Marco Polo traversed the known world on a tenner.
The budget for these movies could fund a thousand Citizen Kanes.
Celluloid is rolling in its grave.
Movies made by creatures – for creatures.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
The Surfer (2024).
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.
Die Hard (1988).
It’s funnier than all its considerable attributes as an action movie. For the carnage, it’s top tier, but it’s definitely more of a comedy than any other description.
Maybe it’s because so much of this ilk is a slew of totally witless dirge, Die Hard (1988) appears smart and a bit of an outlier.
And you see a character sparking up a fag in a limo.
Kiss the Girls (1997).
Another episode from the post-Se7en (1995) slew of crap, there isn’t much happening here but lengthy periods of fatigue. Cary Elwes is in it and he’s fucking awful, but that’s no surprise in a movie bereft of surprises.
Pish.
Minority Report (2002).
It’s a rare movie that successfully depicts a vision of the future within an identifiable present you can recognise. It’s funny, a Utopian vision full of filth, Cruise graduating from the pristine confines of a police department to accidentally munching on a 12- year-old sandwich unearthed from Peter Stormare’s fridge.
Scarily accurate in its technological predictions, and the overarching powers of police surveillance in the age of preemptive strike, it’s a sad shame the script lifts verbatim a crucial scene from L.A. Confidential (1997). Flattery, or just lazy writing?
And the ending is embarrassing to watch, the cringe enduring image of three clairvoyants in old codger jumpers, reading books in a cottage, with a corny Cruise voice-over explaining why they are there.
It should have concluded with a bit more of the weirdness and ambiguity of Philip K. Dick.
The Running Man (1987).
Watching this again was a fatalistic regret because it’s absolute rubbish and bloody tedium defined. It’s another one of those movies that I convinced myself was good.
It isn’t and takes so long to get going I thought I was viewing one of those indulgent director’s cuts.
M3GAN (2022).
This funny flick (for the most part) revels in its own silly wee world and knows how ridiculous it is.
Several chuckles along the way, even if the last 20 minutes are unbearable in their noisy-as-hell mindlessness, as if all the self-aware comedy was building to a doll on a dull rampage.
Michael Madsen was a boss.
Michael Madsen seemed to exist in this liminal space between trash and art, or how sometimes they can be intertwined. And let’s not forget the unforgettable creation, the lad who had a predilection for slicing ears off.
Scary man!
π (1998).
An intro to Aronofskyisms, who in his exceptional debut feature pulls off the remarkable feat of making mathematics sort of interesting, theory relayed to us via the characters in their gripping exchanges; in these moments you end up taking notes for a Wikipedia binge.
The director draws so much from a conceptual premise through stylistic verve and repetition, and doesn’t run out of steam. There’s always something going on, the plot presenting successive obstacles for Max Cohen in his hopeless search for meaning where there frankly isn’t any to be found. The dirtiness of his domain (it’s like Abel Ferrara territory), the fact he’s living (barely) in squalor, the cocoon lifestyle, seems to further convince him that he’s deep in the shit and on the verge of an Earth-shattering discovery.
Great film, wild ride, the Aronofsky template.
The Shark Whisperer (2025).
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The biggest pat on the back I can bestow on this middling commercial is that it makes me wish to watch Jaws (1975) again for the 148th time.
Thanks.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 