Phil Alden Robinson directs Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman and James Cromwell in this Jack Ryan espionager where the rookie CIA analyst finds himself between the White House and the Kremlin at a moment when both nations are poised with their fingers on the all out nuclear war buttons.

Affleck makes for a smug, dimples front and centre, everyman spy. Freeman is better as a mischievous yet in control data and defence Yoda. It often feels like near continuous shots of men sweatily grimacing at screens. Then… SPOILER… (you’ve had 16 years to watch it)… Baltimore is nuked. Brutally, suddenly, like a hard slap in your face, convulsing you to full alertness on your sofa.  All the principals are in the fallout zone. The final hour, set in the crumbling chaos, as Dimples tries to confirm the providence of the nuke is gripping stuff. Friday night filler just went up a notch. Sure it would be even better if Affleck was throwing up on himself from radiation poisoning, clumps of his preppy mane shedding off as he tackles Neo-Nazi stooges and tries to find a direct line to the retaliation bent president… But the escalation of that devastating explosion certainly ups what would have been a plodding, talky thriller.

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Mark Gill directs Jack Lowden, Jessica Brown Findlay and Laurie Kynaston in this biopic of Morrissey, pre-the Smiths.

Big Mouth Begins. The arrogance and the angst is there but it’s hard to believe this prick could translate that into the jangly yearning of Ask, There Is a Light That Never Goes Out or Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want. All we get is rooftop fag breaks and moody bottom of the stairs phone calls. Lacks the urgency of Control or the myth confirming aggrandising of Walk the Line.

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Guillermo del Toro directs Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon and Doug Jones in this period sci-fi romance about a mute cleaner who falls for the amphibious creature being experimented on at the government lab where she works. 

Amelie meets The Creature From the Black Lagoon. Like a lot of Del Toro’s oeuvre (egg) this delivers exactly what it promises to, no more, no less, and therefore fails to withstand the scrutiny its inevitable hype exposes it to. It is a fine, consciously quirky film only really daring in its sexual explicitness. Everything else from its well cast ensemble to its green, green, greeny green retrofuturist design is solid homage. I feel I should love, rather than like, Del Toro as much as everyone else does but he consistently delivers fantasies that are a little too on the nose, and that never really travel any further than their pitch. When he surprises me, I’ll join the adulation.

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Rainer Werner Fassbinder directs Margit Carstensen, Hanna Schygulla and Irm Hermann in this German drama about a seemingly bed-ridden fashion designer who tries to control her latest concubine. 

One of those nexus point movies that appears to tie-in with the themes and plots of everything you’ve watched lately. It is the anti-Carol in its presentation of an exploitative, sensitivity free relationship between a young girl and a regal older, richer lady. The power struggles, both sexual and emotional, between model and designer mirror Phantom Thread. And being only my second experience of Fassbinder, it is nice to see Hanna Schygulla play another variation on her beautiful hustler as in  The Marriage of Maria Braun, though this one is viewed less sympathetically and is far less complex a creation. Heartless in comparison, really. This is essentially a filmed play, though Fassbinder seems to delight in finding continually different, starkly obvious camera angles to film the drama, often entangling his actresses in unnatural poses for framing purposes. As a formal exercise it is visually impressive enough, but it is a cold, cynical tale, full of Brechtian distractions. I was also slightly misled by myself. I assumed Irm Hermann’s often in the background, often silent, always present “assistant” would turn out to be Petra’s estranged, often mentioned husband in drag. Some kinky subservient fallout from their disastrous marriage. Turns out I brought that weird little twist in entirely from my own subconscious. Disparaging the femininity of a fine actress. Whoops!

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Franck Khalfoun directs Elijah Wood, Nora Arnezeder and Genevieve Alexandra in this POV slasher remake. 

My TIVO box told me I was recording the 1980’s original but this proved surprisingly creepy and unsettling. There are discombobulating flashes of mannequin based surrealism. The excessive gore and T&A feel transgressive in these PG-13 horror remake wilderness years. Wood doesn’t make much of an impression as the baby face who looks back at us in the mirrors’ reflections but I guess the main point of the movie is to make us feel like the killer, and feel complicit in his shocking nastiness and perversions. You need a blank slate for that. Good ominous score and use of LA night shoot locations too.

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My Top 10 Slasher Movies

1. Psycho (1960)
2. Zodiac (2007)
3. Scream (1996)
4. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
5. The Fog (1980)

6. Scream 2 (1997)
7. Candyman (1992)
8. Deep Red (1975)
9. Peeping Tom (1960)
10. Tenebrae (1982)

 

 

 

John Badham directs Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg and Tim Blaney in this children’s sci-fi comedy about a runaway military robot that becomes sentient and a dude.

