Jackie Chan directs himself, Maggie Cheung and Charlie Cho in this kung-fu action comedy sequel where the dedicated cop tracks a mad bomber.
This could have been a re-run of all the dangerous fun of the original. Instead bloat sets in. There are sidebars a plenty, very few of them fruitful. Jackie gets fired, suspended, retires, demoted, goes undercover, leads a team of sexy surveillance operatives. None of these distractions result in the lunatic mayhem that makes the original sizzle. The best moment of physicality in the first hour is when Jackie answers multiple phones on his lunch break. Keeping the parallel conversations going like they are spinning plates. We do build up to an action spectacular in a fireworks factory and while I’m sure the stuntwork is just as risky even this feels slightly lower key compared to the first hit’s mall battle. Still a solid entertainer. Only a Hong Kong thriller could get away with an older cop’s bad farts creating tension during a bug planting sting operation!
Peter Weir directs Jim Carrey, Laura Linney and Ed Harris in this sci-fi satire where a man’s entire life is an artificial TV show; constructed, orchestrated and acted to give him a “normal” life for the world to watch.
A perfect film – simple yet complex, heartwarming yet intellectually rich, silly yet utterly involving. Loads of philosophical readings and textual analysis was done about The Truman Show the moment it was released. I’m not going to add another reading to this brilliant marvel of studio filmmaking.
Thoughts:
* The TV scaffolding around Truman’s world falls apart with increasing escalation over the week. What is happening that lighting structures aren’t being maintained / radio channels are merging / former cast members make it on the lot? Sabotage, complacent human error, natural decline and obsoletion of the construct, something more calculated…
* The film shares a lot of DNA with The Shawshank Redemption. The perfect flow and pace of the time skipping storytelling, the messiah like Everyman breaking free, the nostalgic benevolence of the prison. Postwar Americana presented as a flawless yet superficial trap. Is the view of the recent American past of enforced retro mood and oppressive safety and homogenous community something to be rejected and overcome? Why is cinematic nostalgia so comforting but threatening? David Lynch plays around in this anomaly too.
* Carrey is perfect in this. He convincingly sells the idea that this unspectacular fake life is centred around a personality quirky yet warm enough to become global entertainment mainstay. You never see him suppress his natural anarchism. He just delivers it all in a different register. Even though it is a far more sophisticated entertainment than say Dumb And Dumber or Ace Ventura this will probably survive the test of time and be the movie a century later that represents him. He is going to be strange comedy star for the uninitiated to explore. I guess Man on the Moon, Eternal Sunshine and I Love You Phillip Morris match up nicely with this gentler brand of Carrey but god knows what future generations will make of The Riddler or Sonic the Hedgehog if their introduction to him is his more highbrow, straightfaced classics?
* There are plenty of glorious moments of explained surrealism. The personalised rainfall or wall of sky. But the moment where the moon becomes a spotlight, the town become a search party lynchmob, the friendly dog snarls is genuinely disturbing.
* Truman’s escape. He would have had to record his snoring at least the night before so it would be unnoticed by the cameras and microphones. He could only record hours of fake sleep noises undetected while he was sleeping. He’d need Meryl out of the house to do this (hide a tape recorder in his bed). So is his violent confrontation with her a calculated move to drive her off the show? Part of his unspoken, internalised long game? At what point does Truman start plotting and playing along with a break for freedom in mind? Long before his mirror wink, I’m guessing.
*Every shot in the film is an interior shot in the reality we are presented. We the viewer never go actually outside in the plot.
* His best friend Marlon played by Noah Emmerich is a slippery character. He appears heartfelt in his interactions with Truman but he is happy to spout the party line when convincing him his founded suspicions are just paranoia and whimsy. I guess he has to keep his job and no Truman… no Truman Show. It is the role of a lifetime literally and he probably would struggle to get cast in something else if the public believe him to be merely be the best mate on that reality show for three decades. So Truman’s incarceration and slavery in unreality is to his benefit. BUT… there are a few references to Marlon leaving the show for months and seasons previously. A holiday or illness or trucking job. Is this a contracted break for the featured actors so they can escape to the real world? Or punishment for some infraction that made Truman doubt his elaborate cage? Suspension as a reprimand or threat for revealing the walls of heaven?
* And the flashback scene where Marlon and Meryl try to lure Truman away from the library is pregnant with disturbing information. It is one throwaway shot setting up a situation where Truman might hook up with the extra he is not supposed to interact with. He is introduced studying hard. And his “friends” actively want him to blow that off and go have fun. Do something more entertaining for the viewers than read a book on set. Truman wants to rebel against the needs of the show and educate himself (tragically for a pre-ordained career he’ll have no say in and no prospects in). They want him to go do something less boring and audience friendly. This is the smoking gun that show as directed does not have Truman’s best interests at heart. They want him dumber and less dedicated. They (or Christof) values action over achievement. It is a silently bleak moment that makes you wonder at what other points aside from this have his ambitions and desires and hard work been stunted by conspiracy and giving the people what they want.
