Robert Moore directs Peter Falk, Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers in this parody of a murder mystery where the world’s greatest detectives (all strangely familiar) find themselves trapped in a murder mystery mansion.
I had high hopes for this but Clue did it all better 10 years later with a lot less talent. The humour is very Carry On-ish – bad puns, worse innuendos and lazy slapstick. The plot is too tiresomely random to care about. Sellers and Guinness have the funniest characters but 45 years down the line politically sensitive people will find them very troubling totems. A relic, probably best for the trivia blast of its starry ensemble.
Jim Jarmusch directs Chris Parker, Leila Gastil and John Lurie in this low budget indie where a dispossessed hipster wanders a broken New York.
The opening credits of an ignored busker playing the mean streets is the highlight. Then… nothing happens slowly. There are flashes of wit and madness and decayed beauty. Smithereens did this better a year later, Slacker filled the void this cinematic form leaves with more captivating voices. Of interest only to Jarmusch completists or people who like grainy footage of Manhattan being mooched about in.
James Kent directs Keira Knightley, Alexander Skarsgård and Jason Clarke in this post-war romance where the troubled marriage between a grieving officer and his beautiful wife catches the attention of the Hamburg architect who loses his stately home to them.
Who doesn’t like a glossy period romance? This ambles along beautifully. It is also far less distasteful than the similarly pitched Suite Francaise. Here every character is given a delicious blur of humanity and shadow. All actors inhabit their roles with bold, sexy star power. The Nazi youth subplot and sympathetic look at life in the ruins of occupation for the defeated Germans adds bite. The wrap-up is unexpected yet hopeful. Better than you’ve been led to believe, if not quite the classic it wants to echo. Brief Encounter, Casablanca, A Foreign Affair are all cribbed from though it never reaches any of those giddy heights. The costumes are particularly lovely… yet how a resplendent Keira Knightley managed to cram quite so many dresses and skirts into her little red suitcase, as seen at the start, I’ll never know?
Steven Soderbergh directs Andre Holland, Sonja Sohn and Bill Duke in this basketball drama where a sports agent tries to break up a negotiation deadlock threatening his rookie player and company.
Steven Soderbergh wanted to make Moneyball at one point. And he wanted to make it with the real baseball players. This is the compromise. A digital Jerry Maguire clone with points to score about the exploitation of young black athletes and the game changing potential of streaming services. It is a film that has corporate buzz terms like “game changer” and “disruptor” dripping from its lips like scraps from a rich man’s feast. As if the technologies and distribution systems Soderbergh suggest will rebalance the finances of sport are not already in the control of the same predatory class that command the sports leagues. But Soderbergh presents it as a heist, only one where the scam is obvious from the get-go. The wordy, erudite dialogue has force, flow and punch. The ensemble all impress. This is mature, playful, gripping drama. The conclusions though are facile.
Jeannot Szwarc directs Helen Slater, Faye Dunaway and Peter O’Toole in this superhero spin-off to Superman where his cousin crashlands on Earth looking for an orb that has been found by an amusement park witch.
It just has no logic to it. Scenes run into each other haphazardly with no rhyme or reason. Supergirl doesn’t understand what horses are but she can forge a high school transcript and file it efficiently. Peter Cook is a warlock / IT teacher who did date the villain but serves no real purpose to the plot and is given nothing vaguely amusing to do. SO WHY IS HE IN THE FILM?! Supergirl faces threats just because she exists – sometimes because of accidental proximity, other times directed at her even though Faye Dunaway’s witch doesn’t know who she is. Are any of these threats exciting? No.
Billy Wilder directs Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich and John Lund in this romantic comedy set around the dark backdrop of a shelled out, black market post-war Berlin.
There are some graceful comedic storytelling beats here that rocket fuel this bitter love triangle. A personalised birthday cake that makes its way around the black market. Jean Arthur’s investigator pretending to be a dumb fräulein to get two horny GIs to show her the real Berlin. A seduction involving filing cabinets and the ride of Paul Revere. Wilder just has a lovely cinematic hand, that no matter how grim the setting or twisted the characters’ true intentions, he lets them dance their quasi-romantic little dance in impressionable, inventive ways. Arthur and Dietrich are superb, though Lund as the man they circle, is a bit of a place holder. The setting, including real location filming of decimated and occupied Berlin, gives Wilder the chance to land some unguarded blows about the German situation. He has very little sympathy for the Nazis and their silent collaborators, but acknowledges the corruptible weakness of all humans. The final scene has a pointedly chilling moment. The American commanding officer tells a bunch of carousing Russians to go home… they pay little heed. Wilder understood the nastiness of what had happened before and saw the next darkness in Germany’s future. He comments consistently on Berlin’s precarious and compromised existence yet it all feels organic to the seductions and powerplays of our kissing and hustling leads.
