Claude Chabrol directs Robin Renucci, Philippe Noiret and Anne Brochet in this French mystery where a gameshow host and a ghostwriter play a game of cat-and-mouse over the disappearance of a young woman and the exploitation of a spaced out orphan.
As much French farce as Hitchcockian pastiche this has some nice moments but never really goes anywhere after the first act. The ensemble is really cracking though so you don’t object to being in their company as they spin their wheels until the credits.
Alejandro Amenábar directs Nicole Kidman, Fionnula Flanagan and Christopher Eccleston in this supernatural horror where an isolated country house is full of strange disturbances and secrets.
Doors that must remain locked, fog that cannot be escaped, piles of autumnal leaves that cover something wicked. As a shocker it only really has the primo shit once or twice but The Others is more about atmosphere than scares. This is horror cinema as decoupage, lots of layers of gimmicks, red herrings and half whispers that build up into a satisfying whole. It looks wonderful – Kidman, for example, has never looked more like a 1950s movie goddess in her skintight lady of the house attire, bone white make-up and bleached curls. In my opinion her two purest works of genre, this and Dead Calm, contain her best performances… forget all that Oscar bait crap. It might only truly work the first time out as a rattler but the level of detail and care put into the movie making means The Others is always a classy rewatch.
Pier Paolo Pasolini directs Enrique Irazoqui, Margherita Caruso and Settimio Di Porto in this biblical drama that focuses on Jesus’ life, miracles, humanist message and near socialist acts of dissent.
Simple, loaded with Pasolini’s Marxist politics but I’d struggle to think of a more reverential well made biopic about the “Son of God”. Made with neo-realist stylings (non-actors, unbombastic locations and dressing) this is another one ticked off from my of “Greatest Films” bucket list thanks to MUBI but also one I hope to revisit in the cinema some day.
Iain Softley directs Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands and John Hurt in this Southern Gothic chiller where a palliative care worker believe her latest dying patient has a nasty secret in their attic.
Broody and moody, looks sweet and has a nice twist in the tale. The voodoo backdrop could be leaned into a bit more heavily and Hudson is competent but not the stamp of her co-stars. Passes an evening.
Michael Tuchner directs Richard Burton, Ian McShane and Nigel Davenport in this British gangster film where a vicious gang boss plans a heist.
Strange fish this. Burton’s performance certainly is memorable. Based on a Kray, he is both gay and a goblin… but his cockney accent is awful. The main heist has some surprises. In total though it never really coalesces. Good London location work.
Jordan Peele directs Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Michael Wincott in this sci-fi horror where a horse ranch is terrorised by something in the clouds.
I trust Jordan Peele. I know his first two films work better on rewatch. He doesn’t leave plotholes or skipped stitches. There are always intentional mysteries unresolved but tantalising no matter how closely you peer into his curious death traps. Nope is very ambitious – it really is three or four thinly connected narratives that do not alway gel tonally. The stuff involving animals in the entertainment industry is the most compelling but also the most superfluous to the big picture. But I’m happy for Peele to take big wayward swings when the results are this cinematic. There’s a little bit of Signs here, a lot of Tremors and a soupçon of Werner Herzog. When it lurches into horror it is genuinely fucked up yet it stands out most as a strange adventure. Daniel Kaluuya is, along with Maika Monroe and Hailee Steinfeld, my favourite star under the age of 35. He is physical, laidback and cool as fuck. Now Keke Palmer I have less time for, her but her character is supposed to Ying to his Yang here and that works. A big screen blast, intricate enough that I cannot wait to enjoy it on the telly also.
Marty Callner directs Aerosmith, Alicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler in this trilogy of iconic music videos.
Cryin’, Amazing and Crazy – a trio of MTV promos for ageing but undefeatable rock band Aerosmith was where and when Silverstone first became an underage household name. Cryin’ is the most fun – Silverstone dumps Stephen Dorff, steals his ride, pierces her bellybutton, dropkicks Sawyer from Lost and escapes the fuzz by leaping off a freeway. Amazing feels like a fascinating 1990s artefact. A young fan of that first music video uses CD-Roms, VR headsets and that newfangled internet to insert himself into an adventure with the Aerosmith girl à la Weird Science / Lawnmower Man. While it might seem 32-bit and laughable to Gen Z-ers (but are they ever going to watch it anyway?) Amazing actually predicts Deep Fake technology quite accurately. Crazy, in my mind, is the most iconic but now awkward. Catholic school girls Silverstone and Liv Tyler go on the run in a soft Thelma & Louise romp. Strange seeing two underage girls quite so sexualised, big knickers and all, especially when one was the lead singer’s estranged daughter. As a teen, quite close to the stamp of the computer nerd in Amazing, it was absolutely fine for me to watch these pubescent fantasies on rotation on The Box channel for an entire afternoon but whatever the adults making this thought they were up to is anyone’s guess? The budgets on these things must have been ludicrously high. The stunt work that closes the first two mini-epics are worthy of Cameron or Bigelow.
