Romance is always punished/What a funny little man!

Murder on the Orient Express (1974/2017)

Chosen by me because I like to go to the cinema a lot and because when I got home I had the boring idea of comparing the two films so I sat and watched the '74 version straight afterwards. There will be spoilers. You know for one of the most famous murder mysteries ever.

Both are star studded affairs which stick reasonably closely to the source material.

The Detective

The '74 Poirot is a petty, annoying foreigner ('probably a frog' Connery's doctor excalims in a bit that took me a second to remember that as a racial slur) played with a touch of silliness by Albert Finney. He loses some of his power in this Christie story as his position as outsider is lessened when surrounded by Hungarians, Americans, Italians on a train stuck in Yugoslavia. But he still gets to rub everyone up the wrong way.

The '17 version has a sillier moustache but is played with a little less picque by director Kenneth Branagh. It also seems to suggest his fussiness may be more indicative of something like Asperger's and decides to give a completely unnecessary dark past (it might have played a bit better with a touch more subtlety, though it doesnt ever explain what happened to his  'dear Katherine' him whispering to a photo every other act laboured a point it never quite got around to making). It tries to give him an a character arc (the '74 is just on a train and investigates a crime, not especially revealing) and a personal stake in the investigation, and despite it's hackneyed nature sort of worked.

The Victim

'74's is more jovial, and even nice to his secretary at one point. But Richard Widmark is fairly dull.

'17's is a sneery arsehole through and through. Oh and fuck Johnny Depp.

The Suspects

Michelle Pfeiffer and Penelope Cruz have a weight of good material behind them but still they are not Lauren Bacall and Ingrid Bergman as unfair as that might be (and Cruz in particular is ill served in her film). Willem Defoe gets to make more of his characters reveal than his '74 counterpart (who is barely even in it before his twist - so that lands with a shrug), Josh Gad goes out of his way to differentiate his McQueen from Anthony Perkins earlier take and gone are the pointed tropes towards the characters homosexuality. An interracial relationship angle allows for a person of colour to be in the film and gives Daisy Ridley and leslie Odom Jnr a slightly more interesting excuse for the lies than Connery and a wonderful Vanessa Redgrave have. Ridley's take on the character is allowed to be much smarter than her giggly earlier version too and though it leads to a pointless bit of tension it allows for a nice scene where Poirot asks for her help in solving the mystery, that may be a ruse to see through her lies but also may just be him seeing a kindred mind. The modern Count is given a dancer background not afforded to Michael York as a nod to why Sergei Polunin is well regarded outside of movies but (despite fitting in a couple of kick-boxing moves) he doesnt get to show off here and is not very good (maybe a shoehorned in ballet performance should have been included) and mostly lost against more interesting faces. Everyone else in both versions is generally fine but the large cast and mystery structure means no-one really gets anything to do.

The Reason I have gathered you here today.

The Sidney Lumet version is a straightforward (and possibly defining or influential) gather everyone in the room and dont allow anyone to speak until Poirot lays it all out. It's close to 20 mins of a 2 hour film and cant quite make sense off all the plot (it is very very silly) and the reveal of the complicated version of who stabbed Richard Widmark is too absurd to work as drama as with each holding of the dagger it gets more laughable.

Branaghs version tries to open it up with a last supper style table set up in a railway tunnel which is far sillier but the emotional impact is far better. It ups the ante considerably with a ruse to prove if anyone is a capable cold blooded killer, that combined with his personal connection to the case makes his final decision on the solution of the case make more sense on a character level.

Both have problems coming to grips with the ways clues are presented in the story, as it really doesnt make sense and some of the details dropped in the '17 take (like why the time of the murder is important) are slightly more adequately dealt with in the '74 which doesnt waste time on two very small and pointless action scenes.

Overall.

Both are fine. 

He's a friend from work.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Chosen by me because I like to go to the cinema a lot 

and hey, it's a marvel movie they pretty much float my boat.

This has the kind of imagery that Zach Snyder wants to be pulling off. A sort of freeze frame prog rock album cover or half recalled Lord of the Rings poster from a long ago childhood memory. But this film knows not to bury that under endless slow motion or the colour brown. It takes it's cue from the wacky science fiction stylings of Guardians of the Galaxy but feeds it through a vibrant 1980s filter (it gets easier with each passing year to forget the awfulness of much of that decade and embrace a retro chic devoid of Thatcher or bad suits) and that sense of fun fuels much of the joy in the film. 

The nostalgia (hugely reinforced by a wonderful Mark Mothersbaugh score which includes a Devo reject tune in the splendid Grandmaster Jam Session) doesnt quite hit an emotional core like the first Guardians, or say something like Lego, did but you're having too much of a blast to care.

Likewise it doesnt really solve Marvel Studios problem of having great actors in the antagonist role and not especially giving them anything to do. Though thankfully Cate Blanchett looks like she is having much more fun than Lee Pace or Christopher Ecclestone ever did. Her Hela gets to preen and crack wise and is a ball but her character never quite gels, the jealousy element a knock-off Loki, her anger never really having direction.

Much of the Sakarr sequence (a major chunk of the movie) is strangely weightless in it's stakes but only after you've finished enjoying it so much does the emptiness register. Gags fly thick and fast, the cast is great, Jeff Golblum is his Jeff Goldblumingest, the action is decent and Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie damn near walks off with the whole movie.

Unfortunately all this new jazz comes at a cost. And the generally pleasant Thor supporting cast from the previous two movies is sidelined, The Warriors Three dispatched too casually to register as an issue and the only sign of Sif is a double in a funny play performed by some noteworthy faces (I'd like to think Loki got the actual actors from Earth and it's just a kind of corporate gig for them).

