Kim Jee-woon directs Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun and Jung Woo-sung in this Korean fantasy western where three men go after each other and a coveted map.
Should be right up my street but I found myself easily distracted from it. The action set pieces seemed to go on and on and on. Even though some of the kinetics were very clever it became a bit of a visual din. Will try again at some point.
Chang Cheh directs Chiang Sheng, Sun Chien and Philip Kwok in this martial arts movie where a student is assigned a task by his master to find out which of his five peers has turned evil.
Colourful murder mystery which I did not have the concentration span to follow. Might have caught me on the wrong day but I took very little in beyond an elaborate torture sequence.
James Ivory directs James Wilby, Hugh Grant and Rupert Graves in this Edwardian period drama where gay relationships cross class lines.
Not my bag. The gay content still feels a bit closeted and coy. There’s minimal joy. The acting is very stuffy, though Grant delivers. The whole endeavour feels trapped in aspic.
Bryan Singer directs Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne and Stephen Baldwin in this crime thriller where five hired guns find themselves under the thumb of a mysterious mastermind.
Bullshit: The Movie. The infamous big twist isn’t a revelation so much as it is just another clue that you can trust very little of what you’ve just seen and heard. Career accelerating performances from Spacey and Benicio Del Toro. Set pieces, transitions and fractured strorytelling that marked Singer out as a director of note and ambition. Though obviously it was screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie whose showcased talents have ultimately stood the test of time. John Ottman scored and edited this? What an unsung wunderkind. His work in both departments is marvellous. As hard as nails, but also somehow campier and as horny as a midnight Pride float on poppers. “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.” I went to see this on one of those Sunday morning, back of a copy of Empire, first come first served, free preview tickets they used to put up to build word-of-mouth. I remember the ticket they issued you was massive and gilded with gold leaf. But they never let me keep it. The Bastard Ushers of the Whiteleys Odeon!
Kevin Costner directs himself, Sienna Miller and Abbey Lee in this western epic following the formation of a white township in unprotected Apache lands.
Considering the mere appearance of Costner on horseback in the trailer brought a tear to my eye a couple of months ago I might not be the most partisan voice to judge this. I have heard bullshit from professional reviewers that it looks like a mere miniseries for television. What are we comparing those lush big screen visuals to? The digital greenscreen fakery of Shogun or Game Of Thrones? The mega budget per episode of a Westworld? Costner finds natural landscapes and lets them overpower his nascent population. There’s nothing staged or hokey nor any obvious studio shoot fakery here. Horizon consistently looks magisterial. Alive. And as for Letterboxd comments that he doesn’t know how to block a scene…. Jesus Christ! The man directed Dance With Wolves and Open Range. There’s a ripplingly filmed horse chase in this that had me tearing at my armrest and later a gundown where Costner is reflected in a trough of water that is so rich with import the one image could be a movie in its own right. It is a beautiful chunk of genre cinema, nearly all the storytelling in the first hour is visual, dialogue-free. Letterboxd user just show their uneducated prejudices when they spout nonsense like this.
So Horizon is blatantly a modernised How The West Was Won. That always is going to set off socio-political alarm bells. There’s no just way, no even handed way, to handle a time period defined by American genocide. Costner confronts the trauma head on. Chapter One begins and ends in brutal massacres. The opening hour is a genuine cinematic wonder but gruelling. We know little of the early pioneers being wiped out. Yet we follow their plight, a night of violence, with an intimate integrity. No punches pulled. No heroes, no villains. Just destructive, desperate humanity. It is like a mosaic of murder, survival and grit. That mode continues as the stars begin to enter the narrative mix. The movie often reminds of Linklater’s Dazed & Confused. No central protagonist but lots of strands travelling towards the same temporal point. Costner, once he starts to let us zero in on specific characters, relationships and potent subplots for the last two hours switches into unpredictable drawn out scenes. Many of the simmering set pieces remind of Tarantino, where the threat is obvious but the dialogue obtuse and unbalancing. A walk up a hill and a stand off in an outpost store both could easily come from a less cartoonish Hateful Eight or Django Unchained’s first draft.
The director most resurrected though is John Ford. With very few embellishments, this is a fine tribute to the great Western director through and through. Michael Rooker does a grand job of aping Victor Mclaglen’s mick cavalry sergeant. Miller makes for a softer Maureen O’Hara type. And Costner himself brings a soulful quiet man spin on a role The Duke would have bulldozer-ed through. His begrudgingly heroic Hayes Ellison is tender and worldly in a way Wayne never was, even at his peak. Three hours of reverential bliss. Action, romance, grandeur. My cup of tea, my shot of whisky. My clanking six shooter and any horse riding to the ravine. Wonderful Dad Cinema. I’m hungry for the next instalment.
