Archive 5, Vol.9

Posted on March 15, 2024 by badblokebob

I have a backlog of 525 unreviewed feature films from my 2018 to 2023 viewing. This is where I give those films their day, five at a time, selected by a random number generator.

Today, a couple of Agatha Christie adaptations from very different eras; plus a heist, a horror, and a Hong Kong love story for the ages.

This week’s Archive 5 are…

Evil Under the Sun (1982)

Sneakers (1992)

Us (2019)

Crooked House (2017)

In the Mood for Love (2000)

Evil Under the Sun

(1982)

The third in the run of Poirot adaptations that began with Murder on the Orient Express and continued with Death on the Nile — no, not the recent Branagh ones: this is the first time they did exactly that. But, funnily enough, both third films in their respective series (i.e. this and Branagh’s A Haunting in Venice) take a UK-set Christie and relocate it somewhere more exotic, to fit with the style of the rest of the series. So, rather than a small island off the north Devon coast (which likely stretches the definition of “under the sun”, based on my experience of Devon), here the action is located to the Adriatic Sea, although actually filmed on Mallorca.

All of which is incidental when the rest of the movie is, at best, fine. It doesn’t help that the storyline is ultimately very similar to Death on the Nile, making the whole affair feel like more of a rehash than it needs to. Guy Hamilton’s direction underwhelms, giving a TV movie-ish feel, which is only exacerbated by the less-starry cast — there are recognisable names and faces here (James Mason, Diana Rigg, Maggie Smith), but, in totality, it’s not in the same league as the previous two films. It rather prefigures where Ustinov’s Poirot would appear next: literally, TV movies.

Evil Under the Sun was #2 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

Sneakers

(1992)

I never paid Sneakers any attention (not that it came up often) — I think, because it’s an American movie called Sneakers, I assumed it was about shoes — until indie magazine Film Stories announced a Blu-ray release (long since sold out, I’m afraid). I’m always keen to support small/new labels doing interesting things. And thank goodness for that, because, turns out, it’s actually very much my kind of film and good fun.

So, turns out, in this context, “sneakers” are not an Americanism for trainers, but good-guy hackers who test security systems. When the team are hired to steal a code breaking device, they get suspicious about the setup and, of course, it turns out they’re right to be. Thus unfurls a tech-based heist thriller with a strong vein of humour, but without tipping over into being an outright comedy. Stylistically and tonally, that’s right up my street — I love a heist movie, and that kind of tone (funny without being silly; what I think of as a ‘real world’ awareness of humour) often works for me. It’s the kind of film that’s just a lot of fun to watch. I can imagine it being highly rewatchable; a go-to favourite for people who do that kind of thing.

Sneakers was #132 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2021.

Us

(2019)

Part of what made Jordan Peele’s debut feature, Get Out, such a success was the way it chimed perfectly with the cultural zeitgeist of 2017; indeed, of the whole decade (time may yet add “of the whole century”). This immediate followup doesn’t benefit from a similar boost, but it’s a strong work of horror cinema in its own right.

Us follows a family who are attacked by a group of doppelgängers. That’s the most basic version, anyway — Peele seems to have a lot of ideas he wants to mix in here; almost too many. It seems to operate on the level of a home invasion/slasher kind of movie much of the time, but having more on its mind means it’s a bit too slow to satisfy as something so viscerally straightforward. Thus, all the Meaningful stuff ends up crammed into the third act, which perhaps leaves it feeling back-heavy. There’s also a big twist, naturally. On one hand, it seems really obvious, pretty much from the beginning; but on the other, it does cast the rest of the movie in a different light, which is quite interesting.

If all that sounds rather negative… I blame my notes (I’m writing this review over four years later based solely on what little I wrote down at the time). Us is imperfect, but it’s also great in places, and is at least passably interesting to reflect on in light of the final reveal.

Us was #23 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

Crooked House

(2017)

Despite a moderately starry cast (Glenn Close, Terence Stamp, Gillian Anderson, Christina Hendricks fresh from Mad Men; plus Brits of varying degrees of recognisableness) and a screenplay by Julian “Downton Abbey” Fellowes, this Agatha Christie adaptation was virtually dumped straight to TV here in the UK (apparently it did have a theatrical release, but the TV premiere was less than a month later — and on lowly Channel 5 at that). Of course, some of the best Christie adaptations have been made for TV; but when something’s designed for theatrical and ends up skipping it, it’s never a good sign.

Fortunately, Crooked House isn’t a disaster, though it’s far from a resounding success. Quite what attracted the big names I don’t know — it’s a reasonable setup (big dysfunctional family), but the screenplay isn’t exactly sparkling, aside from one or two moments or scenes. There is, at least, one helluva resolution. It also feels disjointed thanks to poor editing and/or direction. If the aim was to keep the pace up, it failed, because it begins to drag after a while. All of this is only partially masked by decent cinematography from Sebastian Winterø, which is the only thing that saves it from looking very TV-ish. Maybe it found its rightful home after all.

Crooked House was #1 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

In the Mood for Love

(2000)

aka Fa yeung nin wah

If my four-years-late review of Us was hampered by largely-negative notes, my four-years-late review of In the Mood for Love is in even worse shape: no notes at all. Some trivia? I can do that! An interesting quote from the director? Got it saved! But anything on my own thoughts beyond settling on a five-star rating? Nope. I would try to repurpose my Letterboxd review, but all I wrote was: “I mean nothing but respect when I pithily describe this as Brief Encounter in Hong Kong.” Accurate but, indeed, pithy.

On the bright side, this is a widely-acclaimed film, so if you’re after in-depth writing I’m certain you’ll find some somewhere else. Indeed, even if I did have more fulsome notes, I doubt I’d contribute anything more insightful. This is a subtle, almost delicate work, and that’s the kind of thing I feel I often struggle to properly get to grips with in my short, usually spoiler-averse reviews. Suffice to say, I concur that this is a very good film indeed; although, as with any understated work, some might prefer if the feelings and emotions were more overt. Each to their own.

In the Mood for Love was #200 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020. It was viewed as part of Blindspot 2020.

Archive 5, Vol.8

Posted on January 26, 2024 by badblokebob

I have a(n insanely huge) backlog of 533 unreviewed feature films from my 2018 to 2023 viewing (not to mention the 77 shorts, but they’re a problem for another day). This is where I give those films their day, five at a time, selected by a random number generator.

Today, it’s killers galore with Korean zombies, comical hitmen, rampaging security robots, and plain ol’ murderers. Plus, dying of boredom in Saturday detention.

This week’s Archive 5 are…

One Cut of the Dead (2017)

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Chopping Mall (1986)

Dead Man’s Folly (1986)

Wild Target (2010)

One Cut of the Dead

(2017)

aka Kamera o tomeru na!

You know, it’s not just my reviews that are tardy: I bought this because it was hyped up, both as “good” and as “see it knowing as little as possible”, and it went on my “must watch soon” pile… where it sat for 14 months. And that’s far from the most egregious example of “ooh, I must get round to that” equally a long, long delay.

Now, it’s taken me another 46 months to write this review. Eesh. On the bright side, perhaps I shouldn’t be so worried about spoilers anymore. I mean, if you’ve not seen it by now, whose fault is that? And it definitely is the kind of film where the less you know the better, because it’s going to pull the rug out from under you. Of course, even knowing that means you’re on the lookout for what’s going to happen; and the film gives you a helping hand, because right from the off there are nods to the conceit. Still, I’ll try to be fairly vague.

It’s a film of three parts. The first is, with hindsight, an establisher; setup and groundwork for what comes next. Alternatively, some genre fans will take that as the purpose of the movie, and what follows as extraneous. Then there’s a long, slow middle section. Again, no direct spoilers, but we know where this part of the narrative ends up, so it feels like it’s over-expounding stuff (we don’t need as much backstory as we get) and consequently goes on a bit. Halfway through, I began to wonder what all the fuss was about. I worried that I’d left it too long to see it and let the hype get the better of me.

But, ultimately, it’s all setup for the final half-hour, and it pays off in hilarity. The middle could still do with a trim, but it’s worth sticking with for the payoff.

One Cut of the Dead was #54 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

The Breakfast Club

(1985)

Is The Breakfast Club the definitive ’80s high school movie? It’s got to be on the shortlist, right? Personally, I preferred Heathers, or, if you want to stay within the John Hughes universe, Ferris Bueller, but that doesn’t mean this is without its qualities.