And honestly Thompson makes up for any loss. A supremely confidant, cool performance she commands the screen every second she is on it, and is just super funny.

Can we have a Valkyrie movie?

Taika Waititi may be a cynical choice by Disney to hire someone cheap that they feel they can control, but it still comes from a place of choosing interesting directors, letting them imprint their personality onto a project seems to work a blinder, even working within the usual MCU framework (which this very much does despite feeling quite different to most of them).

Delightful.

How can you run and plot at the same time?

The Death of Stalin (2017)

Chosen by me because I'm a long time fan of Iannucci 

and it had one of the funnier trailers I'd seen in quite some time.

Iannucci is one of the UKs finest comedic minds. Sharp, satirical but also very, very silly he covers it all and has helped deliver some amazing shows over the years - Alan Partridge (created by others but firmly stamped on by him) may be a lasting legacy but his other works like the Day Today or The Armando Iannucci Show are strange offbeat works and The Thick of It (also the terrific spin-off In the Loop and sort of sequel Veep) are masterpieces of their kind.

There was no doubt he couldn't handle the farcical aspects of Stalinist history (downplayed slightly in this film as time is contracted is just how long old Joe went without proper medical assistance hindered by the fact he had the doctors in Moscow rounded up and tortured shortly before becoming ill) but thankfully he doesnt loose sight of the horror of it all.

Especially as this is Iannucci's first time with real figures and not analogues a concern could have been that by highlighting the bufoonery and absolute narcissism inherent in the Soviet political system (not a stretch to apply this to modern times and differing countries at all, because political satire will always be relevant) it would downplay the brutality and be a disservice to the many who died.

Well on the first part it does not lack. The people here are all monsters, Jeffrey Tambor may be playing the most Jeffrey Tambor type possible, but he is still edged with horror, these scared little men projecting out their insecurities onto everyone around them, infesting the country from the top down. 

The victims here are perhaps given short shrift, occasionally punchlines - like those in an Siberian prison half of whom are shot just before the order comes through to halt the killings, the other half disorientated but alive. It cant quite make sense of the outpouring of grief from a populace hammered by an oppressive regime as factual as that might have been.

Instead it offers up a talented pianist as the only voice daring to confront Stalin, and though well played by Olga Kurylenko she is a touch too slight a character to register much (Kurylenko seems to excel at giving underwritten roles a touch of grit and personality and deserves more).

It is often incredibly funny, though not as much as In the Loop say, but the over-riding tone is more bleak and the final punchline grimly cynical as a black fuzzy eyebrowed man looks down at the current leader of the USSR, plots whirling in his mind and the cycle of political bullshitery continues.

Answer the question Claire!

The Breakfast Club (1985)

I really should have been watching the dvd a friend lent me but instead I decided to properly watch a regarded classic that was on netflix that I'd never watched all the way through and mostly knew from being referenced on shows written by people who were in their 20s in the 80s.

The poster almost acts as a sequel because we don't actually know what happens on monday. This suggests that they do as Claire says and ignore each other. Maybe Bender gets accused of stealing her diamond earring. Hopefully Ally Sheedy whose character name I cant remember if it was even mentioned, chooses to dress however the hell she wants. So Emilio Estevez doesnt recognise her on monday and that romance which comes from having said about three words to each other is nothing but tears in rain. Anthony Michael Hall is presumably pulled out of school for bringing in a gun rather than just getting one days detention, and is given counselling and help.  Claire is clearly suffering from depression but she realises the last thing she needs are this bunch of a-holes around her, berating and abusing her.

I changed primary school half way through the second year. It was a little tough coming into a new place with new people, but I made good friends with the kid next to me - Andrew Stubbings. Some of the others were more stand-offish (or probably I was). Until one kid (William something) slapped me with a glove over some distant dispute and I slapped him back. We were put into a break time detention. One of the first times I'd been in trouble like that (I think i came home and cried). Standing in the coridor outside the Heads office with a couple of other boys from my class, we couldnt stop giggling. And after that we were friends.

So I guess acting like pricks does work like this movie suggests.

But by golly this bunch are just horrid. The nicest one is an entitled rich girl who can see the trap of the clique system but also understands she's at the top of it.

The rest are given various horrible backstories to force us to sympathise with just how nasty they are being to each other.

Though I'm not sure it quite realises how bad they are at times.

The most obnoxious one, Judd Nelson given a triumphant closing freeze frame, sexually assaults one of the others after constantly questioning her promiscuous nature and the film thinks this is charming I guess? What a rogue!

It takes someone who seems absolutely comfortable in her own skin, to the extent of using her dandruff to make art and blands her up (in an echo of the ending of Grease) which miraculously gets her the jock. It's weird and boring and the same time, a potent combination.

Still bits of it are fun, but I will take Jeff, Abed and the pizza delivery guy covering the dance scene any day.

   

You've never seen a miracle.

Blade Runner 2049

Chosen by me because I like to go to the cinema a lot. 

This poster is fucking terrible for such a pretty movie

Denis Villeneuve is an interesting director, who had put out some interesting films. Enemy was a terrific mood piece, deeply unsettling but may hold the key to why I did not like his Blade Runner sequel.

Gosling and Ford share space up there on that poster but this is Gosling's movie through and through.

Ford is pretty great revisiting yet another of his iconic roles from decades ago, as is almost his entire stock in trade now, but is on the margins of the film, mentioned early but not appearing for quite some time of the lengthy running total the film has.

