Shin’ichirô Ueda directs Takayuki Hamatsu, Yuzuki Akiyama and Harumi Shuhama in this one-shot zombie horror that then turns into a behind the scenes farce.
Shifts from bloodletting to heart warming with minimal fuss. This is a funny, affectionate and gory tribute to low budget horror ingenuity. Moments that feel like wobbles and mistakes earlier are explained later with playful abandon. A treat fuelled by the sweet and game lead performances by Harumi Shuhama and Takayuki Hamatsu.
Ryan White directs Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Susan Brown and Jonathan Capehart in this documentary following sex therapist and Eighties celebrity Dr. Ruth on the build up to her 90th birthday.
A brilliant subject for a feature documentary (she’s certainly lived a full life) although this is more a gentle celebration than investigative exploration of her impact on America’s psyche. The hazy animated flashback to her formative years escaping the Nazis and defending her new kibbutz in Israel aren’t to my personal taste. I did kinda wish there was more footage of her giving sex advice (in the Eighties and now) and a little more of the science and thought behind it. I get the feeling this is very much tailored and targeted toward mature ladies who want an unusual icon to fawn over rather than a more journalistic essay on a very special cultural disruptor.
Michael Apted directs Jodie Foster, Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson in this drama where a doctor and a language expert try to protect and communicate with a wild woman who has grown up in the woods with no English, technology or interactions with the world of men.
A film with its heart in the right place but a plot that is so compromised and rushed it ends up utterly laughable. Every breakthrough and victory feels unearned. You can detect a more sensitive, intelligent idea being panel beaten into a traditional Hollywood formula. A woman who doesn’t understand the concept of windows three minutes earlier knows the importance of making an eloquent courtroom speech (albeit in translated gibberish) about her right to be free moments later! That’s the worst example but not the only time the screenplay lazily makes a leap so we can get this unique tale to contain stock moments for the trailer and the Oscar ceremony. Was it notes from a studio? Star egos overwriting a more thought through draft of the script? Reshoots? Why are car chases and helicopter intrusions and the most unbelievable happy ending bolted and melded onto this? It is a serious, intelligent adult melodrama with no internal sense of logic and little practical reality. Foster does put full effort into her innocent enfant sauvage with a made-up language and autistic grip on reality. You do care and are convinced by her dedication to this slightly ridiculous creation. Of course you are, she’s a fantastic actress who has built up nothing but goodwill with the audience over decades of risky projects. Even she cannot elevate this cack handed material that judders through some pre-ordained motions inconsistently and unconvincingly. Nell’s biggest sin is we spend so little time in her world or with her she almost become an afterthought as Neeson and Richardson bicker and flirt and make schizophrenic decisions about her care. Their wooden experts steal centre stage from the title character. And bless them, neither have Foster’s talent, vulnerability or commitment.
Adrian Edmondson directs himself, Rik Mayall and Hélène Maheiu in this gross-out slapstick comedy where Eddie and Richie run a hotel by a nuclear power plant that ain’t getting any rosettas from the guide books.
Let me tell you how brilliant it is being married! You can drop all plans for the day on a dime when you realise Netflix is now streaming the much derided Bottom movie from the late 1990s and know both pieces of our two part human jigsaw are gonna fit together snugly in bed and love the fuck out of it! We laughed our arses off at the first hour. The violence that’d make Laurel & Hardy apply for restraining orders. The stupid running jokes like the boys saying “Pheeb!” through an antiquated intercom before communicating. The sheer demented enthusiasm of Rik Mayall to put himself in the most degenerate of poses and positions. He was a wild, smug, rude, sweaty, gurning, unrestrained comedy genius. Either you are going to laugh out loud at the fact that both Italian characters are named after pasta dishes or you should probably watch a Kevin Hart movie instead like the feltbrain you are. Nurr! Sure the film does run out of steam at the midway mark, relying on bad taste goodwill and endless vomiting rather than fresh jokes to get it over the finish line. But Edmondson directs it all with a hell for leather flair, the whole thing looks pleasingly like a low rent Tim Burton movie or a dirty postcard come to sped-up life. There’s enough anarchic comedy content for two good TV episodes of Bottom and at least they didn’t go to Spain for a holiday. Far, far better than its dismal reputation suggests. But admittedly still only recommended for British alternative comedy “specialists”!
