Netflix And Chill: Reptile (2023)

Not only is Reptile co-written by director Grant Singer, but star Benicio Del Toro apparently had a helping hand in the screenplay, alongside Benjamin Brewer. That makes it even more curious, considering how Del Toro is the best thing in it DESPITE the weak screenplay. A messy mix of neo-noir tropes and moments that seem to be struggling to give the movie more substance, Reptile is enormously unsatisfying. And it's made all the worse by how badly it wastes a great cast.

Del Toro plays a cop named Tom Nichols. He's been entangled in some bad stuff in the past, but he seems to be trying his best to be good at his job. That is essential when he is called to the scene of Summer Elswick's murder. Summer's body was discovered by Will Grady (Justin Timberlake), making him a prime suspect, but others soon start to arouse suspicion. It doesn't help that Grady and his mother (Frances Fisher) have upset people with their business practices. One of those upset people is a young man named Eli (Michael Pitt), who blames the Gradys for the suicide of his father. Maybe there's more to the case than what seems obvious though. Maybe Tom needs to start looking at everyone around him with equal suspicion.

Although he has a wealth of experience helming music videos, this appears to be the feature debut from Singer. That makes complete sense when you consider how much (misplaced) faith he has in the strength of such clumsy and half-baked material. There are some good moments here, some strong individual images, but there are just as many moments that don't work, whether it's the plotting of the central mystery that doesn't feel worth really caring about or the moments that have a discordant piece of music increasing in volume in a way that's supposed to unnerve viewers and lead to some nerve-tingling climax, but then fails to present anything to justify that audio choice. With both Brewer and Del Toro similarly inexperienced in the role of feature writer, Reptile is left as a collection of decent images that can barely cling on to the decomposing skeleton of the script that should have given it a strong centre.

Del Toro is much better in front of the camera though, and he's the best thing about this. His performance is easily on a par with some of his best work, and equally thoughtful and morally discombobulated, at times. Alicia Silverstone is excellent in the role of his wife, although she also suffers from one or two moments that seem to just peter out just as they could get more interesting. Timberlake is fine, working comfortably with a persona that he tends to portray well in movies, Fisher is riveting, despite having disappointingly little screentime, and Pitt adds another quirky turn to his repertoire. The fact that the film also has room for great work from Eric Bogosian, Domenick Lombardozzi, and Ato Essandoh (playing the partner to Del Toro's character) is both a plus and a minus, because everyone here deserves to be delivering that great work in a stronger film.

I'm guessing that this is a story that Del Toro was passionate about, considering he also attached himself as an executive producer, and I can see how the whole thing could have been handled much better, but the end result feels like a wasted opportunity. The cast cannot be faulted though, nor can the cinematography from Mike Gioulakis (with shot choices and framing complemented by some fine editing from Kevin Hickman). Technically, all is well. It's just the writing and direction that work against it, but those are the two areas that need to be locked down for this kind of material.

4/10

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Mubi Monday: Born In Flames (1983)

Set ten years after a revolution in the USA, Born In Flames is a depressingly prescient film that shows a government struggling to deal with many groups - feminists, those fighting for gay rights, minorities, etc - it used to be able to just ignore completely. Adelaide Norris (Jean Satterfield) is the main figure rallying people around her, firing up large numbers of women who want the equal treatment that they fought for without being dismissed by the men around them.

Written and directed by Lizzie Borden, basing the work on a story by Ed Bowes, this is consistently interesting and consistently on the nose throughout. Filled with a righteous fury, it's even more rewarding (and horrible) nowadays, when we see the fight back against people who are just hoping to have some proper semblance of equality.

What may have seemed like complete fantasy, or unbelievably over the top comedy, back in the early 1980s has been proven to be almost non-fiction when you look at the world around us nowadays. Look at the reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement. Look at the tiresome and constant annual questions of "why can't we have a straight pride month?" and "when is International Men's Day?" (November 19th, as anyone who follows Richard Herring on Twitter will already know) Look at every straight, white male whining about being marginalised and erased from society, stunningly unaware of how prominently placed they are in every facet of our society. It's like listening to someone who won £50m in a national lottery and cannot stop complaining about how they didn't win on the week that the jackpot was £100m.

The cast all do good work, with it being mainly women (of course). It seems that the material resonated with everyone involved - again, no surprise - and people seize the opportunity to embrace their hopes, dreams, and fierce refusal to allow the world to maintain a status quo that has been tipped hugely in favour of one particular demographic for centuries.