Deakins, one of the only cinematographers to routinely be mentioned in reviews, once more works absolute magic. Every shadow, every light source, very mote of dust a work of art though occasionally it turns Blade Runner 2049 into a series of stunning paintings lacking a narrative drive.

But that fine really as the plotting is fairly spotty, and character motivations are slight and lack definition. None of it seems to make a lot of sense and Gosling's blank reaction to everything, though somewhat appropriate, can be infuriating, as you want to just shake him and ask why does nothing matter?

Going to get a bit more plot and character detailed now. 

So. Here's a pretty picture first. 

So the film is pretty fucking terrible when it comes to how it deals with it's female characters. It would be fair to say that they are shallow, lacking depth of motivation but that seems true of the male ones too. But there seems to be no reason to be so consistantly awful to each and everyone. 

Gosling's replicant is given a hologram girlfriend. And the film spends a strange amount of time in playing an angle about AI maybe? How much does she think for herself? And then her only purpose is to be fridged. 

Gosling is beaten up all the way through the film but none of the violence is as vicious as what happens to numerous woman. Robin Wright gets a horrific bit of business with a whiskey glass and a casually violent head/desk interaction that is played almost as a punchline. 

Most of the women are there to be looked at and then dismissed. The camera peruses a lot of naked flesh for no real reason.

Unlike Enemy there is no context to this misogyny, the film wants to explore the issue of what it is to be human but never really considers that females might be human. And doesn't really get around to examining what it means to be human either. It's pretty sloppy.

Why is the story Gosling's and not Deckard's actual child? A woman who is literally locked away her whole life and ignored by the film -to deliver a twist? Why is Rachel so callously regarded by everyone (a stand in actor - with cg i guess face - an example of more of the disregard the film has).

Is Mackenzie Davis (from the terrific Black Mirror episode San Junipero) a prostitute to comment on the way replicants are com-modified as purely physical commercial beings or is it just so Gosling can have a strange prelude to a sex scene with two women at the same time? Spoiler but it's the latter. And says absolutely nothing. 

The film is too long, too ponderous and pretentious to get away with being this dismissive.

Poor show.

You're just in love with how much I love you

Mother! (2017)

Chosen by me as I like going to the cinema a lot though this one took some psyching up to go to.

There is perhaps a key to unlocking what Mother!'s symbolism and plot means. Clearly there is a lot of biblical nonsense going on and at the end it gets very on the nose with relating itself to the pain of the creative process so despite it's what-the-fuckery Mother! is fairly straightforward. In allegorical terms at least - to get there you still have to go along with it's odd (brilliant) pacing, swerves into blackly comic territory and an apocalyptic ending that feels like a Kim Newman novel where society does not need all that much of a push to descend into a bacchanalian frenzy of violence, sex, worship and cannibalism.  And throughout Lawrence is astonishingly good, in almost every frame of the movie she anchors the film's excesses with a deeply committed and emotional performance. Her character may not react the way someone in real life would but you are carried through the film by her anyway.

However what I really want to talk about is what the film meant to me.

We are shaped by the things in our immediate perception. My Nan liked to have the cocktail Snowball. So now forever ingrained in my mind is that a Snowball (which I still don't really know what it is) is an old ladies drink. Even though I've only seen one old lady drink it. We define reality by experience but forget the bias of that experience.

Currently I have been thinking a lot about my mental health. I am often a deeply unhappy and anxious person. I have within the last week sought out therapy for those issues. 

So when I say Mother! is actually all about anxiety I'm aware that it's just something that my bias would be pushing right now.

But Mother! has relayed (and triggered) my anxiety like nothing else.

I'm can't recall if I've talked on these pages about how two people talking next to a road causes me to physically tense up. The screen controls what you can see and without periphery vision (and because of the huge amount of an annoying trope) I'm convinced the people will get hit by a car. Even if it's a charming romance comedy. 

Mother! uses this control of the frame brilliantly, constantly in tight fixed position on Lawrence, the stress comes from never quite knowing what is outside the frame and is deeply unsettling. 

During the film she becomes more and more agitated by people around her. Losing control of the space, not understanding why people won't just listen to her, do the sensible thing. She craves that control, and even when, ostensibly, others are just trying to help, she can't take it, needs them to just let her do it. Every new person that turns up frustrates her more.

And she can't understand why they all like her husband, ignore her, want a physical piece of her work (the house, her child) but make her super uncomfortable.

So yeah, Mother! was super easy for me to understand. 

It's a remarkable, powerful movie, whose ending might be a bit too much but it's more art film than horror story, more a slice of mind than parable. Amazing.

You asked for help, I asked for help. That's how things get done.

I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore (2017)

Chosen by Faye on netflix. Well technically I recommended it to her because I knew she liked Elijah Wood and him and Melanie Lynskey worked together on Over the Garden Wall which she loves but then she watched it before I had and reminded me to do so. Who even cares about this bit?

Melanie Lynskey has be quietly doing solid work since her debut (and over shadowing by Kate Winslet) in Heavenly Creatures.

She is an actor of some skill and gets to show a huge range in this interesting, funny, offbeat film.

Understanding that underplaying can be especially effective, her depressed nurse who stumbles into investigating a crime that no-one seems that bothered by is a touching and empathy generating creation even whilst being kind of a prick. Especially in the times the film can be deliberately at a remove, without her it's cold dark humour may be too nihilistic to click.

Wood is very funny playing a creepy, skeevy loner and the two of them fumbling around a friendship is at times quite cute but plays second fiddle to the plot machinations for the most part.

A weird, assured first film from Macon Blair.

it's not his fault he's so ugly

Beauty and the beast (1987)

Chosen by me as part of my musical week 

and because I fell a little for Carmela Marner in Puss in Boots

A story of a woman going from one co-dependant relationship to another.

