Ridley Scott directs Tom Berenger, Mimi Rogers and Lorraine Bracco in this thriller where a rookie NYC detective is assigned guard duty for a beautiful socialite who has witnessed a murder.
As a thriller, pretty basic. Ridley makes sure this looks fantastic, turning the upper east side into a fantasia of mirrors and beams of diffused light. Yet this never can overcome the fact that no man would ever cheat on Lorraine Bracco. Stretches credulity to suggest so.
Alfred Hitchcock directs Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin and Karin Dor in this spy thriller where a French diplomat tries to avert the Cuban Missile Crisis and uncover a Soviet Spy Ring embedded in his government.
Dry and unfocused. This feels like pretty weak tea, stewed yet watery, especially in the age of James Bond and Harry Palmer. Hitch struggles to make us care about characters without A-List stars at his disposal, though Dany Robin as the capable wife makes a good impression… then she is sidelined for the middle hour… whoops! It trots the globe but rarely feels exotic. A near silent, stretched out defection prologue sets things up nicely. There’s a good set piece in a New York hotel occupied by the Cuban delegation (one of many where the hero has minimal involvement?!) and a glorious shot where a glamorous lady is executed. Considering this is over two hours plus long though that is really picking the bones of the carcass to find any meat worth tasting. A rare misfire.
Brian De Palma directs John Lithgow, Lolita Davidovich and Steven Bauer in this meta-thriller where a child psychologist lives a life of multiple personalities, some deadly; meanwhile his wife rekindles an affair.
Batshit mental… but a lorra lorra of larks. I haven’t watched this in over 30 years but nearly all of the tricksy, showy showy set pieces have remained lodged in my memory banks ever since then. It is a strong flavour. You really need to not care about the plot and traditional, rational, storytelling to enjoy it. De Palma revisits Hitchcock’s Psycho and Vertigo and his own Dressed To Kill and just dicks around in them relentlessly. We get a dream sequence full of shocks and reboots. A finale that flat-out remixes one of his finest set pieces in The Untouchables. And that Steadicam exposition scene, where even the expert gets lost in the physical twists and turns, is a hoot. So Raising Cain is an exercise, is pure celluloid tomfoolery, with nothing new to say. I reckon if this was your first De Palma experience it would either blow you away or turn you off him for life. It makes for a discombobulating Saturday night. And Davidovich and Lithgow are really good sports throughout.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa directs Yū Aoi, Issey Takahashi and Masahiro Higashide in this Japanese period espionage drama where a wife begins to suspect her well to do husband of treachery against the state.
A couple of neat minor set pieces but the digital lensing of the 1940s setting looks really ugly. Which is a shame as some of the detailing and the casting would be quite handsome. Not one of the usually fascinating Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s more interesting works.
Nigel Wingrove directs Louise Downie, Elisha Scott and Dan Fox in this short erotic fantasy where Saint Teresa of Ávila dreams of getting jiggy with the body of Jesus on the cross.
Banned in the U.K. by the BBFC for its blasphemous content, a school teacher (and freedom of speech campaigner) lost his job for selling VHS copies of this from his car boot. It mainly exists as a provocation. But it looks well made and can be quite sexy… if overly repetitive. Expect lots of milky flesh lingered on and writhing. Only really important historically rather than artistically.
Jonas Poher Rasmussen directs Amin Nawabi, Belal Faiz and himself in this animated documentary telling the personal experience of one gay man’s Afghanistanchildhood as a refugee and being people trafficked.
Important story, very worthy of being told but not particularly what I want from a lazy afternoon on a couch surfing Disney +. Felt very much like eating my greens.
Michael Mann directs Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx and Jada Pinkett Smith in this thriller where a hitman hijacks a taxi driver’s night in L.A. forcing him to participate in a series of “jobs”.
Jamie Foxx is one of those movie stars that I don’t particularly rate who is somehow the lead in a lot of brilliant movies. I haven’t crunched the data but at a glance maybe the most 4 and 5 star films of someone whose name alone cannot get me to buy a ticket on opening weekend. He isn’t a great actor, his charisma seems plastic and there’s not even a signature type of role you could claim is truly his. He’s one of two weak links here. Neither fatal but both hobble this on belated rewatch. The other is the overreaching third act. Yet this still has lots to recommend it. Tom Cruise’s icy and memorable villain. The streets of L.A. captured in a way no filmmaker had before. Some intense small-scale action – that night club carnage, for example. Not perfect but still very enjoyable.
Cedric Nicolas-Troyan directs Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Miku Martineau and Woody Harrelson in this action flick where a hot assassin protects a young girl.
Nicolas Pesce directs Christopher Abbott, Mia Wasikowska and Laia Costa in this indie thriller romantic comedy where a family man’s attempt to give over to the voices in his mad head, and kill a prostitute, leads to him falling for his victim.
Struggling to remember much about this little over a week later. It had a strong visual sensibility done on the cheap, Abbot is a blank lead, Wasikowska deserves better. Tries for bad taste but is pretty uneventful.
Mike Nichols directs Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and George Segal in this adaptation of Edward Albee’s famous play about a warring middle-aged couple who play mind games with each other and their houseguests.
I’ve seen this on the stage and now I’ve seen the lauded film. The performances are uniformly grand if a little bold and embossed. Sandy Dennis is probably the best of the four and least well known. The attempts to open up the theatre production are clunky though. And, somewhat pointedly, this shrieking, raging, overwraught constant isn’t pleasurable to watch four people maintain for two hours. The production history is more fun than the end result. According to IMDB… While Richard Burton and Dame Elizabeth Taylor were forces to be reckoned with while they were working, it was a challenge to actually get them in front of the camera every day. They both had it in their contracts that they didn’t have to be on the set until 10:00 a.m., even though most other productions began at dawn. After they arrived on set, it would take two hours of make-up, hair and wardrobe to get them ready for shooting and by the time they were camera ready, it was lunch time. They would often go off for lengthy cocktail-filled lunches, often with friends, and then return late in the afternoon to finally begin shooting. “When they finally came back late”, recalled editor Sam O’Steen, “they’d just ignore it all, be real nice. ‘Hey, Mike, old buddy, sorry we’re late. Okay, let’s shoot!’ Sometimes they wouldn’t come back until five o’clock and they had in their contract that they couldn’t work past six o’clock.”
