Brian Duffield directs Kaitlyn Dever, Zack Duhame and Geraldine Singer in this almost dialogue-free sci-fi thriller where an ostracised young woman evades the aliens taking over her unwelcoming hometown.
Has the goods, with enough quirk at the bookends that it will automatically become a cult item. In all honesty, I am growing weary of the whole ‘Horror as Therapy’ trend but Dever is too exciting an actor to take on a project where she merely hides and runs from the nasty for six reels. A fun movie of jolting escalations.
Mike Nichols directs Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine and Dennis Quaid in this Hollywood drama based on Carrie Fisher’s semi-autobiographical novel about her addiction recovery.
Solid but lacks focus. Streep feels miscast. This needed someone a bit punkier, less vanilla in the lead… Pfeiffer? Rosanna Arquette? Why not Fisher herself? MacLaine as the spotlight hogging mom walks away with the movie ironically. Adds both grit and sparkle. Otherwise it is hard to really care as no aspect (addiction, maternal rivalry, choppy love life) is drilled into deep enough to hit a payload.
Samuel Bodin directs Lizzy Caplan, Woody Normn and Antony Starr in this horror flick where an anxious young lad begins to realise all is not perfect about his house or family.
If you, like me, wished that Halloween III: Season Of the Witch was a smash and every year we got a Carpenter and Hill produced autumnal themed anthology release then Cobweb might be right up your street / a picture from a parallel universe. This is a really sincere, cartoonish, twisty pressure cooker of a mystery, set over the unmistakable last week of the October. The cast sells all the zigs and zags especially a game Lizzy Caplan who gorgeously recreates an early Sixties psychobiddy unravelling to a T. The visuals are creepily indelible, the second half has sequences that will unnerve and blindside you. The movie is smart enough to introduce some deserving victims the moment the cat is out of the bag and the slow burn is allowed to become a murder inferno. As unpleasant 2023 surprises go Cobweb is on a par with Talk To Me. Whereas that release is a little classier, this proves a lot more generous. Only the reveal of “the monster”’s actual form disappoints and that CGI mishmash is merely a few fleeting shots before the close.
Adrian Lyne directs Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson and Robert Redford in this erotic drama where a rich man upturns a happy marriage by offering the down-on-his-luck husband a million dollars to fuck his beautiful wife.
A movie that does grow on me with every revisit. I think back as a young teenager cracking one out to it in my room the flick lost me when it starts out with ludicrous shot of Moore and Harrelson with their braces. These days it feels like the last release of the 1980s, mixing the opulent wealth porn of high concept with the pragmatic harder choices that adult cinema of my preferred decade. Because this isn’t a thriller or a film with an obvious villain (thanks to Warren Beatty demanding rewrites on a part he ultimately turned down) there’s no palpable moment of yuppie catharsis. Watching the plot unknot itself via personal growth rather than knives and rooftops is messy but unpredictable. Unpredictable is growing rarer and rarer so I’m giving Indecent Proposal a glossy if qualified pass. Moore has never looked so on the money.
Dizzy Gillespie, Etta James and Bobby “Blue” Bland star in this video assemblage of footage from the famous Jazz Festival.
A DVD I borrowed from Edinburgh Libraries in the hope it would somehow match the perfect Jazz On A Summer’s Day. This is far less cinematic. Most of the live performances are pretty awesome but often truncated mid song. Which would be just about acceptable if there weren’t also a few painful sequences of the organiser’s awkwardly rattling through dull introductions to fascinating artists. Let the music speak for itself, man.
5
Perfect Double Bill: Ella Fitzgerald – Live at Montreux Jazz Festival 1975 (1975)
Mike Judge directs Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston and Stephen Root in this satirical comedy where a depressed worker in a bullshit job accidentally gets hypnotised not to give a shit about work anymore.
One thing 90s comedies were great at was showing just how oppressive and pointless most jobs were and are. Employment sucks. This movie reaches deep into the Generation X psyche and shows a world without adventure, ambition, expectation or romance. And it is really casually funny. Whereas The Apartment or 9to5 end on the promise of something better… your Office Space or Clerks treat the whole of western existence as a cruel existential joke… the punchline is that joke feels never ending. And I’m there for that. Root and Gary Cole are iconic in smaller roles. Both became memes that stood the test of time. Not bad for a movie that went direct to video in the U.K. “Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be.”
Deran Sarafian directs Jean-Claude Van Damme, Robert Guillaume, and Cynthia Gibb in this action thriller where an undercover cop goes into a prison to investigate its mysteriously high death rate.
Has the obligatory line to explain what a cop with that accent is doing in LA, an obvious conspiracy with minimal sense and race relations that are… a bit… special. Yet there is a certain degree of style and flair to the production design, lighting and stereotypes. Death Warrant rarely rings true but is often beer spilling exciting. Cynthia Gibb makes for a cute romantic interest. One of JCVD’s most muscular productions. AND THEN THE SANDMAN IS TRANSFERRED INTO HIS WING!!!
Bob Fosse directs Mariel Hemingway, Eric Roberts and Cliff Robertson in this true crime drama of the short lived career of a Playboy playmate destined for bigger things who was murdered.