Notable also for featuring both Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Bogosian in small roles, Born In Flames is a perfect way to confront viewers with outdated attitudes and oppression that all still loom large today. It's a prehistoric bug caught in amber, but someone made sure they could extract the DNA and synthesise it to keep dinosaurs alive, rampaging around the world and treating all of the smaller animals in the food chain with disdain.

I've only seen one other film from Borden, Working Girls, but she's absolutely someone I recommend to those seeking out important female film-makers of the 21st century. It's a shame that her filmography is not as large as it deserves to be, but be sure to watch her features whenever the opportunity arises.

10/10

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Netflix And Chill: Uncut Gems (2019)

Written and directed by the Safdie brothers (Benny and Josh, with Ronald Bronstein once again collaborating with them on the writing of the script), Uncut Gems is another superb film for those who have already warmed to their particular style, a kind of paradoxically slick and polished roam through some grimy environments alongside down-on-their-luck characters the brothers seem to find fascinating. It's also, as I'm sure you're already aware, the best that Adam Sandler has been in years.

Sandler plays a jeweler named Howard Ratner. He's in an unhappy marriage to Dinah (Idina Menzel) that they're close to bringing to an end, he has an apartment that he uses to spend a lot of time with his girlfriend, Julia (Julia Fox), and he owes money to various people, not least Arno (Eric Bogosian), who keeps using some tough guys to hopefully scare Howard into paying up. But Howard knows his time is about to come. He's ordered a stone that contains some valuable uncut gems, he's developing a rapport with Kevin Garnett (played by, well, himself), and he's just one audacious bet away from a big payday. But nobody will really support you waiting for that big payday if you're gambling away all of their money to try and get it. And Howard is certainly happy to bet big.

Uncut Gems is a tough movie to watch. There's no major respite from the tension as events conspire against Howard, whether it be in the shape of a lower-than-expected auction valuation for an item he wants to sell, a number of arguments with an associate named Demany (LaKeith Stanfield) who is also the go-between for Garnett, or his continued attempts to delay paying back money to people who want to physically harm him. Whether it is Howard himself or the camerawork, it feels like a constant bob and weave from one desperate moment to the next, all accompanied by a fantastic score from Daniel Lopatin.

You can choose to like or dislike the movies that the Safdie brothers make, they're definitely happy to stay in a certain wheelhouse at the moment and not everyone will enjoy spending time there, but you can't deny that they bring characters and situations to life with a magic combination of realism and cinematic finesse. They sugar-coat the pill, but only to allow themselves to make the core even more bitter.

Sandler has received a lot of praise for his performance here. It's good. Very good indeed. All I will say, to temper some of the hyperbole that has inevitably appeared in the praise for him, is that his banter and constant need to talk over people, hoping to keep himself in the right by simply repeating whatever point he thinks will help him at a higher volume, is not a million miles away from many of his other performances. It's just that this one is within the context of a drama. I am surprised that I haven't seen more praised aimed at Fox, making her feature acting debut with a pitch-perfect performance, and portraying a character who could easily have unbalanced the tone of the film on a number of different occasions. Menzel does very well here, in a live-action and non-singing role that I hope she does more of in the near future, and both Stanfield and Garnett are good additions to the heart of the film. Keith Williams Richards and Tommy Kominik are believable heavies, Bogosian steals a couple of scenes with the kind of turn that immediately makes you wish he picked more movies to star in, and the few minutes of screentime that Judd Hirsch has helps with that sugar-coating I mentioned.

As a stupid child, I would often raid the tubs of chocolate that we would get in our household for Christmas. My mother would remind me to just have one or two a day, I would always have way more, and I would place the empty wrappers back in the tub as a decoy, somehow thinking that I would use my pocket money to buy a smaller packet and refill the tub. That never happened. My mother eventually opened the tub to have a sweetie, immediately seeing red when she picked up a handful of empty wrappers. The game was up. If you ever tried the same thing then you'll know what I mean when I say that watching Uncut Gems will give you a sensation akin to watching that tub, counting down to the time when you can either refill it or you get busted. If you haven't tried that same thing then just know that Howard is the child who has filled the tub with sweetie wrappers, and the runtime of this movie is spent seeing if he can replenish the container before other people put their hands in.

