Takeshi Kitano directs Beat Takeshi, Aya Kokumai and Tetsu Watanabe in this Japanese gangster flick where a Yakuza is sent to a seaside town on a suicide mission.
Slow cinema. It is slight and feels even more cult now than it did back in the mid 1990s. I have a lot of affection for this deadpan delight. It blends art, genre and comedy affectingly at its own purposeful pace. The violence is impactful, the downtime very playful and heartfelt. The romance is the highlight. There is a very sexy scene involving a rainy downpour. This is about as quirky and personal as a hyper violent film can get while still satisfying the fans of the genre.
Steven Soderbergh directs Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender and Tom Burke in this spy mystery where a married couple, who keep their work lives out of the bedroom, begin to suspect each other of betrayal.
30 years ago the mid-level budgeted movie saved Soderbergh’s career with Out Of Sight. Here he is now returning the favour trying to revive the mid-level budget movie. The plot is essentially Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy… only Smiley’s estranged wife Ann is a high ranking field agent and chief suspect. There is also a fair amount of the corrosive sexual mistrust from Mike Nichol’s Closer bunged in. Don’t expect any titillation. One explosion aside there isn’t even a whiff of 007 scale action. This is a talky piece. Bluffs, ruses, mind games, confessions, confrontations. Formally elegant (bookended by two dinner parties in the same location) and visually elite. It was fine as a one watcher and the ensemble casting is really quite special. Fassbender is outstanding as the cold fish investigator.
Hayao Miyazaki directs Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto and Shigesato Itoi in this Japanese animated fantasy film about two sisters who move to the countryside and befriend a nature god.
All hail the catbus! The soot sprites. The leaf as hat. Not as anodyne as I remember… the beautiful motifs and themes of Miyazaki’s oeuvre are more apparent to me now… but still very much one for the kids.
6
Perfect Double Bill: Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)
Gia Coppola directs Pamela Anderson, Dave Bautista and Billie Lourd in this character study where a middle-aged Las Vegas showgirl is faced with an uncertain future after learning her long running cabaret show is closing.
The stunt casting of Anderson is the least noteworthy thing here. She is more than capable of inhabiting the character study but the part really tries to cash in on her faded notoriety and timeless beauty rather than developing her internally beyond the first act introduction. It is a shapeless movie that just kinda happens, even the revelations and experiment feel like the guaranteed motions. As a mood piece, Gia Coppola shows promise. This proves just as sensory an experience as you’d hope from the third generation nepo auteur. Bautista and Lourd are strong in roles where they both feel sort of miscast. Well done them for powering through. There is scope to criticise the slumming it camp of the setting and melodrama. What does anyone involved know about poverty, failure, diminishing choices? Yet they all pantomime the vibe surprisingly well.
Scott Derrickson directs Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy and Sigourney Weaver in this mystery sci-fi horror action romance stew about two mercenaries guarding opposing sides of a misty valley with a Lovecraftian threat below.
A relatively original conceit that evokes everything from Bourne to Silent Hill to Carpenter. Adult edition Teller is a very smooth leading man and even if Anya Taylor-Joy is never going to convince in action sequences she is always very cute. They vibe off each other nicely and the instant attraction is probably the high point of the flick. Once we get down into “The Mist” things go a bit polygon esoteric. It can be digital ugly at times but equally I’m not sure how else you’d achieve this scale and integration? Derrickson brings a sustained intensity to the action sequences and I for one enjoy seeing him spaff Apple’s mega bucks up the wall on something that in any other decade would be a blockbuster cinema release.
F. Gary Gray directs Jada Pinkett Smith, Queen Latifah and Vivica A. Fox in this crime thriller where four women from ‘the projects’ start robbing banks.
Rather trite wish fulfilment / tragedy heist movie that has lashings of melodrama yet feels inconsequential. The characters go through wild personality swings from scene to scene and yet all the fronting doesn’t really motor the downfall. Top RnB soundtrack though.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett direct Alisha Weir, Melissa Barrera and Dan Stevens in this horror comedy where a disparate crew of criminals kidnap at twelve year old ballerina only to find themselves locked up with a monster.
Throwaway entertainment. Too soft and safe to become a rewatchable but bloody enough and well cast enough to satisfy on a Friday night. The kid is promising,
Fritz Lang directs Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea in this film noir where a beautiful grifter thinks she has sunk her hooks into a wealthy artist only for her unwitting meal ticket to be a henpecked salary man who paints as a hobby.
So many narrative curveballs. Could easily be an Ealing comedy if it wasn’t for its hard boiled setting and disturbing denouement. Lang has oodles to say here about masculinity. A landscape where the aged and the corrupt are both cowards yet a “bad” girl’s only choices. Bennett is playful and smoking as the honeytrap. Streetwise but bamboozled by the big picture. Jeepers! I enjoyed this so much for a hundred little reasons, looking forward to revisiting it already.
Phillip Noyce directs Pierce Brosnan, James Caan and Morena Baccarin in this crime caper where an ageing mob fixer needs to navigate a hostile takeover in Orlando.
Very Elmore Leonard light, could also be a sparklier post Taken era Liam Neeson vehicle. Brosnan still has spades of movie star twinkle in the bank and the movie thrives from his relaxed, handsome presence. It is daft and intense and cool in a perfunctory way. Filled a movie night for me and my Dad perfectly. Only the sight of a near death Caan forcing one out for the impending inheritance tax fees adds a strange pall to this.
Otto Preminger directs Gene Tierney, José Ferrer, Richard Conte, Dana Andrews, Gary Merrill and Burt Freed in this pair of film noirs written by Ben Hecht.
On paper, Whirlpool is the more interesting thriller of the pair. A hypnotised housewife is framed for murder by a criminal mastermind. Ferrer’s oily, ratty charm dominating as everyone scrambles for a way to disprove his cast iron alibi. “How’s he gonna catch ’em”! Preminger apes Hitch’s obsession for the fad of psychoanalysis. I don’t think Otto is quite as spellbound. He seems sated exposing the rotten lie of suburban happiness. The trad wife facade torn to strips over the story. Twisty. Add in Mulder and Scully and it could easily be the basis of a memorable episode of The X Files. Preminger’s framing is rich and deep though the plot sidelines the two most captivating stars for the second half and that hobbles the entire endeavour.
Where The Sidewalk Ends is tougher and more in keeping with what you might hope for from a noir. Foggy, shadows, murders, gangsters, doubles and switches. There’s even a couple of action set pieces. Though Preminger is less bothered by reality than Hitch or Lang. A cop needs to cover up a manslaughter only to put the woman he loves in the soup with his machinations. Watching Andrews wade deeper into quicksand has its pleasures, he begins to resemble his dead body more and more as the net closes in on him. The Hays Code ending let’s this down a little. He deserves his redemption after all that. Awesome in spits and spots.
I’m not going to lie. I didn’t borrow these for Hecht or Otto. I’m all about the flawless enigma that is Gene Tierney. The first half of Whirlpool delivers. She is complex as the fragile, psychologically crippled housewife. Then eerily blank once she is arrested. The movie feels her absence once her plank of a husband takes centre stage to solve the mystery. She is spread about Where The Sidewalk Ends far more judiciously though the good girl role isn’t particularly exciting. As trophies go she is indisputably worth running the gauntlet for. Her and Andrews have chemistry at least.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 