Mel Gibson Mad Max Marathon
Mad Max (1979)
The sequel always gets billed as the greatest but IMO this one is the best. Unreal stunts, glorious colours, gritty as Hell, a heap of fantastic characters all over the place, the setting where the world is just teetering on the edge of the societal abyss while the bureaucrats and lawyers shout "plough on lads" is just fantastic satire. Loads of subtle and high octane sequential editing, all the while this work was shot on a shoestring budget. Just top class work. 9/10
Mad Max 2 - The Road Warrior (1981)
Everything has really ploughed into its own arse and society is in full frontal chaos. Bands of survivors close ranks to brutally carve out some sort of existence for their future, but poor auld Max is only looking out for himself. Worldbuilding continuity and production in this thing is brilliant, plus the stunts and editing go to a next level. Once again, like the first, a basically independent produced film so the entire artistical aesthetic to the thing is very well crafted. Only thing for me is that it doesn't have the same level of great character archetypes that were present in the first. 8/10
Mad Max 3 - Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
This one is always billed as the worst of the lot but compared to a lot of Hollywood output these days, this work is fairly enjoyable. Hollywood got involved with this one and the worldbuilding and production design of the sets and everything is really ratcheted up to big budget level. Unfortunately it also got involved with the script and plot to go with it, so what you have is a rehash of everything from characters such as yer man from the sequel who can fly aircraft, to blatantly and ridiculously rehashing the chase scene from the end of the sequel. Interesting, as this film is an early indicator of what Hollywood spews out on the regular these days. But there is lots to enjoy, the nomad kids, the production values, but modern day Hollywood's greasy greedy fingers are all over it too 6/10
Fair be warned, finished Pearl the other day - review coming soon lol - and it was a much different animal. I hated X with a passion but loved Pearl, and I think the latter had a completely different pulse to it. More a story of a psychological break than gory slasher.
I caught Ti West's X on Saturday and was quite impressed by it. I like how it manages to be influenced by certain films while still doing its own thing, that the characters felt like they had more depth than is so often the case, but most of all that, rather than just go along with the "attractive young people have sex, and are then killed in a variety of ways" trope, its writing actually considers the fetishisation by society of youth and youthful sexuality.
I'm looking forward to catching Pearl at some point soon, and hopefully Maxxxine whenever it is released.
Godzilla vs Kong (2021)
Pretty much knew what to expect from this and it's what I got. I found the storyline convoluted and nonsensical and at times I just skipped ahead to the smashy, smashy bits. I did like...
the idea of Kong communicating with sign language. Although Kong listening to the little deaf girl that Godzilla wasn't the enemy was a bit of a stretch alright.
Some lines made me laugh. I liked the battle scenes. If it wasn't for the stupid storyline and the unlikeable main protagonists, it could have been a 7/10 film. I'd give it a 6/10 as it is.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
I was going to watch the Mortal Kombat reboot but decided to look at this first since I'd never seen it. This is really, really bad. That CGI fight at the end...yikes. I think only two of the actors from the first film returned and I can't blame the ones that didn't.
A Good Person 2023
Caught this in the cinema and its quite the emotional drama. Its tackling grief, loss and addiction, not your typical American cinema because it really pulls no punches at all on these topics.
Its brilliance is in the two leads - Florence Pugh is quite the actress, and if this had been released a few months back she may well have won the gong.
Opposite her Morgan Freeman is his usual effortlessly brilliant self commanding the screen as he tends to do. Yet despite his brilliance Pugh still manages to outshine him with the best female performance I have seen in quite some time.
Outstanding film.
When your done saving the world.
Jesse Eisenbergs Diretorial Debut.
He does well. Nice kooky drama about a Mother and son relationship with some interesting tropes and observations slipped in. Good.
Emily the Criminal
Aubrey Plaza stars and is impressive.
Drama about an artist who's struggle to find work due to an assault charge drags her into criminality.
Refreshing and original. I liked it. Aubrey Plaza has great screen presence.
"Make no mistake about it deputy, I'll cut your fu cking head clear off and not give a **** how it reads in the report sheet"
Absolute classic
Great movie. I'm basically in love with Marisa tomei in it, incredible magnetic performance.
My Cousin Vinny (1992)
Never seen this before. I quite liked it. Some funny moments, and Pesci and Tomei are good. Biggest laugh for me was the suit Vinny wears to court when his old one gets damaged.
