Movie | Wanderings and ... wonderings.

Dec 29 2019

Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Uncut Gems (2019).

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This was gripping, an Adam Sandler movie that isn’t nails-down-a-blackboard godawful. He has been in some of the most appalling films, yet also the intermittent cracker – Punch Drunk Love (2002), for example. Here he is unrecognisable from his usual goofball act, literally sweating his pores through the travails of a gambling junkie juggling debt, addiction, and avoiding some rather dodgy small-time hoodlums/loan sharks. It’s an accurate portrait of the lives many folk live and quite the captivating one.

It has the Ben SEAL OF APPROVAL.

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Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Doctor Sleep (2019) isn’t shite and I am almost shocked.

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I never found The Shining (1980) scary on any level. Instead, it remains after about 20 viewings an endless fascination. It’s the meticulousness of it, the banality, the … pointlessness of the whole affair. It isn’t about anything except pure aesthetics, a director exerting his OCD over every painterly composition. There isn’t even a single character in it and perhaps that’s the point.

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Doctor Sleep (2019) does things the right way: it barely has anything to do with Kubrick’s number yet makes subtle allusions to the picture, knowing the audience will understand the references. It also has three-dimensional characters, which I never expected to ever find associated with the Overlook Hotel. A decent movie with nothing specifically annoying going on is a rarity these days. Well done.

More shock: I did not know until this week that the Stanley Hotel in Colorado (location of the Overlook) is also the plush dwelling where the demented Harry and Lloyd stay in Dumb and Dumber (1994), blowing their noses with Mary Swanson’s cash.

I thought I was Deckard once.

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A thoroughly miserable mise-en-scène in Gorgie yesterday, though I don’t mind the deluge as the chavs stay indoors (mostly). Armed with a stolen umbrella, I for a very brief epoch possessed Blade Runner (1982) visions – Vangelis, Film Noir, a charismatic Dutch antagonist, 2019 premonitions vs. present day shenanigans.

Then I arrived at my conclusion: 2019 didn’t witness flying cars and robots you can have ‘life moments’ with; it was some berserk ginger midget in a 1997 Kappa tracksuit bolting up Gorgie Road with a stolen toaster, three tubby cops in tow.

That’s life.

Tagged Blade Runner, Edinburgh, Film, Gorgie, Movie, Rain, Scotland

Dec 16 2019

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Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, United Kingdom

In the Loop (2009) – election season special.

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Election night is a special night, and the UK has had too many to even summarise in the past half decade. It’s a time when all the godawful monotone robots we have for public servants come out of the woodwork, every single one of them a walking, talking bag of empty catchphrases. Behind the scenes, one suspects their minders are the real brains behind the operation, the expletive-laden puppet masters who are laughing at us.

Malcolm Tucker is how I picture them – cynical, verbally violent, Scottish. I have heard very complimentary things about The Thick of It (2005-2012) but I am not going to bother as the movie is a belter and I don’t wish to diverge from it. There are lines of dialogue here so glorious that I can’t even fathom how they were written.

Best line: ‘Within your ‘purview’? Where do you think you are, some fucking regency costume drama? This is a government department, not some fucking Jane fucking Austen novel! Allow me to pop a jaunty little bonnet on your purview and ram it up your shitter with a lubricated horse cock.’

I am gasping to say that to almost every clown I have to work with. One day the moment will present itself. I verily cannot wait.

Further viewing:

Tagged Downing Street, Film, In the Loop, Malcolm Tucker, Movie, Parliament, Politics, UK

Nov 28 2019

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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, Music, Uncategorized, United States

The Irishman (2019) is extraordinary.

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I finally signed up for the Netflix 30-day free trial – just for Scorsese. The three-and-a-half hour running time was well worth the two nauseating minutes it took to register. Bloody hell is it sublime. Scorsese pulls out all the stops in his … Scorseseness, yet the movie is something more than a swansong to the gangster epics that have served him so well.

De-ageing VFX.

Elegiac, somber, the last half-hour is a strong contender for most tragic epilogue of the 2010s. It reminded me a bit of Once Upon a Time in America (1984) but without the sprawling romanticism shaped mainly by Ennio Morricone’s iconic score. De Niro here gives his best performance since Heat (1995), which is understandable since he’s spent two decades being Dirty Grandpa or Paul Vitti or tormenting a pratfalling Ben Stiller.

More importantly, Joe Pesci is back and he is majestic. You need to see him in this. You need to see this film.

Tagged Crime drama, Joe Pesci, Martin Scorsese, Netflix, Robert De Niro, The Irishman

Nov 04 2019

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Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized, United States

The Right Stuff (1983) – the wrong stuff.

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This movie was fucking awful. I’d heard all about it for years but put it on the shelf for a rainy day. It rained and I took the plunge.

