What have you watched recently? 3D!

'Breakdown'

Boring, middle aged, Bostonians Jeff (Kurt Russel) and his wife Amy (Kathleen Quinlan) are trekking across what appears to be Utah or Arizona on their way to San Diego to start a new life, when they nearly hit another vehicle on a lonely road. At a truck stop, later, Jeff has a confrontation with the man who was in the other vehicle and the couple's day goes rapidly downhill from there.

'Breakdown' is a perfectly serviceable 90's thriller, that's fairly efficient and a relatively suspenseful ride that's helped greatly by having Russell involved in the lead role. But he's no Snake Plisken here. Rather he's Joe Everyman complete with American middle management uniform of smart casual pastel polo t-shirt and chinos. He's as much out of place in his rural surroundings as he is in the set of circumstances he finds himself thrust into. But Russell lends a certain believability to Jeff, albeit in a firmly Hollywood way, as he steps up and does what needs to be done.

Russell is ably supported by Quinlan who does OK with what she has, and J.T. Walsh who slots, professionally, into another well handled part that was to be one of his final roles. The tension remains very tight throughout and even if it kind of gets a bit silly at its climax, as a lot of these films are wont to do, it's never less than decent entertainment.

7/10



'And Soon the Darkness'

A low budget British thriller from 1970 starring Pamela Franklin and Michele Dotrice (before she became Mrs. Frank Spencer) as two English nurses on a cycling holiday in Northern France where they find themselves briefly pursued by a stranger on a Lambretta. When the stranger passes them by they pause to sunbathe on the side of the road where they have a brief and instantly regrettable spat. Shortly afterward one of the girls disappears, leaving the other to try and find out what happened to her.

'And Soon the Darkness' benefits in no small way from having a certain tense feeling of being a foreigner in a strange country, although France is hardly that "strange". It's populated with characters that are slightly off kilter and there is a genuinely disturbing feeling throughout. One where the audience is invited to distrust everyone. It's a simple enough story, though, played straight and its conclusion is rather obvious. It's not a film that will blow anyone's mind and it offers little more than its atmosphere, when all things are considered. But it remains comparatively rewarding.

7/10

Ingrid Goes West

Very enjoyable comedy drama about a young woman who gets lost in the world of Instagram and online influencers. Stars Ice T's youngfella and one of the Olsens and Aubrey Plaza. takes a good point and laugh at much of Hispster online influencer culture but also makes some more profound statements too.

8/10

Skin

Drama centered around the rehabilitation of a middle American White supremacist Skinhead.

Not great but watchable in these times of scarcity.

On screen It looks good but the film just lost its momentum for me very early on and just felt boring and directionless. The film relies heavily on the fact that its subject matter is interesting regardless and this kind of keeps it just afloat, but the story itself is a bit pedestrian. I felt the characters were unrealistic in that the Skinheads were mostly irredeemably bad and very one dimensional.

If you like tattoos then you might enjoy it . They feature heavily.

6/10

"55 Days at Peking" (1963)



Watched on YouTube over two nights. I would have seen it before, decades ago, but had largely forgotten the story.



A star studded cast including David Niven, Ava Gardner, Charlton Heston and John Ireland.


Official representatives of the big powers (UK, USA, Japan, Germany etc.) find themselves under siege in their legations during the Boxer Rebellion which swept through China between 1899 and 1901. The big powers were engaged in carving up China in much the same way as had been done in Africa and the Chinese Empress used the Boxers as a proxy force to try and drive the foreigners out of China.

It's not a bad movie and after watching it one can see why the Chinese are still paranoid about foreign powers. 5/10

From my own collection on consecutive evenings "The Bourne Trilogy" with the first "The Bourne Identity" being the best. 10/10.

Over the last two nights the original "Bourne Identity" mini-series from 1988 starring Richard Chamberlain and Jaclyn Smith (Charlies Angels) - a totally different movie compared to the Matt Damon ones but watchable if you're not expecting the pace of the latter. Apparently, the mini-series sticks rigidly to the Robert Ludlum novel but not having read it I can't comment. The mini-series is available on YouTube. 7/10.

