For It Is Man's Number

Wednesday, 12 July 2023

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

I couldn't resist. The usual "Prime Time" blog post will appear tomorrow, apologies to anyone who likes me keeping to a more rigid schedule.

Here we are then. Is it the beginning of the end for the Mission: Impossible movie series? It certainly feels that way. We all know that Tom Cruise can only keep risking his life for our entertainment for so long. We also know that each time the stakes are raised can make it harder to find ways for the next instalment to top the previous one. This certainly feels like it could be a great mission to go out on, and there are some interesting parallels between this film and the De Palma blockbuster that started it all.

Ethan Hunt (Cruise, like you need me to tell you that) has to go rogue once again, this time on a mission to collect two parts of a special key. Nobody knows quite what the key unlocks, or where it needs to be used, but it's all connected to a world-threatening AI enemy, referred to through most of the movie as "The Entity". Hunt enlists the help of his old friends, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), as well as reconnecting with the tricksy Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson). There are many others after the key, although some know more about it than others, including a slippery thief named Grace (Hayley Atwell), a deadly figure from Hunt's past (played by Esai Morales), and a few other key players (no pun intended).

Although this movie series has been on great/top form for some time now, and you could easily argue that not one instalment is a complete miss, I did go into this feeling one small pang of regret. I felt the importance of the marriage of the films with their respective directors had disappeared, especially when you consider how much De Palma and John Woo stamped their style on the first two films, for better or worse, but maybe I am completely wrong. It’s perhaps the case that other directors are still very much doing their own thing, but their own thing happens to be presenting what they want to see in these movies. Director Christopher McQuarrie has certainly done as much to elevate the films, and maintain them as essential cinema viewings, as his star, and this film exudes a confidence gained from previous success. There’s no big song to use/promote, there’s no big stunt during the prologue (although it’s still a fantastic, extended, opening act), no teasing for an extended cinematic universe, and there aren’t really any surprises. You have seen what you’re getting in the trailer and marketing, to a degree, and McQuarrie, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Erik Jendresen, knows that he has something good enough to satisfy everyone who buys a ticket. And the big stunt that has been promoted so heavily in the run up to this release? It’s a highlight that the film builds to as the third act builds, with everyone involved seeming to relish the moment, nodding to the viewers and saying “we know you came here for this . . . here it is, and it’s something special”. And you know what . . . it IS something special. Because almost any other film would have executed that stunt in any number of different ways. But this is Tom Cruise, enabled by McQuarrie, in a bloody Mission: Impossible film.

If you enjoyed this cast in previous adventures then you will enjoy them here. They maintain great chemistry with one another, they each bring something to the table, and viewers should care about whether they live or die. Other familiar faces returning are Vanessa Kirby (still entertainingly flirty and dangerous as “The White Widow”) and Henry Czerny as Kittridge, a man who seems to be in the habit of upsetting Ethan Hunt. Atwell is the standout from the newcomers, always trying to stay one step ahead of Hunt and co. while being unaware of the full picture forming around her, and also being unaware of just how much danger she is in. Morales is fine, although hampered by the contrivance needed to make him feel like a physical embodiment of the AI threat, and there are very entertaining performances from Shea Wigham (an agent who quickly becomes exasperated while trying to capture Hunt), Greg Tarzan David (working with Wigham’s character), and Pom Klementieff (a skilled and determined assassin). Eagle-eyed viewers will also spot the likes of Rob Delaney, Mark Gatiss, Indira Varma, and Cary Elwes, although you don’t need to be too eagle-eyes to spot Elwes, as he has a bit more screentime than the others, portraying the Director of National Intelligence.

McQuarrie may not be doing his best writing work here, but he throws enough exposition around during the earlier scenes to set everything up for a film that can then rush headlong from one impressive set-piece to the next. The 163-minute runtime doesn’t ever start to feel tiring, thanks to the pre-credits sequence and that jaw-droppingly fantastic finale, coming along after numerous gunfights, a brilliantly inventive car chase, a couple of big brawls, and a sequence set in Venice that underlines just how slim the chances of success are (“well, this is not mission difficult”).

I wouldn’t rush to call this the best of the series, that’s a high bar indeed, but it certainly comes close. It’s so good that it has me thinking I was too harsh when I reviewed the last instalment, because this is easily on a par with that one and I find myself more inclined to overlook the minor issues in favour of the sheer thrill of the energy and spectacle of it all. Oh, and I'll eat my hat if I don't make numerous The Ethan Hunt For Red October gags when the second part is released.

9/10

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Monday, 10 July 2023

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

It took a while, a span of time that saw writer-director James Gunn move from Marvel to DC and then back again, and then back AGAIN to accept a very senior role at DC, but we got there eventually. The third, and final (at least in this incarnation), adventure for the Guardians Of The Galaxy. A lot of people are happy, most seem to think that Gunn managed to stick the landing. I am not in agreement with those people.

Our main group aren’t in a great place when the film starts, with Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) spending time drunk and sad while the others are unable to snap him out of his funk. Everything gets much worse when Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) turns up, picks a fight with our gang, and then leaves after being seriously wounded. He isn’t the only casualty though. Rocket (Bradley Cooper) ends up in critical condition, and the fact that he has some kind of killswitch inside him makes it impossible to immediately heal him. The guardians have to figure out how to bypass the killswitch, which means they have to find out more about Rocket’s past, putting them on a headlong path towards someone known as The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). Well, we find out about Rocket’s past as we see many flashbacks showing us everything that the Guardians may or may not find out about at a later stage.

While I am not going to say that this is the worst Marvel movie since Thor: Love And Thunder, there are a lot of the same problems dragging this down from the great ending it could have been. Much like Waititi being encouraged to further indulge himself with his second Thor movie, Gunn seems to have been given free rein to cut loose and go crazy for the final instalment of this trilogy. With the exception of The High Evolutionary, who is a fantastic main villain, almost everyone now speaks in banter and gags. There are very few instances without an abundance of jokes. I get that these movies have been full of humour throughout the previous instalments, but it’s all overdone here in a way that jars with the more serious moments. And, hooo boy, are there some serious moments here. The whole backstory for Rocket is an upsetting and emotional look at animal vivisection, and the third act feels even more callous than some of the other Marvel movies, when you fully consider the impact of the large-scale destruction. So I can see that Gunn would have wanted plenty of humour to offset these moments, but it just doesn’t work well enough, mainly due to him twisting other characters too far away from how they used to be. Even a surprising Groot (still voiced by Vin Diesel) moment feels a bit disappointing and at odds with the charm of his essence.

The production design is wild throughout, and that also feels as if it has gone too far. Gunn wants every scene crammed full of alien species and strange environments, but too much of everything just has you wishing for a moment or two of something refreshingly normal. And then there’s the soundtrack, which people have once again marked as a highlight. No. This is a selection of obtrusive needle-drops that simply don’t work as well as by soundtrack choices from the first two movies. I love most of the songs used here, but they rarely felt like a natural fit for the scenes they were shoehorned into.

