Alain Robbe-Grillet directs Jean-Louis Trintignant, Marie-France Pisier and Christian Barbier in this French New Wave neo-noir where a smuggler and a prostitute enter into a series of puzzling transactions while the movie makers write and rewrite the plot of their affair on a long train journey.
Meta but also just an excuse to sneak in plenty of shots of Marie-France Pisier in as many chic outfits and S&M scenarios as the wafer thin narrative can sustain. Is the ultimate point that in the cinematic new frontiers of the Sixties the framing sex and violence within a plot is a hollow pointless exercise? We just want to see the machinations where the anti-hero draws a gun, the femme submits and they both can be tortured until release. All genre cinema is on a rail. Thanks for the horny, smart alec essay.
The English Rose with a remarkable hit rate in the Sixties and Seventies, Warren Beatty described her as “the most beautiful and at the same time the most nervous person I had ever known.”
Stacy Title directs Cameron Diaz, Courtney B. Vance and Annabeth Gish in this indie thriller satire where a group of liberal post grads invite right wing nuts to dinner and poison them if they can’t change their views.
A chunk of a forgotten gem from the post-Reservoir Dogs era. Like Tarantino’s debut it takes a cast of fascinating talents (some rising stars, some cult character actors) puts them in one location, let’s them talk smart and chop each other up to a hip Seventies’ jukebox soundtrack. As a dark comedy this flies. The caricatures the “good guys” murder, anti abortionists and rednecks, are bluntly realised by a cavalcade recognisable faces (Bill Paxton, Jason Alexander, Ron Perlman). Each cameo relishes playing a doomed heel. Yet the young protagonists fall apart and volte-face pretty convincingly over the short runtime. Nobody is the same by the closing punchline and the creatives behind the project are canny enough to explore their flaws beyond the obvious one… That they murder people they feel superior to. The movie moves at an incredibly deft pace and has a rich colour palette. It really holds up well, and foretells of the echo chamber culture we live in currently. Strong stuff, overdue a rediscover.
Francis Ford Coppola directs Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel and Aubrey Plaza in this epic speculative fantasy where wealthy families attempt to rebuild a parallel dimension version of New York in their own images while also attempting to destroy each other via scandal and violence.
So clearly the vision of a different era. This shares the artificial fakery of The Phantom Menace or Batman & Robin. The bankrupting idiosyncratic vision of Toys. The Shakespearean remixing of William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. And the old fart’s idea of horniness like the flat, cold and camp Eyes Wide Shut. If all but one of your cultural touchstones are follies from the 1990s then why now?
Coppola has been thinking about Megalopolis since little Larry Fishburne was a teen in Apocalypse Now and nearing his life expectancy he has sold the vineyard to make it. Not that the 120 million smackeroos are all up there on screen. Clearly a Redux or a complete saga version are in the offing. The movie only briefly alludes to some other events that were obviously filmed. It is hard to tell if the third act is rushed or just hits the brakes when it reaches a certain runtime limit and then tacks on a scene of jubilant happy ending. There are lengthy theatrical scenes where the entire cast perform to each other, triptychs of visual poetry that recall Abel Gance and montages that do mood board poetry in place of narrative storytelling. Only about one in three scenes truly work in a traditional sense but even the daft, unfinished blurts are so compelling that you cannot take your eyes from them. I genuinely did not want to miss a single second as it was either wildly unpredictable or masterfully spectacular. The bidding on the virgin megastar’s “pledge” sequence at Madison Square Gardens is pure cinema.
There is just around as much to hate about Megalopolis as there is to love. Driver puts in one of his best performances. Yet only in certain moments as he feels like he is playing different characters every fade out. The ensemble is deep and truly impressive. Aubrey Plaza’s femme fatale villain is a highlight – funny and sexy, even more so than you’d expect. If you’ve sat through Twixt or Youth Without Youth you’ll be surprised at how judicious the use of green screen and cheap CGI is. It is still leaned into but not to the point where the artifice obliterates all sense of investment in the story. Coppola’s unlikely last epic is easy to deride and wears its strange dying heart on its sleeve. But there’s enough entertainment and wonder and intelligence and bravery here that I’d deep dive into it again. Will it be rediscovered as a lost classic?… Ha! Probably not… Is it an ageing master’s Citizen Kane?… It is a wonky try at the pinnacle of his idea of cinematic greatness.
