Tag Archives: Movie
Crimson Tide (1995).
Crimson Tide (1995) is fucking amazing, and it’s not just for the extended screaming stand-off between Gene and Denzel. It’s a film about an issue, a rather big issue, yet is shot with such electricity, edited and paced as good as any action-thriller, and with a Hans Zimmer score sounding like it was composed when he was conducting an esoteric shite. Even the intermittent pop culture references, weird as they are, kind of work, a way to relieve the unbearable tension.
You have five heart attacks watching this movie.
Barbie (2023). I bit the bullet.
I didn’t mind it at all, and just watched it for the daftness and the epic tunes.
I’m not going to read much into a movie about dolls. I got the the whole intention of the male/female power-dynamic/divide or whatever. It’s nothing I’ve ever thought about. Or cared to. Or ever will in this moment of time.
Never seen a Barbie or Ken doll in my life, never wanted one, and have no interest in these creations.
I’m sure there is a massive yet subtle subtext to everything in this film, but I’ll leave that to the ‘professionals’.
It was entertaining. It has made a billion. Is that how easy it is? Movie about Bagpuss next. I want to see Bagpuss on a cocaine binge that Jordan Belfort would clap at.
Meow.
And ‘Barbie Girl’, THE tune of the ’90s, made an ‘appearance’. In a way ….
In the Mood for Love (2000).
Talk about the transcendental. In its artistry and superior articulation of its themes, this really did remind me of the works of Yasujirō Ozu, and Toyko Story (1953) in particular.
It’s also a devastating watch and not something you’d stick on every year as it’s too accurate, too affecting, too profound. The ending is as haunting as anything I’ve seen.
It’s ranked 5th in Sight & Sound’s “Greatest Films of All Time” critics’ poll.
They’re not wrong.
Bull (2021).
This was just your usual shite and defines what’s so crap about British cinema.
I hated every minute of it, from the moment the director films a moving car in the most irritating way. The writing was frankly ghastly, and I despise, again with the vehicle stuff, scenes of characters looking all serious in cars at night with classical music inevitably playing on the radio. It’s the worst kind of writing. It was all pathetic. There’s even a bit in here involving parents arguing about murder as they are gobbling down fish and chips. TV-quality acting as always; these folk should just stick to Corrie Street.
Another disgrace to cinema this. But check it out if you want some torture.
Next.
Michael Mann is back with Ferrari (2023).
It’s been so fucking long, and Blackhat (2015) so unmemorable as to make the wait feel … much longer.
Welcome back, Michael Mann. I’m sure you’ve never been away but a trailer from your immense talents hasn’t been dropped for quite some time.
I have faith in you. I’ve read/seen your résumé many, many, many times.
High hopes for this one.
The Founder (2016).
A humanising of McDonald’s here. Sort of. It works as a character study and a business lesson, or a warning for small businesses when the sharks come sniffing around.
Well paced once the lengthy exposition is dealt with, mostly interesting, and with a perfectly reasonable Michael Keaton performance, but that’s always expected. There’s nothing exceptional about this but I can’t think of a bad scene, either. I also like to see folk using pay phones and paper diaries. A simpler time, aye.
As for McDonald’s, I just find it funny how a place making and selling shite can be so successful. But that applies to most things on this planet.
The Artifice Girl (2022).
There’s an interrogation at the start of this, a programmer/designer/whatever given a lecture about the use of deceased actors in contemporary movies, that CGI-pasting which seems to be the new zeitgeist. “Poor dead guy didn’t want to be in a movie.” I’d never actually considered that before, but then this film gets one thinking.
AI is terrifying; this movie was terrifying, utterly risible but scarily real. It’s Skynet from a chat room. Turn off your Wi-Fi, turn off your webcam, correspond in letters written in disappearing ink.
It’s Blade Runner (1982) and Tron (1982) territory. And with Lance Henriksen. Bishop lives.
Top film.
One False Move (1992).
The cutting, the stark directness of the style, the quite astonishing framing, this is a movie that demands your attention. The violence is visceral and brutal, and you get the feeling that anything can escalate out of nothing, which it often does. The cast are are all on the top of their game, Billy Bob Thornton a revelation in one of his earlier roles, and the late Bill Paxton once again proving that he’s incapable of a bad performance. And who on Earth was the very bad lad with the tash? Why haven’t I seen this bloke Michael Beach in anything else?
It’s such an unpredictable drama and grips the whole time. It’s also a horrible movie to watch … but for the right reasons.
And there’s a visual reference to North by Northwest (1959) that is simply magical.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998).
It’s some experience, and not just as a kaleidoscope, a who’s who of ‘lads’ from yesteryear. Worth a viewing aside from Vinnie Jones in his worst performance. One loses track of the sighing at his antics.
To steer clear of the alleged football player, the movie is a gem in places. Not much of a script, premise a bit desperate, but if you mute the pratfall happy-to-be-here frolics of half the ‘actors’ in half the scenes, the rest of the sequences are an inspiration, a compendium of short movies shot like a bloke who studied Scorsese and saw how to use a song for a character intro.
It’s entertaining as hell if you skip 50% of it all. And Vinnie Jones.
Razors from The Long Good Friday (1980) wielding a rubber willy is also amusing.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 