Hirokazu Koreeda directs Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa and Kaho in this family drama about three adult sisters who invite their estranged teen half sister to move in with them.
A deftly sweet movie that seduces you with its simple unfolding of story. There is very little conflict and minimal drama here. We just watch four young women grow together and warm to their new member while they make quiet decisions about their own futures. They eat together, have minor romances outside the house, attend more formal gatherings, notably funerals and the town fireworks festival. It is easy for any director to make you care for their protagonists in moments of great crisis or fantasy victory, for Koreeda to involve you and attach you to his family so intimately while only offering gentle waves of every day life is a fine achievement. It is almost the cinematic equivalent of ASMR. Japanese coastal community life is so attractive and peaceful as depicted here that the film contains another layer of delicate pleasure; a new dream life you’d never see on A Place in the Sun.
A.D. Calvo directs Erin Wilhelmi, Quinn Shephard and Susan Kellermann in this modern gothic horror where a shy girl moves in and helps her reclusive aunt in their dilapidated townhouse.
An exercise in style rather than substance. This is almost creepy at times, almost sexy in moments but never really capitalises on a tried-and-tested set up for scares and seduction. A film has failed if the highest praise you can give it is for its eye for costume design. At least someone had a good afternoon trolley dashing through the vintage shops!
Gurinder Chadha directs Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley and Jonathan Rhys Meyers in this British football comedy were two girls rebel against their families prejudices and play for the local team.
Post-The Full Monty British cinema was pretty much dominated by garish sitcoms where unlikely underdogs took up popular hobbies to a ridiculously upbeat soundtrack. Social issues are flirted with only in a tone deaf way, the DVD cover was unwaveringly either custard or lime green coloured. Bright, surface-level empowerment fables still with a semblance of Kitchen Sink Realism in their much mutated DNA. Bend It Like Beckham is actually one of the better ones despite the fact it looks and sounds like a kid’s teatime show rather than a multiplex release. It has issues that have aged as badly as I suspected they might 18 years ago. The plot gets stuck on repeat… how many times is Jess gonna get caught by her family and told not to play football? Eight times?… Nine times?! And despite that deceitfully cheerful pop music brainwash telling you what a jubilant time this all is… the lightweight film definitely outstays its welcome. A warm and attractive central performance by Nagra covers up a lot of fluff and contrivance.
Ritesh Batra directs Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur and Nawazuddin Siddiqui in this Indian romance where a retiring office worker begins receiving the wrong lunch box prepared by a frustrated wife he has never met.
Just a lovely film. Accessible to all but subtle in its gentle manipulations. Khan and Kaur have conspicuous chemistry for two people who share minimal screen-time. His central turn as a lonely man slowly recalibrating his life in unexpected ways is a symphony of restraint and taciturn likability. Treat yourself to one of modern cinema’s finest screen romances.
Joe Giannone directs Alexis Dubin, Paul Ehlers and Tony Fish in this slasher in the woods.
Basic, cheap and nasty. Sticks to the formula, doesn’t put a foot wrong. The acting ain’t great but not laughably bad. The kills are forgettable but at least vary in the moment. Madman Marz makes for a decent enough monster. Builds up a modicum of hysteria by the finale.
Robert Bresson directs Claude Laydu, Nicole Ladmiral and Rachel Bérendt in this French arthouse drama where a sick priest is ostracised by his parish.
Boring as balls. Considered one of the greatest films ever made, this for pretentious nerds who don’t like movies. They don’t like Groucho outwitting a countess. They don’t like Popeye Doyle chasing an assassin under the elevated train tracks. They don’t like Harry meeting Sally. They don’t like Brad Pitt fighting Bruce Lee. They wanna watch sickly fey priests mope about in gut rot squalor because they think it makes them better than us. Blind faith in talk and symbols over action and marvel.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 