If you’re unfamiliar, it’s about a gaggle of misfits in Saturday detention. Over the course of the day, the unlikely group form a bond — well, there’s a surprise. One thing I did like about that: even after they’ve become ‘friends’, the slightest thing can still set off their animosity to one another. They’ve not really changed and it’s a fragile allegiance. The stuff about how they’d never talk to each other in real life after this rings true. So, I don’t want to come down too heavily in the region of the idea that the film might be clichéd. I’ve read other modern reviews criticise it for that, and you have to wonder: when you’re writing about a popular movie 35 years after it came out, was the film clichéd or did it create the clichés? That said, my favourite observation in this sphere was: “if this is cliché, then life is too.” Oh boy is that a sentiment I agree with about so many fictions that are deemed “cliché”.

That said, I guess we’re beyond the film’s era of influence now. I mean, if you made something like this today, it would probably be an arthouse-aimed indie production (in fairness, the original is also an indie), probably produced for a similar (or lower) budget than it was almost 40 years ago; and it would be adored and analysed by 30- and 40-something-year-old cineastes while actual teenagers were at the multiplex watching MCU XXIV. (You can tell I wrote these notes four years ago, because I would not now suggest the latest MCU release as a default popular success.)

On the other hand, I know we all look down on remakes, but if you’re going to remake any popular film, this is the kind of thing that would withstand it. It’s so much about its era that if you took the basic concept and remixed it for the 2020s, there are a several interesting avenues to be explored. I’m sure cliques still exist in American high schools (based on media depictions, they never seem to go away), so you’d still get the contrasting personalities; and you could shift the sexual dynamics, the way different groups view each other, and sort out the ending (the way certain characters are ‘fixed’ is very of its time, and not in a good way); and put a modern spin on it all, of course, with some race and LGBT points. You know, make it “woke”, as dickheads say. That would be a pretty different film, but that’s entirely the point: if you’re going to remake something, make it different, make it new. (To be clear, I’m not criticising the original film for not including those elements — it’s a product of its time and it’s not choosing to be about those things, which is entirely valid.)

I appreciate I’ve talked more about what the film could be today than what it is. Oops. But, look, this is the kind of film where I can’t remember any of the characters’ names — if I wanted to talk in specifics, I’d have to refer to them by their actors (or do a bit of googling, of course). That’s another way of saying I did like it, but it’s not a film that’s stuck with me in the way it has for its many fans.

The Breakfast Club was #56 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020. It was viewed as an additional film in my Blindspot 2020 project, after I failed to watch it for Blindspot 2019.

Chopping Mall

(1986)

Blood, boobs, and berserk ’bots are the order of the day in this campy sci-fi actioner.

That’s right: “sci-fi actioner”. I don’t know where I’d heard about this, or if I’d just made inferences from the title and poster, but I’d assumed it was a regular slasher whose USP was simply “it’s set in a shopping mall”. But nope, it’s actually about security robots who go barmy and start killing a bunch of young people who’d locked themselves in a mall overnight. According to IMDb, it was originally released as Killbots — a more to-the-point title — but it performed poorly, and the producers’ reasoning was the title had made audiences think it was a Transformers-like kids movie (if anyone did take their kids to see it, boy, were they in for a surprise!) So, after cutting over quarter-of-an-hour, they re-released it with the more-clearly-exploitation-y title and… well, I don’t know if it as a major success or anything, but I guess it performed better and that’s the version that has endured.

I don’t know what was in those deleted 15 minutes, but presumably nothing of great import. Indeed, the short running time is a blessing: it gets on with things at the start, and doesn’t try to drag them out later. It knows what we’ve come to a movie like this for, and it delivers that with admirable efficiency. What’s left is so barmy and schlocky that it’s kinda fun, even if most of it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Even allowing for the implausible setup (lightning sends robot security guards berserk), there’s little to no logic in what follows (the robots have turned murderous? Fine, but why are they such shit shots? And why, when they have an easy shot, do they suddenly stop shooting? And so on).

Chopping Mall is no lost gem, although it may make you nostalgic for an era when they actually made stuff like this. Would the world be a better place if people were still churning out low-budget schedule-fillers full of gratuitous-but-clearly-fake violence and unnecessary-but-welcome nudity? I don’t know, but I doubt it could be any worse. At least it might’ve desensitised younger generations enough that we wouldn’t have to suffer endless rounds of “sex scenes are bad, actually” discourse on Twitter…

Chopping Mall was the 13th new film I watched in 2023.

Dead Man’s Folly

(1986)

This second of three TV movies starring Peter Ustinov as Poirot marks the fourth of his six appearance as the character overall, and it might be the low point of the generally-underwhelming bunch. Ustinov was no doubt a quality performer, and I know his version of Poirot has its fans, but, for me, he remains a lesser interpreter of the Belgian sleuth.

This particular film does nothing to outweigh his shortcomings. I don’t know if it’s the fault of the original story, this adaptation, or just me, but I didn’t feel there was enough provided for the the viewer to join in with the whodunnit guessing game, which I think is half the fun of a murder mystery. Events just unfurled until, eventually, Poirot explained it all. Add to that a portrayal of Poirot’s sometime-sidekick Hastings by Jonathan Cecil that verges on the lascivious, and production elements (costuming, hairdos, music) that are painfully ’80s, and the recipe is all-round distasteful.

Dead Man’s Folly was #154 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2021.

Wild Target

(2010)

In this remake of French comedy-thriller Cible émouvante, Bill Nighy plays an ageing hitman who falls for his latest target, pretty young thief Emily Blunt. Romance blossoms, in what must be one of the most implausible storylines ever committed to film. That’s partly because of the 33-year age gap between 26-year-old Blunt and 59-year-old Nighy (who, frankly, seems even older — the age gap may be roughly father/daughter, but she feels more like his granddaughter), but also because the movie does little to overcome this blatant shortcoming. If it wants us to buy it, it needs to sell it, but instead it half-arses it. When you learn that Helena Bonham-Carter was originally cast in Blunt’s role (but had to pull out due to commitments to Alice in Wonderland), it all begins to make sense: you can imagine a relationship between her and Nighy working on screen, and presumably they didn’t bother to retool the screenplay in between actor changes.

All of which says, the film just about survives because there’s enough else going on. The hitman and thief wind up on the run from the people who want her dead, with a young apprentice (Rupert Grint) in tow, and the ensuing farcical hijinks are all daft fun, with the great cast (which also includes Martin Freeman, Eileen Atkins, and Rupert Everett, among others) clearly having a good time. Sometimes that’s off-putting, but here it’s infectious.

Wild Target was #59 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2021.

2022 | Week 35

Posted on December 23, 2022 by badblokebob

When I revived 2007’s weekly(-ish) review compilation format at the start of 2022, the main objective was to write shorter reviews (not necessarily as short as the couple-of-sentences-per-film I wrote back in 2007, but not worrying about trying to do full write-ups for everything), which would help enable me to stay more up-to-date. Well, the former has only been partially successful, and that means the latter has slipped, too: here we are, rapidly heading towards the end of December, and I’m only just posting reviews of films I watched at the end of August / start of September. I’m certainly not going to have 2022 finished before 2023 begins.

Hey-ho, there’s nothing to be done about it — other than remind myself I was intending to be more concise and more on top of things, and continue to try to push myself in that direction. In the meantime, on we go, with…

Mona Lisa (1986)

Mirror (1975), aka Zerkalo

Clerks (1995)

Persuasion (2022)

He Walked by Night (1948)

Mona Lisa

(1986)

Neo-noir filtered through a British sensibility — which means you get a character study merely garnished with genre thrills, especially when the character in question is played by Bob Hoskins, adding depth and complexity to your could-be-straightforward protagonist.

Said protagonist is George, a recently-released minor gangster looking for work. He’s an interesting mix of a character: streetwise but also kinda naïve; racist and judgemental, but without really meaning it. It’s like he’s just reciting stuff he’s heard from everyone else, rather than it being stuff he really believes. Well, isn’t that true of so many with horrendous opinions? These days they just get them from YouTube. George’s prejudices are somewhat challenged when he’s assigned to drive around a high-class call girl, Simone, who happens to be black. Although Hoskins took most of the plaudits (including an Oscar nomination and BAFTA win), as Simone, Cathy Tyson breathes an equal amount of life into a character that, similarly, in lesser hands could’ve just been a plot-driving mystery. (She was also nominated for a BAFTA, incidentally.)

