Geoff Murphy directs Bruno Lawrence, Alison Routledge and Peter Smith in this New Zealand sci-fi movie where a man wakes up to discover he is seemingly the last man on Earth.
Another cult gem knocked off my watchlist. More humanist and literate than, say, a Mad Max movie… this shows a gentle apocalypse. Probably has more in common with Don McKellar’s Last Night with its satirical / metaphysical vision of the end of humanity. Geoff Murphy lenses this like it is a far more expensive project… you can see why Hollywood snapped him up to direct sequels and serve as 2nd Unit helmer on endeavours like The Lord of the Rings.
Peter Yates directs Tom Selleck, F Murray Abraham and Laila Robins in this prison thriller where Magnum is framed and sent to prison, after some initial squeamishness he becomes a man not to be fucked with and then looks to clear his name.
Solid star. Solid direction. Infantile screenplay with discombobulating lurches into a far nastier (and realistic?) tone. Works better as a poor man’s The Fugitive than as a yuppie honky’s nightmare. David Rasche plays an unstable dirty cop and somehow makes a sloppily written heavy role quite charismatic. Not the best Saturday night at the movies, the cocaine deal subplot is more convincing in Three Men and A Baby.
Simon Langton directs Michael Caine, James Fox and Nigel Havers in this British espionage thriller where Michael Caine’s old boy done good investigates his son’s death.
A bit confused and confusing until the middle point when Caine finally takes centre stage. Even then it barely raises the pulse. Talks a lot but with nothing new to say.
Richard Loncraine directs Paul Bettany, Kirsten Dunst and Sam Neill in this tennis based rom-com.
No idea why I’m so fond of this one over other equally rote confections. Obviously Dunst is a personal favourite but she gets a little less of the limelight than you’d expect. Bettany isn’t entirely comfortable being positioned as the next Hugh Grant… he’s a spikier, slightly less suave presence. The sport movie aspect dominates the second half and is well served. So despite a very Richard Curtis-y vibe of swearing poshos and chocolate box London, this feels like a slightly more palatable evolution of its most obvious influence. Nice to see a movie where the couple start off having sex like adults and feelings develop beyond the mutual attraction. Listen, it just works.
M. Night Shyamalan directs Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix and Abigail Breslin in this alien invasion sci-fi siege flick told from one family’s perspective.
Crop circles. Foil hats. Night terrors. A Fortean corker. Minimalist in the very best way, part of the joy is how Shyamalan uses every trick in the book to evade showing you anything too tangible before the denouement. Everyone in the cast and crew is firing on all cylinders but special praise has to go to James Newton Howard’s homage to Bernard Hermann. Hitchcock’s The Birds is as big an influence here as War or the Worlds. You can approach it as a perfectly calibrated shocker. Or as treatise on faith and family. Either take works grandly. Afterwards you feel like you’ve experienced a proper movie, one so literate and enthralling that you don’t feel guilty for whiling away 100 minutes on it at all. It is a pleasure to watch something so confident in just being what it is.
Kirk R. Thatcher directs Gonzo The Great, Pepé the King Prawn and Will Arnett in this spooky special.
A nice little rerun of the old Muppet Show format slotted around the Disneyland theme park ride’s setting. Not peak Muppets but a sweet little TV special.
Edgar Wright directs Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy and Matt Smith in this London set timewarp thriller where a lonely student lands in the big smoke only for her bedsit to whisk her away to the seedy Sixties every night.
Nobody feels at home in Soho. I remember the lure of clip joints and the basement dirty mag shops from my teens. The sinister characters who were regular in the pubs otherwise full of tourists and commuters. The Glasshouse Stores. Norman’s Coach and Horses. The John Snow. I know why there’s so many pubs called The Blue Posts in the W1 postcode, do you? I’ve slept with girls in those Fitzrovia dorm rooms. Emerged at midnight, sweaty and half deaf, from the now lost Astoria, The Crobar and The End. Caught too many forgotten movies at the Prince Charles, The Haymarket and the viciously overpriced Odeon Panton Street. Wandered those alleyways after hours and felt on edge (though very gentrified now, I still wouldn’t recommend being around Berwick Street or Chinatown at dawn by yourself… even today). Soho is part of who I am, in my blood. And I don’t feel comfortable there… no matter what time of day it is.