Knock At The Cabin (2023)
Fairly entertaining M Night Shamamalanaman film. Some very good performances from everybody involved but the story rides too close to seriousness while trying to be fantastical so it gets fairly messy and convoluted, especially towards the end. 6/10
The Whale (2023)
Terrific performance from Brendan Fraser and totally deserved the oscar but one of the most boring films I have ever seen. Everybody else bar his nurse gives a total p!ss poor performance and the whole thing is set in one room, so it doesn't really work, could have cut off 30 minutes and it would have been fairly good. 5/10
The Keep (1983)
Sci-fi Horror shlock set in Romania during World War II directed by Michael Mann. Great cast and fairly entertaining but also seriously shlocky. Some shots and editing are brilliant but the whole thing is seriously stupid and convoluted. Good film to watch while having about 6-8 beers and not taking anything too seriously. 4/10
Andrei Rublev (1966)
Just absolute brilliance from Andrei Tarkovsky. I had never seen this and I was glad I hadn't because the whole thing is just absolute genius. Just fantastic filmmaking and forward pushing work for it's time. 10/10
Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993)
I liked this more than Hot Shots. Charlie Sheen seems like he's having more fun and I got more laughs from this one.
Barbarian (2022)
I enjoyed the first half or so a lot and found it unsettling. It gets sillier as it goes on and I didn't like the ending much. Doesn't make much sense overall but it has its moments. Better than I expected.
Meet me in the Bathroom - 2022
This is a documentary on the New York 2001 rock scene, based on the book by Lizzie Goodman. It focuses on the rise of bands like The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol and LCD Soundsystem.
It's not a "talking heads" documentary (if you pardon the reference), its very much footage from the time.
How you feel about these bands, and the scene in general, will probably determine how much you get from this. It's quite honest, and some of the bands come out of it looking better than others. One thing that struck me was how bad some of the music sounded, some of this was due to live recordings but it doesn't really present the bands themselves in the best of lights - I think if you weren't into these bands before watching this, then the music used in this (with one or two exceptions) won't really sell you on these bands.
There are some very interesting conversations (particularly with Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) on women in music, hype and expectations, the role of MTV and the rise of the internet, and drugs in music. Some of these were explored well, but some could have used more attention. Overall, a decent watch, but not essential.
Hot Shots! (1991)
I haven't seen this film since I was a kid, so watching it again felt a new experience. I don't think it's anywhere near as good as Airplane but there were a few moments that made me laugh. The doctor at the hospital had my favourite lines. I might try the sequel next.
Falling Down (1993)
What an odd fish to (re)watch with the weight of 30 subsequent years of mass-shootings and broiling white supremacist tension in America: I can 100% understand and respect why within that atmosphere, this film might strike some as distasteful, if not outright uncomfortable viewing.
That said, I never got the sense the film's narrative wanted to portray Michael Douglas' "D-Fens" as either sympathetic or misunderstood. That it was a case of that maxim where depiction did not equal endorsement; indeed, it was notable how after many scenes where D-Fens had a violent encounter with somebody, we would quickly cut back to his ex-wife and her growing exasperated terror and panic that her husband was getting closer. Or later, when we met D-Fens' mother and she was a quivering mess, utterly terrified of her son finding out she was in his room. This was a disturbed, violent man whose stroll across LA was not born from social or political ideology - but from being a domestic monster, thinking he was entitled to a homestead he had already burned. Even the credits wouldn't give him a name: to do so might have only given him more dimension or agency than he deserved?
Indeed, if he did have any ideology whatsoever, it was one of churlish entitlement the film's Text would have us condemn, not cheer: the scene at the McDonald's stand-might be the most enduring & iconic, but D-Fens' little snark about "... the customer is always right" personally bristled - as I'd like to think it would anyone who ever worked retail. The customer is not always right; indeed is frequently wrong, and often that trite adage is only wielded by those who think they're entitled to something. D-Fens' rant about floppy burgers remained amusing for sure - relatable even, if I'm honest - but he was surrounded by terrified parents, children, customers, and staff. He demanded special treatment, then threatened violence the moment he was faced with reality.
All that said, this was a Los Angeles where nearly every character D-Fens met was a screaming, obnoxious ásshole who only triggered his violence further. To the extent you could easily pin down the main flaw of the thing, and how some might find it too repulsive now. While D-Fens was, without question, an ambling monster causing chaos and destruction everywhere he went, the script didn't quite manage to temper the idea he was pushed towards aggression as a first response. The people he encountered skirted close to vulgar racial stereotypes in a couple of instances, while others' antagonism was ramped up to such immediate, knee-jerk extremes it felt like establishing an excuse for the inevitable violent backlash. It was all a bit too much of wanting the cake and eating it too.
