Mike Cahill directs Brit Marling, William Mapotherand Robin Lord Taylor in this soft sci-fi where two loners, united by a tragedy, prepare for a parallel planet Earth to approach their own miserable existence.
Boring and pretentious. Whatever planet you are on.
Jeremy Paul Kagan directs Meredith Salenger, John Cusack and Ray Wise in this kid’s adventure where a young teenager must ride the rails through Depression era America to reunite with her father.
A childhood favourite of Natalie’s, this really won me over on second watch. The gritty, authentic setting. The constant sense of peril. The brilliant dog acting. Salenger’s un-cute lead performance. Her chemistry with a generous Cusack. The exciting set pieces with convincing stunt work. The unforced air of futility to Natty Gann’s quest… and the ultimate heart pounding pay off. Every scene is pitched exactly right… never dumbing down for children but never crossing the line when exploring the hardwired bleakness. Yeah, more kids movies like this please.
Ralph Zondag and Eric Leighton direct D. B. Sweeney, Alfre Woodard and Ossie Davis in this first feature length CG animation from Walt Disney studios.
One downtime day when they could not get a special effect working on the set of Robocop, Paul Verhoeven and Phil Tippett devised a dinosaur feature where they would never have to worry about live action humans integrating unsuccessfully with go motion FX. They hired The Wild Bunch writer Walon Green to bash out a script… and 15 years later the end result was a Disney cartoon with all of their unlikely names floating around the periphery credits. To say Dinosaur was unduly dark or violent because of these early stage talents is unfair, you could pretty much say there’s a certain uncomfortable edge to well over half of the Mouse House’s kids films. But the plot has an apocalyptic air that is startling yet also a John Ford wagon train bonhomie, a jovial sense of community, that is the flick’s true strength. I’m guessing Walon brought that to the table. The combining of live action landscapes with CG creatures is successful – especially in the thrilling opening prologue which is dialogue free… a choice the whole movie should have made. And the subtext of out with old / survival of the fittest in a shifting landscape is curiously apt considering this is Disney’s first attempt to cut loose and leave behind hand drawn animation. Ultimately here is a fine, if a bit bland, adventure but the providence of Dinosaur proves fascinating.
Terry Zwigoff directs Thora Birch, Steve Buscemi and Scarlett Johansson in this indie teen comedy based on Daniel Clowes’ cult graphic novel.
Where the nerd things are. A summer of ignoring bad choices, not giving a fuck and the unexpected consequences. Thora Birch serves continual cunt in her best role. Her Goodwill salvaged looks just eat the screen up. Her Enid sums up that horrible space where your life is at a crossroads and it seems easier to just sit in-between four lanes of oncoming traffic than make a decision. It is the strongest written female teen protagonist role in cinema, or at least a photo finish between her and Reese Witherspoon’s equally iconic Tracy Flick. And the awkward, don’t go there, chemistry between her and Buscemi’s sad but constantly furious Seymour is a rubbernecking blast. You have no doubts as to why these two sometimes mean, casually irritable people might die alone… and age difference put to one awkward side, might be imperfect for each other. “He’s the exact opposite of everything I hate.” Many teenagers define themselves by their fandoms and tribes, but for Enid Coleslaw, it is her weaponised rejection of everything but the obscure and unloved that make her the loveable bitch she is. Zwigoff has a few very specific late 90s sub genres competing here – the aimless Gen X ‘Do nothing’ movie, the American Pie raunchy youth comedy and a weird anti modernity, anti ‘prescribed art’ counter culture death wail. He blends them really well… better than say Napoleon Dynamite that used Ghost World as a mood board but left the soul behind. The ambiguous ending is quite beautiful. All in – a misanthropic yet colourful teen gem that increases in value the more middle-aged it gets.
Greta Gerwig directs Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and Will Ferrell in this blockbuster comedy based on the Mattel doll where Barbie leaves her world of innocent play and empowered positivity to experience the real world.
Can’t believe that Tom Cruise dangled and leapt through a careening Orient Express for absolute reals but this muddled corporate feminism rip-off of Elf based on a problematic dolly was the movie to save cinema!?
Don Hahn, Pixote Hunt, Hendel Butoy, Eric Goldberg, James Algar, Francis Glebas and Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi direct Steve Martin, Bette Midler and James Earl Jones in this anthology of animated music videos to classical arrangements.
Was never going to be a favourite but the guest hosts are a fantastic addition and Eric Goldberg’s Rhapsody In Blue segment is worth the price of admission alone. Better than the original butt number.
George Stevens directs Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Fay Bainter in this romantic comedy where a sports writing bloke falls for a very successful and far more famous female journalist.
You can approach Woman Of The Year in two ways. A role reversal comedy where a man’s man is made to feel like the inferior little lady at home when he marries someone far more accomplished than him. Or a sexist attempt to take careerist feminists down a peg or two by showing them the topsy turvy world they create when they try to be better than men. I prefer the more innocent first reading. It allows you to enjoy the bristling chemistry between Tracy and Kate. And you can just laugh at the slow burn finale where Hepburn is completely bamboozled by modern appliances in the kitchen. As a sustained sequence of slapstick chaos, it is quite magical.
James Glickenhaus directs Christopher Walken, Michael Ironside and María Conchita Alonso in this action thriller where a Vietnam vet puts together a squad to take down a South American dictator.
A good film? No. Even to a beer a pizza standard? Get outta here. But there is always something extreme and bonkers happening to fill the runtime. A thousand Fillipino extras pretending to be Latinos! Mafiaso being dangled off skyscrapers! A thousand Fillipino extras being blown up and shot down in a fever dream of tax shelter carnage! Luis Gusman as a crack dealer giving a lesson on free market economics! Walken pretending to be Mossad for one scene and one scene only! An extra getting his hand caught in a tank rifle after lobbing a grendade down it! Vietnam death camp prologue! Hungover banter! Ironside with a ponytail! Top Gun with remote control fighter jets! María Conchita Alonso riding a donkey from Columbia to Brooklyn to a power ballad! McBain is a shit fudge of a movie with three great leads slumming it, it really doesn’t work and yet the constant strange mega violence of it overwhelms you.
Mike Leigh directs Tim Roth, Phil Daniels and Gary Oldman in this British kitchen sink drama about two unemployed brothers living an abrasive, unfulfilling life in Thatcher’s Britain.
One of Leigh’s better ones in that the class caricatures seem a little more complex and far less prescribed. There’s nothing snide about Meantime. These days it is Oldman’s smaller role as a skinhead that gets the movie re-released but in all honesty the central turns from Daniels and especially Roth still have a thumping power. How do I feel about it all? A life on benefits conditions the dispossessed to fear work and cancels any chance of a future… I don’t know. I agree up to a point but I think that ultimate message, though sincere, plays into the Tories hands a bit too readily. Yet it is absorbing to watch a film that asks a lot of uncomfortable, and still valid, questions about this country without having all the answers. And Tim Roth’s useless herbert is heartbreakingly funny, innit.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 