Film | Wanderings and ... wonderings.

Feb 24 2019

Creed II (2018) is gash.

Creed-2

A bit disappointed in Creed II (2018). Not that the Rocky movies didn’t regurgitate the same stale stuff (accidental alliteration) over and over and over, but the OTT formula worked for the majority of chapters in the franchise. My personal ranking is: Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky IV, Rocky Balboa, Rocky III, Creed, and the total shitstorm that is Rocky V, a movie that is clearly mentally ill.

Sadly, this new episode is also rubbish. Stallone is basically the same ‘will = win’ verbatim figure as always – every line he spews out is Rocky Balboa (2006) and Creed (2015) put through a Microsoft Word thesaurus – but seems totally out of sync with the the hip hop Kendrick Lamar-soundtracked reboot surroundings. He’s an incredibly boring actor at times, and he sleepwalks through this.

And there’s not enough Drago. There are so many opportunities to develop dimensions in this character, but they are wasted. He remains a one-note villain, a snarling mute who may as well be a brick wall.

However, seeing Brigitte Nielsen look like a pancake chucked in acid was a highlight. Something out of a Brazil (1985) facelift, it’s the only item of curiosity in the snoozefest.

There is no reason for this movie to exist.

Bye for now.

Tagged Boxing, Creed, Film, Movies, Rocky, Rocky Balboa, Stallone

Jan 16 2019

1 Comment

Cinema, Film, Movies, Uncategorized

The 1999 movie vault is something special and scary.

mv5bmdkzytvmzjitmdu1zs00nmu1lthlzgqtmjzmotdiztg4yzcwxkeyxkfqcgdeqxvymjk3ntuyotc@._v1_

1999 produced some truly cracking movies, dare I say two-in-one arthouse entertainments. They were from the sunny prism of the Clinton-era dot-com bubble, but laden with doom, premonitions of a darker age, and concerned with the very nature of reality itself – its comforting distractions of material consumption and conformism. 9/11 changed everything; apathy was suddenly pummeled. The Y2K bug turned out to be fuck all and instead actual shit hit the fan. These movies – American Beauty, Fight Club, and The Matrix – capture that pre-9/11 unease with elan.

the_matrix_530

They’re films of their era yet transcend the age because of the superior artistry on display. It’s not exactly fashionable today to laud the acting chops of Kevin Spacey, but he is superior in American Beauty, middle-aged melancholy defined as he squirms his way around suburban hell. The Matrix heralded a new dawn in special effects – bullet time and all that – yet was also one of the first pictures to probe with caution the digital landscape, 20 years before possessing a talking robot called Alexa was considered a normal pursuit.

In Fight Club, peculiarly a flop at the time (the pitfalls of bad marketing, they say) we find an Americana in the throes of an existential meltdown, angst-ridden males looking for something to fight for, a purpose or quest, amidst the dreariness of normalcy. Every generation needs a war.

americanbeautyfeat

Though products of corporations, American Beauty, Fight Club, and The Matrix do not hesitate to bite the proverbial hand that feeds. There is a deep skepticism and paranoia running through them, that of the office as enslavement and deindividuation, the Michel Foucault Panopticon theme quite rampant. There’s also the sanguine at work here, that with mental and physical self-sacrifice and by disconnecting oneself from the cultural hegemony there is light, self-awareness, … happiness.

Leave a comment

Film, Movies, TV, Uncategorized

James Bond is ruined.

Daniel-Craig-james-bond-BW

The Jason Bourne films coupled with a mighty dose of political correctness defeated the James Bond films. The rot began at the beginning of the noughties with the near-simultaneous release of The Bourne Identity (2002) and Die Another Day (2002). The former was an ascetic, bare-boned spy thriller sans gadgets and one-liners; the last Pierce Brosnan outing was a Roger Moore movie on steroids. And with an invisible car.

Die Another Day, a 40-year anniversary Bond replete with references to previous episodes in the franchise, riled the critics to no end; even today it’s deemed the ‘Worst Bond ever’ etc. The thing is, it’s not that bad. Bond has always been ludicrous, and that’s the appeal. Roger Moore knew this so played to the gallery. He’s impossible to kill and every shady fucker knows who he is the minute he checks into a hotel.

The custodians of Bond looked at this new gritty Bourne phenomenon and had a lightbulb moment. They did away with the special effects and made Bond a well-dressed Matt Damon – humourless, dour, and more boring than Matt Damon, who incidentally isn’t boring. The whole point of Bond is that he’s meant to be impervious to change, an anachronism spanning developments in the cultural landscape. These days he drinks Heineken, is the subject of psychoanalysis sessions at MI6, and proclaims he doesn’t give a damn if his voddy martini is shaken or stirred. And apparently Generation Snowflake think it would be more inviting if Bond were a woman.