Jan Pinkava and Brad Bird direct Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm and Lou Romano in this Paris set cartoon of a rat who wants to become a chef.
Like Marvel I think I’ve been inoculated from the Pixar formula. Built up a resistance that means it takes a particularly unusual or exemplary entry for me to not shrug my shoulders at one. Think of the man hours and passion that went into building the arcs, relationships, worlds, set pieces, simulacrum, the artificial magic, the synthetic emotional resonance here and I just nod along blankly to it. Appreciative but unimpressed. I’m not saying a Pixar contraption cannot get me ever again… but when it doesn’t my opinion of it plummets from masterpiece to standard operating procedure swiftly. There is no middle ground… I need to love it or it rings false and forced. Ratatouille doesn’t feel special enough, doesn’t feel different enough, actually plays out unevenly and slightly ungainly. Like a different shaped beast trying to cram itself into the Pixar mould. There will be Ups and Toy Story 3s again, they work too hard on these fantasias for one not to hook me in eventually. But Ratatouille just felt like more of the gorgeous same. Rats.
Matt Spicer directs Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen and O’Shea Jackson Jr. in this cyber stalking satire where a sociopath ingratiates herself with an Instagram influencer.
My accidental Aubrey Plaza season comes to an end. I reckon this is the entry of hers that could stand the test of time. Gorgeous, accessible, on the nose. It feels like a message in a bottle from this generation to future ones. Wanna see the Fifties then watch Rebel Without a Cause! Explore the looks and concerns of the Eighties then Ferris Bueller is your man! This decade… Ingrid Goes West has it covered. That’s not to say just because it gets the subject matter bang to rights and the hazy / lens flare filters looking on point, it all entirely works. There is no urgency, the conflict is promised but avoided or subdued. The comedy never boils over, and despite being a psycho, Plaza’s Ingrid is far more likeable than the vapid financially vampiric set she idolises and wants to join. It is a film of solid acting and slight moments. The darkness of the leads and the warped mindset of the others is always present but you do yearn for it to intrude a bit more violently into the strangely gentle, predictable plot a little more aggressively at times. That’s how you make us laugh, that’s how you make us revulse at the value system being lambasted.
Joel Schumacher directs Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric and Corey Haim in this Eighties teen vampire horror comedy.
Last time I revisited The Lost Boys, I thought I had outgrown it. There was something about its slightness and style over substance that left me cold. A VHS I watched many times as a kid had become a toy not worth playing with in adulthood. Yet it popped up on a hotel late night channel, and I decided to introduce Natalie to it. And we had fun. The horror is diluted down… only a bonfire attack feels bloody enough to hold its head up in the era that gave us The Evil Dead and Re-Animator. The comedy is a bit more serviceable. It can be witty, gloopy, camp, hysterical. The kids sell the gags better than the scares. Whatever the generic deficiencies are, The Lost Boys is all about attitude. Jack Daniels soaked rocker, comic book reading, rundown boardwalk rides, sax rocker sweat mood. The film has a hazy, ominous, electric feel. The soundtrack and score helps. Foreboding yet headbanging. “CRRRRYYY LITTLE SISTER!… (thou shall not fall)”. The cast is variable. Yet Dianne Weist, Edward Herrmann, Corey Feldman and Nanook the dog all make a little out of a lot. Star of the show is Kiefer though, the leather vamp who sells the seductive tragedy of being an undead immortal. He joshingly tricks us with his Chinese banquet of maggots and worms, bristles into action at a flick of a switch and cries a solitary heartfelt tear when sunlight burns him. He and Schumacher did stronger work in Flatliners, but The Lost Boys is their iconic triumph. And the film has one of the best final lines of dialogue in blockbuster history.
Robin Swicord directs Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Garner and Victoria Bruno in this drama where a lawyer goes “missing”, hiding out and spying on his wife for months in the attic of their garage.
A strange unclassifiable film… if I were pushed I would say the film is It’s a Wonderful Life x Rear Window – Jimmy Stewart. Cranston sells an often despicably self-centred character with conniving aplomb. Swincord works within the strict limitations of the concept deftly. There are thrilling moments, sad moments, funny moments. It is a bit too well crafted to become a cult classic… but Wakefield is one of the more unique movies to come out of Hollywood this decade.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 