What have you watched recently? 3D!

Watched Together.

Went into this one blind and it's a fantastic film - criss-crosses every genre going, horror, drama, thriller, comedy, romance.

In summary, spoiler free - a couple move to a new home, but grief interferes with their relationship and it soon becomes clear a "fresh start" isn't the fix.

Fantastic pace, blend of genres, I wouldn't be a big Dave Franco fan but he converted me with this one.

Highly recommend!

Next is Vengeance.

Written by, directed by, and starring Office star BJ Novak.

A bit like Together, this one manages to blend several genres in an incredibly satisfying way.

A man seizes the opportunity to make a career-defining podcast, but gets in way over his head, and discovers a lot about himself in the process.

BJ Novak is terrific - putting aside his great direction and scripting, his performance is excellent, fans of The Office would probably love it - this is Ryan removed from Dunder Mifflin and given a new calling.

Another recommend!

Yeah, I first saw it on the ferry to England when I was way too young. I guess the 18's certificate didn't apply in the middle of the Irish Sea! I'll always remember coming out of the ship's little cinema kinda shellshocked because for 2 hours kid me was in Vietnam. The picture had such a powerful effect on my young mind. I was completely absorbed by it and when I emerged I went to tell my parents about how great it was. My dad originally had the wrong impression of what 'Platoon' was all about and marked it down as something akin to 'The Green Berets'. How wrong he was.

I probably wouldn't show the film to someone as young as I was back then though, regardless of the effect it had on me. The atrocity scenes in the Vietnamese village, reflecting Mai Lai and other war crimes, are hard hitting and the scenes where some soldiers of Taylor's platoon are gang raping a couple of kids are stomach churning, even if everything is implied and nothing explicit is shown.

The casting is an absolute triumph. I can't think of anyone who's out of place and there are a couple of great performances that make you hate a character. McGinley is excellent as Barnes' toady and Reggie Johnson as Junior is someone you'd love to punch. But everybody feels real and it's of great benefit to drawing you into the story.

'Happy-Go-Lucky'

In what could be called one of Mike Leigh's lesser films Sally Hawkins plays Pauline “Poppy” Cross, a permanently upbeat person who floats through life seemingly with an attitude of excessive joviality that can border on lunacy. Nothing seems to get to her, initially at least, and her approach to life is one of intolerable good nature. In the opening scenes, Poppy's bicycle gets stolen and she doesn't even bat an eyelid and her irritating affability is greeted with a dismissive coldness from a book shop assistant. But she doesn't care. It's water off a duck's back, and she moves on and decides to learn to drive because of the loss of her bike.

30 year old Poppy works as a primary school teacher and lives with her flatmate of 10 years and good friend, Zoe (Alexis Zegerman) who is more acerbic and down to earth than her. Her younger sister Suzy (Kate O'Flynn), who is at college, pops around for company and nights out on the town. Life seems relatively charmed, even if there is an underlying air of unease flowing throughout all of the characters in the story.

This unease is most clearly demonstrated by Poppy's driving instructor Scott (Eddie Marsan) who is an aggressive and rather sad individual that has apparently gone down some odd rabbit holes online. Poppy's endless, ebullient, nature grates on Scott despite the fact that he is obviously developing feelings for her and we wait for the moment when something is going to explode, which it eventually does in one of the film's few scenes of actual dramatic tension.

There's also a sense of pending unfulfillment in the character of Poppy's other sister, Helen (Caroline Martin) and her husband Jamie (Oliver Maltman). Helen is pregnant and has chosen a more, shall we say, traditional life. But it's clear that she and Jamie are far from happy despite seemingly having everything they want. Helen advises Poppy to be less childish, but Poppy says that she's happy as she is, which is probably true.

Mike Leigh is one of Britain's greatest filmmakers and he has a long list of excellent work that he can boast of, including 'Naked', 'Secrets & Lies', 'Vera Drake' and 'Life is Sweet'. His kitchen sink modernist realism is always well honed and his characters and dialogue are generally very engaging even when the circumstances his characters face become heightened. But 'Happy-Go-Lucky', I'm sorry to say, left me very cold indeed. This is mostly because Sally Kawkins' character is insufferable for the vast majority of the film and, perhaps that was Leigh's intention. But her constant Norman Wisdom-like upbeat nature isn't charming, it isn't cute and it isn't engaging and I felt myself waiting over the course of two hours for that facade to break down despite the fact that she puts in a genuinely admirable performance. She is the sickly sweet polar opposite of David Thewlis' dangerously nihilistic character of Johnny Fletcher in 'Naked'.

It's only in the school scenes that I felt any kind of warmth towards Poppy because she comes off as an effective teacher and good around her 5 and 6 year old pupils. She's a decent guide that honestly cares for “her” kids.