I'll be picking off the other two Bourne movies on DVD over the coming evenings.

homerun_homer wrote: »

The actress is currently 20, so say this was filmed a year or two ago, she wasn't that much older than her character.

By contrast,I was watching Map of Tiny Perfect Things last night. Main actress Kathryn Newton plays a teenager. She's 24 in real life. She wouldn't even pass as a 17 year old in the film . Looks more like 15.

Really enjoyable film though. It is a bit teenagey romance territory. But it's an emotional one.

glasso wrote: »

Did you catch the ads on Colombian RTE yourself whilst slurping an Ajiaco?

At the start of the film it did the usual "based on a true story" spiel.

I saw it in in a Bogotá cinema actually.

I didn't remember that part, but checking it now (It's on Youtube- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SI9c2d_qtk), I see that it did include that. But it used the far looser phrase "inspirada por hechos reales" (Inspired by true events).

homerun_homer wrote: »

The actress is currently 20, so say this was filmed a year or two ago, she wasn't that much older than her character.

That's the strange thing. She looks older than the other kids. One of the few times they cast a young actress as a teenager and it would've been more believable casting a young looking 20 something, like Kathryn Newton as mentioned.

The art of self defense

Not really sure what to make of this. Probably because the jury is out for me on Jesse Eisenberg. The movie is a black comedy on masculinity in the modern world. Guy gets beaten up and decides to take up karate on the back of it. In taking lessons he learns to stand up for himself leading him on a journey of self realisation. It is a bit patchy overall. 6/10

Office Space

Long time since I saw this. It's still brilliant. 9/10

Natural Born Killers

I'm going through some films in Tommy Lee Jones's filmography which brought me to this film. I felt like my brain was on fire for two hours. I can tolerate a lot of different film making styles but the unrelenting onslaught of frenzy and hyperactivity was too much for me.

There is some interesting albeit not very subtle commentary about the media's exploitation of true crime. And Juliette Lewis's character's backstory being told using the device of a faux sitcom is obviously curious in context of WandaVision.

The core concept of a psychologically damaged couple on a murderous rampage through rural America could be told in an infinite variety of ways and styles, but this particular movie is one I don't think I could ever tolerate watching again.

That being said, it seems to hugely depend on personal tastes. This is illustrated by its Wikipedia page that shows it appears on some critics' best of 1994 and also some other critics' worst of 1994.

Here it had the notoriety of bring banned. And a very strict ban. Not even sure when it was lifted but they had lifted the ban on other films like Exorcist long before. Also since it had Tarantino and Oliver Stone's names attached, it was likely a film people didn't want to admit disliking.
I remember TV3 tried to show it but had to pull it. Found this article about that from 2000
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/tv-drops-film-after-threat-of-legal-action-1.238977

I also remember Channel 4 showing it around the same time and we could watch it then if we wanted.

I've never seen it though

CastorTroy wrote: »

Here it had the notoriety of bring banned. And a very strict ban. Not even sure when it was lifted

It couldn't have lasted that long cos I remember seeing it on video in the mid 90's and being mightily disappointed.

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar
I thought this would be trash but it was great fun. I love stupid comedies and this is very stupid, in a purposeful and good way.

3.5/5

The Conversation
Coppola's film with Gene Hackman from 1974 was on BBC iplayer so I stuck it on and really enjoyed it. Hackman is very much underplaying the role, possibly the shyest he's ever been on screen and it serves to the performance. A young Harrison Ford pops up in a rare darker, and mysterious role which I liked to see. Highly recommend.

4.5/5

Minari
I loved this film. The child actor steals the show.

4.5/5

Wildlife
This is a great little drama by Paul Dano, written by him and Zoe Kazan. I found it a very sad watch just in seeing a family begin to disintegrate while the only child in the family has this failing optimism that things will get back to normal. Newcomer Ed Oxenbould is perfect find for that role. This is a film that lingered with me.

4/5

French Connection II
I always remembered seeing Empire back in my teenage days given both these films 5/5 so I was looking forward to seeing how the sequel held up to the first, but I found it disappointing. Popeye's character doesn't age well with time.