The cast generally do a good job, working well with what they are given. If you enjoyed Pratt, Cooper, Diesel, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Zoe Saldana, and Sean Gunn in the previous movies then you should enjoy them here. Poulter is sadly wasted in his role, as is Elizabeth Debicki (playing his “mother”), Maria Bakalova provides the voice of Cosmo, another fairly wasted character, and I am sure fans of Gunn’s work will enjoy seeing a small role for Nathan Fillion. Iwuji would steal the film though, were it not for the fact that many of his scenes involve him interacting with a super-cute, younger version of Rocket. His genuinely threatening and cruel villain is good enough to lift the whole film up a notch or two.

It’s hard to stay angry or disappointed with Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 though, knowing that everyone involved really wanted to come back and do their best to ensure a fitting end to this particular chapter in their cinematic incarnation, but it’s not one I will be revisiting, as opposed to the previous two adventures. Not only is the main storyline surprisingly predictable, it’s also surprisingly unsatisfying. One moment near the very end had me thinking that Gunn was actually committed to making the most of this opportunity to provide a properly emotional ending for this ragtag bunch of reluctant heroes, but it was soon undercut by one of the many easier options available in his storytelling toolbox. And it's also worth noting the most egregious and unnecessary "f-bomb" I can think of, seemingly just to take full advantage of the 12A rating here in the UK.

There are still moments here to enjoy, and many other people found less to be critical of than I did, but I was disappointed, and it feels like yet more proof that Marvel will struggle to get back to the consistent greatness they made seem so effortless as they built everything towards the cinematic conclusion of the Infinity Saga.

5/10

Mubi Monday: A Woman Under The Influence (1974)

If you haven't yet made any progress through the filmography of John Cassavetes then I urge you to do so at the earliest opportunity. I can say this with confidence now, having finally checked out at least three or four of his movies throughout the last year. Yes, I was slow to get there, but that won't stop me acting all smug and knowledgeable now.

The presumptuous part of me suspects that I have already now seen the very best from the filmography of Cassavetes, because this is truly an astonishing piece of work, but I shouldn't be too hasty, considering I previously had the same thought after watching the brilliant The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie. This will definitely be a tough one to beat though.

"What's it all about?" I pretend to hear you ask. Gena Rowlands plays Mabel, a housewife and mother who seems to have some mental health problems that put a strain on her marriage to Nick (Peter Falk). Alcohol being added to the situation can create a bigger problem, but the temptation is hard to resist when Nick ends up forced into working some extra-long shifts that keep him away from home for a full night on top of his standard hours.

Written and directed by Cassavetes (originally conceived as a play until Rowlands, his wife, stated that it would be too difficult to play out night after night), this is a seemingly slight film that gradually leads viewers into deeper and deeper waters. The lengthy runtime allows for viewers to observe the leads in a variety of situations, whether showing how much they love one another or showing how much harm they can cause one another. Leave these two people alone, unbothered by any other life obligations, and all might appear to be blissful for a while, but that isn’t the life they have. There are young children to consider, and friends and family members who can sour the atmosphere with their criticism and judgement.

Rowlands and Falk are both flawless here, delivering natural and exposed performances that show them at their ugliest, as well as occasionally at their loveliest. Responding brilliantly to the methods used by Cassavetes to keep things feeling as honest and real as possible (spontaneous decisions on character details, not telling everyone when the cameras were rolling, etc), Rowlands and Falk give the kind of acting masterclass that makes you re-appraise almost every other film performance that you viewed as being great. Everyone else onscreen does just fine, but the film stays focused on our leads at all times, and rightly so. It is heart-breaking to feel a growing affection for Rowlands, but watch her erratic behaviour worsen and cause problems. Falk, on the other hand, is someone you have to work hard to view sympathetically, especially during the times when he is violent or just blinkered to the real help his wife needs.

Not an easy viewing experience, and with no easy answers made available, this is an effective and devastating look at how much worse things can get when mental health issues are not properly treated. While there is very rarely any kind of miraculous solution, it’s painful to watch someone struggle so much without any genuine support or decent coping mechanisms. Viewers should feel anger as gaslighting and controlling behaviour often stand in place of any real attempts to help a woman clearly moving closer towards a place where the lighting is low and it would be all too easy to choose the wrong exit.

This should be shown in every film study course, and I am not entirely against the idea of it being shown to every couple about to get married. The more extreme moments only seem that way to people who have been fortunate enough to maintain their mental equilibrium throughout their entire life. Everyone else will recognise bits and pieces from this, and it’s the truth at the heart of it all (both in content and the performances), that makes it devastating and essential.

10/10

Sunday, 9 July 2023

Netflix And Chill: The Out-Laws (2023)

While I was pleasantly surprised to see that The Out-Laws, the latest comedy feature to drop on Netflix, had a very reasonable 95-minute runtime, I was even more surprised to soon discover that it was also quite funny. A lot of that depends on your tolerance for Adam Devine, who does his usual schtick here (but dialled down slightly), but if you enjoy the leads then you should have some fun with this.

Devine plays Owen Browning, a happy bank manager who is about to get married to Parker McDermott (Nina Dobrev). Although Owen has never met Parker's parents, they end being able to change their plans and ensure a visit just in time for the wedding. That means Owen has to try and bond with Billy (Pierce Brosnan) and Lilly (Ellen Barkin) in a very short space of time, which means . . . alcohol. After an evening of drinking and conversation, Owen spends his next workday hungover, and his day gets much worse when his bank is robbed. The robbers knew every part of his security system, and they seemed very familiar with Own. Could the prospective in-laws be bank-robbing outlaws?

If I had looked into the filmographies of everyone involved here then I doubt I would have given it a chance already. It's the first feature from writer Evan Turner, and the first non-sequel feature from writer Ben Zazove (who previously helped to pen Gnomeo & Juliet 2: Sherlock Gnomes). Director Tyler Spindel is a name I should have recognised, having given us the awfulness of The Wrong Missy back in 2020. Despite their dubious backgrounds, however, everyone comes together well to make something well-paced and full of decent gags. The emphasis is much more on the comedy than any action, but it sketches out enough details throughout to keep things feeling as plausible as they need to be.

While Devine is fun in his main role, he's helped enormously by sharing so much of the screentime with Brosnan and Barkin, both seeming to enjoy themselves amidst all the silliness. Brosnan is particularly fun, using his twinkly-eyed Irish charm to full effect, but he and Barkin are always very much a couple who complete one another. Dobrev does okay in her smaller role, predictably placed in danger at least once, and Michael Rooker takes on the role of the determined cop out to catch the bank robbers, and suspecting that it could have been an inside job. Poorna Jagannathan is an entertaining villain, although not really ever very threatening, and the rest of the supporting cast provides some great additional value. Not only do you get fun little moments for Dean Winters, Lil Rel Howery, Blake Anderson, and Lauren Lapkus (a LOT more amusing here than she was in The Wrong Missy, but you get some effortless scene-stealing from the wonderful Richard Kind and Julie Hagerty, playing Neil and Margie Browning, Owen's parents.

Surprisingly good for this kind of thing, certainly compared to a number of other Netflix comedy films that they've released over the past few years, The Out-Laws is as easy to enjoy as it is easy to predict. It's also a very easy one to choose when you're looking for a simple bit of fun entertainment to while away some time. I doubt we'll remember it a few years from now, as is the way with most of the streaming content that somehow feels less substantial than the films and shows released via more traditional means (e.g. does anyone else remember Hemlock Grove?), but it's here now, and that's the main thing. Apparently.