The film’s style is an interesting mishmash, in that it has an element of British grit and groundedness — especially being shot on grainy film, all on location in London, in a world of everyday gangsters and prostitutes — but with fantastical and/or genre flourishes — George’s friend Thomas creates weird art stuff and engages in literary discussions; nighttime London is shot to look like a vision of Hell; and then there’s all the noir stuff in the construction of the story. There’s a version of this film that fully gives in to that genre, but the comedy and ‘fantasy’ dilutes the neo-noir aspects, making the film more unique, and distinctly British.

The fact Arrow initially released Mona Lisa as the de facto lesser half of a double-bill with earlier Hoskins-starring gangster flick The Long Good Friday does it something of a disservice (though it’s also is the primary reason I had it in my collection to prompt me to watch it, so swings and roundabouts). This is a film more than worthy of standing on its own; and one that, while not poorly regarded or completely forgotten, merits a wider rediscovery.

Mona Lisa is the 53rd film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022. It was viewed as part of “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?” 2022. It placed 11th on my list of The Best Films I Saw in 2022.

Mirror

(1975)

aka Zerkalo

Andrei Tarkovsky’s poetic evocation of memory and mid-20th-century Soviet history. If that sounds a bit Arty, just wait ’til you hear Criterion’s blurb, which says it’s “as much a poem composed in images, or a hypnagogic hallucination, as it is a work of cinema.” Oh dear, sounds like Hard Work, right? Well, it is.

Calling it “visual poetry” might sound like pretentiousness, but it really isn’t — Mirror definitely plays more like that than a traditional narrative film. And, just like most poetry, I didn’t really get it. I must confess that I was tuning out by the end; partly due to tiredness, which is my own fault; but partly that the film gave me nothing to really latch on to; no (clear) narrative or character or anything for me to focus on to keep my wavering attention in the right place. On the bright side, it avoided being a total disaster in my eyes by having some nice-looking bits, and individual scenes or sequences that kinda work. But I absolutely do not “get it” as a whole cohesive piece of art.

Clearly, this kind of thing works for some people — Sight & Sound’s most recent poll ranked it 31st, and the director’s poll (which I would normally argue errs slightly more mainstream) went even better and placed it 8th. Each to their own. Based on his work that I’ve seen so far, I just don’t think Tarkovsky’s for me.

Mirror is the 54th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022. It was viewed as part of Blindspot 2022.

Clerks

(1994)

Kevin Smith | 88 mins | DVD | 1.85:1 | USA / English | 15 / R

There’s no escaping the fact that Clerks is very much a product of its time, both in itself as a work of art, and in how it became a breakout success. (Can you imagine a film like this launching a career like Kevin Smith had (for a bit) if it was made today? Best you could hope for now is being seen by half-a-dozen festival-goers before the director gets tapped to be Kevin Feige’s puppet on some Marvel content.) That said, for all its ’90s-time-capsule-ness, it holds up pretty well as a piece of entertainment. By which I mean, I laughed multiple times and was never bored.

The story, such as it is, concerns a pair of convenience store workers hanging out for a day, and the various little dramas and incidents that occur to and around them. Serving as both writer and director, Smith quite cleverly turns bugs into features. No budget? Make that the whole aesthetic, with grainy 16mm photography and an everyday setting in which ‘nothing’ happens. Non-pro actors? Have everyone deliver all their lines mile-a-minute, thus making the whole thing feel kinda heightened and stylised, to the point where you can’t be sure if most of the cast can’t act or it was all a deliberate choice. This is further fed by Smith often letting scenes play out in long takes with no cuts — if these guys can remember all their lines to do a whole scene in a oner, they must be pretty professional, right?

Impressively for a first-timer behind the camera, Smith doesn’t go overboard with directorial flourishes. There’s the occasional shot or sequence with some extra pizzazz to keep up the visual interest, but he seems to know that less is more; that this is the kind of film that plays best in medium shots. This might sound like basic stuff, but evidence shows that first-time filmmakers with something to prove are regularly tempted to go all-out and make something that feels Directed. That might be nice for a showreel, but for an actual film, restraint goes a long way.

Technique aside, the content just works. These characters are likeable enough to hang out with for 90 minutes, because that’s effectively all we’re doing. But there’s enough variety in their conversations and situations, and enough genuinely funny lines and moments, that it works and is enjoyable, rather than being a dull or directionless slice-of-life piece.

Clerks is the 55th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

Persuasion

(2022)

Jane Austen adaptations appear to be perennially popular, so it was probably only a matter of time before Netflix attempted one. Here, they’ve retained the original setting but given proceedings a modern-ish wash, apparently influenced by their hit series Bridgerton style (I’ve never seen Bridgerton, so this is based on the trailers and that others have made the same comparison). The result? A trailer that met with a great deal of displeasure from Austen fans, not keen on the apparent irreverence to the source material. I’ve never read Austen, either, so I’ll leave exact comparisons to the more knowledgeable.

That said, I can’t say the trailer fully won me over, but I thought I’d allow the film its chance. And it’s not terrible — there are lots of nice scenes and moments to be found. Unfortunately, they’re undercut by the bits everyone talked about from the trailer: the clearly-Fleabag-inspired gurns to camera; the banal and misplaced modern-style dialogue. The really sad thing is that there aren’t actually very many of those bits — the ones that were widely cited as “examples” are nearly all of them, in fact — and so there is nearly a very nice film here.

Dedicated fans of Austen’s original work, and those who prefer their period dramas played straight and faithful, will likely still find those moments off-putting. If you’re prepared to overlook the missteps, this Persuasion is largely likeable.

Persuasion is the 56th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

He Walked by Night

(1948)

“A film that started as a humble low-budget offering from a second-tier studio, but wound up being one of the most influential films of its era” is how ‘Czar of Noir’ Eddie Muller describes He Walked by Night in his introduction for TCM’s Noir Alley strand. That’s partly because it inspired the radio series Dragnet, which was immensely significant in the development of police procedural series, a genre that remains a bread-and-butter staple of TV entertainment to this day. But also because it was shot by cinematographer John Alton — “the greatest noir stylist of all time”, says Muller, and here he produced “one of the most dramatically photographed film noirs ever”. There’s debate over whether the film was actually helmed by its credited director, Alfred Werker, or if Anthony Mann actually did most of the work. “It doesn’t really matter,” says Muller, “because the picture’s held together by the stunning visual style of its singular cinematographer”.

Well, I can’t disagree. This is a gorgeously shot film, and a concise exemplar of all we know of film noir style — primarily, abundant shadows. But it’s not just the imagery that makes it work. There are multiple tense suspense sequences, often making great use of silence — this is a film not afraid to be quiet when it’s effective — climaxing with an incredibly atmospheric chase and shootout in the LA storm drain system. We spend a lot of time with the villain, Roy Martin — the film is definitely a howcatchem; no whodunit mystery here — who’s superbly played by Richard Basehart. Coming back to the point about silence, Martin is a loner, so he doesn’t get much dialogue a lot of the time, but Basehart still effectively conveys how smart and cunning he is. Also worthy of note is Whit Bissell as an electronics dealer who unwittingly sold on ‘inventions’ that Martin had in fact stolen. The poor guy is clearly innocent and been duped, but he ends up between a rock and a hard place when the police aren’t sure they believe that.

The overall style of He Walked by Night is intensely procedural and serious about it, but it still finds room for glimpses of character, both from the cops and the criminals; and there’s humour, too. That helps give it a bit of light and shade, and also genuine reality — you’ll find humorousness everywhere in real life, however serious events may be.

He Walked by Night is the 57th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

2022 | Weeks 27–28

Posted on October 19, 2022 by badblokebob

Hello! Yes, it’s me — I am still here. I’ve just been finding my time filled up with other stuff: working on the 2022 iterations of both WOFFF and FilmBath Festival (in addition to the ol’ day job); dogsitting for the in-laws; throwing up from eating bad garlic…

Anyway, here are some reviews of films I watched all the way back in July. (Oh dear, I am behind. Well, let’s see if I can catch up…)

Johnny Gunman (1957)

A Better Tomorrow (1986), aka Ying hung boon sik

Mifune: The Last Samurai (2015)

The Lost Daughter (2021)

Johnny Gunman

(1957)

Art Ford | 67 mins | digital (HD) | 4:3 | USA / English

The history of cinema is littered with fascinating asides and dead ends, and this is one of them: an independent film from before independent films were really a thing; from the time when the studio system was beginning to falter, but the film school auteurs hadn’t yet arrived (Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola, et al were still in their teens when this was made).

