theshanecarr

The Dead Don't Die (2019)

You can't fake life

Any viewing of trhis movie starts with those credits; you see that cast; Bill Murray! Adam Driver! Tilda Swinton! Chloë Sevigny! Steve Buscemi! Danny Glover! Rosie Perez! Caleb Landry Jones! Selena Gomez! And Tom "I'll whittle you into kindling" Waits! And you think; this movie can't lose.

Well, you'd be surprised.

Yes, a lot of people showed up to play with Jarmusch but Jarmusch was not ready. The script, especially in the third act, is a mess, full of fun moments but never gaining any narrative momentum. It's like Jarmusch had to start rolling on a particular date to get all these actors lined up, and so they started shooting though there was no third act in sight.

Maybe Jarmusch always works like this. Certainly Murray, Swinton, Driver, and Waits have all worked with him before. Maybe they trusted in the old Jarmusch magic to conjure something out of those blank final pages but alas, it was not to be.

The setting is Centerville - a village of 738 people whose inhabitants are just trying to go about their daily lives when the dead start rising from the grave. There's no Presidents or scientists in this movie - just the locals trying to get through the night, not understand why it's happening.

Although it's billed as a zombie movie, this is best thought of as a hangout movie. If you watch this purely for the pleasure of seeing Murray and Driver slowly trade lines with each other, or to see Swinton good-naturedly act out the offscreen uber-image of her as some sort of strange alien, or to see Buscemi be all crotchety, then you will find some small pleasures here but there is a pervading sense that the film makers had bigger hopes for their movie.

The shame of it is that you can almost see how it could have been great. There are clues all over about what this could have been. There are the signs of an environmental crime de coeur beseeching us to treat the planet better in the polar fracking which sets everything going. There are traces of a Romero-esque critique of consumerism in the zombies dedication to the rituals they engaged in when alive. (Most hilariously as some stumble about with phones mumbling "wi-fiiiiii".) There's hints of a a small-town big-city clash with Selena Gomez and her city slicker pals arriving into this sleepy hollow, and making fun of Landry Jones. There's the slightest whiff of a political commentary being tossed into the mix with Buscemi's red hat wearing farmer. There's hints of a detached observation of these ridiculous humans in the near-poetic ramblings of Waits as he observes the town from afar.

Jarmusch clearly thought he could stir these elements into one big, hilarious horror stew but when you stir this much into the pot, you need a surer sense of what you're making, and it sure feels here like Jarmusch did not.

To cover the gaps, he tried throwing in some meta-commentary on the zombie genre - Landry Jones' character is a big geek who has seen all the movies, and knows what to do. This is a route that could work (it did for "Scream") but that knowledge never leads to any new insight into the underlying tropes or fears of the genre.

Most bafflingly there is a meta bit where Bill Murray asks Adam Driver how he is so sure about what's going to happen, and Driver responds that it's because Jim gave him the full script and he's read it all. It's the kind of dumb-meta joke that does nothing for the film, and which a writer throws in when they really don't know what to write next. (And the ending suggests the same.)

Jarmusch, taking his cue from the pace of village life, directs everything at a crawl. We observe characters arriving and having conversations. People take their time. At first, it's a very welcome change of pace from a lot of similar movies, and if Jarmusch had been making a movie about the characters and goings on in this little village, I would have been all in, but the narrative becomes a fight to the death with flesh-eating zombies and yet the same indolent pace permeates throughout. It just doesn't work.

If Jarmusch thought he was making fun of horror movies, he needed to dig deeper into the urges underlying them, not simply suggest we're all so jaded now that the earth being thrown off its axis and the dead rising would be greeted with a shrug.

The truth is Jarmusch comes off as making a movie in a genre he doesn't love. It's almost crazy how he thought he could just tack on a few of the trappings and play in this sandbox. His lack of interest in zombies rings out loud and clear.

I do still love him. There's no one making films like him. I suspect after the brilliance of "Only Lovers Left Alive"'s take on the vampire genre, Jarmusch, his cast and producers thought they could replicate that movies success here, but their hopes, and mine, were, like so many zombie brains, cruelly bashed out on the ground.

Tallulah (2016)

Mothers - who'd be one?

This film has a lot of swell ingredients but it was left on the stove for a little too long and has become overcooked.

Writer/director Sian Heder has crafted a film about women, or more specifically about being a mother; the desire to be one, the difficulties, the loneliness, and what qualifies one to do it. It's sad and funny and recognisable all at once.

Elliot Page plays the eponymous Tallulah; a woman who has decided to opt out of society's responsibilities and restrictions and lives a life of petty crime from her van. Through a series of events and impulsive decisions, Tallulah ends up kidnapping a baby and shows up at the door of her ex-boyfriend's Mom, Margo (Alison Janney) claiming the baby is Margo's grandchild.

After all that first act running around set-up, Tallulah settles in to observe the three women impacted by this; Tallulah, Margo, and Carolyn, the biological mother played by Tammy Blanchard (last seen by me to chilling effect in "The Invitation").

All three women are coping with their sudden, unexpected new maternal situation; grand/motherhood, or it's wished-for absence. This is fertile (no pun intended) ground, and it's a shame the movie doesn't have the confidence to sit with the significance of these unintended consequences for these three women - too much time is spent on the busy-work of investigation, dodging police, and worst of all, the possibility of romance.

The film recognises the situation it has put these women in, but instead of reckoning with how they respond, it gives them suspicious detectives, and amorous doormen to spar with. But the meat of the matter is not in how others now see them, but in how they see themselves.

One particularly silly sequence has Tallulah turn manic pixie dream girl and teach Margo something by encouraging her to mess up the expensive paintings in her apartment she doesn't even like. It's all so superficial.

Luckily, the material is elevated by three brilliant actresses committing to their characters. Page and Janney (in their third collaboration following "Juno" and "Touchy Feely") are wonderful. Page brings a believable burgeoning maturity as she realises she may actually be up for this mothering thing after all. Janney excels at portraying someone closed off, and almost against her wishes, is allowing herself to open up again.

The real MVP though is Blanchard as the drunk who suddenly finds she desperately wants her child back. She takes us from potentially depressed new mother using alcohol to cope, to a woman seeing herself through others eyes for the first time in a long time and not liking what she is seeing.

You might come for Page and Janney but it is Blanchard you stay for, and I regretted the small amount of screen time the three had together.

The film is smart enough not to judge it's characters - they may do despicable things but the script always offers us some insight into why they did them.

If it sometimes indulges that desire a little too much (better to hint at or show problematic home lives than to give characters monologues where they spell it out), it's also wise enough to not hand us pat answers by the end. We have a fair idea of where things might go, but issues are by no means resolved, and that was the right place to leave it.

The final scene is so gratingly on-the-nose though that it almost ruined the whole thing for me, but I recalled the penultimate scene and felt connected to these strong but struggling women once again.

Dementia 13 (1963)

Give this man a job

"Dementia 13". The reason I put this on is the same reason I think a lot of people will know of it; it's the directorial debut (officially anyway) of one Francis Ford Coppola. It's tempting to look at this mini-budgeted movie and try to discern the seeds of genius which would give us "Apocalypse Now", and "The Godfather".

Could I discern them? Well, there was some good stuff in here, but there's a whole lot of hokum too. If I'd seen this when it came out in 1963, I'm not sure I would have known there were great things ahead but I wouldn't have written it off either. There's something buried here.

Having recently watched "The Terror", it seems the behind-the-scenes stories can often be just as, if not more, fascinating than the movies themselves. I have got to find a book about Roger Corman and the way he churned out quickie movie after quickie movie back in the day. As an Irishman, it's even more fascinating to think that in 1962, when Ireland was in the grip of the Catholic church, when the "wrong" books and movies could be banned, that Corman was there banging out cheap and nasty horror flicks like this. Amazing.

