Wanderings and … wonderings.

A bad Scorsese movie is a depressing experience, and this was soaringly bad.

And then Danny Huston turned up and it just descended into beyond bad. This bloke sinks, or further buries, so many motion pictures you begin to wonder what goods he has on directors.

Pointless pish that must have cost a fucking fortune, it feels like a movie that Scorsese was contractually obligated to make, because I see no other reason for this lightweight embarrassment to exist.

I’ve had more interesting adventures in a B&M than this biopic of Howard Hughes.

This bloke, Hank Worden, is the worst actor that has ever ‘graced’ the silver screen, and his Mose Harper in The Searchers (1956) is what prevents that movie from being a masterpiece.

A first viewing here for this shitter featuring an odd couple in Sly and Kurt, odd in that they’re both disturbingly similar in delivery and demeanour, though Kurt Russell can emote with less awkwardness and the writers try to make him seem wild by having a mullet. Great screenwriting ….

My only prior knowledge of the flick stems from a lad I used to work with who expressed perpetual regret for choosing this over Goodfellas (1990) at a cinema showing. That’s profound.

And Tango & Cash (1989)?

It isn’t even a curiosity. It’s not even memorably rubbish, just pointless. And boring. A great nothing, it should be wiped from the historical record.

Bye for now.

This is a great movie because it achieves a rarity in cinema today.

You get sick to death of the characters and their antics but end up quite liking them because of the sincere, absolutely believable changes they make to stop being annoying.

Incredible scenes.

This director made some fucking belters, Seconds (1966) and Ronin (1998) your blogger’s personal faves from Frankenheimer’s treasure trove of thriller goodies.

The Train (1964) belongs in the wee basket of bantz. It features a train, didn’t you know? It’s a riot, with sublime cinematography replete with anachronistic experiments that somehow manage not to retract from the drama, the thrills, big Burt Lancaster, the rarely seen Paul Scofield as an art-loving Nazi, Jeanne Moreau, and lots of steam. Good steam.

John Frankenheimer made the type of movies that Brian De Palma couldn’t accomplish.

Interiors (1978) was so ghastly in every conceivable way I almost thought I had turned on a parody of a movie named Interiors, or a low-rent version of a really bad Bergman movie, and there are plenty of those. 

The behaviour of the ‘characters’ – the nebbish, narcissistic blabbering lot with therapists – in this joke of a film had me reaching for the cyanide. The lack of purpose wasn’t what vexed me the most, it was the prevailing smugness, the tightly-wound dialogue so concocted and so unlike how humans interact that it’s immediately begging you to quit. The Brechtian Effect in cinema works when it’s done right, but I don’t think this movie even does it on purpose, it’s that far up its own arse.

Interiors is horrible and everyone in it is infuriating. 

Just horrible. 

But if you want to be irritated, this is the one for you.

Terry Gilliam movies are generally a mess, and with extended periods of boredom, meandering subplots that are entirely unnecessary. Only in cinema could he get away with such self-indulgent behaviour; a novel of his I would use as a coaster at best.

This movie has nothing going for it aside from four fabulous shots.

It’s pointless as a film and is thoroughly infuriating in its Monty Python-ness, which consists of ostensibly serious things happening but characters oblivious to them and faffing around with something else in the frame.

These very non-talented folk made entire careers out of this subset of weak comedy and they are still dining off it.

I hate Monty Python and everyone associated with it. Because it’s not funny, not clever, and defines an era when Britain seems even more cruddy and just plain stupid than it is today.

And that’s not good.

I despised this movie.

Bye for now.

An unsubtle grand metaphor for imperialism and the passing of the torch from one empire to the next, the personal and the political both intertwine in The Quiet American (2002) as they always inevitably do in these world-weary yarns.

It’s a fabulous thriller with all the prerequisite delicate human minutiae, and Michael Caine is extraordinary.

He always has been – even in The Swarm (1978).