Shawn Levy directs Ashton Kutcher, Brittany Murphy and Christian Kane in this romantic comedy where a nightmare honeymoon destroys a couples’ happy relationship.
Blunt force trauma fluff – won’t even satisfy its lowest common denominator target audience. Murphy sparkles with minimal support but she can’t save a vacation movie that even The Griswolds would find dumb and far fetched.
The Coen Brothers direct Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan and John Goodman in this Sixties set drama following a feckless folk singer as he tries to find his place in the world, as a solo artist, after he loses his partner.
Lots to love here but not quite as perfect as I remember from its big screen release. The idea of Joel and Ethan in entropy, to the point of separation, was inconceivable back in 2013. Even with the rare and occasional iffy one in their back catalogue. Now it is hard to watch this without wondering if even subconsciously we are seeing them work through what creative divorce proceedings might look like. Or like all the symbolism and dropped stitches in a Coen Brothers joint, whether it is just included for their own personal amusement and now history has taken over and, the unthinkable happened, and they take a break from working together. The mournful tone, accentuated by guest cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, wintery, makes this their saddest, bleakest film… even more so than No Country For Old Men or Barton Fink. They are both pulsed with a mordant sense of playfulness… this is just unremarkable tragedy after unremarkable tragedy, grinding us and our untethered anti-hero down. The constant refrain of the funereal folk ear worm, Far Thee Well, smooths the sadness. Is the song a suicide note from a beloved brother in music or a deadly Dear John from a departing lover? Oscar Issac’s gives a poker faced performance. Turning the potentially rejectable and difficult Llewyn into a being whose malaise you truly invest in. He gets a glimpse of how random, cruel, lonely and fated his world is and will be. Yet he ploughs his furrow, selfishly. Like The Coens themselves, a unique path of great art, that it is hard to “see a lot of money” in. Keep carrying that cute cat Llewyn, watch the world go by at a speed you can’t fathom, and jump up off at any stop that doesn’t feel like home. There’s always a parallel you, caught in an even more destructive path, one who always has Llewyn Davis to blame.
Tommy Lee Wallace directs Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin and Dan O’Herlihy in this horror spin-off, unrelated to The Shape saga, where a doctor investigates the horrific going ons around a popular Halloween mask making company; Silver Shamrock.
“It’s almost time, kids. The clock is ticking. Be in front of your TV sets for the Horrorthon, followed by the Big Giveaway. Don’t miss it. And don’t forget to wear your masks. The clock is ticking. It’s almost time.”
People think I’m being contrary when I say this is my favourite Halloween but there is so much I love. The intensity of the countdown to Samhain. The basement hanger with an ancient secret… Quatermass and The Stone Tapes creator Nigel Kneale wrote the first draft of this. Isn’t an advert kinda like a spell casting? Tom Atkins’ drink driving, ass pinching everyday hero. The horny atmosphere generated entirely from his big white fluffy moustache and his pockmarked skin. The automaton henchmen and their matter of fact deaths. The last moment twist about a certain character. The hysteria of the final scene – real Siegel Invasion Of the Body Snatcher vibes. Just how nasty the masks are when triggered. Dean Cundey’s rich primary colour lighting. Dan O’Herlihy blarney fuelled smooth fanatic. The fact this would make an excellent “My First Horror Flick” for any and all pre-teens… I picked the skeleton mask this year.
“No more days ’til Halloween/ Halloween/ Halloween/ No more days ’til Halloween/ Silver Shamrock. No more days ’til Halloween/ Halloween/ Halloween/ No more days ’til Halloween/ Silver Shamrock.”
Patrick Brice directs Sydney Park, Jesse LaTourette and Theodore Pellerin in this teen slasher where high school students with dark secrets are made to face their true selves before meeting grisly ends.
Mistitled… very little home invasion action. A win for representation and buzz topics but everything else is wet, loose and unsatisfying.
Joe Penna directs Anna Kendrick, Toni Collette and Daniel Dae Kim in this space thriller where a three astronaut mission to Mars is thrown into jeopardy when a fourth person is found on board meaning their tight resources to survive will no longer last the journey.
Norm MacDonald and Jeff Tomsic direct Norm MacDonald, Adam Sandler and Dave Chapelle in this stand-up special filmed via Zoom in the dying comedian’s hallway.
Self taped as he knew he was on the way out, and still deadpan as fuck. The always fantastic Norm records his last few routines for posterity. Most of the material has been aired on podcast and guest show appearances before. And the audience-less home working location does the less rigorous bits few favours. I wasn’t a fan of the celebrity round table tacked on at the end – as everyone who struggled to speak felt too raw and humbled to really contribute. But it is nice to have one last artefact from this comedy great.
Romain Gavras directs Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane and Anthony Bajon in this French action drama where a project is laid under siege during the protest of a youth’s death at the hands of the police.
Amazing no cuts opener – Mad Max: Fury Road but gritty, urban. Histrionic and spectacular throughout. But by the end you can’t help but think some serious issues have been boiled down to perfume advert visuals. Lacks the intensity and verisimilitude of its forebears.