Why is it that most ‘space movies’ are dull as dishwater? The subject remains an endless fascination but the movies are mostly pathetic. The filmmakers’ think that ‘getting it all right’ on the physics and equipment equals a masterpiece. They continue to disregard a need for drama, a human conflict that sucks you in and makes you invested in proceedings.

This film is sadly another snore-fest. No one gives a fuck about the scientific dimensions of the story, only the conflict and the feels. We have here a rather ultra-talented array of actors – Scott Glenn, Sam Shepard, Ed Harris, Fred Ward, Dennis Quaid – all looking … bored.

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It’s so uninspired and prosaic, real lazy filmmaking. Imagine Michael Mann made this; you’d have a masterwork on your hands.

Fucking hated this film. Shite.

Tagged 1983, Film, Movie, Movies, The Right Stuff

Oct 25 2019

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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies

The Wicker Man (1973) is still shocking.

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The most disturbing thing about this bonkers movie is that it’s all a setup, almost every scene a parade to the unsuspecting cop getting burned to ashes. It’s a harrowing last 20 minutes because on first viewing you gradually realise what’s going on yet our protagonist doesn’t. Edward Woodward, though – what an acting job this is. He is captivating. I give it 5/5, … and I hate everything.

One scene makes no sense: Britt Ekland dancing about in the nip (body double, I hear) to a tune I recall remixed by Sneaker Pimps for the underrated Hostel (2005), The Equalizer stood there like a wee bairn in his jammies when she’s banging the walls for a bit of carnal action. There is no reason for that scene to be there but it’s weirdly memorable.

I’m not dipping into the Nicolas Cage remake because the awfulness of the movie is beyond a keyboard description and the snippet of scenes here speak for it all:

Tagged 1973, British cinema, Christopher Lee, Edward Woodward, Film, Horror, Movie, Paganism, Religion, Seventies, The Wicker Man

Oct 19 2019

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Britain, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Gangster No. 1 (2000) is a gem.

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Saw this the other day after a long hiatus, and what an experience it is. With Sexy Beast (2000), it’s one of the few post Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) Brit gangster movies that actually delivers; Christ, remember all the early noughties mockney garbage that pummelled audiences into paralysis? That was one rotten era, a silly chav flick out every other week. And they all seemed to feature twats.

Gangster No. 1 (2000), though, is so stylishly put together and shamelessly so, the performances at times terrifying, and it shows the actual power and results of the ability to inflict violence rather than nonchalantly shrugging off the act as something comical (all Guy Ritchie movies). The film is about something, which is a rarity these days.

And it’s so good to see Malcolm McDowell in a decent movie; it’s almost as if he made a conscious decision to star in tripe after knowing nothing could ever top if…. (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971). That’s a perfect double bill, by the way, and so too is Sexy Beast (2000) and Gangster No. 1 (2000) – proper carnage but arty proper carnage with lots of swearing.

Sexy Beast (2000).

Tagged Britain, Crime, Film, Gangster, Gangster No. 1, Malcolm McDowell, Movie, Paul Bettany

Oct 12 2019

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Cinema, Film, Movie, Photography, Thailand, Tourism, Transport, Travel, Uncategorized

Thai road-trippin’.

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Time flies. This was six years ago today, and what a silly wee adventure it was, Bangkok to Rayong to Pattaya to Ayutthaya. The piece-of-shite motorbike I purchased off a Burmese borderline dwarf exploded about two hours into the journey to Rayong so I had to sit on a rotten minibus like a tinned sardine for half the day. But Fleetwood Mac got me through proceedings. I hate to appropriate the word ‘epic’ but this sojourn really was because it had everything; it was The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) but without Velcro dartboards to launch midgets at.

Good times.

Tagged Adventure, Bangkok, Thailand, Transport, Travel

Sep 29 2019

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Britain, Cinema, Crime, Movie, Movies, Photography, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

Newcastle – in search of Jack Carter.

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I was in Newcastle this week. The city is a bit of a toilet and their football fans quite possibly the most delusional on the planet. I fondly recall Michael Caine’s Jack Carter uttering the immortal line, “Listen, the only reason I came back to this crap house – was to find out who did it. And I’m not leaving until I do.” That’s Newcastle in a sentence.

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It has its wee charming attributes, though, as do most post-industrial northern dwellings. It’s Hovis advert territory but with tracksuits. I spent my time here wandering about like a wee numpty in search of locations featured in the movie. I didn’t find any, although I did locate a hostel kitchen that had no sink.

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Wanderings and … wonderings.

Category Archives: Movie

Uncut Gems (2019).

Doctor Sleep (2019) isn’t shite and I am almost shocked.

I thought I was Deckard once.

In the Loop (2009) – election season special.

The Irishman (2019) is extraordinary.

The Right Stuff (1983) – the wrong stuff.

The Wicker Man (1973) is still shocking.

Gangster No. 1 (2000) is a gem.

Thai road-trippin’.

Newcastle – in search of Jack Carter.