Tag Archives: Movie

The Net (1995). Oh dear.

Not to to be confused with Dragnet (1987), just in case you are like me and somehow conflate Sandra Bullock into Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd, this is all about that newly crowned girl next door (Ms. Bullock) in her post bomb-on-a-bus pomp showing us all manner of technological wonders in this hackneyed cyber thriller.

A promising premise – the dangers of our dependence on computer systems – that goes nowhere in particular, you know you’re in for a hard time when the opening scene features Sandra Bullock as a shy loner ordering pizza off the Internet for only herself, as an Annie Lennox remix of ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ accompanies a panning shot of her apartment.

There is a lot wrong with all of that, but the main part is that it’s 1995 and Sandra Bullock is on her own, ordering pizza from a computer that we used in primary school to play solitaire on. Yeah, right! This movie also features one of the worst chase scenes in a thriller ever, and this at a funfair of all places – an insult to funfairs because the fun was non-existent. 

You’re best viewing this as a movie about 1995 and how stupid we all were. I’m certain that future generations will look upon us with such smug glee. 

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Jackie Brown (1997).

It’s a cliché now to describe this film as “mature Tarantino” amidst his pop culture works with a compulsory cultural allusion every few seconds. It’s a restrained affair but not as great as the wise critics would make you think it is. The style works and the images are memorable, but it’s far too reliant on its music soundtrack.

De Niro pops up and does a sort of bumbling semi-Falstaff, the rest of the cast looking happy to be there. Michael Keaton plays an ATF agent called Ray Nicolette, and reprises the role in Out of Sight (1998). This harbinger of what cinemas are awash with today – multiverse overkill – is my predominant takeaway from the movie.

It’s okay, but feels forced, for long stretches simply dull, and I can’t recall a single line of dialogue. 

But it’s not shite. 

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The Intern (2015).

Another De Niro film from his comedy vault, the two-hour running time put me off, but Tarantino speaks fondly of the movie, so that sealed the deal. It’s terrible. Shame on you, QT.

It does have a wee something to say about ageism, but it’s barely even believable. And it’s another stomach-churning movie about American office culture, with its sycophantic, annoying-as-fuck employees who couldn’t be more boring and who live for the pleasure of working for boring cunts. 

And I was bored.

Hated it. 

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The Hitcher (1986).

The landscape offers a lot to work with, ripe vistas aplenty, but there’s no enduring image from the cinematography side of things. 

I was expecting tension and chills; this was mainly boring and unimaginative. Nothing seemed to be at stake despite all the bloodshed, and the lack of any dynamic between the driver and the demented hitchhiker is a letdown. I couldn’t locate a personality in anyone here in what in essence is a variation of the same violent road encounter occurring every 10 minutes.

The laziness of writing pisses me off, be this in a slimy thriller like we have here or a mega bucks operation. It’s not difficult to insert a few character traits and attempt to build depth but nah, apparently it’s too much of a Herculean task. 

Rutger Hauer could be a scary man, though. And what happened to C. Thomas Howell? 

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Rogue Agent (2022).

This was a low-key semi-thriller, a slow-burning affair that worked perfectly for a bit. For an entire 80 minutes, it was genuinely unpredictable and with a fleeting romance that convinced. Then it got boring and I was bored. 

Last 20 minutes were hard work. I wish I turned it off. 

Next.

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The Ugly Truth (2009).

It wasn’t my choice to watch this ugly tripe.

And I’ll never watch it again, or any movie featuring anyone involved in it.

Unfunny, painfully coarse to the level of beyond cringe, and just plain annoying.

If someone gave me a DVD of this, I’d use it as a weapon to assault them with.

Bye for now.

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Shot Caller (2017).

It’s Jaime Lannister with outrageous moustache in a leading role, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau a world away from Westeros in this brutal crime drama. 

I do like a gritty thriller with a bare-bones clinical style, no faffing around. The opening voice-over is nauseating and sounds like it was written by Rocky Balboa during his … Rocky Balboa (2006) phase. But after this misstep, it got bloody good.

It shows you that anyone can end up in the slammer given unfortunate curve balls. A hellish urban landscape follows the frightful prison experience, the reality that you’re in it for life. The odds are stacked so high against this lad you just pray he makes it out alive.

It’s got its cliches aplenty but it doesn’t matter as it’s damn well put together. And the music had a bit of Nick Cave & Warren Ellis about it. 

Superb movie, proper carnage.

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The Getaway (1972).

This movie is the Al Lettieri Show – the Sollozzo fella who was good with a knife. He dwarfs everyone else, and makes a bit of a mockery of them. A star vehicle that goes nowhere, with the worst actress you’ll ever see. I watched Love Story (1970) once and wished to string myself up.

The constant zoom shots and unnecessary cuts to insignificant items was breathtakingly amateurish. Pekinpah had no idea where to plonk his camera and no conception on how to even focus on a narrative connectivity between shots; accidentally crossing the line was his only defining characteristic. The most overrated director. The sound design is also horrible and the music is intrusive and contributes nothing.

The remake is somehow better. And that’s also a pile of shite.

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Vice (2018).

An hour of breezy climbing-the-ladder banter, researched kind of well but still replete with whopping inaccuracies, Vice (2018) holds in admiration its protagonist’s uncanny appreciation of the mechanisms of power. Perfectly decent performances and a freewheeling narrative structure lost my interest just when events should have made the content interesting. It got decidedly shite by the last throes and I had no choice but to turn the farce off once the director broke the fourth/fifth/sixth wall.

Perhaps there wasn’t much human substance there to document beyond 60 mins.

Belter of a trailer (and tune), though:

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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024).

For some reason I cannot and do not wish to fathom, a Mad Max ‘Easter egg’ appeared in the revolting Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) and it almost sullied my appreciation for anything Mad Max or even the name Max. Almost. 

Furiosa (2024), a prequel set decades prior to the magisterial Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), thankfully does not feature a Deadpool or a Wolverine. Cunts.

Anyway, what was this movie like, you may enquire?

I was expecting a frenzied shitload of George Miller mental action which is always of the most inventive and considered (visually) kind, and he delivered. I was never in any doubt. It’s a feast for the eyes and ears, the stunt work once again mesmerising. And it actually has a deep storyline and characters for this kind of preposterous fare.

I hear it flopped at the box office. 

Audiences are stupid. 

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