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Companion. As much as I like Quaid, there’s not a lot for him to do here as the scheming weasel. It very much neuters his usual bumbling charm. Thatcher is fine (you’ll never hear me say that again) in her role, the rest of the film doesn’t make any sense, at all. You’ve seen literally every single scene here before, multiple times, and the whole idea was done much better in the likes of Ex Machina.
Standoff at Sparrow Creek. An isolated militia tries to work out which one of them just pulled off a mass shooting at a police funeral. Essentially a series of shadowy conversations as everyone interrogates everyone else and tries to work out who did it. It’s okay. Strikes me as very much like a play. Some solid acting, but that’s all that’s holding up a shaky plot.
Imagine an Indiana Jones film without any of the skill, and you have King Solomon’s Mines, with an early role for Sharon Stone playing a hapless shrieking sidekick. Richard Chamberlain in the lead is…fine, but everything about this film is shoddy; the action, the sets, the script, Rhys Davies’ fake tan, it’s all cheap and shonky. The German troops with Lee-Enfields were my favourite touch, alongside the unapologetic African tribe stereotypes (shout out to the giant pot they cook people in, whole) which was surprisingly racist even for the 80s.
Mickey 17. I liked this better than the book, although it’s missing some of the book’s best parts. This is reminiscent of Snowpiercer, as a microcosm of society in a tightly-controlled environment, but it has a dictatorish Ruffalo overseeing it all with aplomb, and Pattinson in a strangely whiny mode. There’s a good assemblage of minor but brilliant comedic turns here, and those and Bong Joon Ho’s directing and use of black comedy is the only thing that saves this from being outright bad. The book was meant to be uplifting, but was just depressing. The film is meant to be uplifting, and is just mediocre.
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I’m at home on a lazy, rainy afternoon taking care of a sick kid and I’m in the middle of Gladiator 2. You know what’s worse than historical inaccuracies or anachronisms? Stupid, ugly CGI animals. The baboons were super lame.
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Bad Education. A bleak crime about embezzlement and fraud in the school system, headed by Hugh Jackman. A script free of melodrama, and some good performances.
The Hidden Blade. As much as I like Twilight Samurai, I like parts of this more. Although quite lopsided with some broad comedy as the Japanese attempt to come to terms with the training demands of modern warfare, this is once again a tale of samurai struggling against socially-imposed bonds of duty. Borderline tragic, but with just enough personal hope.
Warfare. In some respects, quite gnarly, and at odds with a lot of the films we’ve seen come out of the GWOT. Neither triumphant nor a “We invaded, and it made our soldiers sad.” special, it just follows a team in a house getting into some shit in Iraq in 2006. There’s no objective or bigger picture, no heroism, just a bunch of blokes getting ambushed. I think it’s a fair depiction of the rather thankless state of affairs. Some good acting and the depiction of the SEALS is not at all as glossy as they’ve come to prefer.
A Working Man. Even for Statham, this film is bad. Cringeworthy exposition in the place of dialogue, no characterisation, sub-par action scenes, and nothing else. Particularly foul for involving actual actors like David Harbour, Jason Flemyng, and Michael Pena, who obviously all felt they needed a new pool or something. Dire shit.
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I just saw the new Mission Impossible with the family. It was entertaining. The story was gobbeldygook but there were some good action set pieces and I got to see Tom Cruise run a couple of times. I do appreciate the practical stunts even if it’s become a bit of a marketing gimmick. It all certainly beats the days I had to bring the kids to some mind-numbing animated movie.
There are some things that I can’t stand in movies in general, though, that are highlighted in this movie.
First, movie knives are ridiculous and impractical. So many of these knives are used because they “look scary.”
Second, I hate how movies always have completely made-up device interfaces that all seem to work with each other. “Here, I hacked these top secret files that will prevent WWIII on this thumb drive with a star-shaped USB.” Recipient proceeds to pop it into his laptop. Why does Hollywood do this stuff all the time?
