Neil Jordan directs Robert De Niro, Sean Penn and Demi Moore in this Depression-era crime comedy remake where two escaped convicts pretend to be priests while waiting to jump the border.
Unsuccessful in its day despite being David Mamet scripted and mega-budgeted. If ridiculously overwhelming life-size sets could get laughs this would be a riot. Everyone seems happier when it falls back into the hard edged crime stuff that brackets the “larks”. If mugging alone trumped jokes we’d have a hit. DeNiro mugs like a prizefighter post-knockout. Instead we are abandoned with a very beautiful, dramatically well acted, heavy handed film that struggles to be a comedy under the weight of its own prestige. There’s a rubbish, forgotten Nic Cage / Jon Lovitz film that does this vibe better, the contemporary Nuns on the Run hit more chuckles with zero class. I’m not saying Jordan, De Niro, Penn, Mamet or Moore can’t do comedy. But there’s no lightness or broadness or space to let the wit land. John C Reilly pops up in an early showing as an overly enthused, pious Brother and seems to get more screentime and dialogue than Penn. Guess who understands and demonstrates what this film should have been?
Richard Levine directs Stanley Tucci, Addison Timlin and Kyra Sedgwick in this drama where a college professor risks his marriage when he becomes obsessed with a student’s erotic novel.
We probably didn’t need another film that paints a man in a position of power who has an affair as the hapless victim, his young distractor as the untrustworthy manipulator. Beyond relevancy, this proves a very well acted adult mystery. Timlin impresses as the seductive enigma who drags Tucci’s naive genius to the rocks, while he leads with such authority that you never lose sympathy or understanding of his dangerous actions. Solid, intelligent, mature… just not very timely or spectacular.
Tsui Hark directs Jet Li, Rosamund Kwan and Yuen Biao in this historical kung-fu epic where real life Martial Arts master Wong Fei-Hung is embroiled in a conspiracy between American and British colonial interests, a local gang and a corrupt governor.
Natalie and I have set ourselves a mini-project of watching an epic “Once a Upon a Time in…” movie every Sunday. Don’t worry we aren’t going to beat ourselves up with phony cockney gangster flicks or this particular franchises later sequels. West, America, Mexico and Hollywood are on the docket though. This was my first revisit of Jet Li’s Hong Kong highlight since watching it in my good, good mate Davey’s boxroom in Marchmont years ago. That viewing was no doubt fuelled by a crate of Tennents tinnies and too much takeaway Chinese food. But I do remember it took me a while to get my bearings with who was who. That same slightly lost feeling niggled at me during the first act again. Obviously I know who Jet Li is, and the broad comic relief clowns are easy to separate and identify (although often extraneous and distracting to the plot). But we are introduced to a glut of characters… many of whom have the same severe haircut and dowdy dress… with little idea of their significance to the overall plot. A cowboy adventure would introduce the good and the bad gunslingers in black and white – that coding exists to ease the viewer in whatever their nationality… Hong Kong cinema gives western eyes no such gentle assimilation. By the midway point you know the hapless, slightly misguided Foon (Yuen Biao) is our actual protagonist. He motors the plot, gets involved in a human way and flirts with gorgeous “13th Aunt”. He may be clumsy and find trouble way too easily but he is the narrative’s hero in the most traditional genre cinema sense, and a pleasurable one. Jet Li is left to be unimpeachably worthy while he takes part in epic subplot side fights with rival masters and surprise assassins. These are visually wondrous. The whole film is a joy of production design and the scope and scale of it consistently impressive. The opening credits is a martial arts workout on a beach that is truly iconic, the finale involves ladders and explosions in a way that has never been matched. There is stuff that is awkwardly distasteful to us honkies in 2020. The threat of rape is a little too explicit and drawn out for a family friendly blockbuster, the stereotypical humour at the expense of outsiders is racist in even a 1970s Carry-On sense of the issues. I guess in kung-fu cinema we gwailou are just going to have to accept we’ll be the cucks at the orgy. Overall this is a very enjoyable afternoon of period thrills.
Ingmar Bergman directs Ingrid Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom and Jörgen Lindström in this Swedish arthouse film where two sisters and a child check in to hotel only to be overwhelmed by death, ennui and lust.
Probably the horniest Bergman film I’ve watched so far. Rich with unexplained but easy to process metaphors. The scenes of the boy running amok around the hotel are good. The sexual abandon of Gunnel Lindblom is frankly portrayed and a nice mix of sleazy and classy. Ingrid Thulin does the heaviest work as the sick, alcoholic, needy but ultimately more sensitive sister. Like much of Bergman, this is oppressively overbearing in parts but there’s enough dark magical realism and steamy soap to save it from his pretentious urges.
