Tran Anh Hung directs Kenichi Matsuyama, Rinko Kikuchi and Kiko Mizuhara in this adaptation of the modern Japanese classic by Haruki Murakami about a student in the Sixties who cannot settle on the right girl.
Suicide. Sex. Solitude. Quite a blank, literal (but not literary) take on the source material. Toru Watanabe is quite a feckless and passive lead character… you wouldn’t call him a protagonist… and without his internal monologue his motivations are unfathomable. You end up snoozing through him not really making it with a series of fascinating but doomed young women with no real idea how one scene connects to the next. The emphasis is all wrong, but I only know that as I’ve read the novel… that shouldn’t be a prerequisite for any cinematic adaptation. Kiko Mizuhara’s winning Midori pretty much salvages this.
Gavin Millar directs Coral Browne, Ian Holm and Peter Gallagher in this British drama film where Alice Liddell, an elderly lady who was once the inspiration for Alice In Wonderland, travels to the USA to make a public appearance.
Peculiar little film based on a Dennis Potter screenplay. Three strands – an ageing Alice in the 1930s, landing in New York, her mind going, the press hounding her and her young companion falling for a journalist looking to exploit the situation. Strand two – flashbacks to Lewis Carroll creating the classic story and trying to suppress his clear infatuation with a precocious child. Strand 3 – A grotesque recreation of major scenes from the book using Jim Henson created puppets. Does it all work? Rarely. But it is a controversial and brave attempt to reconcile the distasteful origins of a long beloved tale.
The Coen Brothers direct Frances McDormand, John Getz and Dan Hedaya in this Neo-Noir where a dangerous businessman learns his trophy wife is having an affair with one of his bartenders.
An excellent M. Emmet Walsh was paid cash every day. The Coens avoided showing Frances McDormand the meticulous storyboards they had paid for as the artist they had hired kept drawing her character in the nude. This is very much a calling card debut. A promise of things to come. While Blood Simple doesn’t hold a candle to their best work, the set pieces have the same mordant sense of humour and bold style as later masterpieces. Frances McDormand and the soundtrack make the movie. There’s definitely something extra encrypted into the imagery that you could pull your hair out trying to fathom. Dead fish on an office desk. The under workings of a sink. The Coens have been curve balling us for over 30 years with this kinda deliberate but elusive nonsense.
7
Perfect Double Bill: The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)
Gregory Hoblit directs Diane Lane, Colin Hanks and Billy Burke in this serial killer thriller where a Cyber Crimes cop needs to stop a maniac who is broadcasting his torturous murders on the worldwide web.
Slick and nasty. This is a Saw and Se7en imitator with very little going for it outside of Lane’s commitment to react classily to the grim set pieces and a couple of serviceable red herrings.
David Cronenberg directs Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams and Martin Sheen in this Stephen King adaptation where a mild mannered school teacher wakes up from a coma with clairvoyant powers.
Walken as a Regular Joe (kinda). Cronenberg without anything that inseminates or pulsates. King going for chilling rather than out and out terror. Nobody is working in their natural wheelhouse. Yet this chimes together quite nicely. It is episodic in its structure but that works well. The finale is satisfying, the wintery, dour tone fitting. Sheen makes for a fine political scumbag, the black mirror image of his saintly President Jed in The West Wing. A movie that always impresses me on each revisit.
Peter Hyams directs Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren and Bob Balaban in this space adventure sequel where American and Russian crews journey to the moons of Jupiter to recover HAL and the Discovery One only for the Cold War on Earth to reach an apocalyptic escalation.
Kubrick had no interest in making a sequel to his 1968 classic, so Outland director Hyams found himself in the catbird seat. He sought Kubrick’s blessing, over a lengthy phone call he was quizzed by the master on his use of lenses in previous movies. At the end of the conversation Hyams asked if he had permission to continue the story. “Sure. Go do it. I don’t care.” Stanley must have on some levels though as all set and props and space vehicle miniatures were destroyed on wrap. Kubrick didn’t want to see them turn up in a Planet Of the Apes sequel or a Star Trek rip-off.
Arthur C Clarke was more enthused about the project. He and Hyams set up an email link to each other so they could correspond daily without distance and time zones impeding themselves. That may not seem radical now but back then such communication only existed between science academics at their universities. The high profile correspondence between Los Angeles and Sri Lanka possibly nudged the future a little closer to how we live in it. This was probably the first time email was mentioned in the mainstream media, a curious string to the PR buzz created in the build up to release. One that might have triggered the commercial application of such a global communication tool into various corporate executives and computer developers thoughts.
