Crimes Of The Future (2022)

It's comforting to know that David Cronenberg has managed to remain resolutely David Cronenberg for the past four or five decades now. Crimes Of The Future reminded me of two things. One, I have yet to watch the much earlier film from him that shares the same title (although everyone has pointed out that the two films are otherwise unconnected). Two, despite his filmography seeming to take him further away, at times, from his very specific mindset and worldview, he has never let go of firm beliefs that have helped to shape so many parts of his oeuvre.

Crimes Of The Future is set, to the surprise of nobody, in the future. People tend to interface even more directly with machines and computers, often using the kind of furniture and equipment that looks like a cross between something ergonomically designed and something created as a torture device. Humans don't really suffer from disease any more, and physical pain is largely a thing of the past. That leads to people seeking more and more ways to feel . . . something. Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) is one half of a performance art couple, partnered with Caprice (Léa Seydoux), and his special skill involves displaying his body while new organs grown inside him are removed. This is important, for the order of things that it threatens to unbalance, but it's also secondary to a plot that revolves around the potential next steps in human evolution, the ways in which people feel sexual thrills, and a mission to perform an autopsy on a dead child as a shocking work of performance art.

While full of great actors doing great work, Crimes Of The Future feels like Cronenberg being allowed to display and celebrate ideas that weren't allowed to be front and centre in his work years ago, despite always being there. He finally gets to craft something in which there's a beauty contest for the insides of the participants, something Cronenberg had a character state a longing for in the superb Dead Ringers, and there are ideas and images here that rank up there with the best of his work, although the movie, as a whole, suffers slightly if you compare it to his very best. But the very best films from Cronenberg are a very high bar to be measured against.

As well as Mortensen and Seydoux, who are both excellent in their roles, there's yet another great turn from Kristen Stewart, playing a nervy bureaucrat who seems star-struck by Mortensen's character, Tanaya Beatty and Nadia Litz make a strong impression in the few scenes they have, and you get solid performances from Don McKellar, Scott Speedman, Welket Bungué, and Lihi Kornowski, the latter three all connected to that aforementioned dead child.

I think it's obvious from the plot description here that you shouldn't choose to watch Crimes Of The Future if you're after something light and fun. Mind you, that applies to almost every David Cronenberg movie (as well as anything by his son, Brandon). This deserves your time though, and I encourage people to get themselves in the right headspace for it. It's thought-provoking, disturbing, smart, and sometimes confusing. In other words, bearing in mind that you also get another impressive music score from Howard Shore, it nicely slots into the Cronenberg canon, and it shows that he's lost none of his brilliance.

8/10

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Prime Time: Thirteen Lives (2022)

If you try to keep up with major news events then you will know the story that Thirteen Lives is based on. In fact, even being tangentially aware of major headlines should have you knowing enough about this before it starts to play out. This was a huge story in 2018, with many people gripped by the plight of those involved, a group of young male footballers and their coach stranded in a water-filled cave system in Thailand. You might even think that there’s no point in dramatizing there story and presenting it to people who may have those headlines still relatively fresh in their minds. I’d politely say that you would be wrong.

At approximately two and a half hours in length, this is a film that takes just the right time needed to set up the main premise, bring in the main characters (the rescue mission ended up being headed up by two British cave divers, Rick Stanton and John Volanthen), and show the many people who came together during this time. From the Navy Seals who may underestimate the conditions they need to work through to the person hoping to divert rainfall away from the openings that lead to the cave system, from the distraught parents to the farmers who agree to have their crops flooded.

Director Ron Howard, working with writer William Nicholson (a dab hand at this kind of thing, and helped with the story development by Don Macpherson), makes this an incredible viewing experience, crafting a film that presents plenty of data, context, and tension while giving equal time to the main characters. The boys needing rescued don’t have too much screentime, understandable as they simply had to wait while others struggled to figure out a workable plan, but Stanton and Volanthen go through a real variety of emotions, as do the people working with them, and the local governor who is kept in place to take the blame when the expected, “unavoidable”, deaths occur.

With Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell playing Stanton and Volanthen, respectively, and their main team being filled out by Tom Bateman, Paul Gleeson, and Joel Edgerton, it would be all too easy to make this a film about a rescue mission in Thailand that focuses purely on the white men who were brought in because of their niche expertise. So it’s a good job that Howard allows time to show the work of the local Navy Seals, and the ultimate responsibility placed on Sahajak Boonthanakit (playing Governor Narongsak). Vithaya Pansringarm is also a formidable presence, as General Anupong, and it would be remiss of me to not highlight the optimism and energy delivered by Nitipoom Khachatphai, aiming to help divert as much water away from the cave system as possible.

Everyone gives a very good performance, but hats off to both Mortensen and Farrell for also putting on decent English accents. The two men apparently took their roles very seriously, often performing their own diving for most of the shots, and they slip into their characters so well that you very easily forget that it IS actually Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell you’re watching. Bateman and Edgerton are the other actors to single out, both bringing different elements to the story, and both seeming very much out of their comfort zone in different ways. 