The story goes that Corman finished making "The Young Racers" with $22,000 left over so he told his ambitious sound technician, Coppola, that he could have that money as the budget for a horror movie if he could get a script together quickly. Coppola pitched him the idea the next day, and the script was written in about three days. Filming took place soon after with actors Coppola either convinced to stay on from "The Young Racers", or who he knew from UCLA.

The movie starts out brilliantly. A bickering couple take a row boat out on a lake as strange music is heard faintly from a radio. They speak about money and an inheritance. He warns her that if he dies before his mother, she'll get nothing. Guess what? He clutches his heart, and barely three minutes into this thing, and already someone is dead. Does his wife call for help? Does she row to shore ASAP? Does she hell. She thinks about that inheritance and she sets a bonkers plan in motion to buy herself time.

From there, we get bizarre family backstory, a masked killer, a preserved body, a watery grave, a beheading - it all goes pretty over the top while trying to maintain a veneer of psychological realism. (Corman had told Coppola to make something like "Psycho", and in that he delivered, in more ways than one.)

But within that ridiculous framework, there are some good sequences. There is genuine tension as our lead characters are stalked by a killer. There is some wonderful moral ambiguity as we find ourselves rooting for a pretty messed up heroine. There's some successful creepiness in the performances, lighting and composition.

Unfortunately, the dialogue is terrible (Well, it was written in three days), the plot is unnecessarily confusing, some of the acting is awful (Patrick Magee as the doctor is in another movie altogether), the killer is accidentally (?) revealed three quarters through by lighting that reveals their face when it shouldn't, and there's a general air of rushing through everything (which is fair enough for a debut done on the cheap).

Luana Anders is great as the scheming wife - it's a shame that, like Coppola, she didn't go on to bigger things. For Irish audiences, it's fun to see Howth Castle pop up as the stately home of the family.

A fun, silly, z-list horror. Watch it in that spirit and you will have a good time.

Imperial Dreams (2014)

Boyega brings magic

John Boyega stars as Bambi. He's fresh out of prison and, for the sake of his child, determined not to get sucked back into the old life of crime but you know how it is; when you're around the same people and places you were before, how are you going to change?

There's a reason this films poster image is Boyega. He is this film's biggest asset. He shows once again that he has charisma to burn, and he turns in a well-played portrayal of a young man who could easily be a leader, the man the other criminals would turn to, but a man who knows where that life leads.

The problem with the movie is that it is trying to do way too much. And the film does not have the time or the insight to deliver on all of those parts.

There's a strand straight out of a Ken Loach movie about how hard it is for a person to get a job and go legit when they're an ex-con.

There's a part right out of a John Singleton movie about the lure of violence in a community which is offered few other ways to make money.

There's a sub-plot right out of movies like "Good Will Hunting" about a man from the wrong side of the tracks with a talent that could get him out. (Bambi is an aspiring writer, recording life in the 'hood.) There's another strand that is all about the impact of environment on a child, and the efforts of a father to get the child away from all of that.

Any one (okay, maybe two) of these parts could have made a great movie but there's a feeling that writer/director Malik Vithal poured everything he wanted to say into this, his debut feature, and ended up saying too much, but not enough.

It's a shame because the direction is top notch. We get a real sense of the neighbourhood, and the walls that have been built around its citizens, not just the ones in prison.

French Exit (2020)

Icy Warmth

A french exit is the term for when one leaves a party without saying goodbye. There's an implied disrespect when one does that; a sense of anger or boredom, and those feelings hang over much of the movie but are leavened with a sprinkling of good humour as if the departed guest had left behind some unexpected gifts.

At first glance, it seems to be an icy drama about emotionally closed off, super-wealthy New Yorkers but it turns out to be a stealthy comic/absurdist deranged tale where supernatural events are taken as normal, and mediums and private detectives can move into one's life.

The plot, such as it is, starts out with Michelle Pfeiffer's character learning that all her money has been spent. She sells off what she has left, and moves to Paris with her aimless son (played by Lucas Hedges) and their cat (I don't remember who plays the cat) to move into an apartment being lent to her by a friend.

What becomes clear is that Pfeiffer's character intends to live only as long as she still has money, and she is deliberately spending it as fast as she can.

This description doesn't do justice to the left turns the narrative takes, but I won't say more - just know that contacting the dead, mega generosity to the homeless, and a spurned fiancée all form part of the narrative.

It's a bizarre mix, and yet something about it works. Despite the iciness of Pfeiffer and the uselessness of Hedges, they attract into their lives a bizarre group of almost... friends? It's almost as if, in spite of themselves, a group of misfits become their family and unlikely emotional bonds form. It's as if humans, despite how they may have closed themselves off due to past pain, can't help forming tribes, communities who need each other.

It's as if we can put up barriers (like money) between us, but we can't keep them up - sooner or later we have to let people in, or we die...

If someone told me, they can't get too into the emotional problems of the super-wealthy, I would get that but I think there is something more universal at work here.

The screenplay is by Patrick DeWitt based on his own novel. (He also wrote the book "The Sisters Brothers" is based on.) It's directed by Azazel Jacobs. I have not seen any of Jacobs' previous work but he directs here with a sure sense of space, and a flair for the chilly atmosphere. It's not flashy but it really does the job.

Everyone is always saying there should be more less sequels/remakes/brand-extensions. This movie is weird, and that's good.

Black Widow (2021)

Marvel is (more or less) back

What a long time we have waited or ScarJo to get her own solo movie. Black Widow has been in Marvel movies since 'Iron Man 2' in 2010, and while all the other founding avengers got origin stories, and sequels, Natasha Romanoff has even been pipped to first Marvel female-led movie by Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, never mind having J-Law & co do a Black Widow movie in all but name with 'Red Sparrow'.

Maybe this is not the place to go over the executive misogyny and perceptions about what or would not "sell" that led to this situation but, watching this, one cannot help but remember this is not the next in a series of ongoing Black Widow adventures, but instead a belated salute to one of the MCU's key characters.

In that sense, we can be pleased this exists, and that progress has been made, but we can also acknowledge how bloody long it has taken, and hope for more in the future.

The movie then has a multiple missions; to serve as a kind-of origin story for the Black Widow, to give her a final send-off, to introduce us to characters who will continue to appear in the MCU (notably Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova), and maybe also comment on how women have been used by men to serve their interests for a very long time. All while delivering on the expected superhero action.

It's a lot for any movie to accomplish and 'Black Widow' does some elements better than others.

The script is by Jac Schaeffer (who created 'WandaVision') and Eric Pearson (who co-wrote 'Thor: Ragnarok', and who worked on the under-seen 'Agent Carter' tv series which also looked at the Red Room.)

Romanoff is a spy by training. Spies (at least in the popular imagination) operate in murky, trust-no-one, shadows that take a toll not just professionally, but on their personal life. In the most recent 'Black Widow' solo comic series, Mark Waid embraced this side of her character, sending her on a series of impossible lone missions in which she had to heart-breakingly betray those closest to her for the greater good.

The MCU has in the past alluded to Romanoff's need to atone for the red in her ledger, and the fact that she defected to America and SHIELD from Russia. We might imagine then that she wouldn't have many friends left in that part of the world. Given we know her ultimate fate in 'Avengers: Endgame', the movie wants to lift some of those burdens from Natasha's shoulders and assure her (and us) that she was loved, giving us some retrospective comfort about her sacrifice. To give her that, this movie is actually about Natasha putting her old family back together and reclaiming her place as a surrogate daughter and sister. She's does this to take down the still-operational Red Room in which kidnapped children are turned into mind-controlled deadly assassins.

Putting the band back together is a well-worn movie trope and it works brilliantly here with Florence Pugh proving continuing the phenomenal hot streak she has been following 'Fighting With My Family', 'Midsommar' and 'Little Women'. She goes toe-to-toe with Johansson in the action scenes, and has great fun with her in the downtime between punches.

