David Lowery directs Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander and Joel Edgerton in this fantasy adventure where feckless Gawain sets out on a doomed quest.
Lowery’s vision here is pretty stunning. Alien gargantuans roam the valley mists. Deaths are foretold in flash-forward detail. Every supernatural encounter seemingly has an erotic import bubbling away at the surface gallantry. I bet it smells as musty as a carrier bag full of conkers at the bottom of a kid’s wardrobe in December. Yet for all its beauty and horror The Green Knight feels kinda separate from the viewer, more like an intellectual exercise. The adventure and drama disappointed me slightly… but I would be keen to give it a second chance. On the big screen?
Ingmar Bergman directs Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan and Liv Ullmann in this Swedish chamber piece drama where two sisters and a loving maid prepare for a death.
Bold red. Sexual assignations. Jealousies and disconnections. I got more out of this than most Bergmans, plus the ladies are hotties. Interesting that this came out at the same time as The Exorcist as they share a lot of the same visual set-ups and claustrophobia.
Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois direct Daveigh Chase, Tia Carrere and Ving Rhames in this animated comedy about an orphaned Hawaiian girl who befriends a fugitive alien who has been genetically engineered to be the ultimate destructive force.
First time revisiting this since the cinema release and it held up really well. Goes hard at the emotions but the comedy and the sci-fi aspects are strong too. Stitch is a wonderfully chaotic little creation. Nice use of Elvis and watercolour backgrounds. Feels like a true outlier in the post Walt Disney Renaissance wilderness doldrums.
Joe Dante directs Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies and Kevin McCarthy in this blatant cheapie Jaws rip-off involving a mutated shoal of killer fish.
Listen… it isn’t very good by any reasonable sense of the term. Yet when Dante scribbles outside the lines of what Corman wants Pirahna chimes better than many slicker imitators. The off beat chemistry of the gawky leads. The self aware stunt casting of McCarthy, Paul Bartel, Barbara Steele and Dick Miller. All of whom sing. That weird little stop motion creature who appears in the lab for no reason. The stretched teases of the raft being unravelled and the water skier being ignored by his bimbo mates. It’s not right but it’s okay.
6
Perfect Double Bill: Pirahna II: The Spawning (1982)
Vaughn Stein directs Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg and Mike Myers in this crime mystery where a waitress / stripper entangles herself into the lives of two hitmen and a suicidal teacher for obscure reasons.
Vaugh Stein must maintain some murky hold over Robbie and Myers to get them to sign up for… this. There is a lot of star wattage and expensive production design crammed into a big nothing of an indie crime flick. The storytelling is very amateur – you’ll struggle to really understand what the plot wants to be in the first two acts. It really feels like a series of wannabe flashy scenes connected by claustrophobic geography. The two big twists are guessable, the acting arch and flat. Dexter Fletcher is the movie’s saving grace, his nasty piece of work understands the assignment. If you do select Terminal -brain switched off, hoping for Robbie in a series of kinky uniforms – then prepare to wonder why it all feels so sexless. I will say Christopher Ross’s cinematography plays with neon and flood lighting memorably. A rabbit hole nobody will want to fall down.
Sylvain White directs Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba and Zoe Saldana in this comic book action movie where a special forces unit fake their deaths to track down a shadowy figure who betrayed them.
Pretty standard Vertigo adaptation actioner. Think The A-Team with an R rating. More interested in visuals and gags than tension or urgency, The ensemble is very likeable and sweaty. Only Jason Patric’s utterly rotten big bad is doing anything above and beyond his usual MO. Considering he made a twenty five year long career as a bland lead, his scene stealing work here feels pretty special. Every time the storytelling feels pedestrian (which is a little too often) something momentarily excessive will happen to energise you.
Blake Edwards directs Peter Seller, Claudine Longet and Jean Carson in this Hollywood farce where a bungling Indian actor gets invited to a high end house party by mistake.
Dated, racist but does get laughs when the farce beds in. Sellers genuinely doesn’t need to be in brown face for any of the decent physical jokes to work.
Christopher McQuarrie directs Benicio del Toro, Ryan Phillippe and James Caan in this neo-noir / neo western thriller where two drifters kidnap a woman pregnant with a mob financier’s surrogate baby inside her.
“The only thing you can guess about a broken down old man is that he is a survivor.”
“I think a plan is just a list of things that don’t happen.”
“The longest distance between two points is a kidnapper and his money.”
My personal favourite post-Tarantino piece. The action is extreme, walloping and makes moves like a chess genius playing himself. McQuarrie proves himself a talent beyond Bryan Singer’s shadow and one only needs to witness the last three Mission: Impossible movies to know this man does intense set pieces and shorthand world weary machismo like nobody else. The Way Of The Gun is an ardent love letter to a form of gunplay movie that never really existed. Maybe Peckinpah’s The Getaway is the only predecessor that feels a piece with it. Broken old crims, untrustworthy partnerships and border town nihilism. I think people get hooked up on how juiced up the first and third act are that the middle section where everyone angles to betray everyone else and a whole series of long games are hinted at… well it throws your casual viewer. Should we have a stake in the hidden motivations of the bland bagman played expertly by Caan, or his suicidal henchman played with pathos by Geoffrey Lewis or Jennifer Lewis’ complex waddling MacGuffin? Once $15 million is in the middle of a Mexican stand off, who can you trust? Is your partner showing signs of humanity to a pregnant grifter? Are your mercenaries in sharp suits sharper than you need them to be? It all resolves itself in the most painfully violent, orgasmically calculated finale in independent cinema.
Christopher Guest directs Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara and Parker Posey in this mockumentary comedy following various competing dog owners at the American equivalent of Crufts.
The absolute Daddy of its form. Every scene hilarious and every character a gem. Plus many cute dogs looking absolutely baffled by the experience. Many films try for this improvised, lightning in a bottle, no script needed method of comedy. Often they become interminable or, at best, cult items that grow on you with repeated communal viewings. But Best In Show genuinely pulls it off even if you watch it uninitiated. That is truly impressive.