As with the films that would later break similar new ground after the digital video revolution in the ’90s, there are cracks — it’s amateurish and undeniably low-budget in places — but also artistry — every once in a while it’ll whip out an exceptionally well-lit scene or interesting visual. Story-wise, it’s an odd mix: there’s the noir-ish gangster plot line, which is derivative and clichéd; but it takes over the film from what you feel like it almost wants to be, which is a Before Sunrise-style slice of life. Maybe, in a freer world, that’s what the filmmakers would’ve produced; but when you’re one of the first people trying to break in from the outside, hitting the familiar beats of a genre is no bad idea.

Some of the highlights of the film come at the start, with documentary-like shots of New York street life when our heroine visits the Greenwich Festival. It’s a brief little window into the real 1950s NYC, before the rote gangster plot comes to dominate. Indeed, being shot on location, and with an inexperienced cast, lends the whole production a certain veracity that you don’t always get from soundstage-bound studio pictures of the era. On the other hand, that’s also what gives it the rough edges that will make it unpalatable to some viewers.

However you cut it, this is hardly a forgotten gem, but it’s an interesting detour of movie history that I’m glad I stumbled across.

Johnny Gunman is the 45th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

A Better Tomorrow

(1986)

aka Ying hung boon sik

A Better Tomorrow was the first in a run of modern-day gangster action movies that would make director John Woo’s name. Its original Chinese title translates as True Colours of a Hero, which is just as apt: it’s about a pair of mid-level crooks, one of whose brother is a cop, and the ways and whys in which they try and fail to escape the criminal life.

Woo’s style was cutting edge back in the day, but that day is now pushing 40 years ago. Of course, his flamboyant style has never been to some people’s taste (witness the dismissive stance some still take towards M:i-2). Viewed now, this is cheesier and less stylistically polished than his later career-defining HK films like The Killer or Hard Boiled, but, on the couple of occasions it does explode into action, it’s suitably grandiose, and it has an engaging storyline and character dynamics.

In regards to the latter, you can definitely see why Chow Yun-Fat was the breakout star. He’s actually got a supporting role, but his charisma shines off the screen, and there’s a plausibility to the way he handles the action. (Ironically, although it made Chow an action icon, he was cast because Woo didn’t think he looked like an action star.)

Not Woo’s strongest film, then, but a definite sign of someone headed in the right direction — and, clearly, his later work paid off that promise.

A Better Tomorrow is the 46th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022. It was viewed as part of “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?” 2022.

Mifune: The Last Samurai

(2015)

Steven Okazaki | 77 mins | DVD | 16:9 | USA & Japan / English & Japanese | 12

At just an hour and a quarter, this biography of the actor Toshiro Mifune feels more like a primer on his work and life (complete with newcomer-friendly contextual asides into the history of Japanese cinema, the career of Akira Kurosawa, etc) rather than the deep-dive exploration of the man and his legacy that some reviewers hoped for. I certainly learnt stuff, but such criticism has validity. For that reason, the less you know about Mifune (and Kurosawa), the more you’ll get out of the film. That said, it might pay to have already seen some of their films — it’s not that director Steven Okazaki doesn’t introduce and summarise them adequately; more that, if you’ve seen them, you know the full context.

Nonetheless, a good range of interviewees ensure the documentary is not without insight, managing to explore both what made Mifune the man tick and what made him such a phenomenal screen presence. Plus, the fact that Okazaki is happy to explain contextual topics (like a history of chanbara films; or matters of social history, like what losing World War 2 was like for the Japanese people) is both education and useful, because I imagine most non-Japanese viewers don’t have much baseline knowledge about this stuff. The film is definitely a biography of Mifune (not, say, a history of 20th century Japan using the actor as a gateway), but there’s much to be gleaned here for the interested viewer.

Mifune: The Last Samurai is the 47th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

The Lost Daughter

(2021)

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, based on a novel by Elena Ferrante, stars Olivia Colman as Leda, a woman on holiday alone in Greece, where she encounters a young mother (Dakota Johnson) whose daughter briefly goes missing, reminding Leda of her own younger days, when she was played by Jessie Buckley and had a husband and two daughters herself.

It’s perhaps initially difficult to pin down exactly what The Lost Daughter is driving at — I suspect it’s the kind of film in which some people would say nothing happens. But it’s really a kind of mystery, where the mystery is the lead character’s psychology: why is she like this? There’s also the more obvious mystery of what exactly happened in her past, but that isn’t solved so much as gradually doled out in flashbacks. Obviously that kind of story relies a lot on its performances, and Colman is as strong as ever. So much of the importance of the film, which lies in her character and emotion, is conveyed without dialogue. That’s not do down the able support from Buckley and Johnson, mind.

Gyllenhaal’s direction is interesting and effective, using lots of fairly extreme close-ups to give a kind of tactile sensation to the film. On the other hand, I would say it feels a little longer than necessary (especially after the ‘reveal’ scene, where the final piece of the puzzle clicks), and I’m not convinced it knows how to end (or perhaps it’s my fault for not really ‘getting’ the finale).

Overall, though, it’s an impressive debut from Gyllanhaal, and a great alternative perspective on motherhood.

2022 | Weeks 24–25

Posted on August 20, 2022 by badblokebob

Similar to Week 21 last time, Week 23 only included rewatches, so gets skipped in the title. As for the other two, that brings us fundamentally to the end of June (the 26th, to be precise), and so almost to the halfway point of the year. But I’ll leave such discussion to my monthly reviews.

Instead, here are the remaining four reviews of films I watched that fortnight…

The Ghost Writer (2010)

Escape in the Fog (1945)

Pretty in Pink (1986)

House of Gucci (2021)

The Ghost Writer

(2010)

aka The Ghost

Originally released as The Ghost in the UK (the same title as the Robert Harris novel on which it’s based), but now on Netflix under its US title, The Ghost Writer, whatever you call this film, it’s an effective thriller about a subject that might not sound thrilling: writing an autobiography. The key is that the person being biographied is a former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) who was involved in some shady business during his time in office, which is beginning to resurface in the news; plus the fact that his first ghost writer was recently found dead, washed up on a beach on the island the ex-PM is currently calling home. It’s into this maelstrom that our hero, the new ghost writer (Ewan McGregor), is dropped, and soon finds himself more involved than he’d like.

So, despite the unique setup, it’s a fairly straight-up thriller plot of political intrigue and buried secrets. That’s not a criticism — this is very much my kind of thing. What elevates it is the film’s style and atmosphere. There’s something odd about it all, which makes the viewer feel as unsettled and out-of-place as McGregor’s character quickly becomes. Some contributing factors to this sensation are likely unintentional — the result of things like half the cast having to labour under different accents, or the excessive green screen used to fill in the views of Cape Cod (the film wasn’t shot in the US, but in Germany and Denmark, for “the director’s a criminal wanted in the US” reasons) — but neither of these elements felt glaringly bad to me, just… off.

As I say, I think such an atmosphere is actually very fitting for a political thriller full of questions about who can be trusted, life-or-death mysteries, and a couple of solid twists. Yes, very much my kind of thing.

The Ghost Writer placed 8th on my list of The Best Films I Saw in 2022.

Escape in the Fog

(1945)

With the fifth (and, it would seem, final) of Indicator’s Columbia Noir box sets then-imminent, and a new series of Universal Noir soon to begin, I thought it was about time I actually started watching them. So here’s the first, both for me and the series (i.e. it’s the oldest film in box set #1). It’s a quickie from director Budd Boetticher (before he started being credited under that name) about a San Fransisco nurse who has an ultra-specific dream about a murder, then meets the victim-to-be in real life. It turns out he’s a spy about to be sent on a top-secret mission, but his only hope of making it alive is her using the details from her dream to prevent his death.

It’s unfortunate that this 30-film ‘series’ (they’re only connected by the studio that made them and Indicator happening to bundle them together, of course) begins with such a travesty of a film. For starters, it’s barely even a noir, more a melodramatic mildly-fantastical spy thriller. Well, I can enjoy that kind of thing too — goodness knows the number of spy movies I’ve given high scores to, and there’s something to be said for a spot of ridiculous hokum — and Escape in the Fog might have been another such fun example, except it’s been made with a total absence of passion. It’s about as thrilling as a lukewarm cup of milky tea at a cafe that only has outside seating on a drizzly winter afternoon. It’s only redeeming quality is that it’s so daft (though only in places, because it ends up forgetting its own ridiculous conceits) that you can’t help but have a bit of a laugh at it.

Filler in every sense of the word.

Escape in the Fog is the 38th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

Pretty in Pink

(1986)

Another John Hughes-penned ’80s teen movie that had passed me by (it’s only in the past few years that I’ve watched The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and I’ve still not seen Sixteen Candles or Weird Science). This one stars Molly Ringwald as Andie, a non-popular high school girl caught between the affections of her childhood friend (Jon Cryer) and a rich kid who’s suddenly showing an interest in her (Andrew McCarthy).