David Harbour provides many laughs as Alexei AKA the Red Guardian - Russia's answer to Captain America. Harbour takes an insecure braggart who can't say the right thing and turns him into a decent guy who discovered too late what was important.

The problem with all this is that it leaves Natasha sharing the limelight in her own movie. Where we could have had a fuller account and insight into what makes Natasha the Black Widow, we instead spend a lot of time understanding the wounded, bitterness of Yelena, and the out-to-pasture history of Rachel Weisz's under-written Melina.

There's a definite feeling that if this movie had come ten years ago, it would have focused more tightly on Natasha and her history with the Red Room, but now, the MCU has more to think about, and the multiple missions can't all be fulfilled even in the two and a quarter hour runtime.

Marvel is a well honed machine when it comes to action. From early on the film drops us into action, and it rarely lets up. From Norway to Budapest and on into Russia, there are one-on-one duels, car chases, aerial escapes and shoot-outs aplenty. They are all done with the usual level of breath-taking CGI, stunt work, and quips. I had only seen one previous film of director Cate Shortland - her debut feature, 'Somersault'. That is a lovely, touching piece of work about a girl trying to find her place in the world but it didn't prepare me for the level of mayhem in this movie. What is recognisable is her concern for the difficulty for a woman of trying to find her place in the world, and the importance of a decent support system.

The evil villain's (played with a nice snarl by Ray Winstone) plot is woefully undercooked. He's manipulating countless women but his ultimate plan is a very vague, off-the-peg "world domination". His deadly right-hand, Taskmaster, is similarly underserved.

It's admirable to want to allude to women breaking free of the control of monstrous men but when the method of that breaking free is a near magical red dust, it undercuts the work and effort it takes for women to actually get out from under either the literal trauma of an abuser, or the more pervasive patriarchal culture.

By the end, 'Black Widow' has achieved a little of all the missions it set itself but had not truly completed any of them. A modest success then. Something that was enjoyable and a pleasure to see on the big screen but not the all-out storming of the cinemas we had wanted for Scarlett.

Random thoughts: * First time back in an Imax screen post-pandemic - it was great to have those awesome visuals and sounds wrap around us once again.

* There was at least one gratuitous butt shot, and I don't know how to feel about that in a film about female empowerment.

* Loved the cheeky snippet of 'Moonraker'. Another movie about a spy facing a world-conquering villain but which is even more ridiculous than this one.

* Speaking of Bond, Olga Kurylenko provides another connection as she had a big role in 'Quantum of Solace' * I know all action movies engage in a level of suspension of disbelief but there is a car crash in this in which Natasha's car roof is practically caved in as the car is bounced about, but she runs out as if it weren't no thing.

* The Red Guardian was Russia's answer to Captain America and they sent him on an undercover mission for three years???!!! Hmmm.

* If the Red Room is in Russia, how the hell is General Ross zipping about there in a very large, very not-secret convoy???

* And speaking of General Ross, why even bother showing him towards the end if you're going to hand wave away what happened next with a "two weeks later"?

* That post-credits scene did a lot of work - pushing the narrative forward by five-ish years, shedding some tears for Natasha, teasing the Contessa, and setting up the forthcoming 'Hawkeye'.

* I love Marvel and I will go to see everything they put out from here until it all falls down, but I continue to be impressed by the level of care and craft that goes into making all of these movies and tv shows, and occasionally uniting them into one sweeping story. It really hasn't been done before on this scale in movies and tv and Kevin Feige has really got the secret sauce.

In the Heights (2021)

Summer time and the living ain't easy

The hype was high for this. With songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of 'Hamilton', (which has at times been on hard rotation in this house) and being the first truly uplifting crowd-pleaser we would see in the cinema since the pandemic shut everything - we were ready to be transported and to dance in the aisles.

Maybe no film could live up to that sort of pressure. 'In The Heights' is good but there's some crucial mis-steps that stop it from reaching the sky.

The cast deliver. Anthony Ramos brings out the wistful dreamer in Usnavi (though perhaps the movie works too hard to ensure his rough edges never show). Melissa Barrera is luminous as Vanessa, the nail tech with dreams of moving downtown. Corey Hawkins brings lightness and charm to the best friend role. Jimmy Smits has the right world weariness as the father trying to do right by his daughter. Olga Merediz is appropriately soulful as Claudia, who has seen so much already.

The songs largely work. The opening number, 'In the Heights', detailing the hard-scrabble but minor joy of living in Washington Heights is the highlight. It's unfortunate that nothing across the over-two hour runtime again matches the joy and power of this song but that isn't necessarily down to the music itself but how the story is told. 'Breathe', and '96,000' provide some other standout musical highlights.

The joy of some of the songs is the insight they can offer us into the lives of this community high up on Manhattan's west side. I've read about the feelings of erasure experienced by generally dark-skinned Afro-Latinos who make up a big part of that part of the city. It's sad to think that a movie which must feel like such a celebration of one community can feel like such a disappointment to another. It's hard to believe the producers/director weren't aware of the issue, and it's certainly a missed opportunity given how few stories from that part of the world are told on this scale.

Unfortunately there's another disconnect in the centre of the story. One that, for me, was mystifying. The film is, in many ways, a celebration of the Latinx community in Washington Heights, of how they have fought and won their place in America, but the central story is about how Usnavi wants to get out. His little dream is to go back to the Dominican Republic which he left when he was eight. Vanessa too wants to leave the Heights behind, and while she doesn't want to go quite so far, her little dream is to move out of the area.

There's a tension here that can't be resolved - the characters want to leave behind something that the movie is telling us they should be proud of, and it's hard to root for that. Why is Usnavi trying to reverse the work of his parents in coming to New York, and raising him in this land of opportunity? What happened to their American dream?

That things were, in some ways at least, better in the motherland is a common refrain of immigrants but rarely do we hear the stories of those who want to throw up their hands and say "I'm out."

'West Side Story' (and won't it be interesting to compare the forthcoming Spielberg version to this movie) understands that life isn't easy for its Puerto Rican Sharks but it shows them determined to carve out their piece. Here, on the verge of a generation making it in college, and in business, our lead character wants to bow out. It's a frustrating choice that the film never makes sense of.

Perhaps it is this irreconcilable tension which leads to a feeling of stasis in the middle of the movie. (Surely a cardinal sin in a musical.) Onscreen titles from the beginning count down to a forthcoming blackout priming us for this as the films climax. And a couple of things do indeed happen but the blackout rolls on, and much as it creates overheated lethargy in the community, it freezes the film in a sweaty amber. Scenes of the community sitting around, packing up their businesses all feel very anti-climactic at a moment when the narrative engine should be roaring.

That a looming problem for one of the characters is fixed by one of the laziest deus ex machinas in the screenwriting toolbox also seems to strike at the heart of the American dream that this Latinx community is (mostly) striving for.

Maybe the American dream can't work for everyone, maybe there is a discrimination baked into the system too difficult to overcome - that would be a powerful conclusion to reach - but the film is too eager to endorse the myth that all obstacles can be overcome. It offers up a last-minute reprieve to a character that (no matter the earlier foreshadowing) rings absolutely hollow in its offer of false hope.

That earnest need to please (this isn't Sondheim) and leave you going out on a high is part of many musicals charm but when dealing with very real, and current, issues, it seems too easy to reach for such a solution.

The ending sends out more of these mixed messages. Bubbling under a number of the stories is the sense that the neighbourhood is changing, that gentrification is pushing this close-knit community out. The ending suggests an accommodation with this gentrification that left me a little cold. Perhaps this is what Miranda and screenwriter Quiara Alegría Hudes (who also wrote the book for the stage version) see as the only possible answer to the irresistible forces of capitalism and rising rents; finding a way to celebrate and crucially, sell, something of the Latinx community to the new (white) neighbours. As staged in the film by director Jon M. Chu (director of 'Crazy Rich Asians') however, it comes off as uncomfortably close to selling out - a tourist version of what had made Washington Heights so special.

