Vernon Sewell directs Derren Nesbitt, Colin Gordon and Ann Lynn in this British thriller about three bank robbers who lock the manager and cashier in the safe over a long weekend and realise they must break them out before they suffocate.
Quentin Tarantino loves it. The Radio Times Guide gave it one miserable star. It is a cracking little procedural. Character and atmosphere give way to process and fate. Featuring lead performances from two of The Prisoner’s more memorable Number Twos.
Edmund Goulding directs Joan Crawford, John Barrymore and Greta Garbo in this Oscar winning drama about the residents of a luxurious hotel in Berlin.
Took me a little while to synch up with this. Lionel Barrymore’s overly ingratiating clerk on a big blow out was very off putting in the first act. Eventually though he gels with the other more worldly characters and we get to watch Joan Crawford’s leggy but sweet stenographer lower her standards, John Barrymore as the world’s most inept “hotel thief” and Garbo iconically wanting to be alone. Star power wins you over. Yes, Grand Hotel is dated but still feels pretty daring in its ‘pre-code’ content. The production design is incredible, a vista of chequers and balconies. I’d stay there.
J. J. Abrams directs Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney and Kyle Chandler in this Amblin sci-fi adventure where a smalltown in the Seventies becomes embroiled with an escaped alien cover-up and only the nerdy kids know the truth.
Not the blast I remember. Still mostly fun but a bit too studied. Abrams gets his Spielberg homage pitch perfect when dousing the wonder in mystical light or busying the screen with a small town in cutesy distracted chaos. The middle act through is too heavy and too sentimental. Aside from Fanning, the supporting kids lack personality and are pretty interchangeable. These aren’t the well defined and popping personalities of The Goonies or even Stranger Things. The best moments really are the making and final presentation of the Z grade horror movie the gang were distracted from by all these train crashes, tanks, choppers and close encounters. Felt a little baggy and underwhelming on a second watch even if it is a very well crafted blockbuster.
Herbert Ross directs Kevin Bacon, Lori Singer and John Lithgow in this teen rebellion dance flick where a small town has banned dancing but the new boy has got the moves.
Does exactly what it says on the tin. If you are an MTV kid this is a half a dozen music videos to pop hits masquerading as set pieces. If you are looking for nostalgic cheese, this gets the balance just about right. Lori Singer can’t act. Chris Penn really, really can’t dance. Glitter performs a military coup in the final minutes. It is no Rebel Without a Cause even if it doggedly follows the steps if not the emotions. It ain’t even a Tuff Turf. But its heart is in the right place and most of the cast deservedly moved up onto better roles.
Sidney J. Furie directs Michael Caine, Nigel Green and Guy Doleman in this espionage thriller where an intelligence heavy must try to figure out who is brainwashing the top scientists of Britain.
One of the greatest movie scores ever by John Barry. Ponderous, ominous and playful. It sets the tone for what was made and marketed as the antithesis of 007. You’d never see Sean Connery in Kwik Save. Caine’s Palmer is a fascinating child of its time. He knows change is coming to every aspect of society but his ‘superiors’ just haven’t caught up yet and have little intention to. Insubordinate but trapped beneath middle management, sexually confident but uncaring, brutish but detached. Is he these things because he has no other options or because it is what he is best at? I love Bond but this is far more psychologically rigorous yet open to fluid interpretation depiction of spycraft. The grind of bureaucracy, the disposability of assets and the continual mistrust. The few bursts of violence happen in the background, almost as if we are trying not to watch them from a passing car or poorly angle phonebox. Scuffles unfit for public consumption rather than Bondian spectacles. It would make a fantastic double bill with Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and I appreciate it more with every rewatch.
Ben Wheatley directs Alice Lowe, Steve Oram and Eileen Davis in this black comedy road movie where a strange couple embark on a caravanning trip which ends in murder, dognapping and crocheted lingerie.
“The police announced today that they’re pursuing a ginger-faced man and an angry woman in connection with inquiries.” Easily the best British comedy film of the last decade. Lowe and Oram give utterly committed performances but never allow their improv style to run away from Wheatley’s tight compositions. He clearly relishes re-imagining Mike Leigh’s Nuts In May as a psychotic, erotic odyssey. Makes you want to visit all the blood spattered points of interest they leave in their wake. Lowe conjures up the lion’s share of the best lines and funniest reaction shots.
John Llewellyn Moxey directs Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland and Carol Lynley in this horror movie where a maverick journalist covers a series of vampire attacks in Las Vegas that the authorities do not want to acknowledge.
