Werner Herzog directs Bruno S., Walter Ladengast and Brigitte Mira in this true tale of a mysterious grown man who appeared in a town square in Nuremberg one morning seemingly knowing nothing of the world.
Told very matter of factly, almost in a cold docudrama mode. Herzog is less interested in solving the enigmatic man’s origins and more with exploring how unsuited to the world he is. It makes for a sad experience, one that will get the philosophical nodes in your cranium a twitching.
Jacques Audiard directs Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez in this Mexican crime musical where a cartel boss employs a lawyer to not just escape his dangerous life but transition him into being a fully fledged woman.
I’ll say it. He’s is the closest we now have to have the young Marty Scorsese of the 20th century. Audiard loves making genre cinema about people fighting both their environment and true nature. Crime, extreme pressure, the fallibility of emotional responses. I still find him an incredibly exciting filmmaker, especially as he seems to like cashing in all his prestige with every new project and betting it on something truly daring both formally and thematically. In the first act and third act, Emilia Pérez contains some of the best auteur movie making of the year and his career. It ain’t a musical you’ll ever be singing along to in the shower but it is physical, vibrant and operatic. The middle section contains a plot development that feels a little too worthy and out of character. It also contains scenes that remind me awkwardly of Mrs Doubtfire. Flawed as this section is, it also contains the optimum amount of Selena Gomez as the unaware moll “widow”. She is on fire whenever she is on screen. There’s is something ever so alluring about her grumpy pissed off face.
Radu Jude directs Ilinca Manolache, Ovidiu Pîrsan and Nina Hoss in this Romanian political comedy where a part time influencer travels about trying to audition workers who have suffered industrial accidents for a Health & Safety video.
Three hours of the last gasps of a true world before it is consumed by corporate malfeasance and digital unreality. There are some fantastic moments here and it makes its points well. The in-your-face rudeness of Jude’s vision and Manolache’s lynchpin turn resonates. Yet at two features lengths it is just too grinding, running out of anything new to say at the midway marker. I have seen this alt-Godard praised to high heaven. I think it has to do with its purposefully unwieldy length and pixel prescience. Like a 1000 page novel with experimental writing and groundbreaking ideas it is an inevitability that those who chose to complete it have to embrace it. Otherwise, why did they waste their time?
Ali Catterall and Jane Giles direct John Waters, Stewart Lee and Adam Buxton in this documentary remembering the fabled short life of the sleazy Eighties repertory cinema in King’s Cross.
A solid chance for some quirky talking heads to hang out and reminisce. I was just that bit too young to ever go to the Scala. Still scanning the shelves of my corner videoshop as it was shuttered up. The name was part of the British movie fan lexicon. I remember articles in Empire about its legal battles after showing A Clockwork Orange illegally. The documentary itself is a strange beast. Stephen Woolley is given minimal screen time and credit which is distracting given all that he grew out from of establishing the fucking place. What happened there? As a delivery system for some cult movie clip montages it works a treat. As for all the post punk bad behaviour… doesn’t sound much worse than what you might experience on a Sunday matinee at the Cineworld Wood Green… Bet they wouldn’t blink if someone did a shit on their doorstep. Paul Laight had more affinity with the cinema and his review is here.
6
Perfect Double Bill: Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream (2005)
Joseph Ruben directs Dennis Quaid , Kate Capshaw and Christopher Plummer in this sci-fi horror adventure where a young psychic enters a secret government programme to test dream technology and uncovers a plot to assassinate the President.
40 years ago you could make a completely original movie with an unproven star that straddled four different genres simultaneously. Imagine that happening now? I’m not saying Dreamscape does any of the above well… but just marvel at its mere existence. The dictionary definition of choppy. The dream state FX are garish but practical. The cast oh so 80s. They can’t really figure out if Quaid’s hero is fuck boy teen rebel or a preppy psychic Indiana Jones. As it never settles it actually grows quite boring. One of the rare entertainments where you look forward to the characters sleeping so a bit of action might kick in.
Juho Kuosmanen directs Seidi Haarla, Yuri Borisov and Dinara Drukarova in this Finnish drama where two ill-suited strangers share a journey that will change their perspective on life, as a train weaves its way up to the arctic circle.
A negative Before Sunrise. Or an arthouse Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Cute in a grimy way. The acting is pleasingly natural.
6
Perfect Double Bill: On the Beach at Night Alone (2017)
Kelly Marcel directs Tom Hardy, Juno Temple and Rhys Ifans in this superhero adventure where Eddie and his brain eating symbiote face their greatest foe.
You might have noticed I’m watching less and less comic book movies over the past two years. It is proving harder to get much appetite for sequels to films that I only half heartedly enjoyed and soft reboots with no name recasting. The Venom series, while never stellar, always delivered one thing. Tom Hardy in Jekyll & Hyde dual roles untethered from any sense of reality. And this has that in spades. Yes… the story and the sets feel very Nineties B-Movie. Yes, the credited cast is distractingly British. And, yes, the final section is as meh as most recent superhero flicks. Transparent carnage. But I had fast food fun, as I always do with this quirky horror-tinged comedy branch off. As IP sluice goes I have an affection for these ones that might stand the test of time. Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle.
Pedro Almodóvar directs Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore and John Turturro in this arthouse drama where a dying woman asks an estranged old friend to be with her as she kills herself.
Almodóvar’s English language debut isn’t his finest hour. The settings are lush and the concept solid. Yet he grabs around at lots of disparate ideas and the experience is anchored by an unusually clunky performance from Swinton. Something is lost in translation here, too many moments feel like notebook musings that could not find a home in another story.
Aki Kaurismäki directs Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen and Juhani Niemelä in this Finnish drama where an amnesiac builds a new life with the helps of the docklands homeless community.
More blank faced grimness and eventual redemption. This one seems to have less under the hood than previous funnier entries.
Richard Donner directs Bruce Willis, Mos Def and David Morse in this action thriller where a bum detective is assigned transporting a witness to the courthouse on time and finds himself having to outsmart every corrupt cop in the NYPD.
The action is small scale but I think most Die Hard fans would have preferred things if this compelling B movie was tweaked to be John McClane’s last adventure. Willis is back in underdog mode, has to use his brain as much as his brawn, he gets an unlikely unwanted partner to bounce off of and the eventual redemption has particularly cynical Big Apple bitter aftertaste. It even gels with the downward spiral we witnessed back in 1995. 16 Blocks is grittier and smarter than the bombastic Die Hard 4.0 and the atrocious fifth franchise killer. The first two acts see Willis’ alcoholic schlub get his legs back and have to play 3D chess around Manhattan. The movie is essential 16 narrow escapes. Morse is a complex villain and Mos Def moves past his initially grating characterisation. The ending is a little trite but hey… that’s Hollywood / Donner. A mid range movie it is hard not to like, that now plays like the last flight of a rare bird. Willis in his prime, location shoot, fallible heroes.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 