I’d also like to add that Skyfall (2012) is an absolute howler of a movie. It’s as exciting as unblocking a toilet. To top this off the third act descends into a minimalist Home Alone (1990) set in the Scottish Highlands. Bond is fucked. Bring back the gadgets.

Leave a comment

Film, Movies, Scotland, Television, Uncategorized

VHS was/is better.

IMG_20181209_172139432

I was given a VHS player last month and a big batch of videos. I was always a DVD aficionado but realised something about 70 minutes into Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), this the movie in which Sean Connery plays Harrison Ford’s dad yet is a mere 12 years older than him in real life.

My thought was: I never skip scenes on a movie if it’s VHS because I can’t be fucked pressing the fast-forward button. It creates a whole new appreciative viewing experience, even if the film is pish.

IMG_20181209_172156384

N.B. The Rock (1996) is a masterpiece. I’m convinced a Michael Bay clone made the picture.

Tagged Cinema, DVD, Film, Movies, Tape, VHS, Viewing

Oct 09 2018

Leave a comment

Cinema, Film, Movies, Oscars, World War Two, WWII

The Thin Red Line (1998) is from another world.

Original Cinema Quad Poster - Movie Film Posters

Fuck knows what Terrence Malick was doing between Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998). Malick goes period again, the slaughter of Guadalcanal complete with a who’s who of Hollywood ‘big names’. One could be forgiven for thinking this a contemporary The Longest Day (1962), a spot-the-star marathon. Malick clearly used these ‘stars’ as a means for making this entirely personal ontological exercise.

The least political war movie ever, the battle starts and ends and the company depart, characters question their place in the grand scheme of things, quite the number die. The cinematography is breathtaking, the score transcendental. It’s the closest ‘commercial’ motion picture to extended movie montage, à la Koyaanisqatsi (1982). There are no stock good guys and bad guys or retreading of traditional war movie tropes.

The+Thin+Red+Line

Martin Scorsese summed it up quite well: “The Thin Red Line” is so important. You could come in the middle of it, you can watch it. It’s almost like an endless picture. It has no beginning and no end. People say, “Well, sometimes I can’t tell whose voiceover it is.” It doesn’t matter. It’s everybody’s voiceover.”

Tagged Film, Guadalcanal, James Jones, Movie, Pacific, Terrence Malick, The Thin Red Line, World War Two, WWII

Sep 16 2018

Leave a comment

Cinema, Edinburgh, Film, Movies, Uncategorized

The Predator (2018) is hell in a cinema.

I’ve had shites that were more enjoyable than The Predator (2018), and one time in 2014 in Tokyo I shat out nothing but green water for 11 straight days. How can you go from peak Arnie circa 1987 to this garbage? I thought right-wing US governments were meant to bring about a seismic change in film discourse? Like, proper satirical stuff masquerading as flag-waving propaganda. Apparently not.

This film was so fucking atrocious I fell asleep for half an hour, spilled Coca-Cola on my £11 Sainsbury’s jeans, and had a dream about Warwick Davis dropkicking Kenny Baker into the Death Star. My movie-watching colleague had to wake me up with smelling salts.

Worst film I’ve seen in years.

Tagged 80s, Arnie, Cinema, Eighties, Film, Predator, Shite

Aug 28 2018

Leave a comment

Cinema, Film, Movies, Uncategorized

Halloween (1978) at 40.

720x405x37f1e-halloween.jpg.pagespeed.ic.Y_rnjmMpBK

Halloween (1978) is always watched on Halloween in my Gorgie palace of peculiarities. It’s tradition, much like how Jingle All The Way (1996) – the best worst Christmas movie ever – is viewed on Christmas Day with a bottle of hard liquor artfully concocted in a budget supermarket car park. It’s 40 years now that John Carpenter’s revolutionary horror has been kicking about. It has unfortunately spawned an absolute smörgåsbord of pale imitators; almost every horror in a multiplex today uses Halloween (1978) as the template. This is, however, a common theme throughout genre cinema. Die Hard (1988), for example, takes the same role for action movies (Die Hard on a boat, Die Hard on a plane, etc).

The film has the creepiest atmosphere and is just masterfully shot; one gets the feeling that every single frame was storyboarded to perfection à la Hitchcock. There’s a complete lack of gore – it’s not needed, and that old cliche about imagination trumping the visceral is on full display here. And it’s that William Shatner Captain Kirk death mask. Who the hell came up with that? Michael Myers sans the mask just wouldn’t work. Mass entertainment auteur cinema, and the original ‘slasher’ if we place Psycho (1960) in the high-art basket, Halloween (1978) makes Halloween more Halloween.

Tagged 1978, Cinema, Film, Halloween, Horror, John Carpenter

Jul 03 2018

Leave a comment

Cinema, Film, Movies, Uncategorized

The Truman Show – 20 years on.

