Jack Hill directs Pam Grier, Sid Haig and Robert DoQui in this Blaxploitation classic where a nurse turns vigilante to take down the syndicate who got her sister hooked on drugs.
Pam Grier is stunning in this. She handles the shotguns and the undercover personas and the looking sexy even when she has clearly been rolling around on highway hard shoulder garbage with A-Grade magnetism. She gets a score and a humpin’ n thumpin’ soundtrack to match her cool and all the action. The movie delivers on the violence and the nudity and the sleazy. Pimps are keel-hauled and brothels have catfights that only end once everyone’s breasts have been exposed. So why am I not giving Coffy a higher score? Well… for every scene that is tasty as fuck, there’s another two that tread water or fill time. It ain’t a sophisticated thriller but in its best moments it does thrill.
Kate Mulleavy & Laura Mulleavy direct Kirsten Dunst, Joe Cole and Pilou Asbæk in this languid art film where a grieving woman experiments with some deadly pot.
Dully beautiful. Nothing happens, but often nothing happens with Dunst looking dazzling in $1000 lingerie. Asbæk does his enjoyable Oliver Reed resembling schtick again. A very muted take on Repulsion that somehow remains just about watchable due to the fashion mag visuals and a gorgeous cast.
Spike Lee directs Wesley Snipes, Annabella Sciorra and John Turturro in this issues drama exploring the racism churned up when a black architect starts an office affair with his Italian secretary.
…Also THE CRACK EPIDEMIC! Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever is a messy, wayward, unfocussed movie. By the midway point the central plot and above-the-title stars are relegated to extras as Lee seems more fascinated by Samuel L. Jackson’s crackhead and Turturro’s sweet open hearted Italian boy. And why wouldn’t he be? Their subplots and performance are remarkable. But they aren’t the hook or the actors we have bought a ticket for. The Snipes / Sciorra romance has heat for all of five minutes (it is hardly the interracial sex romp the poster guaranteed) and after that an ensemble NYC state of the union begins. What we get is histrionic, vibrant, heartfelt. And I’m not going to say almost to a fault. It may have been packaged wrong but this is a powerful, experimental studio film. A melodrama with true grit. Those flavours often settle strangely in the mouth. Like when Stevie Wonder’s brilliant soulful soundtrack awkwardly scores scenes of distressing violence. But I’d take the big lunges and popping colours of Lee at his most unrestrained over classier, prestige productions on big topics any day of the week.
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead directs Lou Taylor Pucci, Nadia Hilker and Francesco Carnelutti in this romantic body horror where an American tourist falls for a Lovecraftian immortal.
Before Sunrise meets The Fly. Impossible to pull off but this has a pretty good stab. Good, off kilter chemistry between the complex leads helps. The nasty stuff often takes a back seat to a talky, dishy seduction. But the creature FX when utilised are good. Only the finale drops the ball… the conversation gets bogged down in the pseudo-science of the mutations and immortality of the gorgeous Louise. Not the most interesting way to land an intriguing flight of fancy.
David Twohy directs Milla Jovovich, Steve Zahn and Timothy Olyphant in this thriller where a backpacking couple begin to suspect they are sharing an island paradise with a pair of killers.
OK… you’ve had 10 years but POSSIBLE SPOILERS! A Perfect Getaway is a potboiler a little too self satisfied with its big twist. It is a pretty daring con to pull off and when it does it labours and savours showing the audience just exactly how they were was tricked. Slowing down the action just when the handsome pair we are rooting for finally realise just how much danger they are in. Twohy even bungs a ton of meta hat tips about twists and red herring being on the horizon. But what if you saw the big reveal coming after the second scene? What if you listened carefully to the dialogue and realised a couple of scripted lines were a bit too cute and ambidextrous? Turns out this is still pretty, pretty, pretty slick and enjoyable even if you can see that rabbit pull a mile away. Zahn and especially Olyphant are perfect big screen presences and this gifts them more focus than they often get in grander productions. The location work is gorgeous. And when Twohy stops being pleased with himself and lets the violence begin it becomes a very gripping rollercoaster finale. I personally would have had the chase and deadly stand-offs last a little longer, the toying and secrets and suspicions put to bed by the midway point but… hey-ho. This is a cracking little throwback thriller, one I would have rented the fuck out of in the early Nineties if it starred… say… Anthony Edwards and Ray Liotta.
Nanni Moretti directs Margherita Buy, John Turturro and himself in this drama where an Italian director deals with a troublesome American star and her mother’s terminal decline.
Handsome if unmemorable adult drama. Turturro is fantastic value, as always, as the big name who grinds each day’s filming to an awkward halt with his behaviour. Moretti does his standard melancholia with some unsettling lurches into dreams and nightmares.
Scott Glosserman directs Nathan Baesel, Angela Goethals and Scott Wilson in this slasher mockumentary where a wannabe horror icon shares the tricks of his murderous trade with a film crew.