A good documentary could give you all of the information presented here, and there is at least one good documentary already made about this incident, but a good drama can somehow deliver the same information to you in a more effective way, when it is done as well as this anyway. Distances, timings, the co-ordination between so many different groups of people, the weight of every decision, the technical details that are discussed, everything is here, and it is all improved by viewing it from “behind the scenes”, warts and all, and being reminded of the rollercoaster journey that everyone went through while the tick of the clock grew louder and louder.

Thirteen Lives is a fantastic telling of a story that deserves to be told in full. The hefty runtime flies by, and by the time it all ends you feel as if you have watched something great, but also something that succeeds in properly honoring the amazing achievements of everyone involved.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: The Reflecting Skin (1990)

The story of a young boy, Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper), who becomes intrigued by the idea that someone in his local area is a vampire, The Reflecting Skin is a strange, but also quite wonderful, coming-of-age story that uses a light touch throughout to blend darkness and sunshine until an end scene that hits you like a punch in the gut.

Enjoying hijinks with his friends, including a horrible trick in the opening sequence that involves an inflated frog and a catapult, young Seth is a very typical, spirited, lad. His life starts to take a turn, however, when children start to go missing, and then turn up dead. While the local law enforcement suspect Seth’s father, Seth himself starts to suspect a neighbouring single woman, Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan). She could well be a vampire, and that is much more worrying when his brother (Cameron, played by Viggo Mortensen) returns from his military service and begins to develop a connection with Dolphin.

Written and directed by Philip Ridley, who also did the excellent, and underseen, Heartless (2009), as well as a few other movies well worth your time, this is a sun-kissed journey towards a face to face encounter with pure evil that brings to mind the work of various people, from David Lynch to Stephen King, while also feeling resolutely unique.

Great performances come from young Cooper, as well as everyone else onscreen, but it can be hard to recognise how well they are doing as Ridley uses people to enact moments in a slightly artificial way at times. Mortensen and Duncan become the focus of the film in the second half, but they are often being watched by Cooper’s character, which means some things are played up to show his interpretation of what he is seeing. Sheila Moore and Duncan Fraser play their characters, the parents of our lead, with obvious signs of problems in their lives, and they make a hell of an impression, especially when you think of their relatively small amount of screentime.

The Reflecting Skin is shot beautifully, with Dick Pope due some extra kudos there, and it seduces viewers with a constant sense of innocence as things move closer and closer to that innocence being lost. It shows the “silly” things that children decide to fixate on, and be afraid of, while other dangers lurk in plain sight around them. It manages to still play out like a vampire movie, but it puts forward the idea that vampirism takes on many different forms as people have their life energy reduced by various factors, both external and internal.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: Psycho (1998)

Well, I guess I owe an apology to quite a few people. I used to spend some of my time online defending this ill-advised remake of the Hitchcock classic. This recent revisit, the first time I have watched the film since I caught it on a rental VHS copy, quickly had me reconsidering my view. So many elements are awful. And yet... yet... there is still something here that leaves it ad a fascinating experiment. Not a satisfying movie, and not a remake that comes anywhere close to the original, but something worth viewing as a way to strengthen the case of how many different elements come together to make a movie a timeless classic.

You know the story, basically. Unless you don't. If you don't, I am not going to spoil any potential twists and turns, even if you've seen the original film. Anne Heche is Marion Crane this time around, a woman who is left in charge of a large sum of money by her boss and, in a moment of madness, heads off to use the money as a chance to start a better life with her boyfriend (Viggo Mortensen). Tired from the drive, but so close to her destination, Marion pulls in to get a room for the night at the Bates Motel, where she meets Norman (Vince Vaughn). He seems like a nice young man, in stark contrast to his angry mother.

Based on the exact same shooting script as the 1960 original, written by Joseph Stefano, and with many shots replicated as closely as possible to the way Hitchcock already did them, it's understandable that many people cite this as an example of a remake that is completely pointless. I was tempted to think the same thing as the end credits rolled this time around.

And yet . . . there's definitely a lot to be gained from viewing this as an academic exercise. Director Gus Van Sant knows how pointless it is to try and remake such an acclaimed masterpiece, and he makes a great effort to highlight the futility of the exercise. Before you even see one bit of the performances on display, just watching the opening credits is enough to put you off. They're exactly the same as the original credits. They're just now in colour. Seconds into the film and it's already not as good, the colour seems to serve as a final flag raised up before the viewer. "You were warned," it seems to say, "and now the reality of the situation is here in front of your eyes." This continues throughout the entire movie. Even the moments that are staged as best as they can be (the sequence between Marion Crane and a highway patrolman, this time played by James Remar) just don't ever feel as good because, well, they're just not.

It's a shame that the cast don't do better though, even if they were given a thankless task. Heche is hard to warm to in the role of Marion, and Mortensen gives one of his worst performances as her beau. Vaughn is given the biggest shoes to fill, and I still find a lot to admire in his performance. It doesn't work, his laugh is too jarring and his quick-talking manner feels unlike the Norman Bates we're used to, but I still appreciate the way that he tries to make himself seem smaller and a bit more timid than he seems in most of his other roles. Julianne Moore, as much as I like her, is quite awful as Marion's sister, not helped by the pointless addition of headphones she is given to wear (as if the character was written to be some spirited, resourceful teen), but William H. Macy at least manages to make up for her presence in the second half of the film, easily outshining both her and Mortensen in his scenes as the detective, Arbogast.

