James Woods as the odious pimp Lester Diamond in Casino (1995).
The lad features for a mere 10 minutes but in those precious scenes cements his acting legacy by effortlessly creating one of the the sleaziest, slimiest characters ever put on celluloid.
James Woods is a treat and we should be grateful to him.
Strong nostalgia tour here, the type of entirely unnecessary sequel you’d expect after a 30-year hiatus.
It’s okay for what it is – hit and miss, breezy enough for an hour but far too draining once the physical comedy reaches breaking point in its repetition.
And erstwhile golfer/legendary hellraiser John Daly has a cameo. I forgot about him. But I’m glad I have learned he is still alive.
The score in Kingdom of Heaven (2005) is exceptional, one of the best I’ve heard, and beautifully applied to image. It’s just a shame Orlando Bloom features, but I suppose you can mute him.
It evokes a time and place in a way that is definitive, without qualification. This is what that period sounded like, surely:
I tried.
Scorsese always deserves a second change of pants.
This movie is fucking atrocious. The needless, meandering, wholly unmemorable dialogue was the worst element of this unimpressive stinker.
You get the impression they are all about to drop the bombshell. And there isn’t one.
And it’s not even funny.
I hated it and hope you do too.
Sorry, Marty.
How a gruesome series of sadistic slashers whose sole concern is setting up, with our complicity in the premonition, chain-reaction sequences of unfettered butchery can be … fun is entirely testament to the filmmakers.
And this is by a mile the best yet.
It’s brilliant.
Complex but not too much so, at breakneck pacing the internal paradoxes of time travel have seldom had such thrilling treatment. It’s all a bit depressing as well, with one wrong move ruining future generations, but it’s done in an enjoyable way. Dumping Jennifer, Marty’s beleaguered girlfriend and soon-to-be wife, in an alleyway (and then a porch) is a bit naughty, though. That’s not aged well.
As for it’s prediction of 2015, much of it was accurate, but I don’t recall hoverboards a decade ago. Even today, members of Edinburgh’s shrieking underclass community are still pounding it along pavements on pink scooters (stolen), with lifted cleaning goods from budget supermarket Aldi shoved down their tracksuit bottoms.
Brendan Gleeson is one of the finest out there and even in a stinker he’s never the one doing the stinking.
Jon Voight, best known these days as an outspoken MAGA acolyte, has his considerable talents on display as our protagonist’s Gardaí nemesis, the Nineties his thesp Indian summer. This and his barking turn in Anaconda (1997) is a mighty double bill I would recommend to anyone.
The black and white works, it’s frequently thrilling, and he’s a very funny character who maintains your interest.
Superb movie.
Despite some well-written scenes built around awkward moments, this is a hollow tragedy wholly dependent upon flashback structure as a means of keeping the audience attuned. And with a protagonist who doesn’t deserve our sympathy, or attention, or any kind of movie made about him, and he’s a lifeless fucker at that.
You understand, with an unsympathetic lad, the brutal approach with the likes of Taxi Driver (1976) or Raging Bull (1980), but these movies were made with exceptional grace and a magnetic, kinetic urgency.
This was just a derivative, bubbling affair, the extended, longing shots of troubled souls staring at one another lifted from a thousand playbooks. I was bored with every character in this film, as was I with the reliance on rote soundtrack choices I’d expect to be made on a student production.
And Kyle Chandler is in it with one of the most exotic versions of a Massachusetts accent I’ve ever heard in a movie. These folk are American actors and can’t even do a dialect properly from a state in their own country.
Rubbish.
This is one funny movie.
Paul Verhoeven excelled at satirical splatter. Then he made Black Book (2006) and it was a sort of solemn drama and departure from corporate critique, and very good despite the absence of jokes.
Arnie is incredible in this. For a good decade he could do no wrong, the best of the hulking beasts.
5/5, a glorious film.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 