Perhaps Chu wasn't the right choice to direct this. He has form in the musical area, having previously directed 'Step Up 2: The Streets', and 'Step Up 3D' but he makes a strange choice here to constantly frame the dancers close-up. This, and the fast edits, restrict our ability to appreciate the choreography. Something, that on a stage would be a major source of joy and wonder, is lost.

There are, to be sure, some quite cool substitute pleasures; the Esther Williams-inspired synchronised swimming of '96,000' and the Fred Astaire-inspired dancing on the walls of 'When The Sun Goes Down' but it's frustrating not to be allowed experience the visceral thrill of these performers cutting loose in a simple wide-shot.

I'm aware I'm spending far more time on the faults of the movie than on its strengths but that's in part because my hopes were so high. And because I'm still working it all out in my head.

This was a fun and fascinating insight into a community I know little about but the movies desire to please, to pretend that everything in the Heights is magical makes it seem more like a fantasy land than the upper, upper, upper west side story it could have been.

A Rainy Day in New York (2019)

A good movie that's hard to watch for other reasons

"One thing about New York city; you're here or you're nowhere. You cannot achieve this level of anxiety, hostility, and paranoia anywhere else. It's really exhilarating."

• Gatsby Welles

I love Woody Allen movies. I have loved them since I was 14 and caught "Annie Hall" on tv late one night and thought "movies can be like this?" Allen has been banging out a movie almost every year for near on fifty years, and I have seen them all. They're not all classics, some are indeed terrible, but the hit rate is well above average, and there's a consistency of tone and outlook that made seeing each new Allen movie a pleasure; like running into an old friend with whom you could instantly slip into the old rhythms.

That feeling has been complicated of late. There have been allegations and controversy swirling around Allen that makes viewing of any new movie of his difficult. Part of why I didn't see this in the cinema but waited for it to show up on streaming.

There's a lot to be written about what's been alleged happened with Allen in recent years but I don't want to turn this into a space to ruminate on that - I am just going to concentrate on the movie as a movie.

And in that respect; it does pretty good. It's not vintage Allen, it's certainly no "Crimes and Misdemeanours" but it's an amusing slice of neurotic, rom-com angst as Timothée Chalamet as Gatsby Welles channels his best Woody Allen impression and wanders about NYC as his ditzy girlfriend (Elle Fanning) gets into her own unbelievable scrapes.

This is a fairy tale of New York, one in which you pass a movie set and get asked to join in, in which a college journalist scores a big interview with a celeb, and in which NYC is the both the worst and the best place.

There are some terrible choices with Fanning's character, particularly a gratuitous scene in which she gets locked outside in her underwear, but for me, the joke seemed to mostly be on the allegedly cerebral older men who kept falling for her flighty charms. Where some have seen this as Allen celebrating older men hooking up with younger women, I see older men making fools of themselves as they fawn over a young woman, when women their equals (Hi, Rebecca Hall) are walking away from them.

The other half of the movie involves Chalamet self-consciously running away from his privileged life, and trying to be some sort of upper class beatnik, but like the older men, he lacks the insight to see who he really is. Luckily he keeps running into Selena Gomez who has a better idea than he does.

Unfortunately Gomez doesn't know what movie she's in. She plays it as naturalistically as possible which grates against the tone everyone else (and the movie) is playing at.

The bigger problem is that Allen's dialogue just doesn't fit right coming out of these young mouths. Chalamet does a good job but buying into him as this world-weary card shark when he's college-age is just too much to ask.

A lesser Allen, but still worth a watch if you can divorce reality from the fairy tale being told.

Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey (2018)

Desperate

Lisa McVey is an extraordinary woman. Of that there's no question after one has seen this film. Under the most brutal, horrific, challenging circumstances, she had the presence of mind to think through what she could best do to get herself out, and/or to get the perpetrator caught.

This movie is not equal to Lisa McVey, and is less than she deserves. It is pedestrian in it's making, it is uninterested in what makes McVey brilliant, and it wallows a little too much in the horror of her situation. A better film might try to delve into what made McVey who she is but what "Believe Me" wants to do is simply show us the glum, repulsive horror of what she went through again and again. The film is restrained enough to never engage in nudity, or otherwise voyeuristically fetishise McVey in captivity but its relentless insistence on piling up violation after violation of this young woman begins to feel like it's the film's raison d'être.

When the film switches over to the investigation, it truly drops to sub-par levels. It no longer even has the awe in which we hold McVey to marvel at. It becomes plodding, and predictable.

Throughout the acting is awful, and the dialogue is risible. This is the kind of movie where a grizzled police officer strokes his chin, looks into the distance, and says "we won't crack this case until we get a witness", and the movie cuts not-so-subtly to McVey.

Katie Douglas gives it her all as McVey but the material simply isn't there for her to play beyond terror. David James Elliot is plain wooden as the lead detective. Strangely, Rossif Sutherland comes out best as the perpetrator - he displays a vicious cruelty that he leavens later with enough flashes of desperation and patheticness to make us believe in him.

Fans of "The X-Files" will be particularly disappointed to see that, after the events of the show, Agent Spender eked out a living as second banana in a Florida police station.

I can understand admiring this film as a proxy for admiration of Lisa McVey but the two are very separate. One is a hero, and one deserves to be utterly forgotten.

The Terror (1963)

Corman just don't quit

Jack Nicholson wanders around a wood and a castle, meeting the same five people over and over and asking "Where is the woman?!"

Nicholson plays a French soldier who, having become separated from his troop, runs into a woman who then disappears on him. He seeks answers from a baron (played by Boris Karloff!) in the local castle. (The very obvious matte painting of the castle makes it look vast, but the budget didn't stretch to building more than 2 rooms and a corridor.) The plot is ridiculous, and an attempt to give some psychological depth through a last minute reveal about one of the characters is laughable.

A lot of the joy in watching a Corman produced/directed movie is admiring how they did so much with so little. It's the sheer brio, brass neck, and inventiveness that Corman brings to his movies that you can't help but admire.

The story goes that as Corman was finishing up "The Raven" (one of his movies based on work by Edgar Allen Poe), he realised he could keep the sets up for a further two days and film something else. He asked a screenwriter to come up something fast, and asked one of the stars of "The Raven", Boris Karloff, to be in it. They shot all of Karloff's scenes over two days, and filmed the rest of it over the following year. Though the later footage had different people filling in as director - including Francis Ford Coppola and Monte Hellman.

You couldn't make it up.

Considering all that, it's amazing the film is as coherent as it is.

Like the matter painting of the castle, once you scratch below the surface, there isn't much going on in "The Terror" but Nicholson looks good in a uniform, Sandra Knight is gorgeous as the mysterious woman, Karloff is campy fun as the baron.

A curiosity then, and one whose behind the scenes story is far more interesting than the one on screen.

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Some of the spark but not enough

The first Wonder Woman film was a sweet, sweet blast. After the downbeat sensibility of "Man of Steel", "BvS: Dawn of Justice", and "Suicide Squad", the hopeful, joyous energy of "Wonder Woman" was glorious.

Until the final third went down an awful CGI baddie battle that was at odds with the rest of the tone. But no matter, Gadot's innocent optimism left a strong enough sweet taste.

Yay, Patty Jenkins! You did it!

The first was such a hit that naturally Warner Bros. Wanted to get a sequel out as soon as possible but it feels like in their rush to do that, they hadn't got the script nailed down before they began shooting.

That's the best explanation I can think of for what happened here.

A lot of the same lightness of tone does permeate the film. Chris Pine's Steve Trevor is resurrected and now he's the fish out of water, in 1980s America, which generates some cute laughs. Gadot brings a sort of older, wiser energy to her Wonder Woman/Diana Prince while retaining the essential decency that made her compelling in the WW1 setting.

Some of the action scenes, such as the opening on Themyscira, and in the shopping centre are wonderful; kinetic and exciting.

