What have you watched recently? 3D!

The Big Heat - 1953

I do love a film noir and came across this recently. Directed by Fitz Lang, it tells the story of a cop (Glenn Ford) who goes after the crime syndicate who runs the city.

There's an element of cliché associated with that premise but there's a darkness and violence in this film which which I wouldn't generally associate with films of that era.

It subverts a number of the tropes of that era in how it portrays the lead character and the "femme fatale".

I've included below a link to Scorsese discussing this film - the clip does talk about a few key scenes so spoiler warning.

A tight 90 min film that stuck with me for a while after finishing it.

a nobel & thoughtful president

Hmmmmm

🤔

😛

Pity you have to insert your politics into your reviews, like its a sort of common knowledge or something. You’re a self confessed marxist are you not? An even lower form of political ideology than the one you happily abhor.

Damn real world is stopping me from being able to tell if this is serious.

Play Dirty (2025)

Directed by Shane Black and starring Mark Walhberg as the "Parker" character from the Richard Stark books.

This has been fairly critically panned but I went into it thinking surely it can't be that bad - Shane Black after all and based off a novel so presumably there source material is there from a storytelling perspective.

In a lot of ways the reviews are kind to it. The basic storytelling is awful, we meet characters who quickly vanish, we meet antagonists that seems to exist in a separate world - there are multiple threats - except there aren't because Parker is basically superpowered.

There's no humor or charm in this at all. I found Walhberg incredibly unlikeable in this and wished they had gone with someone different.

It has such a weird tone - the body count is massive and the characters are totally flippant. Parker himself is made out to be sympathetic but sociopathic is probably a more accurate representation.

What's frustrating is that it could have been a lot better - refine the character more, tighten up the plot and the cast of characters but the whole thing just reeks of a paycheck for everyone involved.

Another quick run through of my past 2 weeks:

Pretty Woman, 1990

Another in my line of RomComs I've never seen, it's all about Julia Roberts here, even if the movie had nothing else going on her performance alone is raison d'être.

I found it at points charming, touching, funny, and sometimes uncomfortable (as intended).

4.5/5

One Battle After Another, 2025

I've given more thoughts on this one in its dedicated thread, it's hard to imagine that this won't be my movie of 2025 by year's end….it might even be my movie of the decade so far.

5/5

Casino, 1995

I don’t care if it’s considered “too similar to Goodfellas” to some (also I don’t really think it is), I’d watch a million DeNiro/Pesci gangster movies. I’d put this somewhere in the middle of my Scorsese movie rankings, which is to say it’s excellent.

4.5/5

Raising Arizona, 1987

Returning to the Coen Brothers after some time away, certainly not as a grand as some of their other movies but this one’s a lot of fun. I compared the comedy in The Hudsucker Proxy to The Simpsons and I’d say the same for this one, everyone in this movie is a cartoon character. Can fully understand why the Coens couldn’t let go of John Goodman after this, he has so many hysterical moments (the hayseed bank robbery, every extremely long scream, “do they blow up into funny shapes?”).

4/5

Panic Room, 2002

Very different to all the other Fincher movies I’ve seen, a much smaller and more singular story. Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart are really great together, the movie has boatloads of tension and crafts a real nightmare scenario for the main characters. At just under 2 hours the premise never wears thin either. Platonic ideal thriller.

4/5

Feel like I need to watch something bad to recalibrate 😆

Good call on Casino. DeNiro and Pesci just work so well together.

That is what annoyed me about Alto Knights where DeNiro plays the two leading roles: the whole way through I was thinking 'why didn't you just get Pesci to play the slightly unhinged, violent character, you idiots!'.

The producers had an open goal there and they skyballed it.

Day of the Fight - 1951 - Stanley Kubrick Short

This is Kubricks first short film, and follows a boxer waiting for his fight to start.

Quite interesting to see the early work of someone who would go on to have such an accomplished career.

The story is basic but visually I found it quite striking, and well worth a watch.

The French Connection, 1971

I'm a huge huge huge fan of The Wire and watching The French Connection for the first time all I could think about was how much of an inspiration this clearly was for it. The documentary filming style, the tone and themes, the sparse use of music, all the way down to the protagonist being a drunk Irish-American sex pest named Jimmy with "smartest guy in every room" delusions of grandeur.

The location shooting in this is astounding, the scenes in France (especially on the coast) are so serene, everything in New York feels so real (and from reading the IMDB page maybe too much of it was real! 😆).

