Jonas Poher Rasmussen directs Amin Nawabi, Belal Faiz and himself in this animated documentary telling the personal experience of one gay man’s Afghanistanchildhood as a refugee and being people trafficked.
Important story, very worthy of being told but not particularly what I want from a lazy afternoon on a couch surfing Disney +. Felt very much like eating my greens.
Michael Mann directs Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx and Jada Pinkett Smith in this thriller where a hitman hijacks a taxi driver’s night in L.A. forcing him to participate in a series of “jobs”.
Jamie Foxx is one of those movie stars that I don’t particularly rate who is somehow the lead in a lot of brilliant movies. I haven’t crunched the data but at a glance maybe the most 4 and 5 star films of someone whose name alone cannot get me to buy a ticket on opening weekend. He isn’t a great actor, his charisma seems plastic and there’s not even a signature type of role you could claim is truly his. He’s one of two weak links here. Neither fatal but both hobble this on belated rewatch. The other is the overreaching third act. Yet this still has lots to recommend it. Tom Cruise’s icy and memorable villain. The streets of L.A. captured in a way no filmmaker had before. Some intense small-scale action – that night club carnage, for example. Not perfect but still very enjoyable.
Cedric Nicolas-Troyan directs Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Miku Martineau and Woody Harrelson in this action flick where a hot assassin protects a young girl.
Nicolas Pesce directs Christopher Abbott, Mia Wasikowska and Laia Costa in this indie thriller romantic comedy where a family man’s attempt to give over to the voices in his mad head, and kill a prostitute, leads to him falling for his victim.
Struggling to remember much about this little over a week later. It had a strong visual sensibility done on the cheap, Abbot is a blank lead, Wasikowska deserves better. Tries for bad taste but is pretty uneventful.
Mike Nichols directs Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and George Segal in this adaptation of Edward Albee’s famous play about a warring middle-aged couple who play mind games with each other and their houseguests.
I’ve seen this on the stage and now I’ve seen the lauded film. The performances are uniformly grand if a little bold and embossed. Sandy Dennis is probably the best of the four and least well known. The attempts to open up the theatre production are clunky though. And, somewhat pointedly, this shrieking, raging, overwraught constant isn’t pleasurable to watch four people maintain for two hours. The production history is more fun than the end result. According to IMDB… While Richard Burton and Dame Elizabeth Taylor were forces to be reckoned with while they were working, it was a challenge to actually get them in front of the camera every day. They both had it in their contracts that they didn’t have to be on the set until 10:00 a.m., even though most other productions began at dawn. After they arrived on set, it would take two hours of make-up, hair and wardrobe to get them ready for shooting and by the time they were camera ready, it was lunch time. They would often go off for lengthy cocktail-filled lunches, often with friends, and then return late in the afternoon to finally begin shooting. “When they finally came back late”, recalled editor Sam O’Steen, “they’d just ignore it all, be real nice. ‘Hey, Mike, old buddy, sorry we’re late. Okay, let’s shoot!’ Sometimes they wouldn’t come back until five o’clock and they had in their contract that they couldn’t work past six o’clock.”
Alfred Hitchcock directs James Stewart, John Dall and Farley Granger in this one set, “one-shot” thriller where two young men murder a friend and then host a party around his hidden body.
I think the first few times I watched Rope I always approached it only with regards to its infamous gimmick. Catching all those sly hidden and not so hidden secret edits. A camera zooming into the back of someone’s suit fabric and back out again, a door frame used as a wipe. The more impressive, but equally as obvious, trickery of the model cityscape we view from the apartment set’s window. One of those early SFX whose fakery is part of its charm. But this watch Rope really clicked with me. I didn’t care so much about Hitch keeping all his little technical plates spinning, or the tipsy turvy brinkmanship of the murderers almost being caught out and then inviting further chances of discovery. No – this time it was James Stewart who elevated it for me. His character and performance rise this up from dated curio to bonafide classic. His professor is positioned as the unofficial detective of the piece. The one who will solve the boys’ sin. But really he is a man growing to realise that he has fostered in two young men an arrogance and an evil. How much of their sociopathic pathology has arisen from his philosophy discussions and literary contrarianism when they were unformed adolescents? He’s about to find out, one devastating clue at a time. Marvellous stuff.
Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn direct Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martínez in this Spanish satire where two rival actors clash while rehearsing for an art film by a prestigious but unpredictable director.
Some scenes are excellent, others rumble on inoffensively, long after they’ve made their point. It isn’t as smart as it thinks it is but the sillier highlights justify it. Penélope Cruz is fire in this though. Looks spectacular and has the most fun.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 