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Completely agree with your disdain for the all-too-perfectly-designed “poison pill” thumb drive. Even Apple takes months of development time to engineer precisely fitting device interface components, and they have all of the pieces at hand to test the fit during development. The world would have been screwed if the USB connector was off by even a millimeter. And why did the secure data vault have 4 of those magic crystal ports anyway?
Moreover, one of my pet peeves is the way hacking is portrayed generally in movies and TV. Whether it’s “I know this, it’s UNIX!” (Jurassic Park), being able to concentrate with a gun (Goldeneye) or lips (Swordfish) to your head while breaking into a critical system in seconds, or recalibrating a transmission antenna you’ve never, ever seen before to transmit secret Death Star plans from an oversized bento box that just happens to fit the transmitter port (Rogue One), hacking is always shown to be staggeringly easy. I’d have fewer problems rolling with it if they’d just call it a superpower and have the character mind meld with the computer, like Spock.
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Sinners. Even aside from Coogler taking his Michael B. Jordan fetish to new levels, this is a little bit ramshackle. It looks and sounds great, but what isn’t great is the extremely shaky connective tissue of certain events throughout, that make no sense when you think about them, but they happen that way because the plot needs them to happen that way, including some stuff that feels just plain rushed. There’s a good idea here, which falls down repeatedly when it comes to the execution, when on paper everything should be solid. One too many nudges to my suspension of disbelief, I’m afraid. It almost feels like the director thinks all this stuff should work, because it works in other films.
The Clovehitch Killer. Dylan McDermott is really good in this as the sort of quintessential dad who is doing his best, with the only drawback being his son is slowly coming to wonder about his collection of extreme bondage porn. Madisen Beaty carries a good chunk of this film like a hero, and it’s a shame she’s not the main character; given her acting and arguably her role, she should be. Although partially based on a real case, it has a rather more conclusive ending, and that’s where it mis-steps and becomes a little too unbelievable. Otherwise, though, it’s a solid effort.
Now that my kids are old enough I’ve been re-watching most of the MCU Infinity Saga movies. I know they are not high art and I know they all have their issues, but we just watched Endgame and even thiugh I’ve seen it before, there are some great moments in the final act. Cap with the hammer, the petals opening with Cap steeling his resolve, the “Avengers Aseemble” moment…nerdy stuff, yeah, but built up to over years and great payoffs. The end of Tony’s arc is also moving, which is a nice feat for a superhero movie. I have greatly lost interest in the post-Thanos Marvel stuff but I’m starting to get hyped up a bit for Fantastic Four.
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I really hope that FF is as lighthearted as it looks. That Marvel gave the FF comic to Ryan North gives me hope that they’re in search of a tone that can connect with people.
That said, while I also had good fun with Marvel’s phase 1 and 2 (I think?), that particular Avengers Assemble moment felt like it was supposed to feel awesome more than it did, for me, largely because it seemed like a buildup to a surprise. It felt that that moment was absolutely made to be the unveiling of a new agreement allowing them to pull in the X-Men, or introduce some characters they hoped to use in new movies/series, or show us SOMEthing unexpected. Instead, it was all (not even all!) of the stuff you saw them putting on the chessboard for a decade, followed by a pretty unearned girl power moment that really emphasized how sloppy they were willing to be with their emotional beats. The strongest it got was when an army of chanting Wakandans came through—bringing back that chant was brilliant.
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My daughter and I watched all of the MCU phase 1 and 2 stuff during the pandemic. We finally watched the new Cap America movie over the weekend on Disney+ and she is now interested in watching it all through again. As she is 13 and does not really remember stuff she watched at 8 and 9 already. So that will probably be our “Summer Reading Guide”
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Predator: Killer of Killers. This IP has gone completely to shit. The animation quality isn’t great, you’ve seen everything here a thousand times before, and the quality of the third segment is awful, just absolute garbage. Whatever I felt about the first two parts, they’re a fucking dream by comparison. The fourth and last part is merely a terrible jumble of cliches. The ‘each Predator has a gimmick’ idea needs to die.
Black Bag. Classic Soderbergh, complete with nice visuals and sound design. A neat little thriller that is a little too neat; the Fast Bender playing to type, Cate Blanchett being alluring, and a dash of Pierce Brosnan to taste. It’s fine, it really is, but the plot itself is unconvincing, and strangely remote. It can’t all be smooth dialogue and ambiguous expressions.
