This is one of those gleefully macabre movies that upon reading the premise you know exactly who the director is. Yes, it’s David Cronenberg again proving that his oddball interests are not only weirder than yours, he’ll make a film about them.
Two Jeremy Irons for the price of one, and this is the only time he’s gone nuts in a movie. These days, he’s your token British supporting bore. He turns up and he’s the same in every film, phoning it in.
A shame.
How this lad is somehow an ‘actor’ will never cease to beguile me.
Bye for now.
This turn-of-the-century slice of hip hop-infused kung fu hokum is worth seeing as a curiosity piece, and Aaliyah is so naturally gifted as an actress you do wish this was a stepping stone to more hefty material. It wasn’t meant to be.
The Timbaland-produced ‘Try Again’ is a banger and a half; the music video is amusing, as even in 2000 the lad was incessantly mugging and rolling his eyeballs like Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). The lack of self-awareness is nuts. Mate, you look like a plonker.
Speaking of which, the theatrically maladroit Anthony Anderson demonstrates that he was always an infuriating pudding to watch and hear and should not have ever been in front of a camera. He would for some oblique reason rock up in The Departed (2006), and I’d like to think his character’s grisly fate in that film has subtext.
Jet Li is fine but his martial artistry is ruined with cruddy CGI and I cannot fathom why it’s there. A desperation is in the works, like the commercial ramifications of The Matrix (1999) are still being felt and the filmmakers felt the need to ape the aesthetic.
But it’s entertaining enough.
Banger Alert:
First viewing after years of hearing the most scathing reviews, and they’re not wrong.
I thought Brian De Palma was meant to engulf daft, badly scripted projects with his patented style; whatever happened, the movie is that of visual neglect, as anonymous as the work of the next hack.
I didn’t get any of it. Was it satire? Was it meant to be funny? Was there an underlying point to anything?
I didn’t believe a moment of the picture and even the title vexed me.
It’s as shite as they say, and Tom Hanks is as awful here as he has been anywhere else.
Rubbish.
Lots of fun in this sequel, which ramps up the mayhem in a fairly inventive way.
In this tired, post-Taken (2008) period of the genre, you don’t really expect much beyond heads (among other body parts) being smashed, but it had some depth to it. I was reminded of A History of Violence (2005) in the lad’s inability to escape the ‘sins’ of the past, and that you can’t deny your true nature when confronted with the wrong ‘uns. And the redoubtable John Ortiz features – one of the best character actors out there.
Unfortunately, Sharon Stone was mostly annoying in a limp, unconvincing turn as a demented big momma crime lord, but I suppose that’s the point.
You’re rooting for Saul Goodman to tear her a new one.
This is what it’s all about.
A work of pure cinema with a mastery of style, I felt I was in the presence of Bernardo Bertolucci, Stanley Kubrick, and Martin Scorsese all at once.
Even the opening credits are some of the most enthralling I’ve seen; their arrival is unexpected, their form unorthodox in this monumental drama. It feels like a throwback to a time when a film was an event, but this marries the grandiose with the human element, searing, mind-blowing images sans any spaceships or capes.
The air of dread that simmers in this magnificent work is startling. You’re aware it’s all building to an unfathomable crescendo but can’t look away.
It’s always a privilege to watch a fucking amazing film.
This is one of them, privilege and film.
An intriguing first scene that takes place in Berlin promised a good thriller; anything featuring Berlin is promising.
Nice font on the opening title, and the once omniscient James Rebhorn is briefly in it. Good job.
It’s so boring, though, and anything germane it had to say about amoral bankers was lost in the relentless, mind-crushing tedium. I was hoping for Jason Bourne meets Interpol. What I got was the urge to jettison The International (2009).
I lasted 46 minutes.
Another remake of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961), this neo-western is rubbish and not even in a curious way.
I did have high expectations for the flick as Walter Hill is a top filmmaker and this was peak Bruce Willis, that post Pulp Fiction (1994) era when he would veer seamlessly between actioner and risky movies with a bit more depth to them. This is atrocious, though, from the stupid voice-over to the stupid things every character does, to the stupid framing and the sheer stupidity of the premise, and I felt stupid for sticking with it rather than just watching A Fistful of Dollars (1964).
Stupidity is the theme.
Nothing here makes much sense but it’s at least notable as a primary source, an artefact.
She’s a welder in a Pittsburgh steel mill, an exotic dancer and aspiring ballerina, and quite the beauty. That’s how I imagine the pitch went. But with the thrown-in goodies of a music video aesthetic, Giorgio Moroder on soundtrack duties.
Trends mostly do not emerge by design, and Flashdance (1983) is the accidental genesis of the high-concept archetype that would come to define the ’80s for today’s moviegoer – all surface sheen, the iconic glossy image, negligible characterisation, but with all the requisite ingredients that comprise the popcorn experience.
It’s rubbish but it’s historical.
And this scene is ridiculous beyond belief:
The opening credits reminded me of Big Wednesday (1978). This is no mere surfer gig, though, but a psychological thriller with style, visuals which have purpose. The director understands the primacy of the image, the importance of framing and when to hold a shot.
This narrative engrossed me from the start as I was thoroughly vexed from the first exchange our lad has with the macho beach posse. I wanted him to fuck them up and hated seeing Cage disrespected, manipulated, losing his shit.
An unhinged work, and another belter for the Annals of Cage.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 