Again, like Puss in Boots the songs are almost an afterthought and add nothing to the rather dull plodding affair.

There is no level of Christopher Walken-like performance here, no sense of fun.

The Beast's make up is not too bad but John Savage brings nothing to the role that would explain why Rebecca De Mornay would finally answer yes to his repeated request for marriage.

I'm not sure what the message of Beauty and the Beast is meant to be? It seems to suggest it is about seeing beneath surface values but instead mostly just rewards everyone for not changing at all (here have another bucket of coins) and being ok with the imprisonment of an innocent woman.

I am a most strange and extraordinary person.

Cabaret (1972)

Another one reviewed from memory after not seeing it for quite a few years.

In high school I had a lead role in an original musical written by our drama teacher. Despite not being able to sing (when told to sing an octave lower I asked 'what's an octave' and got told to mime - I had no solos so no real problem). It got selected to go to The National Student Drama festival held in scarbourough, which was kinda cool. And whilst there I think one of the things we saw was a production of cabaret. I barely remember it. It left no lasting impression. I was still stubborn in my distaste for musicals (even though I was in one). 

But a couple of years later I went to university and saw Bob Fosse's take on the material and fell in love.

Along with Top Hat, seen a week earlier and reviewed yesterday, this really changed my opionion on what film can do.

Top Hat was sort of classically classy. Old school. Cabaret showed me what else musicals could do.

Musicals did not have to make you feel happy. Musicals did not have to be about trite feelings of love.

Musicals could be passionate about politics, reveal life in it's myriad forms and explain to me exactly why Liza Minelli was a thing (and by golly she is good in this in a way she had never equalled since).

Is there a more perfectly pointed scene showing the rise of tyranny than 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me'?

Though explicitly about the fascism created in post war Germany, it's message is timeless. We are never too far away from the creep of abused power and scapegoated minorities.

But the misery is never overpowering, it remains an enjoyable, exquisitely crafted tale with toe tapping numbers and terrific choreography. That's it's strength. And it's lasting legacy.

You blasted fool, you can't rub a girl with butter!

Top Hat (1935)

Chosen by me for musical week. I've been pretty tired lately so haven't watched this one for many many years so am reviewing from memory so it'll be even more vague than usual.

I really wasn't into musicals for a long time. I didn't get them, but then I did a film and tv studies course at Derby University. We were lucky enough to have a small independent cinema in the building the course was held and we got to see a lot of interesting things there. Over two weeks we saw this and another film (which I will probably cover tomorrow) which simply changed my mind over what musicals were.

I haven't watched this one for a long time so barely recall the plot but what I do vividly recall is coming out of the cinema elated. I dont dance, but I wanted to tap everywhere to 'Cheek to Cheek' - the standout number in this wonderful film. 

Astaire and Rogers were a revelation to me, a graceful, charming double act but funny and sparky.

I also realised that musicals were not all that different from something else I had got into shortly before getting to university - Hong Kong action cinema (and even a bunch of westerns). The trappings were different but the effect was the same.

A grand love for movement, a heightened emotionalism, plot can be perfunctory but character can be revealed through the moves they perform rather than dialogue. 

The thrills they offer reach the same part of the brain and in many ways are pure distilled cinema.

I'm the only one in here I've never heard of.

Sweet Charity (1969)

Chosen by me for Musical theme week 

(I didnt have time to rewatch it so I'm doing this from more distant memory)

One of my favourite musicals.

It is too long, and perhaps too slight but this remake of Fellini's Nights of Cabiria is a pure delight.

Shirley Maclaine is amazing as a worldly but naive proto Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Her big difference being she is the main character so although like most MPDGs, she does not get love at the end, she is not just there to teach some boring man about it either. 

And the end is defined by her hopefulness rather than despair.

But of course the real joy here is the numbers. 'There's Got to be Something Better Than This' a real stormer with Maclaine, Chita Rivera and Paula Kelly blazing up the screen in red, yellow and purple.

Sammy Davis Jnr is very funny as a strange hippie like church leader and then there is Suzanne Charny.

Charny just blows me away with her dancing in the very silly, brilliant Rich Man's Frug section. With Bob Fosse's choreography every part of her becomes a tool for dance. Hair, fingers, the way a back is arched. She's astonishing.

People love what other people are passionate about.

La La Land (2016)

Chosen by me because I go to the cinema a lot for Musical theme week (might be a bit vague as going by memory, having seen it in january)

I used to hate musicals. Just did not get them. 

Now I see them as pure cinema. If a film has a song and dance number in it normally goes up in my estimation. 

I don't dance or sing at all. I am the world's most boring person. But I love seeing people dance.

I especially love singing and dancing about/within mundane things. Across the Universe has a scene set in a high school field where it uses the Football players exercises as the dance choreography.

La La Land opens with a scene set in a traffic jam. The song itself sets up some of the themes perhaps but is otherwise fairly pointless beyond just being fun. And that is more than enough. It's a catchy number too.

There's many beautiful moments in the film, where the sexiest thing is two people holding hands in a cinema.

It perhaps loses a little steam as it goes on, and almost forgets it's a musical. The relationship drama over taking the hollywood fantasy.

Also for a movie all about jazz, it's not so good on the actual jazz. And could barely be more white (having Gosling telling everyone how jazz should be is maybe a little galling).

Still, an absolute delight.

nostalgia is always dangerous

The Apple (1980)

Chosen by me as part of Musical theme week.

Everything about this is just fabulous

What makes a good Bad Movie?