* The use of Philip Glass’ minimalist classical music is fantastic. Yet Burkhard Dallwitz’s pensive, paranoid original score is massively underrated. Also the pop at the school dance is 50s be-bop covers of 70s rebel rock classics. How is outside culture warped and selected for Truman? Christof has obviously filtered what music, movies and modernity can be accessed in Seahaven. What permitted hits can he listen to in bastardised form that won’t make him rebel, question or explore?
* Dennis Hopper was fired from the role of Christof after the first few days of filming. Was their original God too demonic? Should the omnipotent controller and creator be a whispering observer or a snarling tyrant?
*What is Truman’s life outside the set going to be like now? Hounded by the public who feel they own him. With no recognised qualifications or assets. All the products he is used to consuming only available via an online store tied to a TV show that must now be cancelled. How will he approach a world of random threats, pornography and drugs, where the cars don’t stop to let him pass and the crowds don’t part to allow him to be unwitting centre of the world? Where everyone doesn’t interact with him with full enthusiasm and gusto in the hope of becoming a series regular? How is Truman going to deal with a queuing system? Or a mugging? Or watching himself in reruns? Can he and Lauren co-habit based on thirty minutes of sexless interaction a decade ago?
* What would happen if Truman just stayed? What would that TV be like? A man who knows his world, though fake, spins around his every action? Would the public still watch? Would it be a ratings boost? Or a quick cancellation? And then what happens to Christof and Truman’s reality?
Franck Khalfoun directs Rachel Nichols, Wes Bentley and Simon Reynolds in this horror where a business woman is kidnapped by a psycho in an underground car park.
Slick and histrionic, this has some nice bursts of gore and mania. It doesn’t build its tension well though. Often when a neat set piece is set-up the heroine escapes death by some unseen fortune. It is fine for the monster to have supernatural elements but the final girl shouldn’t be able to disappear into thin air to save the script from forward planning solutions. By the second half the director seems more interested in soaking a bratty Rachel Nichols cleavage than delivering a convincing showdown.
John Carpenter directs Kurt Russell, Harry Dean Stanton and Lee Van Cleef in this sci-fi thriller where a convict has 24 hours to rescue the President from Manhattan… the problem is New York has been walled off and turned into a maximum security prison.
Not my favourite Carpenter / Russell collaboration. It is a little bit too caught up in world building so doesn’t deliver enough action. The mood though is oppressive and convincing. The scene where Snake Plissken and a girl wait out the sewer dwelling troglodytes is squirming with unease… when terror strikes and the chase begin your pulse raises exponentially. As with a lot of moments here it is more horror than action that fuels Escape From New York. The abandoned city design is derelict chaos. Carpenter’s score a hummable driver. Russell plays the anti-hero with a minimalist cool. There’s a brilliant cast of grizzled support faces. Their careers and non-Hollywood looks fill in their untold backstories far better than any forced line of dialogue. I always really like Escape From New York, but I’m not sure why I don’t love it?
Billy Wilder directs William Holden, Marthe Keller and Michael York in this mystery where a struggling movie producer tries to get his latest script to a reclusive Golden Age movie star who seemingly never ages.
Stodgy and predictable – the pleasure of an old movie is sometimes you want to see it run its rail. This is the last “old movie” ever made, twenty years too late, self consciously not New Hollywood. “It’s a whole different business now. The kids with beards have taken over. They don’t need scripts, just give ’em a hand-held camera with a zoom lens.” There are no shocks in Fedora, we are permanently a mile ahead of the storytelling… to the point where at the midway mark you might feel like there is no more plot to unravel. Yet it still unspools its tale, treating foregone conclusions like twists, tragic inevitabilities as surprises. Yet there’s something comforting in the funereal formality. Watching the old mode be dusted off one last time has pleasures. A flashback to flashbacks. It is bittersweet tribute about ageing, exploiting fame and female beauty. A Hooray for Hollywood that knows we have read Anger’s Hollywood Babylon and reserved Christina Crawford’s Mommie Dearest on pre-order. This depicts the scandal and urban legends as mythical curses, what happens to the addicted survivors of the Dream Factory. Watching an icon as she is turned to offal and immortal simultaneously. Wilder evokes the hits his fictional Fedora might have starred in. His own Sunset Boulevard is an obvious touchstone but the opening rips-off Citizen Kane, The Barefoot Contessa is pilfered liberally throughout and a dozen gothic romances are overexposed to the continental sun. It is such a faithful poison pen love letter, such an unfeigned footnote that you can’t help be a little seduced by all its sincere staleness. I was caught out by how much I enjoyed this creaky out of time relic.
Jackie Chan directs himself, Maggie Cheung and Brigitte Lin in this Hong Kong action comedy where a heroic cop tries to protect a witness from the gangster he wants to bring down.
