Tag Archives: Cinema

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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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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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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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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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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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 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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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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Scorsese nails Hereditary (2018).

It’s a remarkable film. Most ‘horror’ is jump-scares and all of that nonsense; this is how it’s done. Everything about it is … correct.

And I’m never watching it again!

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Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) is rather masterful.

This film is pretty much unique in its mastery of tone, a sense that you really don’t know whether it’s a drama or a comedy or where it’s going – it’s almost two or three genres in one and it’s informative to read the director’s quote about how they managed to achieve this no small feat: ‘With Grosse Pointe Blank I shot three movies simultaneously. We shot the script as written, we shot a mildly understated version, and we shot a completely over-the-top version, which usually was what was used.’

There’s a sweeping theme here of trying to recapture something that was never really there in the first place, the most thoughtful treatment of nostalgia ever to feature in what is ostensibly a comedy with gunfights. Only a peak John Cusack – the only ’80s geek to graduate to the postmodern – could carry it off. And as High School reunions go, ‘Mirror in the Bathroom’ should accompany each event:

A flawless movie. Even Dan Aykroyd is great in it and I generally cannot stand the lad.

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