But some choices have been made that undermine the movie. The main one is the strange splitting out of the narratives. Pedro Pascal plays Maxwell Lord, one of our nominal villains, and he's great at showing us the charm that makes this man a successful hustler, but the sweaty desperation behind it all. The problem is that he's basically a co-lead in the movie. For a villain, he gets an awful lot of screen time. I'm all for that, but when the villain is getting backstory and a sympathetic motivation, and pushing the lot forward, and our hero is off doing romance, and being reactive, it saps some of the energy from the movie.

It also takes from Kristen Wiig's potential screen time. Pascal is good, but Wiig kills it as the dowdy, ignored nerd who gets her wish to be more like Diana. She is a joy to watch as she revels in her new found power. More of that would have been fun.

The film also doesn't make enough of its 80s setting. A few tunes, a few fashion trends singled out at the start of the movie, but it's then all quickly forgotten about.

There's a great movie in here, but it needed more work at the script stage. The theme of getting what you want, and excess, could work but it needed more thinking through.

And one less villain.

And less sudden development of ridiculous powers. (Flying on air currents?! Making things invisible?! Come on!) We've bought into the conceit of Wonder Woman, but you can't keep adding things on. It lowers the stakes if she can just keep deus ex machina-ing herself out of problems with new powers.

I have faith Patty and co can right the ship for a third Wonder Woman movie, and I shall be there, ready to believe.

Wild Rose (2018)

Country Gold

I came to Jessie Buckley's work in this order; "Chernobyl" "Judy" "I'm Thinking Of Ending Things" And now, "Wild Rose".

I am now convinced Jessie has been sent here to save us all. She is sooo good, it's unearthly.

(I'm also realising now that I saw her on stage when I saw Kenneth Branagh's production of "A Winter's Tale" but embarrassingly, I don't quite recall here there which somewhat undercuts my argument.) (I was blinded by Judi Dench.)

There might be some narrative contrivances (Sophie Okonedo is awfully quick to pick up on Jessie's talent, and then she just happens to know someone who might know someone...) but it doesn't matter because Jessie Buckley brings earthy, glorious heart to the film.

She plays Rose-Lynn, a woman with the voice and the drive to become a country (not country and western!) star, but without a clue as to how to make that happen. She's a Glasgow girl, and the the bright lights of Nashville may as well be on another planet.

The film looks at the personal cost of making it, and asks if Rose-Lynn has the courage and ruthlessness to pay that price. How much can you make someone else pay for your dreams?

It's a film young dreamers will watch for years, trying to discern its truth.

An Education (2009)

You gotta rescue yourself

Carey Mulligan proving she's been world class from the start.

Rosamund Pike having fun as a glorious ditz.

Peter Sarsgard demonstrating how a dodgy, despicable bloke can be dapper and delicious.

Alfred Molina bringing a mix of overbearing, patronising, and loving. (If perhaps being a little too comically seduced by a smooth talker.)

Dominic Cooper giving good Dominic Cooper.

Nick Hornby bringing lightness and zing to his adaptation of Lynn Barber's story.

Lynn Barber being remarkably clear-eyed about the motivations and sensibilities of all concerned.

Lone Scherfig, a Dane, crafting a very British drama.

A feminist fairy tale in which the Princess must rescue herself from the raspy, fiery breath of the stifling patriarchy, and does it with fun.

An examination of systems of oppression that shines a light on the means both subtle and gross which keep it in place.

A good looking tribute to a repressive era when the culture was on the edge of bursting open.

A film that largely (though not entirely!) runs as you expect but which takes such pleasure in the journey, that it's a wonderful trip.

And did I say that Carey Mulligan is world class?

The Color Wheel (2011)

Not black and white

By the end of viewing "The Color Wheel", I was unsure what Alex Ross Perry wanted to say about Colin and JR - the siblings at the centre of his second film. I was unsure what to think of what they had done, what they had been through, and who they are. I think some people might consider that a failing but I think it's his style. He deviates from the norm but not letting us know what we should think. He didn't forget to include the speech in the penultimate scene that would sum up the meaning of the movie. Nor did he accidentally leave out the music that would tell us how to feel about this pair. He left it up to us. And that is harder to deal with.

This is a road-trip film that follows the estranged siblings as they go to pick up JR's stuff from her professor/boyfriend with whom she has recently broken up.

They keep being thrown into situations which are awkward, cringe, and wierd. Often the people they meet are just as weird and alienating as our duo but the magic of cinema means our empathy is with the characters with whom we share the POV. We want better for them. We recognise they might be shallow, lazy, and narcissistic but that doesn't mean they don't deserve happiness. (I mean, thank God.) It's just very hard to understand what happiness might be for these two. The much-discussed climax feels both un-surprising and shocking, totally wrong but maybe the start of something like healing.

Despite this sophistication of theme and character, there are some jarring tonal mismatches that hurt the film. A scene with a motel clerk plays like a bad sketch from the 70s about backwards rural types, and there's a party scene that is aiming for a sort of chaos, but ends up feeling stilted and disconnected, and like none of the other guests are real.

These flaws are easily overlooked. This is difficult viewing, and it won't be for all, but it is smart and interesting and full of something like life.

A Call to Spy (2019)

Decent telling of extraordinary history

This film is about the actions of three women involved as spies for the British against the Nazis during world war II. What these women did is extraordinary, and it is absolutely right that we commemorate them, but this film doesn't quite do them justice.

The film is written and produced by Sarah Megan Thomas, who also plays the lead, Virginia Hall. Virginia trained as a spy and served behind enemy lines in France despite having a wooden leg. Radhika Apte plays Noor Inayat Khan, a Muslim of Indian descent, who also spied for Britain in France. Stana Katic plays Vera Atkins - the handler working for the Special Operations Executive responsible for female spies.

I was a little familiar with Khan's story as she featured in an episode of Doctor Who, but I can see why Thomas was attracted to telling the story of these otherwise largely forgotten women who risked everything at a time when women were not treated with the same respect as men. At a time when women were not considered able for field work, they led from the front and showed they had the grit and courage to do it well.

Unfortunately, the script simply tries to do too much. Any one of these women would be a worthy subject for a movie but trying to tell all three of their stories at once means none of them get the screen time they deserve. Their stories and their arcs are truncated in a way that is distracting and left me wishing I could see what was going on in between the moments we saw of each of them.

Khan's story is particularly hurt by this. At one point she seems to simply be wandering aimlessly around Paris until she bumps into someone. Surely there was more method to her brand of madness than this?

(On a terribly minor note, it really irks me in a movie when the General or the CEO or the President or whatever appears to have nothing to do but fret and talk about the relatively minor character who is the movies subject. Here, apparently all the Special Operations Executive top brass have to do with their days is talk about Hall and Khan. Come on! At least give them a line where we see they do have other duties!) (Rant over.)

The film looks good. I don't know what the budget was but imagining it was relatively small, Kim Jennings and Vanessa Porter have done a great job of stretching the money to ensure the period details looks right in production design and costumes respectively.

Lydia Dean Pilcher directs competently and efficiently, and lands the emotional beats when she needs to.

I hate to judge the film for what it isn't but I cannot help thinking the material here would have made for a wonderful mini-series, but is simply too much for a films smaller attention real estate.

The kind of Sunday afternoon fare you'd be perfectly happy watching with the parents one rainy Sunday, or perhaps showing to your pre-teen daughter to show her girls have kicked ass in history too.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2020)

Making fun in America

I love Borat in small doses. Used for a sketch Sacha Baron Cohen's caricature of regressive ideas could be hilarious, but I found the first feature film to be too much.

A somewhat repetitive, but often hilarious, dive into the darker parts of the American psyche, it fell apart for me in the scripted parts which were ostensibly about Borat the character travelling across America to meet Pamela Anderson. When Baron Cohen gets in front of real life people, his ability to brazenly walk them into incriminating themselves is second to none but when devising the glue to hold those disparate scenes together, the film struggled mightily.

