Latest Posts
Stag
So, anyway, the guys are having a surprise blow-up dolly, drinks, strip-o-gram sort of stag night for their best buddy (John Stockwell), when something goes horribly wrong and things start to unravel badly. That’s the first 25 mins or so, the “interesting” bit, of this otherwise predictable drama whose most notable feature is its cast – Ben Gazzara and Mario Van Peebles in the same film? Strange. Kevin Dillon, William McNamara? Plus a couple of people you might not know (John Henson, Taylor Dane). They certainly don’t feel like a “brothers to the death” stag group of old buddies. But that’s because the cast has been hired for its ability to suggest a … Read more
Girls’ Night
Brenda Blethyn and Julie Walters seem too often to be in women’s weepy territory and are in it again in this slice of gritty Northern life – The Full Monty by way of Shirley Valentine. It’s written by Kay Mellor, who’s almost cornered the market in female northern empowerment on British TV with scripts for Band of Gold and Just Us. The two ladies play factory girls Dawn and Jackie – Dawn (Blethyn) is the mopey victim-type, Jackie (Walters) is her spunky sister-in-law – who take a pause from fetching and carrying (Dawn) and shagging (Jackie) and head off to Las Vegas for a fling when they discover that Dawn has a terminal disease. … Read more
The Best Films I Saw in 2013
Here they are, the best films I saw in 2013. It’s a Top Ten job with the best in no particular order, followed by a list of films that made the top ten at some point in the year, then got bounced. This is not a Best of 2013, let me quickly point out, just the best films I’ve seen this year. So a film everyone else has seen but I haven’t won’t be here (I’ve not seen American Hustle yet, f’rinstance). And there might be stragglers from 2012 in here which I caught up with late. It really is “the best films I have seen this year”. If you’re wondering what to … Read more
17 June 2013-06-17
Out in the UK This Week Hitchcock (Fox, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD) Stuffed to the gunnels with good stuff, Sacha Gervasi’s biopic about Alfred Hitchcock is nevertheless a disappointment. Nothing wrong with the actors – Anthony Hopkins plays the director as a dead-eyed master of deadpan, greedy for everything – women, drink, food – the greed born of despair. Helen Mirren outdoes him as Alma, Hitch’s wife, screen adapter, muse, fixer, assistant director, wise counsel, editor, warrior queen. And around them spin Scarlett Johansson (as Janet Leigh), Jessica Biel (as Vera Miles), Danny Huston (as lush writer Whitfield Cook) and James D’Arcy (a nice turn as mother’s boy Anthony Perkins – Hitchcock knew why he … Read more
The Rainmaker
A half-hearted, second-rate vehicle designed to help carry Matt Damon to stardom, in which he takes his shirt off to play a principled rookie lawyer taking on a big bad medical insurance company. It’s written by John Grisham and while it’s in legal territory Grisham’s thrusting plot dynamics carry it forward. But that wouldn’t have suited the film’s agenda, which is more about Mr D’s career progression than telling a decent story. So as well as legal drama we have rather a lot of sub-plot in which Damon does the amorous hokey-cokey with the winsome Claire Danes, a client worth bending his professional ethics for. Other ornaments in this enjoyably decorated firmament include … Read more
Le Bossu
Daniel Auteuil, Jean Reno, Gerard Depardieu. Where are the barrel-chested Brit equivalents to these beefy action men of the French cinema? But then, Brits are all gay, aren’t we? Take this fine, roistering spectacle, a dashingly charming entertainment in which Auteuil plays a D’Artagnan-like figure, all flashing swords and teeth. The story has been made into a film five times before, and is in the tradition of the Count of Monte Cristo – revenge is its beating heart – as it follows 18th century swordsman the Chevalier de Lagardère (Auteuil) through long patient years, disguise as a hunchback, political intrigue, love from an unexpected quarter, until he finally faces down the dastardly Gonzague (played … Read more
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End
“The star was an alcoholic, the writer was an alcoholic, the producer was an alcoholic and the director was an alcoholic.” I cribbed that line from David Cairns’s loving write-up about this film. It’s a quote from Neil Innes, the musician who worked with Vivian Stanshall in the cult 1960s comedy outfit The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Innes was talking about this film, Stanshall’s elegy to an England whose class-defined distinguishing features were being sandpapered away by social-democratic change. The concept first saw light of day on the Bonzos’ album Let’s Make Up and Be Friendly, then made its way on to BBC DJ John Peel’s radio shows in the 1970s. Essentially a … Read more
Warrior King
Thai martial arts phenomenon Tony Jaa continues his advance into the West with this lively actioner from Prachya Pinkaew, director of the breakthrough Ong-Bak. Originally titled Tom Yung Goong, and also known as The Protector, it’s a two-parter starting off in Thailand, where the atmospherics include shots of young Khan (Jaa) going to school on the back of an elephant and the politics include remarks which westerners might find mildly perplexing (no, we’re not loved the world over), much as you got in Ong-Bak. As for action, the kicking starts about 20 minutes in plus there’s a sequence reminiscent of the speedboat chase in Live and Let Die (ie preposterous yet thrilling). The … Read more
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Is there an actor more forgettable than Paul Walker? Don’t write in, I know he’s not in this second follow-up. Instead Lucas Black has been drafted in to show Mr Walker that he’s not the sine qua non of the franchise. And though he’s marginally less handsome than Walker, Black has the edge when it comes to charisma and he’s got a swagger that goes all the way back to The Wild One. Black is, of course, playing a hot-rodding rebel born to burn rubber in the illegal street-racing face-offs around which F&F is built. Except this time the action includes learning how to drift a car round the bends. And this time … Read more
Hard Candy
Thonggrrrl14 , aka Hayley, agrees to meet Lensman319, aka Jeff, at a local coffee shop. They head back to his pad, the 14-year-old and the mature photographer, where Hayley drugs Jeff, ties him up and prepares to wreak some overdue revenge on behalf of all the other poor girls who have ever been hoodwinked and then abused by someone who should know better. First threatening to castrate him following procedures she learnt online – see how the internet gives but also takes? – she then spends a good amount of time messing with his head, in scenes which should be punctuated with reminders to breathe. Which way is this thriller going to play … Read more
10 June 2013-06-10
Out in the UK this week Zero Dark Thirty (Universal, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD) “A lot of my friends have died trying to do this; I believe I was spared so I could finish the job.” The key line of dialogue, as uttered by Jessica Chastain in the drama about the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden. “Spared” – there’s a faintly biblical colour to that word and it’s deliberate. Mark Boal’s script is not only mechanically extremely good – so many characters are introduced so well in such a short time – but it also deals, with varying degrees of depth, with matters arising from the aftermath of 9/11. The use of torture as … Read more
Smokin’ Aces
For anyone who gets confused between Ben Affleck and Ryan Reynolds, Joe (Narc) Carnahan’s latest feast of bang-bang macho will be very bewildering indeed, since they’re both in it. But then bewilderment seems to be what Smokin’ Aces is about. The hip-feast is built around Jeremy Piven, playing Buddy “Aces” Israel, a Las Vegas showman and stool pigeon whose decision to turn state’s evidence has signed his death warrant. Enter just about everybody else – either part of his close-knit retinue, part of the FBI team trying to protect him, one of the mob out to get him, or one of the other guys who also, confusingly, seem out to get him. Girls too, … Read more
