Zone Troopers (1985)

Another film from the 1980s that I didn’t get to see back when I was constantly being drawn to the VHS box art (an alien figure replicating the Uncle Sam “we want you” iconography), Zone Troopers is a title I have always had a lot of affection for. But now I have actually seen the film, which means my level of affection for it isn’t what it used to be.

It is WWII and a number of American soldiers in Italy get themselves involved in a skirmish that involves both the Nazis and some alien visitors. The Nazis want to make use of alien technology to help them win the war, but the Americans just want to get out of the area alive.

The first film directed by Danny Bilson, co-written by himself and Paul De Meo (and the duo also wrote the scripts for Trancers and The Eliminators at about this time), Zone Troopers is a fun idea that is hampered by the low budget, and a lack of creativity to compensate for that low budget. 

One or two moments stand out. There’s a nice bit of production design showcasing a crashed spaceship that at least adds a bit of vibrant colour to the film, the third act has a set-piece that makes up for the dodgy special effects with a child-like glee and enthusiasm, and the very end of the film features a “punchline” that feels quite sweet. That is about all I can praise though. The script is pretty weak, there is never a proper feeling of the time and place, and you would get more authenticity if you stumbled across a group of LARPers conducting a war-based campaign on their designated special Sunday.

The cast help a bit. Tim Thomerson has a lead role, playing Sarge, so it has that going for it, and Timothy Van Patten is fine as someone sharing a lot of the screentime with him, playing a soldier imaginatively named Joey. Art LaFleur and Biff Manard make up the rest of the core group, both doing well enough in roles that don’t exactly ask for complexity and nuance. 

Overall, I was really hoping to like this more. Part of that is to do with me having yearned to see it for over three decades. Part of that is to do with the premise having the potential to be so much more fun. I didn’t hate it, and I will definitely rewatch it at some point (when I may end up enjoying it more without the weight of my own expectation working against it), but it’s not one I highly recommend, even to fans of sci-fi b-movies.

4/10

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Prime Time: Whipped (2000)

I like many movies from the ‘90s and ‘00s, and I have always been a big fan of Amanda Peet, so a viewing of Whipped was long overdue. I will say right now . . . If you can find any other movie from the year 2000 that feels more like a movie from the year 2000 then I will eat the massively baggy jeans that I used to wear throughout the 1990s.

Written and directed by Peter M. Cohen, what you have here is the tale of three men who consider themselves as players, or wannabe players. Brad (Brian Van Holt) is smarmy, cocky, and selfish. He also has a job that deals with the stock market. He is what you would think of when you think of some douchebag named Brad, or even Chad. Zeke (Zorie Barber) is similar, but his persona also incorporates the sensitive soul of an art lover. Jonathan (Jonathan Abrahams) tries to match his friends, but he isn’t made of quite the same stuff. So he masturbates. A lot. And then there’s Eric (Judah Domke), the married man who wants to continue to find vicarious thrills through the related exploits of his friends. These men are all challenged when three of them end up dating the seemingly perfect Mia (Amanda Peet).

Based much more on dialogue than action, and with characters often taking time to speak directly to the camera as they discuss their various life experiences and dating techniques, Whipped cannot do enough to make you forget that it’s a low-budget character piece. It doesn’t help that only one of the characters is likeable, and it isn’t one of the male characters, so spending time with them is more of a chore than a pleasant distraction.

It also doesn’t help that writer-director Cohen also clearly loved Swingers and decided he could make something just as good. He is far off the mark, but makes his own incompetence much more obvious by constantly reminding you that Swingers exists, is a MUCH better film, and should be something you decide to rewatch instead of sticking with this.

There are moments to enjoy though. An opening sequence sets up the characters with a good bit of humour that allows viewers to laugh AT them. There’s also a very smart little sequence that feels like the typical “guys chatting to one another while playing basketball” moment, a trope brilliantly skewered by the fact that all of the characters here are absolutely terrible at playing the game. Whether it is a clumsy metaphor or another way to undermine the words of the characters with their actions, it works. Sadly, no other scenes in the movie are that clever.

Jokes are set up at random, with punchlines that just don’t work, characters become harder and harder to believe in as real people, bad attitudes don’t really change, and that all means that the film also lacks the sexy cool that it wanted to have (something that Swingers has in spades).

Peet almost makes this worthwhile, portraying another beautiful woman who can hold her own with the men around her, but her male co-stars, suffering both from the writing and their own performances (with Domke, in particular, standing out as someone who answered a call for a very different movie), drag things back down at every turn.

Oh, and as if this review wasn’t enough to put you off, let me warn you that this is another movie that tries to gain some goodwill at the very end by throwing in a number of outtakes. None of them are funny. None.

3/10

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The Kindred (1987)

I understand that people who know me through various social media connections may already be fed up of me going on about The Kindred, but I am going to spend some more time on it. Because it deserves it. Whatever people think of the quality of the film itself, this was something I had been wanting to see for about 35 years, all thanks (as so often happened) to a lurid and tempting VHS cover.

While his scientist mother (Kim Hunter) is dying, John Hollins (David Allen Brooks) is surprised by the news that he apparently has a half brother. Even more surprising, he is supposed to destroy this individual, named Anthony. Heading back to the old homestead with some firm friends to help him, John starts to piece together exactly what his mother meant. It is all to do with a load of illegal experiments, resulting in the creation of a life that really shouldn’t exist.

Co-written and co-directed by Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow, The Kindred is, especially in the first half, a clumsy and clunky piece of work. It often tries to be creepy and suspenseful while most viewers will be waiting for whatever wild practical effects are surely due to come along in time for the third act. In fairness, however, those practical effects DO come along, kudos to the team for them, and they are given plenty of screentime to ensure that nobody feels short-changed.

Although The Kindred is gloopy horror fun, most will be unsurprised to find that it is far from a showcase for great acting. Brooks is decidedly average in the lead role, outshone in any scenes that he shares with either Talia Balsam (who plays his girlfriend) or Amanda Pays (who plays a woman so happy to help our hero that she might just have a secret agenda). Peter Frechette is defined by the fact that he is trying to no longer be a smoker, and he’s stuck being the most annoying of the main group members, while Timothy Gibbs and Julia Montgomery have lesser, but also less annoying, parts to play. Hunter may not be onscreen for long, but she’s not the only established star to be involved. Rod Steiger is enjoyably over the top as another scientist who values results over ethics, and every scene that features him is a barmy delight, either thanks to his performance or the special effects around him.

Despite the runtime not being overlong, the pacing could be tightened up slightly. The special effects, as wonderful as they are, vary wildly in quality. And the score by David Newman feels like it should have been much more bombastic. But these are relatively minor criticisms, especially when you think of the many other horror films from this time that ended up being much less satisfying.

The Kindred almost comes close to delivering on the promise sold on that VHS artwork, and almost coming close is a damn sight better than many other horror movies manage. I am sorry that it took me over three decades to see it, but I am also glad that something I had given up hope of ever seeing turned out to be part of a very special viewing experience, one that kept a grin on my face for the duration.

