarty pants like your Barton Finks, Tom Reagans and Llewyn Davis end up admonished at the the end of their trials and tribulations. It is only the pure hearted fool who comes out on top at the warm down of a Coens tale. God and the devil are always watching. The Hudsucker Proxy is the last Coen Brothers movie where this repeated format is explicit. You can tell precisely who the benevolent watcher and the ghastly reaper are here. Old Moses keeps the clock tower turning, knows all and is mandated to never intervene. The scraper of names from office doors is waiting to take all you’ve got… remove you from your penthouse perch. Why were the brother so hung up on biblical deities and devils in their early days? Maybe they knew exactly who their own representatives were in their stories… not the gormless hero, not the triple crossing plotter, not the shadowy dame but the gods with malicious control and minimal sincerity as to how all this smartness all crash lands in the final moments?
10
Perfect Double Bill: O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Pier Paolo Pasolini directs Franco Citti, Alida Valli and Silvana Mangano in this Italian adaptation of the Greek tragedy where a son kills his father to sleep with his mother.
Self-fulfilling prophecy. Mum seduction. Patricide. Time hopping: we bookend the more traditional retelling with a prologue and an epilogue set in fascist Italy, a semi-autobiographical context? I type “traditional retelling” with fingers crossed behind my spine – as the costumes, music, location work all bounce around the globe and history. These elements are anachronistic and spectacular. There’s something quite primordial, playful on Pasolini’s take on myth. This can feel like a very stretched, blunt retelling but I personally enjoyed the expansive vibe doused jaggedly over the simplicity. African witch doctors, dubbed warriors and Jews harps don’t belong here. But then again neither do we.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 