The way the chase scenes are shot is breathtaking especially the Subway chase with Charnier, following him almost exclusively through quick glimpses of his umbrella through the crowds… and again to liken it to The Wire each has a big cat and mouse chase scene that climaxes with the antagonist coming out on top and acknowledging the police for the first time like so:

When the movie started I fell into thinking it was just going to be a great buddy cop sort of movie, but the character of Popeye and Hackmann's phenomenal performance take this down a very different path. The abrupt ending stunned me, as did the choice to end with that horror movie-esque composition.

5/5

The Irishman (2019)

My memory of watching this originally was being distracted by the age of the actors, the CGI and the length. All of those things still apply on a rewatch but second time around I cared a lot less about them.

Knowing how the story ended, and where the characters would end up, I could appreciate the foreshadowing and the small moments that would have passed me by on the initial watch. There's a small moment in the bowling alley where Russell advises Sheeran to keep his family close, and Sheeran takes it for granted.

The infamous kerb scene is different second time around, as you think about the daughter and how she sees her father in that moment, and how the implications of that moment would carry on. Equally, the silent look she gives her father when Hoffa disappears, how she just knows, and how he knows she knows.

There's subtlety in the performances too, more restraint from Pacino as Hoffa at times, and quiet shared moments with Sheeran that are filled with a sense of foreboding on rewatch, as you know how it will all play out. Pesci is excellent, and there's so much in those subtle conversations with Russell and Sheeran, little moments like Sheeran stuttering when he talks about killing.

The ending of the film is so strong, and the matter of fact conversation he has with the detectives, the people in the funeral home and his own daughter really bring home the real horror of Sheeran's actions and the pain and suffering he caused.

There are certain times when you watch something back, and then you see things you missed first time around, and I'm really glad I went back to this one.

'The Thursday Murder Club'

A group of OAPs in an overly elaborate retirement home called Cooper's Chase meet every Thursday to solve cold cases. But when one of the owners of the old folks home is murdered they have a current case to solve which energises all their little grey cells.

Based on Richard Osman's best seller, Chris Columbus' Netflix movie version is the very definition of twee. It's watchable in a Sunday afternoon way, where you aren't really invested all that much in what's going on but happy enough to have it on nonetheless. However it isn't something that going to be setting anybody's TV alight, but I suppose that a film about a bunch of septuagenarians solving a crime wouldn't, would it?

It boasts a very competent cast and Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan and Celia Imrie (who solves everything with cake) each handle their OAP characters with great charm, even if Brosnan's wandering accent can be somewhat off-putting. Other elderly support comes from Paul Freeman and a melancholic turn from Jonathan Pryce as an Alzheimers sufferer who is also the husband of Mirren's character.

The younger crew aren't particularly interesting and it's only Daniel Mays that offers any kind of humour amongst them, even if that humour isn't terribly funny. But they serve their purpose well enough. It's just that they are very much overshadowed by Mirren and Co. who, inevitably I suppose, get all the most amusing lines.

However, the main problem with 'The Thursday Murder Club' is that it is overlong and at nearly two hours it can be a little bit of a slog in parts. It's certainly not a bad film by any means, it's just a little ineffectual and, perhaps, maybe suited to a more elderly audience. 'The Thursday Murder Club', indeed, may end up being shown in retirement homes up and down the country on DVD for some years to come.

5/10

'Raiders of the Lost Ark'

There's one truly great movie in the Indiana Jones franchise and that's obviously ' ̶I̶̶̶n̶̶̶d̶̶̶i̶̶̶a̶̶̶n̶̶̶a̶̶̶ ̶J̶̶̶o̶̶̶n̶̶̶e̶̶̶s̶̶̶ ̶a̶̶̶n̶̶̶d̶̶̶ ̶t̶̶̶h̶̶̶e̶̶̶ ̶K̶̶̶i̶̶̶n̶̶̶g̶̶̶d̶̶̶o̶̶̶m̶̶̶ ̶o̶̶̶f̶̶̶ ̶t̶̶̶h̶̶̶e̶̶̶ ̶C̶̶̶r̶̶̶y̶̶̶s̶̶̶t̶̶̶a̶̶̶l̶̶̶ ̶S̶̶̶k̶̶̶u̶̶̶l̶̶̶l̶̶̶'...'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. From the fertile mind of George Lucas, whose expert eye for turning old material into new, the film makers produced in 1981 something that shouldn't have worked but did so to an amazing degree. Taking his cue from the old serials from the 1930's/40's, where kids would go to the pictures every week to catch the latest episode of Universal's 'Flash Gordon' or Republic Picture's 'Zorro Rides Again', Lucas updated the idea to movie length, dropped the fake out cliff-hanger chapter endings and modernised the concept to current cinema standards, while still retaining the catch all excitement and sense of adventure that got punters into the cinema every week in the first place.