7/10

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Mubi Monday: Sunset Song (2015)

England has a fine literary heritage, from Shakespeare to the Brontë sisters, from Dickens to Jane Austen, and on and on the list goes, including the likes of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Agatha Christie, John Le Carré, Clive Barker, etc, etc. Scotland has a similarly rich variety, both historically and right here and now, from Sir Walter Scott to Robert Burns, from Rankin to Rowling, Iain Banks (with or without the middle initial), Christopher Brookmyre, and many more. Unfortunately, one celebrated writer of Scottish fiction is/was Lewis Grassic Gibbon, writer of A Scots Quair, a trilogy of takes set in the North East of Scotland. Sunset Song is the first part of that trilogy, and it’s about as bleak and dull as just about anything I have ever encountered in my life. While forced to read it in high school, I once threw the book across an empty classroom in disdain, looking on in horror as it lifted upwards and knocked a glass lightshade loose, the whole thing coming down and smashing to pieces on the floor. I somehow managed to clean it up and hide the evidence, and I am only sharing this confession here as it is arguably the most interesting thing I can say about the story.

I am sure you can imagine how much I was looking forward to the film, directed and adapted into screenplay form by Terence Davies (someone who has directed other films I have very much enjoyed).

Agyness Deyn plays Chris Guthrie, a young woman loving a hard life on a Scottish farm in the early 1900s. She has a stern father (Peter Mullan) for a while, but things really seem to look up for her when she starts to receive the attention of Ewan Tavendale (played by Kevin Guthrie). But the fact that this is Sunset Song means that happiness cannot last for long. The only things that last are aching joints and muscles from hard work on the land. Och aye, ye can be sure o’ that.

It’s all nicely put together, from the script to the horribly overcast visual palette, and the cast do excellent work, particularly Deyn in the central role, giving a performance that marks her out as a formidable talent. Unfortunately, Sunset Song cannot overcome the biggest problem it has, which is the fact that it is Sunset Song. Viewed by many as an essential Scottish text, the story is so mired in an essence of noble misery, while also taking the time to wear down the strong female lead into a passive victim, that it is something I would much rather see consigned to the dustbin of history. Maybe some of the Scottish vocabulary has a pleasing ring to it, there is that, and there would seem to be a number of uncomfortable truths at the heart of things, but the messages delivered throughout never sat right with me, mainly because it all seems to be inextricably interwoven with some horribly inappropriate sense of duty and pride.

Art isn’t always just a window that we look into. It is often a mirror, and the reflection can show your baggage, it can show you a snarl while so many others are smiling. My review of Sunset Song isn’t JUST about the movie, but very few movie reviews are just about the movie. It just so happens that this work has much more attached to it, for me, and I am now at an age when I can better define the problems I have always had with the material. They are problems that the film also has, because Davies adapted the source material so well. Maybe there isn’t a way to make it into anything more palatable for me, or maybe I will return to the source material and find myself able to see a bit more in it than I ever did before. I highly doubt it, but maybe.

4/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Man From Toronto (2022)

Kevin Hart plays a typical Kevin Hart type in this action comedy from the director of The Hitman’s Bodyguard. All you need to know right now is that this film isn’t even as good as The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which wasn’t any kind of modern classic itself.

I don’t even have the energy to relate the plot, as tired and overdone as it is, but here is the very basic outline. Teddy (Hart) ends up somewhere with people who mistakenly assume he is the very dangerous, and skilled, Man From Toronto (Woody Harrelson). Because he ends up involved in a job that has two or there main objectives, authorities want Teddy to keep up the pretence, to lure out The Man, while The Man ends up also wanting Teddy to keep up the pretence, for some convoluted reason to do with maintaining consistent identity from the first part of the job. Teddy just wants to stay alive long enough to make things up to his long-suffering wife, Lori (Jasmine Mathews). And blah blah blah blah blah.

This is a prime example of what happens when you marry a weak script (from Robbie Fox and Chris Bremner) to a weak director, fail to have main cast members who are charismatic enough to distract from the many negative aspects of the film, and think that viewers will be kept amused by action set-pieces that complement the physicality of the actors with an excessive amount of CGI (the effects often far from top quality work, it has to be said). As much as I disliked The Hitman’s Bodyguard, and the sequel, I was able to enjoy some moments thanks to the casting of Reynolds and Jackson. Hart and Harrelson aren’t the right fit for the roles they are given here.

There is nothing in the script that feels at all real, in terms of the movie world it is presenting. The Man From Toronto is supposed to be a mystery figure, yet a lot is known about him and he doesn’t exactly hide his identity, or even try to be subtle. Teddy isn’t ever developed as a character who really aims to change by the time the end credits roll (in fact, it could be argued that he doesn’t change at all from the start to the finish). And as for the mission at the heart of everything? Think about it for more than two seconds and you will see how ridiculous it is for anyone to be letting Teddy take the central role.

I guess those who like to see Hart doing his usual schtick will find some laughs here, and Harrelson isn’t terrible (he just doesn’t quite work in the role, due to a mix of the writing and his casting), but the supporting cast generally do better with much less screentime. Mathews is a pleasant presence, Kaley Cuoco is fun in the role of her friend, and Pierson Fode keeps things lively whenever he appears, playing The Man From Miami.

The final extended fight sequence has a number of fun moments, but is also dragged down by too much time spent cramming in camerawork flourishes and CGI, and you may start to realise just how few and far between the laughs were when you get to an end scene that is supposed to provide some extra chuckles, but doesn't. I'm not going to say that this is entirely laugh-free, and Hart fans will rush to strongly disagree with me, but it's disappointingly miserable with any jokes that actually work. Can we maybe encourage director Patrick Hughes to move away from trying to make comedies, he's just not very good at it.

3/10

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Shudder Saturday: Revealer (2022)

A simple tale of the apocalypse, or maybe it would be more accurate to call it the rapture, Revealer starts off pretty strong, with a fun script, some decent visuals, and a cool soundtrack. Sadly, it starts to go downhill once it leans into the horror elements, although the two main leads help to make it less painful than it otherwise might be.

Caito Aase plays Angie, a young woman who makes her money dancing various sexy dances in a peepshow booth. And she often has to walk by a group and of fervent protesters on her way to work, headed up by the deeply prurient and offended Sally (Shaina Schrooten). Which makes things really awkward when Angie and Sally are trapped together as the world starts to seemingly come to an end.

Directed by Luke Boyce, who also worked with writers Michael Moreci and Tim Seeley in getting his vision onscreen, this is a decent attempt to make a low-budget horror comedy that focuses on a very small aspect of things going to hell (literally?) on a grand scale. It’s just a shame that the fun and potential inventiveness of the main premise is soon cast aside in favour of a fairly dull selection of shots that have our leads walking along one passageway after another.

Aase is very good in her role, a fun, strong, smart woman who isn’t weighed down by too many prejudices or hang-ups. Her character is genuinely great too, which makes me wish that she was given a better framework, to reward viewers and Aase herself. Schrooten is okay, but she is stuck playing someone who feels like a bit of a cartoon (she’s a young Maude Flanders, with a bit less empathy for those not sharing her mindset). At least the leads help one another in their many shared scenes, but it’s always obvious just who is the better of the two. Bishop Stevens has a couple of fun moments in the role of Ray, the man at the front counter of the peepshow establishment, but this is, for the most part, a two-hander with Aase and Schrooten.

As the end credits rolled, I was feeling in a mood to be kind to Revealer. It had a number of things I enjoyed in the mix. Then I remembered how much of it missed the mark. A great start, with some comedic dialogue and moments that really work, gives way to something that becomes less and less interesting as it winds towards a finale that will leave most people non-plussed. The comedy stops working, the horror side of things never really works at all, and nothing can distract from the obvious limitations that could have been turned into a strength.

