Popular Reviews
Normal
After John Wick, Nobody and after Nobody, Normal, all films written by Derek Kolstad and all telling essentially the same story – mess with this seemingly placid dude at your peril. Normal is Bob Odenkirk going around the block one more time with Kolstad – Nobody one and two did good business so why not? But this time Kolstad has Coen brothers ambitions in his broadening out of the landscape and deepening of the characterisation. Though for the most part it is another example of Kolstad as the consummate Hollywood writer – everything has its place and everything has its pace, and a detail dropped in now is surely going to pay off later, … Read more
Epidemic
Towards the end of Lars Von Trier’s second film, Epidemic, a film producer is handed a “finished” screenplay by Von Trier. It is only 12 pages long. “Is that it?” the producer asks, a hint of exasperation flickering across his face. Viewers of Epidemic may feel his pain. To explain: in meta-film-making style, Epidemic is both the story of a doctor (played by Lars Von Trier) going against the wishes of the medical establishment and heading out into the world to fight a deadly epidemic, only to find that he himself is what’s spreading the disease. And it’s the story of the writing of the film itself – how two guys called Lars … Read more
Secret Ceremony
At first sight bizarre, and at second sight even weirder, 1968’s Secret Ceremony is the sort of arthouse thriller that Elizabeth Taylor apparently never made. For Mia Farrow, her co-star, it looks like a warm-up for the following year’s Rosemary’s Baby. Robert Mitchum, yes Robert Mitchum, makes up the third leg of this very wonky stool. Forget Mitchum for the moment. Who are these women, it asks and eventually answers, wrongfooting us most of the way with its story of needy co-dependence in which Taylor plays a woman called Leonora and Farrow plays Cenci (pronounced Chenchee). The women, both dressed in black, meet on the top deck of a London double-decker bus. Cenci … Read more
The State I Am In
Christian Petzold was 40 when he made The State I Am In (Die Innere Sicherheit in the original German) in 2000. Which means he’d have been in his mid-teens and at his most impressionable when the Baader Meinhof and Red Army Faction were at their most active. So-called left-wing terrorists whose main beef was that West Germany wasn’t dealing adequately with its Nazi legacy, the Baader/RAF big moment came in 1977 when they kidnapped and shot the German businessman, politician and former SS officer Hanns Martin Schleyer. Petzold and co-writer/mentor Harun Farocki make two imaginative leaps from this historical starting point. The first suggests what might have happened to two such terrorists not … Read more
Greenland 2: Migration
Greenland 2: Migration follows hot on the heels… no, hang on… comes six years after the first Greenland, which was a thoughtful apocalyptic thriller which somehow seemed to anticipate the Covid outbreak. The second movie has decided to aim for relevance more deliberately. The “Migration” in the title – what could be more of the moment? Starting off in the sanctuary in Greenland where John Garrity (Gerard Butler) and family were heading in the first instalment, it plays a “see how you like it” plot flip on our heroes. First it asks the Garritys if they’d like to share their cramped space with a batch of 50 new arrivals. They’re reluctant. Shortly afterwards the Garritys … Read more
The Father
There’s a very watchable YouTube video in which, playing the publicity game, Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster discuss his most recent film, The Father, hers, The Mauritanian, and in between share a few memories of The Silence of the Lambs, among other things. During the half hour Zoom call Foster asks Hopkins, in so many words, about his “process”, how he approached his character in The Father, what preparation he did. “None… really,” says Hopkins, blowing what’s left of Method acting out of the water with a couple of words. They’re even more impressive once you’ve seen the film, which is not an easy watch, be warned, unless you’re the sort who cheers … Read more
Romanzo Criminale
Translated as “Crime Novel”, this Italian drama follows three childhood friends, Il Freddo (Kim Rossi Stuart), Libano (a brilliantly psychotic Pierfrancesco Favino) and Il Dandi (Claudio Santamaria) as they make their way from smalltime thuggery to bigtime gangsterism. Finally, a film about gangsters made by real Italians, I hear you say. And they’re real gangsters too, the Magliani outfit, who not only hoovered up the drugs business in 1970s Italy but also got involved with the terrorist Red Brigades and the execution of the president, Aldo Moro, in 1978. Moustaches, lapels, chest hair, male jewellery. Being a film kicking off in the 1970s, Romanzo Criminale staggers under their weight in its pursuit of … Read more
Frau im Mond aka Woman in the Moon
Fritz Lang’s scorching run of the late silent era continues with Frau im Mond. Translated variously as Woman in the Moon, Girl in the Moon and By Rocket to the Moon, it’s Lang’s second go at sci-fi. He’d made Metropolis only two years before, nearly bankrupting the Ufa studio in the process. And yet, for some reason, Ufa gave Lang his head again. The fact that Spione (aka Spies), Lang’s creation of the modern spy caper the year before, had been a massive success might have had something to do with Ufa’s readiness to be so generous. Frau im Mond is the realistic, plausible sci-fi to Metropolis‘s poetical, fantastical one, an attempt, using … Read more
A Boy Called Christmas
A superhero origin story of sorts, A Boy Called Christmas is vague about the costumed crusader it has in mind. Is it Saint Nicholas, aka Santa Claus? Or his pagan predecessor, Father Christmas, the white-bearded giftbringer who “flew” through the winter night on his fleet-footed steed possibly with aerial assist from hallucinogenic mushrooms? Slight quibble to one side, this is a sweet, middle-of-the-road story about a boy’s Christmas-y fairytale quest to find Elfhelm, home of the elves, and it builds gently and unexceptionally towards an emotional climax that might catch you off guard. The Princess Bride is the quasi-template, with Maggie Smith in the Peter Falk role as the storytelling aunt babysitting her … Read more
The Maltese Falcon
Not a bad way to start. The Maltese Falcon, one of the most highly acclaimed films ever made, was John Huston’s directorial debut. He also wrote the screenplay, adapting Dashiell Hammett’s hard-boiled thriller into a lean piece of cinema that stands the test of time. In the 21st century if you want to watch something that’s a piece of surefire entertainment from front to back, The Maltese Falcon will not let you down. It’s a simple story, not really a story at all, more a contrivance just sturdy enough to hold together a series of interactions between people, about three desperados all in search of a fabulously ornate bejewelled bird – the so-called … Read more
Tobruk
If you love beige and taupe, can’t get enough fawn, dun and khaki, you’ll have an extra affection for Tobruk, the 2008 Czech movie written and directed by Václav Marhoul. It’s his second, after the Philip Marlowe-spoofing Smart Philip (Mazany Filip) of 2003, and has little in common with the 1967 film of the same name directed by Arthur Hiller and starring Rock Hudson and George Peppard. In fact it’s closer to The Red Badge of Courage, the 1951 war movie set during the American Civil War and starring Audie Murphy, since both are to greater (the older film) and lesser (this one) extents adaptations of Stephen Crane’s 1894 novel about a soldier … Read more
The General
Buster Keaton’s favourite of his own films got off to a poor start in 1927. A flop at the box office and poorly received by critics (“the fun is not exactly plentiful” said the New York Times), it’s now considered to be one of the greatest films ever made. Is this high ranking down more to nostalgia for a simpler time or campaigns mounted by lovers of the hair shirt? Possibly a bit of both. But strip away the nonsense and you’re still left with something remarkable. The gags, for the most part revolve around The General, the steam locomotive of which Keaton is the engineer. The most famous of these is the … Read more