But perhaps, as someone who has admired most of Leigh's movies and understands that his regular shtick is usually one of earnest (almost depressing) seriousness, it's that I expected the wrong things from 'Happy-Go-Lucky'. However that still wouldn't haven't eliminated the fact that I found Poppy so obnoxious that, to me, the movie felt anchored with a truly exasperating central character that made it an ordeal. An extremely mild ordeal for sure, but an ordeal nonetheless.

5/10

'Bring Her Back'

Seventeen year old Andy (Billy Barratt) and his younger step sister Piper (Sora Wong ) are sent to live in a foster home owned by Laura (Sally Hawkins) after witnessing the death of their father. Laura also fosters a you boy called Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), who seems to be suffering from some form of extreme mental trauma and remains mute. Andy, though, begins to suspect that all is not right in his new foster home and starts to uncover the sinister truth.

'Bring Her Back' is an excellent little Australian horror movie made by Danny and Michael Philippou that doesn't pull its punches. Following up from their previous outing 'Talk To Me', their new movie feels more accomplished and features less annoying and more sympathetic characters. You really do end up feeling for Andy and Piper, who's half blind and can only see in blurry shapes, unlike the incredibly irritating 20 somethings that populated 'Talk To Me'. Even the antagonists of the movie are doing what they do out of the pain of their own lives and not just because they're mindless monsters.

The effects, too, are pretty great and there are numerous moments that are quite cringe inducing. Some of the incidents that fall upon the main characters also feel genuinely painful as well, but 'Bring Her Back' is no gorefest.

However, there is the danger of a certain kind of obscurity creeping into the story as the supernatural elements are quite vague. It can be hard to understand just how the “magic” works in the scenario that's given, but in the end it doesn't really matter all that much and like most horror movies you're either on board or your not.

The acting is uniformly good with Hawkins delivering another great role to add to her long list of them. The kids are good, too, with young Sora Wong doing well despite never having acted in anything before.

'Bring Her Back' isn't particularly scary, but it is off-putting and somewhat disturbing, and delivers a genuine sense of unease throughout.

Recommended.

9/10

Popeye (1980)

Had this on my list for quite a while, coming from both a love of Altman's other movies and a curiosity I always have around high-profile big budget flops. While it actually made money on release it was widely perceived as a disappointment and put Altman's career on hold for a decade.

I enjoyed it but 40+ years on from its release, I can understand why it landed the way it did. It's funny, it's a musical, it looks very interesting but I'm not sure it was ever really going to appeal to kids. The off-key singing, muttered and overlapping dialogue, strange character motivations - all probably made it a hard sell.

There was a good article in a recent Empire magazine about the very troubled set (big budget overruns, mountains of cocaine on set, storms destroying sets, etc) so it's a minor miracle it ever got finished. To my mind, definitely worth watching, especially for the first lead role in a film for Robin Williams.

Serendipity, 2001

A Rom-Com that I’m sure can be viewed as incredibly frustrating but I enjoyed it a lot, two people who had one moment together that they could never forget. Fun central premise, Kate Beckinsale is herself, John Cusack is endlessly charming, John Corbett’s “Lars” is such a delight. A fun, tight addition to the genre, does a good job pulling on the heart strings.

4/5

A Scanner Darkly, 2006

Didn’t know anything about this one and was as enthralled as I was taken aback by the stylisation, I’ve never seen this sort of rotoscoping(?) technique used for an entire movie before. The style lends itself really well to themes of the movie, the weird tics Rory Cochrane’s face is constantly making justify the use of it all on their own. Very interesting film, great sense of surveillance state paranoia.

The best parts of the movie though are the hysterical bickering scenes between the crew. RDJ, Harrelson, and Cochrane in particular are on fire here; the combination of their energy, the content of their conversations, and the animation style had me feeling at points like I was watching a Grand Theft Auto movie.

4.5/5

Brokeback Mountain, 2005

This one killed me. I went to bed that night feeling sad for fictional characters.

Performance of a lifetime from Heath Ledger, far more so than his also great Joker, if not for another all-timer in PSH’s Capote he’d have taken Best Actor for this imo. How he pulled this off at 25 is a mystery to me. Jake Gyllenhaal is no slouch either, in fact the whole cast is operating at ridiculously high levels for this movie. Ledger and Gyllenhaal’s chemistry is excellent, their scenes together on the mountain are so well written, well acted, and incredibly well shot (there is so much good blocking in this movie). The film looks stunning, some of the most gorgeous scenery in cinema.

Just an incredible sadness in watching these men live through a false life for 20 years with only a few moments where they can actually be true to themselves, even then finding it hard in moments to let their guard down. Their final conversation devastates me (only beaten by the final shot).

