“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” ― Arnold Schwarzenegger
Chris Marker directs Hélène Châtelain, Davos Hanich and Jacques Ledoux in this short French art film constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel.
Famous to my generation as being a key influence on Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys. The Gen-X sci-fi favourite is almost a faithful remake of the plot of this short, strange film. Yet while the famous blockbuster is more of an adventure, La Jetée focuses as much on the psychology and doomed romance of time travel experiments. Being the guinea pig in one. Told in a slideshow of stark monochrome photos we still feel the protagonists’ attraction, frustration, pain and futility. Time and memory happening at an uncontrollable fluctuation. Very rare a short film enters my personal Top 1000 movie. This inarguably belongs there.
Ryan Coogler directs Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett and Letitia Wright in this Marvel superhero adventure about the people of Wakanda trying to find their place in the world after their heroic new king has died.
A very gorgeous film in the most part. I remember being quite impressed by how respectfully it handled itself and delivered an adventure that felt a bit more emotionally grainy than recent Marvel confections. The action was solid in the first two acts. Yet there is still the feeling that this is all just mega budgeted teatime television and the talent involved could probably be better utilised making something set in the real world. The ending is quite unmemorable. It is nice having a Marvel movie that is a bit more solemn and somber but I also rarely felt disappointed I waited Wakanda Forever out to hit streaming.
Chris Marker directs Alexandra Stewart, the people of Japan and a giraffe in this documentary essay where other cultures are remembered like alien confusion-scapes.
The unnecessary footage of an animal being shot and graphically dying really sucks the life out of the room. And while that nightmare moment does match up with some of themes explored… it stops this for me, and many, from being the rewatchable classic it otherwise would be.
Chad Stahelski directs Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen and Ian McShane in this final episode in the retired hitman tries to re-earn his freedom action saga.
Yeah… I’m guessing it is long. But there’s plenty to love here. The beauty of the whole thing. Should gun movies look this fuckable? The new guys: Shamier Anderson and Rina Sawayama but especially Donnie Yen’s unwaveringly calm blind assassin. The set pieces are epic. Really put you through the wringer. My only quibble is the Arc de Triomphe fight in moving traffic bends the laws of physics too much. It only really is exciting if when you get his by a car, you die. And I know this is a cinematic universe with Kevlar tailored suits. Sometimes the borrowing is a bit too obvious, sometimes the talky talky stuff does feel inessential. Still this is exactly what I want from my action cinema so it seems churlish to complain the portion is too big. Should there be more Wick? Probably not… but very few franchises end on a high. This one might just.
Jessica M. Thompson directs Nathalie Emmanuel, Thomas Doherty and Sean Pertwee in this bloodless horror romance flick where a long lost relative of some European aristocrats turns up at a country house clearly owned by a vampire.
Downtown Abbey meets Bram Stoker but set in the modern day. Feels very much like a Young Adult novel that has been sifted through a TV show development sieve. So… not very cinematic. Flat, ponderous and often quite boring.
Peter Farrelly directs Zac Efron, Bill Murray and Russell Crowe in this war drama true story about a ne’er-do-well New Yorker who decides to bring a beer to each of his drinking buddies while they serve in Vietnam.
I’m about to type a sentence that lists a lot of decades. There was a real boom in the late Eighties and early Nineties for accessible films that dramatised big events of the recent past (the Fifties / the Sixties / the Seventies). Some might say your Driving Miss Daisys, Good Morning Vietnams and Forrest Gumps sanitised or even mollified the huge schismatic upheavals of near history. Taking big issues, ones still influencing the politics and injustices of the American present, and polishing them into nostalgic light entertainments. Not every film has to be as brutalising and as self-lacerating as Platoon. We know which movies have a more realistic bent on the past and which ones want to reframe civil and global trauma into something box office worthy. I’m of the school that there are room for both… you can take a less journalistic, less coroner’s report, approach to events from our lifetime and still make them sad and funny and add a little sparkle. But then again, I did grow up on a steady diet of Quantum Leap.
Peter Farrelly’s Oscar winning Green Book felt anachronistic when it scooped the Best Picture Oscar a few years back. A call back to a time when prestige and full houses mingled a little easier. Directed by a silly comedy hit maker, dealing with race and racism from a conservative white male POV and more jovial and adventurous than worthy or punitive. Yet… considering it was a box office hit aimed squarely at adults and was as entertaining as it was focussed on dealing with weighty issues… I was happy to enjoy it for it was – a really well made, salty bit of Hollywood product. In my eyes, it is one of the few recent Best Picture winners that a casual movie viewer might elect to rewatch for fun if it popped up near the top of their streaming menu on a Saturday night. The Greatest Beer Run Ever is a follow-up in very much the same mode. Much as the award winning road movie put a glossy and laugh worthy spin on racism, here the big gaping wound on America’s psyche (the failed occupation of Vietnam) is approached not from the vantage point of some bleeding heart liberals or gung-ho warmongers but of an average dude who believes what he reads in the paper and would vote for whoever could lower his taxes… if he could be bothered to vote.
A game Zac Efron is the glue that makes this unlikely mixture of fish-out-water comedy and occasionally hard hitting tragedy work. He’s a fun guy, sweet hearted, not particularly heroic, who brashly puts himself in a dumb but kinda admirable danger. All for the sake of being a decent human being on his own terms. And as he spends his improbable but seemingly true week in Vietnam handing out tinnies of Pabst Blue Ribbons, his eyes are opened to the destruction his people are bringing to this beautiful country, the brutalising violence his old drinking buddies are enduring and the lies his government has fed him and the folks back home. Did all this need to be said again? Possibly not. But that doesn’t stop this from being a very enjoyable, universal film with a fair bit more emotional grit and heft to it than teenage fantasies like a Fast X or your Black Adam.
Niels Arden Oplev directs Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace and Dominic Cooper in this revenge thriller where a man with a dark secret infiltrates an organised crime gang and a scarred woman wanting revenge blackmails him into taking on her own crusade for justice.
The first 30 minutes of this are intentionally but needlessly confusing. Convoluted storytelling resolved – the final hour has some good set pieces and a sad little almost romance that feeds into the leads overqualified talents.
Sidney Poitier directs himself, Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee in this buddy western where a righteous wagon trail master and a sleazy preacher navigate their party around a posse of white hired guns in Reconstruction America.
An absolute pleasure on the big screen. Feels like a big entertainment, hitting laughs, adventure and drama. Yet it also tackles historical racism, in a way that must have spoken loudly to African American audiences in the Seventies and still has relevance today. I’ve never really noticed Belafonte in a movie before but he’s on fire here. Benny Carter’s bluesy jazzy score is an earworm and invigorates every time it comes on. Bank robberies, horse theft, horse chases, desert battles, shoot outs and stand-offs – I can think of no better way to spend an evening.
Harald Zwart directs Liv Tyler, Matt Dillon and Michael Douglas in this crime comedy where three different men become obsessed with a low-rent femme fatale who will do anything to live in the perfect home.
James M Cain meets There’s Something About Mary. Silly little movie that supplies the usually drippy Tyler with something a bit more vivacious. Strong comedy support from Paul Reiser and John Goodman. Michael Douglas steals the show as a bingo loving hitman. The third act grinds its gears for 10 minutes more than its worth. It feels like we are never leaving that living room set but the overburdened farce finally ends on three high impact punchlines.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 