Sebastián Lelio directs Florence Pugh, Tom Burke and Kíla Lord Cassidy in this Irish period drama where a nurse is employed by a small town’s elders to observe a fasting girl to determine whether a miracle is occurring.
A quietly brilliant movie that should never have got shuffled away in a Netflix churn. Cagey performances by all with little vents of lust and escape. There’s two deeper ideas bubbling under the surface. The value of a life. And the artificiality of the traps we keep ourselves in. The tragedy is never dry and the drama moves forward with a heightened degree of tension. Not all questions are answered about faith, poverty, death, sexism and grief but it reaches a satisfying conclusion. Pugh’s first ‘proper’ piece of screen acting since Lady Macbeth made her an immediate sex symbol.
Tsui Hark directs Adam Cheng, Brigitte Lin and Damian Lau in this Hong Kong fantasy where a deserting soldier finds himself on a quest in a supernatural dimension.
Every physical FX, stunt works trick and Chinese mythical wonder is thrown at the wall all at once. Rarely makes a lick of sense but one foot follows another on an insane journey of visual totality. Sammo Hung has a cheeky cameo.
7
Superman III (1983)
Richard Lester directs Christopher Reeve, Richard Pryor and Annette O’Toole in this superhero sequel where the Man of Steel takes on a hacker being manipulated by a sociopathic tycoon.
The naff comedy overwhelms this entry which lacks Hackman and sidelines Margot Kidder. Pryor is good value but his business seems so separate from Supes. Reeves does battle himself and a supercomputer. There’s just enough physics bending adventure to temper the clowning. Sloppy but still contains enough baseline summer blockbuster wonderment.
6
Curtains (1983)
Richard Ciupka directs John Vernon, Samantha Eggar and Linda Thorson in this American giallo where six actresses audition for a dream role in a secluded house with a killer on the loose.
Moribund and choppy. There’s a solid mystery hook and a visually memorable killer servicing something completely up its own arse with not enough money to call for a proctologist.
4
Easy Money (1983)
James Signorelli directs Rodney Dangerfield, Joe Pesci and Jennifer Jason Leigh in this comedy where a lazy, gambling, boozin’ photographer must straighten his life out to inherit a fortune.
A vehicle that forgets the plot to try and crowbar in all of Rodney’s stand-up standards as if they were skits. The story should fill a decent comedy movie but it only takes up 20% of the runtime. There’s a fantastic cast floundering in brash roles. Jennifer Jason Leigh feels hopelessly miscast as the ‘good girl, better chest’ totty. Everyone is better than this… even Dangerfield. The Billy Joel theme song absolutely slaps.
4
Local Hero (1983)
Bill Forsyth directs Peter Riegert, Denis Lawson and Burt Lancaster in this Scottish magical realist drama where a corporate suit for an oil company heads to Scotland to buy up a remote coastal town.
Mark Knopler’s transcendent score and some breathtaking scenery lend this a mythic air. Forsyth’s most famous work is a riff on Ealing Comedies, Powell & Pressburger and even The Wicker Man. Ahead of its time in terms of the holistic attitude to the environment. What makes Local Hero gently soar is the constant subversion of formula. All potential conflicts flutter away into bonhomie, while all victories are smothered by everyday reality. A hopeful serving of slow cinema, anti-genre with slithers of fantasy. Lancaster is overqualified for his extended cameo but Denis Lawson makes an impact as the little village’s canniest brain. All pretty wispy but it lingers in the memory.
Timo Tjahjanto directs Joe Taslim, Iko Uwais and Julie Estelle in this martial arts thriller where an Indonesian enforcer betrays the triads and everybody dies.
Relentless excess. So ludicrously ultra violent that it might just be the most merciless gory action flick I have ever seen. No matter how cool a character is they are ultimately disposable. There’s even a few digital era Michael Mann interludes of exposition on motorway intersections. Something else.
Gary Shore directs Luke Evans, Sarah Gadon and Dominic Cooper in this period action horror where Vlad The Impaler is granted vampiric superpowers for three days to protect his people from the Turks… the only catch is that if he drinks blood he is cursed forever.
