Tag Archives: Cinema

Aug 05 2021
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The Thing (1982) is a riot and defines John Carpenter.

There exists an incredible canon of Carpenter movies from the ’70s and ’80s – Carpenter pulling out one sublime picture after another. A wee bit of snobbery swirls around commentary on him, that he can’t do a period drama or handle anything another other than horror and thrills, which is making an obvious point. And I keep referring to him in the past tense. Because I haven’t seen a new movie from the lad for decades.

As much as I would ascribe the term ‘auteur’ to the truly multi-skilled Carpenter, folk read way too much into these films, always seeking for the allegorical or the profound statement. They are all cult B-movies where very little acting nuance is needed, high-concept affairs elevating the primacy of the image and the economy of the edit. You’re in it for 90 minutes and then afterwards that’s that. It’s not Antonioni.

And to The Thing (1982) and that score, the landscape, the constant menace, and yet with the wackiest visual effects, brilliant for their time and curiously not dated at all.

The Thing is his peak.

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Jul 16 2021
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Art, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Hostiles (2017) should be seen by more folk.

I usually hate revisionism because it’s almost always ‘crafted’ through the lens of ridiculous zeitgeist lefty reevaluations of a now controversial time. Artistry comes second with this crusade. They are just message movies and aesthetically worthless.

This one looked ominous. However, it was surprisingly almost brilliant. Bale was … Bale. He is titanium. He cannot be broken. This did baffle me a wee bit as with a lot of these flicks we have the flawed protagonist die at the end because of his sins and he somehow finds catharsis in this. Not so here. Which is just fabulous.

I say almost great. There aren’t any memorable moments or sequences which wander out of formula. But it’s masterfully shot and put together. And I hate most movies.

A strong 4/5.

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Jul 07 2021
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JFK (1991) is a masterpiece of garbage.

The Kennedy ‘Camelot’ worship is just pathetic, a whitewashing of some truly horrific folks. I just don’t get it and the only explanation I have for the adulation of that pampered clan is that when you’ve got Nixon or Goldwater you have to pick the lesser of two … something like that. Anyway, the outright lies in this movie are audacious in their temerity. The director quite literally makes shit up. No wonder the amenable masses think everything is a conspiracy these days.

But what a cast, what style, what editing razzmatazz. If you could define bravura it would be peak Oliver Stone. He’s the best kind of worst propagandist. What does the lad get up to these days aside from interview dictators? His last masterwork was Any Given Sunday (1999). I saw a film he made about Alexander the Great. It was worse than one of my shites after tanning a vindaloo.

“Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.”

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Jul 02 2021
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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

For one extended moment in time Nicolas Cage was some kind of god.

It happened somehow – Cage became the best action movie star ever.

He, or a group of wise men, created the Cage Blockbuster Event. Name me a better trilogy than The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997), and Face/Off (1997). He is pure charisma, 100% mental, and in desperate need of a decent bout of hair surgery. These are extraordinary action pictures, repeat viewings, … action art. It’s the Golden Age of Cage.

He makes so many stinkers these days, the same shit over and over again. But just when you think he’s consigned himself forever to the straight-to-video dungeon, he pops up in something like Mandy (2018), away with the fairies, off his tits, barking mad, Extreme Cage. It has to be method. But it probably isn’t.

“In Cage’s hands, cartoonish moments are imbued with real emotion and real emotions become cartoons. Everything – from individual scenes down to single lines of dialogue – feel like they have been embraced as opportunities for creation. Cage is usually interesting even when his films are not. He is erratic and unpredictable; he is captivating and he is capricious. He is a performer. He is a troubadour. He is a jazz musician.” – Luke Buckmaster in The Guardian.

Indeed.

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May 27 2021
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Art, Cinema, Film, Uncategorized

If you designed the perfect blockbuster The Mummy (1999) would be it.

