What have you watched recently? 3D!

Maine by Matthew Brown with Laia Costa and Thomas Mann
About two hikers on a trail.
There is hardly any dialog in it, quite Beckett in a way
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7316358/

joombo wrote: »

Bad Times at El Royale - 8.5/10 - Brilliant! A quirky crime mystery/drama where four strangers check in to a motel and the twists and turns of the story slowly unfold. The style of the film is right up my street!

Enjoyable yes, but I think you were a bit generous, but we're all different I suppose.

Had a bit of a Tarantino vibe off it?

'The Dead Don't Die'

Jim Jarmusch's attempt to do an American 'Shaun of the Dead' fails miserably to achieve the knowing wit that the British film possessed in spades. It's far too busy being "meta" and concerned with "ironic" dialogue delivery that it misses what made 'Shawn of the Dead' so humorous. It's a shame, because 'The Dead Don't Die' (not to be confused with a 1975 film of the same name) boasts an excellent cast and is stuffed with actors that will be familiar to almost everyone, or anyone that's seen a film in the last 20 years anyway. But the film does nothing with them - especially in the case of Tilda Swinton - and ultimately goes absolutely nowhere. Now, the same can be said for the final destination of 'Shaun of the Dead' too, which was sort of the point of that film. But the journey was also entertaining, which cannot be said for Jarmusch's film.

Set in Centreville, USA, we're told that a series of global events, such as fracking in the Polar regions, has (naturally) brought the dead back to life and (also naturally) they are concerned with ripping the flesh off of the living and scoffing it down and...well, that's it really. There's nothing new here, not that there has to be of course. It's just a zomcom after all. But, its staleness makes the runtime of 1 hour 44 minutes seem very long indeed. Plus, when that's coupled with the endless laconic delivery of the script's lines, it all makes it seem like it's just treading water, until the end credits roll. Few, if any, of the jokes really make a splash and especially eye rolling is the fourth-wall-breaking discussion of the script in the film's last act, where both Bill Murray and Adam Driver just seem so, so, desperate for a laugh. But none of it lands.

Those familiar with zombies will find little satisfaction here, except for the odd nod to the master (Romero) and some decent zombie makeup. There's some head lopping scattered around that's mostly confined to the last reel, but most of the gore is obscured or happens off screen and there's a curious decision made to reduce the splatter to CGI mist, which is just "off" in an R rated film (or 16's this side of the pond). There's also an annoying - perhaps deliberately so - title theme song by some country music singer that gets regular play throughout the film and a message that basically says that humanity deserves its apocalypse, because we're all dicks.

'The Dead Don't Die', like most horror comedies (a wretched subgenre, if ever there was one), just ends up falling between two stools and flatly onto its face. It's not funny enough to be a comedy and not horrific enough to be a horror movie. So, we're left with a load of nothing in the end and wondering what Jim Jarmusch was aiming to achieve here, other than, as said earlier, trying to do an American 'Shaun of the Dead'.

3/10

The Dead Don't Die - I was amazed to see this getting savaged when it was released. Jim Jarmusch? Zombies? Bill Murray, Adam Driver? How could they fuck that up? Surely, every film reviewer must be on crack, or something.

No. Every film reviewer is not on crack, or something. Well, not every single one at least. The Dead Don't Die is quite likely to absolutely bore the arse of 90% of people who watch it. But, yet, I don't know if that wasn't the whole point of it - and while I wouldn't actively recommend it to most people, because they will undoubtedly hate the film’s dry dreariness. I'm not fully convinced that the film is outright bad - in fact, it might actually be kind of good in its own daft way, even if that is mainly in retrospect, as opposed to when you are actually watching it.

The story is very straightforward. Zombies attack an archetypal - quite intentionally archetypal, everything is intentional in this film - American small town, characters react with predictably Jarmuschian levels of deadpan. Everything is very dry and very on-brand. The dialogue is stilted and the lame jokes in the script that don’t land the first time are repeated over and over again - and not to the point where the fact that they’re being endlessly repeated becomes the joke; they’re just repeated inertly, you get to luxuriate in their flatness.

You can never forget that you’re watching a movie that’s winking at you the whole time - and the film is profoundly meta to the point that you’re purposely alienated from any form of genuine investment in the action on-screen by the end of it. So, if people want to bash the movie for being a 100 minute short cure for long term insomnia, they are, in many ways, completely right. If you want to have a rollicking good time, look elsewhere.