8/8/7
The Crush (1993)
Alan Shapiro directs Cary Elwes, Alicia Silverstone and Kurtwood Smith in this yuppie-in-peril thriller where a journalist moves into the guest house of a rich family where the teenage daughter quickly develops an unhealthy attraction to him.
Making an erotic thriller with the 14 year-old from hell was always going to be problematic. This sometimes feels less like a suspense piece and more an excuse to swap bikinis on Silverstone. There’s even nudity but thankfully quite glaring butt stand-ins are used. And as much as this has a deliciously strong sense of paranoia, you realise about 60 minutes in that it also doesn’t have the guts to go the whole hog and kill any characters off. Injury and threat are the order of the day. This must have worked out adequately enough for a YA / Point Horror sleepover crowd back in the day. The ending is delightfully bonkers, involving a carousel in an attic and quite the left hook punch. An absolute juvenile cheesefest but, in its defence, I really don’t think anyone who greenlit The Crush was thinking they were going toe-to-toe with The Silence Of The Lambs.
5
Blast From The Past (1998)
Hugh Wilson directs Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone and Sissy Spacek in this fish-out-of-water comedy where a young(ish) man emerges from a nuclear bunker with Kennedy-era values looking for a wife in pre-millennium L.A..
After the post-Clueless stumbles of Batman & Robin and Excess Baggage, you could say some of the shine on the idea that Silverstone might be the next big box office draw had been rubbed away. It also didn’t help that a lot of dross made just before Clueless hit big was pumped out direct to video before she could find a workable vehicle. Hideaway with Jeff Goldblum is dark but cheap, while borderline soft porn (without much nudity) The Babysitter has to be one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. But if any project might have kept Silverstone in the game it would have been Blast From The Past. In the U.K. it was released without much fanfare. It is more a Brendan Fraser flick with “And Alicia Silverstone” playing the romantic interest. She’s actually a neat foil to Fraser – spiky, cute and with a decent degree of agency. It might be Fraser’s show,and the star of Encino Man, George Of the Jungle and Dudley Do-Right can do this man baffled by modernity shit in his sleep, but she adds value. Blast From the Past is the most solid example of him doing what he does. Sincere, blocky, naive goofball. He throws himself into his out-of-time nerd Adam with a decent aplomb and creates sweet vibes between himself and Silverstone. You want them to end up together right from the off and if this found its audience it might have positioned her as the natural inheritor of Meg Ryan and / or Julia Roberts’ mantle. Similar in tone, to Pleasantville with Reese Witherspoon but noticeably less focussed and often shoddily made and edited. This needed a more consistent director than the guy from the Police Academy movies… especially when it makes a lengthy hash of the first act. It feels like a considerable amount of time before this finds its groove and just is a gentle, light watch. Still, there’s enough good stuff here that it fills an evening with no real pressing demands on the viewer.
6
Scorched (2003)
Gavin Grazer directs Alicia Silverstone, Rachael Leigh Cook and Woody Harrelson in this crime caper where three disgruntled bank employees all separately decide to rip off their branch on the same weekend.
Very much a poor man’s Go, let’s not even mention Pulp Fiction. None of the three minor heists ever reach an individual crescendo and there is minimal overlap, which is mad, given the pregnant with possibilities elevator pitch. Silverstone is underserved but has a nice chemistry with the himbo she hooks up with for her score. Given a bit more room to breathe, and anything resembling peril, her segment might have been quite a lark… but you could say that about Woody Harrelson’s subplot also. Underwhelming, unfunny and only memorable when it is being brightly obnoxious. This was never going to course correct her career.
Gus Van Sant directs Matt Damon, Robin Williams and Ben Affleck in this Oscar winning drama about a working class orphan who cleans the floors at Harvard, and proves to be an advanced mathematics genius.
One of the finest non-genre movies ever made. Working class protagonist, and very much a closer representation of what its like to be on the cusp of adulthood as a young man than any other film has achieved. To wit, I cannot think of many that attempt it. The drinking, the driving around, the fights, the banter. That’s just a small part of the overall story but the sequences with Damon, Affleck, Casey his brother and Cole Hauser ring so true to me. Pubs used to close bang on 11 in West London. So me and my first real group of boozing buddies used to drive over to the local multiplex and keep drinking, stay out at whatever the midnight movie was showing. Boogie Nights, There’s Something About Mary, this. This… many times. Surprisingly There’s Something About Mary was the only one we got into a fight during.