There are definitely people involved in this that I want to keep track of (Aase, Boyce, composer Alex Cuervo, and whoever else contributed to the soundtrack), but I cannot recommend this to many people, and I certainly can’t ever imagine wanting to rewatch it.

5/10

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Last Radio Call (2022)

It’s good to stumble across a very good film that you haven’t heard anyone else mention, especially when it is a horror film that seems to have been unnoticed by the majority of the horror community, but that also means that you have to be careful. Temper your positive reaction, your enthusiasm about something you want to champion, with some smelling salts that stop you from diving head-first into the standard waters of hyperbole that make up 90% of the internet.

This is me saying that I really enjoyed Last Radio Call, but I am aware that part of that enjoyment may stem from the surprise factor. It was something I hadn’t heard of before this week, and I decided to take a roll of the dice on it.

Written and directed by Isaac Rodriguez, developed and expanded from the idea he utilised in a 2-minute short a few years ago entitled The Cop Cam (I believe), this is presented as a blend of documentary fare and found footage, and it marks Rodriguez out as someone horror fans should definitely be keeping an eye on.

Sarah Froelich plays Sarah Serling, a woman who wants to find out exactly what happened on the last night her husband, a police officer named David Serling (Jason Scarbrough), was seen alive. He and his partner, Giles Ali (Ali Akhafaji) had entered an abandoned building to investigate, but only the partner came back out. Some kind of cover-up is suspected, and Sarah thinks that hiring a documentary crew to tell the tale will help put all the pieces together and encourage some people to be more honest.

With decent performances from everyone involved, the documentary format allowing for a way to avoid giving people headaches for most of the runtime, and a third act that really delivers the horror goods (even if it is very reminiscent of a certain modern “found footage” classic), Last Radio Call should easily please anyone seeking out some thrills and chills. It also helps that the relatively brief runtime, about 75 minutes, stops it from outstaying its welcome.

Ironically, because it is often refreshing to find a horror movie that isn’t trying to be the next big franchise, this is material that I would happily watch being reworked and expanded further. There are definite sequel possibilities here, and I would certainly be keen to see them. As long as Rodriguez keeps sight of the effective scares and atmosphere he gets so right here.

There are some mis-steps here and there, with the actual structure of the film a bit clumsy and forced as we move further away from the straightforward documentary style and more into the visceral scares, but I found that I didn’t mind some inconsistency while I was being kept on edge by the impressively nightmarish visuals that make up the grand finale. Whether you like or dislike this, it’s hard to deny that Rodriguez does well to make the most of all of his resources.

Feel free to adjust my rating down slightly if you think I am still factoring in the “pleasant surprise” aspect of this one.

8/10

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Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (2022)

As many of you already know, Marvel have been setting up the multiverse for a little while now. And here we are, once again showing the possibilities and the dangers of the multiverse.

It all starts with an action sequence that shows Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) dying while trying to help a young woman, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez). America can jump from from one multiverse realm to the next, but doesn’t know how her power works, and she eventually ends up in what seems to be our world, where she is saved from a giant monster by . . . Doctor Stephen Strange, assisted by Wong (Benedict Wong). Powerful forces seem intent on destroying America, which leads to Doctor Strange asking for the help of Wanda Maximoff aka The Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) . . . which actually ends up making everything worse. An ancient text could provide the key to fixing the whole situation, but that might need some more travelling between universes.

With the kaleidoscopic imagery throughout, elements of celestial horror, a nice line in macabre humour, and an inevitable Bruce Campbell cameo, Sam Raimi fans should be delighted by his return to directing superhero fare. The material, revolving around a quest for an ancient book that may save or damn mankind, feels like a natural fit, and there are a couple of genuinely glorious moments in the third act that show just how much Raimi was allowed to retain his Raimi essence. I can easily say that I enjoyed this more as a blockbuster Raimi movie than as a superhero movie.

The screenplay, written by Michael Waldron, does a good job of explaining the situations, characters, and rules without bringing everything to a grinding halt. Waldron has experience with multiverse-based entertainment, having been a writer on both Loki and Rick & Morty, and he excels when it comes to clarifying concepts that are then complemented by Raimi’s directorial decisions. He also does well while exploring an aspect that was kept out of a lot of the advertising on the lead up to the release of the film, something I won’t spoil here, and I was pleased to find that this was another Marvel movie that opted to question decisions made by main characters over the years, and to muse over who gets to decide what is ultimately good and bad.

Everyone does well in their main roles, with some people (mainly Cumberbatch, Olsen, and Rachel McAdams, once again playing the lovely, and beloved, Christine) clearly having some fun portraying multiple versions of their characters. And Cumberbatch can do the magic-creating finger/hand movements in his sleep by now, surely.  Gomez is a great new addition to the cinematic roster of Marvel main characters we have had so far, playing her character with a lovely mix of sadness, strength, and sass, and Wong has been one of the best supporting players in any of the MCU movies since his first appearance (although there are a number of actors who would deserve to be in contention alongside him). Chiwetel Ejiofor also needs to be mentioned here, with his character, Baron Mordo, being used in a way that allows him to do more than just be another potential enemy of Strange.

I’ve saved my main criticisms until the end though, because this is far from perfect. Some scenes are just too overstuffed, some of the dialogue, already embraced by a large part of the fanbase, is too hokey and trying too hard to become instantly quotable, and it’s easy to say that this isn’t the best recent multiverse movie release (which would be Everything Everywhere All At Once). It’s not even the best recent Marvel multiverse movie release though, with Spider-Man: No Way Home proving to be a much more satisfying end product. The reason? Cameos.

Yeah, let’s end this review by talking about cameos. Not Bruce Campbell. He is welcome in every Sam Raimi movie. And Spider-Man: No Way Home showed just how enjoyable the right cameos could be. Unfortunately, Marvel haven’t realised what they got so right there, cameos that allow them to work some interesting story strands together from their recent history into something that felt much more satisfying, and like closure for many, and go back to making the mistake of using cameos as obvious set up for whatever path they want to lay ahead. One major character aside, someone seen in the recent animated “What If?” show, all of these cameos made me roll my eyes and wish that I didn’t recognise any of the faces onscreen. It’s irritating, feeling like a way to tease people or test reactions to potential future (re)casting. And it sadly makes up what feels like a decent portion of the middle of the movie.

None of the negatives are enough to stop this from being a good time. There’s enough money and talent here that it would seem almost impossible to make something truly awful. But, as the film itself shows us, there are infinite possibilities.

7/10

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Prime Time: The Addams Family 2 (2021)

As much as everyone seemed ready to dismiss, and even hate, the recent animated The Addams Family movie, I was still happy to give it my time. I enjoy macabre humour, even (especially?) in animated form. I was happy enough with the voice cast. And I am a fan of the main characters. It ended up being absolutely fine, but not something I would revisit ahead of some of the live-action adventures. I had forgotten that a sequel was made though, leading to a pleasant surprise when I saw that it was already available online.