The hero through all this was clearly meant to be Robert Duvall's cop: a quiet, thoughtful man retiring early out of love for his wife, both of them dealing with a tragic loss in their own way; his capacity for concern clearly acted as a contrast to D-Fens' utter lack of basic human decency or empathy (even if the rationale sometimes had a whiff of the patronising about it). Alongside his younger colleague Det. Torrez, it felt like these two were the only decent souls left inside the police station - and outside. So when Duvall's Det. Prendergast finally let loose, and pushed back against a world that mocked and demeaned him, that was when the movie felt truly cathartic and earned. Not the entitled, monstrous prick blowing up building sites and terrifying adults & children alike.
The Ipcress File (1966) / Funeral in Berlin (1966)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)
60s spy movies all the way for me this weekend. The first 2 are based on Len Deighton novels featuring Michael Caine as sardonic, down-at-heel spy Harry Palmer. Ipcress is mostly set in grimy 60s London, Berlin obviously in Berlin with a bigger budget. Both are a lot of fun, and Caine is excellent in one the roles that made his name. Ipcress goes a bit off the rails towards the end with a Bondian plot device that foreshadows the barmy technobabble of the 3rd film in the series "Billion Dollar Brain" (which I saw years ago).
TSWCIFTC is a different beast, an incredibly twisty John Le Carré tale of double and triple cross with a brief early appearance for his George Smiley character who also features in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Shot in B&W and with a much more serious tone than the Deighton films they seem to depict an older era despite being made the same year as Ipcress. Whereas Caine is inhabiting a London that could vaguely be described as "swinging", Richard Burton's morose spy hangs out in dingy pubs, strip clubs and lodging houses and moves around under a cloud of smog. A brilliant depiction of the brutality of the Cold War.
Cocaine bear
enough said in the title tbh, and based on a true story (stretched to the max obviously). the bear scenes are great, the rest is shocking, but i really think they could have done so much more with this. opportunity missed.
King Richard (2021)
Biopic of Richard Williams, the father of Venus and Serena, centering around their early lives and rise to super stardom. Its a very entertaining and easy watch, perfect for my mood on a Sunday night.
The family were very involved in the production so its very clearly a positive telling of their story, but their career stats and success gives them the allowance to do that!!
Unwelcone
watched it a couple of times story is not great but whoever is responsible for the cinematography on this film has achieved Barry Lyndon level perfection on scenes
well done
Nice recommendation enjoyed this - Manns version is unrelenting and super stylized, too much so. This is really stripped down and actually feels a lot more real to the times of the 1930’s. “Ordinary folks don’t live that well”.
Dillinger
John Milius didn’t direct as many films as he probably should have. Dillinger was his first film as writer/director.
It tells the same story Michael Mann would go on to tell in Public Enemies. Where Public Enemies was a typical forensically detailed Mann film, Dillinger is really loose and ramshackle.
It covers the Dillinger gangs many bank robberies in depression era America and the G-man Melvin Purvis trying to catch them. Warren Oats is great as Dillinger and his gang is made up of Harry Dean Stanton, Geoffrey Lews and a Pre-Jaws Richard Dreyfus.
The tommy gun shoot outs are chaotically violent. It owes a great debt to Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch.
I’d like to see more of Milius’s films being reissued but a lot of them are frustratingly hard to find.
A Man Called Otto.
On the face of it, it's a re-work of Gran Torino but with Tom Hanks. It's lovely.
If '12 Angry Men' is the best film of the 50's, it's followed very closely by 'Bad Day at Black Rock'.
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
An odd film in that the entire narrative's pillar was a moment of racism and anti-Japanese prejudice during WW2 ... yet the entire speaking cast was as white as the driven snow. It possibly spoke to the time this was made in that even as victims, Asian-Americans weren't seen in cinema.
Still, a crackling little thriller with a concept so naturally adaptable, I'm surprised I haven't seen this format more often; other variants of the same idea since its release - or maybe I'm simply forgetting obvious examples?
A film about a moribund community whose population was so riven by paranoia and guilt it would untangle immediately upon the arrival of a single mysterious stranger. The various outsized characters reacting from their own respective corners of guilt, shame, anger, suspicion - or simple bullish pride in their own vulgar, violent actions.
