John Patton Ford directs Aubrey Plaza, Theo Rossi and Gina Gershon in this indie thriller where a minimum wage worker with minimal options takes up credit card fraud.
A very promising directorial debut. Keeps both its dramatic and genre plates spinning without ever showing too much distracting effort or jarring wobbles. Feels a part of the Breaking Bad mood where the rigged American system of wealth allows very few pathways apart from risky crime to get ahead. There’s a palpable threat in every transaction, you feel the power imbalance whether it is a mall car park or corporate office. Plaza stretches herself with a purely serious role (no deadpan gags here) and she is excellent. More movies like this please.
Harold Ramis directs Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell and Stephen Tobolowsky in this timewarp romantic comedy where a conceited weatherman relives the same day over and over and over again.
Gwyneth Paltrow x2 Tim Allen x 2 Charles Bronson Julia Stiles Andie MacDowell Stephen Baldwin Sarah Jessica Parker Helena Bonham Carter Chris Tucker Eric Idle
Ten movie stars I cannot stand who somehow have prominent roles in FIVE STAR favourites… and I can overlook their existence in these rare circumstances. Still, it says something about how honed, hilarious and (otherwise) flawless Groundhog Day is, that MacDowell could be the prize at the end of misanthropic Phil’s infinite journey and still I love it completely.
Steven Spielberg and Joe Johnston direct Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Sam Neill, William H Macy and Téa Leoni in these sequels to the biggest hit of the early Nineties, where a second island chock full of cloned dinosaur is discovered.
There is a reason the original blockbuster ends abruptly. You either start killing the dinosaurs or the park gets back on track. Spielberg knew that. Then went and betrayed his instincts for dollars he didn’t need. “I beat myself up, growing more and more impatient with myself. It made me wistful about doing a talking picture, because sometimes I got the feeling I was just making this big silent-roar movie. I found myself saying, ‘Is that all there is? It’s not enough for me.” The result was a wobbly shoot with an unfinished script, where characters vanish at the end of the second act so we can have a third act where a T-Rex takes on San Diego just because the wunderkind knew he at least wanted to shoot those gags but was never going to direct a Jurassic Park 3.
The Lost World doesn’t really work in spite of a robust cast, a nastily dark tone and three top set pieces. The cliff edge dangle of the motor base might be the tensest sequence of the entire franchise. The raptors in the long grass retains plenty of pure danger. T-Rex chaos in a populated city is rushed, silly but memorable. Goldblum looks just as surprised and disappointed to be back as the auteur must have.
III is actually a cheaper, schlockier, less sophisticated, less original flick. But it works more effectively as a summer entertainment as it is short and sweet. Neill is a refreshing comeback as he is pure hearted, old fashioned heroic. As much a welcome dinosaur as the creatures we have come to see resurrected. Johnstone might not care about the humans (see again: that unfinished script) but he introduces us to new scary dinosaurs and had plenty of joy in making them as chaotic and as deadly as possible. The sustained escape through the pterodactyl aviary is what this series thrives on. A much needed return to animatronics and… abrupt endings.
Brandon Cronenberg directs Alexander Skarsgård, Mia Goth and Cleopatra Coleman in this sci-fi nightmare where a holidaying author discovers a gruesome loophole when he admits to manslaughter in a developing country.
I wasn’t that big a fan of Possessor. This still tastes very much like a movie wearing Dad’s big shoes but they fit a bit more snugly. The new flesh here is truly unpredictable, scary and shocking. A holiday from hell with crushed skulls, arrests, home invasions, orgies and a punishment that feels spiritually worse than the crime. Cronenberg runs with the idea that a fine for a crime, no matter how high, merely puts a price tag on evil if you are rich enough. But then he packs it with transgressive imagery… a child performing an execution, masks made up of papier-mâché injuries and a pool of red gloop that swallows your soul whole. Obviously the highlight of the film is unhinged sex goddess Mia Goth. In a year of fantastic horror performances from her, Infinity Pool’s Tyler Durden in a sarong is a masterclass of gleeful nastiness.
Stewart Handler directs Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes and Rumer Willis in this slasher flick.
Both extreme and smooth, this horror flick doesn’t work but seems to hit notes that nothing of its sub-genre does. A bare midriff filled horny sleazefest, an obvious whodunnit and some kinda OTT kills. The opening prank gone wrong… goes really hard. Yet around that unpredictable sequence it plays out like an extended trailer and has more loose ends than satisfying conclusions. Weirdly expensive.
Steven Soderbergh directs Julia Robert, Albert Finney and Aaron Eckhart in this true story legal drama about an unlikely former beauty queen who uncovers a criminal contamination incident.
“That’s all you got, lady. Two wrong feet in fucking ugly shoes.” Made very much to give Roberts her Oscar – this glides along nicely as a slick adult entertainment. Finney is a ton of crumpled value. Memorable Thomas Newman score.