This idea gets looked at a lot in my favourite movie podcast - The Flophouse.

What makes a movie enjoyable even when terrible?

A big part of it can be the communal sharing. Groups of people will get together to watch The Room and wallow together in it's weirdness. I regularly go to an interactive film screening club - Fortune and Glory, which often screens ostensibly awful movies like Super Mario Bros for everyone to enjoy/endure. Watching some of these movies on your own can just highlight how dull they are. With friends around you joke and talk over the boring parts, we've had a couple of those films reviewed on here like The Killer Shrews and sat at my home, alone, they just weren't weren't that fun.

So I think the biggest thing a bad movie needs to be good is a singular vision, a sincere belief in the story it's telling. All too often they try for a cynical nod and a wink at the audience letting us know they know how crap they are. This moribund post modernism results in dreck like Sharknado, a selection of camp non-sensical bits that would play well as youtube videos but show no real craft or passion put together as a whole.

The Apple may be my favourite bad movie of all time.

And it is certainly pretty bad.

The lead has exactly zero charisma.

The villain cannot sing or dance in the slightest.

It has a baffling religious text layered over a baffling version of the future (well 1994) layered over a fairly dull story about the music biz.

And it's just about the best thing ever.

As if to hide how played out the actual story is (The Phantom of the Paradise toyed with the Faustian bargain and music industry far more interestingly) everything is FUTURE. All the cars have plastic fins and bubbles, looking like the car Homer designs in the episode of the Simpsons where he finds his long lost brother.

But what raises this film from a funny but cliche version of future tech is that you see a couple of prams being pushed along by mothers that also have silver fins and plastic bubbles. Because obviously that is how babies should be transported in the FUTURE.

Vladek Sheybal, of From Russia With Love plays the devil like record boss and can't quite pull off a Christopher Walken in Puss in Boots but has a damn good try.

His major song is performed in what looks like an airport lobby with a couple of signs added in to suggest it's a record label headquarters and is just delightfully weird. A company of 'Ballet' dancers in silver (naturally it's the FUTURE) sparkly costumes parade around whilst he sings, well talks with a very, very slight tonal cadence about show-bizness (it's the FUTURE so you can definitely hear the Z).

For wirdness this is only matched by the dream(?) sequence musical number where the two leads are dressed up as Adam and Eve and an Apple (hey it's the title of the movie!) is offered.

Although the seduction number, which is somehow even less subtle than Grease 2's Reproduction song is amazing and simply has the singer say how much she wants to come all over the male lead. Or wants all his come. I dont know that I've ever been so confused and aroused at the same time.

I dont know that i've even scratched the surface of how strange this movie is (I didnt even tell you about Miriam Margoyles playing a broad Jewish stereotype who is introduced being told by a policeman to wear an identifying sticker or how Joss Acklund plays a hippie commune leader who turns out to be God) and how delightful I found it all.

I've never really been into the whole "I love it because of how bad it is" but if all bad movies were this offbeat, this idiosyncratic then sign me up,

Two feet... They're not as easy as I thought they'd be, Master.

Puss in Boots (1988)

Chosen by me from netflix because Christopher Walken is awesome. 

There was some recent moaning about the two leads in LaLa Land not being good song and dance people. I like that movie a lot (and may cover it here soon) and actually really like that Gosling is not the best at, you know, the musical bits (I think Emma Stone is perfectly good). Romance and Cigarettes is another musical I really like with less than talented performers (also, as it happens, featuring the Walkmeister). There's something about throwing yourself so fully into a thing that you dont mind how bad you look that appeals to me. It's endearing.

I dont sing or dance. At all. I can't even sing happy birthday to people. It's an issue and I hate it about myself. Once I went to a club with some friends (a very rare occurrence) and one of them, that I just assumed would be good at dancing, was just terrible. But it didnt matter, he had fun, people respond to that. I have a perpetual rod rammed so far up my backside you can see it if I yawn. 

Christopher Walken is my friend at the club.

It doesn't matter that his singing is pretty awful, that his dancing is not much better. He is having an absolute blast and it almost carries the movie.

Unfortunately it's let down by a couple of things - no-one else is all that great either (Jason Connery has a dubbed singing voice - Nick Curtis - and it's still bad, why bother getting someone else to do it then?) except the astonishingly beautiful Carmela Marner and that the songs are generally pretty dull.

One, a double duet split over two locations is pretty witty though not especially interesting tune wise and anytime Walken throws himself into a song you can't help but be pulled along with it.

I'm not too knowledgeable with the Puss in Boots story, so dont know how this differs, but just as I was finding it iffy using deception to get someone to marry you, Connery comes clean to Marner and she is instrumental in pushing him forwards with his lies to get what she wants (even if that thing is just a man) which whilst not exactly a strong feminist stance is at least giving her some agency. 

And she gets the funniest bit of business in the film, when she fake feints and tries to shoo Connery away in the confusion.

A bit too bland and a shade too long to be a lost classic children's film but fun in parts and worth seeing for Walken's sheer delight in playing a musical cat.

Kingsman is crumpets!

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)

Chosen by me because I like to go to the cinema a lot.

The first Kingsman movie was trash. But it was trash that almost transcended into something interesting. It's confused mix of nihilism and ultra conservatism didnt quite work as a critique of the status quo loving Bond movies but it did create an indelible image of a bunch of rich privileged arseholes' heads popping off in colourful ways.

This sequel doesn't even come close to matching anything that gleefully bizarre.

All of the action sequences are shot in a strangely heightened manner that makes everything seem as if it is separate instances of computer game cut scenes with the editing in-between being hard to follow with a human eye. This flattens out the fights into dull poses that work in a trailer but play badly in full context.