One of the most watched TV movies of its era, a formative horror experience for the generation before mine and an acknowledged influence on The X-Files, The Night Stalker felt like a must see. While it does have an air of paranoia and conspiracy that definitely hooked Chris Carter at an early age it didn’t hold up well to modern eyes. A creaky simple mystery, variably acted, with some weak tea bloodsucking horror. The sunny Technicolor Nevada location shoot makes a seedy and garish impression. Yet the only element that has truly stood the test of time is Darren McGavin’s dogged reporter Kolchak. He is like a cheaper Walter Matthau and the character is a pleasing cocktail of Hunter S Thompson and Darrin from Bewitched. Imagine that!… You can’t, can you? So you’ll have to watch this then.
Alex Ross Perry directs Jason Schwartzman, Elisabeth Moss and Jonathan Pryce in this indie comedy where an arrogant author starts a friendship with a prickly old writing legend that might foretell of his own impending loneliness and frustrations.
There are some neat observations here. The graphic design of a lifetime of novel covers feels spot on, the voice over narration from Eric Bogosian is a nice affectation and the always welcome Elisabeth Moss gets a lengthy interlude to herself as the ex rebuilding her life. But in the main this never really completes it first lap, feeling like sub Noah Baumbach musings rather than anything worth your time.
Jonathan Kaplan directs Madeleine Stowe, Drew Barrymore and Andie MacDowell in this western were four women go on the run and become embroiled with a gang of bandits.
Set up by a still very young Drew Barrymore to be a big budget feminist western. Three weeks into production and director Tamara Davis was fired, her footage scrapped, while a new screenplay was fashioned from the wreckage the ladies learnt to ride and shoot for a month and the black Bad Girl was cut out of the project. Bad Girls was never a release that was likely to shower itself in glory – working as neither a revisionist western nor as a gunslinging women’s picture. As an entertainment it fails. The story starts too quickly and struggles to settle, then it finally descends into a swirl of contrivances where each character gets caught and needs rescuing so that another can then be held captive until the credits come and there’s nobody left to have their turn tied up. The film is edited incredibly poorly. It often feels like the most important plot point of each sequence is missing from the mix or under emphasised. There is the occasional trace level hint at the lesbian longing between leads or at least bisexuality of certain characters but this is trampled on and ignored once a glut of men arrive. You’d say at least it was glossy but the narrative is so erratic and repetitive that it isn’t a particularly gentle watch. Madeleine Stowe is a proper movie star so she holds the centre of this with a steely efficiency. Drew Barrymore sparkles in a spiky sexpot role – enjoying wearing lacy scanties, leather waistcoats and a dusty derby with zero regrets. The other characters don’t really get enough meaningful screentime to solidify. Who knows if Tamara Davis’ original vision was any better? Strange that the actresses didn’t go to cowboy boot camp before the original start date? Kaplan isn’t in his element here but at least tries to reference The Wild Bunch when he can. Like that classic, we start with a temperance league and end with a Gatling gun. I suspect when moany middle aged men hear the words ‘female reboot’ and knee jerk kick off on the message boards this is the teenage disappointment they dread re-experiencing. Which is a nonsense, of course… but you can’t help but mourn just how hard this falls flat on its face…
George Armitage directs John Cusack, Minnie Driver and Dan Aykroyd in this romantic crime comedy where a hitman goes back to his high school reunion.
A personal favourite. A perfect star vehicle for the boyish but anxious Cusack even though all of the quality ensemble cuts deep into the credits. You fall in love with pretty much everyone in it, even one scene turns; from Barbara Harris’ institutionalised Mom to the monosyllabic kickboxing rival killer. None can compete though with Joan Cusack’s acerbic PA. You can tell the writers had a lot of fun digging out their Elmore Leonards and Ross MacDonalds. Mashing these up with Cusack’s early teen output. Vividly imagined about what these types would be like if they had to go back to their childhood hometown, gun in their waistband, price on their head. The soundtrack is littered with alternate 80s bangers, firing nostalgic wistful energy into every interaction. The violence comes in unpredictable collisions, pointedly full on. The romance rekindles the sweetness of the best John Hughes teen movies, the characters are just a decade more guarded and damaged. It is a movie that packs a breathless amount of entertainment into itself then somehow ups the tempo amazingly once we actually hit that reunion. That sequence is a whirlwind of succinct, perfectly composed cinema. Everyone involved should take a well deserved bow!
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 