Jon Jost directs Emmanuelle Chaulet, Katherine Bean and Stephen Lack in this American indie where the art world and Wall Street and love are traded coldly.
Pretty boring early mumblecore. There’s a sequence on the rooftop of the World Trade Centre that captures the open air thrill of peering down on Manhattan but aside from that strap in for some listless pretentiousness.
Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia directs Iván Massagué, Antonia San Juan and Zorion Eguileor in this Spanish sci-fi thriller where a man volunteers to experience a brutalist prison / social experiment where a banquet of food is lowered down the centre of a tower of inmates everyday.
The first half an hour of this actually won me over. The minimalist paranoia of Cube and the class consciousness of Snowpiercer. The mechanics of the trap are laid out to us by an untrustworthy source. Zorion Eguileor, wise but petty, hammers out a neat little sinister performance from reams of exposition. The problem is we meet nobody quite as fascinating when we leave his level and the writers prefer on-the-nose political allegory over action. The film has bursts of violence and is consistently nihilist but in a distasteful, obviously button pushing way. Instead of giving us extreme adventure, they go for bad vibes satire. I’m not even sure that the final act of defiance has any logic or sense to it. It is an ending separated and lost from the less pretentious first half’s strengths. Allegedly the script started off as fringe theatre and sadly the naivety and delusions of that brand of media are often left in place of the exciting potential of the cinematic high concept.
Michael Hoffman directs Vincent Friell, Joe Mullaney and Ned Beatty in this Scottish crime comedy where a pair of Edinburgh youths hijack tourist buses for cash and become Robin Hood-esque media sensations.
The acting is atrocious and it often feels like it has nowhere to go but circles after the first act. Yet it is incredibly sweet natured and you’d have to be some kind stone hearted sad sack not to get swept up in its lo-fi ambition. Wonderful to see Edinburgh looking so dirty and undeveloped.
Mike Figgis directs Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue and Julian Sands in this dark romance between a terminal alcoholic and a street worker looking for love.
When you watch Chicken Run you get an unfortunate hankering for a three piece meal. When you watch Leaving Las Vegas you wanna have a drink. Not downing vodka like it is water… Does anyone knock back spirits like this outside of the movies? What a movie. You get Vegas looking bright and sleazy. The editing is experimental and kaleidoscopic. Figgis’ camera finds everyday beauty whether lit by the dazzle dazzle of the strip, the clean lustre of a mall food court or twilight sun dappling droplets of bourbon on breasts. You get Elisabeth Shue looking delectable, yet channeling a backstory of abuse, exploitation, codependency and low self esteem convincingly. You get Cage’s most focussed wildly cool, erratic buffoonery. The booze is the fuel for his eccentric swings and volcano of tics here. He’s morose in a well of self pity, then he’s partying down a supermarket aisle stocking up on his poison, then he’s being a horny quote machine, far above self respect to care what flirtatious obscenities are wafting from his stinky mouth. “Like the kling klang king of the rim ram room.” Who knows what is flowing through his unrestrained brain? It is a performance like jazz with a bazooka with a bottle in both hands. There’s no doubt why Shue’s Sera falls in love with such a self imploding car wreck of a human. We do. There’s no doubt why she wants to stop him slowly rotting his body. We do. There’s no doubt in the quiet final moments our hearts have shifted from the bad choices and hurtful rejections to an unlikely, bleak transaction of tenderness that somehow closes the door on two troubled lives. For a little while they looked like they might save each other. Oscars all round. For once they got Best Actor bang the fuck on!
Zoe Lister-Jones directs Cailee Spaeny, Michelle Monaghan and David Duchovny in this reboot / sequel to the teen witches cult classic.
Magic sparkle baths, mentally castrating bullies and banned love spells. F the patriarchy! Competently made and well cast, this attempt at a woke reshingling manages to lack both rebellion and scares, getting only the quirky fashions right. The original was made for teenage girls who wanted it darker than the Spice Girls… this defangs even that aspect… it is hard to see who outside of the sleepover demographic will enjoy it, and even if you are the target market you might spend a lot of the unspooling wondering when if ever things will turn deadly. The supernatural conclusion comes very late and is resolved super easily.
Whit Stillman directs Edward Clements, Carolyn Farina and Chris Eigeman in this indie coming-of-age drama where a young intellectual spends Christmas with a gang of Manhattan socialites and debutants.
