Gore Verbinski directs Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley in this pirate adventure romp where a quirky captain chases the supernatural crew who mutinied on his ship.
The above plot encapsulation is useless. There’s way too much story, backstory and hearsay here. At least a lot of the bramblish exposition is told in salty sea dog slang by grizzled, rum soaked lags. It gets in the way of all the daft swashbuckling and spooky effects that busy the romp. Not that this film needs all that pomp and dazzle. Depp is what makes it. Quirky, camp, untrustworthy – Jack Sparrow is his signature role. Whenever he’s on screen the film ignites with anarchy and cool. For years Hollywood struggled to capitalise on his fame, beauty and otherworldliness. Finally the blockbuster came along where the planets briefly aligned and he mega hit. Like the lazier sequels, bloat does creep into the final act though. The shapes of things to come for this unexpectedly popular franchise. But the first one is a colourful treat even now. And that striving shanty score by Klaus Badelt is a true rebel rouser.
Joe Johnston directs Bill Campbell, Jennifer Connelly and Timothy Dalton in this period comic book movie where a 1930s test pilot evades gangsters and nazi-spy movie stars when he finds a prototype jet pack.
Pretty sure I saw this at a caravan park as a kid’s club movie. They’d rollout a portable CRT and play a Benji movie or Tucker: The Man and His Dream just as it was a PG and would occupy a morning. This has low level jeopardy and the affectionate glaze of a by-gone age. Pre-war Hollywood is wonderfully realised with old faces and styles resurrected convincingly to add patina to the gentle romp. Dalton in particular relishes his cartoon take on an alt-Errol Flynn swashbuckling saboteur. Yet it often is very much the formulaic, toothless Disney film. Busy in its moments but forgettable a few hours later. Bill Campbell’s lead is a bland substitute for Billy Zane or Bruce Campbell. Alan Arkin gives a very spaced out non-committal turn as the ‘Doc Brown’ figure to our Brylcreem’d ‘Marty McFly’. Really a film where a zeppelin explodes over the Griffith Park Observatory should have a little more impact than this.
Ida Lupino directs William Talman, Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy in this noir thriller where two fishing buddies are held hostage by a psycho on the run who makes no bones about his intentions for them.
A solid little thriller where two men fall apart and are emasculated by the killer with the gun. The sense of foreboding and helplessness are substantial. You do get a little bored of the continued uselessness of the leads and the anti-climatic way the overpowering Talman is finally caught ends things on an underwhelming note.
Crystal Moselle directs the Angulo family in this documentary that follows the housebound set of siblings as they leave their New York apartment unsupervised for the first time after a childhood of movies, seclusion, movies, strict hippy ideology and movies.
Do you know what? At first glance these kids’ childhoods are the dream! They watch violent DVDs obsessively, draw posters, annotate screenplays, recreate convincing costumes and props out of yoga mats and cereal boxes, and develop a symbiotic sense of play between themselves. Their Halloween ritual is pretty fucking awesome. But decades being locked away from real life and education and socialisation is not going to help them once the dream is over and that is what the film hints at. The tyrannical abusive father is peeked at but never candidly explored. And there is the persistent niggle that some of this unique found footage might be faked or forced.
Luc Besson directs Christopher Lambert, Isabelle Adjani and Jean Reno in the magical realist thriller where a safe breaker moves into the Parisian Metro system to blackmail a beauty he has fallen for and start a pop band.
Cinema Du Look – Ultimate Edition. Very freewheeling in its plotting but this gifts Besson room for his two best assets to be captured adoringly. The walkways, tunnels and secret passages of the underground system become a brutalist playground for on-location roller skate chases, rendezvous and robberies. Adjani gets a series of fierce fantasy looks to try out, culminating in her Iroquois hair gel showstopper. Sure, Lambert as ever proves a jarring big screen lead – that fallback smug grin doesn’t help. But his off kilter plan to become a music manager with his haul, amidst all this gunplay and strangeness, actually grows into neat final act thread. The band he forms from the buskers and workers among the subterranean squatters he sides with have a couple of absolute earworm bangers in them. Mid 80s europop with a garnish of Peter Gabriel and Talking Heads. A supercool night in!
James Cameron directs Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn in this sci-fi classic where a killing machine from the future is sent back to execute the mother of the leader of the human rebellion against the robots.
How do I write a précis of one the most formative movies of my life?
A brilliant slambang actioner – absolutely relentless and immersive, heroes scramble between uzi bursts, shotguns momentarily subdue, motorcycles evade explosives in high speed chases.
A nightmarish realisation of us Cold War kids’ fears – a fallout devastated future of rubble, skulls, gargantuan tanks and chrome skeletons covered in bodybuilder’s flesh. I genuinely grew up expecting mutually assured destruction to leave either this or Mad Max as the world I might be an adult in.
The time twisting romance that adds a bold emotional through line to all the violence and SFX – “I came across time for you Sarah. I love you; I always have.”!