A pretty straightforward film except for its providence. Bob Fosse doesn’t instantly leap out as the correct pair of hands for this material. Though his fascination with fame and self-destruction probably qualifies him more than most on closer inspection. Still it is The Lost Boy on his impressive filmography. And then there is also the Bogdanovich factor. Peter is played here by Roger Rees, and his character is a minor composite rather than a true representation. The failing auteur really got obsessed with the death of his girlfriend and it pretty much stalled what was left of his career while he investigated, wrote an autobiographical novel in response to this movie and started dating the victim’s younger sister. All this happens outside the actual running time but a cinema fan can’t ignore its pall over the already grim and seedy experience. Star 80 doesn’t pull many punches and the shifting timeline means any victory or pleasure Dorothy Stratten achieves is intercut with her brutal fate. And vice versa. Hemingway is convincing in the title role but Roberts is an absolute powerhouse as the dumped suitcase pimp who spirals out of control. He keeps the often voyeuristic, nasty affair valid.
Howard Hawks directs John Wayne, Dean Martin and Angie Dickinson in this classic western where the sheriff arrests a wrong ‘un, finds himself under siege and must hold the town down for a week until the marshall arrives to take the bad guy off his hands.
Of course Angie Dickinson is smoking hot in this. But there is something particularly stellar, indelible about her turn in Rio Bravo. Street smart yet coy, statuesque yet juicy. She looks like a million poker hands won and acts as a distraction to all the tension and posturing. Hawks knows exactly how to get the best out of an actress. People often accuse Wayne of being one note. Yet he has a tender generous side with his female co-stars. The arc of romance is often the same. He’ll try to dominate, but the strangeness of the feminine in his world makes him take a step back, softens him. He’ll become both befuddled and paternal, show a side less taciturn and aggressive… trip up over the right action to declare his love or be pig headed that his minor change in his tenets should be enough without all that grand gesturing, bended knee hooey. All the characters here are dressed in almost pop art block colours. And their shifts from shabby to dude, from showgirl to one of the boys says something. Only the Duke never changes from his white hat and red heart. There are different layers but each one pure and only hung up for appearances. It makes for a beautiful (almost cartoon, almost graphic art) vision of the Wild West.
Anyway, our hero doesn’t have time to change his duds, let alone go through an emotional journey. Like Jack Bauer or John McClane the mission shouldn’t allow for rest stops, toilet breaks and wardrobe changes. Except that is all Rio Bravo actually is. Filling the time before the Burdettes and their hired guns try another full scale attack. There’s lots of banter, romance, pained stand-offs, two musical numbers in a row (pop stars Martin and Ricky Nelson in the adventure’s most unlikely yet richest set piece), a sidekick sobering up and returning to glory, a woman slowly getting her man after a long time in the unkind wilderness. Wayne envisioned the project as a catty answer song to High Noon. There a hero can find no help from his town when death comes riding in. In Wayne’s rebuttal, his man of action is bogged down in offers of help. He can’t refuse them fast enough. By the last hour our man of the law has capitulated. The community is so on his side that there barely isn’t a citizen who isn’t deputised. And with his back got, guns loaded and a handy wagon of dynamite waiting near the big showdown, he gives up on being besieged and takes the war to the Burdettes’ doorstep.
Now as big action goes for this era, that last twenty is a knee slapper of peow-peow and explosions. But the middle section can feel a little draggy if you just bought a ticket to see Wayne lay down the law. The story doesn’t really progress for a long old while. The characters just hang out in different permutations. That can play pretty cool, but also a little static. Wayne is good humoured and doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Martin is given a rich subplot as he finds his feet again after a year in the gutter, drunk after heartbreak. Career best work from Dino. Walter Brennan supplies crotchety humour, which I can take or leave. Nelson is a half pint Elvis clone and never really convinces as the fastest draw in Colorado. Yet Angie Dickinson as the card sharp trying to outrun a bad reputation… her I could hole up with for days. She ignites the ensemble with her wit, poise and unforced chemistry. To modern eyes, she galvanises Rio Bravo.
Angel Manuel Soto directs Xolo Maridueña, Bruna Marquezine and Susan Sarandon in this fading light release in the DCEU superhero universe.
In terms of Latinx representation in mainstream cinema I can recognise how this is a step forward. Any other ethnicity barely gets a look in. Not sure that the characterisation of the entire family being screaming, chaotic one-note messheads will land, say, twenty years down the line… but, for now, well done Warner Brothers. The movie itself is a basic bitch. A little bit of Spider-Man. A lot of Iron Man. A splodge of The Mask or Spawn. Brightly coloured, under powered. There is some extreme body horror in the initial transformation that seems at odds with Saturday morning kids cartoon tone. The humour is grating. There are few surprises. Bruna Marquezine as the love interest does constantly dominate the screen. Wouldn’t be surprised if she becomes a household name within a few years. As franchise fodder goes, this fulfils its brief with little grace. This cycle of DC adaptations is officially mothballed, making this a redundant release. The only experimentation I recognised was the marketing department trying to get away with the smallest, near camouflaged DC logos on the bus shelter posters. The brand cannae be that devalued, surely?
4
Perfect Double Bill: Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom (2023)
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 