Neat for the first hour. A good meta, alternative point of view to the tried and tested tropes. It does eventually descend into a bog standard Friday the 13th rip off for the final act and is a lesser film for it. Robert Englund pops up in a silly role but apt role. Baesal’s charming psycho is gifted and keeps you on your toes… shame he wasn’t in much else.
Maggie Carey directs Aubrey Plaza, Bill Hader and Rachel Bilson in this teen comedy where a straight-A student decides to spend the summer before college becoming fully sexually experienced.
A solid vehicle for Plaza where the constant 90s soundtrack and busy cast make up for lack of killer jokes. More likeable than funny, this is praiseworthy for its sex positive message.
Adam Wingard, Ti West, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, David Bruckner, Tyler Gillett, Glenn McQuaid and Joe Swanberg direct Hannah Fierman, Sophia Takal and Helen Rogers in this horror anthology about a dead man’s collection of macabre found footage tapes.
Every single chapter takes too long to get going then ends abruptly. Populated by some of the most unlikable protagonists ever committed to screen… and no… seeing them eventually devoured has no reward. If the intention was to suggest that only bullying narcissist would continue to film themselves through such strange nights then…. mission accomplished!… but I get the feeling this truism is an accidental by-product of the frequently ill thought out bursts of boredom. I personally enjoyed the creepy moments in Joe Swanberg’s Skype haunting entry “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger” but this was Natalie’s least favourite story… so what are you going to do? Avoid.
James Cameron directs Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis and Bill Paxton in this romantic action comedy where a super spy leads a double life, hiding his world saving career from his family to the point where his wife feels neglected and seeks out her own risky excitement.
“When he said ‘I Do’, he never said what he did!” Arnie’s best performance – nailing both his cover as the dull husband and his day job as heroic force of nature. Jamie Lee getting to do her sexy comedy schtick again, perfected in Trading Places and A Fish Called Wanda. Great salty support from Bill and Tia Carerre. Even Tom Arnold isn’t terrible. There’s plenty of blunt force trauma laughs, more than you’d expect from a violent thriller with the grandest budget of its time. A silly OTT script that lunges between old fashioned farce and mega-budget slapstick.
Then there’s the $100 million blockbuster set-pieces. A lengthy gentlemen’s bathroom brawl where tiles shatter and bullets fly. A horse versus motorbike chase that goes vertical and features The T-800 constantly amusingly apologising. A terrorist camp destructively decimated by one highly trained man and his clumsy wife. An utterly compulsive ticking bomb helicopter chase across the bridges of Florida Keys. A skyscraper rooftop finale involving a rustily flown Harrier Jumpjet, little Eliza Dushku and a rocket-launcher. Action-wise True Lies delivers with excess and elan. Carnage candy! You got way more than your admission price promised back in 1994 and it still is a fantastic afternoon filler on DVD if you can avoid focussing on the very obvious stunt double who fills in for Arnie a little too often. I bet Cameron was glad he kept that Terminator wig from 1984!
The issue most people have with True Lies now is its dubious sexual politics in the middle hour. Excitement takes a back seat and unfaithfulness and marital revelations come to the fore. Have they dated? Are they misogynistic? If you approach it as a muscular, heavily armed man stalking and manipulating his wife through psychological torture for an entire second act section… then yes. But this was crafted as a light, breathless, almost family friendly, crowd-pleasing blockbuster (I went as a teen with my parents the summer of release) and I think the intention is for Jamie Lee Curtis’ frumpy housewife to be given a believable route in to the Bondian escapades. It is a male prescribed female wish fulfilment but not an entirely unattractive one. Helen Tasker gets quite the fantasy to live out. Her husband finally tells the truth and instantly becomes more exciting than the white collar drone she was growing bored of, she gets to be seen as striptease enchantress rather than a homemaker (and that iconic scene is still hot as fuck) and eventually be the action hero who enjoys being lifted out of runaway limos and staking out high end parties.
An effective Joan Wilder style adventure, with an added self-makeover sequence and tons of funny lines. It is the role of a lifetime for Curtis and she sells the twists and turns of Helen’s wake up to the peril her husband survives routinely with full confidence and sophistication. She goes from sitcom mom to 007… Arnie isn’t gifted this arc or catharsis. We take him uzi-ing a cabal of comedy jihads for granted, but a middle aged woman catfighting an arms dealer is a new flavour. The look of real excitement on her face as she performs the thrilling helicopter rescue stunt, like a Tom Cruise or a Bruce Willis would, is one of 90s cinema’s most joyous moments.
Then we get the sweet reconciliatory kiss illuminated by nuclear explosion as the topper to an action comedy that won’t quit. Cameron is all heart beneath the macho banter and demolition derby stylings. If you doubt the intentions behind his sexual politics here, at least recognise that he eventually elevates his female lead to equal with her husband and strengthens their attraction rather than confiscates anything from her. There is no punishment for Helen Tasker’s flirtation with infidelity, no sacrifice required from her to become one of the warriors. How many other directors, male or female, misogynist or feminist, manage such a unique promotion of a female character in the biggest production of their release season? Only ever James Cameron.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 