Peter Strickland directs Fatma Mohamed, Asa Butterfield and Gwendoline Christie in this surreal drama where the latest collective to join The Sonic Catering Institute threaten to split up.
Not one of Strickland best but you can never fault the house weirdness. He gives the wonderfully unique Fatma Mohamed a home. He regurgitates verbose tangles and sensual images. You gotta admire his continued commitment to his personal tastes and narrow humour. British cinema would be a drab, sexless place without him. And his meaty slithers of uncanny sauce always grow on me with repeated viewings so who knows how I’ll feel about this in 5 years time.
Hal Hartley directs Parker Posey, Jeff Goldblum and James Urbaniak in this lo-fi, zoned out espionage thriller.
A sequel to a film I’m not sure I’ve watched and Natalie certainly hasn’t. Very talky. Very deadpan. Does trot the globe though. Ultimately dispiriting.
Paweł Pawlikowski directs Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas and Joanna Kulig in this Paris-set mystery based on a novel by Douglas Kennedy.
A writer stalks his estranged wife and daughter. Hides out in a flophouse above a cafe. Picks up work as a security guard at an underground mystery tunnel. Starts boffing an enigmatic widow he meets at a literary party. Murders happen. Lots of intriguing threads with flat resolutions. The journey is far more potent than the destination. Background noir. Pretentious soft-boiled. The acting and locations make this.
James Mangold directs Sylvester Stallone, Ray Liotta and Harvey Keitel in this crime drama where the sad sack sheriff, in a town built by corrupt NYPD cops, begins to question his duties.
A New Jersey High Noon. So many exciting names here doing solid to spectacular work. Robert De Niro. Michael Rapaport. Cathy Moriarty. Robert Patrick. Janeane Garofalo. Annabella Sciorra. Edie Falco. It can feel pretty bunged up on early watches. Akin to L.A. Confidential – this is a mood piece and a character piece that races through 600 pages of literary plotting. If you give it a few chances and become less concerned with the quagmire conspiracy of Internal Affairs, arson attacks and missing “superboy”s then the texture and melancholy of this sad little community really starts to wash over you and impress. In 1997, post-Tarantino, this felt a little trad and run-of-the-mill. Now, Cop Land’s mature dealing with ideas of regret, heroics and helplessness make it seem like quite the rare bird. Seventies New American Cinema is a clear influence. Stallone does career best work as the overweight and half deaf town teddy bear who polishes up his badge and does the right thing. Keitel gets the showiest role as the town father figure turned ingratiating tyrant. And Liotta relishes probably his finest post-Goodfellas part as the cokehead has-been with the knowledge of a sage and a heart of gold. All three performances elevate the movie into ‘forgotten classic’ territory. The rousing finale where Stallone’s vulnerable Sheriff Freddy Heflin cleans house, through a fog of agonising white noise, is cathartic sustained action at its very best.
Donald Petrie directs Sandra Bullock, Michael Caine and William Shatner in this ‘fed goes undercover at a beauty pageant’ comedy.
A blunt force frippery with minimal surprises. The older support cast members add some sparkle but the jokes would struggle to make the cut in most prime time sitcoms’ writing rooms.
4
Perfect Double Bill: Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous (2005)
Kim Ki-young directs Lee Eun-shim, Ju Jeung-nyeo and Kim Jin-kyu in this South Korean erotic drama where a family is put to the test when a co-worker and a live-in maid both plot to steal the feckless music teacher husband.
An attack on the conformist family / capitalist / gender values of Korean life, this works best as a corkscrew thriller. Your sympathies shift about a fair bit as the tables turn and turn. Two fumbles stop it from hitting classic status. 1 – Like Psycho, this really pushes at the restriction of what genre cinema could and couldn’t do in the early Sixties, but it now feels too coy for something so constantly horny. 2 – The weird little trick ending is unnecessary and also a product of its time. Bong Joon-ho has said The Housemaid was one of the inspirations for his 2019 Academy Award-winning film Parasite. That scans.
