Robert Altman directs Keith Carradine, Shelley Duvall and John Schuck in this relaxed crime story about three Depression era jailbreakers who go back to bank robbing.
Long before Reservoir Dogs, this was the heist film utterly disinterested in showing the robbery. Instead we sit in the period accurate jalopies listening to the radio, enjoy many Coca Colas (the movie has such constant product placement that the drink almost becomes a character in its own right), hangout in beaten up hide-outs. It is a nothing movie, just happy to let its ensemble hang around. But this produces some lovely moments; Carradine adopts a mutt under the railway tracks, the criminals teach the kids how to act in a robbery, a prison warden greedily eats a banquet lunch while a disguised Carradine waits on him. Inessential but well made.
Nicolas Roeg directs Gene Hackman, Theresa Russell and Rutger Hauer in this violent mystery about a gold prospector who later gives up on life when the mafia become interested in the island paradise he has bought and his sexy heiress daughter marries a cad.
Whoah! This is about as existentially bleak as cinema gets. A movie of moments… big, indelible colour scream shock moments! Don’t expect a straightforward or generically consistent narrative. We start in the wastelands of the freezing Klondike in conflict. Strike it rich. Then enter a dying fantasy involving a tree of life and witch’s hovel / poorly located brothel. Hackman sells the determination and despair of a man of action in these sequences. His gruff manliness becomes achingly vulnerable to the deadly elements, his macho aggression is broken down by the hopelessness of his greed. That’s Act One. We then get into gangsters, playboys, familial sexual jealousy, a voodoo sex orgy, a murder with blowtorch and machete. We are not certain if this is Hackman’s death dream still (the bloody feathers and hardwood backing board of a key scene visually match his weakened snowy moments of surrender in the wasteland). The third act is a recreation of a real life court case. The victim’s brutalised body becomes a blow-up poster. Both evidence and grisly witness to the proceedings. Justice is subverted and the witness box is used to make power plays, discuss love and fidelity. It feels like the end of a different film… although does give us more screentime with Russell and Hauer – both of whom are as hot as ever. As with all of Roeg’s time hopping, discombobulated works, Eureka is hard to get a true grip on in first watch. But for all its spectacular ungainlyness it is a violent, steamy, well acted experience. You don’t walk away from the cinema feeling you haven’t seen something. Something unique, something cinematic.
Yorgos Lanthimos directs Aris Servetalis, Evangelia Randou and Costas Xikominos in this art film where a trio of malcontents film deadpan recreations of assaults.
Jeff Baena directs Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza and John C. Reilly in this anachronistic farce involving medieval nuns behaving badly – based in part on The Decameron.
I had high expectations for this. A great cast getting up to surreal, goofy shit in vestments and wimples. Yet the film has one joke – classical plot played out with modern voices and self awareness. The end result is fine to look at but tiring… imagine a 90 minutes long SNL sketch. You can’t, you wouldn’t, no one could. The quality of the comedy actors keeps this from being a collosal waste of an afternoon.
Mimi Leder directs Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer and Cailee Spaeny in this biopic of Ruth Bader Ginsburg – future Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Slick, rote and with any quirk or grit smoothed off to a sheeny polish. Only the very likeable leads and timely subject matter stop this from being utterly forgettable. Shame as Felicity Jones AND Ruth Bader Ginsburg deserve better.
Érick Zonca directs Vincent Cassell, Romain Duris and Sandrine Kiberlain in this cop thriller where an alcoholic detective tries to solve the case of a missing teen with blundering aggression.
The clever mystery plot could be from an Ian Rankin or Colin Dexter novel. Cassell engages in some Bad Lieutenant style naughtiness while trying to solve it… getting drunk on duty, fucking suspects, stalking others. Duris keeps you guessing with a creepy flat performance as the neighbour with a suspicious secret. It just never catches fire, while a subplot involving Cassell’s wayward son feels incompetently abandoned.
Christopher Landon directs Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard and Phi Vu in this sequel to Happy Death Day where Tree finds herself choosing to reloop to stop a reality altering machine from trapping her in a new existence.
OK… not that the first one was the pinnacle of entertainment but a little bit of the charm is lost here. The horror elements get shunted back into the background, the plot gets lost up its own bum and Rothe is relegated to a mawkish subplot that occupies her screentime while others have fun. It still all is brightly watchable but when you have such a strong comedy lead to play with it seems a shame to shackle her with a whole lotta dead mom moping about.
Reginald Hudlin directs Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad and Kate Hudson in this true story where the legendary civil rights lawyer takes on a complex rape / attempted murder case.
A dreary attempt to lionise a historical figure whose successes and victories need no imbellishments. Why this particular court case was chosen is baffling? Thurgood Marshall is relegated to mere supporting character in his own story due to a legal loophole. From the sidelines of the action Boseman is too calm a performer to distract from the other actors around him. And what it all boils down to is another Hollywood film about a woman lying about being raped. And there, gallingly, seems to be far more of those produced than ones where a sexually assaulted woman is believed. A biopic of little merit beyond its solid production values.
Dan Gilroy directs Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell and Carmen Ejogo in this legal drama about a Civil Rights backroom lawyer who finds himself thrust into the dog-eat-dog world of coporate legal work.
Acting wise, this is a career high for Denzel. The plot is a little unfocused – it is film more interested in exploring a fascinating central protagonist… his corruption, his ungainlyness in the modern world. If you come with an open mind then the random thriller elements prove a nice if jarring aside in an ambitious, intelligent, adult piece of old school Hollywood moviemaking.
Lucia Aniello directs Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon and Jillian Bell in this black comedy about a hen party that is ruined by manslaughter.
Not a Rough Night, more like a rough an hour and a half… it just all feels far, far longer. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what went so disastrously wrong here. Weekend at Bernies (of which this owes a massive debt) was just as crass and unsophisticated but kinda got away with it. Very Bad Things, a film that this essentially is a remake of, had even more detestable, unsympathetic characters yet was darkly transgressive in its trampling vindictiveness. The support cast have been great before in similar roles and I would watch Scarlett Johansson changing duvets for two hours if such footage existed. Yet this proves a really grim and grating, unloveable and sloppy farce. One with barely any redeemable features except Kate McKinnon’s unwavering commitment to lean into a rubbish screenplay long after the others around her have given up.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 