Ben and Matt, then relative unknowns, childhood pals, wrote a script by ping pong-ing email drafts to each other from hotel rooms while on-location in indie features and sixth billed roles in forgotten studio product. The script became feted around Hollywood, passed across between Michael Mann (he wanted to make them car thieves), William Goldman (he advised them to drop a conspiracy thriller subplot, they listened), Kevin Smith and that dreaded Harvey Weinstein. Thanks to the beast they got to star in it, not that unusual, but this made them overnight A-Listers and perhaps the least likely Oscar Winners of their decade. Yet their movie is a modernist fairytale, any actors’ dream, romantic yet authentic, intelligent yet droll. It contains a forlorn yet magical score by Danny Elfman plus showcases some beautiful, mournful cuts from indie singer song-writer Elliot Smith. It is a glossy, flawless piece of cinema that retains an indie vibe and a wounding sense of reality. Probably closest in strange variety and overlooked prestige to The Shawshank Redemption… it is a work of art that somehow encompasses all the many flavours of big screen emotion without ever feeling like a discombobulated mish-mash of themes.
You could point to this craftsman or that technician to diagnose the how and why of Good Will Hunting’s qualities. Yet I suspect the script the boys slaved over was the golden ticket. It attracted talent. Top billed Robin Williams gives his finest performance. Better even than the genie in Aladdin. Pretty much everyone is given room to stun, breathe, stand-out. No character is without their moment of humanity or foible. There’s three iconic scenes. A preppy douche gets his ass handed to him when Will recites his course bibliography at him in a bar. A chat on a bench that is devastating. And, of course, “It is not your fault, Will.” All the beats in between the highlights have a literary energy, the kinda moments lesser movies would kill for.
There’s a constant unspoken homoeroticism to the movie. Obviously, Gus Van Sant was one of Hollywood first openly gay directors. This could be seen as gun-for-hire work. And maybe knowing his usually more transgressive cinema well means you look for clues of an auteurist vision a little too hard. But it is definitely there. There in a playground fight that lingers on the flexed muscles of young men. There in the sad, unspoken backstory of Robin Williams bereaved psychiatrist and Stellan Skarsgård’s pushy professor. Van Sant brings a masculine intimacy to the melodrama. Intimacy rather than maths, class, genius or trauma proves the ultimate theme. Will doesn’t just use his supernatural intelligence to improve his life. He is too self destructive for that. He uses it as a shield, a battering ram to protect him from growing to close to anyone. After a childhood of abuse and toughening up, it isn’t just the lofty academic world of M. I.T. he proves a fish-out-of-water in. It is everything. Relationships, romance, therapy. Good Will Hunting on the surface is the tale of the smartest kid in the room being the unlikeliest. But really its is about a violent young man, learning to open up to humans who might hurt him but won’t, and living a life less risk averse.
Dan Trachtenberg directs Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers and Michelle Thrush in this stealth prequel to the Predator franchise where a Comanche warrior proves her worth against the alien hunter.
I’ve perversely enjoyed all the Predator sequels so it might shock you to say I found this competent, adequate, maybe a little too classy. The untrained doggie who they just shot coverage of and found his performance in the edit, him I loved. The CGI animals I hated. Amber Midthunder carried her story successfully, relying on physicality. Yet the final showdown didn’t match that wild feeling of all hell breaking loose that has become the Predator hallmark even in the weaker episodes. Everything else hit the spot but didn’t light me up. Maybe I was a little overly tired to watch this on launch night, a subsequent revisit will tumble everything that is praiseworthy into position. I was entertained, I like the fact that the 18th century setting gave this episode a clean slate to work with, a sincere space to do its own thing. But in my heart of hearts I want cartoon yardies, comic book yakuzas and buddy movie Section 8s going up against the slime green blooded, one ugly muthafucka. Native Americans and colonial trappers feel a little too real world. Pirates? Yeah, now that’s an alternative history lesson I’m all ears for. As solid as Prey is, it lacks the carnage this particular franchise has primed me for. The best set piece involves a mire and a tomahawk yet I felt even it skipped that one last ratchet of desperation that truly makes these types of smaller scale salvos memorable. I know people are hard gushing on Prey, who admire its consistency, see it as a belated heir to the Arnie original. But I enjoyed Shane Black’s utterly incomprehensible attempt to rejig the mythology just as much. So I’m off to film jail, aren’t I?
Blistering on initial taste. Teenage Bobby Carroll had a blast going to see this. My fingernails were cutting into my palms by the all-out finale when I first watched it. It became a mainstay of my VHS and then DVD viewing habits for the next ten years. The colours pop, the cast is rammed, the biggest set-pieces totally OTT. As a jaded adult you realise there are problems, the script doesn’t really know what to do after it has fun getting all its pieces spectacularly on the board, for every good chunk of carnage there’s an undercooked excuse of action that feels like filler, you’d hardly be able to state in a court of law that the three lead performances gel. Connery is the winner, leaning into the “what if 007 had be incarcerated by the yanks for three decades” vibes with minimal grimacing. Cage is off the chain and you wouldn’t want him any other way. The totalitarian score by Hans Zimmer gets the heart thumping. So… it’s the over eager runt of the litter compared to Con Air and Face / Off… it still has the Friday Night Goods. “Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.”
7
Perfect Double Bill: 13 Hours The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2013)
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 