Alex Cox directs Roberto Sosa, Bruno Bichir and Vanessa Bauche in this Mexican indie about a newly graduated road cop trying to navigate endemic corruption for better and for worse.
Moral murk in the hot burning sunlight. Ten thousand miles south of Serpico. Cox’ second best movie after Repo Man is an unsung gem. There is those seesaw ethics, a horny sense of humour and just enough lo-fi brilliant set pieces. Even a few moments of gentle surrealism. True and soulful. Well worth a rediscover.
Paolo Sorrentino directs Filippo Scotti, Toni Servillo and Teresa Saponangelo in this coming of age drama set in 1980s Naples.
Sorrentino mines his own teenage landmark year in this thinly veiled cinematic memoir. Maradona, sexual awakenings, complicated morality and a desire to make films all jockey for attention. There is the definite whiff of Fellini in the heightened Italian nuttiness of the extended family and new acquaintances. That has always been present in Sorrentino’s visions. Cinema Paradiso also feels like another touchstone but not in the way you might first imagine. Probably this beautiful filmmaker’s most accessible flick. Satire takes a backseat and tragic surprises rear up from nowhere. The magical realist prologue is absolute fire cinema. A little self contained fable that is unnerving and sexy.
Preston Sturges directs Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda and Charles Coburn in this screwball comedy where a sexy con artist targets a naive brewery fortune heir only to fall for the mark.
Grows on me more and more with every rewatch. Now hits my perfect status. Barbara Stanwyck sizzles in this. Beautiful evening dresses, killer looks. In a whirlwind of snappy dialogue she is the wisest and the sharpest. What puts this daft farce up in the elite tier is not just anything can happen but we want to see her do anything to win her prize. “They say a moonlit deck is a woman’s business office.”
Hikari directs Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira and Mari Yamamoto in this comedy melodrama where an American actor in Tokyo lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese “rental family” agency, playing the fiancée; long lost father; white best friend as needed.
Sweet to the point where your teeth will rot. It is just way too formatted and structured. Brendan Fraser’s wardrobe has been given much more consideration than any emotional verisimilitude. Having said that… this is genuinely the best use of his utterly unique Hollywood cache in decades. He has alluring Jimmy Stewart vibes here. Not a terrible movie, just an overly calculated one. I prefer my manipulation to be under the bubbles.
James Glickenhaus directs Jackie Chan, Danny Aiello and Roy Chiao in this buddy cop thriller where two New York cops travel to Hong Kong to bust some kidnappers.
It is much documented that Jackie’s second attempt to break the US market was a dud. He and the ultra violent / ultra sleazy James Glickenhaus didn’t see eye to eye. So much so that Jackie made Police Story straight afterwards almost spitefully to prove that he understood his own appeal better than any hard edged, Big Apple exploitation maven. He even re-shot and re-edited this movie for the Asian markets cutting out the boobies and swearing while adding in a middle sequence that gifts a taste of the homemade farce and slapstick physicality we are used to from a Jackie Chan rental. Jackie’s cut is the version I watched and his additions are the highlights. Having said that… there is perverse value in watching the megastar out of his comfort zone. Playing it straight, serious and grizzled. A shock of gore goes a long way. It is a curiously uneven flick. The opening heist feels more like an Italian Mad Max rip off with punk little people hijacking a truck in a dystopian Brooklyn. Jackie gets involved with massacres in bars, saunas and the ubiquitous cement factory. He speedboats past the World Trade Centre, performing stunts that belong in much, much higher budgeted productions. I hope Glickenhaus had permits. Danny Aiello looks bemused throughout but the dub could never smother his charm. I’m not going to lie, I really dug the alternative universe strangeness of this. Imagine if it hit big?
Rowan Athale directs Pierce Brosnan, Amir El-Masry and Toby Stephen in this dual biopic of boxer Prince Naseem “Naz” Hamed and his trainer Brendan Ingle.
Getting past those standard (bold type and pedestrian) UK production limitations, this is actually quite a sophisticated and complex study of a toxic relationship between two real life figures. Brosnan puts in a career best acting shift, the score by Neil Athale works the emotions like a punchbag and the script ain’t no one sided whitewash. Better than you’d expect.
Akira Kurosawa directs Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao and Jinpachi Nezu in this epic where in medieval Japan, an elderly warlord retires, handing over his kingdom to one son to the dissatisfaction of all three.
Mythical in terms of its scale and intent. The pace is alien. Cynical and adult in a way that big period blockbusters from the West just aren’t. An empire crumbles into fairytale chaos. Watch palaces and minds burn to ruin.
Kathryn Bigelow directs Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson and Tracy Letts in this political thriller which follows the government and military handling a nuclear attack from three different perspectives.
Starts very strong. I guess the calm and clear cut professionalism of the first spin is the point. The higher up the political food chain we go the less prepared and decisive the response is. It is an exciting piece of filmmaking that makes a controversial formal choices. One that I have mixed feelings about. Also, it doesn’t really cover too much new ground than Fail Safe from 60 years ago.
Howard Hawks directs John Barrymore, Carole Lombard and Walter Connolly in this pre-code screwball comedy about a cruel Broadway theatre director trying to cast the ingenue he made into a star for one make-or-break production.
I could have taken it or left it until we get on the train and all hell breaks loose. A farce where everyone talks a mile a minute. There isn’t a lot of heart here.
Alejandro Amenábar directs Ana Torrent, Fele Martínez and Eduardo Noriega in this Spanish thriller where a film student realises a snuff movie maker is lurking the halls of the her university.
Good solid debut movie in the tradition of Brian De Palma. A bird of a feather with Shallow Grave, Night Watch, Mute Witness and three dozen French releases in this decade. That’s Scotland, Denmark, Russia and now Spain all tooling around in these bleak, self aware youthful Hitchcockian homages in the 90s. I’m guessing the true root source for all these calling card chillers that flirt with horror and meta is actually The Vanishing (1988, Dutch). George Sluizer paved the way for everything else. Amenábar is an ambitious director but this one spins its wheels before the denouement for way too long. Sacrificing the sleazy immoral atmosphere of constant unease. Two mid section set pieces in the pitch black darkness are the strongest stuff. Which is ironic given Thesis is all about looking and seeing and watching.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 