No bones about it, plot-wise it’s a pretty standard love triangle romcom; but the devil is in the details, and Pretty in Pink has a lot of likeable ones. For starters, it’s so ’80s. Like, aggressively. Like, if you made a movie set in the ’80s, you wouldn’t make it this much ’80s because people would criticise you for overdoing it. Then there’s the supporting performances. Harry Dean Stanton makes a great ‘movie dad’ — you know, the kind of comforting, supportive father figure you kinda wish were your own. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in a role like this before. The relationship between him and Ringwald comes across as really sweet and effective without tipping over into saccharine or implausible. Then there’s Annie Potts as Andie’s older best friend, proving she should be known for more than just being screechy and kooky in Ghostbusters. Plus, James Spader makes for a superb villain. It’s only a small role in the grand scheme of the film, but he does smarmy glibness so well.

Poor Molly Ringwald — she’s fine in the lead, but everyone else is so good they kinda overshadow her in her own movie. Or maybe that’s unfair: Andie is a pretty likeable lead, with a commendable amount of independence and self-worth. Okay, she lets that slip a bit for A Boy, but what teenager hasn’t let such heady new emotions get the better of them? She comes out for the best in the end.

The only major downside is the rushed third act, which makes the ending feel unearned — a feat that’s almost impressive when the ending is so predictable. It’s actually due to a post-test-screening rewrite and reshoot: in the original version (spoilers!) Andie ends up with Duckie, not Blane. Personally, I don’t think either is right: she should’ve chosen neither of them. As I see it, the film doesn’t really set up her getting back with Blane (presumably because it was a last-minute change), so I don’t buy that; but nor does it do enough to suggest she’d suddenly find Duckie a romantic proposition. They should have settled for being BFFs, and Blane should’ve fucked off. But I guess a romcom where the girl ends up single wasn’t done back then. You’d probably still find it a hard sell today, to be honest.

Pretty in Pink is the 39th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022. It was viewed as part of “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?” 2022.

House of Gucci

(2021)

Director Ridley Scott tells the true (ish) story of the behind-the-scenes dramas at Italian fashion house Gucci in the mid 20th century. If you think that sounds like some kind of dull boardroom drama, oh boy, is it not. With the amount of scheming and backstabbing that goes on, it’s more like a variation on The Godfather than a staid piece about people arguing in suits in offices. Oh, those crazy Italians, eh?

Of course, none of the main cast are Italian. But they are all doing Italian accents. Or what passes for Italian accents in the mind of us anglophones — they sound about as authentic as a Dolmio advert. Or a Mario game. “It’s a-me, Lady Gaga!” Although, once you get over the humour value of that, Gaga is genuinely very good in her Lady Macbeth-esque role as a woman who marries into the family and goads her husband into dominating the business. And then there’s Jared Leto, buried under prosthetics as well as the dodgy accent. Does he know he’s getting laughs with almost every line, or does he think he’s giving a serious dramatic performance? Who knows. Who cares. No one in the rest of the cast is as memorable — even when we’re talking about actors of the calibre of Adam Driver, Salma Hayek, Jeremy Irons, and Al Pacino — but then, I’m not sure there’d be room for that many Big performances. Scott brings his usual pizzazz too, with the well-shot gorgeous locales looking beautiful and elegant. Parts of Italy are just fundamentally beautiful, and you think it would probably be hard to mess up filming them.

There are plenty of criticisms of the film to be found in pro reviews and viewer comments across the usual sources. Reading them, I don’t necessarily disagree on any particular point. For one thing, it’s definitely too long, and still leaves a load of information to be dumped in the inevitable “what happens next” text at the end. It could also be clearer about what’s going on at times, especially legal stuff, like when they’re suddenly being investigated for financial crimes. That said, it has an energy that often keeps it barrelling along. It’s probably an advantage to not know the real-life events, because it allows the story to unfold without preconceptions about where it’s going, so you’re not waiting for it to get to the bits you know.

Flaws and all, I had a ball watching it. It may really be a 3-star film in some senses, but I got a 4-star level of enjoyment out of it.

Paris, Texas (1984)

Posted on August 16, 2022 by badblokebob

This was my first experience of a Wim Wenders film, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, other than knowing it’s an acclaimed classic that features on many “great movies” lists (albeit usually a bit further down than many of the most famous “great movies” on such lists).

It starts out almost Lynchian, with a man, Travis (Harry Dean Stanton), wandering out of the desert. Where’s he been? How long’s he been there? No one knows. He ends up in the care of a quirky doctor in the back of beyond — it’s not even your typical American “small town”, but a trailer and a shack in the middle of nowhere. Then his brother (Dean Stockwell) comes to get him, and it becomes a bit Rain Man (a film released four years later, so certainly not an influence) as two estranged and mismatched adult brothers embark on a cross-America road trip because one of them objects to flying. Then they get home, and it becomes a domestic comedy-drama about an absent father trying to reengage with his preteen son, Hunter (Hunter Carson). And then they go off in search of the boy’s mother, Jane (Nastassja Kinski), and it becomes something else again… It almost circles back round to Lynchian, in fact, with a couple of extended sequences in a surreal, almost otherworldly place of work.

But to keep calling it “Lynchian” is to do Wenders’ work a disservice, because it’s not a copy — indeed, in 1984 Lynch was releasing his Dune, and had yet to embark on most of the films that define “Lynchian” for us. An alternate comparison might be the Coen brothers, at least for the opening section: it’s of a piece with their heightened worlds (the weirdo doctor living in the middle of nowhere) and semi-outlandish stories (Travis reappearing from nowhere). But this was released the same year as the Coens’ debut, Blood Simple, so, again, it’s not exactly a fair comparison. Or if it is fair, it’s backwards: if anyone influenced anyone, it would be Lynch and the Coens drawing on Wenders.

Setting simple (and kinda inaccurate) comparisons aside, in parts this is a magnificent film. The scene where Travis and Hunter walk home after school ‘together’ borders on magical; a truly superb sequence of father-son bonding. The bit where we first enter Jane’s place of work feels like descending into some previously-unknown alternate world that exists adjacent to our own (as I say: Lynchian). Then the ‘conversations’ with Jane through the oneway glass, especially the first one, are subtly powerful in how they’re shot and performed. When it works, this is a striking, memory-searing movie.

But then, overall, I found it kinda… not slow, exactly — and I couldn’t necessarily point at which bits I’d cut — but I did wonder if it might benefit from being tighter. Especially the first hour or so, which is mainly about Travis and his brother in a way that doesn’t ultimately feel too relevant to what the film really wants to dig into, which is Travis’s relationships with his son and ex-wife. Of course, his relationship to his brother is adjacent to that, but it’s not as vital. That portion of the film does serve to build up mystery and delay certain revelations, but I wonder if the film wouldn’t be just as effective if that section were pared back somewhat. Apparently filming started without a completed screenplay, the intention being to film in story order and write the ending when screenwriter Sam Shepard had an understanding of how the actors were portraying the characters. That methodology might explain why the narrative shifts and changes so much, I think.

Through all of this, the film really rests on the shoulders of Harry Dean Stanton. Even when he’s initially taciturn, it’s clear he’s the man to watch; the enigma we must solve. And when we finally learn his history — which is completely at odds to the calm, composed, quiet man we’ve followed throughout the film — it’s… well, I’m not sure what it is. Not necessarily what I was expecting; and yet, what was I expecting? Part of the point of the whole thing, surely, is how much he’s changed, and how that facilitates his final choices. But then, his choices seem based in the man he was, not the man he’s become, so is he right? Maybe; maybe not. I suppose there’s stuff to debate and talk about here, which is often a signifier of a Great Movie.

As to that, I won’t be adding it to my personal favourites pile right now. But it’s a fascinating, at times incredible, film. I can understand its appeals to a certain kind of cinephile.

Paris, Texas was re-released in UK cinemas at the end of July by Curzon, with the UK debut of a 4K restoration (which is the version I watched. It looks good). There are still some screenings going on, and it’s available to stream on Curzon Home Cinema for £3.99. If you prefer your films free, it’s also on All 4 until the middle of September, but I don’t know if that’s the new restoration or not.

I do know it was the 40th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022, and was viewed as part of Blindspot 2022.