And yet . . . there's STILL something here. Something in the heart of the story, something that pulls you towards it, even as the performances and the new colour scheme put you off. Van Sant knows this, he knows that YOU know it, and your growing appreciation for the original movie in direct correlation to your anger at the audacity of this remake just goes to prove the point that he decided to make when he took on this project.

4/10

You can buy the movie here, if you really want to.
Americans can buy it here.

Eastern Promises (2007)

David Cronenberg followed up the magnificent A History Of Violence by reteaming with leading man Viggo Mortensen and creating something that works as both a companion piece and also a flipside to their preceding movie. A here and now of violence, if you will.

Events are set in motion by a young girl who gives birth to a child, but dies in the process. Naomi Watts plays a nurse named Anna, present at the birth and worried about the future of the newborn child. She takes a diary that belonged to the deceased girl, finds out that it's in Russian and sets out to get it translated, in an effort to find a family for the baby. Unfortunately, in her attempt to do a good deed she finds herself mixing with some bad people. Bad Russian gangster types. The big boss is Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), messy situations are created by his son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), and everything gets cleaned up by Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), who constantly refers to him as just a driver. As Anna gets more involved with these people she puts herself, and others, in a very dangerous situation.

Unhurried, unfussy and completely unglamorous, Eastern Promises is a typically cool look at some unpleasantness by Cronenberg, working from a fantastic script by Steven Knight. Set in London, he matches his usual style with the great cinematography by Peter Suschitzky with outstanding results. London isn't the collection of buildings scattered around Big Ben and Notting Hill that it so often is in other movies. It's simply a big city, a place full of areas and buildings that you could pass by every day without a suspicion of what has gone on there.

But it's the acting that really lifts this up to a fantastic viewing experience. Naomi Watts is very good in her role, believably strong in her eagerness to do the right thing while also visibly unnerved. Armin Mueller-Stahl is great as the typical, cold gangster boss and Vincent Cassel is always entertaining as Kirill, the son who can never seem to do any right for doing wrong. The film belongs to Viggo Mortensen, however, and his performance is almost perfect. Okay, there may be problems with the accent to those who have a better ear than I do, but it's not too bad. Not too bad at all. His dialogue is also backed up by a physical performance arguably better than the one he delivered in A History Of Violence. Able support also comes from Sinead Cusack, Jerzy Skolimowski and even Tamer Hassan, in a small role that still allows him to feature in the most memorable sequence in the entire film.

Although the movie has quite a few moments of violence in it, none of them are flippant, "easy" movie deaths. This is a film about every bloodletting sending a message, about every body telling a story (be it through tattoos or fatal wounds) and about how much some people will risk in order to make a difference for the better. It's all that, PLUS it's a fantastic gangster movie AND it has one of the best and boldest fight scenes set in a bathhouse since . . . . . . . . . . . well, since ever.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eastern-Promises-Blu-ray/dp/B0010VXMQW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1370799643&sr=8-2&keywords=eastern+promises

Prison (1988)

Quite a simple premise, the spirit of a dead prisoner returns for vengeance when the prison is reopened for business and full of inmates again. Directed by Renny Harlin, this is yet another enjoyable movie from a man who has very rarely done wrong by me.

It may lack the impact it wants to have, what with the story twists and turns being really rather obvious throughout, but Prison still has some good moments of tension here and there and a few fantastic death scenes.

The cast are all pretty good, too. Viggo Mortensen does well in an early feature role, Lane Smith is fantastic as a strict warden, Chelsea Field doesn't get that much screentime but holds her own in a movie overflowing with testosterone and Lincoln Kilpatrick is excellent. Support comes from Tom Everett, Ivan Kane, Tommy 'Tiny' Lister and even Kane Hodder so genre fans should be more than pleased with the assortment of faces onscreen.

The script, by C. Courtney Joyner and based on a story by Irwin Yablans, does what is needed though things quickly become far too strange to be explained away easily so that starts eroding at your suspension of disbelief from before the halfway mark.

Harlin directs as competently as ever. There are some nice camera shots and some great use of lighting which, along with a bag of practical effects, often leads in to some supernatural event. The gore on display is effective but not overexposed and the nasty deaths hold up as well today as they did back in the late 80s. It's a shame that the score, by Richard Band and Christopher L. Stone, never comes close to matching any of the visuals and weakens a lot of the atmosphere being built up.

Personally, I always felt that while Prison seemed to come and go when it was initially released the main reason for that was not because it was a bad movie but because it was quickly overshadowed by Shocker, released the following year. While the two are very different movies, there are enough similiarities in the methods of the killer and the advertising artwork to have possibly encouraged moviegoers to wait and see the "Wes Craven film". Possibly. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it, especially because I quite like Prison even if it's nothing to set the world alight (ironically enough).

6/10.

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