The plot is enjoyably simple, and enjoyably all about the bond of family in a way that both embraces and pushes aside the traditional “blood is thicker than water” idea. Having done her usual great work at a science show, “improving” Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll) with some serum created from an octopus, Wednesday Addams (Chloe Grace Moretz) gets herself noticed by the successful scientist named Cyrus Strange (Bill Hader). Not only has he noticed her, he claims that she is actually HIS daughter, having been switched around in the hospital. Gomez (Oscar Isaac) and Morticia (Charlize Theron) strongly deny this, of course, but things don’t look good, and even an impromptu family holiday may not help out things right.

Unsurprisingly not quite as good as the first movie, this is a sequel that hits a lot of expected points. They have to create a crisis for the central characters, removing them from the comfort of their home environment helps, and it all feels a bit more contrived, and a bit less necessary than the previous film, which was hardly all that necessary anyway.

What is a surprise is the fact that it took about four directors and four writers to get this crafted into a feature. That is eight people in total. EIGHT. To deliver something that, while far from offensively bad, is a very obvious and safe bit of work.

It’s a good job that the voice cast are still a big plus, with Theron and Isaac both arguably as good in the lead roles as anyone could be. Helped by the obvious, but enjoyable, lines of dialogue that allow them to deride the normal world around them while loving one another, and their family, with an amusingly unrestrained approach, both feel completely in line with how we have known the characters over the years. Moretz also does very well in the role of Wednesday, dour and dangerous, especially to her brother, Pugsley (voiced this time by Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton, and no, I also have no idea why he decided to insert an incomplete Spice Girls song title into his name). Nick Kroll is amusing enough as Uncle Fester, Bette Midler is wonderful in her cameo role (playing Granny), and director Conrad Vernon has fun portraying Lurch. Hader is always welcome in any movie, and is especially fun when it comes to voice work, so his character is another plus, and it helps that one of his assistants is voiced by the instantly recognisable Wallace Shawn.

The animation is fine, there’s at least one ridiculous use of a familiar pop song, and Wednesday Addams is pushed into a teen beauty pageant at one point, for reasons vital to the plot (of course). This is a step down from the previous film, but it’s still not bad, although it is worth noting that any entertainment that mixes kid-friendly material with some dark humour is usually okay by me.

6/10

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The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent (2022)

The film in which Nicolas Cage famously plays an onscreen version of . . . Nicolas Cage, The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent is a film that obviously depends on how much you like Nicolas Cage. But that is something you could say about almost every Cage vehicle. This just happens to be his best film in quite a few years.

Cage is in a bit of a rut. His stock seems to be low, he has problems staying on good terms with his ex-wife (Sharon Horgan) and his daughter (Lily Mo Sheen), and he seems to be in the midst of a crisis that has no end in sight. Then his agent (Neil Patrick Harris) offers him a gig that could turn everything around, a payday for visiting a superfan named Javi (Pedro Pascal). Nick and Javi start getting on really well, which makes it a tough break when two agents (Tiffany Hadish and Ike Barinholtz) collar Cage and ask him to help them. It appears that Javi is a MAJOR criminal, and he may well have a kidnapped girl hidden away somewhere in his compound. 

Although I was happy to see this film, and to see the positive reception it received, I must admit to also resenting those who seem to represent the majority viewpoint depicted here. There are a lot of people who dismiss Cage, who have viewed him as a bit of a punchline, who won’t watch most movies that he stars in. It’s their loss. Yes, his movie choices over the past decade have been a bit hit and miss, with quantity overshadowing quality, but Cage is always aiming to do what he does best, and any career renaissance being touted now is touted from people who have decided to selectively forget the gems that remain strewn throughout every period of his extensive filmography.

Putting that aside, however, this is about as good as it gets for a comedy crafted around the perceived persona, and key films, of a majorly divisive movie star. The affection for Cage is obvious, and the material, and gags, work brilliantly while weaving from the universal to the very star-specific. Comedy fans should enjoy this, film fans will love it, and Cage fans should REALLY love it. Director Tom Gormican, who also wrote the script with Kevin Etten, does a superb job of balancing the various elements, from the sheer Cage factor of Cage to the bromance that blossoms at the heart of the film, from the family problems that our hero is unable to face head on, to the brief action beats that are interspersed throughout.

The cast all do a great job, with Cage being the one most obviously deserving of praise. His performance taps into everything, good and bad, that people know, or think they know, about him. He has always had an interesting level of self-awareness, and this whole movie underlines that in a way that is impossible to dislike. Pascal is a lot of fun, being someone who can see no wrong in his idol, and he is amusingly oblivious to much of the plot unfolding around him. Horgan and Sheen do well in their supporting roles, as do Haddish and Barinholtz, and there are a couple of great cameos that I won’t spoil here. Paco León is also very good, playing someone related to Pascal’s character, and someone who may be more attuned to the covert mission that Cage is on.

It’s not any new cinematic milestone. Movie stars have played themselves onscreen before, and there’s more than a touch of something like ¡Three Amigos! about it, but this all blends together into something that feels wonderfully original and entertaining, with a lot of that simply being down to the Cage factor.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: Good Luck To You, Leo Grande (2022)

An older woman and a young man meet. Sex is a distinct possibility. It is, in fact, the reason for their meeting. But that changes as the two start to talk and get to know one another, with a number of moments feeling much more like therapy than any casual date with a sex worker.

Written by Katy Brand, there are a lot of positives to take away from Good Luck To You, Leo Grande. It tries to show how much healthier and happier people could be if they stopped thinking of the idea of their own pleasure as something to be ashamed of. It tries to show sex work in a healthy scenario, although I am sure everyone involved knows that this is an idealistic representation (but other scenarios are acknowledged in conversation). And it serves as a reminder that getting older, or losing a loved one, doesn’t have to be the end of your life. You can be any age when you start exploring new experiences, and any day can be the first day of finding ways to make yourself happy and more confident. Because, let’s be honest, a really good sex sesh can put a spring in your step and give you a glow that others respond to, feeding your confidence and aura in a way that allows you to create a looped circuit running through your body, all well and good until one or two knocks break off that energy supply.

Director Sophie Hyde, who has a filmography that features a mix of dance, and explorations of sex, gender, and the loud ticking of the clock counting down the minutes of our lives, doesn’t do a bad job, but she is tied to the material in a way that is restrictive. This feels like a stage play, and it also feels too contrived on a couple of occasions. Viewers know they will see some nudity, for example, but all the talk of pleasure and healthy attitudes to sex don’t mean anyone is brave enough to, god forbid, show an actual penis. This may have been a censorship issue, but I suspect it was a decision made as part of the writing process. Because as well-intentioned as everyone involved surely is, they are also stuck in the mindset of great dialogue being the best medium for ideas that they don’t want to seem squeamish about.

It’s a good job that the two main leads here are Daryl McCormack and Emma Thompson, both doing great work (which is always assumed from the latter anyway). McCormack is a perfect blend of good looks, good sexual techniques, and good conversation. Thompson, on the other hand, is there to build up her confidence, to shake off her hang ups that end up being both about sex and about how she views herself. She is critical of what she sees in the mirror, she tries to deflect any compliments, and she takes a long time to start seeing herself differently. It is, for obvious reasons, the braver of the two performances, and kudos to Brand for using Thompson’s character as a way to underline the importance of boundaries and consent within any relationship, with her being the one who crosses a line in a way that she doesn’t even view as a big deal. It’s unfortunate that THAT moment signals the beginning of a downward slide in the third act, with moments of revelation and extra honesty that, ironically, feel inauthentic compared to the rest of the movie. And still the leads do what they can to lift the material.