2022 | Week 22

Posted on July 8, 2022 by badblokebob

Maybe I should’ve called this post “Weeks 21–22”, to ensure that the titles of these roundups had a complete run of weeks throughout the year. But I didn’t actually watch anything new in Week 21 (my only film that week was the Challenge-qualifying rewatch of On the Town), so it seemed inaccurate to include it.

Week 22, on the other hand, was moderately busy, with this lot…

This Means War (2012)

To Be or Not to Be (1942)

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1982)

The Pajama Game (1957)

The Contender (2000)

This Means War

(2012)

McG | 98 mins | digital (HD) | 2.35:1 | United States / English | 12 / PG-13

I bet whoever came up with this thought they were a genius: “spyfi action-adventure + rom-com? It’s the perfect date movie!” Of course, what you actually end up with is a film that struggles to do either part well.

It stars the unlikely combo of Chris Pratt and Tom Hardy (you definitely can’t imagine Hardy doing a movie like this today) as BFF CIA agents who independently fall for the same woman, played by Reese Witherspoon. Uh-oh. Hilarity ensues as the guys deploy their CIA tricks and tech to influence the relationships. Yeah, it’s the kind of concept that once upon a time sounded like a fun and quirky rom-com, but nowadays seems at best morally dubious, at worst downright creepy. And, indeed, that’s how it plays out, with situation after situation that’s played for laughs but feels a little uncomfortable.

Of course, the big question is “who ends up with who?” This is one of those films so committed to its storyline, so structured to lead to one correct answer, that… they shot multiple endings so they could decide in post. The one they went with doesn’t feel quite right, but, if you imagine the alternatives, most of them don’t either. Well, I say that: I don’t think it’s really a spoiler to tell you that Witherspoon ends up with one of the guys, when the correct choice would’ve been “neither of them. Run from the stalker-ish CIA agents! Find a normal man!”

To Be or Not to Be

(1942)

Ernst Lubitsch’s satire concerns an acting troupe in occupied Poland who become mixed up in a soldier’s efforts to capture a German spy before he can undermine the resistance. Made while World War II was still in full force, the film attracted criticism in some quarters for being a comedy about such tragic and ongoing real-life horrors. Lubitsch defended his work, writing to one critic to say, “What I have satirized in this picture are the Nazis and their ridiculous ideology. I have also satirized the attitude of actors who always remain actors regardless how dangerous the situation might be, which I believe is a true observation.” He’s right, of course; at least about the first part. Ridiculously, such debates about whether you can satirise the Nazis persist to this very day — just look at some of the responses to Jojo Rabbit.

Lubitsch’s film is subtler than Waititi’s, though still undoubtedly a comedy. I mean, with its plucky resistance members taking occupying Nazis for fools, I couldn’t help but think of this as a classier version of ’Allo ’Allo… but I’ve never actually seen a whole episode of that show, so don’t hold my comparison in too high a regard. Whereas that sitcom is famous for its catchphrases and bawdy gags, To Be or Not to Be is less overt, preferring to paint the Nazis as fundamentally incompetent and derive its humour there.

Despite the distaste some felt, it obviously works for most people, as it appears on several “great movies” lists, not least both the IMDb and Letterboxd Top 250s. To be honest, I feel like I need to give it another spin to digest it more fully, but these thin thoughts will have to suffice for now.

To Be or Not to Be is the 35th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022. It was viewed as part of Blindspot 2022.

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

(1982)

I’ve never read the P.D. James novel on which this is based, but I’m assured it’s longer and more complex — the film rather lacks for plausible suspects, making the central murder mystery thoroughly guessable.

That said, I’m not sure co-writer/director Christopher Petit is all that concerned with producing a true whodunnit. Put another way, I think he’s more interested in the characters, who happen to be involved in a mystery, than in the mystery itself. Which is fine, but I’m also not sure the film does as good a job as it could digging into those characters. I mean, the way the kinda-naïve young investigator becomes obsessed with the deceased subject of her inquiries — almost falling in love with him, it seems, like some kind of gender-flipped riff on Laura — is more nodded at than explored.

In the end, I felt like I wanted to like the film more than it was actually giving me things I needed to really like it. It’s not bad, but perhaps it could have been great.

The Pajama Game

(1957)

This minor musical is primarily of note for two things: the original Broadway staging featured the choreography debut of one Bob Fosse; and it features the song Hernando’s Hideway — if you don’t recognise the title, I’m sure you’ll recognise the tune. I had no idea this is where it originated.

The story is about a pay dispute in a pyjama factory (given the current strikes and arguments here in the UK, you might think I watched this deliberately. Nope, total coincidence). On one side there’s the leader of the union’s grievance committee (Doris Day, one of just a handful of replacements made to the original cast when they transferred the stage production to the screen). On the other, the new superintendent (John Raitt, clearly a success on Broadway but less so on film). Of course, they fall for each other, before the pay conflict tears them apart. Can their love overcome such trials? What do you think?

I saw someone describe The Pajama Game as an overlooked classic, which is taking things a bit far. It’s mostly likeable and quite fun, but rarely transcends that level. The undoubted highlight is Fosse’s choreography, which gives even the lesser numbers a polished dynamism. There are a couple of decent songs, but nothing really stands out, bar the aforementioned. It gets a bit too farcical in places, with some of the storylines ultimately taking a turn into very broad territory that feels misjudged. One primarily for genre fans only.

The Contender

(2000)

I only picked this up on disc because it was part of a bundle of other titles I really wanted, but it also sounded like the kind of thing I’d like. Strange that I’d not heard of it before, then. I guess some films just get lost in movie history, especially when they’re a lesser member of a whole wave of movies. This is a political thriller of the kind they seemed to make quite a few of during the ’90s and into the early ’00s, but don’t really do anymore. I guess they exhausted the well, especially after 156 episodes of The West Wing.

In this case, the story revolves around Laine Hanson (Joan Allen), the first woman nominated to be Vice President (it only took another two decades for that to happen in real life). There’s the familiar battle between the Democrats to get her confirmed, and the Republicans who’d like to do anything to thwart the Democrats. Amongst the scheming between the two sides, the big revelation is that Laine possibly engaged in a scandalous sex act while in college. She refuses to confirm or deny the rumour — it’s her personal business and shouldn’t affect her appointment. Except, of course, it does.

Various other allegations come and go throughout the confirmation process, the two sides continuing to go back and forth in their attempts to win. It’s not necessarily the point the film is making, but it’s a reminder that politics is all a game to those involved, even as it can have serious effects on the lives of the rest of us. More overtly, the film tackles the different standards a woman is held to when trying to take public office. Fortunately, it’s not as overbearing with that as it could be. Indeed, all round the film is fairly understated. It’s a solid, unflashy, procedural-based kind of thriller.

That is until the end, when it throws away the understatement for a grandstanding speech based around a fundamental belief in the greatness and goodness of the American political system. It would be heavy-handed in any circumstance, but the past few years (if not longer) of American politics have shown it for the total lie it always was. It doesn’t wholly undermine what’s gone before, but it does end the film on a sour note.

2022 | Weeks 18–20

Posted on June 24, 2022 by badblokebob

These three weeks take us most of the way through May. When I first started writing this batch of reviews, I thought that would bring me almost up-to-date… but then I realised we were already over halfway through June, and, as I finish it, June is almost over. Time flies!

It’s partly because I haven’t been watching as many films over the past couple of months (so it doesn’t feel like I watched these as long ago as I actually did), instead spending a lot of my leisure time on finally watching Apple TV+ series For All Mankind (I’ve just finished season one, which was really good, and I hear only gets better) and replaying all the Monkey Island games (I’m on the fifth and, to date, final one now).

But I digress. Because I already posted Shang-Chi and Frances Ha separately, the remaining reviews from this period are…

The Monolith Monsters (1957)

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)

The Monolith Monsters

(1957)

I watched this film in Eureka’s box set of ’50s B-movies, Three Monster Tales of Sci-Fi Terror. As you can tell from its inclusion there — and, indeed, its title — this is one of a wave of “monster movies” from that era. Except it isn’t, really. In fact, it’s a sci-fi disaster movie jerry-rigged into what I guess was the prevailing B-movie trend of the day: the eponymous ‘Monolith Monsters’ aren’t monsters at all, but an alien rock that expands relentlessly.

Whatever you want to call it, the film offers a mix of B-movie daftness and real-sounding science that’s quite appealing. For example: our heroes discover this crazy, hitherto unknown multiplying rock; then realise they have maybe two days to stop it before it destroys their town; and rather than, say, alert the government, or call in expert help, they decide to… figure it out for themselves. But it does make you wonder: is this poor B-movie logic, or just 1950s Americanness? I love the thought that some crazy extraterrestrial incident may have occurred in some backwater town in the middle of nowhere, and no one ever knew about it because the locals just dealt with it themselves. “Oh yeah, aliens invaded back in ’57, but we didn’t see the need to bother nobody else with it, just shut ’em down ourselves.”