7/10

Saturday, 8 July 2023

Shudder Saturday: Horror Express (1972)

Although I have said it many times before, I will say it again. Any film is improved by the presence of Peter Cushing. Pair him alongside Christopher Lee and you gain more bonus points. Horror Express not only benefits from casting those two leads, but also makes space for a hugely entertaining turn from Telly Savalas. This would be enough to make it a winner for me, no matter what the actual content of the film was like, but I can happily say that there's also a fantastic main premise involving these main characters.

Lee plays Professor Saxton, a man transporting his latest discovery aboard the Trans-Siberian Express. Cushing is Dr. Wells, a friend/professional rival who is interested in just what that discovery is. I can tell you now, as it's no secret, that the cargo is actually a frozen prehistoric figure. Soon thawing out, however, it turns out that the humanoid isn't as dead as it first appeared. A number of people start to turn up dead, their bodies in a strange state that puzzles Saxton, Wells, and Inspector Mirov (Julio Peńa), and everything becomes a standard murder mystery until the evidence quickly starts to point to a very unexpected explanation. It's then soon time for the train to be boarded by Captain Kazan (Savalas) and his men.

Written by Arnaud d'Usseau and Julian Zimet (credited here as Julian Halevy), this is, as many people have already observed elsewhere, an enjoyable riff on the John W. Campbell novella, Who Goes There? (the basis for The Thing From Another World/The Thing) The writers throw together an enjoyable selection of characters to place in peril - as well as those mentioned, you have a "mad monk" (played by Alberto de Mendoza) and a beautiful Countess (played by Silvia Tortosa) - and they keep everything perfectly paced for the runtime, which clocks in at about 90 minutes. Spanish director Eugenio Martín has a reasonably compact filmography that looks as if there could be another one or two gems tucked away in there, but I'm not familiar with any of his other work so far, and it's hard to think of anything overshadowing this as the highlight of his directorial career. It's a wonderful ensemble piece that doesn't forget to give enough screentime to the fan favourites embodying the main roles, and there are some enjoyably tense moments throughout as more and more people are killed off.

Lee and Cushing are at their impeccable best, with their charm exemplified in Cushing's reaction to any hint of suspicion being cast upon their characters ("Monster? We're British, you know!"). Mendoza is wonderfully highly-strung in his role, and doesn't necessarily think the dangerous creature is doing anything too wrong, and Peńa is a comfortably stolid presence. Tortosa brings a touch of glamour to the film, George Rigaud is amusing as her husband, Count Petrovski, and then you get an injection of energy at roughly the halfway mark when Savalas swaggers onscreen with what I can only describe as a brilliantly braggadocious turn. He lights up every frame with his confidence, although viewers are clued in to the fact that he may be ill-prepared to solve this particular crime.

There's a good selection of special effects, with the design of the main creature staying on just the right side of the strange and horrifying, lovely production design for the interior of the train that makes up the setting for most of the film, and moments that remain genuinely strange and creepy to this day (the second half has a number of impressively eerie touches throughout). If you like either of the main stars then you've probably seen this already, but it's a film that provides great value on any rewatch, just seeing how the details are scattered throughout the script and how it all weaves together so beautifully. If you somehow haven't seen it already . . . do get on the train now before it leaves the station.

9/10

Friday, 7 July 2023

Bite Me! (2004)

You have to love Tubi, a goldmine of great films and entertaining trash. Sadly, it’s not available here in the UK. Unless you find a way to pretend you aren’t in the UK. Do that, it’s not too difficult, and a whole new world of entertainment becomes available to you. I have sourced many movies there, and browsing the site for something enjoyably silly has become one of my favourite things. It is often easier to find something worthwhile to watch on Tubi than it is to find something worthwhile on the many other streaming sites out there. Especially when you are as undemanding as I am.

Bite Me! was an immediate strong contender as I figured out what I was in the mood for last night. The plot summary mentioned an outbreak of bugs in a strip club and I figured it would be cheap, cheesy, and hopefully fun. I also saw that it starred Erin Brown (billed here under her more popular screen name, Misty Mundae), which I guessed would help the film skew towards a certain viewer demographic. I wasn’t wrong, although the end result is even sillier than I expected.

Written and directed by Brett Piper (who did this kind of thing before, albeit in a more straightforward manner), Bite Me! is surprisingly competent throughout, despite the very low-budget special effects and the limited acting range of most of the cast. Would I recommend it to everyone, or class it as some kind of forgotten gem from 20 years ago? Of course not, but it’s a decent enough mix of bugs trying to bite people and gratuitous nudity, without ever bringing one aspect to a halt in order to stay focused on the other.

Brown is okay in her role, not exactly being taxed and not showing much progression beyond the performances she was already used to giving. She does better than most though, delivering her performance in a simplistic and exaggerated way that still feels more subtle than some of the other main players. Sylvianne Chebance is good, although I may be being biased there, due to her being my favourite of the featured actresses. Julian Wells spends her scenes trying to chew up the scenery, Erika Smith is average, at best, and Michael R. Thomas plays his club owner character like someone who couldn’t even make the deleted scenes in Showgirls. Thankfully, Rob Monkiewicz helps out once he appears onscreen, playing an exterminator clearly influenced by John Goodman in Arachnophobia (although maybe that was just me projecting).

Nothing ultimately matters as the story unfolds, despite a plot strand that adds a gun-toting US agent to the mix, and I can see how some would desire more nudity while others might want more creature feature moments, but it’s surprisingly fun while it’s on. Disposable, immediately forgettable, laughably bad at times, but fun. And I would rather watch something as daft and unpretentious as this than watch some of the more polished, and more sanitized, slices of mediocrity that have made it into cinemas over the past couple of decades. If you disagree strongly with that sentiment . . . Bite Me!

4/10

Thursday, 6 July 2023

Cellar Dweller (1988)

Although horror fans, and general movie fans, tend to know some of the big names in the world of practical effects, it always ends up being the same people who get most of the praise, and not without good reason. You have Tom Savini, Stan Winston, Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, the guys who formed KNB (Kurtzman, Nicotero, and Berger). Those who love to celebrate the classics may mention Willis O’Brien and, of course, Ray Harryhausen, but that’s about your lot. Meet someone who wants to wax lyrical about Screaming Mad George (real name = Joji Tani) and you’ve discovered a rarity. Then there’s John Carl Buechler, a special effects artists who had a great knack for making memorable puppet creations with fairly limited resources. He worked with Stuart Gordon a few times, was involved with at least one instalment of each of the big three slasher icon franchises, and gave us those irascible Ghoulies. He also sat in the director’s chair occasionally, this film being one of those with him at the helm, and I think that it is time for Buechler to get the proper praise he has long been due.

Yet another film that I wanted to see for decades, thanks to the combination of the title and the VHS box, Cellar Dweller is a simple and fantastical piece of work. Less of an outright horror movie and more of an adult version of an extended Goosebumps episode, it’s something that will remain enjoyable to anyone who loves the cheap ‘n’ cheerful schlock from the 1980s.

Debrah Farentino (billed here as Debrah Mullowney) plays a comic book artist named Whitney Taylor who ends up unleashing some major trouble when she spends time at an artist’s retreat, headed up by Mrs. Briggs (Yvonne De Carlo). It turns out that there’s a power in the place, a magic that can turn Whitney’s drawings into reality. It isn’t long until the titular cellar dweller starts killing off the other residents.