So it came as a real surprise to me to find that the scripted scenes in "Subsequent Moviefilm" are among its most memorable material. It turns out necessity really is the mother of invention and the fact that Borat has become too well known forced Baron Cohen and crew into a new formulation that worked fantastically; the introduction of his daughter, Tutar, as played by Maria Bakalova.

This does two things; it gives Baron Cohen a sparring partner who seems every bit his equal in terms of commitment to the bit and madcap energy, and it gives them both a chance to play an actual character arc as they re-evaluate the role of women in the world.

The final portion of the movie forms jumps back to scripted action, and it stumbled a bit here for me, but there was enough surprise to keep me smiling.

The interactions with real Americans are a mixed bag. Some are horrifying (the doctor recommending surgery to an underage Tutar), some are sweet (the older ladies at the synagogue (who kindly correct Borat on his holocaust denial), and some leave one unsure what to think (the men Borat quarantines with who genuinely believe some outrageous conspiracy theories but who also seem like nice guys who have been misled), but these all add up to a nice snapshot of America in 2020. Something I hope I can look back on many, many years from now and marvel at how much things have improved. (Fingers crossed!)

That Baron Cohen had this out in the same year as he delivered a wonderful performance in "The Trial of the Chicago Seven" is impressive. That he brought this out in time for the then upcoming American election is brilliant.

Dziekuje.

La planète sauvage (1973)

An alternate future

A few minutes in to "Fantastic Planet", I was asking myself "What the hell is this?!" But, like, in the best way.

The movie begins in media res with a woman and baby running in blind panic from something, which seemed like a scene I'd seen before until a giant blue hand emerged from the sky and flicks her, as a human might flick a fly.

The craziness had begun.

The story then follows Terr (a human) as he learns about the planet he lives on; Ydam. Here the giant blue Draags rule. They're technologically and mentally advanced. The humans, known here as Oms, are considered to be like small animals. They're tolerated when Draag children keep them as pets, but colonies of them in the wild are considered vermin to be exterminated.

We follow Terr as he learns about both Draag and Om society, and how they co-exist. All of that though is really an excuse to show off the wild alien landscape and the bizarre, anatomically preposterous creatures that populate the planet.

I lost count of how many scenes there are of random bird/utensil/rocket hybrid creatures who arrive out of nowhere to visit chaos on the Oms. Screech! Graaaagh!

The movie suggest we live in a chaotic universe, and mans only defence against random and/or capricious natural forces is knowledge, and the mastery it brings. It's also hard to miss the animal rights parallels - the Draags treats us like animals because they assume we don't have their level of sentience. Food for thought, eh?

These are not your usual animated movie themes and for that, and it's blasè attitude towards nudity, this announces itself as the French/Czech co-production it is - definitely not Disney fare.

It's a short movie, just 72 minutes long, and it bounces along at a good pace - the next fight is never far away. This episodic nature, and the lack of characterisation (the film is more interested in the landscape than in its inhabitants) make for a film that is more visually and aurally fascinating than truly engaging but its sheer inventiveness and its arresting visual style make this a worthwhile watch.

Perhaps this is how sci-fi might have been done if animation had not become associated with kids so long ago.

Friends: The Reunion (2021)

One more before we go...

I loved this show when it was first on. Like I LOVED it. It was appointment television for me. At a time when I was struggling in a school where I had few friends, this show provided a sense of how things could be; of a world where me and my besties would live alongside each other, and spend all of our time being there for each other, and making ourselves laugh.

It might seem silly to imbue a show with so much talismanic power but that is the power of narrative - we immerse ourselves in it, and feel like we're there, like we really know the characters, like we're part of it.

Sometimes a fictional world reaches a critical mass and millions of people enter into it; like a Star Wars, or Star Trek, but there was a moment in the the late '90s when everyone was loving the Central Perks crew, when the Friends actors became superstars, and loving this thing that so many others loved made me feel part of something bigger too.

I would watch each episode as it aired, and then re-watch it the next day when my best friend called over. I basked in the continuity, and in the in-jokes, and there was a run of episodes in both the first and the fourth seasons that are among both the funniest, and most emotional, of any sit-coms run.

Admittedly, I fell off in later seasons. My own life moved on, and to be honest, I found the show wasn't as good it used to be (Sorry, Exec Producers, but Chandler & Monica had no chemistry and keeping them together was a mistake). (Don't get me started on the abortive Rachel/Joey fling.) Of course, I came back for the final run of episodes but there are likely still some in the 8th/9th seasons I haven't seen.

But I remained deeply invested in this show. I take note of whatever projects the cast are now doing, and whenever I run across an episode on tv, I look to see if it's from those first few seasons, and if it is; it's like settling in with old buddies as we reminisce about the good old days.

When I first heard about a reunion, I thought it might be a new episode , but Marta Kaufmann were right in her observation; the show was about a particular time in peoples lives - to bring them back as older characters would either come off as incredibly silly, or would risk just not being the same show.

As Kudrow observed too; the finale ended with all of the characters in a good place - to bring the cast back for new episodes, or even a movie, might require undoing some of that ending for the sake of drama. So this reunion was just the cast, and some guests talking and reminiscing about the show. I think that was the right way to go.

I don't watch anything at the time it airs anymore, but this reunion was something I made an effort to be home for; I wanted to bask in the glow of my old pals one more time.

And when it was my old pals; David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Courtney Cox, and Matthew Perry hanging out on the old sets, it was magic.

There was something beautiful about seeing them enter the studio and watching their reactions to the reconstructed sets.

It was lovely to see Lisa Kudrow peel away from that when she saw David Schwimmer and say "This is all I care about." It was heart-warming to see Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc ease into their old armchairs and hear Perry say "It's good to see you, Matty." It was hilarious to see Jennifer Aniston get the details of an episode wrong ("Oh there were firemen!") and to have the others laughingly correct her.

It was heartbreaking, in the context of his public struggles with addiction, to hear Perry say that he needed the laughter of the live audience and would sweat and panic about not getting it.

It brought something of the magic back to see the six of them reunited, and acting more or less like the friends I remember.

Unfortunately, the reunion also features an interview segment with James Corden. No shade on Corden but I wasn't interested in seeing him interview the cast. It introduced an artificiality to the proceedings that made it like any other promotional interview, and of little value.

The decision to waste precious time on a "fashion show" in which celebs model some of the outfits from the show? Bizarre, and it added nothing to an understanding or insight or even just nostalgia of/for the show.

It was nice to include some of the major guest stars, like Tom Selleck as Richard, or James Michael Tyler as Gunther, but to just wheel them in and off again worse than not having them. If you're going to bring them on, let's hear from them. Let's hear about their experience of the show. That would have been better than watching Cindy Crawford sashay down the runway wearing "Ross'" leather pants. (I suspect this is why Paul Rudd wasn't involved; he likely didn't want to show up for such a brief appearance, and I don't blame him.)

It was good that both Reese Witherspoon and Maggie Wheeler (as Rachel's sister, and Janice respectively) got to offer up a little nugget each from their time on the set, but what the hell was David Beckham, Kit Harrington, and Malala (!) doing there?

But then it would cut back to the cast sitting around the old set, or playing trivia game inspired by an old episode, and it would be magical again.

For that feeling of seeing old friends, of listening in on their real reminiscences, for the goosebumps I got as they played the slowed-down version of the theme tune over the old intro, this was a win. Not a return to peak form, but as we all get older, we have to be happy we got to hang out one last time.

Pusher III (2005)

Third times still a charm

To go back to the well a second time is risky. To do it a third time is truly tempting fate, but despite the odds, writer/director Refn pulled it off. Again.

This time the focus is on Zlatko Buric's Milo - the drug dealer who was a supporting character in the first two films. I wasn't a fan of Buric in the first film; I thought he came off as too friendly, too indulgent, and too passive a presence to be taken seriously as a feared crime lord, but here Refn and Buric have made that work for them.

