Bradley Cooper directs himself, Carey Mulligan and Sarah Silverman in this biopic of composer / conductor Leonard Bernstein.
A vanity project where the bold camera choices are declarative. At the the expense of the directorial intention which is often incoherent. Only begins to fix on the central relationship in a tangible way in the third act. By then, I was watching through gritted teeth.
Wes Craven directs Robert Urich, Joanna Cassidy and Susan Lucci in this supernatural conspiracy movie where everyone who works at a tech company signs their families up as dedicated members to an evil health spa.
Pre-internet I always used to be fascinated by letters to film magazines where people would try to find the name of half remembered movies. They watched it late night and fell asleep or the VHS kept taping the next movie or they missed the title card. The details they could recall made these puzzlers sound like the most exciting release ever. They got me wet and hard to see the eventual community gathered answer. Invitation To Hell is exactly that movie. Can anyone remember the TV movie where a glamorous soap star played the devil? All I remember is the gates of hell were below the gym? What film sees a man don a spacesuit to rescue his family from the trippy pits of purgatory? The actual movie is very shoddy. Nothing much happens. But the finale is so out there that someone could easily remake it or rename it and achieve something twice as good as what got churned out here. Jennifer Lawrence as the devil wears shoulder pads, anyone?
Cord Jefferson directs Jeffrey Wright, John Ortiz and Sterling K. Brownin this satire where a middle class African American author invents a “street” pseudonym so he can sell a hot manuscript he wrote as a joke to expose the racist tastes of white run publishing houses.
Funny and that’s the main thing. I’ve heard critics complain there’s too much focus on the family dynamics away from the literary world but for me that was the richest flavour. Exemplary work from Wright and Brown. I’m not sure the messy, uneven final product deserves that sheer weight of prestige laid at its doorstep but as first movies go I do believe Cord Jefferson has the promise of a truly great one in him.
J. A. Bayona directs Enzo Vogrincic, Matías Recalt and Agustín Pardella in this Spanish retelling of the infamous plane crash over the Andes in 1972 where a barely surviving rugby team became gentile cannibals.
It doesn’t have the line “Please eat my sister.” but it feels like all roads are leading there in the first half. You get more of a sense of the gruelling calamity they endured over months than in 1992’s Alive. Still, feels a little sanitised and again uses spirituality as a smock to cover up a clear case of survival of the fittest. I doubt we will ever know the true “true story”. Well made but worthy. I wanna see Tobe Hooper or Rob Zombie’s take on this history.
Vittorio De Sica directs Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni and Aldo Giuffrè in this Italian comedy anthology where the two handsome leads play three different couples in a crisis.
A mixed bag (the middle story about a car journey goes nowhere) that all showcase Loren’s magnificent beauty and Mastroianni’s ability to mug charmingly. The first story where Loren exhausts her husband by needing to stay constantly pregnant to avoid a prison sentence has the most laughs and political bite. The final story ends with an iconic striptease and some decent cat action. Throwaway but bella.
Don Hall and Chris Williams directs Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit and T.J. Miller in this Disney animated superhero movie where a prodigy uses robotics to investigate his brother’s iffy death at a high tech science fair.
Ensemble wise this feels as chaotically wobbly as Meet The Robinsons. I’m not going to lie I did let a lot of the maudlin tosh wash over me. The look is softened anime and the tone is very middle class. Big marshmallow robot Baymax steals the show, its ungainly sweetness really works wonders. One or two of the action set pieces have true scale to them. I liked Big Hero 6 but it wasn’t really what I need from a Disney release.
Peter Jackson directs Timothy Balme, Diana Peñalver and Elizabeth Moody in this New Zealand comedy horror where the residents of Wellington fall victim to the cursed bite of the Sumatran rat monkey.
Peter Jackson takes a few more baby steps away from homemade nastiness towards mainstream respectability. Not that we noticed back then. This was the VHS zombie flick where a man fights a set of intestines, the lawnmower dismembers everyone and you definitely don’t want to eat that custard. Jackson out Tex Averys Raimi here, no mean feat. The Skull Island prologue has a fantastic energy to it, shame about the whiff of racism. The animated rat monkey is a truly terrifying piece of stop motion. The romance is deluded but Diana Peñalver has heat – she brings a sweetness that stops Braindead from being a complete nihilistic parody. The overbearing mother / distracted son dynamic tools around in Hitchcock’s Psycho only with a Kiwi tang. That Father Ted clone “kicks ass for the Lord!” Then the baby comes… whoop whoop. Only the final half hour party massacre betrays the relentless pace. If Braindead showed just a little editorial restraint and lost 10 minutes then it would be a late night classic.
Peter Yates directs Stanley Baker, Joanna Pettet and James Booth in this British heist movie that recreates the Great Train Robbery but changes the names and lives of the crims to protect the guilty.