Julianne Moore is fine as the antagonist but her character is one of those jokes that works better on paper than fully realised and undermines the film as she is too dull a threat, her plot making absolutely no sense and she steals a bit from a far superior billionaire Super-villain. 

There is almost a riposte to the interchangeability of women in the Bond series with our hero here still going out with the Princess from the first movie (perhaps as apologia for the horrendous way she was used as a punchline slash reward at that films conclusion) but other than that this film really wants to put the Man into Kingsman and women are used as side dressing, killed off, humiliated and discarded as the mess of a plot deems necessary. Julianne Moore isnt even deemed interesting enough to be the final villain.

Pretty much a big waste of a talented cast.

there is no salvation without suffering

Contratiempo/The Invisible Guest (2016)

Chosen by Jen on a facebook post looking for suggestions

The sort of twisty turny nonsense in the mold of Presumed Innocent or Gone Girl and I will be discussing some plot beats so be aware the two of you that might read this and want to watch the film.

It hints at being a locked room mystery in the vein of Jonathan Creek but also wants to be a peculiarly specific legal drama (the film though ridden with flashbacks is technically set within one room with just the accused and a witness preparation expert).

It really needed a little extra oomph, a sense of Gone Girl's style or over-the-top silliness to get past being just another slightly dull blue and grey thriller but it does at least one clever thing that almost makes it all worthwhile.

One twist (easily spotted if you've seen a the Magic convention episode of the detective show Psych)

leads interestingly into another, more pointed one that plays with the audience perception of what a film noir is and how femmes fatales operate. 

That second (major one, there's lots of small twist bumps along the way) one is unfortunately let down a little by two things. One: it cant help but try to be too clever and tips it's hand in some of the first bits of dialogue (if someone says "you are not more clever than me" in a movie like this you should probably pay attention). 

And two: a terrible fake nose and wig (although that said, I didnt clock to this until the reveal of the Psych twist, so either it was shot more coyly earlier or I wasn't paying attention).

Still, it's perfectly watchable and if it had a bit more confidence in itself and it's audience (constantly showing you things that just happened like 20 minutes ago as if this were four teevee episodes strung together) could be a minor classic of the unreliable narrator form. 

Unfortunately the most interesting aspect, examining male privilege and how woman are positioned in stories like this is diffused by the nature of the beast - it has to be a mystery with sudden reveals and no real time to explore them before the next reveal.

Are you a punctual and reliable person?

Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)

Chosen by me whilst at my parents by turning on the teevee 

and finding the first movie that had jut started.

Almost, almost really really good. 

It strips out any sense of extraneous character stuff. Providing a bare bones narrative that is literally just an excuse for the next fight to happen.

And despite being incredibly cheap (there's essentially two locations) manages to be shot well and is an efficient tale with just enough weirdo personality to keep it interesting.

It never quite plays the way you think it will, the 'ultimate rematch' as the cover has it is a good, brutal take down with an amazingly silly over the top death but is given no weight dramatically, as neither Lundgren nor Van Damme appear to have the history given to them in the first film, which plays into the films odd tone as these are just pawns built to kill and nothing more.

Not quite a hidden classic but a solid and fun B movie better than it had any need to be. 

I like your pipe

Big Ass Spider (2013)

Chosen by me as I was staying at my parents and flicked through the channels 

till I found a film that had just started.

Though as flatly directed and cheap as any of those interminable syfy channel movies with various creatures in the title this is a little more fun and a little more clever (not that that would take much).

The pacing is pretty strong, just as it looks like it will take the route of so many lazy, cheap z grade films before it by sticking to some generic looking basements and sewers it opens out into the parks and streets of LA and chomps down on a regulation genre cameo (in this case Troma mascot Lloyd Kaufman).

The sense of fun is palpable in the rather mixed bag of performances, Grunberg and Kramer can't quite make the forced relationship stuff work (he's a creep, she...just ignores that I guess) but Grunberg and Boyar are a great double act and Ray Wise as ever classes up the joint.

What the hell is F.U.B.A.R?

Tango and Cash (1989)

Chosen by me because I was staying at my parents and just put on whatever movie was about to start. Also, loved this when I was younger and my favourite podcast The Flophouse covered it for their 100th episode here (and are super smart and funny in a way im not so go and listen to it)

The original Odd Couple!

One dresses in Armani, the other in slobby clothes. They're miss matched buddy cops. Except they are both exactly the same.

The kind of movie that keeps repeating the main characters names over and over and over again as if a magic chant, that two cops get front page coverage, that has people having sex in a car park during a car chase with no real set up or payoff  just to get some tits in the film, steam is everywhere (it's the 80s), nothing makes sense and has the usual bullshit casual homophobia. Although it's also pretty homoerotic and seems more interested in men's bodies than women's (despite having tits earlier in the film, when they go to a strip club there's no actual nudity). 

It's pretty much an ode to police brutality, in a supposedly eloquent speech Stallone, defending himself from a set-up murder charge, admits in court to the sin of being too aggressive, the police department has some kind of experimental weapons lab with a Q figure.

It's all very silly, things smash (why shoot at someone, when you can shoot at someone through a mirror on a door), things explode, quips are made (not exactly high quality but sold with conviction) and it's the most 80s thing ever made. 

It's full of interesting faces like Michael J. Pollard, Brion James, Eddie Bunker and Robert Z'Dar and uzis. 

Lots of uzis.

It's about as stupid as you can get but mostly fun.

Don't you ever devalue what you do, Mary.

