Bill Condon directs Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser and Lynn Redgrave in this period film set around the last days of retired horror director James Whale and his unrequited desire towards his hunky straight gardener.
Not subtle but quite complex. The burgeoning relationship between Fraser and McKellen sees both deliver career best work. The movie attempts to make a lot of links as to what makes a man and what defines a monster. A celebration of human imperfection. And the recreated Frankenstein trivia is pretty exciting for film buffs.
Isao Takahata directs Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi and Yoshiko Shinohara in this Japanese anime where a brother and sister lose their mother in the bombing of Kobe then find the world where they must fend for themselves is indifferent to their plight.
Which hand drawn image to pick to represent this crushing experience? The most misleading or the most depressing? Watch two children slowly die in poverty and rejection. Beautifully crafted but the epitome of a one-watcher. Just very sad.
Steve Carver directs Angie Dickinson, William Shatner and Tom Skerritt in this depression era gangster road movie cheapie where a widow and her daughters turn to robbing and kidnapping to survive the 1930s in style.
So much nudity. Sleazy nudity. Healthy nudity. Angie Dickinson (looking incredible for her age) sustained nudity. The Bonnie And Clyde rip-off that trades in studio system class and new wave experimentation for episodic exploitation. Natalie will kill me but I preferred it.
Stephen Frears directs John Cusack, Iben Hjejle and Jack Black in this comedy drama about a record shop owner who, after a break-up, begins to realise the true cause behind of all his issues with women.
I was a massive fan of John Cusack and an avid reader of Nick Hornby when this was released. It was the sort of movie that both mirrored and informed my personality in many ways. Chandler Bing. Banky from Chasing Amy. Rob the depressed record store owner here. It isn’t, in retrospect, a particularly healthy bunch of role models or fictional peers. Cusack’s Rob is essentially a covert study of “nice guy” toxic masculinity. Too self absorbed and defined by his own ennui to realise what he has. How responsible he is for the sadness in his life and those he professes to love. Very truly male, very truly human. Nowhere near as cool as I thought he was in my early twenties. I’d still build my own second hand DVD and Blu Ray shop around the business model presented in the book and this pitch perfect, insightful adaptation… but I’d never categorise this as a Top Five “romantic comedies for men” any more. It is much more a wake up call for all our immature, self centred shitty behaviour. Viewed through that lens it is a richer yet less entertaining watch. Hard to know whether I really can laugh either at or with some of the iconic funny moments now I have some life experience, distance and context. Still the soundtrack slaps (almost equalling Grosse Pointe Blank’s mix tape supremacy) and Jack Black turns in his only acceptable performance here. He’s meant to be grating for once… context and self awareness are everything.
Michael Crichton directs Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons and Cynthia Rhodes in this sci-fi thriller where, in the near future, cops police out of control robots.
Starts out like a teatime cop show and then goes hard in the last 45 minutes. Suddenly, in one big blurt, there’s swearing, intensity and nudity. For one minute there’s even split diopter shots spicing up the workmanlike stew. Did Brian DePalma takeover filming this for a couple of days? Once you get past the analogue nature of the killer droids the concept is solid, the bullets that chase you are pretty awesome. Everyone brings more than their slightly stock characters warrant. Rhodes, for example, does fine work elevating the very sexist idea of “the good girl” partner. A rewatchable.
Darren Stein directs Rose McGowan, Rebecca Gayheart and Judy Greer in this teen movie about vapid popularity and kidnapping pranks gone wrong.
Very much a poor man’s Heathers. But I am undeniably a poor man. A poor man who fancies Rose McGowan. Jawbreaker has the bubblegum palette of Clueless but a tenth of the budget. There are lurches into experimental arthouse camp. Humanity is grazed by all the cartoonish misanthropy. Yet it also feels like a passion project that got lost in the edit.
Worth Keeter directs Steven Bauer, Chelsea Field and Pamela Anderson in this erotic thriller where somebody keeps killing men in Chinatown during sex.
The pirate VHS of Pamela Anderson’s first big starring role was passed around my Year 4 classroom like watermelon vapes are today no doubt. There’s a couple of standard sex scenes and a lot of candles. The plot is quite racist, Chelsea Field doesn’t do any nudity and the twist is the most obvious (least plausible) one from “pick a twist ending” catalogue. Cheap and cheesy, as Basic Instinct knock-offs go this proves a faded facsimile.
Emir Kusturica directs Predrag ‘Miki’ Manojlovic, Lazar Ristovski and Mirjana Jokovic in this award winning Serbian film about resistance fighters who stay hiding underground long after the war is over.
Absurdist and untethered. Often the chaos is a mask for some quite shallow political points. I’m not a fan of easy point scoring or wackiness used to cover up a lack of formalism. There are stretches that are genuinely exciting but you could equally spend half the three hour runtime scrolling away on your phone and miss very little.
I’m more than a fair weather Shyamalan fan but this one, his big breakthrough, never clicked with me. Ponderous and pretentious, it came out during at a dark time when I could only afford to go to the cinema once a month at best. Bruce Willis was probably my favourite movie star back then (still in 1999 … but only just) and The Sixth Sense had had months of hype following its sleeper obliteration of the US box office. That famous twist was frustratingly super guessable. And the movie didn’t seem to have a lot else in the bank. A magic trick that you’ve figured out while the props are being set out. There’s not much more to it. 25 years distance I don’t hate its pointless mechanics quite as virulently. It is well crafted if not particularly scary. Toni Collette is doing a lot of emotional heavy lifting. Bless her heart.
Samuel Fuller directs Richard Basehart, Gene Evans and Michael O’Shea in this war thriller where a small rear guard of soldiers must hold off pursuing forces while their comrades make a retreat.
Cheap Korean War movie filmed on a sparse wintery white set. Tries to motor along to the internal monologues of a dozen or so doomed men. Their fears and ambitions. The final stand against an approaching tank is good solid action. James Dean is in a small role but I must have blinked during his screentime.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 