I know that newsagent where Eloise takes refuge and buys a Coke early on is prime Peeping Tom territory. I know my Repulsion, giallo and Goodnight Sweetheart just as well as Wright clearly does. I know my Clouzot’s Inferno, The Frightened City and Our Friends In the North too. He hasmade a movie for film fans like me and Londoners like me and loners with a dream. And he lands it with his percussive visual boldness intact, if slightly matured. Last Night In Soho is a late night feast for the eyes – a dark fantasy shot through a kaleidoscope of reds, greens, pinks and blues. A fantastic showcase for the doll like McKenzie and Taylor-Joy. The finest use of Matt Smith so far on the big screen. A soundtrack to die for, rivalling Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood double vinyl release for being studded with forgotten Sixties gems, a movie this would make the perfect companion piece to.
Now… does it work as a pure genre horror? Intermittently. Should you go see it if easily triggered by sexual assault, exploitation and stalking? Certainly not. In many ways it is an insidious potboiler of a movie that plays with rape and murder in quite an old fashioned way. But does it evoke that dreadful feeling of being lost and threatened on the callous mean streets of Zone One? Yes. This is my hometown as a horror show… one not too far off the map from how alienating and magical that there London often really is.
Andy Serkis directs Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson and Michelle Williams in this anti-superhero sequel where Eddie Brock and his alien gloop symbiote go their separate ways.
“EDD-DIE!” Neither of the Venom movies are particularly well made, neat or cohesive but in a strange way their throwaway nature kinda is their ultimate charm. The explicit gay subtext, the slumming it cast list of alternative favourites, the gothic cathedral ending ripped straight out of an early superhero flick like Batman… I enjoy the lowest common denominator “couldn’t give a shit”ness of it all. It is a silly daft film, that knows it doesn’t have to try hard or go big when it has Tom Hardy arguing with himself in the bank and accumulating steady interest. Everything outwith the loveable incomprehensible movie star bickering with himself is secondary… baubles for the trailer. We come to see him fight himself, resist the urge to eats brains, split up, go to sexually fluid goth raves and reunite. Put it this way, if Eddie and Venom invited you to their wedding you’d go in a heartbeat. Iron Man and Pepper Pots’ big day?… I think we already have plans that weekend. A quick dumb comic book movie for adults that feels most akin to Darkman, Spawn, Blade or The Crow than anything contemporary and then plays out like a very warped rom-com. Bottom line: fun. Bonus sexy: Only 97 minutes! When was the last time you went to a blockbuster that didn’t want to wear the arse out of your jeans?
Alexandre Aja directs Aaron Stanford, Emilie de Ravine and Ted Levine in the horror remake where a family is stranded in the desert surrounded by a cannibalistic mutant brood.
One of the better gore remakes… even it does tone down some of the more abrasive agit prop satire of Wes Craven’s Seventies original. Aja (the most consistent survivor of the Splat Pack generation of directors) ratchets up the tension, relishes the mutant monstrosities and delivers plenty of competent shocks. Tomandandy’s score bullies you into submission, Gregory Nicotero’s KNB make-up outfit deserve a Golden Chainsaw for the in-camera FX work. Only a slightly anonymous cast let’s this down.
Lucky McKee directs Pollyanna McIntosh, Sean Bridgers and Angela Bettis in this revisionist horror where a family’s twisted patriarch captures a feral woman and keeps her locked up in the wood shed.
Genuinely strange and challenging. Lynch filtered through more contemporary influence like Zombie and Lanthimos. This is real piece of nasty that feminists and misogynists will find much to chew over. The completely loony finale is unpredictable but if you are a fan of extreme cinema you’ll enjoy seeing something quite controlled and measured spill over the top quite so vigorously.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 