The biggest criticism that can be said about Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is that it needed even more of everything. It needed more honesty, it needed more courage in its convictions, it needed more space for the characters. Hell, it even needed a bit more energy, and maybe a few choice soundtrack selections would have helped.

Much like how I would be rated by my own smattering of lovers, the end result is okay, pleasant enough and tries hard, but isn’t completely satisfying. 

5/10

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Netflix And Chill: Spiderhead (2022)

Based on a short story by George Saunders, Spiderhead is an interesting little sci-fi flick that reunites director Joseph Kosinski with star Miles Teller (the pair having just previously worked together on the much more successful Top Gun: Maverick). I was looking forward to this, mainly because I have enjoyed the first two features from Kosinski, two visually impressive sci-fi movies (TRON: Legacy and Oblivion). It's a shame then that writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick seemed intent at every turn to fight against the darkness of the material.

Teller plays Jeff, a young man who is incarcerated in a fairly pleasant prison setting. It's an easier life than some prisons, mainly because he has agreed to be a test subject for a variety of drugs, all administered from vials placed in a pack that is attached to his back. The person running the many tests on these drugs, and acting like a friendly warden, is Abnesti (Chris Hemsworth). One drug can make you very happy, one drug can make you sexually attracted to someone else in a way that means you have to act on your urges there and then, and one drug plunges you into a sudden and deep depression. There are also some other drugs being tested, and there's a chance that the test subjects, who always have to approve each testing session by saying "acknowledge", don't realise what is really going on. 

The first half of Spiderhead is quite good. You get a fun selection of scenes that set up the scenario, the main characters, and the potential for things to quickly get darker than expected. Then things get darker, which is where it starts to come unstuck. Nothing here gets as dark as it should, and the action is still punctuated by strange attempts at humour and needle drop song moments (which were appreciated in the first third, less so in the finale). I didn't dislike it, thanks mainly to the lead performances, but I never loved it, and it came perilously close to squandering all of my goodwill as the last third played out.

Hemsworth is arguably the best thing here, playing his character with a wonderful blend of charm, forced attempts to be more of a friend than an authority figure, and sinister manipulation. Using Hemsworth's innate charm and charisma helps a lot, although this is maybe part of the reason why the finale doesn't work as well as it should. Teller is a solid "everyman" figure, and I'm happy to see him continue to appear onscreens this year. There's something about him that I like, although he looked at one point as if he'd missed his moment in the spotlight after the phenomenal Whiplash. Mark Paguio is also very good, playing the assistant to Hemsworth's character, showing someone becoming more and more perturbed by how the tests are being conducted, and Jurnee Smollett does well as one of the other test subjects/prisoners, someone who feels that she has committed an unforgivable sin. 

Although the lightness of tone is the biggest problem that the film has, it's also disappointingly uninventive and bland when it comes to the visuals. Say what you like about Kosinski, his films have usually been feasts for the eyes. This isn't, a problem that obviously stems from the heart of the material, but I can't help thinking that things could have been adapted to bring some more style and cool to the whole thing, especially if they weren't aiming for gritty realism.

Enjoy the leads, enjoy the songs dropped into the soundtrack, and enjoy some of the ideas at the heart of this. But you may struggle to enjoy the whole movie. As kind and forgiving as I am, even I ended up rating it as something JUST above average.

6/10

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Shudder Saturday: Repression (2020)

Although I was aware of the fact that their screentime would probably be limited, the presence of Peter Mullan and Bill Paterson in this cast was enough to put Repression (which is also known by the title Marionette) on my radar.

It is the tale of a woman (Thekla Reuten) who ends up working with a young boy (Elijah Wolf) who seems to have strange and dangerous powers. But does he make things happen, or does he just have the ability to foresee things? And can he help our leading lady to fix a recent tragedy in her life? Or . . . did he cause it?

This is nicely put together, an enjoyable slow burn that has enough darkness in it to make it a solid horror/thriller viewing choice, and starts to really impress when you get to the meat of the central idea being poked at and explored. Riffing on that famous tale from The Twilight Zone, “It’s A Good Life”, this gradually makes the central theme bigger and bigger on the way to an ending you suspect won’t be a happy one. 

Director Elbert van Strien (who also gave us the excellent Two Eyes Staring) sometimes struggles to capture just the right visuals that would be most impactful, but his work on the script, co-written with  Ben Hopkins, is where the film is strengthened.

What could have been a child-centric reworking of The Medusa Touch instead turns into a film that muses on ideas we could consider with every major horror movie character. Can someone foretell things that will happen, or does that information being put out there mean that someone else turns it into a self-fulfilling prophecy? How can you prove that you have free will if your actions are guided by the thought of just reacting to what you think others have predicted you to do? And if we consider the tale of Schrödinger’s cat then surely that means that everything out of our line of sight is permanently both dead and alive until they come back to us.

Interesting and heady ideas, I hope you agree, and the cast do a bloody good job of having conversations about them, in between moments of tension and dread. Reuten is a decent lead, playing her pained character well enough, and believably becoming more and more desperate as the situation around her looks set to drag her down via some spiritual kind of riptide. Wolf is also good, admirably allowed to play his part without too many sympathetic moments. Mullan and Paterson have a few scenes each, doing their usual great work, and there are very good performances from Rebecca Front, Emun Elliott, and Dawn Steele. Sam Hazeldine is also given a vital role here, but he doesn’t get to make as good an impression as anyone else, partly to do with the script and partly to do with his lacklustre turn.

It’s a shame that the very end of Repression goes for something we have seen, in one way or another, many times before, undercutting what came beforehand. It’s perfectly fine, but nowhere near as good as the rest of the movie. Although unspectacular, this is well-made, well-acted, well-written (maybe more in terms of the ideas than the dialogue spoken), and well worth your time.

7/10

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Last Seen Alive (2022)

Sometimes you don’t realise how good a mediocre Liam Neeson action thriller can be until you see one that hasn’t been crafted around Liam Neeson. Last Seen Alive is one such movie, which could easily have been subtitled Taken 4: Taken The Piss.

Gerard Butler plays Will Spann, a man in danger of potentially losing his wife, Lisa (Jaimie Alexander), until they stop at a gas station and he . . . loses his wife. Desperate to figure out what has happened, and with other people viewing him with suspicion (they were about to have some time apart), Butler follows the one lead he has with the tenacity of a police dog. 

The second collaboration between writer Marc Frydman and director Brian Goodman (their first being Black Butterfly), this doesn’t have me hoping beyond hope that they work together again any time soon. Last Seen Alive is a full retread of things we have seen done so much better over the years, with any extra sense of real threat or danger offset by the growing realisation that absolutely nothing here is unpredictable. It’s pointless, and lacking any feeling of actual entertainment, but the only real threat is the threat to Butler’s career.