The greatest movie sex scene ever – urgent, desperate, hands gripping clean sheets, tenderness and raw humanity snatched in a rare respite from the chase.
Cameron’s clean and confident direction – frames are invaded, a detailed world with zero clutter, convincing whether gritty street guerilla shots of LA life or high fantasy.
Brad Fidel’s perfect score – pneumatic and highly hummable as the bookending theme, chaotic and overloaded when danger closes in.
The slow reveal of T-800 inhuman form – sure, these FX have dated in places but I remember being a highly inappropriate age (6?) and watching / not watching Arnie remove his eyeball at my uncle’s house and it being a watershed moment in my awareness and love of cinema.
Arnie – a supernova is born, his only true villain role, terrifying and convincing as the unstoppable predator.
Michael Biehn – scrabbling around a civilisation he barely understands, stealing cool kicks and going commando in tramp pants, looking awesome in his sawn-off concealing trenchcoat, convincing as man who’ll put himself between you and a gargantuan, as a man who has eaten rat and witnessed genocide yet still retains his decency.
Linda Hamilton – Sarah Connor: Phase One, big hair, awesome t-shirts, shifting from shell shock to grizzled survivor in the space of a weekend.
I’ve always preferred this over T2. The punkish pulse of it appeals more. I’d love someone to release a soundtrack of all the forgotten New Wave pop that permeates the first act. Love how Cameron’s bank breaking world vision of fatalistic humour, perilous action and macho romance is so well defined this early on. We were spoilt as children. No other generation had their gateway movies quite so savage yet exquisite.
Norman Tokar directs Jodie Foster, David Niven and Leo McKern in this missing heiress con-kid caper from the Mouse House.
Light and fluffy except when McKern isn’t. He’s a right rotter here, a strong Disney villain. It has a very Victorian idea of what Seventies England was but plonks Jodie’s streetwise tomboy into that fake milieu efficiently. Doesn’t exactly exploit the culture clash well, but Niven butler / master of disguise is a charming plate spinner. Fine.
Jane Campion directs Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Jason Leigh in this erotic thriller where an English professor gets involved with the cop investigating a serial murderer; yet the closer their intimacy, the more she suspects he is the man of violence.
Hazy and woozy… more interested in being a sensual immersive experience than a nuts and bolts thriller. It works almost in spite of its pretentions. The attraction between Ryan and Ruffalo is palpable, he delivers his most starry and machismo driven turn. Both the sex and violence have a boundary pushing rawness. Campion and cinematographer Dion Beebe turns post-9/11 Manhattan into a dirty dreamscape. The streets perspire and the air fogs up like an backseat car fuck. Every man is a big bad wolf, claws and teeth bared. Potential killer, possessive rapist, cornered cheater. It pushes the same feminist buttons Campion explored in Top of the Lake. This is the fairytale dry run.
Karel Reisz directs Albert Finney, Shirley Anne Field and Rachel Roberts in this British kitchen sink drama about a bolshy factory worker who carries on with his foreman’s wife.
Some stunning location work here of post-war industrial and boozing life. Finney delivers an iconic performance but it is Rachel Roberts’ stepping-out housewife who puts in the best shift. Alan Sillitoe adapts his own Angry Young Man novel, retaining a lot of the tough poetry and authenticity of his writing. That does mean the characters and dialogue can be a little forced and didactic at times but at its freest Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is still stark and vibrant cinema at 60 years old.
Paul W. S. Anderson directs Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill and Joely Richardson in this sci-fi horror hybrid where an intergalactic rescue team board a ghost ship with a hyperdrive that has opened a gateway to hell.
The Shining in space. Hellraiser meets Alien. Event Horizon is full of promise in its lovingly cadged visuals and its potent, eerie set-up. Caring not a jot for originality in a way that actually warms the cockles in its blatant, unashamed pilfering. Anderson makes a genre flick for the VHS generation who grew up on exactly this kinda hardcore world building, fantasy visuals. Yet the extreme dismemberments and mindfucks are far too rushed, Event Horizon is almost subliminal in its deaths and gore. Part of that comes from studio interference. Titanic was delayed and they needed a summer blockbuster. Event Horizon seemed to be the back cover advert for every comic I bought that summer. Paramount knew how to sell it, just not how to allow it to be good. This went from greenlight to released in the time it takes to render a digital floating tooth. Last minute re-edits after test screenings neutered its power. You get stunning FX work sitting side by side with glaringly unfinished CGI shots. You get a peep show glimpse of a very transgressive NC-17 torture-fest. Maybe these extreme shock moments work better when only glimpsed? The acting is variable – Neill and Fishburne are wasted with choppy arcs while some other characters are very jarring late 1990s creations. Event Horizon isn’t better than you remember or worse than its reputation… just an average film with maddening peaks and dips of quality. There’s both a fantastic movie and a terrible movie fighting for dominance.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 