“It’s a tiny bit arrogant of people to go around worrying about those less fortunate.” I had forgotten I already watched this as a kid until twenty minutes in. Something about a rented tux and borrowed overcoats chimed within my deeper musty memory banks. Stillman has a graphic designer’s visual sense… if he cannot fill his screen with spectacle he makes the sparse luxury his camera does have access to go a very long way. The production fakes obscene wealth on shoestring convincingly. Usually I would dismiss such fare as posh people with posh people problems but this has deft touch and self awareness that softly enthrals. Nothing much really happens as an outsider fits in and an unofficial group of pals then slowly disband over romantic intrigue and unavoidable deadline of the Christmas holidays ending. There’s an intelligence and playfulness to the script that avoids alienating… even if you don’t get all the prep school references. We watch a way of life in decline, possibly it ever was outdated. A chilly, festive New York (beautiful as always) freezing a moment in time for an alien part of society that has always been not in sync with progress. The amateur acting is a bit serviceable but Stillman requires an almost deadpan tone which proves easy enough for his cast to hit. See you in another 30 years, U.H.B.s!
Fritz Lang directs Henry Fonda, Sylvia Sidney and William Gargan in this thriller where a reformed tough tries to go straight for the love of a good woman but society forces them back into a life of crime.
At the centre of this early noir is a bank heist involving gas bombs and a ghoulish mask. While watching you think the quick edits are there so we cannot fully know whether Fonda’s Eddie is behind the mask, behind the mayhem. The studio and censors pared the sequence down… removing the violent deaths of innocent bystanders, women and children. What still exists works. It feels like a sequence from cinema future. A Tim Burton Batman villain strutting in a gothic soundstage. A horror character gone venal. The surrounding 90 minutes of story is standard stuff told at a clip. Your James Cagney movie would focus on the fall back into larceny stuff with more assurance. Your Bonnie & Clydes would implicate us in the thrill of life on the run, passenger seat living in a bullet strewn sedan. This plays out more as romantic tragedy, more as societal condemnation. Sylvia Sidney’s sweetheart is too bright for Fonda’s temperamental lunk. Smart, svelte and switched on. You never fully attune with how she throws her life away on such a dolt. You Only Live Once splashes about in lot of crime cinema’s ornamental ponds but never luxuriates in just one long enough to fully take hold.
David Lynch directs Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek and Everett McGill in this biographical road movie about Alvin Straight, a pensioner who drove across states on a lawnmower.
The Rosetta Stone for Lynch heads. Here is how the Eagle Scout sees the world without nightmare murders, sex angels or purgatory waiting rooms. A gentle, pastoral place where good people bicker and help each other. Where lives run on a rail until they hit the road. A man enjoying one last adventure, trying to recapture his freedom and face his mortality. Spacek gives fine support as his mentally challenged but strong of heart daughter. Don’t let the family friendly certificate fool you. This is mature film about regret, overcoming tragedy… fucking life. It has the down home humour of a gentler episode of King of the Hill and the spiritual inclinations of a religious parable. It is also tremendously sweet to watch. The kind of cinema that declutters your brain a little, gives all your misgivings about the world a chance to relax. Lovely stuff.
Luis Buñuel directs Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig and Stéphane Audran in this surreal classic where a group of posh friends cannot ever make a date for dinner without the world falling apart.
The value system and societal structures it lampoons don’t really exist anymore so the series of skits and bad behaviour have become a little dusty. It is a film you admire more than get actively involved with. Having said that, I found the first half continually erotic, and if that intention was there in Buñuel, then it is camouflaged beneath the surface.
John Hough directs Kim Richards, Ike Eisenmann and Eddie Albert in this sci-fi kid’s adventure movie where two orphans with psychic powers go on the run.
Doubt I have ever watched this Disney live actioner teeth to tits before. It was always lurking around the bank holiday weekend schedules – on the day you had plans or were dragged to visit family. It is a gentle romp, with acceptable FX and Fruit of the Loom wonder. Sturdy mixture of mystery and peril. Even as an adult with little nostalgic investment it was watchable. There’s a cat who really doesn’t want to be in half the shots he has to be in and a bear who is soft as mince. Half the movie seems to be the aryan alien sprogs nicking animals.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 