Yet for all that silliness, there’s some scientific logic in play too. Whether it’s real science or “close enough”, I don’t know (let’s be honest, it’s probably the latter), but they manage to make it sound convincing. It helps contribute to an exciting climax, in which a plan to stop the monoliths can only be executed at the last moment before the town is overrun. Rocks don’t normally move fast enough to create race-against-time tension, but hey, these are alien rocks.

The more I reflect on The Monolith Monsters, the more I like it. For a pulpy B-movie, it has an appealing seriousness. Sure, there’s some schlockiness that I wager is inevitable thanks to its era and budget range, but it feels like it’s trying to be more than trashy entertainment, aiming instead to be a more grounded, almost realistic sci-fi thriller. In reaching for that end it becomes a little slow going at times, but overall it’s quite fun.

The Monolith Monsters is the 31st film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

Hannah and Her Sisters

(1986)

Hannah and Her Sisters is one of writer-director Woody Allen’s more popular and successful films. For example, it was nominated for seven Oscars, winning three; and nowadays, it’s his third highest-rated film on Letterboxd, above the likes of Manhattan and later-career highlight Midnight in Paris. All of which I mention because, personally, it’s the kind of film I’d describe as “something and nothing”, because I liked it well enough, but also didn’t really get what it was going for overall.

It’s the story of… well, Hannah (Mia Farrow) and her sisters. They’re three middle-aged women who all live in New York City (of course) and, over the course of a couple of years, we follow their lives and relationships, with a focus on the latter. Actually, if anything, I might argue the biggest focus is on Elliot, played to Oscar-winning effect by Michael Caine, who is married to Hannah but finds himself pining for her sister, Lee (Barbara Hershey).

I say “might argue” because Hannah and Her Sisters is one of those films that feels like a collection of subplots. All of the storylines play out, then they stop, with happy endings almost across the board, and that’s your film. I expect it’s based around a theme of some kind, but all I really got it from it was the old “the grass is always greener” adage. Apparently Allen particularly wanted to make something about the relationship between sisters, because he thought that was more complex than between brothers. Fair enough, but I’m not sure it really comes across in the finished film. There are only about two or three scenes in which the sisters actually interact. They’re mostly off on their own subplots; and while those subplots do effect each other, I don’t think they truly speak to the sisters’ relationships; not in any revelatory depth, anyway.

I’ve enjoyed quite a few of Allen’s films that I’ve seen, but Hannah and Her Sisters won’t be cracking my personal favourites of his work. It was fine to watch — not exceptionally funny or dramatic or insightful or original, but fine — and then it ends, and we go on with our lives. It’s not bad, but it also wasn’t anything much. Not to me, anyway.

Hannah and Her Sisters is the 32nd film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022. It was viewed as part of “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?” 2022.

Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers

(2022)

On the surface, there’s nothing here for me — a live-action remake/reboot of a late-’80s/early-’90s cartoon that I don’t remember ever watching — but something persuaded me to watch the trailer, and that convinced me to watch the film the moment I could. If you’ve missed said trailer, or any of the attendant hype or reviews, what sold me is that this isn’t just an update of a children’s cartoon with modern tech, but a Who Framed Roger Rabbit-style riff on cartoon celebrity.

Like Roger Rabbit, it’s set in a version of our world where cartoons are ‘real’ and living alongside us, and they act in the TV shows and movies we know them from. Decades on from the Rescue Rangers TV show, Chip (voiced by John Mulaney) and Dale (Andy Samberg) no longer get along, but when an old friend goes missing, they’re thrust into investigating his disappearance together.

Frankly, the plot and character arcs feel like stuff you’ve seen before — probably because we have. Although Roger Rabbit is the obvious reference, the film’s storyline feels very similar to the Melissa McCarthy-starring Muppet version of the concept from a couple of years ago, The Happytime Murders. It works better here, though, because it’s not leaning on crudeness as a comedic crutch. If you didn’t see that film, it might be to Chip ’n Dale’s advantage in terms of feeling fresh.

Instead, the best bit of the film is that it’s full to bursting with fun nods and references to pretty much every facet of (Western) animation. These are often tucked away in the background or on the periphery for the eagle-eyed to enjoy, with the film rarely (if ever) stopping to show them off. To its credit, that means the abundant Easter eggs aren’t allowed to overshadow the story, and so the film avoids using them in the same way Happytime Murders used its vulgarity. It’s just a shame that said story is a little well-worn.

Ultimately, Chip ’n Dale gave me the same kind of entertainment as its trailer, but for 95 minutes. Which, in a way, is fair enough — no one can accuse the trailer of being misrepresentative. On the other hand, it would be nice if there’d been something more to substantive to discover. It’s no contender for Roger Rabbit’s throne, but nor is it another Happytime mess. My score rounds up, because I did have fun.

Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers is the 33rd film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

* There was no certificate listed on the BBFC website at time of review. As you may or may not know, there’s actually no legal requirement for streamers to have their content certified, and so it seems Disney haven’t bothered. For what it’s worth, Disney+ lists the film as “9+”, which I guess equates to PG. ^

Top Gun (1986)

Posted on June 12, 2022 by badblokebob

The 100 Films Guide to…

Up there with the best of the best

Country: USA
Language: English
Runtime: 110 minutes
BBFC: 15 (1986) | 12 (cinema, 1989) | 15 (video, 1996) | 12 (video, 2004)
MPAA: PG

Original Release: 12th May 1986 (Mexico)
US Release: 16th May 1986
UK Release: 3rd October 1986
Budget: $15 million
Worldwide Gross: $357.5 million

Stars
Tom Cruise (Risky Business, Mission: Impossible)
Kelly McGillis (Witness, The Accused)
Val Kilmer (Top Secret!, Batman Forever)
Anthony Edwards (Revenge of the Nerds, Miracle Mile)

Director
Tony Scott (The Hunger, Crimson Tide)

Screenwriters
Jim Cash (Turner & Hooch, Anaconda)
Jack Epps Jr. (Dick Tracy, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas)

Based on
Top Guns, a magazine article by Ehud Yonay.

The Story
Fighter pilots Maverick and Goose are sent to the US Navy’s elite Fighter Weapons School, aka Top Gun, a combat training academy-cum-competition to establish the Navy’s best pilots.

Our Hero
Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell is a hotshot pilot who’s prone to bending the rules when he thinks it’s necessary. But that sort of behaviour doesn’t fly with the instructors at Top Gun. Is his daring what gives him the edge, or what makes him a liability?

Our Villain
Maverick’s prime rival in the Top Gun competition is Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky, whose callsign comes from the his precise, ‘ice cold’ flying style — the antithesis of Maverick. In the real-world, the villains are the MiG fighter jets of a tactfully unnamed foreign power.

Best Supporting Character
Maverick’s best mate and RIO (Radar Intercept Officer) is Nick ‘Goose’ Bradshaw. While Maverick seems to rub most people up the wrong way, Goose is widely liked. No idea where his nickname comes from.

Memorable Quote
“I feel the need… the need for speed!” — Maverick

Memorable Scene
For all the slick flying and whatnot, arguably the film’s most iconic scene comes on the ground, when the pilots relax by playing a game of beach volleyball — mostly shirtless, their sweaty muscles glistening in the sun. If you weren’t already feeling the homoerotic subtext, this kind of rams it home. (It’s a fairly incidental scene, but if you doubt its impact, know that the makes of the sequel felt they had to include a version of it, which led to the cast prepping for months to make sure their bodies were suitably toned.)

Memorable Music
Top Gun is blessed with multiple memorable tracks, both original songs and soundtrack cues. Several even won awards (see below). But the one that didn’t is the most iconic, and so catchy that it’s played several times throughout the film: Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone.

Making of
There was a lot of cooperation from the US Navy in the production of the film (it paid off: after release, they saw recruitment skyrocket), but they only authorised two actual missile shots for filming purposes. Both were were shot from multiple angles to generate extra usable footage, but it still wasn’t enough, and so the filmmakers commissioned further shots using miniature planes and rockets. These were done so convincingly that the Navy conducted an investigation into whether any unauthorised missile firings had been performed for the film.

Next time…
It took over 35 years (partially thanks to Covid-related delays), but a sequel was finally released this year. But of course you know that: Top Gun: Maverick is probably the most praised blockbuster of the year so far.

