David Cronenberg directs Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore and Joe Silver in this body horror chiller where a woman infected with a penetrating mutation turns everyone she feeds on into a cannibalistic zombie.
Bleak and grimy – the occasional shoddy cheapness of this only adds to the unease. What starts out as a nasty little horror in a plastic surgery clinic suddenly begins to expand in scope rapidly. By the last reel, we are watching a global pandemic play out relatively convincingly. A lot of the infected are bad actors (and ugly to boot) who out stay their welcome in only one or two scenes. But porn star aiming for the mainstream Marilyn Chambers is surprisingly capable. Holding the eye and steadying the plot with her protruding grotesque secret and new unpalatable lusts.
Michael Mann directs Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx and Li Gong in this cop thriller where a crew of Miami Vice detectives go undercover to infiltrate a cartel and their White Supremacist connection.
“That is the hand we have been dealt at eleven forty seven o’clock on Saturday night.” Intimate weaving digital camerawork. Leads who barely talk to each other. Their onscreen relationship so tight they know what the other one is thinking and work in silent unison. Dread inducing action sequences where one slip up can result in death. Ominous Florida skies pregnant with colour and energy. A wistful Romeo + Juliet romance between a lonely cop and an ops manager for an international cocaine dealer. “Smooth, that’s how we do it.” This for a fair few years was my go to late night movie, there is something about its unintentional ASMR mood (often silent, close-ups, whispered compact dialogue, attention to detail, stripped back lighting) that means it hypnotises you into its moments efficiently. So that when extreme violence does erupt it is a nerve jangling shock. Did Mann intend this to revive his 80s TV series? I doubt it… I think he just bolted on the brand to a big budget script he wanted to make. Knowing Universal were more likely to stump up $135 million for a recognised IP than a standalone tale of two cops entering a geopolitical scam. It is telling that Jan Hammer’s electronica theme music is notably absent. At least we get an update of the iconic 80s Phil Collin’s track In The Air Tonight to accompany this dark case file. An underrated crime epic that puts you right into the heady mix of going covert.
Craig R. Baxley directs Carl Weathers, Vanity and Craig T. Nelson in this action comedy where a mild mannered cop takes on an army of villains.
Featuring every henchman from Commando,Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, this slick little shaggy dog story knows it is nonsense so just ramps up the random destruction. At one point a game Weathers trash talks a hitman into driving straight at him and then backflips over the speeding sports car. You get nudity from Sharon Stone and Vanity and running jokes that might sit better in a Police Academy sequel. Not the Lost Ark of forgotten VHS era gems but very watchable.
Arthur Jones directs Matt Furie, Pepe the Frog and Donald Trump in this documentary where an indie comic book artist tries to reclaim his creation after it is co-opted by the Far Right and is deemed a symbol for hate groups.
A neat alternative history of the last decade in American politics and a primer for the more obscure (to this middle aged man) corners of the internet. An education for someone who thought they were up to speed with the niches and subcultures that exist out there. I always kinda felt meme culture is a symptom of a less creative generation. To share a recognised image as the height of wit rather than come up with your own joke makes comedians of even the humourless. Democratises funny? Sure. Devalues funny? Definitely. This follows a rather sweet and naive creative after his hard work is blacklisted by becoming an ever mutating meme. His struggle to reclaim hand drawn, 2D slacker amphibian Pepe has a Capra-esque quality. I don’t think this would work if Furie wasn’t such a gentle and recognisable Generation X dude. The director did lose me in one chapter about auctioning memes like Bitcoin but I think it is there to lampoon the ridiculousness of monetising the ephemeral and I got the intent if not the content.
7
The Young Observant (2019)
Davide Maldi directs Luca Tufano, Mario Burlone and Lorenzo Carpani in this documentary following an uncommitted young farm boy who takes weekend vocational classes to become a five star waiter.
The topic is fertile and the eternally bored and unengaged Luca has quality that reminds you of Antoine in The 400 Blows. You, the punter, are getting a peek behind ‘the pass’ into the world of high end hospitality, which while lacking revelations at least immerses you in the hard work and dedication to detail that goes on. Labours and effort which you don’t witness before you even are given your menus. Maldi begins to include increasingly staged, or perhaps re-enacted, moments towards the end… and while that is a perfectly valid method in the modern documentary it sacrifices the intimacy he achieved and makes you wonder whether (if he is going to break certain rules) there could be even more entertaining footage he can “re-do”?
5
Beastie Boys Story (2020)
Spike Jonze directs Ad-Rock, Mike D and MCA in this filmed concert where the surviving Beastie Boys talk us through the photos, videos and music that made up their brilliant careers.
