Chloe Domont directs Phoebe Dynevor, Alden Ehrenreich and Eddie Marsan in this drama where two work colleagues in a secret relationship hit troubled waters when he feels he is passed over for the big promotion in favour of her.
Marketed as an erotic drama with two very attractive leads… this feels like a bungle. There is nudity, fucking and an enticing sheen but it is far too harsh and abrasive a movie to enjoy. Especially in the final abrupt developments. Ultimately a film about toxic masculinity, it squanders the heat and chemistry of its two leads in favour of some one sided man bashing. Now there’s definitely a market for that, it just ain’t the movie we were sold and I was buying.
Delbert Mann directs Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr and David Niven in this British drama based on two short Terrence Rattigan plays set around the same Bournemouth hotel.
Cine-fied plays are my least favourite genre but the mega set this is filmed on, and the characters are genteelly trapped within, is an impressive construction. Niven puts in a wonderful shift, Academy Award winning, as the old fraud who has exaggerated his military past and likes an innocent nudge. Hayworth, Burt Lancaster and Wendy Hillier’s love triangle is really quite emotionally mature and tragic. Their story has the best acting, all differing styles. Kerr plays against type and her simpering doormat really grates. She’s the only weak link but one that does hold this compassionate little chamber piece back from classic status. Fantastic ending.
F. Gary Gray directs Samuel L Jackson, Kevin Spacey and Paul Giamatti in this action thriller where a framed hostage negotiator takes an Infernal Affairs building hostage.
Pretty much a character actor jamboree. This pairing felt like a hot ticket in 1998. Jackson and Spacey had crept up from ‘That Guy’ roles to name above the title status steadily. By 1998 they felt more viable brands than certain pre-ordained stars (McConaughey, Fiennes, Pitt spring to mind at this point in time). The movie itself is all bluster. There’s actually very little action and Spacey takes an hour to get into the mix. There’s enough here to make a fantastic trailer and an acceptable Saturday night killer.
Stephen Anderson and Don Hall direct Jim Cummings, Jack Boulter and Travis Oates in this Walt Disney animated snorer where some tubby merchandising shill is a crackhead for honey.
Jesus Christ. Never again. Not in my name. Not on my watch. Get fucked you bunch of stuffed reprobates.
James Bridges directs John Travolta, Debra Winger and Scott Glenn in this drama about oil refinery workers who unwind in a country and western themed nightclub where a mechanical bull riding contest takes centre stage.
Based on a magazine article and seen (as many Travolta movies of this era were) as an attempt to recapture the Saturday Night Fever lightning in a bottle for a second time. It is a less spoken of phenomenon of the early Eighties how many mainstream studio movies were based on journalism. New American Cinema and New Journalism overlapped for a prolonged period and by the the time high concept started to bite the idea of boiling down the richness of alternative life stories into formulaic star vehicles became an often unremarked upon sub genre of it own. Artistically ambitious strippers nightly grind became Flashdance. There’s a training program called Top Gun and there might be a movie in it! And as much as the boiler plate scriptwriting process might try and smooth and corral these people’s tales into something mass market, the grit and residue of reality still clings somewhere to the final product’s heart.
Urban Cowboy is not a great movie but it has stuck with me over the past couple of weeks. Mainly Debra Winger’s complex and yet smoking hot performance. There’s a taunting sequence where she rides the mechanical bull, showing Travolta’s controlling cuck all the moves her new lover has taught her that might just be the sexiest scene of the entire Eighties. She is given a raw deal through the movie. Two volatile suitors to chose from, neither really worthy of her but one the less dangerous choice… the only man who there is a chance for change and growth. Hard to imagine a movie being made today where the happy ending feels like such a compromise. But I suspect the filmmakers only see her as a daffy trophy to be won, a feisty beauty to be tamed. Much of the shading and humanity is what Winger brings to the role.