Written by Don Mancini, this is a brisk and amusing bit of silliness that benefits more from Buechler’s work on the special effects than it does from Buechler’s direction. Not that he does a terrible job in the latter role, but he certainly ends up maintaining a surprisingly lighter-than-expected tone throughout. There’s some attempt throughout the first half to craft some tension, helped by a decent score from Carl Dante, but that soon goes out the window as the daffiness of the main premise starts to outweigh the potential for real horror.

Cast-wise, people are good, not great. Taylor is a decent lead, and it’s fun to watch De Carlo in her supporting role, but few others make a strong impression, with the main exception being Brian Robbins (who would go on to become a director of some shocking Eddie Murphy movies decades later). Robbins plays a friend/artist/love interest and the third act makes the interesting choice to position him as a kind of “damsel in distress”, which may stem from Mancini having fun with the genre tropes. Or it’s maybe just because we are sticking with the female lead for the majority of the movie. The other name to mention here is Jeffrey Combs, only acting in the brief prologue, but doing enough to ensure that this film has an approved Combs quota.

If you end up watching this expecting some lo-fi gore and nastiness then you will be disappointed. This isn’t a blood-soaked shocker. It is, instead, the kind of cosy dark fantasy that we don’t tend to see made nowadays. It will give you a warm glow of nostalgia, it will have you once again remembering why practical effects, as flawed as they are, so often outshine CGI, and it will most likely keep you smiling as it entertains you for the brief, 77-minutes in all, runtime.

6/10

Wednesday, 5 July 2023

Prime Time: Follow Me (2020)

Writer-director Will Wernick may be a name familiar to you if you made the decision a few years ago to watch one of the other movies titled Escape Room, but not THE better Escape Room. Follow Me is, funnily enough, another movie based around an escape room experience. It’s worse than either of the aforementioned escape room movies though, which makes me think it is time for Wernick to stop crafting movies around that concept

Keegan Allen plays Cole, the kind of narcissistic social media “superstar” I loathe. He spends his time accepting various challenges, staging various pranks, and generally doing what social media people do. Hus latest adventure is going to be his best yet, thanks to a friend who has hooked him up with a Russian contact who will get them into the ultimate escape room experience. It isn’t long until things become much more dangerous than expected though, which leaves Cole and co. fighting to stay alive.

Follow Me is just bad, and it’s bad from start to finish. It isn’t incompetent. It isn’t too boring (well, depending on how patient you are once you guess where things are heading). It’s bad. The core idea already feels far too tired and overdone, the cast aren’t good enough to sell most of their scenes, and I get the sense that Wernick feels as if he is being smart and playful for most of the movie, despite it all being tiresomely predictable and dumb.

Although I didn’t like his character, Allen does okay in the lead role. I believed him anyway, which is more than I could say for a couple of the cast members playing his friends, and let’s not start on the many actors cast from the Stereotypical Russian Thug Casting Agency. The fact that I didn’t care about anyone, good or bad, meant that I didn’t care how things ended, although I did start to hope for the film to end in a way that would actually surprise me (which Jr didn’t manage).

I guess some people might enjoy this. If you are desperate enough for another thriller set in an escape room environment then this might just scratch that itch. The traps aren’t well-designed, there’s never any real tension, any attempted commentary on social media videos/audiences does not work, and the end credits just underline a sense of utter pointlessness.

Those who follow me for movie recommendations should avoid Follow Me. All the basic elements are in place, but nothing really clicks. Ironic, as the central character is all about the clicks.

3/10

Tuesday, 4 July 2023

Born On The Fourth Of July (1989)

As today is the fourth of July, kind of a big deal for many of my friends in the USA, I decided to finally check out, and review, Born On The Fourth Of July, a biographical drama co-written and directed by Oliver Stone, based on the experiences of a Vietnam War veteran named Ron Kovic (played here by Tom Cruise).

I doubt anyone who has seen an Oliver Stone movie will be surprised to hear that this is quite a simplistic tale (and anyone interested in this should remember that it is the middle part of a trilogy, consisting of Platoon, this movie, and Heaven & Earth). It starts with a young and idealistic Kovic getting himself enthusiastic about joining the military, eager to do his bit to ensure that his country wins out over an evil enemy, but that enthusiasm starts to wane as he experiences moments of confusion and horror while in battle, eventually being injured in a way that means he may eventually lose one, or both, of his legs. Once back in the USA, Ron's life doesn't get any better. He doesn't feel like the returning hero he envisioned, and his wheelchair-bound status seems to remind people of the human price being paid for a war that actually doesn't feel justified.

This is a Vietnam War movie, at least in part, so there's a decent selection of tunes scattered throughout the soundtrack, some fast and clumsy editing (some of it to help show war on a fairly small scale) as we zip through the main points of a life being shown in cinematic shorthand, and a script that spends a lot of time going around in circles as it keeps coming back to the main point being made. For all his faults, Stone certainly tries to show his passionate support for those watching to right historic wrongs, and he tries to cram so much into the 145-minute runtime that you end up willing him to do better during the few scenes that take more time to show the pain reverberating through the lives of some of the main characters (Kovic included, but he's far from the only one affected).

While I didn't expect this to be subtle, as familiar with Stone's filmography as I am, I did expect it to be good. I remember it being given a huge push when it was first released, a lot of the marketing being based around the fact that this was Tom Cruise taking a break from being Superstar Tom Cruise to show he could be Proper Actor Tom Cruise (which he'd already done successfully with his turn in Rain Man, in my opinion). It's arguably a great decision from Stone to cast him in the main role, considering the pro-military baggage that comes with the star of Top Gun, but it's outweighed by the fact that Cruise simply isn't good enough. While he has since delivered one or two outstanding performances in non-starry roles, I would argue that he wouldn't ever be good enough for this specific role. It's just not a good fit for his particular acting range, which is limited by his sheer Cruise-ness, and there are at least a dozen people who might have done better work here. The rest of the cast includes Kyra Sedgwick, Willem Dafoe, Tom Sizemore, Raymond J. Barry, Caroline Kava, Josh Evans, Frank Whaley, and a few more familiar faces, but all of them are sadly underused.

Worth watching once, if only to ensure that this particular experience isn't forgotten, an experience I believe was shared by many who returned from that war. It's a shame that it's not better though. Other people needed to film this story, but this is what we ended up with. It's very disappointing.

Anyway, this is a reminder of the importance to celebrate your American freedom on the fourth of July. Well, unless you're non-white, LGBTQ+, women, students chained down by debt, averse to the idea of their lifestyle being overruled by religious beliefs, hoping to read books deemed offensive to some, drag queens that deliver wonderful story times, citizens mindful of curtailing and controlling police powers, people still incarcerated for smoking a joint under the three strikes rule you once had, etc, you get the idea. The battleground may be very different, and it's depressing to see it on "home turf", but the need for people to protest against being duped and mistreated by their government is just as strong.