The Truman Show (1998) didn’t capture the zeitgeist; it largely predicted it. Much like how Scarface (1983) birthed glorified Gangsta rap – present hip hop artists unaware that Montana was a satire laughing at the emergence of the culture – it was the Jim Carrey ‘serious role’ vehicle which presaged the Big-Brother-by-choice bantz we now have. The eponymous ‘reality’ TV show, a zillion other ‘hidden camera’ programmes populated by tarted-up bimbos (yes, including The Apprentice), the omniscience of social media, the shameless supervision from the NSA and GCHQ. It’s as if Truman is a summation of 20 years of snooping, willfully and not, but before it happened.

I can’t even count the number of times someone has said to me they feel like they’re living a real-life Truman Show, such has been the ridiculousness of their day. Well, if directed actors and MacGuffins aren’t out there to construct the drama, you can bet you’re being watched, often by choice – think of all the selfies at crime scenes, the Snapchatting of break-ins, check-ins at weddings/funerals.

the-truman-show-anniversary-embed-03

The Truman Show nailed the lot – the shallowness, the vanity, the essential neediness of modern society to not only feign happiness in its absence but inject meaning everywhere, to create a drama when none is needed.

And that Philip Glass score lifted from Powaqqatsi (1998) is quite the cracker:

Leave a comment

Cinema, Film, Movies, Oscars, Vietnam

Forrest Gump wasn’t complete shite.

fine-forrest-gump-poster-6

Forrest Gump (1994) is without qualification the cheesiest, corniest, most simplistic depiction of the American Experience and the ‘everyman’ possibilities within the shebang, the movie a ’90s version of Being There (1979) without the wit and pathos. Gump has been labelled a conservative’s wet dream – live like Forrest, i.e., be respectful of authority, drug-free, don’t question your surroundings, and you’ll succeed despite your worryingly low IQ. Wander Uncle Sam’s peninsulas in the manner of his perpetual unrequited love Jenny, by all accounts a free-spirited hippie/druggie sex bomb, and you’ll kick the bucket. There’s something of the ’94 Republican Revolution going on here.

It does, however, work as an elementary and indeed extraordinary introduction to the second half of the 20th century. I knew literally nothing of even the existence of the following until I saw Forrest Gump in 1996 two years after its release: Presidents JFK, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War, Watergate, the song San Francisco performed by Scott McKenzie, The Doors, Elvis, John Lennon, the Black Panthers, and the virus popularly known as Aids. True story. Primary School taught me none of these things, but I did memorise a lot about Henry VIII ….

ForrestJohn-Lennon21

The movie has little commentary on any of its historical snippets, such is the processional structure and concentration on scope over depth. It does abridge, though, forty-odd years of American history in a running time of 2:22:09 minutes in a Zelig-like visual glossary. Without Forrest Gump, I would have had to watch five more ridiculous films. Thankfully, I didn’t.

It’s not that shite.

Cheers, Forrest.

Tagged Film, Forrest Gump, Movie, Robert Zemeckis, Tom Hanks, Vietnam

Apr 12 2018

Leave a comment

Cinema, Film, Germany, Uncategorized, World War Two, WWII

Where Eagles Dare (1968) – Wehrmacht Stormtroopers.

Where Eagles Dare (1968) surely must have been watched on a loop by George Lucas as he was penning A New Hope (1977) and the expanded Star Wars universe.

Fan art poster.

Hohenwerfen Castle is this movie’s Death Star, the German troops the most incompetent ever assembled in what is the peak Hollywood WWII turkey shoot; Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood mow the fuckers down like Stormtroopers. Reducing a complex military operation to the wits and whims of two ‘superhero’ protagonists, it’s this blasé depiction of war that has young lads all giddy (“chomping at the bit”) en route to army recruitment offices.

The Wehrmacht grunt here is a Stormtrooper sans the Arctic clobber, and by the end one could be forgiven for thinking that Messrs Burton and Eastwood casually take out an entire division.

It’s quite the escapist experience, and its influence is rampant – the Medal of Honor video game series, for example, is an unabridged adaptation of the movie’s aesthetic. In an ideal Pentagon monopoly on propaganda, the enemy is devoid of dimensions and the battle a cakewalk.

War is no messy struggle when you’ve got personality pulling the trigger.

Tagged Action cinema, Alps, Bavaria, Cinema, Clint Eastwood, Film, Germany, Movie, Richard Burton, Star Wars, Stormtroopers, War flick, Where Eagles Dare, World War Two, WWII

Wanderings and … wonderings.

Tag Archives: Film

Creed II (2018) is gash.

The 1999 movie vault is something special and scary.

James Bond is ruined.

VHS was/is better.

The Thin Red Line (1998) is from another world.

The Predator (2018) is hell in a cinema.

Halloween (1978) at 40.

The Truman Show – 20 years on.

Forrest Gump wasn’t complete shite.

Where Eagles Dare (1968) – Wehrmacht Stormtroopers.