Joshua Logan directs Marlon Brando, Red Buttons and Miyoshi Umeki in this drama where a US air force officer based in Japan falls in love with a native actress, a relationship actively discouraged by all.
As a travelogue deep diving into Japanese culture, customs and exoticism, this is quite wonderful. Drama-wise we focus on the wrong couple. We linger on the leads when Buttons and Umeki are far sweeter and eventually tragic a pairing. Brando is very much doing his own thing, a thing that slows an already stately movie right down to an interminable squelch at times. Logan’s heart is in the right place and as an observance of modern Kyoto it is very pretty.
Joe Wright directs Amy Adams, Gary Oldman and Wyatt Russell in this suspense thriller where an unreliable shut-in thinks she’s witnessed a murder across the street… but then again she does watch a lot of Hitchcock.
Dolls Houses. Theatrical staging. Grating operatic flourishes. The least claustrophobic of claustrophobic settings. Obvious twists. Obvious reshoots. A fantastic cast, all collecting the Devil’s dollar. Given the noticeable plummet in Amy Adams ability to pick a good project recently I hope she hasn’t made a pact with old Hob that is now well past due. Boring.
Alexandre Aja directs Mélanie Laurent, Mathieu Amalric and Malik Zidi in this French sci-fi thriller where a woman wakes up in a malfunctioning biopod, that while sustaining her life, wants to euthanise her before it powers down.
Pretentious rather thrilling. There are some big revelations towards the end but this techno dystopia take on Buried has minimal grip and the usually watchable Laurent’s character maintains zero urgency given her plight. Falls flat.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi directs Kotone Furukawa, Katsuki Mori and Fusako Urabe in this Japanese romantic anthology about three relationships; a love triangle, a seduction and a missed connection remembered.
Three stories about affairs, yearning, misunderstanding. All talk but very erotic at times. Kiyohiko Shibukawa and Katsuki Mori’s story really stood out for me but any of the three could be your own personal favourite and it would be hard to fault that opinion.
Peter Chelsom directs Adrian Dunbar, Tara Fitzgerald and Ned Beatty in this Anglo-Irish tale of a untrustworthy nightclub owner who wants to book a long exiled singer to revive his cabaret’s fortunes.
An unjustly forgotten slice of whimsy that charms the damn pants of you. This is really unpredictable, featuring full frontal nudity, a road trip around Ireland, a gold-plated bastard in the lead and some real implied darkness. Yet it is the sweetest thing I’ve seen in a long while. Deserves to be rediscovered, I promise you you’ll never believe what a strange mixture it is of Gilliam, Sheridan, Frears, Jordan and Damien Chazelle. And by that I mean, like nothing else. This was made in that weird little strip of time between Scandal and Shallow Grave where very few British films were funded and released unless they were overly worthy (Howard’s End, In the Name of the Father) or cravenly banal (Carry On Columbus, Splitting Heirs). So it is fascinating to see what freedom was granted to this one, a hardy little survivor that fell through the cracks and somehow made it to cinemas.
John Ford directs Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O’Hara and Roddy McDowall in this 1942 Best Picture winner – an episodic study of stresses, changes and compromises in a Welsh coal-mining village as it passes from an idyllic pastoral community into an exploitative industrial town.
John Ford’s politics are stamped all over this. The owners a necessary evil, yet the organised strikers the devil themselves. Has Ford essayed the grind of the future, progress and capitalism on a worthy family… or has the young lad, whose point of view we see all things from, merely lost his innocent blinkers? Ford seems against any kind of modern structure (school, unions) preferring the natural formations of family? Should we be unpacking the film this hard? Is it not really “just” a work of nostalgia… like The Quiet Man without the romance, The Duke and the epic third act bally-hoo, rewinding time with rose tinted glasses, both lament and celebration of things lost? As the family is cleaved by tragedy, the lure of the New Worlds (America, South Africa) and pragmatic marriages, are they not pulled from the ground of South Wales and exported like coal? It is not quite as heavy as that. Many of the chapters are humorous. Dai Bando’s boxing lessons have nothing but laughs and contains the only recognisably Welsh accent heard within. Sara Allgood, Donald Crisp, Walter Pidgeon and Barry Fitzgerald all do fine work. Maureen O’Hara looks magnificent. There’s treasure here, yet the ultimate message doesn’t gel. Like many a modern, targeted Oscar contender, it dances beautifully around a big issue rarely landing a blow that challenges your existing thinking on the important subject it mines.
Joseph Kosinski directs Tom Cruise, Miles Teller and Jennifer Connelly in this legacy sequel to the 1986 fighter pilot dogfight school mega-hit.
