Category Archives: Art
Copshop (2021).
The ominous opening set the tone despite the humour, some of it actually funny, and this was never dull even though the Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) scenario kept most of the shenanigans indoors.
Gerard Butler wasn’t dire! He’s sometimes capable of being okay and here is one of those occasions. Frank Grillo, Cutty from The Wire, the cast is not an issue and every character was credible.
Rather thrilling hokum, genuinely inexperienced cops of mostly limited talents really struggling when up against hardened criminals.
It does, however, wholeheartedly exhibit that infuriating habit of American cinema, characters constantly addressing one another by their names during every single exchange they have, as if the audience will have forgotten who they are.
Just stop doing it. It needs to end.
99 Homes (2014).
Michael Shannon is quite an extraordinary actor, and only a Tom Hardy or Michael Fassbender could inject such pathos and reasoning in a snake like Rick Carver. It’s Gordon Gekko for the 2007-2008 financial crisis, but with more of a backstory and a wee bit more humanity in the very naughty lad. He clearly exploits Garfield from the start but also sees massive potential in his brains and work ethic; it’s a relationship built on a knife edge.
And it shows you, to a degree, how this system works – exploitation, cynicism, government and corporations working together to screw you. And the exploited bails them out. It’s shocking but not really surprising.
Gripping all the way through, a life lesson and a character study.
Fabulous stuff.
Tenet (2020).
I’m sure this was about something, and that something was something other than surface sheen and pyrotechnics, but it wasn’t something that interested me in the slightest.
So I won’t be bothering with a review other than that of Kenneth Branagh’s Russian ‘accent’, which receives a 0/5 from me.
Bye for now.
Peep Show.
Celebrating 20 years of Peep Show.
The indelible memory for me will forever remain Jeremy running over a dog and then eating it on a barge during Mark’s ad hoc job interview.
Because we can all relate to that.
The World at War (1973).
The incredible archive footage, the level of research, the interviews, the music, the sound of Laurence Olivier.
Sublime and unrivalled.
Godzilla vs. Kong (2021). This is what cinema boils down to. And it’s ….
A behemoth chimp with an affinity for sign language. It wouldn’t be the first time for such a revelation – Koko.
It’s quite average in a pleasing fashion compared with most of the shite you see from these Multiverse/Monsterverse/Whatever worlds. What remains is the excruciating dialogue.
A non-character/cardboard hiree offers an observation regarding a life-changing vignette and a lad (usually a lad) retorts by saying the glaringly obvious.
It goes like this:
“It’s an easy mission, a kid could do it.”
“I hate kids.”
That’s the nature of these loopy exchanges, the gems from the writing room. There is no reason for anyone to spiel stuff like this, but they still do. It’s all confusing.
Just have folk in these flicks not speak, and present them reacting all flummoxed to stomping monsters merely through facial tics.
Good stuff in it: the voice of Lance Reddick (beautiful), and a monkey fighting a lizard on an aircraft carrier was absolutely insane in its realisation.
Is that it?
Watch it for 45 mins and then have a nap.
You won’t remember this film.
Beef (2023-).
Anxiety, extreme pettiness, and cascading psyches in the suffocating urban nightmare that is modern living, which is a mission at times. You really don’t know what might happen next in this show, and it has a Magnolia (1999) quality to it. The last two episodes approached the ludicrous but then I did consider the overwhelming evidence that these rivals frequently teeter on the barking mad classification, so it all sort of works.
And where would these series be without smartphones? I suppose it’s an accurate reflection of things.
Black comedy with some pathos, and it doesn’t outstay its welcome. Better than most offerings out there.
Crimson Tide (1995).
Crimson Tide (1995) is fucking amazing, and it’s not just for the extended screaming stand-off between Gene and Denzel. It’s a film about an issue, a rather big issue, yet is shot with such electricity, edited and paced as good as any action-thriller, and with a Hans Zimmer score sounding like it was composed when he was conducting an esoteric shite. Even the intermittent pop culture references, weird as they are, kind of work, a way to relieve the unbearable tension.
You have five heart attacks watching this movie.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 