The plot again revolves around money owed due to a drug deal gone south (Is there any other kind?), but this time the focus is on what it takes to hold onto what a man has built, especially as age advances, and a new generation wants a piece.

This sort of territory has been successfully explored in criminal settings before, in The Godfather trilogy, in The Wire, to name two, but Buric's slightly exhausted, slightly lacking in energy performance adds a sad note to this tale. If he was ever feared, it was a long time ago, and Milo is clearly now coasting on reputation.

Pusher III: I Am The Angel Of Death continues the second films focus on the family life of its criminal characters. Milo is here not only contending with rival gangs and drug distribution issues, but with his own drug addiction, and the 25th birthday party of his daughter who is used to getting what she wants.

This immersion into one particularly stressful day for Milo allows Refn to engage in the Pusher series' trademark vision of criminal life as a whole lot of sitting around, talking, nothing-happening punctuated by explosions of violence and chaos. This style lets us sit with the characters as they probe each other, try to establish trust, and occasionally resort to violence if they need to.

The movie wisely reintroduces Slavko Labovic's Radovan from the first movie; the gangster who is all smiles until he has to break your legs.

That unease, that tension between nothing happening/everything happening, friend/enemy, quiet/violence, resonates throughout the film. The handheld camera, the dirty locations and production design, the actors nervy energy all lend themselves to a sense that things aren't right.

On this busy day, we follow Milo from place to place, as he gets increasingly frayed, and the tension ratchets up, reaching boiling point in a finale that is as remarkable for its violence as for its unflashy, no-nonsense approach to that violence. Violence is simply a part of these people's lives, and as shocking as it is to us, it's just another chore for these men.

This film doesn't attempt to sum up the Pusher series (it doesn't even reveal what became of characters from previous movies) but taken as a whole, these films offer a window into life lived on the criminal edges of Copenhagen. A life of grime, paranoia, and violence. Taken as a trilogy, it's a serious achievement.

Pusher II (2004)

Equal To The First

It would have been so natural for "Pusher II: With Blood On My Hands" to pick up where the original film left off, but writer/director Refn makes the bold and brilliant decision to not so much make a sequel, as an "equal".

The connective tissue is all there; this is very much set in the same grimy, smalltime criminal underworld of Copenhagen, and retains some of the same characters such as an appearance by Zlatko Buric's drug lord Milo, but this time the spotlight is on Tonny - the sidekick played by Mads Mikkelsen in the first film.

Mikkelsen was great in "Pusher" - playing a dead-eyed thug who seemed to want to cause chaos because he had nothing better to do. If you had told me that Refn and Mikkelsen were going to put Tonny centre stage in the sequel and examine what's made the man, and what might be ahead for him, I would have said that's either brilliant or very stupid.

Luckily, these guys are at the top of their game and it comes off wonderfully. Refn resisted the impulse to replicate the propulsive man-on-a-mission structure of his first film, allowing for a slightly more relaxed pace. The engine of the plot is once again set in motion by the need of a man to earn money to pay off his drug debts but Refn expands on the glimpses we saw in the first film of the criminals personal life by introducing Tonny's father; a notorious local crime boss.

Refn is interested in how men become who they are - how the pressure from our fathers and our peers to be tough, to be violent, to be ruthless, and to make money has a devastating effect on how we grow, or fail to.

Tonny has no desires other than to have a good time, and to earn a place in his father's affections through proving himself as a criminal, but upon learning that he may have a son, there is a gradual, nagging dawning in Tonny that maybe there should be something more.

Refn offers no models of manhood other than the cut throat criminals Tonny has always been around. It makes change for Tonny difficult, and Mikkelsen etches the slow personal growth perfectly. There is no big revelatory moment, just a man looking about in moments of quiet and asking himself if this is what he wants.

The handheld, street level vision of Copenhagen is as believable and compelling as it was in the original, but in choosing to forge a new identity for Pusher, Refn opened up swathes of new terrain to explore.

Gold (2016)

Comes Up Short

I can see why all involved were attracted to the project. It seems to have everything; the American dream, money, sex, exotic locations, the little guy risking it all, international intrigue, the will to power, and based on a true story too. Damn, sign me up!

But somehow it never quite all comes together, and there's blame to go around.

The screenplay by Patrick Massett and John Zinman never settles on a point-of-view on Kenny Wells (Matthew McConaughey), and the exploits of American companies overseas. Are we to view him and his ilk as swashbuckling entrepreneurs who do things their way and bring fortune not just to themselves but to all who work with them? Or is he, and all like him, just a lucky fool who swaggers and cons his way into the big time Has manifest destiny been made flesh in Kenny Wells as he takes from the foreigners and makes America rich? Or has corporate America feasted too long, and now only makes money by selling dreams to each other?

You could make the case for any of this, but the film makers are not willing to go to those places despite the material clearly leading them there. Why even make Wells the centre of the movie when the central gold claim is made by another man? The movie goes out of its way to show us that Wells was sick while others acted during the crucial moments.

The movie cannot resolve the tension between wanting to examine American capital at work in the world, but not having the courage to condemn where necessary.

McConaughey won't explore the merits of modern global capitalism but he is willing to go to a more ugly place physically. His Wells is an overweight, hard drinking, gambler with a receding hairline, and boy, does the camera really want us to revel in just how overweight McConaughey is. Unfortunately, physical ugliness is as far as McConaughey is willing to go. Wells loses the family business, steals from his girlfriend, and gets rich on the back of others work but he is played as a lovable rogue. And I admit, it works; McConaughey's charms just can't be resisted. I was hooked, and was rooting for his personal success even as I had doubts about the merits of his business dealings.

Director Stephen Gaghan wrote "Traffic" and "Syriana" - both admirable and wonderful attempts to unpack the impacts of America's role in the world, and I wish he had been the one to write this. As it is, his direction is fine but doesn't bring the material to life. He doesn't find a way to communicate the hard edged grind of life at the bottom of corporate America, nor the sweltering poverty of Indonesian miners, or the shiny excess of New York boardrooms. It's all a little flat, a little perfunctory.

That not-quite-there sense permeates the film. The sense that this could have been something is borne out by the participation of great collaborators like cinematographer Robert Elswit, and a cast that includes Edgar Ramirez, (a wasted) Bryce Dallas Howard, Corey Stoll, and Bill Camp.

Somehow, despite promising readings, they strike not gold, but copper.

The Woman in the Window (2021)

A-List Cast/B-List Results

I had gathered that this was not going to be an enjoyable watch so I came to this Joe Wright directed thriller steeled for a grim experience, but I was pleasantly surprised. For most of the run.

Much has been made about the Hitchcockian vibes, and on a superficial level, it does resemble "Rear Window" - a thriller about someone confined to their home passes the time watching their neighbours and eventually witnesses a murder (or do they?) - but the tone is very different. Hitchcock always maintains a tone of delight in the depravity, or finds a way to have fun with the conventions or restrictions of the time. Woman has no time for any such larks which you cannot get away with when the plot is this crazy.

What's most annoying is that Wright has form in the right area. "Hanna" remains his best film, and threads the needle between taking its premise seriously while knowing it's bonkers.

I haven't read the source novel by A. J. Finn so perhaps the movie faithfully adapts the tone of the novel, but whereas "Rear Window" delighted in the pleasures of voyeurism, as James Stewart spied on, and got to know his neighbours via his binoculars, Wright, and Tracy Letts' screenplay, focus on the claustrophobia of being trapped in your own home.

Perhaps the starting points made that inevitable; Stewart is trapped in his apartment due to a broken leg. Here Amy Adams is imprisoned by her own mind as her agoraphobia keeps her in. Stewart was chafing to get back out. Adams intends never to pass her front door again.

The film (superficially) explore the reasons for her agoraphobia, leading to a portrait of a broken alcoholic who's resigned to plodding on as she is. I could watch a movie about that but bolting it onto this OTT thriller plot does a disservice to the audience.

