John Whitesell directs Danny DeVito, Matthew Broderick and Kristin Chenoweth in this comedy where an arrogant local busy body has his well planned Christmas ruined when his new neighbour decides to decorate the house across the street to excess.
Can’t decide whether it wants to be family or gross out… lands neither. Plenty of convoluted slapstick set-ups but only DeVito’s screen time sings.
4
The Shop Around The Corner (1940)
Ernst Lubitsch directs James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan and Frank Morgan in this classic comedy where a store’s best salesman has a crisis of confidence during the December rush.
A filmed play, famously remade as You’ve Got Mail. The core romance is actually a minor subplot here. Stewart finding his mojo and his saving the day is the magic. The well defined ensemble of players grows on you as Lubitsch glides into his witty groove.
7
The Preacher’s Wife (1996)
Penny Marshall directs Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston and Courtney B. Vance in this fantasy romantic comedy where an angel comes down to save a holy man’s family over a busy Christmas.
The Bishop’s Wife is a five star classic. This remake decides to shy away from any obvious attraction between Denzel and Whitney’s characters for Christian reasons. Meaning it is solely now about two handsome people moaning at a church man for being too busy while he works his butt off to keep his community together. What’s the point then? Whitney does get to sing Christmas songs with a church choir. Fair enough.
4
The Package (1989)
Andrew Davis directs Gene Hackman, Joanna Cassidy and Tommy Lee Jones in this Cold War action thriller where, after being framed for murder, a Green Beret must figure out why he was tricked into sneaking an assassin into America.
This wintery dry run for The Fugitive includes solid action, a “What If?” end of the Cold War setting that proved prescient and more than a few nods to Lee Harvey Oswald. So there is a lot going on. The first act is a little murkier in its storytelling than is needed but I think that is on purpose. There’s not really enough Tommy Lee Jones. All in all, this killed a Saturday night with my Dad and me in a way that most things floating around on streaming never could.
7
Enemy Of The State (1998)
Tony Scott directs Will Smith, Gene Hackman and Jon Voight in this paranoid conspiracy thriller where a lawyer’s life is destroyed by the NSA when he accidentally receives incriminating video footage.
You are out in the cold. Everyone is wrapped up pretending the world is a hopeful, sparkling place. There’s something about a Christmas time setting that makes a conspiracy thriller bite just a little harder. Will Smith is the everyman-on-the-run. He treats the trap that is chewing him up like an action heavy sitcom episode. He is not paranoid enough, saucily surly. Fuck reality, this is one of his most pleasing, on brand, blockbuster turns. Hackman’s surveillance expert joins the slam bang fun late in the story but the nods to him being The Conversation’s Harry Caul are a cute Easter egg. He’s a bit too testosterone fuelled and macho here to truly be a cover for his best acting turn. There are plenty of winks to The Conversation but this has more affinity to The Last Boy Scout or The Long Kiss Goodnight. Scott loves exploring modern digital tracking and hacking methods with an overwhelming visual full pelt. The movie rarely rings false as a techno thriller even a few decades down the line. The ending is choppy, the cast of a thousand faces are often underserved… Yet as an enthusiastic revival of the Seventies chase thriller Enemy Of The State has a lot, tons, of entertainment packed into it.
8
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)
Jalmari Helander directs Onni Tommila, Jorma Tommila and Tommi Korpela in this Finnish adventure horror where the young son of a reindeer hunter begins to suspect scientists have unleashed an evil Santa.
Apart from a slightly rushed ending, this is exactly what I want from a family horror flick featuring a plethora of nude old men. An icy blast.
8
Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights (2002)
Seth Kearsley directs Adam Sandler, Jackie Sandler and Allen Covert in this animated Hanukkah musical comedy-drama.
Wouldn’t know class if it got bit by it on its hairy ass. Utterly unpredictable. Every minute has a shock decision that feels in terrible taste. A lead character has slapstick seizures. Deer and shit share the frame way too often. The logos of shopping mall storefronts come to life to teach Sandler’s broken loser a product placement heavy life lesson. If you hate Sandler it is all here. Exhibit A through Z. Made post-South Park and aimed at teenage boys, those derided decisions make a lot of sense in actual context. The 2D animation and salty songs hit the spot. We laughed plenty. If you knee jerk hate on this, that’s a technical foul.
Ronald Neame directs Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine and Shelley Winters in this sinking ship disaster movie produced by the master of the genre Irwin Allen.
Gene Hackman made plenty of action flicks that just happened to be set over Christmas. This one actually takes place on New Years Eve, a festive tree is used as an improvised ladder and he plays a bolshy, turtleneck sporting priest. 75% of The Poseidon Adventure is Hollywood has-beens screaming at each other, drenched in sweat and seawater, populating obvious faked upside down passageway soundstages. I love it. The loudness. The griminess. The regular kills. The philosophical arguments. It is a big, big, big entertainment with just enough gruff grit to feel like it is saying something more. More than let’s flood this set, then blow this set up and feed one more Hollywood also-ran to the meat grinder.