Awards
1 Oscar (Original Song (Take My Breath Away))
3 Oscar nominations (Sound, Film Editing, Sound Effects Editing)
1 People’s Choice Award (Favorite Motion Picture)
1 Grammy (Pop Instrumental Performance (Top Gun Anthem))
1 Brit Award (Soundtrack)

Verdict

I loved Top Gun as a young kid — though, as is so often the case with movies from my childhood, I don’t actually know how many times I saw it. We weren’t great rewatchers in my household, so I expect I only actually watched it two, maybe three times, max. But my dad and I used to play jet fighter simulator games on our PC, with usernames like Maverick and Iceman, entirely inspired by the film. So, obviously, it comes with a dose of nostalgia for me, even though I hadn’t seen it for a couple of decades (my recent rewatch inspired by, of course, the release of the sequel). Does it hold up? Well, that depends what you want from a movie. It certainly comes with a more-than-healthy does of ’80s cheese and rampant-but-unacknowledged homoeroticism. For some, that makes it either unwatchable or two hours of laughing at the film. But if you’re onboard with its particular style, it’s still good fun; an entertainment-focused blend of fast-paced action in the skies and matey rivalry on the ground, with a dash of romantic melodrama for good measure.

2022 | Weeks 14–15

Posted on May 26, 2022 by badblokebob

Only four reviews this time, taking us up to April 17th. It was going to be five, but then Spider-Man got far too long. So, we’re left with…

Withnail & I (1987)

Munich: The Edge of War (2021)

tick, tick… BOOM! (2021)

Move Over, Darling (1963)

Withnail & I

(1987)

This may be a beloved cult comedy in its own right, but I can’t help but make comparison to a certain other British cult property. You see, each of the three primary cast members — Richard E. Grant (Withnail), Paul McGann (‘I’), and Richard Griffiths (Uncle Monty) have an atypical relationship to the lead role in Doctor Who. That has no bearing on the film itself, not least because their involvement (or non-involvement, in one case) took place years later, but it’s a correlation I can’t shake. I mean, what other work can claim to star the man who was simultaneously the shortest and longest serving Doctor; the man who was definitely, officially the new canonical Doctor, until he wasn’t; and a man who might well have been the Doctor if things had gone to plan? Nothing else that I can think of, that’s for sure.

Setting all that aside, everything about Withnail & I screams “cult favourite”, and I guess that’s what it is — not a film that started out with a dedicated fanbase before being subsumed into the mainstream, but one that remains beloved of a relatively few devotees. Perhaps that explains why it’s one of those films I thought would’ve wound up on my Blindspot list by now, but never has: because it lacks that crossover appeal. (Maybe I need to factor in some lists of cult and/or British movies when compiling my Blindspot choices.) Coming to it afresh in 2022, aware of that rep it’s built up over the last 35 years, does it no favours. The characters aren’t likeable or interesting enough to truly enjoy hanging out with (even as they’re convincingly brought to life by the talented cast); the “gay panic” stuff that drives several sequences lands differently now than I suspect it did in 1987; and the supposedly never-ending quotable lines didn’t materialise (there are a small handful of memorable ones, at least). That said, there are quite a few lines that would be fun for a game of “did Paul McGann say this in Withnail or in Doctor Who?” (Oops, sorry to bring that up again.)

The best bits of Withnail have been dulled by repetition out of context (variations on “we’ve gone on holiday by mistake” are a certifiable meme at this point), and I suspect I personally left it too long to see it, allowing it to build up too much of a reputation. I didn’t dislike it, I just wasn’t won over.

Munich: The Edge of War

(2021)

Robert Harris has been a best-selling author for decades, but his works have had a rockier reception on the screen; perhaps not helped by the fact a couple have been helmed by director non grata Roman Polanski. Harris’s stock in trade is fictionalised tellings of historical events — the eruption of Vesuvius in Pompeii; the politics behind the invasion of Iraq in The Ghost; and so on. His 2017 novel Munich is set around war-avoiding negotiations between Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain that took place in the titular city in 1938. This film adaptation gains a subtitle, presumably to differentiate it from Steven Spielberg’s Best Picture nominee, which retold entirely different historical events.

The big names aren’t the main characters, however. Those would be a pair of low-ranking civil servants from the opposing sides: Brit Hugh Legat (1917‘s George MacKay) and German Paul von Hartmann (Jannis Niewöhner), former university chums who fell out when Hitler came to power. Now, von Hartmann is disillusioned with the Nazi regime and wishes to pass information to the British, but will only make contact with Legat, thus roping the inexperienced diplomat into the world of espionage, untrained. If the storyline is ringing bells, perhaps you too recently watched The Courier with Benedict Cumberbatch. It’s not an identical narrative — I’m not accusing anyone of plagiarism here — but there are definite parallels. Legat even has a strained relationship with his wife, who he has to leave at home and not tell the truth.

But where the story in The Courier was true, and thus lent an inherent fascination, the story of Legat and von Hartmann is fictionalised. That’s not necessarily a problem — most thrillers are entirely made-up, of course — but Munich is hampered by feeling kind of muddy. It’s not so bad as to be described as muddled, but does seem like it’s perhaps the victim of being badly truncated from the book, or possibly just in its own edit. It’s not always clear what the point is of what we’re watching, or where certain characters have disappeared off to. That makes the overall experience longer and, occasionally, more plodding than it needs to be.

That said, though it takes time, it does eventually develop the tension it needs; and it has definite merit for depicting a bit of history that’s normally relegated to footnote status. Indeed, it makes an interesting argument for “what Chamberlain did was good, actually”, which is not the normal point of view on politicians’ pre-WW2 actions.

Munich: The Edge of War is the 27th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

tick, tick… BOOM!

(2021)

Rent was one of the definitive Broadway musicals of the ’90s, but its creator didn’t live to see its success: composer, lyricist, and author Jonathan Larson died, with poetic timing, the night before the show’s premiere. It came after years of Larson struggling trying to break into the industry, much of which was documented in his semi-autobiographical (almost-)one-man show, Tick, Tick… Boom! This film adaptation broadens out and adds additional detail to become a more direct biopic of Larson, albeit one with musical numbers.

Struggling musical theatre people in Manhattan… Yes, some people are going to find this insufferable. Others will look upon it as a dream life, especially as any actual hardship (Larson’s apartment didn’t have heating, for example) is played down or romanticised. Even setting that side, it remains the kind of movie that will speak to anyone who’s dreamt of making art (especially if that art is musical theatre), but might leave others (primarily those without such ambitions) identifying more closely with some of Jonathan’s friends — “there are bigger things to worry about,” they say.

In the centre of it all is a pitch perfect performance from Andrew Garfield. He throws himself into the role, transformatively so: his Larson seems to be powered by a restless enthusiasm that I don’t think I’ve seen the actor portray in anything else. In the musical numbers, he holds his own against much more experienced singers (Garfield couldn’t even sing before production began — he spent a year learning and practicing).

This is more than just a ‘one good performance’ film, though. Although based on a stage show, the screen version certainly doesn’t feel stage-bound, coming to cinematic life through Alice Brooks’s photography and Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum’s editing as if it had always been meant for the screen. However, many people have been critical of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s direction. While I wouldn’t shout it out as anything amazingly special, I also don’t think it’s bad. You routinely see lesser work in Marvel movies, for example.

Move Over, Darling

(1963)

Doris Day and James Garner star in this remake of My Favourite Wife, one of the trio of screwball comedies Irene Dunne and Cary Grant made together, and which I watched back in May 2020. Two years ago?! Time flies. Despite which, I’ve not reviewed it yet.

Well, Move Over, Darling is an incredibly close re-envisioning. If someone authoritative told me it used the same screenplay with only minor tweaks, I’d believe them. I’m sure it’s not that close, in actual fact, but it’s darn near it. Certainly, one bit is definitely new: a fun sequence that sees Day recount the plot of the earlier film. Very meta. Alongside the screenplay, the remake also carries the original’s primary flaw, which is that they both lack the pace and snap of the very best screwball comedies. Day does her best to enliven the material, being a consistent source of fun and clearly game for a laugh — a sequence where she goes through a car wash in a convertible is a highlight. Garner can’t manage to equal Cary Grant, but who can?

Nonetheless, on balance, I slightly preferred this version. That might just be due to my lowered expectations — knowing it had the double drawback of being (1) a remake, and (2) of a film I hadn’t particularly loved the first time, it was able to overcome that by simply being not too bad.