Worth Keeter directs Steven Bauer, Chelsea Field and Pamela Anderson in this erotic thriller where somebody keeps killing men in Chinatown during sex.
The pirate VHS of Pamela Anderson’s first big starring role was passed around my Year 4 classroom like watermelon vapes are today no doubt. There’s a couple of standard sex scenes and a lot of candles. The plot is quite racist, Chelsea Field doesn’t do any nudity and the twist is the most obvious (least plausible) one from “pick a twist ending” catalogue. Cheap and cheesy, as Basic Instinct knock-offs go this proves a faded facsimile.
Emir Kusturica directs Predrag ‘Miki’ Manojlovic, Lazar Ristovski and Mirjana Jokovic in this award winning Serbian film about resistance fighters who stay hiding underground long after the war is over.
Absurdist and untethered. Often the chaos is a mask for some quite shallow political points. I’m not a fan of easy point scoring or wackiness used to cover up a lack of formalism. There are stretches that are genuinely exciting but you could equally spend half the three hour runtime scrolling away on your phone and miss very little.
I’m more than a fair weather Shyamalan fan but this one, his big breakthrough, never clicked with me. Ponderous and pretentious, it came out during at a dark time when I could only afford to go to the cinema once a month at best. Bruce Willis was probably my favourite movie star back then (still in 1999 … but only just) and The Sixth Sense had had months of hype following its sleeper obliteration of the US box office. That famous twist was frustratingly super guessable. And the movie didn’t seem to have a lot else in the bank. A magic trick that you’ve figured out while the props are being set out. There’s not much more to it. 25 years distance I don’t hate its pointless mechanics quite as virulently. It is well crafted if not particularly scary. Toni Collette is doing a lot of emotional heavy lifting. Bless her heart.
Samuel Fuller directs Richard Basehart, Gene Evans and Michael O’Shea in this war thriller where a small rear guard of soldiers must hold off pursuing forces while their comrades make a retreat.
Cheap Korean War movie filmed on a sparse wintery white set. Tries to motor along to the internal monologues of a dozen or so doomed men. Their fears and ambitions. The final stand against an approaching tank is good solid action. James Dean is in a small role but I must have blinked during his screentime.
Penelope Spheeris directs Mike Myers, Dana Carvey and Tia Carrere in this SNL comedy feature where two losers in a basement sell their cable access talk show to a big business interest.
A movie I know back to front and tip to top. It was made to be a relentless ruthless quote-a-thon powered by a thumping hair rock soundtrack. And yet Wayne’s World is unique in its ability to unpick the threads of reality without ever getting lost in the quagmire of lampoon. Clearly Myers’ baby but I kinda love the supports. Dana Carvey and Tia Carrere are both “excellent”. Crucial Taunt might just be the finest fictional band ever to rock a movie’s narrative. So many cult moments that now seem old hat. Wayne’s World deserves the same rabid Gen X fan bases that say Ghostbusters and Beetlejuice still have. I’m curious as to why it has been lost in the cultural shuffle given how ubiquitous “Schwing! and “Not” were back in the Nineties?
Tim Burton directs Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Jenna Ortega in this legacy sequel to the afterlife scumbag special FX comedy from the Eighties.
The most surprising aspect about Beetlejuice 2 is how often it hits the mark without you noticing everyone subconsciously counting their paychecks. It takes a lot of manoeuvring to get this soul train in motion after nearly forty years but all involved seemingly have fun even with with the laborious set-up. Much dead weight needs to be lifted to get the gang back in position and to explain absences. Not once did I notice any returning player go dead behind the eyes. Even if this is one of those rare IPs where that might be wholly appropriate. There even are genuinely promising spikes in the first act that suggest we might be in for something special. Monica Bellucci’s underused villain has a fabulous goth girl sexy introduction where her chopped body parts reunite and she then sucks souls until ghosts become flappy hollow husks. There is the revived stop motion, foamy production design and Ryder gets to be her kooky fragile best. Keaton is used sparingly but daringly until he needs to be involved in “the plot”. Much like the first movie he is rationed out to deranged perfection. The movie truly recaptures the old juju in the last twenty minutes when all sense and sensibility goes out the window. It might not be blockbuster Burton but it reminds of his quirky mid tier delights in it unpredictability (Pee Wee, Mars Attacks, Sleepy Hollow). Better than it needed to be, nonsensical in a good way, only a few decrepit Boomer references held over from ancient early drafts really stop this from being a 2024 Hollywood highlight. Go on then… Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice.
Kenneth Branagh directs himself, Tina Fey and Michelle Yeoh in this Agatha Christie Poirot mystery supplanted to Venice.
Every showy in camera visual trick is whipped out to give this a horror tinged flavour. AHIV is somehow the best of a bad bunch in this baroque, stuffy franchise but…. please… pretty please… no more. Watched for Michelle Yeoh.
Roman Polanski directs Peter Coyote, Emmanuelle Seigner and Hugh Grant in this erotic drama about two unhappily married couples on a cruise – one frigid, the other having done too much fucking with tragic consequences.
There’s a lot to unpack here. One might think that two hours of Emmanuelle Seigner in various states of nudity, brattish ecstasy and sex shop clothing could never get boring or grating… And yet Polanski seems hell bent on rubbing our faces into just how cold and uninviting sexual oblivion is. The whole thing is a pointed cruel joke. Some of the punchlines work. The near constant phallic symbols that dominate the foreground, the way the pairings end up when the roulette wheel stops (Yay for Kristin Scott Thomas!) and that cheesy Top 40 soundtrack. Yet the film teases inevitable tragedy and takes a long route to get to the unavoidable. This is why we don’t talk to other couples on holiday. Badly dated but not without its erotic charms and nasty pranks.
Nikolaj Arcel directs Mads Mikkelsen, Amanda Collin and Simon Bennebjerg in this historical drama that adds lashings of sex and violence to the cultivating of the unwelcoming Denmark’s wild Jutland in the 18th century.
Probably not particularly historically accurate but very rousing. Arcel makes beautifully grubby fire lit period movies. He casts good villains and let’s Mads do his trademark sullen, righteous thing to full effect.
William Asher directs Jimmy McNichol, Susan Tyrrell and Bo Svenson in this modern gothic horror where a teenager lives with his unhinged aunt.
Strange movie. A cheapo Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? / Psycho riff with a solid car crash stunt driving prologue, a babyfaced Bill Paxton in a prominent role and outbursts of gore. Two proper villains: the sexually obsessed auntie and the homophobic cop. Tyrrell and Svenson play their unpredictable heels with relish. Elevating the final product. It even has a relatively sensitive portrayal of a gay PE teacher. What does it all mean (the title, the unorthodox sexual desire, the lack of obvious horror tropes)? No idea but that seedy atmosphere and random hysteria somehow got this onto the U.K. video nasty list. Not really warranted.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 