The below score is based entirely on nostalgia… and the fact this has some neat rip-off moments from Spielberg… and is better than E.T. … and Ally Sheedy is really charming… and Steve Guttenberg doesn’t smirk right into the camera while Fisher Stevens is being a massively racist stereotype… and how convincing the robot FX work often is… and sometimes charmingly isn’t… and the design of Johnny 5 is utterly iconic.

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Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina direct Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal and Benjamin Bratt in this Pixar adventure following a young boy who finds himself on the wrong side of the spiritual plane during the Day of the Dead. 

The Pixar formula is growing stale and the platitudes and twists this builds up to are now utterly guessable. The slapstick dog and the colourful design work are distracting eye candy. Trad Disney aside, I don’t know why adults go to kids’ movies anymore. This is at least inarguably better, more wholesome, and slavishly crafted than the other shite trailered before it. Peter Rabbit as a lad on tour, gnomes farting in mankinis (remember those)… no wonder this perfectly alright distraction is being treated like a classic in comparison.

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Rainer Werner Fassbinder directs Hanna Schygulla, Klaus Löwitsch and Ivan Desny in this West German drama about a war widow who uses her sexuality and guile to thrive in the new economic era despite some very melodramatic curve balls thrown her way. 

Like watching a highlights reel of a German soap opera, only directed with subversion for cinematic form and societal taboos. Fassbinder is a new director for me but he embraces chaos like Monty Python, celebrates nostalgic fashion and shock like David Lynch and churns out a ‘Woman’s Picture’ that would make Old Hollywood both proud and recoil in horror. He is ably assisted by Schygulla, turning in a compelling lead turn as a sexy go-getter, pragmatic and focussed.

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Todd Haynes directs Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett and Sarah Paulson in this 1950’s love story between a curious shopgirl and a glamorous upper class mother going through a difficult divorce. 

Elegantly seductive, this is a gorgeously detailed romance. Blanchett’s initially tragic trapped rarity is imbued with mystery. Mara has a less showy part as a proto-hipster, cute Tam O’Shanter and photography ambitions all present and correct, but through her searching, longing silences leaves a more lasting impression. Watching them go through their long, risky approach to consummating their obvious attraction for each other is heart breaking. Haynes visually essays a world of conformity and control, so that minor rebellions of affection or flirtation seem monumental. A child’s model railway is an apt early visual metaphor. Essentially a simple, colourful recreation of moving life… then we watch the nostalgic, stereotyped figures come to life, leave their loops and jump the tracks. Our final look at Carol is her left fashionably sitting in a cocktail party surrounded by other moneyed non-conformists. She is finally free of the heterosexual marriage she was enslaved in. Mara leaves her less salubrious apartment party to find Blanchett, after rejecting a subtle set-up with a more obviously “out” girl her own age. She isn’t going to be defined by the stereotypical 1950’s lesbian tribe anymore than Carol is pigeonholed by her gender. Their love transcends labels.

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Woody Allen directs himself, Mariel Hemingway and Diane Keaton in this love letter to New York following a writer choosing between his underage lover and his friend’s intellectually challenging mistress, between working on a well paid TV show or writing his novel. 

God! The second scene of this is painful to watch currently. Woody on a date with his seventeen year old lover, moaning that an ex-wife is profiting from spreading salacious gossip about him and bemoaning an American media happy to perform witch hunts over people’s private lives. He’s like a little Cassandra, a curly haired self-fulfilling prophecy. Obviously biographical, the Mariel Hemingway plotline is problematic. She’s fantastic here by the way. And as much as she represents Woody’s unashamed desire to still sleep with teenagers… their relationship also represents safety, care and a lack of complications. Diane Keaton represents Woody’s reality as a forty something artist… the women he “should” date come with just as much baggage, neuroses, needs and history as he does. They are as flawed and as fickle as he is. It is either risk the difficulties of loving and losing a “real” woman or enjoy the simple yet unfulfilling benefits of sex and affection with someone pure, unjaded and unadulterated, by life. It is not the nubileness of his immature girlfriend that is the sole attraction, it is the fact he can impart in her his opinions, choose their movies and art exhibitions, knowing his taste and ideas will be absorbed rather than batted away or dismissed. Like the skyscrapers and diners and sidewalks so beautifully captured here in black and white by Gordon Willis, Hemingway’s Tracy is still naive enough to be romanticised. When Woody, in his opening narration, tries to create the perfect paragraph to summarise his love of his complex, ever evolving, harsh hometown he struggles. Returning to the eternal blank page is less daunting than committing to a life of potential rejection and the towering, long ago designed intricacy that adult partners hold.

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