F. W. Murnau directs Janet Gaynor, George O’Brien and Margaret Livingston in this silent romance where a cheating husband takes his wife into the city with a plan to kill her, only to fall in love with her all over again… aah!
Choking turns to romance. Cities come to life. Piglets are chased. Absolutely mental and extravagant. Packed with trick shots that still dazzle and strange moments that make you think might be “A Song Of Two Humans” as covered by an extraterrestrial covers band who only spent an hour on Earth between gigs. Nosferatu director F.W. Murnau was given a free reign by Fox for his United States debut; it is breathtaking to see the upper limits of Hollywood technique and money stretched. A rare silent movie where I got on board with the OTT emoting. I was never bored or treated it as a chore as visually this is dense, spectacular and barmy. As a swan song for the silent movie era, Sunrise really exceeds even it unintended brief of being a pinnacle of a dying form.
David O. Russell directs Jason Schwartzman, Naomi Watts and Jude Law in this “existential comedy” where a struggling activist allows various philosophical detectives to investigate his life to diagnose his feeling of unease over a chance encounter.
Second attempt to sift some pleasure out of this self-satisfied folly. I thought, maybe, I was too young when I first bought a ticket for this on opening weekend. Nope, I❤️H is far up its own arse that it wastes Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin and Isabelle Huppert. Abysmal.
2
Perfect Double Bill: Flirting With Disaster (1996)
David Hand directs Adriana Caselotti, Lucille La Verne and Harry Stockwell in this fairytale romance, Walt Disney’s first feature length animated classic.
Tough to write anything new about a ground breaker, a game changer, a bonafide classic. Undisputed. The wishing well song at the start is very impressive. Inventive shot composition. The Evil Queen fantastic. I personally could do with a little less of the meeting of the dwarves… but that’s just me. On the whole this is consistently magical. Quite the achievement.
Andrew Dominik directs Ana De Armas, Julianne Nicholson and Bobby Cannavale in this fictionalised biopic of Marilyn Monroe’s private life – the abuse, trauma and delusions that destroyed her.
I’ve loved every feature Dominik has made until now. This is fifty miles of bad road though. Exhausting, dangerous, gonna leave you obliterated. I think that is the overriding intention of what Dominik and De Armas wanted to achieve. If so, Blonde is bang on target but that doesn’t mean it will be particularly rewatchable. Like last year’s Spencer, this is a powerhouse acting turn from an unmannered modern screen beauty in an abrasive maximalist film. She probably should win Best Actress at the Oscars in spring… she won’t. This ain’t no Oscar bait, heavy formula, biopic.
Scenes are lengthy, tragedy is lingered on clinically. Norma Jean’s childhood is an inferno of loneliness, poverty and mania. The five star sequence that opens the story is worthy of Kubrick in its patience and precision. A fantastic Julianne Nicholson driving her vulnerable daughter into a Hollywood Hills forest fire feels so far from the cookie cutter hardship prologues of say Ray… or The Jerk.
This is filmmaking from another planet. The precision recreation of Marilyn’s iconic big screen and tabloid moments are done with uncanny authenticity. But the length of the beast, the nihilism of the intent is exhausting. There are definitely elements that are off putting. Warren Ellis and Nick Cave’s score is intrusive.The framing of certain sexual acts is laughably awkward. The parade of CGI foetuses is leaned into with ever diminishing returns. I don’t give a toot about factual accuracy. This is a descent – closer to Lynch’s Fire Walk With Me or Mulholland Dr. than Bohemian Rhapsody or Chaplin. Nearly all the scenes of sex and nudity have a nightmarish quality. Alien pornography… pummelling vulnerability. For a NC-17 full of gorgeous flesh I reckon some teenagers are going to have some very challenging wanks to this. Best of luck to them. I can’t see myself putting myself through this three hour emotional meat grinder again any time soon but I do admire the rare craft and meaty flavour of it all. A work of uncomfortable vision.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 