4/10

Monday, 3 July 2023

Mubi Monday: Living In Oblivion (1995)

This is yet another film I had heard about decades ago, when it was first released, but sadly didn’t get around to. Everyone I took notice of gave this plenty of praise, proclaiming it a smart and funny film that worked particularly well on people with even passing knowledge of the chaos and egos that can often occur while films are being made. And, once again, everyone I took notice of proved to be absolutely correct.

Living In Oblivion shows us the trials and tribulation of a director (Steve Buscemi) trying to get his film made. He has a superb leading lady (Catherine Keener) to help, but everyone else seems to bring extra problems to the filming process, whether it’s an egotistical male lead (James Le Gros) or a cameraman who keeps trying to change the shot (Dermot Mulroney). There’s a focus puller (Kevin Corrigan) who doesn’t always stay focused, another temperamental actor who comes on the scene later (Peter Dinklage), and tension whenever the sound mixer (Michael Griffiths) is trying to ensure that anything caught on camera has good enough audio to accompany it.

Written and directed by Tom DiCillo, a director with a small filmography that you could find in a dictionary alongside the definition of “quirky”, Living In Oblivion is entertaining and amusing from the earliest scenes, and then just gets better and better as it all builds towards a satisfying, and hilarious, finale. Roughly split into three distinct acts, and moving between moments of colour and moments shown in black and white, this is a fairly low-budget and small film that never feels confined by the limited resources. Because the focus is always on a director just trying to get one main scene finalized it feels natural to be observing that one main scenes, with the repetition and frustrations being the main point of the film. The script is brilliant, with almost every line and moment featuring either a gag or a knowing commentary about life on a low-budget film set, from the dubious selection of goods available to eat and drink to the tension that can arise when a relationship spurs between two colleagues.

Buscemi is great in his role, a typical director with a vision often exceeding the resources he has available to him. It’s his film, because the film within the film is HIS film, and he gives one of his absolute best performances, which is high praise indeed when you think of everything he’s done. Keener is easily equal to him, and understandably steals every scene that focuses on her (which makes up a lot of the screentime), as viewers are shown how much the camera and crew are enthralled by her performance. She has the tougher role than Buscemi, and her effortless greatness shows why she has long been someone that movie fans love to see appear in any role she takes. Mulroney and Corrigan are both fun, Le Gros is an entertaining douchebag, and Dinklage gets to have the second-best outburst in the film (nothing tops Buscemi’s outburst about 20-30 minutes into things). Everyone else deserves praise, from Griffiths to Danielle Von Zerneck (playing the main assistant to Buscemi’s character), and there’s not one weak spot in the entire cast, with even the smallest roles feeling absolutely spot on.

If you enjoy comedies then you should enjoy this, especially if you’re also a fan of any of the main players. If you have even a passing familiarity with how much blood, sweat, and tears it can take to make any movie, however, then this could well become a firm favourite. I know it is now one of mine.

9/10

Sunday, 2 July 2023

Netflix And Chill: Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical (2022)

First thing's first, I am not going to keep referring to Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical as Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical. That's too much for me to type out every time, and I am trying to get this review written as quickly as possible, having fallen behind schedule yet again. I'll just call it Matilda, and there's no need to be confused as I won't be comparing it to the previous film version, Matilda (1996). Secondly, I want to start this review by saying that I enjoyed Matilda. It made me smile, and I enjoyed the musical numbers while they were happening. I didn't love it though, and I was really hoping to love it, especially considering the people involved.

Alisha Weir plays Matilda Wormwood, a little girl not treated nicely at all by her parents, played by Andrea Riseborough and Stephen Graham. Matilda is actually delighted when she is required to start attending school, but her delight starts to fade away when she finds out that the school is run by the child-loathing and super-strict Agatha Trunchbull (Emma Thompson). Thankfully, there's a ray of sunshine in the form of Miss Honey (Lashana Lynch), as well as something changing within Matilda that makes her think she could encourage the pupils to take a stand against the formidable Miss Trunchbull.

Based on the stage musical by Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin, itself based on the book by Roald Dahl (of course, hence the overlong title), Matilda has a fine pedigree. The stage musical has, as far as I am aware, been a great success, which isn't surprising when you think of how talented Minchin has been, and how successfully he has blended music and comedy, for many years now (no offence to Kelly, I am just not familiar with much of his previous work). You also have Matthew Warchus directing, a man who has worked in theatre, but who also delivered the crowd-pleasing Pride almost a decade ago. So the talent behind the camera seems to be as good as you would want for this.

In front of the camera is a bit more of a mixed bag. The adults are all quite wonderful though. I have heard the criticism about the casting of Thompson as Miss Trunchbull, but I have always viewed many Dahl characters as unsubtle caricatures. With that in mind, I could envision almost anyone in the make-up and costume required for this character, and I think Thompson is enjoyably cruel and spiteful in the role, as full-on nasty to the children as the story demands. Graham and Riseborough are also entertaining as they treat their child in a genuinely horrible way that comes close to unbalancing the tone of the film, but everything is helped by the moments in which Matilda quietly gets some revenge. Lynch is as sweet and lovely as Miss Honey should be, and Sindhu Vee is delightful as a librarian who has been friends with Matilda for quite some time, and finds herself engrossed in a story that Matilda relates to her daily, one "chapter" at a time. As for Matilda herself, Weir is okay in the role, although I think her precociousness is slightly overdone and a bit irritating (which may just be the difference between approaching this material as an adult and approaching it as the younger age group it is aimed at). Very few of the other children get a chance to stand out, with the notable exception of Charlie Hodson-Prior as Bruce Bogtrotter (THE eater of cake in a scene that will be stuck in the memory of anyone familiar with this tale), but all of the supporting players do well enough in their roles.

So it's all pretty good throughout, but lacks one vital ingredient to make it great. Surprisingly . . . it's the songs. As of right now, and I watched the film a week ago, I remember part of one song. One. It's the enjoyable song that all the kids join in on while Bruce is being forced to eat an entire cake. There are other songs I enjoyed, particular highlights being "School Song", "When I Grow Up", and "Revolting Children", but it's as if the clever and witty Minchin was too busy making them clever and witty to also make them memorable. Maybe an extra viewing or two will lock them into my brain, it's tricky for a relatively new musical to worm into your ears from the very first experience, but I'm not motivated to rush into a rewatch. There's also the problem of the staging of the musical numbers, each one presented in a way that reminded me of this being adapted from a stage show. It's not an easy thing to pin down, but I watched the film and thought "okay, yes, they would have the playground set, the dinner hall set, a classroom, Matilda's house, and a couple of extra special pieces" whenever the film moved between main locations, and particularly when it used the environment as part of the musical numbers.

A good cast, a child-friendly tale of good battling evil, and some clever lyrics make this enjoyable enough. There's nothing great here though, sadly, although I can imagine enjoying this much more when seeing it performed as it should be, live on stage. I suspect I'm in the minority with my view, but I think I enjoyed the 1996 movie more (okay, ONE comparison, but that's it).

6/10

Saturday, 1 July 2023

Shudder Saturday: In Search Of Darkness: Part III (2022)

I have previously reviewed In Search Of Darkness a few years ago, and then grudgingly decided to check out the second instalment in the series back in 2021, so I was always going to get to this final part of the trilogy eventually. The runtime for this thing is 5 hours and 41 minutes, but I would say that at least 20-25 minutes of that is dedicated to lengthy end credits that namecheck everyone who kicked in at a certain level of their crowdfunding campaign while splicing in video clips of horror fans saying how much they enjoyed these documentaries, as well as sometimes mentioning a favourite film. It's just another self-indulgent, and ultimately pointless, bit of filler in a documentary series that easily ranks as among the worst I have ever seen.

