Andrey Konchalovskiy and Albert Magnoli direct Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell and Jack Palance in this action buddy comedy where two competing top cops get framed for murder by a mysterious Mr Big!
This got pummelled with bad reviews on release. A dumb cartoon. It is actually quite self-aware and OTT. Bordering on Hudson Hawk / Last Action Hero levels of meta, just too early. Those movies have found their cult. This has Jack Palance use his pet rats as visual aids to explain his nefarious scheme. T&C is better when it is being silly rather when it is being bombastic. Superior to most blockbusters these days.
John Ford directs John Wayne, Pedro Armendáriz and Harry Carey Jr. in this western where three bank robbers trapped in the desert find a baby that needs ferrying to civilisation.
Starts out like a light hearted lark but lunges into religious epic. The final act when it is the Duke, a baby and a bible against the desert really feels like a Sunday school parable. Yet it looks stunning, clean Technicolor location shoot majesty. An uneven flick but both halves have value.
Scott Cooper directs Jeff Bridges , Maggie Gyllenhaal and Colin Farrell in this country and western drama where a struggling singer songwriter faces up to his alcoholism.
Good songs, the recognisable lows of life on the road, Jeff’s best dramatic performance. Maybe the recovery aspect is brushed over a little Speedy Gonzales but I get the feeling the sole point really is the first step is the hardest.
Joe Dante directs Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates and John Glover in this horror comedy sequel where “the rules” are again broken and Gizmo’s unwanted offspring take over a NY skyscraper with a TV studio and a science lab within.
If they just let Joe Dante make this (and I mean this) a couple of years sooner it might have been a different story. The appetite for more Gremlins wained while executives fiddled and diddled. Warner Bros. went around the houses trying to cash in on the success of their 1984 smash hit. Many writers uninvolved in the original film were drafted in to try and feed the franchise after midnight with no real progress. In need of a summer tentpole for 1990 and with a potential brand going to seed, they capitulated and offered Joe Dante the chance to return to his own well. His demand – complete creative freedom. Final cut? Warner Bros. ended up with a sequel that was aggressively anti-business, chaotically meta and off its meds. It didn’t make nearly as much money as Gizmo’s first outing but the console game licences, Topps trading cards and mogwai toys probably still turned a tidy profit.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch is a work of looney tune virtuosity and counter culture sensibility. It feels nihilistic. Up against everything except physical effects and anarchic movie references. It is Joe Dante at his most narratively untethered and also his most childlike gleeful. Gremlins sprout wings, get doused in cement become gargoyles, the projection booth is taken over and the movie has to be saved by a heckling Hulk Hogan, the puppet musical parodies are even grander. It isn’t tidy but it is a blast. Gizmo, the flagship brand mascot, is bullied and traumatised. There’s no sensibility Dante doesn’t unravel to get to the joke that is within it. Not only a stronger film than its progenitor but possibly Dante’s best. It is neck and neck between this, Matinee and Innerspace. This is the least neat, most idiosyncratic. The only one that only Joe Dante could make.
Amid all the mania, animatronics and mutated call backs the humans become cattle. It is very much a case of go big or go home. Our returning bland small town kids in the big city are given very short plot shrift once the chaos is unleashed. Cates possibly deserves better but she is at least manhandled by a hundred little green arms in a plummeting elevator and gets to self destruct her iconic “The worst thing that ever happened to me was on Christmas” monologue. Christopher Lee gives good extended cameo as a memorable mad scientist. John Glover’s spoof of one Donald Trump is a lot of laughs and he really goes for it. Someone who definitely gets the memo is Haviland Morris whose cold blooded middle manager is a flame haired resurrection of a Kate Hepburn / Rosalind Russell in a power suit. If the sequel was a bigger hit I reckon her career would have went on a far wilder trajectory. It is Tony Randall’s “Brain Gremlin” though that steals the show. He’s one suave, erudite motherfucker.
Frank Coraci directs Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore and Allen Covert in this romantic comedy where a popular wedding singer is jilted at the altar.
The chemistry between Sandler and Barrymore is off the charts. I can’t be the only one who still wants them to make a fourth, fifth and twentieth project together? The Eighties nostalgia is leaned into heavily with cute results. The soundtrack is absolute killer after killer. The bold colours and clean location shoots are vivid. Most importantly, there is at least one laugh out loud joke every scene. Very few comedy flicks have this hit rate. Cameos are smashing, rapping old ladies are divine but Sandler is on fantastic form. He makes for an unlikely romantic lead – complex emotionally, unabashedly entertaining when onstage. The maturing of Sandler’s brash populist manchild schtick into A-List stalwart happens before our very eyes. It is rare for a throwaway studio movie to have this much charm, pep and personality.
Rich Peppiatt directs Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara and DJ Próvai in this fictionalised and heightened biopic about the formation of the North Of Ireland rap trio Kneecap, where the lads play themselves.
Went into this musical caper pretty blind but had an absolute riot. You could hear all the Irish laughing in the Cameo Screen 3. Kneecap has a true Trainspotting energy to it. Snarling editing, visual garble, adrenaline rush. A self harming sense of humour about itself too. I enjoyed all three protagonist separate mini-plot strands and it almost made me want to listen to Irish language rap away from the movie experience. Almost.
Baltasar Kormákur directs Egill Ólafsson, Kōki and Palmi Kormakur in this time jumping drama where an Icelandic restraunter with early on-set of dementia decides to abscond on a plane and track down his first love just as Covid Lockdown begins.
Not my first choice of movie but solidly crafted and subtly acted. Hits the same flavour notes as Past Lives but with a bit more seasoning and marinade replacing blank obtuseness. There are some unpredictable lurches into dark emotional territory in the third act but the ultimate destination is worth the journey. As a cinematic document as to what March 2020 was like for most people this will be the most accurate. City life grinding to a halt, wiping, distance, sanitiser, old fuckers not covering their noses with the masks.
Nathan Silver directs Jason Schwartzman, Carol Kane and Dolly de Leon in this romantic comedy where a grieving cantor begins a friendship with his high school music teacher defined by mutual attraction.
Mumblecore? Very sweet but also incredibly anxious. There is a lengthy dinner party scene near the end where the dialogue overlaps and thoughts are never finished… edge of the seat stuff. Ultimately this indie still is a minor movie but in gifting the always fantastic Carol Kane a lead role you can’t help but root for it.
6
Perfect Double Bill: The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
Danny Cannon directs Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Brandy in this slasher sequel where a PTSD suffering Julie wins a trip to a deserted resort with her new suspicious pals.
Let’s get the elephant out of the room first. For a movie that sends Jennifer Love Hewitt’s iconic good girl cleavage on a bikini swimsuit island vacation you don’t really see enough of it. Aside from that hard fail, this takes too long to ramp up. The third act just about delivers and I cared more about Freddie Prinze Jr’s B-plot than anyone could ever predict. The state of Jack Black though…ugh.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 