Category Archives: Movies

Goldeneye (1995) is the only 5/5 James Bond movie.

Because it’s not just a Bond film. It’s actually about something other than tropes and ticking boxes. I often hear the mantra, “Folk only love it because it ties in with the N64 game.” It’s a decent proposition for an argument but misses the point – the game is also amazing yet they don’t depend on each other.

Goldeneye (1995) is so well crafted, so correctly paced, so … frankly strange. The Eric Serra score is implausible yet it somehow works. Perhaps the gargantuan gap (world events) between 1989 and 1995 was for the best, because this picture at times even becomes about that End of History theme. And the villain is the only one you can take seriously in the entire cannon of Bonds. Everything 006 does seems plausible and he brings out the best in 007.

It’s a masterpiece.

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Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) is the best way to end them.

A thrilling series comes to its end. The Lethal Weapon movies were just so good at balancing the action and the comedy, and the four of them represent the peak of the buddy-cop movie. This is the most fitting finale that they could have come up with; it winds the series down perfectly.

These are actual characters you know and have grown up with. They are strikingly real and the last chapter especially doesn’t downplay their ageing and the toils of time.

And to the epic fight scenes. It’s an overused saying that (‘EPIC’) but these really are. That fight to the death with Jet Li is shit-your-pants time.

There is no point making a fifth one; it would just waste the legacy.

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To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) is AWESOME.

An introduction to Wang Chung could not be scripted, but here we all are. It’s such a great movie to the extent that I am impressed with the soundtrack; the music choices are usually embarrassing with these pictures and I suppose the ’80s are mostly like that. Manhunter (1986) springs to mind as an example, a film that approaches implosion through the worst possible jukebox selections.

This oozes seductive style, Los Angeles a sun-blitzed glossy furnace of cops and criminals. Friedkin has, in spite of his occasional forays into turkeys, always understood the need to carve out a credible world for the narrative and impose a vision on the environment. So few directors appear to care for how their movies look; they are merely the point-and-shoot variety. This bloke, though, has a handle on the material. And the detail without being overbearing.

And the car chase in the film is another rarity; like Friedkin’s own The French Connection (1971), it’s backed up by actual character motivation. Apparently, one of the most recent Fast & Furious … things raked in a billion. The production cast and crew shut down half of Edinburgh a few years back with their silly antics. It will no doubt make a fortune, yet To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) recouped a pittance.

Audiences know nothing.

Further reading/viewing:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/to-live-and-die-in-la-1985

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Robin Williams is so creepy in One Hour Photo (2002) it’s like he never came from comedy.

And this is disturbing – back in the olden days when you took photos to Boots to be developed there will have been someone like Seymour “Sy” Parrish (Williams’ protagonist) inspecting your every shot, vicariously living his (it’s usually a creepy bloke) life through yours. I read a story years ago about some wee creep phoning the cops because he spotted a cannabis plant in the backdrop of a photo. How dignified.

Robin Williams is the business. We all knew he was hilarious yet his ‘serious roles’ really do demonstrate that he was an actor of the highest calibre, though comedy is acting too. He was in Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia (2002) in the same year and he’s creepy as fuck in that as well. It was a creepy year.

The word of the day is ‘creepy’.

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The Eagle Has Landed (1976) is a middling affair.

You standard old-fashioned wartime thriller which acts as a serviceable but inferior companion piece to The Day of the Jackal (1973), you’re aware of the outcome but the suspense is in getting there. Unfortunately, the exposition in this one is intriguing enough but by the halfway point it’s a snore. And then Larry Hagman appears as an inexperienced American colonel and it descends into silly comedy which I suspect today wouldn’t survive a pre-production script cull; we all know assassination attempts are no laughing matter.

Thank the heavens for Donald Sutherland. This is another case of Donald Sutherland being hired because only he can play a Donald Sutherland type. He’s fabulously nuts in everything and his career appears to be a personal mission in walking off with the movie. His supporting roles always suppose a spin-off picture with him at the fore. He even made the stinker that is Virus (1999) almost bearable.

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The 1998 remake of Psycho (1960) might just be the most pathetic thing ever to have unfortunately been shat into the historical record.

Hated this. HATED IT.

Even when I was watching it I was consumed with 100% hatred.

Why does it exist? Like, what? I was lost for words at times. A near scene-for-scene, shot-for-shot remake of a movie that set a new benchmark for cinema. Psycho (1960) isn’t about horror; it’s an exercise in film syntax and narrative. The shower scene is a joke. I find the whole thing totally hilarious. It’s the most ‘self-aware’ film of all time.

This Gus Van Sant bloke doesn’t get it. I cannot stand his films – they are weak, preachy, stylistically anonymous – and I don’t wish to see one of his hideous endeavours ever again. I had a wee look at some of the contemporary reviews and this one had me howling: ‘Literary critic Camille Paglia commented that the only reason to watch it was “to see Anne Heche being assassinated”.’

She is just terrible. I mind she came out as a lesbian or something and then years later said she didn’t get roles because she ‘came out’ as a lesbian.