Amazing stunts, hilarious destruction. A very curious blend of OTT action, heartfelt drama and childish farce. Jackie mixes it all wonderfully… you care when he overacts, swoon when he goofs and marvel when he barely survives the spectacular death traps he slaloms himself through for our edification. A gifted stuntman and warm entertainer Jackie is the tits. Police Story somehow sates the Drunken Master fanbase, the uninitiated who want an exotic Lethal Weapon and any cineaste who want to to witness exactly what a living Buster Keaton looks like. I feel like all three. Watching a A-list star hang off speeding double deckers, throw his co-star off roofs or survive multiple trips through plate glass makes for a wonderfully physical night on the beers. Super fun!
Céline Sciamma directs Pauline Acquart, Louise Blachère and Adèle Haenel in this teen romance where a French girl become obsessed with the statuesque beauty on the local synchronised swimming team.
Pretty basic calling card debut – looks good with a nice mix of yearning, warmth and goofiness. Not world changing but probably means a lot to young lesbians now attaching themselves to it. I guess we can all appreciate the slightly deranged lengths teens go to engineer interactions and intimacy with those they fancy, some neat humour comes from this.
Robert Altman directs Susannah York, René Auberjonois and Cathryn Harrison in this psychological horror where a children’s author at her country retreat loses all sense of reality as people and events blur into each other.
No idea what was happening half the time but this seemed to have a better grasp on the enigmas about female identity and gender politics it wants to warp and unpick than Romero’s Season of the Witch or Bergman’s Autumn Sonata. Certainly the tricks it plays on the audience keep you unsettled but curious throughout.
John Huston directs Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston and Tim Holt in this adventure where three bums risk their lives and last dollars prospecting for gold in Mexico.
There is a delightful dichotomy when watching The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. In one respect you are watching a classic Hollywood production… a culmination of five decades of technical expertise and a miracle of studio innovations. The storytelling is so solid yet artful, so unpretentious yet impactful that you can only marvel at the craftsmanship on display. In that respect Treasure is like The Great Escape or Sleepless in Seattle. A faultless product that elevates and improves on all the cinematic entertainments that came before them, distils and celebrates their finest features and becomes a showcase for genre perfection.
But in that other respect, the second aspect of Treasure, is that you are watching something not just classical but a beast that feels way ahead of its own time. Sure, the misanthropy of the world created here is akin to the mood and attitude of contemporaneous Film Noirs but they were never in the service of such a humanistic and philosophical film. The sophistication of the characters here, the intelligence put in to detailing their ethical shifts is more a piece with far later mature masterpieces like Sweet Smell of Success, The Godfather or Network. Bogart’s lead is not just corrupted by his lust to protect his wealth but we see the psychological knots he ties himself in to justify his misdeeds. He is neither criminal nor hero here. Worse or better than both, he is a true human. You can read his actions as a gold madness… or maybe you are familiar with those who alters events and reinterpret the actions of others to warrant their own violence, betrayals and paranoia? Sociopaths. All of us in our weakest, most exposed moments. It is a brave and complex lead turn – one that retains our attention if not our sympathies as bandits descend and action interrupts his unearthed bastard instincts. Treasure is one of the few films where shoot outs actually delay the tensions that have been reaching boiling point rather than resolve or vent them.
Walter Huston is a wonderful saintly counterweight to Bogart’s mammonistic protagonist. Wise, warm, willing to see a problem from all sides, even if it is a problem created by one man’s greed. He has resigned himself that men cannot help the evil that they do or give in to the fear that drives them. The fact Howard accepts it as a non-negotiable factor to be considered when surviving this rough terrain is maybe the most pessimistic statement on humanity made, more damning a judgement than any of Dobb’s moral contorting to permit himself to murder, steal and abandon his own word. Man is craven to the point of self destruction… when prospecting you need to accept that as part of the deal as much as hard work or external threats.
Sam Hargrave directs Chris Hemsworth, Randeep Hooda and Golshifteh Farahani in this violent action thriller where a merc rescues a kidnapped teen from a Bangladeshi drug lord.
Action-wise this is very difficult to fault. Once all the person-shaped pieces are in play on the board we get an epic one-shot evade and fight sequence through a bustling city – it is positively brimming with location stunts, near misses and brutal kills. The intensity seems to threaten to carry on for the entire runtime. So it is almost a shame we have a forced second act timeout for limp bonding and betrayals. The human interactions that don’t involve snapped necks or shot heads are very formulaic. They don’t even find time to exploit Hemsworth’s penchant for goofy humour. The plotting and dialogue is glaringly sparse and predictable. If it stuck purely to being a breathless chase you might forgive this weakness. Still the ending involving snipers jousting over a last chance bridge melee is hectic enough that this ultimately makes for a fine Saturday Night one-watcher.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 