Speaking of our leading man, he is not helped by the cinematography and make up here, looking even older and more tired than usual. His hybrid accent, which could easily have been explained away in one comment, also doesn’t help, and I say that as someone always wanting to see a fellow Scotsman do well. The film rests entirely on Butler’s shoulders, but he also s hampered by the script, which makes his character seem quite stupid, plots everything out in a careless and lazy manner, and doesn’t even throw in the tropes we so often see in this type of thing (personally, I would have welcomed some extra cheese). Russell Hornsby is the cop on the case, and I have enjoyed his work since I used to watch Grimm, doing the kind of conscientious  police work he could do in his sleep nowadays. Alexander is, understandably, not on screen all that much, although viewers are also “treated” to flashbacks that show marital trouble. Ethan Embry and Michael Irby have a couple of solid supporting roles, with the former being the highlight of the whole film.

I cannot stress to you enough just how bad this is, and how much I was rooting for it to improve at every turn. Butler has charisma, but you wouldn’t know it from his performance here. The same goes for Alexander. If it wasn’t for Hornsby and Embry then this would be unwatchable. As it is, it is a tiresome and dull waste of your time. Don’t be suckered into watching it just because you like the lead actor. He has been paid already, and he probably wants to forget about this as quickly as any of us.

2/10

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Unhuman (2022)

A strangely light piece of work from Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, certainly in comparison to the movies that made their name, Unhuman also shows why they should maybe stick to the nastier and more intense horror movies that they seem to enjoy. Because this isn't good. And it isn't good in a way that becomes more and more infuriating as you think on it more.

The plot is fairly simple. A typical assortment of teens are on a school trip when something goes wrong. The bus they are on is attacked, leaving them in a state of panic as they all try to avoid becoming a snack for some things that definitely walk and act like flesh-eating zombies. They're unable to stay fully focused on the main problem, however, as typical cliques and resentments continue to affect the group dynamic.

I'm not sure where to begin with this one. Maybe you should all check out the trailer and see if you think you might enjoy it. Be warned though, the trailer does what trailers are supposed to do. It sells you on something that isn't really there. All I wanted was a simple tale of ill-prepared teens fighting against zombies while being unable to stop fighting one another, and what I got was much worse. There's something else going on here, you see, something that might have been a bit more thought out and planned than most of the teenagers realise.

The cast generally do okay. Brianne Tju is Ever, a decent female lead, and her onscreen BFF is played by Ali Gallo, who has a nice presence. Drew Scheid, Benjamin Wadsworth, Uriah Shelton, and C. J. LeBlanc play the male characters who make the strongest impressions, and they do just fine in their roles, but they feel like they are playing archetypes. That's not necessarily the case, not entirely anyway, but characters aren't really fleshed out to any satisfying degree. I will say the same for the likes of Lo Graham, Blake Burt,Tyler Galpin, other teens filling out the cast who don't get much to do. At least Peter Giles does his bit to help entertain, playing a teacher who seems amusingly carefree about his role.

What this film needed to do, funnily enough, was dive right into the main influences it wanted to play around with. Dunstan and Melton only really make things clear, and forehead-smackingly obvious, in the final scenes, which may make many groan, as I did, rather than appreciate the attempted reworking of familiar ingredients. Because the central idea is all this has going for it. The comedy doesn't work, there's a lack of decent gore, and nobody even has the balls to settle for a selection of needle drop soundtrack moments and some affectionate overuse of montage (which would have absolutely worked, considering the movies being referenced).

Unhuman? More like unamusing, unentertaining, and unworthy of your time.

3/10

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Prime Time: Cocktail (1988)

Everyone knows that it can be a great life when you make some money working in a bar. Get hired in the right place and you can get great tips, be paid for having fun, and try to boost your sex life. There was also a time, throughout the 1980s, when everyone was encouraged to grab the American dream by the throat, make millions in some comfortable job that allowed you to go full yuppie, and generally have much more money than taste (or manners). Cocktail, one of a number of classic Tom Cruise films that helped him solidify his superstar status, comes up with what seems to be a perfect combination of these life dreams, focusing on a cocky young man who wants to have the fun, wants to have the money, and wants to have a level of respect afforded to him that is rarely given to anyone who is “just a bartender”.

Written by Heywood Gould, and based on his own book, this is a film that somehow ends up being even worse than you remember. I may be wrong, but I don’t THINK many people genuinely loved this when it was released. It was a hit, there were things to enjoy (the soundtrack being a big plus), and it had Cruise being at his most desperately alpha male (can pick up any woman he wants, will make his dreams a reality by sheer force of will, happy to start fighting people when he feels wronged, etc), but even those who enjoyed seeing this when it was first released surely had a number of better films they would always revisit ahead of it. 

I should try to sketch out the plot, and I will put more words here than necessary. Cruise is Brian Flanagan, a young man who has just left the military and wants to make his fortune. He ends up working in a bar alongside Doug Coughlin (Bryan Brown), being taught both bar skills and valuable life lessons. One thing leads to another, which leads to Brian working at a bar on a sun-drenched beach, where he meets the lovely Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue), but Brian seems unlikely to be able to ever commit to a full and honest relationship. Can he overcome the big obstacle of his own making by the time the end credits roll? Does a Bloody Mary have tomato juice in it?

Director Roger Donaldson knows the movie he is making here. It isn’t a dark drama. It isn’t an unpredictable journey through the heart of American maleness. It isn’t a “How To” guide for those wanting to segue from bartending to the world of big business. It’s a Tom Cruise movie. And Tom Cruise needs to be Tom Cruise, but at a stage where he can still be taught a thing or two by his elders. 

Cruise aside, and I guess he does fine here (although this is arguably his most obnoxious onscreen role), the real treat of Cocktail is listening to the ridiculous wisdom imparted by Brown, who serves as both a mentor and a grave warning to our “hero”. Brown matches Cruise in terms of attitude and presence, but also shows how quickly someone can become tiresome and laughable when trying to retain an air of cool superiority. Shue is also a welcome presence, even if she is treated as poorly by the script as you might expect. She’s not EXACTLY a trapped princess waiting to be rescued by a brave prince, but it’s pretty damn close. Gina Gershon, Kelly Lynch, and Lisa Barnes all turn up to play three very different women who cross paths with one, or both, of our drink movers and shakers, but it’s only Gershon who is allowed to have a bit of resistance to the charms of Tom, and Roger Dean is good fun in a small role, playing Uncle Pat, who also delivers wisdom while tending his own small bar.

Much like the flair bartending tricks and flourishes at the heart of this, Cocktail is ultimately impractical, pointless, and superficial. It is a showy distraction, but it’s also moderately entertaining while you watch it. And you can always practice those moves at home, in private, with the soundtrack blasting from your speakers. 

5/10

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X (2022)

I have a strange relationship with film-maker Ti West, and I suspect I am not the only horror fan to feel this way. He has been working on his craft for just over two decades now and the good stuff is often very good, but there’s a feeling throughout some of his work that he just wants to mess with people. And let’s not even mention his dubious honour of delivering arguably the worst horror anthology segment I have ever seen (in The ABCs Of Death). This meant that I started watching X with some trepidation, despite it having a potentially great premise. There was no need to worry though, thank goodness, as X is easily the best thing that Ti West has ever done.

The plot is fairly simple. A group of people rent a small farmhouse property in the middle of nowhere. It is the late 1970s and the leader of the group, Wayne (Martin Henderson), wants to make a fortune in the world of porn, which he knows is possible with this location, the people around him, and the equipment that will allow them to make an immediate impact on the new and lucrative home video market. Wayne has two starlets with him, Maxine (Mia Goth) and Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow), as well as a well-endowed leading man, Jackson (Kid Cudi). Then you have the sound technician, Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), and RJ the cameraman (Owen Campbell). All bodes well for the group, except for the fact that the man they are renting from, Howard (Stephen Ure), takes an instant dislike to them, and there may be problems caused by his wife, Pearl, who doesn’t always have her mental faculties working as well as they should.