A stage show autobiography that tracks the evolution of their music and emotional maturity. A celebration of every white person’s guiltiest pleasure; white boy rap… and their fallen member Adam Yauch. I’ve had much fun revisiting each of their LPs in the days since. A perfect full stop to a laudable career, one that is continually self-effacing and charming.
8
Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020)
Kirsten Johnson directs Dick Johnson, herself and Michal Hilow in this documentary where, on realising her father is dying of a degenerative brain disease, a filmmaker stages a series of fake deaths and afterlifes to prepare for that inevitable moment.
Dick Johnson seems like a lovely man – dedicated father, dessert lover, joyously expressive face. Watching him deteriorate is some maudlin shit. Doesn’t matter that his daughter tries to tart the harsh, grim reality up with some fatal slapstick (which don’t come often enough given the brief) and lo-fi Spike Jonze vision of Dick’s heaven (where he looks a little lost and exploited). This feels like monetising grief. I’m sure the artistic intention is to essay the process of losing a loved one with a celebratory brave face… but I felt like I was rubbernecking in on a game old trooper losing his marbles… Just because he was unfortunate enough to have a child who is an artist between projects at the wrong moment of his life. These are some big-ish budget home movies that I wouldn’t have chosen to watch if it wasn’t for the movie’s current critical adulation. Not for me.
3
Boys State (2020)
Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine direct Steven Garza, Ben Feinstein and Robert MacDougall in this documentary following Texan teenage boys who take part in a political summer camp where they form their own parties, legislative bodies, election campaigns and policies to learn about the harsh realities of working in the Washington DC system.
More gripping than Sorkin. More revelatory than Primary Colors. This gives you a worm’s eye view of American politics and attitudes and electioneering. Genuinely involving, funny and thrilling.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa directs Hidetoshi Nishijima, Yūko Takeuchi and Teruyuki Kagawa in this Japanese thriller where a former detective looks into a cold case… meanwhile his wife becomes obsessed with their strange new neighbour.
An impressive slow burn mystery. I enjoyed it more than Kurosawa’s lauded Cure as it kept the same unsettling and foreboding air without derailing off into fantasy. Strange shit goes down in Creepy but it all stays just within the realms of believability and logic… Just! Kagawa’s discombobulating turn as the dodgy neighbour is the equal of Masato Hagiwara’s hypnotic enigma in Cure. Here the potential antagonist is a slippery, unctuous presence. He scuttles around like a crab and bursts into jovial friendliness like it is glitch in his programming. As Kurosawa calmly reveals what is going on next door you become enthralled with every fatal twist and teasing clue. A gleefully sure-handed thriller that would make a good double bill with Parasite.
Steve McQueen directs John Boyega, Steve Toussaint and Neil Maskell in this true story recreation of black British police constable Leroy Logan’s induction into the Metropolitan police in the 1980s.
I’m going to be a curmudgeon and say this is the first of the Small Axe series of films to feel more like television. With the exception of a paranoid one-shot steadicam pursuit through an industrial estate, this could be the anonymous work of a television journeyman prepping a pilot for a new series. Beyond Boyega (excellent as always) and Toussaint, the acting isn’t as universally accomplished as the first two movies either. McQueen settles on a very narrow arc… Logan realising his father’s combative and inflexible attitude towards the white police force as a racist oppressor is accurate. You can’t win over the Beast; not by being its equal or being its better, being its friend or playing its game. Much like being working class, the higher ups have rigged the rules. The Dirty Babylon is intractable. Watching that grind weaken a bright young man with such procedural successiveness is a flat, sobering watch. Maybe McQueen has intentionally, almost satirically, given this story the visual and texture of an episode of The Bill or Juliet Bravo but I kind of feel Leroy Logan and Boyega deserve a more expansive mode.
Guy Ritchie directs Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law and Rachel McAdams in this action comedy where the Victorian supersleuth of literary canon goes all Lethal Weapon.
Guy Ritchie’s first film as a studio gun-for-hire. He seemingly has spent the second half of his career reimagining dusty properties and mangling them into his house style when possible. A bit like Tim Burton in many respects. His strength for deep drill ensemble work and bramble bush plotting survives here. It is a cheeky romp that suffers a few too many baggy scenes and constantly strives for a madcap “What Next?!” energy it never quite achieves. The non Conan Doyle sanctioned combat looks pulse-raising in a teaser trailer but leaves you just a little underwhelmed on your sofa. Downey Jnr. Holmes is ripped and roaring… Riggs to Jude Law’s Murtaugh. It isn’t a bad dynamic to update the classic pairing with but the sleuthing often seems an afterthought. If vague references to martial arts, cocaine and disguises can be dragged to the forefront, they are left there in place of Holmes outwitting a mystery through rigorous deduction. Hans Zimmer score is persuasively delinquent. Ajay Roy and Katie Spencer art direction quite deservedly was nominated for an Oscar. This is a handsome full tilt production, a fantasy ye olde ‘Lahndan’ to get lost in; whether chasing through the alleyways of Farringdon or duelling it out on the scaffolding of a half constructed Tower Bridge. There’s enough vim and spit to brush over the glaring flaws.
