Peter Yates directs Stanley Baker, Joanna Pettet and James Booth in this British heist movie that recreates the Great Train Robbery but changes the names and lives of the crims to protect the guilty.
Starts with a jewel snatch and lengthy car chase that redefined cinema. Bombing around the streets of west London with zero sense of safety. Without this no Bullit. Without that no French Connection. And where would the cop thriller be without those two landmarks. We aren’t on the side of angels here. This is cold, hard machismo. Stanley Baker style. Procedural with a capital P. I wish there was a cinema in Edinburgh showing this kinda testosterone fuelled antique on the big screen. Precious.
Jeremy Garelick directs Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston and Mélanie Laurent in this globetrotting comedy sequel to that Netflix release that half the planet watched in the first week.
Dear James Vanderbilt,
You wrote Zodiac once.
Yours
Bobby Carroll
PS Not every surviving character needs to comeback as we sure as shit don’t remember anyone except Happy Gilmore and Rachel.
PPS The action kinda saves this as it goes harder and bigger than any comedy needs to. Very Eighties.
Juan Piquer Simón directs Christopher George, Lynda Day George and Edmund Purdom in this Spanish Giallo where a chainsaw wielding maniac is chopping up co-eds to build his own woman from their body parts.
Can other countries do giallo? Yes is the answer. Pieces is a whole passle of sloppy pleasures. A VHS victory. Gory kills. Fleshy girls. Slumming it has-beens. A line-up filling amount of viable suspects. Creepy flashback. A sense of humour.
Is it always coherent? Not really. A cameo from a Bruce Lee look-a-like here. A Carrie rip-off final shock that goes below the belt… there. Why does the tennis pro milf get to go undercover? Why does the cop seem so eager to have the nerdy kid help investigate? Really over eager! It is a movie of swirling distractions. JuanPiquer Simón’s ADHD nature actually makes it kind of a blast.
Take, for example, a tremendously creepy stalk sequence that ends in quite a brutal waterbed death. It doesn’t have to go that hard. Then the next kill literally has the frightened girl invite the killer into her lift, not noticing the massive yellow chainsaw hidden just down by his hip. Pieces feels one click away from parody yet the sense of unreality is actually a true strength. It doesn’t follow any rules and therefore reverentially recalls the wild card movies that started the entire sub genre. The only negative is the score by Can cannot threaten a Goblin or a Morricone but who really ever could?
7
One Down, Two To Go (1982)
Fred Williamson directs himself, Jim Brown and Jim Kelly in this end-of-the-cycle blaxploitation cheapie where four legends team up to claim the swindled prize money from a martial arts tournament.
You can see every budgetary corner cut here. The best sequence is three minutes of filler where a limo brings our heroes into the action. All shot from the exterior… there could be anybody and nobody in that ominously approaching luxury car. Kelly and Shaft tap out early but that’s cool, baby. Jim Brown and Fred Williamson’s hard as titanium PIs take over. Start looking for the dosh and those MIA first act stars. Brown is particularly fine. He’s staying at the Holiday Inn. There’s some grubbiness. A gang rape by three extras who all look like Dennis Franz’s stunt double. In general though One Down, Two To Go is the epitome of louche smoothness. Williamson knows the names on the poster will sell the movie to the select so there ain’t no need to break a sweat. I can get with that.
4
Class Of 1984 (1982)
Mark Lester directs Perry King, Timothy Van Patten and Lisa Langlois in this teen gang flick where an idealistic music teacher goes full vigilante after psychopathic punks keep disrupting his class.
Nasty exploitation. Makes some grim choices trying to be an own brand Clockwork Orange. The director of Commando ain’t no Kubrick. Know going in there’s bound to be a least one scene that will make anyone regret watching this. Despite living in the doody end of the swimming pool it still is somehow too cartoonish to be a thriller. I’m sure I watched this as a kid but none of the shocks stayed with me. I preferred the sci-fi spin-off sequel Lester made a few years later where Pam Grier turned out to be a flame throwing cyborg. Notes from class: Early Michael J Fox as the good kid. Van Patten gives Sean Penn energy and went on to direct every HBO show ever. That Alice Cooper theme song is dire and hobbles the movie before it even starts.