2.5/5

The Warriors
I've long meant to watch this movie, and while it doesn't quite live up to the imagery I've seen throughout the years of painted faces, gangs with baseball bats and muscles looking for a fight, it was still a good entertaining B-movie. The set up is my perfect kind of Friday night movie plot. The acting is wooden, but in a way that is stylistic when seen nowadays, the action is ropey and is what let me down. I looked it up afterwards and it was made and released within a year of being green-lit so I think that gives it a bit of a pass for that achievement for a 70s film.

3.5/5

Class Rank
Enjoyable, but I expected something akin to Election so maybe my standards were too high.

3/5

'Stalker'

Andrei Tarkovsky's very loose adaptation of Boris Strugatsky's novel 'Roadside Picnic' is, today, hailed as a classic amongst certain quarters but I came away from it with mixed feelings I have to say. The same "mixed feelings" as was the original critical reaction to it when it first appeared in 1979. The story, what little of it there is, concerns a man, the "Stalker", who acts as a paid guide for two enlightenment seekers, the "Professor" and the "writer", as they traverse The Zone, an exclusion area that is the site of a meteor that crashed to earth over 20 years previously and has altered the natural landscape (plants have no scent, geography is fluid) and, seemingly, made it uninhabitable for humans. However, in The Zone there is a building with a room that will grant anyone who walks into it their innermost desire. But this may come with a hefty price.

'Stalker' is a unique film, unlike anything that was done before, although has been copied to a certain degree in the 40 odd years since it was made, most notably in 'Annihilation' from 2018, which I actually consider to be a much better film over all. But, unlike 'Annihilation', Tarkovsky's film demands the viewer's own interpretation on what the meaning of the film is and so wide open to cinematic exegesis it is that ultimately it renders the film without any real coherent point. This isn't a bad thing in itself, films don't necessarily have to have a point, clear or otherwise. But for a piece that runs at over two hours and forty minutes it ends up a somewhat gruelling journey to nowhere in particular.

And 'Stalker' is a slow film...molasses slow. It takes a long time to do much of anything at all. But, in saying that, it's not dull and the first hour or so is incredibly intriguing. It's the middle section that gets bogged down, and coupled with the relatively unsatisfying finale, the whole thing can leave the viewer wondering just what it was they sat down to watch. But maybe, in the end, that is exactly what Tarkovsky wanted.

However, where 'Stalker' completely succeeds is in its 1.66:1 cinematography which is never anything less than an captivating sight, even if I do consider the stylistic choice of shooting the bookend sequences in sepia a poor one. But the fantastic vistas - it was mostly shot in Estonia - imbue the film with an otherworldly feeling that helps to transport the viewer to another place despite the fact that everything was shot in real world locations. Simple scenes of mostly empty fields broken up here and there with the odd rusted vehicle or an strangely angled telegraph pole that the land is gradually reclaiming does wonders for the film's atmosphere. An atmosphere that's shrouded in a deep, deep, gloom. No matter what part of 'Stalker' is on the screen, its visuals create the impression that this world is a dark and depressing one with many places that have been abandoned by man, both in The Zone and outside of it. The opening and part of the closing sections, shot in the sepia I mentioned, portray a very rough life for the protagonist and his family. In contrast the scenes inside The Zone, shot in colour, are disturbingly desolate while at the same time very beautiful in parts. Regardless of that, the world of 'Stalker' is not one where any rational being would want to live.

The soundtrack, too, is remarkably complimentary and works well in helping the viewer into the film, while remaining as sparse as it is unobtrusive. Eduard Artemyev uses his instruments in such a fashion that his subtle notes crawl in the viewer's subconscious adding greatly to the general unease of what we're looking at.

Acting wise, 'Stalker' is mostly low key, but with some highly charged moments. Some of the monologues as well as the poetry let it down a bit, but don't distract too much. Although Alisa Freindlich's spoken to the camera moments feel quite stagey and ill fitting. But everyone plays their part with convincing enthusiasm, and despite not being a Russian speaker, lines appear to be delivered with feeling even with the heavy use of overdubs which was the order of the day in Russian cinema of the time.

'Stalker' is a strange film and not one to approach lightly. It isn't something to sit down to for relaxation and I can see that many people would be put off by its lack of substance and long running time. But if you're prepared for such "challenging" arthouse fare, you may find it a rewarding experience.


7/10