Brian Yuzna directs Jeffrey Combs, Jason Barry and Elsa Pataky in this third flick in the H.P. Lovecraft inspired body horror saga.
West is in prison. And back to re-animating he goes. Almost everyone else involved is Spanish. It is a cheap limited production with some hilariously full on gore. This franchise deserved better sequels but this just about hits the spot as a one watcher.
Park Chan-wook directs Song Kang-ho, Shin Ha-kyun and Bae Doona in this Korean thriller where a recently laid off factory worker kidnaps a rich man’s daughter, hoping to use the ransom money to pay for his sister’s kidney transplant.
The first Chan-wook I saw at the cinema and the twisted, painterly house style is very much present and correct. Obtuse, almost elliptical storytelling. Mad nihilist twists. Class inequalities explored in a way he never truly came back to until No Other Choice. Zero shits about sensibilities. A very lively supporting performance from Bae Doona. Her minimum wage revolutionary is the only character who feels more complex than a chess piece on a board where all the moves have long since been fatally set.
Joe Roth directs Robert Carradine, Curtis Armstrong and Larry B. Scott in this teen comedy sequel where the nerd fraternity have to represent themselves on a Florida vacation.
Standard Eighties sequel. Get everyone back (Anthony Edwards in a reduced role). Repeat all the jokes (though no floppy javelin). Send ‘em holiday. Mix in some new girls and a few movie spoofs for the trailer. It ain’t rocket science, it ain’t even remedial science.
Tyler Spindel directs David Spade, Lauren Lapkus and Nick Swardson in this gross out comedy about a lonely guy who invites a horrific blind date on holiday with him by accident.
Off cuts from other Adam Sandler projects minced together and tossed at David Spade like scraps. He shrugs his way through this. Goes really hard on the nasty, has Nick Swardson in a prominent role. So… pretty distasteful. Lauren Lupkus sees her shot, doesn’t hold back and her cutely obnoxious grotesque idiot ends up being the flick’s saving grace. Eventually the story just gives up on itself and goes full romcom cookie cutter.
Alex Cox directs Roberto Sosa, Bruno Bichir and Vanessa Bauche in this Mexican indie about a newly graduated road cop trying to navigate endemic corruption for better and for worse.
Moral murk in the hot burning sunlight. Ten thousand miles south of Serpico. Cox’ second best movie after Repo Man is an unsung gem. There is those seesaw ethics, a horny sense of humour and just enough lo-fi brilliant set pieces. Even a few moments of gentle surrealism. True and soulful. Well worth a rediscover.
Paolo Sorrentino directs Filippo Scotti, Toni Servillo and Teresa Saponangelo in this coming of age drama set in 1980s Naples.
Sorrentino mines his own teenage landmark year in this thinly veiled cinematic memoir. Maradona, sexual awakenings, complicated morality and a desire to make films all jockey for attention. There is the definite whiff of Fellini in the heightened Italian nuttiness of the extended family and new acquaintances. That has always been present in Sorrentino’s visions. Cinema Paradiso also feels like another touchstone but not in the way you might first imagine. Probably this beautiful filmmaker’s most accessible flick. Satire takes a backseat and tragic surprises rear up from nowhere. The magical realist prologue is absolute fire cinema. A little self contained fable that is unnerving and sexy.
Preston Sturges directs Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda and Charles Coburn in this screwball comedy where a sexy con artist targets a naive brewery fortune heir only to fall for the mark.
Grows on me more and more with every rewatch. Now hits my perfect status. Barbara Stanwyck sizzles in this. Beautiful evening dresses, killer looks. In a whirlwind of snappy dialogue she is the wisest and the sharpest. What puts this daft farce up in the elite tier is not just anything can happen but we want to see her do anything to win her prize. “They say a moonlit deck is a woman’s business office.”
Hikari directs Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira and Mari Yamamoto in this comedy melodrama where an American actor in Tokyo lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese “rental family” agency, playing the fiancée; long lost father; white best friend as needed.
Sweet to the point where your teeth will rot. It is just way too formatted and structured. Brendan Fraser’s wardrobe has been given much more consideration than any emotional verisimilitude. Having said that… this is genuinely the best use of his utterly unique Hollywood cache in decades. He has alluring Jimmy Stewart vibes here. Not a terrible movie, just an overly calculated one. I prefer my manipulation to be under the bubbles.
James Glickenhaus directs Jackie Chan, Danny Aiello and Roy Chiao in this buddy cop thriller where two New York cops travel to Hong Kong to bust some kidnappers.
It is much documented that Jackie’s second attempt to break the US market was a dud. He and the ultra violent / ultra sleazy James Glickenhaus didn’t see eye to eye. So much so that Jackie made Police Story straight afterwards almost spitefully to prove that he understood his own appeal better than any hard edged, Big Apple exploitation maven. He even re-shot and re-edited this movie for the Asian markets cutting out the boobies and swearing while adding in a middle sequence that gifts a taste of the homemade farce and slapstick physicality we are used to from a Jackie Chan rental. Jackie’s cut is the version I watched and his additions are the highlights. Having said that… there is perverse value in watching the megastar out of his comfort zone. Playing it straight, serious and grizzled. A shock of gore goes a long way. It is a curiously uneven flick. The opening heist feels more like an Italian Mad Max rip off with punk little people hijacking a truck in a dystopian Brooklyn. Jackie gets involved with massacres in bars, saunas and the ubiquitous cement factory. He speedboats past the World Trade Centre, performing stunts that belong in much, much higher budgeted productions. I hope Glickenhaus had permits. Danny Aiello looks bemused throughout but the dub could never smother his charm. I’m not going to lie, I really dug the alternative universe strangeness of this. Imagine if it hit big?
Rowan Athale directs Pierce Brosnan, Amir El-Masry and Toby Stephen in this dual biopic of boxer Prince Naseem “Naz” Hamed and his trainer Brendan Ingle.
Getting past those standard (bold type and pedestrian) UK production limitations, this is actually quite a sophisticated and complex study of a toxic relationship between two real life figures. Brosnan puts in a career best acting shift, the score by Neil Athale works the emotions like a punchbag and the script ain’t no one sided whitewash. Better than you’d expect.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 