Sam Weisman directs Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn and John Cleese in this comedy remake where a Midwestern suburban couple find themselves lost in New York.
A bit of a nothing film. The jokes are not really present until the final twenty minutes. Martin and Hawn, too overqualified comedy stars on a downward trend at this point, never really fit as a pair of straight nerds… so watching them lose it in the city that never sleeps at best only brings them to the baseline level we expect from them… EVENTUALLY… by the very end.
Richard Linklater directs Jason London, Wiley Wiggins and Michelle Burke in this gentle feelgood teen comedy that follows dozens of kids on the last day of school in Austin, Texas, 1976.
There’s never been a teen movie quite like Dazed & Confused. Linklater has always played with movie form. His films experiment with real time, rotoscoping, day in the life structures, movies filmed over lifetimes. He’s a director who tries and succeeds in attaching brave, boundary pushing configurations to simple, pure tales. A couple sharing a night, a local hero returning to town, a boy growing up. Key human emotions made feature films. Dazed and Confused trumps them all though. A mosaic of kids at mini-crossroads in their lives. The decisions they make are not earth shattering but they will define their happiness and sense of self-worth over the next few years. And it all feels so natural and unforced. We hang out with thirty or so well defined characters as they smoke joints, drive cars and take spanking and bully initiations rituals a little too seriously. I’m not really into any of those things. The innocent colourful good times presented are kinda alien to my teenage years. And maybe that’s what makes Dazed and Confused the very best teen movie. By setting itself two decades earlier it wasn’t trying to sell its generation of viewers a fantasy. There’s no almost-in-a-mansion set house party with a rock band in the corner. Or Ferrari joyrides. Or Cinderella makeovers / romance. It is just kids being kids with no big consequences or dominating leaders or political comment. Even the nerds are kinda cool… kinda. Some of the cast went on to mega stardom. Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck and Parker Posey make brilliant impressions in smaller roles. I doubt these parts were written as stand outs. Talent wins out. See to: Rory Cochrane’s time lagging pot head. But beyond the great casting, eternal bonhomie, relaxed joking, unmatchable quotability, tight fashions and iconic look… Dazed & Confused has a soundtrack that absolutely punches your head about. It is a non-stop belter of Seventies rock. “Me and my “loser” friends, you know, we gotta get Aerosmith tickets. Top priority of the summer.” Check you later!
Penny Marshall directs Robin Williams, Robert DeNiro and Julie Kavner in this true life medical drama where a doctor proves that the closed-off vegetable patients in his mental ward could still be hidden inside their catatonic states.
An intentionally mawkish and sentimental film but told with such a persuasive cinematic patter that you get carried along. The first hour is a masterclass in bullet point storytelling. In short, cascading scenes Marshall and Steven Zaillian deliver swathes of dry medical information as Williams’ Doc deep dives into the medical anomaly like a detective mystery. It moves at such a persuasive beat while holding your hand with every nimble step of the chase. The final act is little more heavy going as DeNiro goes from a charismatic recovery success story to relapsing back into an unconscious state. Man, he was such a great actor then, even when twitching and gurning like an Oscar Whore in December! This material stretches him but he makes an impact even sitting motionless in a wheelchair. Williams has tooled around in the quirky outsider quack role a lot whenever he was working away from zany comedy. He really was attracted to scripts about mental rehabilitation. He essays a shy man… one who fights his corner only when necessary… whose background patiently observing plants and insects gives him the unique tools to not overlook the written-off patients. He resists quirk except for a few trailer moments and more than matches DeNiro’s more challenging role. While you can see the badgering manipulation happening before your eyes, this still is a good adult weepie. That excellent construction covers up its more inherent exploitative mercenary nature. It wants to make you cry, wants to make you feel, it shows no mercy or restraint in hitting the buttons beneath its sheen.
Jean-Pierre Melville directs Emmanuelle Riva, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Irène Tunc in this wartime drama where a bolshy priest and an agnostic single mother begin a passionate friendship over intellectual conversations and small acts of resistance.
Should really be called Barny, Legend! Riva’s single mum, refugee hider and bisexual romantic is the focus of the film. She takes on office collaborators, Nazis and lusty Yanks with zero nonsense. She has dreams and desires of her own. She has agency. Belmondo’s priest is attractive in a pushy, superior kinda of way but he could do far worse for himself. He only gets half the screentime of Riva so he can keep an air of alluring brute mystery to him. A really captivating, no nonsense drama that will have you hooked from first ecumenical book talk to last moment of quietly tragic chaste stoicism.
Russell Mulcahy directs Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery and Clancy Brown in this fantasy adventure where immortals sword fight across the centuries hoping to behead all their own kind to achieve a mystical prize.