There’s a lot more to say that I just can’t find the words for on this one, so I’ll just end by re-iterating: How on earth did Crash win Best Picture?

5/5

There Will Be Blood, 2007

From one 2000s great to another.

Figured I’d finally watch this one in the leadup to One Battle After Another.

As far as the general story goes it’s one that’s been done plenty; a man starts from nothing > builds wealth and success > is ultimately ruined by it. What sets There Will Be Blood apart is that every single aspect of this movie is as good as it could possibly be. Fantastic script and direction from PTA, a heart-racing non-stop score from Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood, beautiful imposing camera work from the massive scale wide shots to the claustrophobic closeups….and of course the star of the show, a true powerhouse performance from Daniel Day-Lewis.

There are 5 or 6 scenes from DDL in this movie alone that are better than almost any other performance I’ve ever seen, he is exhilarating. A young 20-something Paul Dano does very well to keep up and their back-and-forth makes for some of the best moments in the movie, tickled to find out he was originally only cast as the character of Paul and it was a late decision to have him play Eli too. A lot of actors could pull off the whole "evangelical healer shyster" I'm sure, but Dano brings such a unique brand of slimy and pathetic to the character that I can't see anyone else pulling off. I’ll be thinking about Daniel Plainview screaming “DRAAAAAINAGE” for a long time.

I only watched this one last night and still need to process some of the finer details, heavy themes of capitalism, greed, religion, changing times, and without looking into it I would have to guess considering this came out in 2007 that there’s a lot of allegory for America’s involvement in Iraq here.

5/5

'The Long Walk'

Stephen King during the 1970's decided to write a number of novels under the name Richard Bachmann in order to try and prove to himself that it was his stories that people were buying into and not just his name, which had taken off in a spectacular way since his novel 'Carrie' was first published in 1974. King even wanted to “load the dice” against his pseudonym in order to really try and tease out the result he so desired. That was to put to bed, as it were, something that had been nagging him about his career so far. Was his easily recognisable name selling his tales...or was it his talent?

Today all of that sounds like an extreme case of imposter syndrome but, under the Bachmann name, King actually produced some of his most well received work. Everyone will, of course, be familiar with 'The Running Man', made even more famous by the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie from 1989. But 'Rage' and 'Roadwork' were also found to be widely agreeable to readers. However, it's probably 'The Long Walk' that remains the best known and best liked book that King published under his nom de plume.

Set during a dystopian future, 'The Long Walk' depicts an America that has gone through severe upheaval and has ended up being ruled by a totalitarian regime. Part of the bread and circuses of this regime is to set 100 young males against each other in a grueling marathon where the last one standing (or walking) can win great wealth and whatever he wants for the rest of his life.

It's a simple story and one that's ripe for the screen, which makes it a wonder that it has never successfully been turned into a movie until now. Even George Romero was approached to direct a version in the 80's, but nothing came of it. In any case, 2025's version is a very well put together attempt at putting Bachmann's...er...King's yarn on “celluloid”.

That's not to say that the story is without some issues, the main one being the absurdity of its central premise which, to be fair, is often the issue with horror, fantasy and sci-fi. There's also a number of technical issues such as the pace that the walkers need to constantly achieve and the sheer length of their endurance without sleep or a toilet break allowance. But none of that really matters at the end of the day because King has crafted a great genre story. All the more remarkable, too, because it was the first novel he ever wrote.

The film version of King's story takes some liberties with it, but none of them were detrimental and, in fact, they help streamline the yarn. The picture is also anchored well by two very good performances by the central leads, Cooper Hoffman as Ray Garraty and David Jonsson as Peter McVries. Two characters that become solid mates through their ordeal, an ordeal they nonetheless volunteered for. But over the movie's 108 minutes that ordeal is often shown graphically to be a rather horrific one. All the walkers face three warnings for failing to keep the pace of 4 miles per hour and death follows any failure to avoid the third warning if the participants drop below the required speed. Punches are not pulled in the movie and because of the strict rules the young men (at least one is a kid) are dispatched with a bullet to the head directly on the road. The extreme violence of each killing inevitably has a chip chip effect upon those that are left walking.

'The Long Walk' is a nasty movie in a number of ways. The situation is horrible, most of the participants aren't particularly people you'd warm to and the whole sense foreboding is uncomfortable. It quite rightly doesn't go into any wider musings on the exactitude of the authoritarian dictatorship that the US is under and most of the movie is contained to the long walk itself with a sensible focus on the characters that have to endure it. It is, perhaps, a little on the short side and the ending doesn't feel right in a number of ways. But overall 'The Long Walk' is a movie that's worth your time.