No one cares about your private life, pal. You just CAN’T ACT!

Fucking hell.

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Flash Gordon (1980) is bonkers! And shockingly great.

I can barely remember even seeing this before but I’m sure I would have remembered how great it is … so I suppose I hadn’t seen it before.

What a hoot! It’s a pastiche of cheese so well put together it transcends cheese and elevates itself way into the spheres above cheese. It’s what one deems a self-aware movie – it knows exactly what it is and that’s the foundation. The visuals and set design could have been absolute gash but for some reason they are not. The cartoon-like quality to them serves to amplify the admittedly silly story, but that’s what it’s all about. Not many films today have a sense of ‘world’ about them, as in a universe onscreen in which the environment and the backdrop actually means something and has a relationship, and vice-versa, with the characters. This is how fantasy should be done.

Some cast graces this bonanza – a young Timothy Dalton, Max von Sydow, a raving Brian Blessed, and Topol! And what happened to Sam J. Jones? He popped up in Ted (2012) but this aside I am without a reference. Oh, here we are: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristenlopez/2019/02/23/life-after-flash-acts-as-a-dual-celebration-and-redemption-of-flash-gordons-leading-man/

It has the psychedelic feel of a Pink Floyd music video, and for almost the entire duration I thought it was Roger Waters and chums on soundtrack duties. It turned out to be Queen. I don’t like Queen at all. But I liked them here. And Mike Hodges directed this cracker and Get Carter (1970)? I did not know this.

Versatile.

Further reading/viewing:

https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/flash-gordon-film-review-a4520191.html

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/31/flash-gordon-review-mike-hodges-superhero

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Margin Call (2011) a decade on.

I was in my relative infancy when this shitstorm happened and I still struggle putting it together in 2021. In essence, a lot of greedy folk got very greedy and fucked the whole economic foundations of the world, and governments in almost every country – mostly your alleged left-wing or centre parties trying to get big business on their sides – let it happen.

The setting is clearly Lehman Brothers but I think it’s a bit too kind on them as there are folk in this, boardroom members, with consciences, albeit they still tow the line. It’s riveting drama, a movie with such tense exchanges they are gripping even if you don’t understand what the characters are referring to. You’d need a glossary at times if it weren’t for the Zachary Quinto character who thankfully acts as a conduit to the financial layman amongst us.

There are few histrionics, mainly just rational, coldly logical decisions based on the almighty $ and it’s chilling. You get the scene with the cleaner in the lift oblivious to how the blokes in the foreground are about to crash the system and somewhere down the line she is going to get shafted, i.e., end up paying for it, yet she did her job. It’s never polemical in the Oliver Stone sense, and it isn’t a stylistically razzmatazz event. And it’s Kevin Spacey’s last great film role. He is pure Spacey here and I’m not going to get into the legal stuff because I … will, like all filmgoers, never know the facts. But it’s a shame he departed.

Trying to relate this to a reality I can understand: this Irishman living in the States and his rant for the ages.

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Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) is timeless chuckles.

Shockingly (for me as I’ve catalogued most of these ’80s classics) I’d never seen this until last week. It could be made today, that’s how ‘undated’ it is. What an experience – genuinely a hoot and wholly relatable. We’ve all been stuck next to some annoying blabbermouth on what seems like a never-ending journey into the abyss. And who can’t relate to a transportation fiasco.

It’s also a subtle portrayal of class, the difficulties of breaking barriers, and ultimately and reluctantly working together to get where you need to be. A life lesson! This should be screened at office training days or something.

One scene came out of nowhere in its profanity, and it’s quite the spectacle seeing Steve Martin finally crack. He wasn’t going to intimate that rental agent, but he did a wonderful job in articulating the pain of dealing these sorts.

First-class movie.

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The Counselor (or however the hell different folk spell it) needs counselling.

A truly ghastly, thoroughly horrible movie that I finally put myself through. I’d heard ominous things about it but figured it couldnt be that bad. Oh my, it’s fucking dire, an absolute train wreck of a film. Let me try and explain why in the shortest time possible: it’s shite. It consists entirely of schematic conversations without a modicum of interest or anything to do with the plot even on a metaphorical level. It takes itself way too seriously to the extent that even the occasional splatter of violence comes across as desperately pretentious.

Nothing in it made any sense and yet with every scene I could smell the smugness on display; I got the feeling that the cast thought they were in a peak Tarantino. So boring, so without merit, so painful to watch. Give me those actors and a mere £200,000 and I will make you a better film.

A few folk I know have said something along the lines of, “Oh, it’s Cormac McCarthy.” I have no idea who he is (I don’t read much fiction) but I can assure you that in the screenwriting realm he is on this display a talentless fellow who probably lives in a log cabin just for the existential kudos. And what in the hell happened to Ridley Scott? He seems to be dedicating himself to garbage these days. Someone needs to write him a decent script.

I hated this movie so much. It’s the worst I’ve seen in a LONG TIME.

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