Kenji Kamiyama directs Gaia Wise, Brian Cox and Luca Pasqualino in this animated fantasy prequel set 200 years before Bilbo found the one ring in Gollum’s cave.
Very beautiful but the pace is stately. This can often feel fatal when the second half is a stalemate siege.
Marielle Heller directs Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy and Jessica Harper in this black comedy where a mother feels her life is spiralling out of control to the point where she might be transforming into a dog after hours.
Ultimately an unashamed showcase for the always overqualified Adams. Feels very much like an adaptation of something that worked better as a literary exercise. There are wounding laughs and honest moments… excellent dog and toddler sequences. The feminist empowerment threads don’t bring anything particularly new to the table but Adams takes a fair amount of risk with her glamorous awards darling status. In all fairness a few extra pounds and some messy hair just makes her look a different brand of hot. Probably the biggest swing Heller has taken so far in her exemplary directorial career yet the least exciting.
Meg Ryan directs herself, David Duchovny and Hal Liggett in this romcom where two long separated lovers touch base in an airport waiting for connecting flights.
There’s not much to this stilted, talky two-hander apart from a pair of stars who we have a fair deal of long term affection for sparring and reconciling. The potential is there. Could have been great.
Monte Hellman directs Warren Oates, Harry Dean Stanton and Patricia Pearcy in this independent drama where a down-on-his-luck cockfighter takes a vow of silence until he can train a tournament winning bird.
Banned in the U.K. because of its continual cruelty to animals, this popped up on Tubi recently. I gritted my teeth and watched solely as I love Warren Oates. Macho character study a-go-go, scruffy edition. This does exactly what it says on the tin. While you get a real behind the scene tour of the bloodsport circuit there isn’t really a compelling 90 minutes of story or development here. More a hangout movie where lots of living things fight to the death or are maimed by the owners for petty reasons. Ugh.
Frank Darabont directs Tom Hanks, David Morse and Michael Clarke Duncan in this magical realist prison drama where a guard on death row begins to suspect a convicted child killer is not just innocent but a miraculous healer.
Stephen King was subtly moving away from pure horror throughout the Nineties. In 1998 he took his biggest gamble by publishing a Dickens-esque Depression era drama one novella length chapter a month over a full year. At the same time, Frank Darabont’s adaptation of King’s The Shawshank Redemption had shaken off its flop Oscar bait status to be considered an (almost) instant modern classic. To this day it remains many people’s favourite film. Darabont’s return to that well with The Green Mile is a classy, prestigious affair. Hanks was a firmly established A-List megastar by this juncture, any project he put his name to felt exciting. The movie hits many of the same sentimental but harshly tough notes as its forerunner. Expectations were higher and the messaging is far more sentimental, obviously manipulative and repetitive. Where The Shawshank Redemption races through decades at a clip only comparable to Goodfellas, The Green Mile stays still in one spot rubbing its uncamouflaged pseudo Christ allegories in your face whether you bite or not. If you are a non believer the last hour is a slog. I appreciated it more on this belated revisit, wrapped up in the duvet on the sofa one winter morning with the cat napping at my feet. But it isn’t a patch on the humanist Shawshank, just very blatantly cut from the same cloth. At least Sam Rockwell turns up in the middle hour to inject the affair with a bit of zany nasty.
6
Perfect Double Bill: 3 hours and 9 minutes set mainly in the same jail house corridor. I’m full!
Dennis Donnelly directs Cameron Mitchell, Pamelyn Ferdin and Wesley Eure in this exploitation flick recreating the allegedly true story of a spree killing in an apartment complex.
A filthy mix of The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Halloween and Psycho. The first act is the most slasher orientated. It becomes a strangely ambitious film but also a less satisfying genre flick the deeper we go. Essentially a roughie. There is a gratuitous five minute bathtime masturbation sequence that is blatant softcore porn, effectively so, if it weren’t for the fact the horny honey is doomed before she starts running the taps. Red paint kills with lots of improvised weapons followed by a modern gothic potboiler. Balaclavas at the ready.
Ted Demme directs Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence and Bernie Mac in this comedy period prison drama where two mismatched young black men are sent to the chain gang together for a crime they did not commit.
Soft and unfussy, this isn’t by any definition a great film but it does plenty right. Eddie back on slick motormouth hustler mode. Martin Lawrence’s least grating lead role. A solid support cast. Demme’s much missed flair for maximising the chemistry in ensemble performances. Rick Baker unmatchable ageing prosthetics. A fair amount of heart. Decent soundtrack. The kinda forgotten release that’ll never be anyone’s favourite movie but equally will entertain even the most hardened cynic.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 