The blockbuster itself is a strange beast. Often slavishly faithful to the original. The speed is quicker but we aren’t talking Star Wars’ litany of cliffhangers, stately and prestigious are the order of the day. Whereas Kubrick’s original was often dialogue free, this is a talky piece. Everything is made explicit. The set-pieces are bombastic. Scheider and Mirren are full blooded personalities, rather than the blank non-entities that we were stuck with the first trip out. It ends on a message of hope, the nihilism is sucked out through every airlock. In many ways the film undoes everything Stanley achieved, yet it never feels disrespectful to its source. Did I watch this as a kid? I’m sure I would have found it boring. As an adult it entertains far more than 2001, yet you can’t exactly get excited about the something that is such a sturdy, accessible tribute. Maybe I’m not the best person to judge it, given my contrary relationship with 2001.
Éric Rohmer directs Haydée Politoff, Patrick Bauchau and Daniel Pommereulle in this French comedy where two pretentious bachelors go to their vacation home in the South of France, only to be joined by a sexually free young lady who plays them off against each other.
Slight and languid but I have gotten used to the pace of Rohmer’s whims now. Plays with gender nicely, looks as warm and as appealing as freshly baked bread.
Nora Fingscheidt directs Sandra Bullock, Vincent D’Onofrio and Viola Davis in this thriller where a woman who has served her time as a cop killer struggles with the an outside world that is openly hostile to her.
Based on a British mini-series and that is possibly the reason why it gets bogged down in a glut of unnecessary characters. Still keeps the gritty pressure on Bullock, who is fine outside of her comfort zone. There’s a surfeit of talent hired to make it all work but I doubt the finished product will be at the forefronts of anyone’s memory banks in even a few years time.
Tobe Hooper directs Elizabeth Berridge, Kevin Conway and William Finley in this slasher movie where four horny teens unleash carnival-set horror.
I don’t care how much you want to tit up a senior… you don’t stay in this carnival overnight by choice?! Starts with a prologue that is a spoof of Halloween and Psycho. Let’s you know three things right off the bat… 1. Don’t take this too seriously. 2. It knows the target audience. 3. It is gonna be tonally and structurally as messy as an overflowing bin at a funfair on Sunday night. And I appreciate all that about this forgotten gem. The first half is pretty much a creepy but accurate trip around a travelling show. Sleazy shenanigans, distasteful but fascinating. You can taste the dirty cotton candy. Then the horror kicks in but its a little chunk of everything… slasher movie, monster movie, parody, Southern Gothic, child’s nightmare. It all works, just very random. Yet for sustained atmosphere you don’t find much this seedy and this bonkers and this haphazard outside of Giallo. Hooper’s The Funhouse is… fun. Probably his best movie after TCM. Berridge is very winning as a final girl in every aspect.
Robert De Niro directs himself, Chazz Palminteri and Lillo Brancato, Jr. in this period coming-of-age drama where a New York youth needs to decide between the values of his hard working father and the glamorous neighbourhood mob boss who takes him under his wing.
“The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.” Watched this to death as a teenager, bought it as a ‘Big Box’ Ex-Rental VHS. Still have a genuine and somehow still growing and growing fondness for it. Deceptively simple. Landing somewhere between Goodfellas and Stand By Me. Just rich with perfectly handled moments. Doo-Wop quartets on the corner. Pestering the fruit and veg man. A shooting “over a parking spot.” The police forcing you to snitch, looking up at all those murderous faces when you are just a little kid, no one sure if the kid will do the right thing, everyone knowing what the consequences are if he does. Nail biting. Jimmy Whispers. Eddie Mush. Frankie Coffee Cake. After seeing Chazz Palminteri’s one man theatre show De Niro wanted to direct it. He paid the money for the rights and made a gentleman’s agreement with Chazz the creator on who should play the gangster and adapt it for the big screen… but only if he, the A-Lister, could be the less showy family man, Lorenzo. Now Palminteri smashes his role as Sonny… but you can see why De Niro wanted to perform as the bus driver. One of his best turns – he exudes warmth, frustration and pragmatism. One of the most memorable movie Dads ever, a telly channel should have made a tradition of showing this every Father’s Day. A game of craps where the most annoying players are relegated to toilets. Lots of humour. Even the scariest, most intense characters get moments of grace and levity.
“I was getting two educations: One from the street and one from school. That way I’d be twice as smart as everybody.” The Dad and the surrogate face off in a scene pregnant with danger. We leap to 17. A sweet interracial romance. Eddie Mush goes to the racetrack. “You don’t even like him. There’s your answer right there. Look at it this way: It costs you 20 dollars to get rid of him… He’s out of your life for 20 dollars. You got off cheap. Forget him.” Street violence. Satan’s Messengers go into the wrong bar = even more violence. Baby Herc from The Wire selling guns.
“You’re only allowed three great women in your lifetime. They come along like the great fighters, every ten years.” The door lock test to true love. Molotov cocktails. A face in the crowd. My Cameo Vinny. What a movie! Manly, emotionally mature, full of great advice for young boys growing up on how to be themselves in the world.