The format remains the exact same, of course. A lot of posters/movie images are shown, one title is picked out for discussion, and that repeats again and again. The problem, as has been the problem with every part of this series, is that the people involved don't often have anything meaningful to say about the movies, often simply delivering a riff on "it was wild, the deaths were cool, and I loved it when I saw it." The lack of anything meaningful to say is even more obvious with the one or two titles that are discussed for less than a minute, or the movies that are accompanied by someone just relaying the plot in a nutshell.

I've already forgotten most of the previous instalments, but this time around it seems that writer-director David A. Weiner, someone we can also refer to as a blight on the landscape of movie documentaries (mistaking nostalgia and personal anecdotes for context and interesting information), has tried to present a slightly more varied mix of talking heads, possibly in response to the opinion that the first selection of people he had involved seems to be seriously lacking in diversity. The same could be said for the films, although you would expect a much more eclectic mix in an overview of the horror genre through the 1980s that has a total runtime of approximately 2/3 of an entire day.

I don't want to namecheck anyone else here, you get a mix of film-makers, musicians, bloggers, and podcasters, but I will say that there are one or two people who DO actually try to add something worthwhile to the conversation, thanks to their more specific viewpoint and relationship to some of the movies being discussed. Take those people and put them in better documentaries and I might have a better viewing experience.

I admit that I was waiting for this to annoy me, and annoy me it did, but maybe in ways that others won't necessarily notice, and maybe in ways that wouldn't annoy other people. Here's a prime example of why I dislike this series so much. There's a segment about the Video Nasties debacle (and I HIGHLY recommend checking out both of the Video Nasties documentaries, directed by Jake West). Part of this segment is illustrated by a tabloid newspaper cover encouraging people to get rid of their video nasties, and a photo showing them being burnt. But the main movie being burnt is Child's Play 3, a film that wasn't ever a part of the Video Nasty mess, and was simply, and erroneously, named years later as the possible factor (it wasn't) in a horrendous crime that shocked the UK. People might see this and say "well, that front page symbolises the spirit and language of the original Video Nasty age", but I would disagree. And there are surely many other headlines and front pages that Weiner could have chosen, from the actual decade being discussed. It's another little moment that smacks of laziness and/or ignorance.

There are other things here that irk, not least of which is the fool's errand of trying to discuss so many movies from the decade while overlooking so many other gems (and, yes, many other gems are STILL missed from what some try to claim is the definitive look back at a golden decade for horror movies). A number of movies that I recall seeing back in my youth, when I was too young for almost all of them, might not be good films, but they were in line with everything else on lining the shelves at that time: a lurid bit of cover art making promises that the film inside the box would rarely fully deliver on.

I'm sorry to anyone who thinks that this is a bit of an unfocused ramble, spending too much time to say too little of note. But if you watched these documentaries then you must be used to this by now. At least it shouldn't take you over five and a half hours to read this.

3/10

Friday, 30 June 2023

Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny (2023)

The last Indiana Jones movie with Harrison Ford in the starring role (apparently) and the first Indiana Jones movie to be directed by someone other than Steven Spielberg (it's James Mangold at the helm for this adventure), Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny comes along with the advantage of simply having to be better than Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. I just wanted it to be on the same level as that film, another that I seemed to enjoy more than many other people.

This is a fun time at the cinema, thank goodness, and any tentative fears I may have had were assuaged within the barnstorming, extended, action sequence that opens the film. There has been a theme in recent years in these franchise instalments, something I have no doubt mentioned before, an idea that, in a world that looks to have passed them by and rendered them obsolete, it is the older “dinosaurs” (although that has been literal, as well as metaphorical) with the strength and ability to save us from some new threats. While this film gives us quite a bit of that, and a number of jokes about the age of our central character, it is also a loving send-off to someone who has been part of the pop culture, and part of our lives for over four decades. It reassures him, and audiences, that having time away from adventuring doesn’t mean life stops. It just means that you can realise how much you can help people in other ways. The fact that this messaging is couched in a script that still doles out a good share of very enjoyable dialogue, entertaining action scenes, and nods for the fans to smile at makes it a perfect conclusion to what has been, in my view, an amazingly consistent blockbuster series.

I suppose I should summarize the plot. After that opening sequence, featuring a de-aged Harrison Ford that sometimes looks like the best de-aging I have ever seen, and sometimes looks like a character was photoshopped in from one of the first couple of Uncharted videogame cut-scenes, we get to the main storyline. Dr. Jones is retiring. He is alone, and tired. Visited by his god-daughter (Wombat, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge), he ends up dragged into an adventure to find both parts of a fabled device created by Archimedes (it has a different name onscreen, but it’s the titular dial of destiny). This leads to a number of chases as our heroes try to evade the henchmen of a very determined Nazi villain (Dr. Voller, played by Mads Mikkelsen), who we saw being beaten by Indians Jones in part of the opening set-piece.

With no offence intended to him, director James Mangold does a decent job here, and has experience of directing a “hero walking into the sunset movie” with Logan, but I couldn’t help wondering just how well Spielberg might have treated this material. Perhaps due to the age of the star, or perhaps due to the complexity of the stunts, most of the big action beats are slightly over-edited, and there are not enough grin-inducing/fist in the air moments. No truly iconic hero shots, sadly, although some moments come close to giving off that indefinable aura of pure cinema magic (Wombat and Indiana looking around a tomb being the best, in terms of that shot composition and lighting combo). Mangold also helped write the script though, alongside David Koepp, Jez Butterworth, and John-Henry Butterworth (I though Waller-Bridge had also been asked to polish some dialogue, but I could be misremembering), and this is where the film excels. Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny is a perfect example of how to blend together a lot of fun and some serious themes (Nazism, obviously, but also regret and gradually losing a sense of purpose, as well as a few other key emotional touchstones). This is the Indiana Jones we have all known and loved for the lifetime of the character, but everyone is very much aware that he’s not immortal, or indeed infallible. His legacy will endure though, both onscreen and off.

Ford is great in the role, which seems like the most redundant thing to say. He has always been perfectly cast as Indiana, and he seems to enjoy embracing the chance to show the true age of the character, particularly when he gives a touching performance in one brief scene that stands head and shoulders above almost any other acting he has delivered in the past decade. Waller-Bridge is a decent foil, an antagonistic equal to our hero, although the character feels like it has been slightly reshaped to make her as essentially Waller-Bridge-ian as can be. And young Ethann Isidore plays Teddy, a boy with excellent pickpocket skills who makes our central pair into an even more plucky and resourceful trio. Mikkelsen is the kind of baddie you want, in line with other greats who have been before him. He’s cold, full of self-belief, and intelligent enough to think one step ahead of the heroes until he eventually realises that he actually hasn’t thought things through as thoroughly as he should have. Boyd Holbrook is a gun-happy henchman, and very good he is too, and Olivier Richters is a man-mountain also doing what he can to help Mikkelsen achieve his main objective. There are small roles for Toby Jones, Antonio Banderas, both doing work that makes you wish they were involved in the adventure for longer, and a couple of people that fans of the series will be delighted to see onscreen, even if only for a minute or two (you may already know who joins in with the fun, but I am not spoiling any potential surprises here).