Spike Jonze directs John Cusack, Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener in this surreal satire where a puppeteer takes an office job only to discover a portal into Hollywood character actor John Malkovich’s head behind his filing cabinet.
More Charlie Kaufman. A movie that sits better in the memory a few days afterwards than while you are actually watching it. The unrestrained nuttiness of it all churns up some brilliant ideas and moments. Abelard + Héloïse through marionettes. The 7 and a 1⁄2 floor. “Shall we to the boudoir?” The chimp’s flashback. Malkovich in Malkovich. As a whole though, this is pretty bleak and abrasive stuff. Admirable in that it is never happy in itself, constantly moving to the next trap like shark seeking a new cage. Keener and Malkovich are excellent here. He is game in a way that feels like a coup even two decades later. Groundbreaking but not easy to love in actuality.
Charlie Kaufman directs Jessie Buckley, Jesse Plemons and David Thewlis in this surreal romance where a young lady accompanies her new-ish boyfriend to an awkward Christmas dinner; she is thinking of ending things, he is also lost in thought.
I’m going to give myself a big smug pat on the back for figuring out the solution to the cranium twisting puzzle very early on. What’s left is pretty indulgent – impressed with itself for leaping through a series of hoops ITOET has built only for itself. Then avoiding a satisfying conclusion. You can’t deny the perfectly designed bleak imagination of Kaufman’s world. Whether lurching into horror or sentimentality he pulls at your intellect and gets a deep psychological response. Much like the similarly depressing but accomplished Anomalisa or Synecdoche, New York you can only marvel so much at a film that burns it own rule book, a rule book that no other movie or storyteller bothers to follow. I prefer Adaptation or Eternal Sunshine as they have strong seams of warmth, hope and accessibility. Not in any way to diminish Kaufman’s incomparable achievements in modern Hollywood but much his shtick of a mediocre sad sack whose life falls apart with reality warping results doesn’t sit well with someone who has carved out such a precious and precocious niche within the industry. Comparable to Stewart Lee in stand-up comedy, you are watching an unusually victorious inventive outlier continually bemoan his lot and life in general. It doesn’t ring true when you permanently operate with budgets and technicians at the level his last three releases have enjoyed. You can’t be the voice of the loser AND have this much creative freedom. I find that worldview from people with massive loyal followings disingenuous. For those of us who look forward to his movies but haven’t drunk the kool-aid, this film only really is “entertaining” when Thewlis is behaving boorishly or when the implied terror at an ice cream parlour lurks just out of shot. That maybe adds up to 30 minutes total of a very gloomy, overlong, unruly yet undeniably gorgeous product.
John Huston directs Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet in this detective thriller where Sam Spade takes on a case to find the MacGuffin everyone wants their hands on.
A stone cold classic… that can feel a little stagey at first glance. The final twenty minute sequence is just the five principals waiting in a room and plotting as they do. That’s the movie’s spell though. The Maltese Falcon is what Tarantino would call ‘a hang out movie.’ You get a bunch of cool customers, some at odds with each other, most not exactly what they seem and then let them stew in the pot together for most of the running time. Bogart is pretty spicy as Sam Spade, always happy to try a bluff, not particularly scared even when he has the lowest hand showing. He makes quite a nice score in commissions and retainers off every conniver he meets. Lorre is awesome as the conman Joel Cairo, oily and reptilian – he is like a Disney jungle villain reverse-anthropomorphised. Mary Astor is the untrustworthy damsel. Elisha Cook Jnr. a pitiable bottom rung gunsel. Ward Bond is our friendly police investigator about five blocks behind everyone else on the case… especially when Spade spins him every point on the compass. Lee Patrick is the indomitable secretary cum confidant. You get the feeling she could be running Spade & Archer even if both gumshoes got blasted. And then there is the magnificent Greenstreet – jovial, verbose and predatory. Every gesture and aside is delivered with devilish flair by the master criminal. Allegedly he’s based on a real life overly ambitious swindler. The Fat Man here is a notorious pleasure. The sleuthing plot is impenetrable so just enjoy Spade’s bullshitting prowess when trapped in a room with all these jackals. 90 minutes in this company is “the stuff that dreams are made of.”
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 