I casually enjoy the original but I came for Cruise and boy, oh, boy… man, oh, man… does he deliver. The cocky grin, the physical brinkmanship, the cool, the serious whiteness of those teeth and the serious whiteness of those Ts. This is very much an evolution and a celebration of the Tony Scott Top Gun aesthetic but it has room to deliver every factor of a Tom Cruise fronted product of any era. The mission is impossible, and if TG86 didn’t exist it wouldn’t take too much tinkering to swap Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell out and slot Ethan Hunt into the main role. Team assembled, crazy prep, stunts done for reals, minimal CGI, maximum excess, frantic skin-of-the-teeth execution. Maverick is on the ropes, clinging to his career by his fingertips, going through a mid-life crisis and existential ennui he never considered possible à la Jerry Maguire. And we are revisiting old stomping ground, proving the mature master still has it even when surrounded by callow youth… just like the ultimate legacy sequel, Scorsese’s The Color of Money… only here it is Cruise having to show the cocky apprentices there ain’t nothing like the original for getting the job done in the third act. And while Tom will never be in Star Wars, here he gets to be Obi-Wan and Han Solo simultaneously – so you know the uranium weaponising Death Star is truly fucked.
It could almost be a parody if it weren’t so serious. It is a celebration of our last true movie star. And the action it delivers is luxury spec. I walked out of cinema armpits swampy with stress sweat. A movie hasn’t put me through the tension wringer like this since The Rock. And the fact it constantly convinces, constantly goes for the epic, constantly moves like its life depended on it. This is premium blockbuster entertainment with just enough drama, wish fulfilment, romance and reverence to its lead to truly make your summer buzz. Only the humour is underwhelming and that’s only at times. There’s an unavoidable long run where there’s no room for laughs… and it is admirable that the movie puts away the gags and banter once the stakes are life or death and the emotional beats are dramatic. There are so many individual chapters one can pull apart – the Alan Resnais style flashback to Goose’s death in the original movie, the tremendous mini-movie opener and the obligatory beach topless sport session.
Supporting cast-wise it is all admirably gold standard. Jennifer Connelly looks resplendent. I’ve read some criticism that hers and other roles are underwritten. But in a movie like this, it is what the performer brings to their moments that count, the name rather than the script does the heavy lifting. Hollywood used to rely all the time on their screen sirens and supporting faces to supply the shading. A narrative as laser targeted as this moves in a nippy shorthand or it dies. The one sequence where things are allowed a much needed baggy-ness is Val Kilmer’s return as Iceman. Never been the actor’s biggest fan but it is played so respectfully that it almost brought a tear to even my hardened eyes. Glen Powell’s cocky Hangman should be a star making turn for the silly hunk, but I’ve been saying that since he smashed his role in Scream Queens. Monica Barbaro and Lewis Pullman also make a positive impression. Miles Teller is probably the best actor on the new recruit roster, and has the juiciest role. He matches Anthony Edwards in looks but he just kind of feels a setting or two off. He should be more intense, more sure of himself. He isn’t bad, he just doesn’t chime with Cruise like everyone else does. And after all, whose tent pole release is this?
Seth Gordon directs Steve Wiebe, Billy Mitchell and Walter Day in this documentary following the rivalry and conspiracies to claim the record of the highest score on a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet by a group of middle-aged nerds.
Hilarious and a gift that keeps on giving. Every time a new character is introduced, they are somehow even sillier and more obsessed than the last. You genuinely get emotionally involved in nice guy underdog Steve Wiebe’s quest to ratify and beat his high score. You’ll be boo-ing and hissing at the screen each time blowhard Billy Mitchell and his minions try some underhand tactic to discredit the new guy. It is a shock this was never adapted into a Will Ferrell movie but in all honesty it is consistently laugh-out-loud funny just as it is. A treasure trove of candid, unguarded, daft moments.
Steven Antin directs Christina Aguilera, Cher and Kristen Bell in this showbiz musical where a singer with a dream works her way up from waitress to lead at a L.A. neo-cabaret bar.
I must be getting soft in my old age but I really enjoyed this. It files off all the angst from All About Eve, Moulin Rouge and even Coyote Ugly to present a gaudy, sexy package. For a film with zero nudity, it is undeniably horny as fuck. Cleavage and six packs glimmers and escape their soft fabrics frequently. The songs wallop along with a slick energy. Aquilera ain’t a half bad lead… Beautiful, talented… she always steals focus and has a nice mix of naivety and raunch. This is the rare pop star vehicle that makes you wonder why its stunt lead didn’t move into acting? She’s no Jodie Foster but she’s miles better than Cher. The top billed relic is the trouble in paradise here, but at least her laughable acting suits the slightly parodic tones of the rest of the supporting cast. The whole plot is a shopping list of cliché but the mood is just right to get away with hashing them out one last time. And you have to remember this would have been a generation of ten year old girls first shot at seeing the A Star Is Born / “Hey! Let’s Put The Show On Right Here…” cogs whirr and grind.
S. S. Wilson directs Fred Ward, Chris Gartin and Michael Gross in this monster movie sequel where Earl Bassett returns to protect a Mexican oilfield from an onslaught of evolving “motherhumpers.”
Fred Ward lazes through a paycheck, Chris Gartin is no replacement for Kevin Bacon. Not a patch on the original but mindlessly enjoyable if you can bother to concentrate. That can be an effort to achieve after a while though – even with the introduction of a new species of Graboid.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 