For those maybe a bit tired and jaded of vapid blockbuster entertainment seemingly designed just to connect other blockbusters together into a money-making blockchain, effectively, then Indiana Jones is here to rescue you. The film reminds us of how much fun a finely-tuned summer movie should be, and it also comes along at just the right time to say “it’s always okay to punch a Nazi”. Fare thee well, Doctor Jones. You may not have always (ever?) kept the spoils of your adventures, but you were festooned in fortune and glory.

8/10

Thursday, 29 June 2023

The Black Demon (2023)

In the same way that no good can come of trying to overlook safety measures to maintain the operational viability of an oil rig in Baja, which is an idea at the heart of this film, no good can come of actually watching The Black Demon. Its a film that doesn’t know whether it wants to be a standard shark movie, an environmentally-conscious thriller, or a film about a curse, with that curse happening to take the form of a shark, and it ends up failing to be any of those things.

Josh Lucas plays the main character, Paul, who is tasked with visiting the aforementioned oil rig and shutting it down. He takes his family with him, a chance for them to get some sunshine and feel more heat off the threatening glances from some angry locals, and everyone eventually ends up on a rig that is being targeted by a big angry shark. If you watch this and figure out a way to care about any of the characters then please let me know.

Director Adrian Grunberg has done a couple of good movies in the past (starting his career as a feature director with the very enjoyable Get The Gringo AKA How I Spent My Summer Vacation). You wouldn’t know it from watching this. While there is a basic degree of technical competence on display, I guess, Grunberg seems content to work with a weak script that is in dire need of people ready to elevate the material. I was unsurprised to find that this was the feature writing debut of Boise Esquerra, working from a story idea by Carlos Cisco. Esquerra seems unsure of what to do, throwing in a number of different plot elements that sit uncomfortably alongside each other like family members who despise one another respectfully attending a funeral service together. There are glances, some shuffling, but no outbursts. The whole thing just feels awkward though, and everyone is relieved when it’s over.

The cast doesn’t help. There are other main people involved, but it mostly rests of the shoulders of Josh Lucas. As much as I don’t mind Lucas, he seems to have built his career on accepting every role handed to him by an agent who hates him. The fact that he cannot do anything to help make this a more bearable film is perhaps a testament to why he has never hit any dizzying heights. He is generally capable, if not overly charismatic, but this is a performance as weak as the script. It’s as if he got to the location and fully realised what film he was making. Fernanda Urrejola plays his wife, she is also not very good (hampered by the script treating her even worse), there are a couple of so-so younger actors as their children, and the only other person I want to namecheck is Julio Cesar Cedillo, the one bright spot in the film, playing a man already on the rig and already well aware of the uncanny abilities of a shark that won’t let people get back to the mainland.

There’s nothing more to say. This has a poor opening sequence, something trying to be tense and atmospheric that fails completely, a dull middle section, full of laughably cliché moments, and a finale that I wanted over and done with as quickly as possible, because I just wanted the thing to end. It makes the mistake of treating the sillier plot elements with seriousness and treating the serious elements with an overdone earnestness that simply doesn’t work. AND the shark is disappointing, not bad enough to be hilarious and not good enough to be impressive and memorable. Others might be more forgiving of this, especially when compared to the hundreds of dire shark movies out there, but this should have been much better than it is. It had the potential to be decent, which makes the disappointing end result all the more infuriating.

3/10

Wednesday, 28 June 2023

Prime Time: Rocky (1976)

It is interesting to rewatch Rocky for the first time in decades and consider a number of things you might have forgotten. It’s also equally interesting to even contemplate reviewing it in the 21st century. I mean . . . who needs another review of Rocky at this point? Nobody. But here I am anyway.

The story of a boxer (Rocky Marciano AKA The Italian Stallion, played by Sylvester Stallone) who seems to have missed any shot at glory, Rocky is a boxing film that features a surprisingly small amount of boxing. It’s crucial to the tale, and to the character, but this is just as much a character study as it is a rousing sports movie.

While watching Rocky this time around, I really couldn’t be certain that I had ever actually watched the whole film before. I would have been very young when first checking it out, and it isn’t as simplistic, or as focused on the training and fights, as some of the later movies in the series. It’s now impossible for me to know if I had ever watched the whole thing, however, because Rocky is a massive part of pop culture. You know how Stallone speaks. You know the main theme (music by Bill Conti). You know that a battered and tired Rocky shouts “Adriaaaaaaaaan” when he wants his partner beside him at the end of a fight. These are all things that are locked in to my brain, just as some of the main supporting players are.

The story of Stallone holding out to get a deal in which he could star in the film he wrote for himself is the stuff of legend nowadays, a modern Hollywood fairytale in sync with the film itself, but can you remember who actually directed this? It was John G. Avildsen (who would also strike big with The Karate Kid, but seems destined to be overshadowed by the iconic characters he placed onscreen in professional fights).

Stallone is excellent in the lead role, although (and it seems weird to say this) it’s strange to see him looking much closer to someone with a normal physique than the super-ripped and muscular form he started to build from the 1980s all the way through to now. He definitely hits the perfect note here though, a fighter in the ring who just wants life outside the ring to be a bit better for himself and everyone he knows. Talia Shire is very sweet as the super-shy Adrian, while Burt Young is alternately amusing and annoying as her insensitive brother, Paulie. Burgess Meredith is great fun as Mickey, the trainer who dismisses Rocky until he gets his unexpected chance at the big time, and Carl Weathers is brilliant as Apollo Creed, the boxer supplying that chance. Unlike so many other opponents in the series, Apollo isn’t depicted as a big villain, and the series would benefit enormously from this decision. There are also good little moments for Joe Spinell (as a local crime boss who employs Rocky as a debt collector) and Tony Burton (as Apollo’s corner man/assistant).

I realise that I have spent all of this time telling you plenty that you already know. Like myself, most people have either seen this film or know enough about it to feel like they have seen it. There are still some surprises to be savoured though, especially if you haven’t checked this out in years, and the film wins viewers over with little details and sweet moments that lay the foundation for the hugely successful franchise it would become. This isn’t perfect, far from it, and anyone seeking something in line with the more formulaic sports movies that are so often described as “Rocky mixed with [insert sport here]” may be disappointed, but it’s full of heart, and often full of an innocence that you only truly appreciate when you realise that it’s the vital ingredient missing from some of the mis-steps in the later instalments.

Maybe not a knockout, but it still manages to stand upright against the barrage of jabs that may come from a modern critique.

8/10

Tuesday, 27 June 2023

Wolf Manor AKA Scream Of The Wolf (2022)

It has certainly been interesting to watch the career of Dominic Brunt, an affable man and a very likeable presence onscreen (arguably STILL most famous for his ongoing role in Emmerdale). He made his love for horror clear quite some time ago, and has since been working hard to deliver the kind of films that I assume he enjoys watching. Sadly, I have yet to see any of his other directorial features. Wolf Manor, while not awful, doesn’t make me want to rush through the rest of his filmography. Now known in most places as Scream Of The Wolf, I will refer to it all through this review as Wolf Manor as that is the much better title for it.

