Clint Eastwood directs himself, Eduardo Minet and Natalia Traven in this road movie where a decrepit but nice former rodeo star crosses the border to kidnap his boss’ son and a fighting cock.
So boring. Slight and with some of the most “functional” acting we’ve seen lurking in a decent budgeted studio movie in years. Please don’t let this gentle muddle be Clint’s last. Let him go out on a Gran Torino or a The Mule.
Paul Schrader directs Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish and Tye Sheridan in this crime drama where an ex-con makes his money edging casinos using the tricks he learned during his incarceration.
The life of an obsessed puritan – journal keeping, extreme behaviour, strict personal code. We are in typical Schrader outsider territory. I notice the marketing materials completely missed out the massive Abu Ghraib subplot – this dominates the movie as it pushes further ahead. You forget you are watching a “The Hustler” style gambling flick long before the close.
Pablo Larraín directs Kristen Stewart, Sean Harris and Timothy Spall in this arty character study of Princess Diana, exploring her difficult last Christmas within the Royal family before she separates from Charles.
Finally we get the movie and role that matches Stewart’s talent and big screen thrall. She and whispering Sean Harris give Oscar worthy turns here. In fact everything technical about Spencer is impeccable; from Jonny Greenwood‘s demented genre-hopping score, Jacqueline Durran’s onslaught of costumes and Claire Mathon’s grainy, Kodak snap style cinematography. The influences are all over the shop but The Shining and Rosemary’s Baby and Lynch feel the most acute. This is gothic horror. A woman trapped in herself, haunted by an old version of herself… a past decision caging her from being her true self. A repressive family hounding her every thought, sexual urge and moment of individuality. Gothic horror with dance montages. We start with her lost in the landscape she grew up in and slowly she breaks free by rattling through the regime and musty forgotten wings and protocol. The ending is orgasmic – like an Eighties teen college movie with the rest of the cast looking either inspired or shaking their fist in the air as Diana gains her agency and escapes to a bit of soft rock. There’s something truly unabashed by the Ford Mondeo “find yourself” commercial shamelessness of finishing something so measured and artful on an extended moment of pop. Not every directorial decision lands quite so well but this is a movie taking big daring swings between biopic, ghost story, Shakespearean tragedy and kitsch fashion show. You gotta admire that moxy. As for it being Stewart’s towering achievement… mission accomplished. I don’t care about the Windsors one little jot and I fully engaged with Spencer. Though one can also approach it as an unofficial Twilight epilogue; the young wife realising her marriage into a family of closeted, cold, cult members has stunted her true self… which then sees she her breaking free from their vampiric customs to re-embrace the life she gave up before immortality. Just saying.
Garry Marshall directs Julia Roberts, Richard Gere and Joan Cusack in this romcom where a journalist investigates a small town girl who keeps dumping men at the altar… only for him to fall for her during the run-up to her next potential big day.
A big release back in the day as it essentially was marketed as an indirect sequel to Pretty Woman. Same team, same vibe, and in true 1990s Hollywood fashion, eventually 60% of the original’s box office take. The studio and talent walked away with a decent payday. Audiences less so. The bloated, listlessness of it all certainly is not Roberts fault. She excels within her wheelhouse; the smile, the legs, the laugh are all trotted out. Gere feels out of place… he’s no Cary Grant or Billy Crystal or Kevin Kline. He struggles with the decent jokes and definitely can’t cover up the bad ones. The film ambles along, relying on a deep ensemble of supports, none of whom really justify their often over qualified presence. Marshall likes a nice busy cast so he can mix up his reaction shots and toppers but it ends up a little too overcrowded here. Everyone seems stifled by everyone else and the inherent cynicism of the project allows very little for us to do but groan about the mechanics of it all. Undemanding but almost begrudgingly so.
Takeshi Kitano directs Claude Maki, Hiroko Oshima and Susumu Terajima in this Japanese surfing movie.
A deaf mute bin man finds a discarded surf board and decides to take the sport up. A very sweet romance ensues, gilded by a wonderful Joe Hisaishi score. Clearly a labour of love for Beat Takeshi, this is indicative of his non-yakuza output. Highly recommended.
Geoff Murphy directs Bruno Lawrence, Alison Routledge and Peter Smith in this New Zealand sci-fi movie where a man wakes up to discover he is seemingly the last man on Earth.
Another cult gem knocked off my watchlist. More humanist and literate than, say, a Mad Max movie… this shows a gentle apocalypse. Probably has more in common with Don McKellar’s Last Night with its satirical / metaphysical vision of the end of humanity. Geoff Murphy lenses this like it is a far more expensive project… you can see why Hollywood snapped him up to direct sequels and serve as 2nd Unit helmer on endeavours like The Lord of the Rings.
Peter Yates directs Tom Selleck, F Murray Abraham and Laila Robins in this prison thriller where Magnum is framed and sent to prison, after some initial squeamishness he becomes a man not to be fucked with and then looks to clear his name.
Solid star. Solid direction. Infantile screenplay with discombobulating lurches into a far nastier (and realistic?) tone. Works better as a poor man’s The Fugitive than as a yuppie honky’s nightmare. David Rasche plays an unstable dirty cop and somehow makes a sloppily written heavy role quite charismatic. Not the best Saturday night at the movies, the cocaine deal subplot is more convincing in Three Men and A Baby.
Simon Langton directs Michael Caine, James Fox and Nigel Havers in this British espionage thriller where Michael Caine’s old boy done good investigates his son’s death.
A bit confused and confusing until the middle point when Caine finally takes centre stage. Even then it barely raises the pulse. Talks a lot but with nothing new to say.
Richard Loncraine directs Paul Bettany, Kirsten Dunst and Sam Neill in this tennis based rom-com.
No idea why I’m so fond of this one over other equally rote confections. Obviously Dunst is a personal favourite but she gets a little less of the limelight than you’d expect. Bettany isn’t entirely comfortable being positioned as the next Hugh Grant… he’s a spikier, slightly less suave presence. The sport movie aspect dominates the second half and is well served. So despite a very Richard Curtis-y vibe of swearing poshos and chocolate box London, this feels like a slightly more palatable evolution of its most obvious influence. Nice to see a movie where the couple start off having sex like adults and feelings develop beyond the mutual attraction. Listen, it just works.
M. Night Shyamalan directs Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix and Abigail Breslin in this alien invasion sci-fi siege flick told from one family’s perspective.
Crop circles. Foil hats. Night terrors. A Fortean corker. Minimalist in the very best way, part of the joy is how Shyamalan uses every trick in the book to evade showing you anything too tangible before the denouement. Everyone in the cast and crew is firing on all cylinders but special praise has to go to James Newton Howard’s homage to Bernard Hermann. Hitchcock’s The Birds is as big an influence here as War or the Worlds. You can approach it as a perfectly calibrated shocker. Or as treatise on faith and family. Either take works grandly. Afterwards you feel like you’ve experienced a proper movie, one so literate and enthralling that you don’t feel guilty for whiling away 100 minutes on it at all. It is a pleasure to watch something so confident in just being what it is.