Every comic book movie should have a Queen soundtrack! If it is a big unrealistic concept that requires a leap of faith and a few cold beers to embrace then Freddy, May and Taylor really are the chaser. Massive guitar solos, throbbing anthems and lyrics that are part sea shanty and part rallying cry to war… this is the music that closes the sale. Whether it is hypercolour intergalactic rebellion or lonely warriors duelling from medieval Scotland to broken windows New York, these thumping sounds persuade. Genre convincer that allow you to get lost in the storytelling sweep. It’s A Kind Of Magic!
The poster for Highlander haunted me as a child. It seemed to stay up at Shepherd’s Bush roundabout for my entire pre-pubescence and I saw it’s terrifying imagery every journey that we drove back from my Nan’s or Uncle Tony’s flats. A skull man sucking the soul from a spaced out warrior. My mind translated it as a horror version of He-Man. The eventually rented video cassette could never live up to the absolute fearfest my innocent mind conjured up every backseat ride through West London that the abandoned bus shelter advertising inspired.
The movie itself is a time lapsing shark. Moving constantly. Just not always forward. The 1985 sequences are Terminator inspired. Taking place in the sleazy dangerous New York of Frank Henenlotter gorefests and Equalizer episodes. Here a leather jacketed inhuman killing machine stalks a trenchcoated and sneakered soldier and the sexy innocent caught between them. “Buddy you got a dead cat in there?” Random vigilantes cruise the streets with passenger seats full of Uzis. Punk hookers fill the police stations, sidewalks and hotel hallways. Cameras impressively swoop like hawks inside wrestling matches and around exploding alleyways. Mulcahy paints a violent and vibrant bubblegum variation on “present day” reality. The rock video aesthetic disappears when we leap back in time. There’s no dry ice or electric blue light as a naive kilted Connor MacLoed discovers his strange existence, has a tragic romance, is trained by a master (and what a master!) and accepts his cursed fate to never die naturally. These green and muddy battle and passion sequence give the film heart and are appropriately more calmly, classically framed. They are as well conceived as any straight period film. Two wonderful bonus flashbacks to the courts of spoilt Regency France and WWII espionage only add to the scope gloriously. Mulcahy knows when to sizzle the retinas and when to relax and let the great production designers and art director pull off a prestige con.
The cast is almost perfect. Almost. Lambert is not a bad action star… he is better at selling the vulnerability and desperation of MacLoed than the timelessness and sword fighting ability. His lack of English does mean certain zingers and moments of snappy backchat fall flat. He is a pretty face with a hero’s physique who does his job. I would have cast Michael Biehn or Daniel Day Lewis… the fact that the character requires a crossover of those two very different stars possibly shows what a thankless task the casting director had?
Luckily the support is stellar. Relishing a comeback, Connery goes full throttle at the sensei / Obi Wan role he is tasked with. A strutting horny peacock who spouts all the exposition and gets his one glorious fight, the film is blockbuster perfection during his sequences. I’m not going to sass the accents of either lead – the nationalities make no sense, the sarcasm about him being a Spanish Egyptian and the other playing Scottish is as old as the film. This scrappy crowd pleaser has stood the test of time, let the dodgy flaws go.
Man of the Match would go to Connery in any other movie but Highlander has a black Ace up it’s sleeve. Clancy Brown plays The Kurgan. Clancy Brown inhabits The Kurgan. Clancy Brown is the motherfucking Kurgan. Up there with Han Gruber and Cyrus the Virus, this is one of the best antagonists ever committed to celluloid. When he swaggers into a scene the entire film reboots around him, your eyes widen to accommodate him. Danger personified, no pity, a flair for the theatrical. It is a balls to the walls fearless performance from the gravelly voiced, imposing character actor. You almost want him to win the prize, behead Lambert and ride off with lovely Roxanne Hart cackling. “HELLO PRETTY!”
Highlander is a wonderful six pack and pizza movie. A top Saturday night in. Full of action, cool, quotable lines and bad ass imagery. It all reaches a very definite and satisfying full stop. This was not built with sequels in mind. You can’t blame them for wanting to try and bend the lore in the hope of reanimating the rich mythology in sequels. Yet what followed was wobbly, less inspired, more compromised and ultimately diluted by too many cash-in tries to recapture the magic. Magic definitively put to bed by the epilogue of the original. Animated lightning demons swirl, we race in and out of Lambert’s eyeball, visible wires pull him to the rafters, windows explode, guitars swell! There can only be one!
Colin Higgins directs Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton in this workplace comedy where three put-upon female employees turn the tables on their misogynistic boss.
It has dated, it is bitty, the ending is about as neat as a Primark floor at 5.59pm. But Tomlin and Dolly are stellar, that theme song thumps and it makes you smile even at its weakest, broadest moments.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 