The scene of Spencer Tracey facing down Ernest Borgnine's boorish thug was probably the film's enduring scene (perhaps as much for its goofy karate-chop as anything else), but arriving at that point was a slow drip of tension, harassment and a man slowly deciding to intervene in his own particular way - but only because the town's resting belligerence pushed him towards it. A motivation born less from goodness than irritation towards ássholes bothering you.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2022)
Kindness of spirit is possibly one of the harder tonal registers to achieve, especially in Hollywood for some reason. Maybe too often when tried, the end-result can come across as deeply inauthentic or phony - bordering on downright obnoxious if it's really mishandled. Common human decency being an apparent blindspot so significant within Anglo-American cinema, the only way to achieve it might be through a non-human surrogate: in this instance, that stand-in being a stop-motion shell with a singly googly eye.
There's no logical reason this should have worked as well as it did, but my goodness this was Cosy Cinema; an experience of pure satisfying emotion.
I never saw the shorts upon which the film was based and expanded upon, but this was a triumph of sweetness and friendship; a lovely hug of a movie that while sometimes flavoured with the sadness of life's realities, left me filled with the kind of uplifted joy only matched from watching something similarly humane like the Paddington movies (again, a film whose virtuous heart wasn't actually human, the bear's goodness a catalyst for others' own).
Just like Paddington however, all that sweet essence was buttressed by genuine laugh-out loud moments of perfectly crafted comedy. And because happiness, sadness, laughter and tears often all share the same emotional space, it meant the overall experience was heady - but quite impactful and earnest. There wasn't a single, cynical edge to this whatsoever.
The Driver (1978)
An absolutely bare-bones, minimalist crime thriller to the extent barely any character possessed a name; a film at once thrilling with its muscular and Best In Class car-chases, but also oddly existential and haunted when the chaos stopped and scenes became more dialogue driven. Those car-chases though: it's so trite these days to lament about the pre-CGI days as having a greater tactility, but alongside something like Ronan this was a film whose physicality crunched with every crushed fender, every near-miss while slaloming through traffic, every moment that felt one split second from disaster. The final chase a culmination of this so much, I wondered if they actually filmed in real LA traffic. The roads were too crowded, the extent of the chase too widespread to have all been a controlled environment?
This was also something that felt like a prototype of a Michael Mann feature in certain respects - Heat or Collateral the obvious comparisons: detached, professional criminals floating between mundanity; an obsessed policeman in pursuit, barely tethered to legality themselves; both sides experts in their fields, but with no meaningful connections except with each other; a deeply urban & fluorescent palette, LA bathed in greens and looking like something almost unreal. Just little seeds, small nods but I couldn't help draw the lines between here and those later movies.
The only one caveat and stain on the whole experience had to be Ryan O'Neal. By all accounts, when he didn't speak his performance worked; all those pensive looks through soulful, haunted eyes helped build that mentioned tone of loneliness and isolation within this hidden industry. But the moment he had to speak more than 3 words, the magic was totally lost. While I'm not sure Bruce Dern worked as the amoral cop either; by all accounts a better actor but just felt a bit miscast with that scarecrow physique and Garfunkel hair.
If this had of had a big budget I think it could have been really something as a film. The concepts are outstanding and not far from believable.
Watched a film called Clash on Prime.
It's set in 2013 in Egypt during the protests there. The entire thing takes place in the back of a police van, and the only times we see outside are through the tiny windows or the occasionally open back door. It starts with two American/Egyptian AP journalists being thrown into the back of the van, and as the van moves around through the protests more and more people are locked up with them. Some are Muslim Brotherhood, some are pro Army, some have just been caught up in the chaos, and they go back and forth between fighting with each other, and trying to ensure they all survive the ordeal. The confines of the setting do an amazing job at putting you in the situation, the claustrophobia, the heat, the fear, are all felt. It was probably the subtitles on Prime, which are routinely awful, but the dialogue at times did feel like the weak link, and the novelty of the setting did start to wear thin towards the end. But all in all I'd recommend it.
Crimes of the Future (2022)
I finally made time to watch this and thought it was well worth the wait - a number of reviews had suggested it was a bit of a patchwork of past Cronenberg films, but I enjoyed enjoyed instead as a sort of convergence of various ideas and themes that have informed his previous films. I've long had a soft spot for Videodrome and this feels like a very complementary film to that, sharing as it does not just concerns about sex and human evolution but also the influence of forces acting behind the scenes for their own interests.
Ultimately if you haven't enjoyed any previous Cronenberg films this wouldn't change your mind; for anyone who has enjoyed his work this is an interesting synthesis of themes and interests from previous films.
Watched Hulu's Freak recently. Quite enjoyed it. It wasn't perfect but not a bad modern thriller/horror.
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