Synchronic. It’s always nice when an actor you dislike converts you with their performance. Never been fond of Anthony Mackie, but watching him and Jamie Dorman play paramedics in post-Katrina New Orleans was a treat before a daughter goes missing and a strange drug gets dropped in to the film. I went from flat dislike to genuinely enjoying Mackie’s performance. Not one of Benson and Moorhead’s best films, but still good.
Novocaine. Apart from the physical comedy of a protagonist who can’t feel pain, there’s not a lot to this. Quaid’s bumbling charm is sufficient for some scenes, but it is not load-bearing enough to carry the whole film.
Presence. Slightly stunned by this, a Soderbergh haunted house film. The star of the show is the swooping, looming camerawork, which follows the family around their house, the POV trapped solely inside. The cast do some good work, not least Lucy Liu, but the real star here is Chris Sullivan as the dad. This is almost like a play, and it’s wonderfully effective.
Self-Reliance. Jake Johnson is perfectly charming as a bit of a dweeb who, picked up by Andy Samberg, enters a game where he will be hunted for a month, but cannot be killed as long as he is with someone. This leads to some wonderfully funny moments, helped ably by a good, cast including the nigh-perfect Anna Kendrick. Wonderful execution.
The Monkey. Half-a-film syndrome strikes again, as we have some good lines, some Final-Destination-esque kills, and no real ending. Not entirely sure how these things get made. The lack of resolution is something that would bother some people.
Opus. Thoroughly ungripped. Malkovich might be enjoying himself, but I wasn’t. Uninspired (reclusive genius takes revenge against those who slighted him), Ayo Edebiri’s acting is 500% better in The Bear (or her role was 500% better…). Nothing to see here, move along.
Butcher’s Crossing. A tale as inspiring as it is well-written (see picture), as Cage plays a semi-deranged buffalo hunter out for the biggest score possible in the dying days of the buffalo being fucking exterminated. Everyone in this film is a cunt, and they all deserved much worse. Special shout out to the Harvard boy who rode out west to see what America is all about, then rides back home. Fuck that guy in particular.
Surfer. Cage plays a semi-deranged (fully by the end) idiot trying to buy a house and go surfing in small town Australia. The locals (quite rightly) hate his guts and tell him to fuck off. I didn’t empathise with Cage for a single second throughout this film, as 99% of his misfortunes stem from his own stupidity. The film badly fumbles you identifying with the protagonist. The locals might be a bunch of MRA cunts, but Cage’s character is a piece of shit too.
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Wife going out of town; I invite the Stately populace please recommend a recent action film or two in the vein of Wick, Atomic Blonde, Mission Impossible, etc. Thank you : )
The Gray Man was just a bit cleverer than it looks, while still being stupid fun. I think it displaces my old recommendation of The Last Boy Scout in the space of basically generic action movie with a bit more charm than usual.
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Ballerina, in theaters.
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Cleaner. In my stunning (sexist) naivete, I thought Clive Owen was the ahem hero, a window cleaner. But that’s not the case. Daisy Ridley is the ahem hero here, and she spends more than half the fucking film literally doing nothing but hanging outside the building. Also features my favourite: radical environmentalists as the bad guys. Dunno if you’re paying attention, lads, but the radical environmentalists are being proved entirely correct as time goes on. Anyway, Owen is only in it for five minutes, the rest of the cast isn’t very good, the plot is not particularly tight, the action is nothing new. There’s chunks of this just lifted from Die Hard, and not good chunks. Shitty chunks.
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Ive got to like the imagery provoked by any line containing the words “shitty chunks” We’ve all been there, silently praying we were somewhere else
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Towel over my head, groaning, pretending I’m Rocky dealing with an anal Clubber Lang.
The Beach House. A little holiday for a young couple goes badly awry as a widespread contagion of some kind starts to affect the coast near their getaway. Some effective body horror, and budget Tim Roth (Jake Weber) gently bumbles through his role. Liana Liberato does the real acting.
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