Baz Luhrmann directs Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes and John Leguizamo in this MTV-era modernisation of the tragic teen love story.
The boys are on the pills at their enemies’ party and one callow youth spots a beauty through an aquarium and chases her to a kiss in the gold elevator. Magic, swoony magic. A mainstay on my home VHS rotation and the soundtrack defined that summer. Massive crush on Claire Danes back then too. Luhrmann really fucks the frame with his big reel decoupage of tropical fish, florid shirts, massive shooters, fireworks and drag. Still feels like a once-in-a-lifetime wonder. The second half cannot keep up the speedball pace and the doomed lovers clicking into place clunks a little to these older eyes. The ultimate message is one shouldn’t rely on wrinkly British people to give important messages. I’m pretty sure this story / 1996 was the reason the SMS was invented.
James Mangold directs Harrison Ford, Mads Mikkelsen and Phoebe Waller-Bridge in this concluding chapter to the archaeologist adventure serieswhereHenry Jones Jnr finds some surviving Nazis to punch in the Sixties.
It is just not cricket to square up any sunset sequel to the unimpeachable classic original trilogy… yet comparing Dial Of Destiny to Crystal Skulls feels like solid ball work. The new movie is a far safer, conservative and smoother experience than the derided fourth entry. Any problems feel like inherited unavoidabilities rather than the risks of bored untethered creatives (Lucas & Spielberg) who could almost be heard grumbling as they returned to the Well Of Souls with a passel of half hearted ideas. And even if you fanatically hate the abrasive 2008 cash-in that left everyone a bit shellshocked, I’ll just point out I don’t dislike it. There’s nothing in Dial quite as exhilarating as nuked fridges or ant eviserations. So let’s get the wobbly stuff out of the way first.
The AI de-aging flashback effects manage to convince for all of three seconds until Indy has to move his head, then we are stuck in quite a compelling 20 minute PS5 era cut-scene you wish we could take control of and have some 1945 fun with. Later sequences have squalls of rain, steam and ticker-tape to cover up their pixelated forger notes. Waller-Bridge’s self-aware sidekick Wombat grates like a Jar-Jar Binks or a Mutt and her spindly posh girl arms do not convince in the rough and tumble. Luckily, the crash of Tuk-Tuks and the juddering of shutting down propellers often drown out her plummy Millenial Marvel-esque meta commentary on the peril and pitfalls. The series never needed snark and certainly one wonders what a more natural movie star like Emily Blunt or Felicity Jones might have made of the untrustworthy goddaughter role?
Yet digital FX and flavour of the month casting are the hamstrings of any current franchise entry. What about the good stuff? Dial Of Destiny is rather bravely more of an adventure movie than an action flick. Ford’s age doesn’t just limit what he can and cannot do onscreen but Hollywood changes also mean that on-location stunt work and period spectacle just don’t happen on the same level. Not now key master technicians have aged out and celluloid is no longer the format. There is just one shot of Jones and Wombat entering a cave and being overawed by the scale that feels like it rekindles any of the true 1981 magic time. Mikkelsen and Boyd Holbrook make for threatening antagonists – there’s a surprising amount of murder in the first hour which ups the stakes for the heroes regularly. No spoilers now but there is also a third act plot swerve that might become as derided as the previous adventure’s notorious inter-dimensional beings… but I hope that it doesn’t. The inspired finale is well tee’d up and we spend more than a few seconds living in it so the talking point gamble feels a bit more a part of the story entire. And how pleasurable is it to have a summer blockbuster where the treasures of the last hour aren’t raided by the trailers six month before we even get a chance to buy a ticket? Most importantly, Ford is an evergreen class act. This could have been his Top Gun: Maverick, instead it proves a perfectly adequate episode in The Old Indiana Jones Chronicles. You leave with a smile on your face but there’s no need to install a pacemaker. Your childhood winding down into a warm bath of hard drive nostalgia.
Gene Stupnitsky directs Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman and Matthew Broderick in this raunchy comedy where a slacker beauty agrees to bang a nervy 19 year old before he goes to college when his parents offer her a car.