If you haven’t seen any of the X marketing yet then you may want to look away now. Just trust me, it is worth your time. For everyone else, you already know what the set-up is here (a porn film crew get themselves caught up in a bit of peril that could easily turn into a full massacre) and I can reassure you that West delivers on it.

Taking his time with the first half of the movie, what you get is a nice slow burn that, in a pleasantly surprising turn of events, really rewards patient viewers with a third act full of grisly deaths and enjoyable “punchlines”. West seems to be having a lot of fun, with recreating a period style and sneakily layering his script with some interesting commentary on beauty as a coveted commodity, and that fun is infectious. X will make you wince, but it will also make you grin as you enjoy one gory set-piece after another. And realising how the movie has been cast will make you think about the main point that West is making, helping to appreciate further a film that has some unexpected depth beyond the nudity and bloodshed.

The cast all do great work, with Snow and Goth being the ones who have to be the least inhibited. Both of those ladies are excellent, and very believable, but Goth also has some more to do in helping West get across his main point, and she deserves some extra kudos for that. Cudi is also very good in his role, playing his character with a mixture of confidence and wariness, considering the time period and the setting, and he is matched by Ortega and Campbell, who feel a bit like supporting players, despite the former being a bit more involved in things in the second half of the movie. Henderson is an easygoing charmer, or at least tries to be, and his energy helps a lot, and Ure portrays the typical sullen “farmer” type who can barely stand the presence of younger folks anywhere near him, let alone on his land. Having just the right mix of anger and sadness, Ure acts in a way, like everyone else here, that allows him to feel like more than just an archetype.

While not feeling overdone in a pointed way, the clothing and design of the film feel nicely of the period, there’s hair and make-up on the characters that is just spot on, and the editing, music, and other aspects of the film all contribute to a nice recreation of something that was filmed in the seventies before being spruced up and presented to modern audiences.

Obviously not for the prudish, X could well be the best horror movie of this year. It’s certainly a strong contender, thanks in no small part to the intelligence hidden away under the exploitation garb. The more I think on it, the more I loved it. Easily the best movie yet from West, and I hope many other horror movie fans check it out. You may end up as pleasantly surprised as I was.

9/10

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Mubi Monday: Afterglow (1997)

Written and directed by Alan Rudolph, someone with an extensive filmography stacked with titles I would at least recommend to the curious (Breakfast Of Champions may not work, but it never feels like anything less than a bold attempt to translate difficult source material into a satisfying movie). Having also worked on a few Robert Altman movies, it’s unsurprising to find that his style could be referred to as Altman-esque. Unfortunately, however, he doesn’t have the same ability to meld the cinematic with the authentic, and the end result, here anyway, is something that fails to resonate.

Nick Nolte plays a handyman named Lucky Mann (yes, that would seem to be his actual name). He is married to Phyllis (Julie Christie), an ex-actress who allows her husband to stray and play around with other women. Jonny Lee Miller is an upright businessman named Jeffrey, married to the neglected and unhappy Marianne (Lara Flynn Boyle). Marianne wants a baby, which leads to her getting things prepared in their home. So Marianne hires Lucky, which leads to some fun and games for them, and Jeffrey, happy to use the situation as an excuse to cut loose and find away to massage his ego, ends up seducing Phyllis, completely unaware that she is Lucky’s wife. Conversations lead to a number of revelations, about love, family, sex, and different gender roles, and viewers know that it’s only a matter of time until the central quartet come together to argue and fight.

Despite the changes in location, Afterglow feels like something that may have started life as a play. There are some other people scattered throughout the film, but it essentially stays focused on the four leads, and everything is based on the dialogue. This is a film that works on a “tell, don’t show” basis, with even the moments that could be purely visual accompanied by dialogue redirecting things back to the featured character of that moment.

Thankfully, the cast are generally excellent. Nolte gives another typical alpha male with the cuddly interior that he has presented in a number of his movies. Miller, wobbly accent aside, is a fantastic flipside to Nolte, mistaking coldness and cruelty for a sexual, macho persona. He oozes insecurity for every minute of screentime, covering it up as much as he can with an attitude of entitlement and indifference, and it’s an enjoyably unattractive performance. Christie is, as ever, a mesmerising screen presence, although she suffers from the script giving some of the worst bits of dialogue to her, and Boyle does great work with the rest of the bad lines, because it is the women here who have to speak the clunkiest and most tone-deaf dialogue.

I would say that anyone who likes any of the main cast members should find this impossible to hate, but that doesn’t stop Rudolph from trying to undo the good work in front of the camera with poor decisions behind it, from the score/soundtrack to the structure of the whole narrative. This is ultimately a film about people who are so hurt, for various reasons, that they are holding themselves back from any chance at real happiness. That only becomes clear in the third act though. While that may have been seen as the best decision for the film, I cannot help thinking that a little bit of reshaping of the script would have changed things for the better. But maybe others will disagree.

The drama works, the comedy doesn’t. The cast works, the writer/director doesn’t. Which leaves this hanging absolutely in the middle, between awful and great.

5/10

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Netflix And Chill: Hustle (2022)

In much the same way as I have steered the choppy waters of the filmography of Nicolas Cage, I have also never given up entirely on Adam Sandler. Which isn't to say that I wasn't tempted. His worst films are truly abysmal, with his comedy seemingly becoming more and more all about what will amuse him and his mates while they enjoy a paid holiday somewhere nice, but there were always things I could enjoy. And I'm not just talking about something as celebrated as Uncut Gems. No, I'm on about chuckling away through something like Hubie Halloween, The Week Of, and The Do Over. Are they up there with his best comedies? Absolutely not. But they're fun, if you don't mind Sandler. Meanwhile, he has also been moving more towards delivering absolutely brilliant performances in more dramatic works, whether it's his subverted angry man-child turn in Punch Drunk Love, his somewhat paralysed character in Reign Over Me, his charming work in the sorely-neglected Spanglish, and that aforementioned winning showcase of his talent crafted by the Safdie brothers.

Hustle is another drama in Sandler's filmography, a sports movie that focuses on basketball. It's as tense and enjoyable as it is predictable, and it should leave most viewers with a big grin on their face. It helps if you like basketball, of course, but, like so many sports movies, the heart of it isn't really just about the sport. It's about never giving up, it's about inspiring others, and it's about having faith, in yourself and those around you.

Sandler plays Stanley Sugarman, a talented basketball scout who really wants to settle down now and enjoy the life of a coach/assistant coach. He is told that will happen when he brings in the latest great talent for his team, which he thinks is locked in once he discovers Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangomez) playing out of his skin in Spain. Making some big promises to Bo, Stanley heads home with his great new discovery, but then he starts to encounter problems. Bo needs to get used to players using every tactic possible to get inside his head, and he has a big mistake in his past that may turn people against him. Laying everything on the line, with the support of his wife (Teresa, played by Queen Latifah), Stanley keeps playing every angle possible to get Bo noticed, and get him his shot to play for a big team. He also keeps pushing Bo beyond his limits, physically and mentally, to get him into the best shape of his life.