There’s a deep and thoughtful longing – which I very much approve of – at the moment for the return of Brendan Fraser, and it appears to have been massively aided by this GQ article, the piece a rarity of this sort in how well written and insightful it is. The lad is captivating, refreshingly honest, and an actor who was simply great in everything – believable, relatable, but with an edge. He always gave me the impression that he had been parachuted into the film and we were there to follow him on his journey. A stoic naïveté was strong with this one. Is that not what a reluctant hero is?

The Mummy (1999) is awesome, Fraser pulling off the Indiana Jones role with aplomb. It was awesome at the time but now it has been elevated. I’d sum the never-boring riot as good old-fashioned popcorn entertainment which uses CGI in a productive way, i.e., you can see the point of its use. It works and without it the movie wouldn’t succeed to the extent that it does. A fine juggling act is mastered between live action, the digital effects, pacing, and characterisation. It is a silly affair but a good silly.

Even John Hannah isn’t that annoying. And he annoys me in everything. Aside from this, where he is only slightly annoying. Special mention to Kevin J. O’Connor whose Beni Gabor steals the show, an apparent weasel of greed, self-interest, and opportunism, yet somehow in the most underwritten role he squeezes out the comedy and, dare I say it, the pathos. Almost everything he does, I’d do the same in his shoes.

I would recommend this movie to just about anyone.

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May 12 2021
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Architecture, Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, Technology, Uncategorized, United States

Point Blank (1967). How fabulous this is.

Lee Marvin had a bonkers year in 1967, this thriller and The Dirty Dozen representing the peak of his cult, not that your random audience member knew it at the time. They are a curious twosome as Point Blank appears a blueprint for a future style of film aesthetics and the Robert Aldrich ripper a throwback or definition of the classical form, if not in its then-graphic onscreen violence. It’s a watershed 52 weeks. I wasn’t alive back then, and thank fuck. But it looks eventful (just watch The Graduate).

What a seductive picture, and even the jarring time jumps work to reinforce the dreamy atmosphere of the film. The precise framing and use of colour, it LOOKS AMAZING (CAPS LOCK ALERT). The overlapping sound is pre-Robert Altman but betters those seminal works because it’s more than a silly afterthought or accident. There are scenes in this which require so little dialogue they may as well be Godard in a traffic jam. It’s an exercise in stylistics. You get this with first-time filmmakers or those in the early throes of the game – the bold choices, the going with the instinct. Peckinpah retained it almost to the end. Scorsese – the last man standing – still has it.

This is peak Tarantinto three decades before peak Tarantino. But without the feet obsession.

It’s also hilarious. Marvin has to be the coolest bloke to ever be off his tits. He retains throughout a semi-plastered hangdog expression and even in his quietest rage barely looks interested in proceedings. It’s all too easy for Marvin. All he wants is his cash but not even the corporate pyramid semi-responsible for his fate are even capable of doing the basics. Almost everyone in this movie is useless. It’s a life lesson.

Point Blank is a relic and a template.

P.S. There is no relation between this and Point Break (1991), which I watched a few weeks ago.

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Apr 28 2021
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Starship Troopers (1997) is an absolute belter.

It’s hilarious satire, and so smartly done. It’s also damn entertaining. And it hasn’t aged a bit.

It’s in fact way ahead of its time. The lunacy of some of the reviews of 1997. These idiotic ‘critics’ didn’t seem to grasp that everything about the movie is a joke, a piss-take, a borderline comedy. The characters are straight out of a Nazi propaganda piece, and they have legit no redeeming features. But you still watch it for their complete lack of self-awareness.

And the carnage. I like proper carnage.

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Apr 20 2021
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The Grey (2011) is fabulous.

I’ve read a few sneering reviews from snooty film critics taking umbrage at the movie’s existential pretensions. I don’t get where they’re coming from; if you’re being stalked and mauled by a pack of sociopathic wolves I think you’d start to think about your existence. Anyway, it’s a thrilling movie. There’s no comedy or irony or a memorable quote; what it does is action and does it with aplomb. It’s about willpower and survival. And Liam fighting wolves. That’s it.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

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Apr 18 2021
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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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Mar 26 2021
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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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