All in all, Urban Cowboy is overlong. Travolta is miscast and the story often bends around what his fanbase want. It was his last hit before Look Who’s Talking. Glenn’s villain for example could have went another way entirely and if the script wasn’t stacked in the A-Lister’s favour then the better actor might have revealed himself to be a better man. Disco was silly enough but a gritty relationship drama about a couple mastering a mechanical bull feels almost spoof worthy. Maybe not entirely unintentionally it often feels like the bull symbolises Scott Glenn’s more confident, mature and masculine penis. Whatever goes on on the device is just a surrogacy for what the more experienced Buck wants to do with both halves of the couple away from the nightclub crowd. The C&W soundtrack kicks, it launched a musical sub genre all of it own, and the location filming lends this daft movie a grounding. I’m conflicted but I would watch again.
6
Perfect Double Bill: An Officer And A Gentleman (1982)
Based on Homer’s The Odyssey but only in a real loose cockeyed way. “Damn! We’re in a tight spot!” “I’m a Dapper Dan man!” “They loved him up and turned him into a… horny toad.” Step aside Lebowski, this is easily The Coens most quotable flick, thanks to the repetitious rhythm of the dense script. The use and love of language is a joy to behold. And that T Bone Burnett produced songbook rightly sold more CD units than cinema tickets. The sepia dust bowl pastoral pastiche looks lush and there are some clever moments. It is ultimately quite throwaway and bitty however. The last act lacks sparkle and cohesion. Not quite the gem I fondly remember. And my standard for the Coens is incredibly high.
Todd Phillips directs Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis in this raunchy comedy where, after blacking out in Las Vegas, three stags try to piece together what happened over a crazy night and find the missing groom.
Has aged poorly. What was quite a laddish lark back in the cinema now plays like something that should probably never be revisited. Doesn’t help that the breakout stars and director became oversaturated, overrated presences we are still living in the wake of. Heather Graham, Mike Tyson and Ken Jeong put in good cameos. I laughed out loud once. Two sequels?! Surely there are no needle drops left?
Apichatpong Weerasethakul directs Thanapat Saisaymar, Jenjira Pongpas and Sakda Kaewbuadee in this arthouse darling from Thailand about a slowly dying farmer who is visited by his dead wife and his son who has taken on the form of a spooky monkey ghost.
The Emperor’s New Palme d’Or. Yeah… it’s not that I don’t care about Thai culture, history or beliefs nor that I’m not interested in death, doppelgängers or pastoral employment… this is just too laidback and airy to justify its runtime. The iconic forest mythological creatures who pop in are creepy (shadows with glowing red eyes) but do little.
5
Perfect Double Bill: Syndromes and a Century(2006)
Alexander Payne directs Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa in this comedy about an unloved prep school classics teacher who must look after a troubled student over the Christmas break.
Seventies vibe recreated right down to the film stock, crash zooms and folk songs. A funny first hour gives way to a hymn about compassion. A hard movie not to fall in love with, a gentle movie full of intelligence and wit.
David Fincher directs Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara and Christopher Plummer in this remake of the Swedish mystery bestseller.
Fair to say this suffered coming out so soon after the Noomi Rapace trilogy. With a bit of distance this epic but slick adaptation proves just what a master Fincher is. The casting of the relatively unknown Mara is devastatingly effective, Craig plays a crumpled, wimpish anti-Bond efficiently, this is the role you wish he got further entries in. Their convergent storylines build well until the third act where they start working together… with horny benefits. All the serial killings, predatory sex beasts and revenge have that trademark Se7en nastiness to them. Yet they land differently when glimpsed as short sudden shocks between all this austere, polished prestige. The colour has been faded out – snow, grey, admin. I think Fincher took this one on to try and tell a ridiculously dense mystery as visually as possible. Dial back the exposition, fetishise the evidence, cum to the method. As we watch analogue materials be digitised we piece together a multi strand enigma, watch the past become reanimated. Oh yeah, you can tell what hooked Fincher in here and it wasn’t Sony’s unlimited budget or Craig’s immaculate winter wardrobe. That 007 inspired hard R credit sequence of an oil and cables orgy to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs doing Led Zep… well, that’s cinema, kids! Cover versions can be a blast.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 