Guy Ritchie directs Nick Moran, Vinnie Jones and Jason Statham in this British gangster comedy where various crews and toughs work at cross purposes to nick each other’s scores and obliviously quadruple cross each other.
Much like Jaws and Star Wars are somewhat unfairly maligned as heralding the death of New American Cinema from within, Lock, Stock can somewhat accurately be linked as the early demise of the resurgence of British popular cinema that occurred in the Nineties. Not the only factor… but a significant factor. By 1992 UK homegrown product was in the doldrums – Merchant Ivory, a doomed revival of Carry On, Michael Winner and Loach / Leigh. These were the only productions that troubled an ABC, and that’s if your local fleapit was lucky. It was the year of the lowest ratio ever of British films released in British cinemas. And then came a slew of younger directors and producers keen to make genre films rather than period films, movies worth going to with your mates rather than movies with the only selling point being a social conscience. Bhaji On the Beach, Shallow Grave, Four Weddings (the other culprit), The Young Americans, Shopping, Trainspotting, The Full Monty… In a few swift years, the national film scene was back in rude health. Then Lock Stock came along riding the crest of that wave and a perfect storm occurred.
Lottery funding kicked in, Cool Britannia kicked in, the lad mags kicked in and suddenly those who greenlit movies knew exactly where to deposit their dosh… mockney gangster flicks with ensemble casts and chocolate box posho rom-coms. And nothing else. All the true talent had fucked off to Hollywood pretty sharpish anyways. Is it Guy Ritchie and Matthew Vaughn’s fault that their movie captured the zeitgeist so well that they obliterated an emerging subculture with their dominant strain of posturing caper? A little bit of blame can be left at their doors. These weren’t struggling artists who got lucky. They were well connected and well funded old boys who networking and wealth positioned their debut into a victory that emerging voices like Shane Meadows or Antonia Bird could only dream of. When Lock, Stock was released it was given the push of a blockbuster. I remember the biggest billboards in London being dominated by its advertising for months. Every magazine and broadsheet was plastered with articles and posters and profiles. That might happen for the latest Tarantino or the next James Cameron actioner but the shoestring debut of an alright crime comedy…?? Some serious backhanders must have happened, the journos were definitely in bed with them (student bedsit or boarding school bunks, hey, chaps?). The PR spend for Lock, Stock to become a phenomenon was unfair. Criminal, even.
The movie itself now only holds up in fits and starts. It is a lark… has some nice moments but looks cruddy. The needle drops are obvious. The first time actors like Statham and Jones make better impressions than the proper trained thesps like Moran (who really makes for a poor protagonist.) I like the energy but it goes on a good twenty minutes too long. It has never met a dated stereotype it didn’t lean hard into. Having said that – the framework for your superior Snatches, Revolvers, Rock’N’Rollers and The Gentlemens are here. As a rough draft of a form Ritchie would perfect and Vaughn would swiftly abandon, I respect its place in multiplex history. But then you also have to include your Rancid Aluminums and Circuses into the debit column of it cultural wake and tally. We are all fond of this kinda comic strip criminality but it got kicked to death by lazy imitations very quickly. Around the same time Lock Stock was produced, Loaded magazine serialised Get Carter as a monthly comic strip. This feels like that idea regurgitated out into the processor and blended. The Italian Job as The Bash Street Kids. The Dandy equivalent of Pulp Fiction. Carry On Scorsese. I don’t know if that swells your gonads but it does less and less for me as I get older and wiser.
David R. Ellis directs Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten and Mykelti Williamson in this tired sequel to the elaborate industrial death curse franchise.
A bunch of no names suffer the least memorable deaths of the series. The CGI inserts, bunged in to make this 3D, can’t even stretch proceedings out to a respectable feature length running time, and look cheap and nasty.
George Stevens directs Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean in this epic drama following a cattle baron who loses his grip on his massive Texan spread once oil is discovered by a rival.
Academy award winning Giant is a biiiiig movie. Weighing in at over 3 hours. And it ain’t perfect. The middle act is baggy. We barely get used to who the stars are playing, what they are about, and then the march of time takes over. Liz, Rock and Jimmy seem sidelined by their ever changing children and fortunes. We only spend meaningful time with them while they argue, shriek at each other wearing very basic ageing make-up. Then then last hour seems like the final season of a long running soap (Dallas, Dynasty, etc) rolled into one night. Pathetic fallacy goes into overdrive. Topics like racism, sexism and manifest destiny are skirted over. Yet in its finest moments (the ones where Liz, Rock and / or Jimmy are the centre) it really seduces. This is a dark tragedy told with a technicolour sweep. Really classy, but also camp, overwrought. Mercedes McCambridge and Carroll Baker both put in compelling shorter shifts, the kind that would steal normal length movies. Dean is a strange presence for the duration, but not an unwelcome one. Mannered but not as mumbly as you might expect. The punch ups that close this are stretched and histrionic. You really do feel like a violent judgment on American capitalism has been made, one that has painstakingly evidenced all the years and pigheadedness that got us to this crisis point. Giant is unwieldy, sometimes slightly weird for something so straight, and I adored swathes of it.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 