Tag Archives: Images

Trading Places (1983).

A comedy with … you know, wits … that even has a bit of a brain. This was 1983, though, when you were allotted a bit of ‘lolz’.

This is a scattershot sociological satire (accidental alliteration), The Prince and the Pauper (1881) meets a raucous, but never annoying Eddie Murphy. The lad was on fire back then, a veritable motormouth meteor on stage and screen.

I ran out of metaphors.

There are spooky harbingers here: one’s dependence upon financial institutions, and how easy one can be ‘cut off’ from access to ‘legit’ money, the speed of the downfall from mansion to slum dwelling.

I found some of it quite disturbing in its foreboding, and the unfunny periods at least have these serious elements.

Top movie.

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They Live (1988).

John Carpenter – and what happened to him? – is almost a student filmmaker with a broad canvas. He makes, or made as he’s seemingly retired from the director’s chair, entirely self-contained movies that are immediately identifiable in their style, and it goes without saying but I’ll say it, anyway – the music. He defines the B-movie and I could never imagine him making anything outside the parameters of the genre.

This is a good one. The social commentary and allegorical play on industrial decline isn’t exactly subtle, but it doesn’t matter. Piper’s sunglasses revealing pernicious subliminal content disseminated by the powers that be – I was almost expecting a Marshall McLuhan cameo, à la Annie Hall (1977).

Top movie. Daft, but with chuckles.

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I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2003).

Atmospheric, moody, and highly promising. For the first 15 mins.

Then it’s just a series of badly acted conversations. And Clive Owen is a zombie. For no reason. What else? The dialogue is dire and horrible to listen to. A thriller devoid of thrills, this was a fucking drag.

The entire movie is pointless.

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Blue Velvet (1986).

How to describe this truly spellbinding picture without reeling off every platitude there is?

It’s a movie that is entirely relatable and in the ‘real world’, yet is so divorced from conventional narrative it may as well be non-cinema.

It’s a new kind of artform.

Is that cliché enough?

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Fences (2016)

In what is for the most part The Denzel Show, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a character in a movie talk so much as this garrulous, perpetually pished bit of rough. A wonderful script laden with occasionally profound insights and asides, it’s another tour de force from Denzel.

You’re in the presence of greatness.

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Napoleon (2023). It’s worse the second time.

I gave it another bash.

I lasted 28 minutes.

It’s like a movie that has been concocted from the Earth’s crust and skipped the Dinosaurs and is somehow with us.

It’s a rotten motion picture.

Bye for now.

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A Complete Unknown (2024).

A perfectly reasonable and noble biopic, so totally in awe of its subject that I lost interest and inevitably pulled the plug due to how tame and by the numbers it was.

But that hour wasn’t torture; I spent most of it on the topic’s Wikipedia entry, a few mumbling song renditions in the background.

So, thanks for the wee boost, for I can now hold a five-minute conversation about Bob Dylan.

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Lester Diamond.

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.

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Happy Gilmore 2 (2025).

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.

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Junior (1994).

I don’t get it. Is this supposed to be funny because Arnie is pregnant? Is that how the premise was pitched? It’s not even remotely amusing.

I was disappointed in myself for watching this shit, one of the flattest movies I’ve seen.

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