There’s a low-budget British horror movie being made, with the cast and crew trying their best to get all of the footage they need while on location. That location is a house in the middle of nowhere, the kind of place where locals in the nearest pub will warn you not to go out too late at night, and certainly not to stray from the main paths. The reason for their wariness is obvious, and it isn’t long until we start seeing a werewolf on the prowl.

Brunt isn’t too bad behind the camera, despite his relatively limited resources and some lighting levels that are too low, either to hide some of the effects or simply because they thought it would be more intriguing and atmospheric, but he’s hampered by the script. Writers Joel Ferrari and Pete Wild manage to make one character stand out, but spend the rest of their time shoehorning in references and gags for fans of lycanthropic movies, and those who know the pitfalls of low-budget movie-making, to enjoy. That’s all well and good, but it’s no substitute for proper dialogue and plot development. The best thing the film does, arguably, is a post-credit sequence that serves up a homage to the classic werewolf movies better than anything that preceded it.

The cast are all fine, but few people get to make much of an impression. The notable exception is James Fleet, the star of the film, and the star of the film-within-the-film. Fleet plays an actor who knows that he’s not working with the best material, but still approaches it with what he deems the proper and professional approach. He occasionally needs more time and space than everyone else, but he’s not working on a movie production that can allow him that freedom. Everyone around him just wants him to put his fake vampire fangs in and get the shots in the can. While everyone else does perfectly well in their roles, they all feel like they are there to take their time being terrorised by the werewolf. Which wouldn’t be so bad if there were more memorable moments of werewolf carnage, but many moments are undermined by either the lighting or editing, unfortunately.

Many people will watch this and feel I have been a bit harsh. It’s certainly a film aiming to be FUN, first and foremost, and I applaud that. The relatively short runtime helps. I think it just gets to about 70 minutes before those credits run, and then you have that post-credit sequence to enjoy. There are also a couple of fun kills, and a decent final scene. It’s just a shame that the script couldn’t have been handed to someone else for a bit of an overhaul, with a focus on fleshing out the main characters and making the references less obvious and clunky.

4/10

Monday, 26 June 2023

Mubi Monday: God's Own Country (2017)

The easiest way to describe God’s Own Country is to label it Brokeback Yorkshire Moors. It is a tale of repression and frustration in a lonely and uncomfortable natural environment, but it’s also something that explores a very British resignation to accepting the status quo, the notion of family ties that keep you firmly rooted in one place, and a small serving of xenophobia.

Josh O’Connor plays Johnny Saxby, a young man who spends his days doing a lot of work on the family farm, where he lives with his stern father (Ian Hart) and his grandmother (Gemma Jones). With very little else to occupy his time, Johnny spends most evenings getting blind drunk at the nearest pub. He sometimes manages to make time for a quick sexual encounter with another man, but the focus is on getting it done quickly before anyone notices. When the farm takes on hired help for a week or so (a Romanian migrant worker named Gheorghe, played by Alec Secareanu), Johnny has someone to take his resentment out on, but also someone who can keep him company as they share time together with nobody else nearby.

Written and directed by Francis Lee, making his feature debut after serving up a few shorts (and having worked as a jobbing actor for a couple of decades before those), God’s Own Country is a slow and deliberate study of someone trying to spend time ignoring their own feelings, despite being on their own most of the time. Soundtracked by animal noises and the near-constant wind blowing over the fields, it is a film highlighting how people can acclimatize to their situation so well that they then struggle to deal with parts of themselves that seem incompatible.

While the cast all do good work (Jones and Hart both doing their usual excellent work, Secareanu holds his own impressively as a relative newcomer on the scene), the star of the show is O’Connor, working hard to show the vulnerability and pain in a character who spends some time being as unpleasant as possible to those around him: lashing out because they’re there, and he feels trapped.

Although it isn’t unrelentingly gloomy, this is a bleak tale that only gives viewers a very occasional sense of hope. That is in line with how the main characters may see their lives, all clouds and fleeting moments of sunshine, but Lee tries hard to reward viewers who sit through so much misery. Whether it’s the saving of a weak newborn animal or the potential repairing of a sorely-damaged family unit, there are scenes here that do just enough to remind us that small acts can be hugely rewarding, and that one small change can make a massive difference to someone who has only ever known a constant timetable they thought they would be enslaved to forever.

Sometimes painful to watch, sometimes frustrating, God’s Own Country is also sometimes (just sometimes) uplifting. And it is always moving and engrossing. Highly recommended.

8/10

Sunday, 25 June 2023

Netflix And Chill: Extraction 2 (2023)

If you have heard about Extraction 2 then you have heard about the impressive action sequence near the start of the movie that plays out for just over 20 minutes. It's an impressive spectacle, despite containing at least 50 hidden edits (according to director Sam Hargrave in an article published online by Variety just a few days ago), but one impressive spectacle doesn't necessarily make a movie a complete success.

Although we saw him looking quite close to death at the end of the first film, Chris Hemsworth returns in the role of Tyler Rake. As the title may already have made you aware, he is asked to undertake a mission that requires him to extract someone from hostile territory. This time he is trying to save a family, which puts him in the cross-hairs of two very powerful and dangerous brothers (Zurab Radiani, played by Tornike Gogrichiani, and Davit Radiani, played by Tornike Bziava). At least he's being helped by Nik Khan (Golshifteh Farahani) and Yaz Khan (Adam Bessa), but their plans may be scuppered by the scheming of one of the misguided children being extracted (Sandro, played by Andro Japaridze).

With every main player returning to their role, including Joe Russo at the writing desk, Extraction 2 feels very much like something made by people who enjoyed working together on the first film and wanted to push themselves a bit further this time around. There are more complex sequences, there's a bigger scale to some of the set-pieces, and Hemsworth somehow looks to have added more muscles on to his writhing mass of muscles. It is, in some ways, a bit better than the first film, but it's also inherently more ridiculous and unbelievable, and becomes more and more removed from anything close to reality as it hurtles towards the finish line.

Hemsworth is good enough in the lead role, certainly convincing in the physical side of his performance, and both Farahani and Bessa work well enough alongside him. Nobody is giving their best performance, but this is Extraction 2, a film in which the focus is on the punches and gunshots ahead of any actual characterisation. Both Gogrichiani and Bziava are good villains, although one gets more screentime than the other, and Tinatin Dalakshvili does a good job of being a strong mother finding even more reserves of courage as she and her children are shepherded to what she hopes will be a much safer life for them all. Japaridze is a bit annoying in his role, but does what is asked of him, and his younger sister is portrayed by both Mariami and Marta Kovziashvili (twins who both do just fine in the role). It's also worth mentioning Daniel Bernhardt, a recognisable cinema "heavy" who here plays a . . . cinema "heavy", and plays him well.

This isn't a film you will watch to see commentary on society or human nature (although there is some clunky backstory here that shows why Rake is so determined to successfully complete his mission, and what big mistake he made in his past that he is trying to make up for), but it's a fun time for fans of action. This is the film to watch when you want to see Chris Hemsworth have his arm set on fire and then extinguish the flames with the force of him repeatedly punching other people around him. If that sounds like a treat, and it definitely is, then this is well worth a couple of hours of your time.

7/10