In almost everything, he quietly steals the show. No histrionics or chewing the scenery, but an impeccable talent to convince in every role – mob boss, downtrodden miner, creepy CIA handler. I suppose that’s acting. He excelled at projecting an inscrutable authority, rarely perturbed, but you can see that he’s seething.
Go-to performance, a remarkable gig in Todd Field’s quite brilliant In the Bedroom (2000):
I spent most of this intriguing movie wondering at what point the twist was going to occur or when the deus ex machina would reveal it all to be the figment of the protagonist’s imagination. It put me off fully enjoying the thrills as I was permanently searching for the clues. Maybe it would have worked better as just sheer hokum but there’s plenty of that around.
The bickering between the leads is tedious but the script needs to reach its finale, so you have to endure these non-characters argue away. But this aside, you’re not quite sure what’s going on and the momentum helps you stay involved.
Decent action with some thought-provoking ideas.
Harvey Keitel and Peter O’Toole in the same movie piqued my interest, and it’s all innocent and charming enough, the fairies a countryside escapism from the horrors of late modernity, WWI ruining the illusion for everyone.
It should be far more engrossing but it isn’t and just ends up being awfully British – rudimentary camerawork, score from a Sunday church service, barely competent actors who’ve littered a hundred other mediocre British films.
Why I’m being so harsh on such a nothing movie aimed at kids I don’t know.
That’s enough for today.
Sometimes in life you watch a movie and as you partake in this activity, you ask: “Why does this film exist? Why am I watching this?”
And that’s Get Carter (2000), the stinky remake of the fabled classic.
I know folk on the dole who could make a better film, merely by instinct.
Stupid, pointless, boring, and in moments exceptionally entertaining.
Just think, Thermopylae happened once. And this is the most arty result, its cinematic legacy. Was it worth it?
You have Jimmy McNulty in robes.
A haunting role from Christopher Walken, and just before he became a pop culture icon in addition to actor. You just feel sorry for him in this movie, with the foreboding he is totally doomed, such is the tension and supreme creepiness of the atmosphere. And for a David Cronenberg picture, it’s relatively tame, with none of the visceral gore and unsavoury preoccupation with flesh (mostly rotting) that characterises his earlier work.
The always captivating Herbert Lom shines, and Martin Sheen is a Grade A sleaze.
Decent.
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This had auguries of pish for me.
I’m sick to near-death of the zeitgeist high-concept apocalyptic horror/domestic drama crossover, the current trend kicking about the last few years consisting of 20-odd stinkers from the bargain bin somehow featuring proven talent.
Ethan lets strangers into his home and they couldn’t act more dodgy. There is no reason to grant them entry but I suppose the plot has to happen. I turned it off after this. I’m not watching another one of these obvious metaphorical home invasion yarns again.
I looked through the plot summary after the 16-minute viewing of torture. Was that it? Is this how easy it is to get a shite script made?
Just a horrible wee pointless film and everyone involved should be ashamed.
My film pitch: a financially burdened middle-class family move into an Anderson shelter due to financial woes, and externally there is a civil war kicking off, but the youngest child isn’t interested as he/she/them/it is too engulfed in the pleasures of the mobile phone. Some super-smart badgers invade the garden and try and take over the realm.
^Put a ‘star’ in that and it would be made.
It’s not that bad, but it is rubbish. My advice to anyone new to these films is to just pretend the third one doesn’t exist, that it didn’t happen.
It was never even made.
The opening voice-over reeked of amateurishness – John Lithgow narrating shots of our heroes playing football, describing a wee bit of superfluous info about them all – so I turned it off and watched a documentary about the bomber instead.
I believe it to be the correct decision.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 