Jonathan Demme directs Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington and Jason Robards in this courtroom drama where a homophobe lawyer represents a gay lawyer dying of AIDS when he is unfairly dismissed from a prestigious firm.
I remember when I first learned about the existence of Philadelphia. I was riding home on the E3 bus, reading the free cinema magazine, Flicks, you could pick up in the foyer. I’d probably just been to see The Fugitive or The Specialist. I would have been pretty excited about the new movie from the director of The Silence Of The Lambs. Tom Hanks was a must-see movie star for me (that’s never changed). 13 year-old Bobby Carroll remembers it was going to be a courtroom drama, that Philadelphia the city had something amazing sounding called Cheese Steak sandwiches that were famous… and I cannot remember any mention in the promo piece that the plot centred on a gay character or would be about the AIDS crisis. Because I doubt 13 year-old, straight schoolboy me would have gotten excited about those themes.
Philadelphia is a well made, well intentioned film. I’d say Bruce Springsteen’s excellent theme song has probably outlived any controversy or praise the movie generated back in ‘93. I swing back and forth on how much I like it, how highly I rate it. The flaws are as apparent now as they were then.
Does the gay community see themselves represented in Hanks’ idealised portrayal? Should Hanks’ character, Andy, come from such a position of wealth, privilege and unstinting familial adoration? Would the movie work for straight audiences if he didn’t? Like Sidney Poitier’s black characters in the Sixties, why does this homosexual have to be so perfect, so above reproach for the injustice to take root? Why is his pairing with Antonio Banderas so chaste? What is with the miserable, interminable opera monologue? And why is the character written as so passive once Denzel takes on his case? The closing montage of childhood home movies is a sluice of mawk too far.
Yet we do get a witty, gripping, unpredictable courtroom drama. Denzel gifts us with one his finest performance. The everyman homophobe who slowly shifts his thinking and feelings over the arc of an entire movie. Not enough people acknowledge that Philadelphia is actually as much the story of our growing acceptance and reconfiguration of “the other” in our lives. Demme and Washington pull no punches – the lawyer cleaning his hand after touching a sufferer, his enthusiastic use of hateful language in the privacy of his home, the violent reaction to being hit on by another man. And because we’ve only ever seen Washington as the embodiment of good and righteousness outside of Spike Lee movies… something clicks, something clicked. He’s usually battling this type of ingrained, insidious hatred. Washington really puts in the more sophisticated, challenging acting shift throughout the story. As equally as I love Hanks, that Oscar should be Denzel’s.
Philadelphia might not have been the movie gay audiences needed from Hollywood back then but it kinda is the movie straight people did. It challenges our behaviours and thinking and fears in a big glossy package. Showed us a different way to address a group that had been demonised in the mainstream media and press for the last decade (if not longer). And the ultimate message holds true. People will grow out of their prejudices if they actually interact with the humans they ignorantly fear, outwardly mistrust and unjustly hate. I optimistically believe that, this movie does to. Demme also deserves praise for expertly ramping up the paranoia in certain key moments – a lesion is zoomed in on and then the camera lingers, the alienation of Andy in the surprise boardroom firing, the body horror of the corpulent, corporate men’s locker room. Not a perfect film – a neutered, dated product of its time – yet worth seeking out, re-evaluating and squeezing the good out from.
Martin Scorsese directs Barbara Hershey, David Carradine and Barry Primus in this exploitation adaptation of a Depression-era hobo femme fatale’s “autobiography”.
Very enjoyable. Rarely an edit happens that doesn’t show flashes of Marty’s future verve and mastery. Every interaction and shot seems to have purpose whether it be narrative propulsion, emotional engagement, character subtext or pure titillation. It is scrappy, cheap and sleazy but very few modern films are made with this level of storytelling care. And I like the sleaze. It feels a bit less “art installation” than Bonnie And Clyde. The nudity is a bit more goosebump ridden, the violence is sudden and devastating. Most importantly though, it is fun. Feels like a movie with nothing to lose. Scorsese should do a throwaway bit of nasty like this again before he retires. Sweet, unpredictable Barbara Hershey is probably the finest actress whose best career turns are in utter schlock.
Michael Morris directs Andrea Riseborough, Marc Maron and Allison Janney in this character study drama about an alcoholic woman who hits rock bottom and returns home to the town where she is seen as a joke because she blew her lottery win on booze.
Exists solely as a showcase for Riseborough to act desperate and destitute. And I’m going to push against the Academy nomination here and say the performance is a bit… gurning. This tale of recovery has an eventual sweetness worth waiting around for… and often harks back to the revival of “Woman’s Pictures” that cropped up in the late Seventies /early Eighties to give the likes of Ellen Burstyn, Sally Field or Goldie Hawn another shot at an Oscar. While everyone else feels like they are on a poverty pantomime safari, podcasting king Maron actually hits a neat seam of reality with his good guy turn. Fine.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 