Akira Kurosawa directs Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao and Jinpachi Nezu in this epic where in medieval Japan, an elderly warlord retires, handing over his kingdom to one son to the dissatisfaction of all three.
Mythical in terms of its scale and intent. The pace is alien. Cynical and adult in a way that big period blockbusters from the West just aren’t. An empire crumbles into fairytale chaos. Watch palaces and minds burn to ruin.
Kathryn Bigelow directs Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson and Tracy Letts in this political thriller which follows the government and military handling a nuclear attack from three different perspectives.
Starts very strong. I guess the calm and clear cut professionalism of the first spin is the point. The higher up the political food chain we go the less prepared and decisive the response is. It is an exciting piece of filmmaking that makes a controversial formal choices. One that I have mixed feelings about. Also, it doesn’t really cover too much new ground than Fail Safe from 60 years ago.
Howard Hawks directs John Barrymore, Carole Lombard and Walter Connolly in this pre-code screwball comedy about a cruel Broadway theatre director trying to cast the ingenue he made into a star for one make-or-break production.
I could have taken it or left it until we get on the train and all hell breaks loose. A farce where everyone talks a mile a minute. There isn’t a lot of heart here.
Alejandro Amenábar directs Ana Torrent, Fele Martínez and Eduardo Noriega in this Spanish thriller where a film student realises a snuff movie maker is lurking the halls of the her university.
Good solid debut movie in the tradition of Brian De Palma. A bird of a feather with Shallow Grave, Night Watch, Mute Witness and three dozen French releases in this decade. That’s Scotland, Denmark, Russia and now Spain all tooling around in these bleak, self aware youthful Hitchcockian homages in the 90s. I’m guessing the true root source for all these calling card chillers that flirt with horror and meta is actually The Vanishing (1988, Dutch). George Sluizer paved the way for everything else. Amenábar is an ambitious director but this one spins its wheels before the denouement for way too long. Sacrificing the sleazy immoral atmosphere of constant unease. Two mid section set pieces in the pitch black darkness are the strongest stuff. Which is ironic given Thesis is all about looking and seeing and watching.
Richard Fleischer directs Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasence in this sci-fi adventure where a submarine and its crew are shrunk and injected into a dying Cold War scientist’s bloodstream in order to save him.
Fond memories of watching this as a kid but it is quite turgid now. Only the final five minutes have any sense of urgency. The entire male crew are all sexist towards Raquel too. Yeah yeah… she is supposed to be eye candy but you don’t need to keep verbally pointing it out when there is only an hour to save the dude you are in! Focus, lads! The Star Trek era FX are quirky and pleasing. If ever there was a concept due a modern remake it was this.
Tim Mielants directs Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh and Emily Watson in this Irish drama where a quiet family man is disturbed by the harsh cruelty everyone seemingly turns a blind eye to around his home town.
A deceptively simple character study that wordlessly dripfeeds us ‘everything’ without telling us much. The way we enter Bill’s viewpoint without ever explicitly hearing him put his growing dismay into words is profoundly powerful. Almost more engaging for being stoic. The ending will frustrate some viewers, it ends where many movie’s second acts would only begin. But we know what a tough road he has chosen to go down and even deciding on a course of action is the victory in the face of communal apathy and hopelessness. Emily Watson is believably terrifying in this. Maybe they should have saved her for just that one big scene?
Rob Reiner directs River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton and Corey Feldman in this period teen classic.
1959. Four lads walk through the woods over a summer weekend to get to see the dead body of another kid everyone is looking for. Like Star Wars and Ghostbusters, this movie always seemed to just exist in my house as a child. A mainstay, a lodestar. As familiar as the dining table and the mesh fire guard. Probably helped that my parents loved Motown and my sister fancied the boys. Maybe just River… Who knows? He acts his socks off in this one. Tough and tender, jaded and calm. It is a very morbid film even without the spectre of its rising star’s congruous young passing. Death and grief and finality looms over every interaction. An end-of-childhood movie we used to enjoy for the swearing, the train tracks, the pie eating contest and the leaches. Now it feels so much deeper and humane. A weepie for Gen X boys and Smash Hits girls. It has that Norman Rockwell meets The Great American Novel vibe that Stephen King gives when he takes a step away over to the soft edges of horror. Reiner helped define what a Stephen King drama should taste like. No one has jumped the rails on the visual simplicity and honest lived in nostalgic detail he established here. Possibly Darabont improved on this model in The Shawshank Redemption but that behemoth has the advantage of scale and maturity. After Stand By Me it is fair to say all Stephen King adaptations were informed by Reiner’s totemic vision, undeniably in debt to its texture and atmosphere in a way that De Palma, Kubrick and Cronenberg never laid out.
Stephen Chbosky directs Vince Vaughn, Linda Cardellini and Susan Sarandon in this comedy about a grieving son who invests all his assets into a start-up restaurant where old grandmas cook food like ‘Nonna’ used to make.
Saccharine sweet movie. There ain’t much to it to fill two hours but a good cast and a slather of lustre on top of the true story that inspired it. Without this particular ensemble (Sarandon, Bracco, Shire, Vaccaro… hell… even Drea de Matteo) it would be definitely be quite dull. Don’t watch it hungry or cynically. Also, while I haven’t searched the internet to confirm, I’m betting a crisp twenty there is a porn parody of this. And if such a thing does exist I bet another twenty it is only a sensible 90 minutes in length.
Craig Brewer directs Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson and Ella Anderson in this unlikely biopic of Lightning and Thunder, a Milwaukee husband and wife Neil Diamond tribute act.
Craig Brewer is one of the unsung highlights of modern American cinema. His movies are bawdy, silly, hard hitting and set in the real world. He understands the right combination of grit and glitter, tears and triumph. He is almost an anathema to what the streamers and the wide releases want to churn out… yet his tough little melodramas are crowd pleasers. He also seemingly adores musical performance. Brewer hadn’t made a dull flick yet even as gun-for-hire. This is his best work so far… the utterly unpredictable true story is glued together by Jackman and Hudson’s insane chemistry and those Neil Diamond tunes. I’m not going to lie, I have been humming Forever In Blue Jeans for days since. Also middle aged Hudson is a revelation. Never rated her before but she looks and plays grand in this. I have a sneaking suspicion that this might just “Green Book” the Oscars this year. I’d be happy with that. I’m all for heart and humour.
Noah Baumbach directs George Clooney, Adam Sandler and Laura Dern in this insider comedy drama where a Hollywood movie star heads to Europe when he realises nobody really cares about him as a person.
No idea who this is really for, apart from admirers of gloss. It isn’t particularly funny nor dramatic. The less famous speaking parts have an unctuous sitcom energy but I think Baumbach is reaching for Fellini. Just feels misguided, flat, overbearing. It was silly to watch this straight after Sentimental Value when they are set in the same milieu but the outcomes are so chalk and cheese. The train scene is particularly cringe. This is not how Europeans would react if someone that famous got on their carriage. Real life is very different from a film premiere.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 