8
Perfect Double Bill: Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2 (2024)
Michael Sarnoski directs Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn and the cats Schnitzel & Nico in this sci-fi horror prequel where one small sound brings down a horde of hungry aliens upon you.
Hey I’m in New York. I’ve got a cat let’s go to a Broadway show. Only about midway through I recognised a second London street corner fronting for the Big Apple. Not that this matters. Switching the alien invasion tension cranker to a still populated, debris shattered urban labyrinth adds massive obstacles to the heightened set pieces. Bunging a cute but oblivious cat into the mix is just bastardry of the highest level. My little Bill Clay is an obsessive noisemaker who would have us dead within minutes. This cat is a bit more chill, but only a bit. Nyong’o is very heartfelt and captivating as the vulnerable but determined lead on a side mission while everyone else is clambering to survive. Just like Michael Sarnoski’s Pig there are quirky character beats, soulful moments of humanity and a studied unpredictability that makes this sing. His visual style is very tactile, intimate. He even delivers an amazing horror set piece in a flooded subway tunnel…. And is smart enough to film a few alternate takes so there are red herrings in the much seen trailer. Best franchise blockbuster of the summer so far.
George P. Cosmatos directs Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer and Sam Elliott in this western that tries to expand on the much filmed Gunfight At The O.K. Corral by following the aftermath with equal brutal and chaotic detail.
Maybe because an elderly Wyatt Earp ended his days in Hollywood in the early days of the silent western that the myth surrounding him is eternally cinematic? An infamously troubled production Tombstone sits in the gut better than it plays in the eye. A few days after a view and the fantastic deep cut machismo of the casting and the downright walloping set pieces remain in the memory. The film itself is uneven over two plus hours. Both somehow rushed and slow. Epic yet choppy. I’ve never been the biggest Val Kilmer fan but his Doc Holliday is definitive. And the always welcome Russell bellows out the line “You tell ’em I’m coming! And Hell’s coming with me you hear! Hell’s coming with me!” as if it were the grandest line in western history. And it just may be. Shit, Bruce Broughton score is damn definitive too! See… only a few days later and I’m revising my opinion all over again
Sergei Parajanov directs Sofiko Chiaureli, Melkon Aleksanyan and Vilen Galstyan in this Soviet Cinema work of art based on the life and poetry of Sayat-Nova.
Androgynous fantasias. Visual esoteric codes. Shimmering sparkles. Any random minute of this is striking art. Like a music video or a gallery installation. And the most surprising thing is it never bored me. You’d really need to be in the right mood for it though.
Tim Kirkby directs Charlie Hunnam, Mel Gibson and Lucy Fry in this low key murder mystery set in modern Hollywood.
Hunnam is the disgraced cop turned society drop out forced to take on a case with nothing more than a bad attitude, a bicycle and a scraggly beard. Mel is a gregarious luvvie accused of murdering his wife. The whole thing is sub Raymond Chandler, weak Big Lebowski. A slew of quirky characters are met and then passed over. The mystery is pretty straight forward after all the faffing. Mel shines in his richest role post downfall but he isn’t around for half the movie. Doubt I’ll remember watching it in a year’s time.
James Gray directs Banks Repeta, Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong in this coming-of-age flick based on James Gray’s own experience of moving from public school to private school, his highly strung Jewish family and his awakening to the continual injustice of racism in society.
Gray is always a director who you know has the goods. Yet his movies uniformly fulfil their promise to the penny, never spoil you. He is masterly and patient. But that can be a nice way of saying his film making voice is boring and mummified. Armageddon Time is set in the punk era. The Clash’s album track of a similar name is a constant mournful refrain lingering within the soundscape of the movie. Rebellion but at a distance. There’s a lot here that rings true. The bullying injustices that mediocre teachers dole out to the outsiders in any class. The tentative friendship between two kids of wildly different backgrounds and futures. The alienating class divides and insidious attitudes of the private school culture. The inappropriate presence of the Trump family within that institution. The pressures of lower middle class family life. The expectation, thwarted ambitions, anxious emotive outbursts. Armageddon Time covers a ton and covers it well. Should be a five star film, right? Yet Gray’s consummate style puts all these quality, heartfelt elements behind museum glass. It is all display. Intellect not intuitive. The telling flaw is Anthony Hopkins’ mensch of a grandfather. A clever filmmaker would cast a sparkly Jewish character actor unknown for this lovely role. Lecter chews it up and takes you out of the truth of the sentiments he champions. Shame as there is a truly fine modern classic movie buried within these weighty themes and keenly intimate observations. But you could say the same of The Lost City Of Z, We Own The Night or The Yards.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 