Starts with a jewel snatch and lengthy car chase that redefined cinema. Bombing around the streets of west London with zero sense of safety. Without this no Bullit. Without that no French Connection. And where would the cop thriller be without those two landmarks. We aren’t on the side of angels here. This is cold, hard machismo. Stanley Baker style. Procedural with a capital P. I wish there was a cinema in Edinburgh showing this kinda testosterone fuelled antique on the big screen. Precious.
Jeremy Garelick directs Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston and Mélanie Laurent in this globetrotting comedy sequel to that Netflix release that half the planet watched in the first week.
Dear James Vanderbilt,
You wrote Zodiac once.
Yours
Bobby Carroll
PS Not every surviving character needs to comeback as we sure as shit don’t remember anyone except Happy Gilmore and Rachel.
PPS The action kinda saves this as it goes harder and bigger than any comedy needs to. Very Eighties.
Juan Piquer Simón directs Christopher George, Lynda Day George and Edmund Purdom in this Spanish Giallo where a chainsaw wielding maniac is chopping up co-eds to build his own woman from their body parts.
Can other countries do giallo? Yes is the answer. Pieces is a whole passle of sloppy pleasures. A VHS victory. Gory kills. Fleshy girls. Slumming it has-beens. A line-up filling amount of viable suspects. Creepy flashback. A sense of humour.
Is it always coherent? Not really. A cameo from a Bruce Lee look-a-like here. A Carrie rip-off final shock that goes below the belt… there. Why does the tennis pro milf get to go undercover? Why does the cop seem so eager to have the nerdy kid help investigate? Really over eager! It is a movie of swirling distractions. JuanPiquer Simón’s ADHD nature actually makes it kind of a blast.
Take, for example, a tremendously creepy stalk sequence that ends in quite a brutal waterbed death. It doesn’t have to go that hard. Then the next kill literally has the frightened girl invite the killer into her lift, not noticing the massive yellow chainsaw hidden just down by his hip. Pieces feels one click away from parody yet the sense of unreality is actually a true strength. It doesn’t follow any rules and therefore reverentially recalls the wild card movies that started the entire sub genre. The only negative is the score by Can cannot threaten a Goblin or a Morricone but who really ever could?
7
One Down, Two To Go (1982)
Fred Williamson directs himself, Jim Brown and Jim Kelly in this end-of-the-cycle blaxploitation cheapie where four legends team up to claim the swindled prize money from a martial arts tournament.
You can see every budgetary corner cut here. The best sequence is three minutes of filler where a limo brings our heroes into the action. All shot from the exterior… there could be anybody and nobody in that ominously approaching luxury car. Kelly and Shaft tap out early but that’s cool, baby. Jim Brown and Fred Williamson’s hard as titanium PIs take over. Start looking for the dosh and those MIA first act stars. Brown is particularly fine. He’s staying at the Holiday Inn. There’s some grubbiness. A gang rape by three extras who all look like Dennis Franz’s stunt double. In general though One Down, Two To Go is the epitome of louche smoothness. Williamson knows the names on the poster will sell the movie to the select so there ain’t no need to break a sweat. I can get with that.
4
Class Of 1984 (1982)
Mark Lester directs Perry King, Timothy Van Patten and Lisa Langlois in this teen gang flick where an idealistic music teacher goes full vigilante after psychopathic punks keep disrupting his class.
Nasty exploitation. Makes some grim choices trying to be an own brand Clockwork Orange. The director of Commando ain’t no Kubrick. Know going in there’s bound to be a least one scene that will make anyone regret watching this. Despite living in the doody end of the swimming pool it still is somehow too cartoonish to be a thriller. I’m sure I watched this as a kid but none of the shocks stayed with me. I preferred the sci-fi spin-off sequel Lester made a few years later where Pam Grier turned out to be a flame throwing cyborg. Notes from class: Early Michael J Fox as the good kid. Van Patten gives Sean Penn energy and went on to direct every HBO show ever. That Alice Cooper theme song is dire and hobbles the movie before it even starts.
3
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Werner Herzog directs Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale and José Lewgoy in this arthouse adventure story of an extremely determined Irish ex-pat who intends to build an opera house in the middle of a jungle.
Iconic. It has been there in my film consciousness or subconsciousness for decades. All operas end in tragedy. And Herzog ain’t exactly an optimist. This is only going to end one way. I like the extreme location endurance test. Cardinale looks resplendent the movie misses her when she goes. The Peruvian wilderness cannot fill the Claudia gap. So much to love here. Like a lunatic tried to remake Apocalypse Now. You feel the impossibility of it all though. The exploitation. The suffering. Carry On Herzog. All scenes where Kinski is being dementedly earnest are a highlight. That man could not build a railway yet he could not notify the employees either. How any of this achieves an opera house is anyone’s guess?
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 