Yule Love It: The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

I've said it before and I'll say it again, The Hudsucker Proxy is the best film that the Coen brothers have made. Yes. Re-read that sentence, accept that I am not going to change my mind, and let's now move on to the full review.

Hudsucker Industries is about to experience a turbulent time. The president (Charles Durning) has left the building via a very high window and it is only a month until the stocks are going to be made available to the company. So Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman) comes up with a plan. Put someone in place who will cause the value of the company to plummet, allowing the board to buy up the shares and then get things back on track, making lots and lots of money and ensuring they also keep control. This works out well for Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins), a wet-behind-the-ears young man who has landed a job in the mailroom, but he obviously doesn't realise that he is being used as a patsy. He has one big idea, and one potential ally (Jennifer Jason Leigh, portraying a Pulitzer-winning reporter named Amy Archer, getting her story by working undercover for Norville). Can he somehow survive his express trip to the top of the company food chain?

Written and directed by both Coen brothers (with Sam Raimi helping out in the script department), I really do view this as a perfect movie, and it's most certainly the best cinematic ode to the many films of Capra that we've had in modern cinema. The script alternates between biting and beautifully gentle, there are some standout set-pieces (the main one being a child finally seeing the potential of a lone hula hoop), and the cast are faultless throughout.

The first time I watched this movie I was irritated by Leigh, but when I revisited it I saw that she delivers a performance that rivals those she was tasked to emulate (Hepburn clearly being the main influence). Robbins, on the other hand, gets to play his everyman in a broad, wide-eyed, way, allowing him to draw more comedy out of the material. Newman has a blast, a big grin one minute and a menacing glare the next, and there are equally wonderful turns from John Mahoney, Bruce Campbell, Bill Cobbs, Jim True, and the ill-fated Durning.

And all of those pitch-perfect performances are delivered in the midst of a film that feels like it could have been made in the 1950s and colorised for modern audiences. Every detail, from the layout of the Hudsucker building to the music (a fitting accompaniment to the visual style from Carter Burwell), to the main idea that the whole plot revolves around, no pun intended. Clean, crisp, yet warm, cinematography from Roger Deakins, a master of the craft, editing that veers between sedate and snappy, as required, and even the selection of well-utilised special effects are beyond reproach, in my eyes.

I may have misspoke when I said that this was the best film that the Coen brothers ever made. The more I think about it, the more I think I should just call it what it is; a modern masterpiece. Yes. And you're still not going to change my mind. Well, not until I have a long-overdue rewatch of Miller's Crossing anyway.

10/10

This says that it is UK compatible.
Americans can buy it here.

Dead By Dawn 2016: Jacob's Ladder (1990)

Jacob's Ladder is one of those movies that I missed when it first came out. And I didn't catch it until approximately fifteen years. I appreciate that many other movies came and went in that time that were influenced by this one, but I've still never quite loved it as much as many other horror fans. It's a good film, don't get me wrong, and the cast is a wonderful one. It's just never as horrifying or downright eerie as it could be, especially when you compare most of the movie to a few of the impressively unnerving images that are produced in the first half of the film.

Tim Robbins plays Jacob Singer, a Vietnam veteran who starts to have dark and unsettling visions that affect his health and daily behaviour. It's also making things difficult with his girlfriend (played by Elizabeth Pena). Are the visions the result of some experimentation on his unit during wartime? Are they signs of a mental breakdown? Or are they something more sinister?

Director Adrian Lyne works confidently here, and also makes popular that special effect that we will refer to by the technical term "really fast shakey head and blurry face moves". He doesn't rush things, even when the third act will probably be obvious to many viewers. This is a film more about the journey than the final destination, funnily enough, and that journey is interspersed with some fantastic phantasmagoria.

The script, by Bruce Joel Rubin, is equally confident, taking the time to flesh out a number of the supporting characters while leaving plenty of breathing room for the moments of tension and spookiness. In fact, it could bee argued that the main strength of the film is how it gets you to invest in a number of people who could so easily have been consigned to much smaller roles without any real damage to the central horror strand of the narrative.

