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.
Sylvester Stallone directs himself, Talia Shire and Carl Weathers in this boxing three-quel where The Italian Stallion’s heavyweight championship title is called into question when an aggressive undercard fighter points out the easy ride of contenders he has faced.
Gritty and glossy, camp and macho in a way that shouldn’t work. Shut up and eat your montage. Not the best Rocky entry but possibly the most daft fun. The challengers here feel like a genuine risk to his mortality and the training sessions make funky sense. This is the one with MR T, AND Hulk Hogan, where Mickey dies and Adrian finally shakes off her retardation and becomes a glamorous adult. Weathers is tops as always as Creed and I hope Mr T got paid a bonus for each guttural grunt. Hurr… Hurgghhh… Huggggnnn!
Bernard Rose directs Charlotte Burke, Glenne Headly and Elliott Spiers in this dark children’s fantasy film where an inner city London school kid begins visiting the imaginary home that she draws in her sketchbook and the sad boy who is trapped within.
Almost definitely maybe watched this as a kid. And because it was directed by future Candyman director Rose everyone focuses on the ten minute terror sequence that closes the second act. “Anna, is that you?…. I’m BLIIIND!” The surrounding movie is a little bit CITV wobbly, a lotta bit modern gritty Alice In Wonderland. Rose infuses a deep brooding atmosphere to the whole endeavour that makes it very affecting. The acting and dubbing does hold it back. But the committed dream sequences, nightmarish or joyous, do make Paperhouse a one-of-a-kind.
6
Perfect Double Bill: Flight Of The Navigator (1986)
Kaneto Shindō directs Nobuko Otowa, Taiji Tonoyama and Shinji Tanaka in this near silent drama following a year in the life of a family who farm a small island with no fresh water source, just off from the coast of Japan.
The slog. The grind. The relentless struggle. Taking water endlessly across water, taking water painfully uphill. A slap. Eisenstein-style montage of eating family and eating animals. The festivals. The day off. The mainland like an alien future world. The tragedy. The desperation. The grief. The slog. The grind. The relentless struggle. Taking water endlessly across water, taking water painfully uphill. So dark, so beautiful. Usually silent cinema cannot hold my full attention. And while this isn’t exactly textbook “silent” it is almost entirely dialogue free and I was enthralled. A genuine one-of-a-kind.
Ti West directs Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki and Kevin Bacon in this erotic thriller where adult video sensation Maxine Minx tries to break into the Hollywood mainstream while her violent past is stalking her.
A “And then this happened” story. Lots of incident but not a particularly satisfying plot. The ending in particular lacks tension, action and agency for our coked up heroine. Instead of the pure splatter grinder of X’s finale, MaXXXine’s third act has a sense of “will this do” and then a meh gore gag. There is better stuff in the first half. A grimy neon resurrection of De Palma and Giallo that is truly heartfelt. Goth smashing her audition with composure giving way to near feral ambition. An icky sequence involving a gloopy head casting. As a closer to a great horror trilogy MaXXXine is a little haphazard and disappointing. But I would watch again for the always welcome Goth and the VHS sleaze era homages.
Jim Gillespie directs Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe in this slasher where four teens cover up a hit-and-run accident only for their crime to come back to haunt them a year later.
Not a patch on Scream. But then again what is? This has grown on me over the years. Such a strong concept. Buffy is the only decent actress out of the core four but nobody has been cast for their believability. This is a movie where hotness rules the roost. Logic can go take a walk too. A couple more kills are needed but the final three set pieces are all pretty groovy.
7
Perfect Double Bill: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)
John Landis and Mark Molloy direct Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, Bronson Pinchot, John Ashton, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Kevin Bacon in this threequel and long-awaited legacy sequel to megastar making / mega hit original where a Detroit cop solves a crime amongst the rich and shameless of Los Angeles.
John Landis knew the script wasn’t there when he started shooting Beverly Hills Cop 3. Yet he had worked with Eddie twice before and knew his star’s penchant for fast talking improvisation could switch the dud into a hit. Only Murphy turned up on set with different ideas. He felt Foley was older and wiser now. He would take the cartoonish mystery set in a theme park seriously. There’d be less trademark wisecracking. Which leaves us with a Beverly Hills Cop movie where Axel loses various interactions in the first act. Bruv can’t even finesse himself into Wonderworld for free. There’s something so wrong about seeing Foley open up his wallet and pay for something. With Murphy subdued, everyone else ramps up the hammy daftness. The filmmaking style is flat, textureless and the editing way too slow to cover up weak gags and soft action set pieces. Hitchcock always wanted to make a paranoid thriller set at Disneyland. This is the closest we got to that fertile concept. The first half has two decent set-pieces. A sport car falls apart as Murphy chases some bad guys in the Detroit prologue. And then our hero saves some kids from a defective ride, eighty feet up in the air. OK… so the green screen and the stunt work is kinda blatant but this five minutes of thrills is actually pretty ambitious. I reckon if it had one of those classic Harold Faltermeyer themes playing over it we’d consider the rescue a franchise highlight. The movie itself is hard to defend, a half hearted cash-in. Yet as a fan there’s just enough forgivable content that for me it doesn’t stink out the box set.
30 years in the offing Axel F is an improvement. Formulaic and nostalgic as fuck… but made with a slick expertise. Murphy carries everything creaky and unoriginal on his shoulders. He shines. All the returning players get welcome bits of business. Every familiar piece of music associated with the series is resurrected. There isn’t one trademark demolition derby set piece but four. Snow plough, meter maid cart, helicopter AND truck full of statues. Spoilt. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a little wasted as Murphy’s new partner but all in all this had me smiling constantly from studio logo to “Trust Me” freeze frame.
Below are two scores that are the most generous I have given in my near decade doing this diary. Yet in spite of their gaping inherent flaws both flicks tickle me thoroughly, have me laughing gutturally at both Eddie’s unparalleled A-list charisma and the bursts of blockbuster excess. Most Saturday nights, that’s all I truly want from an entertainment.
Michelangelo Antonioni directs Monica Vitti, Richard Harris and Carlo Chionetti in this Italian arthouse drama where a rich housewife is losing her sanity.
The fruit is ashen grey. The streets are deserted. The countryside littered with factories, plants and technological protrusions. The workers are on strike, the 1%ers rip away the walls from their shacks in futile destructive decadence, disease comes with global exploitation. Sounds familiar. Whatever prescient idea or ideas Antonioni was trying to say in 1964 now comes across as blunt and unsophisticated. Vitti looks stunning but who want to appreciate her beauty in such interminable bleakness. An apocalypse of pretentious boredom.
Roberto Rossellini directs Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani and Marcello Pagliero in this Italian Neo-Realist drama depicting the resistance and suffering of ordinary people in Nazi-occupied Rome during World War II.
I haven’t watched this since my Film Studies A-Level class over 25 years ago. A* btw. It hit harder this time. I could see the poetic humanity in many of the scenes. Made in the ruins of post-war Rome, immediately after the withdrawal of the German forces, with a cast consisting mainly of non-actors. Rossellini invented a sub-genre. Rome Open City is also a movie with a moment so powerful, so memorable, so iconic that you misremember that being the end of the movie. There’s a whole other act of torture, oppression and gentle defiance after the “big scene”. A work of art but also very entertaining. Rossellini knows when to inject some humour and action into all his didactic intent. Immortally powerful for a film made on the fly with scrap ends of celluloid.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 