8/10

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Ani-MAY-tion Month: Beavis And Butt-Head Do America (1996)

I was never a fan of Beavis and Butt-Head. I have to start off this review with that confession. I'm still not a fan of their TV work, but that's because I have never gone back to give them another chance. I watched some clips years ago when MTV was still a bit of a novelty to us here in the UK (well, still a bit of a novelty to me, at least) and I just didn't find them that amusing. I'd rather watch the music videos that were featured on their show without any surrounding distractions. When this movie came out I had no interest in it at all. Then I started to hear some good word on it. And then some more, and some more. It seemed to be winning over even people, like myself, who didn't expect to enjoy it. So I took a chance and bought it. Thankfully, I ended up really enjoying it.

The story starts with our two main characters (both voiced by Mike Judge, who also directed and wrote the movie, with help from a few others) at a loss when their TV is stolen. On a quest for a replacement TV, they end up in the same motel room as Muddy Grimes (Bruce Willis), a man waiting for the strangers that he has hired to kill his wife. Misunderstanding the request, Beavis and Butt-Head are only too eager to accept the opportunity to "do" Dallas Grimes (Demi Moore). They immediately embark on a trip across America, and it's not long until the authorities are hot on their tail.

It might seem like Mike Judge is a one-man band at times, but he's helped here by Mike de Seve, Brian Mulroney and Yvette Kaplan in the directing department, and Joe Stillman and Brian Mulroney (again) helped with the script. That may explain why this movie is so enjoyable, but it may also be the case that Judge does better in the feature film context. Having enjoyed Office Space, Idiocracy and Extract, I suspect it may be the latter.

The main characters here are still as stupid and immature as they've always been. Judge is sensible not to change them too much, but the many supporting characters add a lot of humour. Cloris Leachman is a sweet old woman, unaware of the mindset of the young men who keep ending up beside her as they head towards the same destination, Robert Stack is a stern and determined ATF agent, and Eric Bogosian also provides a few different voices.

The animation style is in line with the TV show, the soundtrack has some great rock tracks on there (as well as the beautiful ballad, "Lesbian Seagull"), and there are a lot of laughs to be had as our two juvenile, horny teenagers wander around in a state of blissful ignorance while dangerous situations develop around them.

And I'll admit it, I crack up every time that Beavis has an identity crisis and starts to refer to himself as The Great Cornholio. It's not big, it's not clever, but it's damn funny.

8/10

http://www.amazon.com/Beavis-Butt-Head-Do-America-Various/dp/B00BTYIHY2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1399587887&sr=8-2&keywords=beavis+and+butthead+do+america

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995)

It was inevitable really, a sequel to the biggest hit that Steven Seagal ever had. The plot this time sees ex-SEAL Casey Ryback (Seagal) taking a train journey with his niece (Katherine Heigl before she shed her puppy fat and became too good for this kind of stuff – ironic considering that this movie and Bride Of Chucky are two of the more watchable films that she’s starred in). Unfortunately for everyone on the train, it is about to be commandeered by some very bad men (led by Eric Bogosian) who want to make ridiculously large sums of money by causing ridiculously large amounts of damage. It’s up to our hero chef to save the day once more.

Geoff Murphy directs this sequel, from a script written by Richard Hatem and Matt Reeves (yes, THAT Matt Reeves), and he often hits all the right buttons. The whole thing is ludicrously unbelievable but nobody stands around and pretends that they’re partaking in something by Shakespeare. Special effects are okay, though inconsistent, but people punch, kick and shoot each other convincingly enough and that’s the most important thing to get right in a film of this type.

Seagal provides his usual, limited, range of expressions, Eric Bogosian has a blast as the smartass bad guy and Katherine Heigl gets put in peril because she’s the niece of Ryback. Elsewhere, we get decent supporting turns from Morris Chestnut (he’s the nervy sidekick this time and he’s okay but, let’s face it, he’s no Erika Eleniak), Everett McGill is a tough baddie who relishes the challenge of facing up to Ryback and Peter Greene points a gun and shouts at people. There’s also a small amount of screentime for Brenda Bakke, who doesn’t get to do all that much but I have a soft spot for her and just thought I’d sneak her name in here.

Slap-happy chop-socky goodness, a train racing towards danger and a quip or two to accompany each major death – it all adds up to a sequel that will please fans of the first movie even if it’s all forgotten about a few days later. 
 
7/10

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