That's also helped by the casting. Robbins has always impressed me in the way that he can equally use his full height to his advantage or fold himself up to make himself more vulnerable, depending on the role. This is somewhere in between, with Jacob a man who has clearly left his army days far behind him yet retains the strength to withhold a sustained attack on his mental faculties. Pena is a strong woman opposite him, alternating between sympathy for what Jacob appears to be going through and reminding him that she will only put up with so much shit. Elsewhere, Danny Aiello is a chiropractor who tries his best to guide Jacob through his dark path, Jason Alexander pops up momentarily to portray a lawyer who may or may not end up helping the ex-soldiers find out what was done to them, and Pruitt Taylor Vince, Ving Rhames, Eriq La Salle, and one or two others play the men who fought alongside Jacob in his platoon.

As influential as it is derivative, Jacob's Ladder remains an impressive horror that is relatively interesting and intelligent throughout, and also played completely straight. Which perhaps explains, more than the actual premise, why it went down so well in 1990, when first released.

If you enjoyed this review, and live in the UK, feel free to browse and buy some shit here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/

If you enjoyed this review and live in the USofA then feel free to browse and buy some shit here - http://www.amazon.com/

7/10

Sci-Fi September: Zathura (2005)

A sci-fi journey through ground already covered by Jumanji (which isn't surprising, they're both adapted from books by the same author), Zathura is, I think it's fair to say nowadays, the better of the two films. The fact that it's often forgotten about, or even dismissed, is a great shame, and I hope that maybe this review will spur one or two people to revisit it.

The book of Zathura may have been a direct sequel to the book of Jumanji, but don't worry if you haven't seen the latter before checking this out. The movies both work on their own, even if people who have seen both can observe the obvious similarities.

Let me get to the plot. Two brothers (Walter, the older sibling, played by Josh Hutcherson, and Danny, played by Jonah Bobo) are forced to spend some time together, waiting for their mother to come and pick them up from their father's house. Dad has to head off for something work-related, so he leaves the older sister (Kristen Stewart) in charge. Danny ends up finding a board game, Zathura, and starts playing it. He wants his brother to join in, which becomes pretty essential when it becomes clear that the board game isn't your usual piece of kit. Everything that happens in the game also happens in reality, making for some hair-raising moments.

Directed by Jon Favreau, which makes this a perfect transition between the family fun of Elf and sci-fi/superhero action of Iron Man, this is everything that you want from a family sci-fi movie. It's got a great concept, a wonderful mix of impressive practical FX work and impressive CGI, some nice lessons that are illustrated in an obvious, although non-irritating, way, and Kristen Stewart being cryogenically frozen for a few scenes (allowing viewers to make jokes about her being more lifelike and expressive than usual).

Hutcherson and Bobo both do well as the young brothers trying to survive the game. Stewart is, joking aside, just fine in her role, even if she's the least of the main characters onscreen, and Dax Shepard comes in at just the right time, playing a stranded astronaut rescued by the kids as part of the game. Even the father, a character moved out of the picture for the majority of the runtime, is played by Tim Robbins, making his few scenes all the better, thanks to him being Tim Robbins.

The script by David Koepp and John Kamps really helps to keep things ticking over nicely. Yes, this is a film in which some kids face up to one or two main issues, but it's not the kind of film to drag everything to a screeching halt while that happens. That's not to say that anything feels rushed. On the contrary, this is pitched perfectly towards the children and parents who make up the target audience demographic. The retro stylings of the sci-fi elements will certainly appeal to anyone who has fond memories of classics from the '50s and '60s, for example, while younger viewers will always enjoy the idea of a board game that leads to very real consequences.

Whether more people end up agreeing with me or not, this will always be the best movie about a dangerous board game causing real-life consequences as far as I'm concerned. I hope more people either check it out, or give it a rewatch at some point.

8/10

http://www.amazon.com/Zathura-Special-Josh-Hutcherson/dp/B000DBHX4M/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1409729884&sr=1-2&keywords=zathura