Set in 1936, the movie features an intrepid archaeologist that travels the world looking for various treasures, who is tasked with seeking out the lost ark of the covenant, a religious storage chest and relic rumoured to contain the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. He's not the only one looking for it either, and along the way has to battle with others who seek it for their own reasons.

Perfectly cast as Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford creates one of cinema's most iconic heroes. An adventurer always ready for action and costumed in a smelly leather jacket, baggy trousers, trusty bullwhip and a effortlessly cool looking fedora, Jones is a mixture of Hollywood cowboy and H. Rider Haggard's Alan Quartermain. Having enjoyed much success as Han Solo in 'Star Wars' and its sequel 'The Empire Strikes Back', Ford was the logical choice as the lead and with his leading man good looks and somewhat grumpy demeanour he inhabits the role that he was tailor made for. In fact, it's impossible to imagine spending any time contemplating another actor to play the part, although numerous other considerations were entertained, such as Nick Nolte, Jack Nicholson and even David Hasselhoff! Tom Selleck was stand out in the running but, unfortunately for him, he couldn't get out of contract with 'Magnum P.I.', the show that made his name.

Produced by George Lucas, who by 1980 could seemingly do no wrong, 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' was to be directed by another great name in movies, Steven Spielberg, who was looking for a way to redeem himself in the eyes of movie goers after the very disappointing '1941'. On first appearance it was a match made in heaven and it proved to be so. Thrown into the mix, as well, was John Williams, one of cinema's greatest composers, and with a script from Lawrence Kasdan 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' was to become a sublime example of something that comes together beautifully when experts in their field set out to produce something. In hindsight, it's difficult to imagine the movie failing in any way, but in 1981 there would have been few people interested in seeing a picture that was, essentially, an update of a type of entertainment that had died out 40 years earlier.

Ford was to be supported by an excellent cast as well, and the rest of the roles were filled out with a gaggle of unfamiliar faces. Indy's old flame and rekindled love interest is ably handled by Karen Allen who plays Marion Ravenwood, the perfect Indy partner in that she's rugged, self sufficient and not completely unable to get out of a sticky situation herself. Indy's other ally was to be a small, thin, Egyptian called Sallah, but the considerably larger Welsh actor Johnathan Rhys-Davies got the role because Spielberg liked him as Vasco Rodrigues in the 1980 miniseries 'Shogun'. The bad guys are a delicious bunch, featuring the charming but treacherous French archaeologist Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman) and Ronald Lacey as slimy Gestapo agent Arnold Toht, which was a role originally offered to Klaus Kinski, something that could have been either truly fantastic or utterly disastrous.

Spielberg, who was at the top of his game from the mid 70's to the mid 80's (the awful '1941' notwithstanding), directs Raiders at a blistering pace. There's never a single dull moment and the quieter scenes are kept to a minimum, but are just enough to give the audience some breathing space between the chaotic action set pieces. Direction is tight with each shot filling the frame neatly and coupled with John Williams memorable score, 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' is one of those pictures that stays in the mind for a long time afterward. From the opening jungle scene in which Indy hunts down a Peruvian idol to the preposterous finale in the Aegean Sea where the Ark is finally opened, Spielberg crafts one excellent sequence after another and takes the audience on a globe trotting adventure full of excitement.

The special effects were and, for the most part, still are amazing and in numerous places quite gory. There's also a few instances that some people may find disturbing or shocking, especially for a PG rated movie. The stunt work, too, deserves to be praised and there's some genuinely impressive work in that regard, especially in the sequence involving the transport of the Ark by truck in the North African desert which sees veteran stuntman Vic Armstrong dragged behind a Mercedes LG3000. And in 1981, everything was practically achieved. There's no reliance on CGI here.

It's difficult to imagine anyone not enjoying 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' in, at least, some way although I'm sure that those people exist out there somewhere. But for most audiences the movie is something special from a period of time where there were so many instant classics made. A superb piece of escapist entertainment that accomplishes everything it sets out to do, it's a 10 out of 10, five star, triple A movie that can hold its head high amongst the great cinematic triumphs.

10/10

and they were bred after five minutes

You should have spend a bit longer breeding them. The little philistines.

😁