3
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Werner Herzog directs Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale and José Lewgoy in this arthouse adventure story of an extremely determined Irish ex-pat who intends to build an opera house in the middle of a jungle.
Iconic. It has been there in my film consciousness or subconsciousness for decades. All operas end in tragedy. And Herzog ain’t exactly an optimist. This is only going to end one way. I like the extreme location endurance test. Cardinale looks resplendent the movie misses her when she goes. The Peruvian wilderness cannot fill the Claudia gap. So much to love here. Like a lunatic tried to remake Apocalypse Now. You feel the impossibility of it all though. The exploitation. The suffering. Carry On Herzog. All scenes where Kinski is being dementedly earnest are a highlight. That man could not build a railway yet he could not notify the employees either. How any of this achieves an opera house is anyone’s guess?
Rupert Wyatt and Matt Reeves direct Andy Serkis, Karin Konoval, Terry Notary, Toby Kebbell, James Franco, John Lithgow, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman and Woody Harrelson in this sci-fi prequel trilogy where primates gain greater intelligence and freedom while the human world dies off from disease.
We care about Caesar and Caesar suffers. Orphaned. Rejected by the human society that raised him. Escaped from cruel bondage. Losing friends and family members. Suffering a coup that almost kills him. Driven to murderous vengeance. His tribe captured and put to slave labour. Fighting for freedom one last time. You tell me of a human character that endures so much? You tell me of a human character that develops so much? It is an unprecedented 3 movie arc. All delivered by Andy Serkis in oft convincing mo-cap drag.
The movies themselves aim for a relative realism within the epic. After the sunny yet superior first entry these are dour, wet, sodden movies. You feel the elements, the cold. For something largely CGI reliant it proves a very tactile universe. So when bridges become battlefields or avalanches destroy armies there’s a real world psychics and a real world threat that binds with the emotional connection. The set pieces wallop with both feels and spectacle.
The first entry holds up as one of the finest, if most unlikely, tentpole blockbusters of the 21st century. There is no fat to Rupert Wyatt’s storytelling pace, he moves at a tremendous yet successful narrative clip. The second film, which I loved at the cinema, drags a little in the third act and doesn’t feel wholly necessary to move the story forward despite Koba’s predictable villainy. When War For The Planet Of the Apes came out I was a smidge disappointed that Reeves leant so much in on obvious references to other landmark epics from cinema history. The jukebox nature of the homages does seem to be his raison d’être (his ‘Batman goes Fincher’ if in doubt). Yet it is an ambitious concluding chapter. Woody Harrelson’s military dictator makes for a terrifying final form of humanity. And the apes eventual exodus feels hard fought for and mightily satisfying. A fantastic big budget trilogy.
Wim Wenders directs Kōji Yakusho, Tokio Emoto and Arisa Nakano in this slice-of-life drama following a quiet toilet cleaner as he makes his rounds about Tokyo and enjoys his downtime.
Could have quite happily just watched him do five or six daily work / rest cycles with minimalist plot. The second hour does bring in some drama, tangible interactions and hints of his past. The final piece of IMDB trivia has Wim Wenders reveal Hirayama’s unseen back story. Don’t read that. Even after. Keep your own mysteries. Take pride in your work. Enjoy books and music you love. Favourite scene: When a character talks about a portentous Patricia Highsmith story I had just finished reading about moments before the lights went down and the movie begun.
Zelda Williams directs Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse and Carla Gugino in this Eighties-set comedy horror romance where a nerdy teen turns murdery queen after she resurrects a hot Victorian corpse.