Jennifer Lawrence’s big screen comeback. Lots of goodwill going into this. And No Hard Feelings never betrays that even if it struggles to fully capitalise on it. The simple, witty script only has four strong, laugh out loud set pieces when really it should be aiming for seven or eight. That shouldn’t overly matter as Lawrence is consummately watchable throughout… even in sequences when you get the gut reaction that they don’t know what to do with the A-Lister or how to move the plot forward. A positive spin is the movie is pretty chill and has more room for character stuff. Our protagonist Maddie Barker isn’t on the most complex journey, not too dissimilar from Bill Murray’s in Stripes or Seth Rogen’s in Knocked Up. What is more fascinating is Stupnitsky takes on the American class system of wealth imbalance with quite an unforced precision. Still, I came for naked suplexes and party throat punches. There just about enough of that sweet comedy overkill to make me revisit this sometime soon.
Don Siegel directs Clint Eastwood, Lee J. Cobb and Susan Clark in this cop thriller where an Arizona deputy sheriff comes to NYC to catch a fugitive.
Clint versus The Hippies. Or a very reactionary dry run for Beverly Hills Cop’s fish-out-of-water disruptor detective formula. Fading western transposed to The Big Apple. Clint getting his fuck on any which way he can. Pool room brawls, motorbike duels and freak out face-offs. A very pure, simple movie that hits the spots and holds up as a quirky artefact of its time.
Kevin Macdonald directs Jodie Foster, Tahar Rahim and Shailene Woodley in this legal drama based on the memoir of Mohamedou Ould Slahi who was held for 14 years without charge in the Guantanamo Bay.
Superb performance by Rahim plus Jodie doing what she does best. The true content is pretty compelling and rarely rings false. It even survives Benedict Cumberbatch doing a ropey Colonel Sanders impression.
John Schultz directs Melissa Joan Hart, Adrian Grenier and Stephen Collins star in this teen “comedy” where neighbouring kids, who no longer get along, orchestrate a scam so they can nab their preferred prom dates.
Sidney Lumet directs Richard Burton, Peter Firth and Jenny Agutter in this adaptation of Peter Shaffer’s acclaimed play where a child psychiatrist attempts to diagnose a young man with an unhealthy obsession with horses.
As close to Ken Russell or Nicolas Roeg as any American director has ever got. This is as much psychosexual nightmare as it is battle of wills. Burton gets a meaty role as the shrink whose own weaknesses, doubts and vulnerabilities are exposed by his investigation. There’s lots of seedy nudity, suggested perversion and the climax… well, I’d rather not have experienced the ending… it does piss the seat a little. Still, powerful stuff I’m never going to revisit.
6
Perfect Double Bill: Through A Glass Darkly (1961)
Jalmari Helander directs Jorma Tommila, Aksel Hennie and Jack Doolan in this Finnish WWII action flick where a lone gold prospector single-handedly takes on a Nazi tank battalion after they fuck with him.
Yeah, yeah, yeah! This is the real shit. Hardcore violence, stoic determination, crazed carnage. Modern action sensibility married with a spaghetti western’s sense of the legendary and the cartoonish. Everything you want from a 100 minutes of grimy ultra violence.
John McNaughton directs Matt Dillon, Neve Campbell and Denise Richards in this teen erotic thriller where a respected teacher is accused of raping a student in a series of double and triple and quadruple crosses all of which involves sex.
A lurid blast which crumples like a house of cards the moment you eject the disc. Remembered for the threesome, legendary for Kevin Bacon’s last minute twist dick shot and infallible thanks to Bill Murray absolutely smashing his choice “serious” support role. Blockbuster Video era premium trash.
Steven Spielberg directs Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in this historical biopic of Abraham Lincoln, following his attempts to end slavery before the Civil War is won.
Plays out very much like homework. Handsome homework for sure but still eating your greens, any which way you cut it. Day-Lewis’ Lincoln feels like a side character among the busy ensemble. James Spader probably gives a career best turn as lobbying sleaze on the right side of history and Tommy Lee Jones commands the admirable Thaddeus Stevens… who by the last act you realise has the agency and the arc we should be focussing on. It is Spielberg, so you could never accuse of it being an average film, yet I wouldn’t rush to rewatch Lincoln unless I find myself doing a History A-Level and need to skim past a few textbooks.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 