Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo direct Tommaso Di Cola, Giulia Melillo and Ileana D’Ambra in this Italian satirical drama about terrible parents and bored children living just outside Rome.
Mucho suburban nihilism but very little to hold the attention.
John Huston directs Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and Robert Morley in this romance adventure where a missionary and a steamboat captain sail the Congo during the start of WWI.
Sometimes all you want from a movie is a bit of spectacle and a lot of flirtatious heat. Hepburn & Bogart aren’t the most obvious pairing of A-Listers but maybe that’s why this works so well. It set the mould for films as diverse and as pleasing as Two Mules For Sister Sara, Romancing the Stone and Jurassic World. The location work is magical and Bogart seems to enjoy not being the intense tough guy for once. Nice to see him play a good natured goof.
Neil Jordan directs Bob Hoskins, Cathy Tyson and Michael Caine in this British neo-noir where a just out of prison criminal becomes a driver for a high class prostitute with a hidden agenda.
Much like sleazy Eighties New York, this seedy and blatant variation of Soho and Kings Cross doesn’t really exist anymore. Brewer Street has been gentrified over the 21st century and the back of the mainline station has been completely redeveloped. You can only see echoes of the vice and destitution, the clip joints and pick up areas when you wander these streets now. The slightly camp, always sinister thriller Jordan sets in this lost milieu is full of sexual violence, great acting and meta commentary. Hoskins stands out as the garishly ridiculous pawn in a game too big for him to understand. The excellent Tyson has never found quite such a worthy role. The movie is like a nightmare, one that often at least tries to pretend to pass for neon fantasy. Every thread of this pulls at you – sometimes it is so grim it turns your stomach, other times so cheekily flamboyant you marvel at its audacity. Awesome.
Mario Bava directs Eva Bartok, Ariana Gorini and Cameron Mitchell in this Italian giallo where a faceless killer is picking off a fashion house’s models one by one.
Early giallo and proto slasher. Bursting with vivid colour and buxom beauties. It never actually settles on a protagonist so it can be a little hard to care about the mystery. It essentially is a series of lurid set pieces. But there’s that playfulness with form that makes Bava’s movies unique. The credit sequence where the players are introduced in bright, ominous tableaux starts the film on a high that the murder and mayhem never truly matches.
Peter Weir directs Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis and Lukas Haas in this thriller where a cop must protect an Amish boy who has witnessed a murder.
Barn building. Peach jarring. Illicitly dancing to Sam Cooke. Doorway glimpses. It is fair to say in the middle hour of Witness, very little action occurs. Peter Weir is a director who immerses us in a new world or worldview, one that is often hypercritical of modern society by comparison. Here he plays the trick twice. First we experience the beauty and chaos, the overwhelming scale and danger of the city through the eyes of a pure child. Then when we think we will enjoy a fish out of water mode as Ford’s tough cop John Book must pretend to be Amish, he does something even riskier. Weir lets Book appreciate a life without technology or violence or crime. The film does begin and end with thrilling scenes of murder but in its calm centre, we are brought back to a state of innocence. If an action hero as dynamic as Han Solo or Indiana Jones can be seduced by the serenity of Amish life, why shouldn’t we? John Seale’s uncluttered vision and Maurice Jarre’s trembling synth score nurse us backwards in time. Though it is surprising how often the central mystery hook is reprioritised, the romance and drama that takes its place is handsome and enthralling. “You be careful out among them English!”
François Truffaut directs Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claude Jade and Marie-France Pisiern in this final chapter in the life of Antoine Doinel.
After being the first couple to finalise a modern divorce, Antoine & Christine go their separate ways but an old flame meets the young at heart fool by chance the very same day. Almost a third of this is recycled footage from previous films. Nostalgia abounds. While there’s something comforting about revisiting the past (and Truffaut re-examines Doinel’s relationships with his women in a way that feels self aware and some what progressive) it doesn’t really feel like the final chapter. More an interlude before further adventures and much needed growing that never came.
Michele Soavi directs Barbara Cupisti, Tomas Arana and Asia Argento in this Italian horror where a group of priests, academics and tourists are trapped in a church that hides a portal to hell.
Quite clearly started life as a third Demons movie. It has the same form and beats. The emphasis here is less on jump scares, pandemonium and inventive kills. It is creepier and with greater focus on dread. If you wanna watch Hieronymus Bosch’s worst imagery come to life then you’ve come to the right shop. Me, I prefer the more straight out siege and chase nastiness of Demons 1&2. Still, you’ll struggle to predict who will make it to the daybreak and some of the monster FX are top notch.
Cathy Yan directs Haoyu Yang, Mason Lee and Meng Li in this ensemble drama where a half dozen disparate characters suffer ups and downs in capitalist China.
Nice mosaic plotting, memorable personalities, strong vision. One or two of the threads don’t really stretch any further than their initial concept but nothing outstays its welcome. The ending is optimistic if not particularly believable. You saying there’ll be no emotional fallout after certain relationships are betrayed?! I’m a fan of this multi character form… Altman, Dazed and Confused, Pulp Fiction, Holding On, etc. This is the best and most naturally entertaining recent example.
John McTiernan directs Sean Connery, Lorraine Bracco and Elias Monteiro Da Silva in this action romance where a pair of mismatched scientists try to find the secret ingredient for a cure for cancer before their unique swathe of rainforest is destroyed.
As an attempt to make an ecologically worthy update of The African Queen, Medicine Man has its heart in the right place. McTiernan is in his element in an impressive on location jungle shoot. The leads have heat right up until the point they start admiring each other. Bracco is really good here, I’m never entirely sure what the Razzies see in their so called worst nominations every year, and this proves a case in point. After the first act though the story is stuck in a rut and doesn’t really cover any new ground. We science, we bicker, we abseil, we flirt… rinse and repeat.
Harry Bromley Davenport directs Bernice Stegers, Philip Sayer and Maryam d’Abo in this British sci-fi horror where a missing father returns from a Lovecraftian dimension and has a reality altering effect on his estranged family.
Unsettling, seedy and illogical. Almost like watching a no budget David Lynch sitcom, only with zero confidence that the storytellers know what they are doing even if you don’t. The FX have a Seventies Doctor Who ‘charm’ and the ever gorgeous Maryam d’Abo shows her 007s as a loved up French au pair. Small pleasures.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 