Diablo Cody’s second stab at this territory is a little sweeter, a little less judgmental and whole lot spacier. Lisa Frankenstein has an off kilter pace and quite a pleasing loose end. As a vehicle for Kathryn Newton this is a major success – she is going to win over hearts and minds here. She sells a broad protagonist who undergoes a fair few character reinventions with charm and abandon. The look is neon and lace and tat and gothic. Yeah, yeah, yeah! Not groundbreaking or particularly tight, Lisa Frankenstein is ultimately a pretty ambient genre mash-up exercise that hit my buttons rather effortlessly.
Denis Villeneuve directs Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Javier Bardem in this epic sci-fi sequel where Paul Atreides unites with Chani and the Fremen while seeking revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family.
More of the same. No complaints. The action is a little more robust and paced. Like Spielberg’s War Of The Worlds there’s a certain perversion in seeing a whitebred Poster Boy be turned into a dispossessed Jihadi freedom fighter. Yet whether he’s a messiah or a very naughty boy you can’t trust the aristocracy with power. I think this will be unpacked in many a dissertation since the parallels between the destruction of the Fremen and current global events are blatant. Fantastic cast but such small portions. Only Bardem and Austin Butler feel like they jump the rails. Tame the machine with bigger performances than demanded. The visit to the Harkonnen’s monochrome world is going to be hard to beat this year for massive screen awesomeness. The third act does drag. Also I’ll never believe Dave Bautista being terrified and running away from Chalamet. Yet these are quibbles. Roll on Children Of Dune!
Ingmar Bergman directs Pernilla Allwin, Kristina Adolphson and Börje Ahlstedt in this period drama where two children experience the ups and downs of their extended family in well-to-do Uppsala.
We watched the five hour mini series edit over a long weekend. I’m not going to say this finally unlocked Bergman for me. My resistance to his pretensions and obtuseness are still there. Yet at a more leisurely pace and with a more joyous ensemble coddling the misery there were few scenes I didn’t enjoy. There’s a lot of oppression, mythology and meta going on here. But you can approach it as a big Christmas movie that doesn’t know when to quit. I was never lost by Bergman’s intentions. There were three or four characters I genuinely cared about. The lurches into horror and broad comedy were effective. The ultimate point that the connection people make with us shapes us long after their deaths was felt. Perspective is very important. Beautiful compositions, overpopulated and sparse. Every type of Swedish honey too.
Fred Walton directs Charles Durning, Carol Kane and Tony Beckley in this thriller where a babysitter begins receiving calls from a killer.
The opening 25 minutes of When A Stranger Calls are seminal. You can see their clear influence on Scream’s game changing prologue with Drew Barrymore. A lone teen keeps getting unwelcome phone calls. Each time the phone rings it disrupts the tension yet amps up the peril with perfect manipulative timing. We begin to share the hopeless fear of her situation. Kane sells the vulnerability of her character and carries the movie solo for the entire first act. She should be talked about in the same breath as Jamie Lee Curtis when ranking the best acting amongst Scream Queens. Then, after a shock, the movie tags out. We follow Durning’s retired detective as he hunts a just released psycho seven years later. What was intimate and claustrophobic becomes expansive and labyrinthine. Tony Beckley plays our monster. He’s no mastermind or relentless killing machine. He’s a bottom rung strange wimp. Too weird to socialise, homeless and just as vulnerable as any of his prey. Over this unexpected sequence we get a real sense of urban alienation. A city where nobody cares if you live or die even in a populated bar or the full mission bunkhouse. The set pieces have a grim real world grain and grit to them. And then the misanthropic movie returns full circle and starts to deliver the slasher horror we’ve been promised all along. I can see why this cult item is a bit of a Marmite experience for many. It takes the sleazy road less travelled. I kinda loved that about it. Imperfect but always fascinating.
7
Perfect Double Bill: When A Stranger Calls Back (1993)
David Butler directs Doris Day, Howard Keel and Allyn Ann McLerie in this musical that proves a heavily sanitised take on the story of Calamity Jane, her saloon, and her romance with Wild Bill Hickok.
Technicolor cartoon-ish fun. A million miles from Deadwood.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 