Bill Condon directs Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser and Lynn Redgrave in this period film set around the last days of retired horror director James Whale and his unrequited desire towards his hunky straight gardener.
Not subtle but quite complex. The burgeoning relationship between Fraser and McKellen sees both deliver career best work. The movie attempts to make a lot of links as to what makes a man and what defines a monster. A celebration of human imperfection. And the recreated Frankenstein trivia is pretty exciting for film buffs.
Isao Takahata directs Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi and Yoshiko Shinohara in this Japanese anime where a brother and sister lose their mother in the bombing of Kobe then find the world where they must fend for themselves is indifferent to their plight.
Which hand drawn image to pick to represent this crushing experience? The most misleading or the most depressing? Watch two children slowly die in poverty and rejection. Beautifully crafted but the epitome of a one-watcher. Just very sad.
Steve Carver directs Angie Dickinson, William Shatner and Tom Skerritt in this depression era gangster road movie cheapie where a widow and her daughters turn to robbing and kidnapping to survive the 1930s in style.
So much nudity. Sleazy nudity. Healthy nudity. Angie Dickinson (looking incredible for her age) sustained nudity. The Bonnie And Clyde rip-off that trades in studio system class and new wave experimentation for episodic exploitation. Natalie will kill me but I preferred it.
Stephen Frears directs John Cusack, Iben Hjejle and Jack Black in this comedy drama about a record shop owner who, after a break-up, begins to realise the true cause behind of all his issues with women.
I was a massive fan of John Cusack and an avid reader of Nick Hornby when this was released. It was the sort of movie that both mirrored and informed my personality in many ways. Chandler Bing. Banky from Chasing Amy. Rob the depressed record store owner here. It isn’t, in retrospect, a particularly healthy bunch of role models or fictional peers. Cusack’s Rob is essentially a covert study of “nice guy” toxic masculinity. Too self absorbed and defined by his own ennui to realise what he has. How responsible he is for the sadness in his life and those he professes to love. Very truly male, very truly human. Nowhere near as cool as I thought he was in my early twenties. I’d still build my own second hand DVD and Blu Ray shop around the business model presented in the book and this pitch perfect, insightful adaptation… but I’d never categorise this as a Top Five “romantic comedies for men” any more. It is much more a wake up call for all our immature, self centred shitty behaviour. Viewed through that lens it is a richer yet less entertaining watch. Hard to know whether I really can laugh either at or with some of the iconic funny moments now I have some life experience, distance and context. Still the soundtrack slaps (almost equalling Grosse Pointe Blank’s mix tape supremacy) and Jack Black turns in his only acceptable performance here. He’s meant to be grating for once… context and self awareness are everything.
Michael Crichton directs Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons and Cynthia Rhodes in this sci-fi thriller where, in the near future, cops police out of control robots.
Starts out like a teatime cop show and then goes hard in the last 45 minutes. Suddenly, in one big blurt, there’s swearing, intensity and nudity. For one minute there’s even split diopter shots spicing up the workmanlike stew. Did Brian DePalma takeover filming this for a couple of days? Once you get past the analogue nature of the killer droids the concept is solid, the bullets that chase you are pretty awesome. Everyone brings more than their slightly stock characters warrant. Rhodes, for example, does fine work elevating the very sexist idea of “the good girl” partner. A rewatchable.
Darren Stein directs Rose McGowan, Rebecca Gayheart and Judy Greer in this teen movie about vapid popularity and kidnapping pranks gone wrong.
Very much a poor man’s Heathers. But I am undeniably a poor man. A poor man who fancies Rose McGowan. Jawbreaker has the bubblegum palette of Clueless but a tenth of the budget. There are lurches into experimental arthouse camp. Humanity is grazed by all the cartoonish misanthropy. Yet it also feels like a passion project that got lost in the edit.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 