It's a shame because Amy Adams has charm to spare, and she can bring a welcome lightness to sombre or dark narratives as she did in "Arrival", or "Hillbilly Elegy", but here she's overpowered by the broken nature of her character, and the utter lack of lightness in the script.

Which is not to say that this doesn't have other charms. There are some extremely effective tension-building scenes as Adams fears she is not alone in the house, and some ludicrous but enjoyable drama as one character after another arrives into the house to shout and accuse. These scenes are so silly that they should have pointed the way to a more slyly knowing tone, but Wright has opted to lean into the dark and dreary of it all.

But that cast! Gary Oldman! (Who must have felt he owed Wright for getting him the best actor Oscar in their previous collaboration on "Darkest Hour"), Julianne Moore! Anthony Mackie! Jennifer Jason Leigh! Tracy Letts! Wyatt Russel! (Hot off his turn with Mackie in "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier".) Unfortunately, all of them are wasted - the narrative keeps them apart from Adams for large parts of the movie, and only Oldman and Moore get even a hint of a smidge of a taste of something to do.

Wright isn't worried though because his direction is practically another character in itself. It's bold and showy and draws attention to itself at every opportunity. I often quite like that - I love some flash but here it's not in service of Adams' interiority, or of the plot, it's just flash for the sake of flash, and it adds to the alienating effect, making it harder to sympathise with our plucky protagonist.

Where the film really comes off the rails is in the third act. This is a silly film that could have been great thriller trash had it embraced that. Instead Wright went full Christopher Nolan but the material can't support that heaviness, so when the third act revelations start piling up, it collapses under the weight of it's own ridiculous grim-dark.

I was willing to just about (just about!) forgive the backstory to Adams' agoraphobia, but the leap into absolute off-the-charts silliness as the truth about what was going on becomes clear is too much to take. The film abandons its own pretensions to seriousness and becomes every rubbish direct-to-video thriller you've ever seen, complete with a character suddenly revealing everything for no discernible reason, and an action-packed climax at the location flagged half-way through just for that purpose.

This had the potential to be Hitchcock-style fun from beginning to end, but while Wright took technical notes from the master on showmanship, he skipped the class on coherence and tone.

Great direction comes in service to the story, not the other way around.

Pusher (1996)

Danish Danger

I have been wanting to see this film for a long time so it was with great anticipation that I put it on, and I was not disappointed.

Knowing this was Nicolas Winding Refn's debut feature only makes it more impressive.

The restless camera, the down and dirty production design, the performances work together to ensure you can feel the scuziness and the energy radiate off the screen. The Copenhagen underworld is brought to vivid life - the dive bars, the menacing camaraderie, the days where nothing happens followed by minutes where all hell breaks loose, the incessant paranoia, the need for a big score driving everyone to push too hard.

Kim Bodnia and Mads Mikkelsen play small time criminals who have a very bad week - the constant ratcheting up of the tension might seem forced in less capable hands, but Refn (and co-screenwriter Jens Dahl) parse out the dark turns with long periods of nothing happening. In these moments, our characters engage in banter and one-upmanship designed to stave off the loneliness and self-loathing we occasionally glimpse.

I have only previously seen Kim Bodnia from three seasons each of The Bridge, and Killing Eve so it was a delight to see him in the lead role here in a younger, thrusting, more volatile mode. There's nothing to like about his character, and yet we empathise with his desperation, and his desire to just catch a break.

Mads Mikkelsen, as Bodnia's partner, is a troubling delight as a dead eyed gangster I wouldn't turn my back on for a second. Laura Drasbæk is heart breaking as the gangsters girl whose hope that something more might come of her relationship keeps her from seeing how worthless these guys are.

I found Zlatko Buric a little too comedic to convince as the fearsome head of a Balkan drug gang, but Slavko Labovic as his enforcer; all bonhomie until he has to break your legs, more than made up for it.

As in Trainspotting, the immersion into this hidden, horrible, high stakes world is convincingly done, and advertises the bravura confidence of its director.

The ending is maintains the boldness; leaving a certain amount open to the audience, but throwing just enough light on how dark things have become.

News of the World (2020)

Safe State of the West

It's directed by Paul Greengrass so the question arises; which Paul Greengrass are we getting? Is it the urgent, intense, investigative Greengrass of the latter Bourne movies, and Green Zone, or is this the slower, more observant, character study of, say, Captain Phillips?

I's the latter. Greengrass and Hanks are interested in showing us a man, fundamentally decent, but battered by his experience; by war, by life, and how he travels the American frontier just trying to get by.

Hanks plays Captain Kidd, a former soldier who earns his living by travelling from town to far-off town and reading from newspapers both local and national about the goings-on elsewhere. The masses, illiterate and cut off by the vast distances of the American west, pay to hear him read aloud, and learn about the goings on in the world.

Western movies are so inextricably bound up in the American myth, "how the west was won", that it would be difficult not to see this as an allegory for America even if we weren't being subtly pointed in that direction. We see how the populace can be riled up by unwelcome news about the Federal government, or how they can be inspired to band together through stories of overcoming adversity. The masses can be shaped by (fake) news, and they can be set free by the seeing the best in each other. It's not an especially complicated message, but it sure is a timely one.

The lead role role is so fundamentally latter-day Hanks-ian, so of a piece with other recent roles of his such as the aforementioned Captain Phillips, or those in, say, Sully, and Bridge of Spies that it's hard not to grant some authorial voice to him as well as to Greengrass in the making of this movie. It's just a shame Hanks doesn't seem willing to imbue these characters with more complexity than that. They are good. They do the right thing. That is really all there is. Hanks' flirtation with the dark side, as in Road to Perdition, is behind him. There's a great appetite for these movies, and I'm not immune (far from it) to the charms of Hanks being the world's reassuring movie-dad but it does leave the story in a far more predictable place.

Greengrass and Hanks show us Kidd travelling through a world near broken, and unable to face its past when he finds an abandoned child and makes it his mission to bring her home. You can absolutely guess where this is going, and you won't be wrong.

That's the pleasure of a movie like this - you know exactly what it's doing, and you watch expert craftsmen take you there, sure in the knowledge that they won't drop the ball.

And they don't. But ultimately it's all a little safe, a little too conventional to mark it out as something more than capable, efficient, well-made,

But that's not to condemn this movie. The bright spots pulled me in. Hanks delivers a solid performance. Helena Zengel is a delight as the spirited child Kidd takes under his wing. It's gorgeous to look at; both the grandeur of the wide open spaces, and the flickering candlelight and shadows of the night time scenes.

It's a film you would be delighted to come across one rainy Sunday afternoon, but which no one will ever claim as their favourite movie.

Palm Springs (2020)

A Delicious Stew

Start with a wonderful premise, add a little bit of romance, a sprinkling of quantum physics, a heap of good performances, a soupçon of chemistry, a dash of good actors in the supporting roles, garnish with some beautiful locations et voila! You have delivered a fine stew that sounds like something you maybe ate before but as it's going down, you're like "Oh damn, I don't know what this is, but it is good!"

I'd seen a few 5 star reviews for this film which maybe raised my expectations for this film. At the end of the day, it's very much a rom-com, but the timey-wimey spin, and the existential comedy/horror it allows the film to explore (Imagine being stuck with one person forever!) turns this into a gem.

I know Samberg from SNL only but he turned in a beautifully judged performance here. Milioti has more of the heavy lifting to do, and pulls it off wonderfully - moving convincingly from anger to mania to sweetness to self-hatred in a short amount of screen time. JK Simmons is ALWAYS good value. Throw in actors like Peter Gallagher and June Squibb in the supporting roles. It's even got Camilla Mendes from Riverdale showing up as the bride. What more could you want??!!!

If the measure of a film is how much, once it's over, you feel like you want to watch it again, this scored an "again! Again!"