Written by Will Fetters and Taylor Materne, the former having helped to write stuff like The Lucky One and A Star Is Born while the latter has a body of work that includes some documentaries and a couple of NBA games, this is a great combination of clichés and absolutely satisfying cinematic moments. Director Jeremiah Zagar, also coming with a filmography that has more documentary and short work making up the majority of it, has a good feel for the material. The heartbeat is strong and steady throughout, and all of the basketball sequences are clearly shot and edited in a way that energises things without causing headaches. Whether you end up responding to the content of the film or not, the presentation, from the cinematography to the humour laced throughout, is pretty flawless.

Sandler is wonderful in the lead role, playing a guy who lives and breathes basketball. He has always been someone clearly passionate about sport, something that has crept into many of his movies, but this feels like a natural fit without feeling lazy. His character is a full, well-rounded, character, not just a casual suit for Sandler to slip into (although I know that some may disagree, despite a lot of his usual tics and tricks being dialled way down here). Hernangomez is equally good, and arguably more crucial to the cast. He is a professional NBA player, which is obvious from his skill shown onscreen, but he acquits himself superbly as the raw talent that Sandler wants to help polish into a shining superstar. He's not the only basketball player here either, with a number of roles, big and small, for the likes of Anthony Edwards, Julius (Dr. J) Erving, and Michael Foster Jr. As well as MANY others helping to make the basketball action realistic and exciting. Latifah and Jordan Hull (as Alex Sugarman, Stanley's daughter) are both welcome supporting players, literally, with the actresses showing just why Sandler's character wants to settle down and repay those who have stood by him throughout his career. Ben Foster is the team owner, Vince Merrick, who butts heads with his talent scout, leading to the biggest gamble in the movie, and Kenny Smith, playing Leon, gives the impression of real friendship with Sandler's character, a bond forged through their history and love of the game. 

If you like Adam Sandler in less comedic roles then you should like this. If you like a good sports movie then you should like this. If you like basketball then you should like this. If you like being entertained and left with a grin on your face then you should like this. Most people should like this. It's not quite perfect, mainly because of the predictability factor, but I'd say it's easily up there with the very best sports movies we've had. And that includes the GOAT that is White Men Can't Jump*.

*not the GOAT, but a firm favourite for many of us, surely.

8/10

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Shudder Saturday: The Incident (2011)

AKA Asylum Blackout.

I remember hearing about The Incident back when it was first released. It was receiving generally good word of mouth among the horror community and people were seeking it out. The main difference was the title, because it was called Asylum Blackout then. I don't know what prompted the title change, especially when the new choice seems a lot worse than the original one, but at least I was able to check out the film again, as I had somehow forgotten to review it a decade ago.

George (Rupert Evans), Mac (Kenny Doughty), and Ricky (Joseph Kennedy) are three friends, bandmates, and work colleagues. Their friendship is strained at times, the band isn't working together very well, but at least their job is standard canteen work. Well, standard canteen work in an asylum for the criminally insane, where they also work alongside William (Marcus Garvey). This puts them in a very dangerous situation when a power cut leads to the exterior doors all being closed (electronic locks meaning that they will not be moved) and the inmates deciding to revolt.

Although this is, to date, the only feature from director Alexandre Courtès, unless I am overlooking something, The Incident is a well-constructed and decent little horror movie. It makes the most of the main location, largely taking place within the asylum, without feeling restrained by it (because, well, the plot depends on the characters being trapped there). The script, by S. Craig Zahler, and a bit of input from Jérôme Fansten, is decent for setting up the characters, their surroundings, and the atmosphere of panic and dread once the power goes off. It's no classic, but it does a good enough job, with the biggest flaw probably being the main characters not standing out enough as individuals.

Evans, Doughty, Kennedy, and Garvey are decent leads, all being easy enough to like without having to present themselves as perfect. Dave Legeno is a formidable figure as the head guard, J. B., and Richard Brake is used for his ability to be chilling and scary, playing an inmate named Harry who may well be the ringleader of the mayhem inside the asylum. There are also enjoyable little turns from Darren Kent, also playing an inmate, and Anna Skellern, disappointingly underused in the role of Lynn, the girlfriend of George.

Although it proves to be surprisingly restrained in places, The Incident is punctuated by moments of serious nastiness and unpleasantness. It works well by showing one or two horrors and allowing viewers to consider the bigger picture, although I realise that could also lead to some viewers feeling short-served. I like it. I liked it when it was called Asylum Blackout and I like it now (lesser title and all). 

Overall, despite some moments that could be lit better, and despite lacking a great score to underline the visuals, this is an effective little horror movie that holds up as a great example of making the most of one intriguing central idea.

7/10

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Girls Nite Out (1982)

A 1982 slasher movie that I didn’t have high expectations for, Girls Nite Out ended up being surprisingly enjoyable, despite not having any truly memorable set-pieces.

It’s a classic set-up, with the earliest scenes showing us a killer committing suicide. The two men responsible for digging his grave are killed by someone we don’t see. Is the killer less dead than anyone realised, or is there someone else with motivation to replicate his killing ways? This dark turn of events coincides with a scavenger hunt taking place throughout a local college campus, with plenty of young men and women heading away on their own, or in pairs, to potentially be picked off by a killer, who also manages to get their hands on a team mascot costume. 

Seeing the artwork and imagery from this, you would be forgiven for thinking that this is a horror comedy. It isn’t, which is a slight disappointment, despite the enjoyable ridiculous killer “outfit”. All you have here is a very standard, unremarkable, slasher movie that only stands out in one way, a soundtrack surprisingly filled with some great pop tracks from yesteryear (“Summer In The City” being an eternal favourite of mine).

Director Robert Deubel doesn’t really have anything else of note in his filmography, there’s a TV movie and some shorts/episodic entertainment, so he seems to have been one of the many people who decided they could jump in on the slasher movie craze and make a winner. Despite the attempts of the four people who worked on this script (FOUR!!!!!), this is no winner.

It’s no failure either, somehow managing to be consistently entertaining enough throughout without an abundance of gratuitous nudity or decent gore. The pacing seems to be the biggest positive, although it does, like so many slashers, have that slight lull between the halfway point and the third act, after everyone has been introduced and a couple of kills have occurred but before the bodies start to pile up in time for the big finale. 

The cast are fairly forgettable, with Hal Holbrook being the main “name” that genre fans will be happy to see. He is the local cop, and his character has a history tied to the killer (of course), but he’s not as involved with the main storyline as I would have liked, I am guessing for scheduling and budgetary reasons. Rutanya Alda, Suzanne Barnes, and Julie Montgomery are three of the main actresses featured, and James Carroll and David (son of Hal) Holbrook are two of the actors worth mentioning. Is anybody onscreen doing great work? Not really, but they’re doing okay with what they’re given, for the most part.

Here’s the thing, and it is arguably more important than my final numerical rating. I would watch this again, no problem. It has something, a certain likability, that allows it to edge ahead of so many other slasher movies from this time. That doesn’t mean the movie deserves to be nestled closer to the BIG names in this subgenre, but it is something I don’t often say about lesser slasher movies I watch for my own sense of attempted completism.

Will anyone else feel the same way? I don’t know, but I certainly recommend giving this one a watch anyway. Especially if you’re a fan of The Lovin’ Spoonful.

6/10

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