But - and now I am going to sound like a complete film-wanker here - maybe, to get something out of it, it has to be appreciated for what it is.

I don’t believe that it was Jarmusch’s intention to to make a straightforwardly entertaining zombie movie and the air of detached flatness that presides over everything is really what the film is all about. He doesn’t care that you are bored - it’s all an exercise in deliberately on the nose social commentary, befitting the history of on the nose social commentary in the genre, which he’s aware of and references time and time again during the film.

The apathy and listlessness displayed by the characters in the film is allegorical for how, as he sees it, there’s nothing to do now to win out against the forces of mindless destruction except to struggle on in vain, until you’re eventually turned into walking worm-feed yourself. The world is fucked according to The Dead Don’t Die and even ironically arch Zombie movies won’t save us. The more I think about it, the more depressing the central message of the movie starts to feel.

I realise that I’m letting the film off the hook here - saying it’s boring and then praising it, kinda, for that. As a piece of entertainment, it really doesn’t work. But, I think it can be admired as being a personal and - once you get past all the surface level irony and meta mucking around - sincere attempt on Jarmusch’s part to use the medium of a silly zombie movie as a canvas to paint a picture about what he thinks of the present day and what ails us. And the prognosis is bleak.

'48 Hrs.'

Classic, or "classic" 1982 action flick from Walter Hill, starring Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy (originally Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor!) and filled with sexism, racism, violence and everything else you could possibly hope for from a cop film of the era.

The reality is, though, is that that's all it really has going for it. The script is rubbish and antagonists are incredibly one note, with a particularly ridiculous turn from James Remar. Everyone else is just background noise, including Frank McRae as a shouty black police Captain (ripped from 'Starsky and Hutch') and a bit - of totty - part from Annette O'Toole, whose entire existence is to give an extra layer to Nolte's gravel voiced stereotype.

The thin script sees Remar play a career criminal/cop killer (plus equally nefarious buddy, Sonny Lindham) busting out of jail and hardened cop (Nolte) has to use a con (Murphy) who knows Remar to hunt him down. The thing is, he only has his services for 48 hours. For what it's worth, it serves its purposes, but its entertainment value is largely drawn from the onscreen chemistry between Nolte and Murphy which, in fairness, were inspired choices. Although their characters, grizzled cop and smart mouthed con, were hardly ground breaking and neither was the racial buddy dynamic, which had been around since Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier. But, it's easy to see why this was Murphy's breakout picture and why he became a hot property in Hollywood during the rest of the decade.

It's sequel, 'Another 48 Hrs.' from 1990, largely repeats the frenemies angle, but replaces the cliched Hollywood crazy killers with a cliched Hollywood biker gang. Unlike the original film, which reaped in a very positive reaction from both critics and audiences, the sequel was largely panned. Although, it was largely the equal of its predecessor in some ways. Maybe critics and audiences were just sick of these types of films by its release date.

5/10

I watched the original Godzilla film this afternoon.

It was a fascinating story, considering the context of Japan at the time. I'm not long back from a trip to Japan so I wanted to learn more about what is a big cultural reference point. The story is great when you think about what the country was recovering from at the time.

It's obviously aged pretty badly but there were some attack scenes that held up. I was amazed by the pace of the film, especially at the beginning. I wouldn't say it's a great film from a technical point of view but that's sixty-five years later. It would be a whole different story if I'd seen it at the time.

Three from YouTube:

"Dead Silence" (1997)
Starring James Garner. A bus-load of deaf schoolgirls are taken hostage by three escaped convicts....A poorly crafted production but it's always nice to see the late, great Jim Rockford. 3/10.

"Rumpole of the Bailey" aka "Rumpole and the Confession of Guilt" (1975)

Based on the writings of John Mortimer and starring Leo McKern.

I had forgotten just how superb this series was and I'm now going to re-watch the entire 44 episodes. 10/10.

"Callan" (1974)

Another forgotten gem. A spin off movie from the earlier TV series - and starring Edward Woodward and Eric Porter.

Callan is a disgraced British Secret Service operative brought back into the organisation for a specific hit which, if successful, will see him reinstated into his old job.

Plenty of action and no CGI. Again, I will probably re-watch the TV series as there's precious little worth watching on Netflix these days. 9/10