American Mary (2012)

Chosen by Laura after asking on facebook. She had this to say "I didn't find it that scary- more gory. nice light comedy moments too. plus the whole thing is utterly ridiculous" 

Approaching more arthouse than horror territory, this is closer to Cronenberg or Lynch in tone but more aligned with Eli Roth (who gets a nod in the credits) in general quality.

Katherine Isabelle once more rules over all and it's hard to imagine this film working as much as it does without the backbone of her terrific, eccentric performance.

The rest of the cast is uneven though often interesting in the way that more polished movies can flatten out (a Betty Boop inspired body mod fan is sweetly unsettling).

The Soska Twins are far less successful as actors than directors which makes a short but pointless digression with them a bit of a chore.

Their writing is also a little wonky, the first act strong but overlong which unbalances the film and a climax which is too rushed to leave an impact.

I don't know what the actual body mod community would make of this film (because i never do any real research for these reviews) as it both celebrates and exploits them. But perhaps that is appropriate?  The worst people in it are the non-modded. But Mary herself becomes more and more unhinged in her dealings with the community (who all seem to be super rich, and apart from a couple of cases I'm not quite sure why they need an underground doctor?) though it is all kicked into gear by an unpleasant rape scene (though fairly tactful as far as things go in these kind of movies) so it's hard to know if there's any statement being made here or just the trappings of an exploitation movie hung on what-ever background could look interesting.

To be with another woman - that is French. To be caught - that is American.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)

Chosen by me from netflix options as I used to love this film when I was younger 

but hadn't revisited in probably over twenty years.

I think the most surprising thing about this film is how few laughs there actually are.

The first act is a little whimsical perhaps but just about the only joke involves repeatedly pushing a woman into a pot plant gently.

There is a lot more obvious attempts as Caine and Martin start to work together, and then in opposition, but this section has not aged well and is full of ableist stuff that sits uncomfortably with me now.

Caine and Martin (looking quite a bit like an contemporary Harrison Ford) are on fine form generally if a little broad but Glenne Headly is perfect as a sweet naive 'soap queen' with just enough going on behind the eyes to make the fairly obvious twist work even though plotwise I'm not sure it does (they throw in a line at the end to justify it and the film is breezy enough to get away with it I guess).

I have a real soft spot for con-artist movies (and given their ubiquity I'm obviously not the only one) some minor (the stakes are pretty low), some major (that long section with Martin playing an idiot brother) so I still enjoyed it in a low key manner but the actual con mechanics here are almost non-existent.

Martin would go on to have a further stab at con-artistry in another film The Spanish Prisoner, that I also havent watched for a long time, that I recall being very, very good - I wonder if that will have aged better?

the measure of love is what one is willing to give up for it

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)

Chosen by Ni from a facebook request where she had this to say "it's odd and lovely"

A talky, slightly dull retelling of the Flying Dutchman tale.

It's rather well shot shot but stagy in it's direction and the ponderous voice-over is there to smooth over the cracks in storytelling (the passage of time is a little confusing/undefined).

It's central thesis, quoted in my title is not as romantic as it thinks it is and instead presents a deeply problematic response to female sexual independence. Literally she has to die to give him his release from a curse. We're meant to believe it's for love but see no evidence of that, no reason that Mason is any better a fit for her than the Bullfighter or race car driver. 

Gardner is a beauty but can never quite make the collection of odd quirks into a character, and she is still miles more interesting than anybody else. 

There is a selfishness and demonic humour to her moving through life just trailing men behind her but despite suicide, destruction and murder attempts (also a dog is killed - off screen - if that kind of thing bothers you) the movie is too staid and boring to make her an icon of empowerment instead her purpose in life is to be the solution to a man's problem.

Tell people individual elements and it could sound like a fun over-the-top melodrama but it's too lethargically paced, and too po-faced in it's morality.

I wish you would be like other dads and stay home and barbeque

Joysticks (1983)

Chosen by me because I put out a call for inspiration on facebook. This was not actually recommended (christ how could it be?) but someone said Zardoz and I replied with a picture of Starburns from Community in a Zardoz costume and that led me to watching the Koogler trailer from that episode which features a song from this film. So, yeah.

This is actually sexier and funnier than anything in the movie.

 Do these kind of movies even exist anymore? American Pie reinvigorated the form for a while perhaps.

This is one of those films that may have been a staple on HBO programming in the 80s. 

Enough tits to keep anyone interested in that sort of thing awake but with no redeemable aspect what-so-ever.

Like a lot of the nerd comedies at least one of the scenes is basically just sexual assault.

it seems to exist in a strange world where young women pop their tops off in public so they can photograph a poindexter in his boxers. Why? Fuck knows. His being in his boxers is treated as though he was naked and none of it makes sense.

The jokes are essentially non-existent, though a fat guy does eat and fart a lot. That's basically it.

Tits are revealed about every 8 minutes, thought it's mostly the same two actors doing the load bearing work of this film.

Joe Don Baker plays the big bad dad determined to close the video arcade and his daughter is played by Veronica Mars' mom with a very strange valley girl accent that is so bad it's almost avant garde and the only thing of interest in the film.

This is the far superior Koogler

The french have a saying: It's the fate of glass to break.

Spectre (2015)

Chosen by me as I hadn't watched it since it was on at the flicks and I never finished the blogalongabond project from years ago, so I might fill in the gaps.

Bond's Intro: Pretty cool. He's done up in a skeleton costume and followed along by a sort of pointless one shot through a parade, into a hotel and over some rooftops. Why is a one shot look take? Who knows? Presumably Sam Mendes is a fan of Touch of Evil.