8/10

Strange comment.

'The Lost Bus'

'The Lost Bus' is a bang average disaster movie from British director Paul Greengrass ('United 93', 'Captain Phillips') that amply portrays a single story from the 2018 California wildfires that destroyed 13,500 homes and killed 85 people. Matthew McConaughey plays a bus driver, Kevin McKay, who is down on his luck and also experiencing some family issues. When huge fires break out across the state, he volunteers to help rescue a group of school kids that need to escape the oncoming flames.

'The Lost Bus' does what it needs to do in that it presents us with some low key heroics in a terrifying scenario and McConaughey handles his part relatively well. The story is mostly engaging, but it goes on way too long and what could have been told in 90 or 100 minutes is stretched out to over 2 hours. The sick son subplot could also have been excised without any damage to the over all movie.

Greengrass's film ends up being neither very good nor very bad, but worth a watch nonetheless. It's a regular, ordinary, picture that you may or may not remember watching in a few years time, but will probably enjoy for what it is.

5/10

'The Road'

John Hillcoat's masterful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's excellent apocalyptic thriller is one of the most depressing movies you'll ever see. It's grim nature is absolutely incessant and even the periods of humanity result in a searing distress. There is nothing happy going on in 'The Road' and the fleeting moments of comfort, if one could call them that, are laced with an inevitable disappointment. This all sounds like a negative criticism, but it isn't. It's actually a ringing endorsement of one of the greatest depictions of the end of humanity that's ever been put on the screen. There are numerous tales about the apocalyptic end of the world and mankind goes out from diseases (Virus 1980), zombies (Night of the Living Dead 1968), animals (The Birds 1963,) the weather (The Day After Tomorrow 2004), and infertility (The Children of Men 2006). But McCarthy's story and, subsequently, Hillcoat's film, offers us one of the most realistic vistas of what it would be like to be amongst of the last of us.

We follow the two main characters who remain nameless, The Man (Viggo Mortensen) and The Boy (Cody Smit-McPhee), as they aimlessly travail south through the eastern United States after an indeterminable global catastrophe on a journey that is filled with danger at every moment. Cannibalism is rife in the world and The Man is haunted by the idea that his son will meet a gruesome end at the hand of desperate individuals who have chosen some form of monstrous way to survive; so much so that he is willing to kill him should the situation arise and we see a number of instances where he is ready to pull the trigger of his revolver which contains a limited number of rounds. As one may suspect, there's little in the way of a joyful resolution to 'The Road' and the viewer's miserable expectations may be fulfilled by the time they reach the end of the movie's 1 hour 41 minutes. But I doubt that anyone is going to sit down to a film like this and anticipate a pleasurable experience. 

Hillcoat covers his movie in gloomy images and nothing is appealing visually. The landscape is dull, nothing works as it should, food is extremely difficult to find and nobody can be trusted in any way. Any lenience is given with an extreme risk to oneself and the wise move is to ultimately become savage lest you be savaged yourself. The protagonists of the story claim to be carrying "the light" and question whether they are the "good guys". But carrying the light comes at a great possible cost, and that cost can be extracted at any moment. The only time the main characters meet anyone else on the road that isn't an immediate danger to them is when they come across a near blind man (Robert Duvall) who is too old and weak to be even bothered to be a threat.

Performance wise, everything hinges on the talents of the two lead characters, and Mortensen and Smit-McPhee deliver the goods. The Boy relies on The Man and is understandably the weaker partner, and Smit-McPhee portrays a frightened, insecure, 10 year old who has known nothing but the world that we are introduced to. The Man, superbly played by Mortensen, desperately tries to do his best by his son in the most unrelenting of circumstances and in the occasional flashbacks to the time before father and son embarked on their odyssey we see that he endeavored to keep some sort of normality in effect while everything collapsed around him, including his wife (Charlize Theron). There's a noble honesty to The Man who tries to instill a certain kind of decency into The Boy, all the while understanding the finite nature to their existence and the fact that he won't be around forever. But what else is there to do?

'The Road' is ultimately about carrying on in the face of overwhelming odds and knowing that those overwhelming odds are eventually going to get the better of you. And while the film does end on a relatively upbeat note, it's unavoidably sour. Certainly it's not a film for everyone and it may indeed prove to be too inflexible in tone for some. But it comes very highly recommended if you're in the right frame of mind.

10/10

As we’re talking about the end of the world, has anyone see the adaptation of Nevil Shute’s, On the Beach.

The actor who played the teacher was in Ozarks, maybe you saw her there. Thats the first time i remember seeing her and she was excellent in that also.

It's a bleak story for sure irrespective of what medium you view it through. But it's a terribly good one too. It's probably not for everyone alright.