Very much a project of its decade. Rejigged to be a franchise starter, made from the fag ends of a Game Of Thrones concept sketchbook and with the heroic beats of a Marvel movie rather than a horror flick. The superhero squat and the CGI swirl are prominent here. It is mindlessly entertaining – Evans is a purebred classic leading man and the big scene between Charles Dance’s vampire hermit and our hero is a hammy delight. There’s a decent enough look and hook. Neither are brilliantly exploited. We end up with three very similar one man army vs hordes battle sequences to sate our blood thirst. These undermine the central tension. Will he…Won’t he bite his delicious missus?
Osgood Perkins directs Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage and Alicia Witt in this 90’s-set satanic horror thriller where a paranormally gifted FBI rookie tracks a serial killer who never seems to enter their victims’ homes.
“Daaaaaddy! MOMMMMMYYY! Un-make me, and save me from the hell of living!” Wears it’s influences heavily on the sleeve. There’s a generous chunk of Fincher, Lambs and The X-Files here, especially in the composed visual mix. A shot in a barn attic recalls the space jockey set in Alien with it sense of overwhelming scale. But the biggest touchstone is obviously Lynch and Twin Peaks. This is a tribute to all the darkest imagery and fucked-up ideas that floated around that discordant, anachronistic prime time classic. And I’m so there for that. A work of constant nightmare, permanent unease, with bursts of pure nasty trauma. Cage is unrecognisable, rationed in his screen time, but the energy he brings to the titular monster will make him the creepy Freddy Krueger of this decade. Monroe plays against type in a sympathetic lead turn that is geeky, sexy and totally crawling to escape her own skin. The eventual plot revelations admittedly are a stroke too par for the course but there are plenty of unresolved mysteries and barely absorbed shock that mean Longlegs should be revisited many times over the next few years.
Jerry Seinfeld directs himself, Melissa McCarthy and Amy Schumer in this comedy that reimagines the invention of the Pop-Tart as if it were the space race between cereal brands.
Overstuffed with cameos and an onslaught of cultural references to things that were forgotten before any of Jerry’s girlfriends were even born, Unfrosted reeks of a vanity project. It could be a live action Pixar rip-off about breakfast or a The Right Stuff of morning foods but it forgets the laughs. Plenty of jokes but few hit. A terrible gag to reaction ratio. The two kids who have their finger on “the goo” pulse are very funny. Like The Phantom Menace or The Adventures Of Pluto Nash this is a movie that exists only because nobody felt they had the power to say no to a creative who reached their commercial peak a very long time ago.
Scott Mann and Jonathan Frank direct Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in this survival thriller where two dumb daredevils climb a rusted 2,000 feet tall TV tower in the middle of a desert and get stranded at the top.
I reckon I’ll never particularly care about the plight of whiny Gen Z-ers who put themselves in harms way for fire emojis. If you can move past how annoying the leads are then there are adequately good thrills within. A lot of the escalating peril is expertly foreshadowed. The risk builds nicely and my heart was in my mouth a couple of times during the dizzyingly futile escape attempts. Fall is better than most of its weird little subset. Could be 15 minutes shorter, and the last minute twist doesn’t add much, but all-in-all a serviceable enough one-watcher. Verti-go-go!
Alberto Corredor directs Freya Allan, Peter Mullan and Anne Müller in this euro horror where an orphan inherits a warehouse of a pub with a demonic presence in the basement but no kegs.
Don’t set out detailed, specific rules for ghoul use and then have every encounter see said rules be completely ignored with minimal consequences.
Don Hall and Qui Nguyen direct Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid and Jaboukie Young-White in this Walt Disney animated sci-fi adventure where a family travel to the dangerous, bio-organic centre of their planet to find out what is affecting their civilisation’s key power source.
Just Stop Oil. Daddy Issues. Woke representation. The big The Day After Tomorrow reunion / revival! These are all fine and worthy additions to the Disney canon. The weird biodiversity of the secret planet within a planet is well conceived and lends itself to pleasingly tight action set pieces. Yet even if it’s heart is in the right place I’m not sure Strange World is memorable beyond its attempt to repackage hot button issues in a way that is palatable for the family market. A week after watching and I had to have a long hard think whether I had anything worth saying about it… and that is pretty damning evidence. I hope time proves me wrong.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 