Theme Song and Credits: The song is a pretty lacklustre affair (mirroring much of the movie perhaps?), a lethargic swan song. The credits feature the usual silhouetted tits and guns but also feature a lot more naked Bond than most and have a weird octopus motif that skews uncomfortably close to tentacle porn.

  
The Ladies: Monica Bellucci and Lea Seydoux. And here is one of the films biggest problems (and it has a few). Bellucci in her five minutes of screen time is so much more interesting and has so much more chemistry with Craig than Seydoux (who was excellent in The Lobster, reviewed recently) who is a slight nothing of a character. At one point we are told by somebody that the daughter of an asssassin is the perfect partner for Bond but we never really get the sense of that connection which means the ending doesn't work at all.

The Baddies: This does what Star Trek Into Darkness did and hides a well known to the audience baddie under a different name for most of it's running time. The only purpose of which is too fool people before the film comes out who look at imdb listings. And it never works. Everybody knew he was Khan. Everybody knew he was Blofeld. So it just seems a waste of everybody's time. 

This also does one of those annoying things where it crafts a personal connection between hero and foe to no appreciable gain what-so-ever. God forbid we just want to watch Bond do his job saving the world and watch Blofeld do his job fucking the world up without some lousy daddy issue stuff.

Andrew Scott is mostly garbage, an oily haired scuzzball whose reveal as a baddie is tossed off casually because who the hell didnt know that from 2 seconds of looking at him.

Dave Bautista looks cool but doesn't really leave a lasting impression.

License to Kill: God knows how many innocent people are killed as Bond brings down a block and a half of mexican real estate.

Bond hates foreigners: See above. Also the films casual confusing of mexican day of the dead and rio style parades. 

He's pretty reckless in all these foreign countries but then again he brings a helicopter crashing down on London streets, so that's just his way I guess.

Bond hates women: All the women are just used to further his needs. Even the sex seems an afterthought. He does leave Bellucci a way out of her predicament (make her main character in the next one. make her main character in the next one. make her main character in the next one)

Bond's crazy knowledge: That is a 1948 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith

Bond's a big fat snob: They position him (and more directly M) as hard working men who get their hands dirty as opposed to Andrew Scott's went to school with the home secretary knobend.

00's killed: None but 009 does have his car stolen by Bond.

Mini overview: A rather damp affair. Craig is great as usual but the whole thing just isn't interesting enough to last it's exceptionally long running time. The action sequences are ok but curiously uninvolving lacking any real pulse pounding moments, though the helicopter stunt at the start is cool. None of the personal stuff works so great chunks of drama are inert (does anybody care that Blofeld is a sort of brother to James Bond?). The first half is stronger which leads to a deflated feeling when Bond quits to be with Seydoux. 

I know you're probably feeling a lot of emotion right now, but please refrain from using the term "thundercunt."

Spy (2015)

Chosen by me from netflix. I recall liking this movie a lot when it came out at the cinema.

A very funny reteaming of Paul Feig and his muse Melissa Mccarthy.

More than just a collection of "hey she's fat and stupid" jokes that the trailer kind of made it out to be, Mccarthy is the butt of a lot of gags but only by virtue of the fact she is the lead in a comedy. It's important to note that Jude Law and Jason Statham (very funny here) are just as idiotic and not nearly as interesting.

It is foul mouthed and more than a little offensive and not everything makes the landing - there's a few too many gags about sexual assault/groping that never really find a point worth making.

The plotting is fairly ramshackle (a fairly obvious reveal does have an extra twist on it though which is nice) but the action is competent and the laughs a plenty. It works because it makes Mccarthy's character good at her job despite the silliness and buffoonery going on.

Oh and in fucking terrible imdb reviews news here's a gem - "Directors... there is nothing uglier than a pretty woman with a foul mouth. " 

ugh.

I know you play mysterious and aloof just to avoid getting hurt

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010)

Chosen by me and watched as part of a brilliant interactive film club Fortune and Glory, hosted in Nottingham. This one involved taking a shot of milk when Todd's powers were lost, playing inflatable guitars when bands were performing and throwing coins in the air when Gideon explodes.

One of the most perfectly cast movies of all time (and featuring a Captain America, Superman, Captain Marvel and Punisher) with every role just filled out to perfection from Mark Webber's jittery band leader, Aubrey Plaza's censored expletive ridden hard worker, Kieran Culkin's sardonic room-mate and most especially Ellen Wong's young, naive but powerful Knives Chau (honestly i could just single out every single player and state why they are so good). She's real hero of this movie.

Scott himself, remains like the early volumes of the comic, a bit of an arsehole. His transformative arc, a major part of the latter books, is greatly truncated though still reasonable effective (Alison Pill's slight eyebrow reaction to his apology does a lot of the work). He manages to stay on the right side of annoying due to being very funny and having enough of a touch of cluelessness to make his arseholery not entirely unpalatable. 

There is a big strange imbalance, however. The film does a great job of showing how Scott and Knives are great together, we see them having a lot more fun than Scott and Ramona, which is directly referenced in the final fight with Gideon. And because the growing up aspect of his character doesn't work (the books are set over a longer period, he and Ramona live together for a year or so, have more of a connection beyond her using his dreamspace as a short cut for her delivery job) it feels strange he picks (and indeed is helped to pick by Knives) the more distant but mature partner.

That said, relationships in general do not come off great in this film, full of broken people, cheaters and stalkers.

Edgar Wright shows his complete control of the medium. One of the few comedic directors who knows how to use every tool to make a gag work, the dialogue is brilliant (having the sense to be often verbatim from the books), the editing terrific (seriously why do so few comedies look this good?) and the music, sound, special effects all in service of making it as funny and interesting as possible.