Iridescent Black & Whites

A Taste of Fear is a tidy little Hammer thriller from 1962 starring Christopher Lee and Susan Strasberg. A pretty young crippled woman returns home from her schooling at the behest of her father only to find him curiously absent with just her new stepmother and chauffeur in attendance, her disquiet deepens when she begins to see visions of her Pops around the house in a less than lively condition. Nicely shot and sporting a tight, lean script ably fleshed by the skilled actors this brilliant little gem builds towards a finale that's as unexpected as it is brutal.

Blake Edwards is mostly remembered for his goofy comedies but he also made a considerable impact in other genres and thrilling Experiment in Terror is a fine example of his earlier work. A bank teller, played by Lee Remick, is forced into committing a heist by a seemingly ubiquitous, asthmatic bampot but his persistent terrorising begins to fall on deaf ears once she’s aided by a Fed, played by Glenn Ford. Stylishly shot and with buckets of atmosphere this thriller packs a fair punch and though, like Taste above, it’s plot is a little hackneyed the quality of script and performances elevate it well above the typical.

Wandering Whimsies

Whether you consider it a rip off or homage to Miyazaki’s work the animated Children Who Chase Lost Voices is a highly successful, quite charming adventure that could easily slip into Studio Ghibli’s masterful canon. A young girl picks up some unusual music on her crystal radio set that leads her into the company of an enigmatic boy from a subterranean kingdom and onto melancholic escapade. The writer/director Shinkai ‘borrows’ much of the animation stylings of Miyazaki, explores similar themes of loss and the passage of time and even cobbles together a patchwork plot that’s half Castle In the Sky, half Spirited Away but unfortunately forgets to lift the delicate scripting and well, modesty. A thoroughly entertaining film from a filmmaker with much promise.

Jackson continues to mine the rich Tolkien seam with the first part of his trilogy adapting The Hobbit. Martin Freeman, as usual, mugs his way through proceedings as Bilbo Baggins who gets recruited by a certain wizard into a dwarf heavy quest to evict a troublesome dragon blah blah blah, I’m sure you’re familiar with the plot. There’s more humour here than Lord of The Rings and it’s a sunnier production overall but Jackson still packs in plenty of action and, given it’s certification, a surprising amount of dismemberment.  As we’ve come to expect Jackson assembled a talented ensemble and his polished production and attention to detail make for lush storytelling and this, and it’s subsequent sequels, will no doubt rake in the cash as well as a plentitude of well deserved plaudits.

Abnormal Acts

David Cronenberg’s son, Brandon, has clearly inherited his father’s penchant for body horror as his impressive debut Antiviral, a sneaky, low budget, high concept scifi flick positively glistens with creepy, twisted fleshiness. Working as a vendor of celebrity infections, our protagonist decides to scoop the competition and takes drastic measures to secure the mysterious affliction that’s struck down a beautiful young starlet. Cronenberg sketches out a nicely jaded dystopia where science has become a slave to the pernicious cult of celebrity and the quiet pacing and performances underpin it’s increasingly unsettling atmosphere. As Pops Cronenberg drifts more and more into mainstream features it’s a relief someone in the family is keeping up the tradition of squirming squeamishness.

 

Although Absentia doesn’t manage it’s budget quite as well as Antiviral it’s still manages a mouldering atmosphere of weirdness that lifts it above the average horror/thriller. After 7 years, a young wife is about to declare her missing husband dead and enlists her wayward sister to help tie up things only for the husband to crawl through the front door rambling incoherently about a close to home kidnapper. The script is a little thin at times and the production a bit low fi but the plot’s menace and weirdness are developed nicely as the character’s emotional churning soon blossoms into a sticky miasma of dread and confusion. A solid, interesting little chiller that’s worth a look and shows that Kickstarter funding might be a viable option for cash starved film makers.

Mining the ‘68 Seam

Alan Bates puts in a powerful performance as an unjustly imprisoned Jewish handyman clinging to his principles in The Fixer directed by John Frankenheimer and loosely based on the infamous Beilis trial. Anti-Semitism was rife in Tsarist Russia, so when a boy turns up murdered it’s easy for the locals and authorities to blame a nearby Jew but they didn’t count on his tenacious refusal to confess despite their brutal, merciless treatment. Bates is ably supported by Dirk Bogarde and Ian Holm but they pale way into the background as Bates rounds out the razor sharp script out with a perfectly pitched portrayal of a man driven to despair and beyond.

 

Tony Richardson scorched the screen in ‘68 with his savagely satirical The Charge of the Light Brigade. Targeted squarely at the idiocy of the Victorian upper class twits behind the planning and execution of the Battle of Balaclava, the film follows a young officer, played by David Hemmings, who fails to talk sense into his superiors and suffers a miserable end along with the rest of the troops. Trevor Howard, Vanessa Redgrave and John Gielgud bring plenty of colour to the smaller roles and Richardson’s deft direction balances the tragic and comic beautifully. An underrated classic.

Mid Seventies Vittles

Peckinpah's gritty and grubby thriller that's laden with Oates. Cronenberg's early slippery sexual horror. Schlesinger's suspenseful thriller with Olivier dominating.

Fatuous Infatuations

Stanley Kubrick’s famed attention to detail provides fertile ground for film nuts and the doc Room 237 proscribes some of the unusual theories circling his horror masterpiece The Shining. The quite barmy contributors posit various interpretations around the film taking in Holocaust, the Indian genocide and my favourite the faking of the Moon landing footage. Despite it’s niche subject matter it’s quite an entertaining watch and though I don’t agree with any of the theories offered or even the microscopic apophenia that lurks at their core it does highlight some interesting production anomalies in Kubrick’s film.

More amusing and much more obsessive behaviour is to be found in Chasing Ghosts a low-fi documentary which charts the rise and fall of professional arcade game players in early 80’s America. A nice companion piece to The King of Kong, the film interviews a number of star players who featured in a Life magazine article from 1982 about their game specialities, their rise to stardom and life after the bubble burst. There’s some quality nerds on display and though the film isn’t shy about poking fun at them there’s an affectionate, nostalgic tone to this fascinating glimpse at a bygone era.

Set Adrift

When a transatlantic liner sinks an Indian boy finds himself lost at sea with a bunch of his father’s not-so friendly zoo animals in Ang Lee’s whimsical adaptation of best seller Life of Pi. Our protagonist’s desperate struggle to survive his various misadventures is lusciously painted by Lee with some quite stunning CGi sequences, cinematography and his trademark confidently languid direction and buoying this lushness is an excellent performance from his young lead and two solid supporting turns. However despite (as far as I can remember) sticking quite closely to the events of the original novel it seems to have lost it’s edge allowing a slightly sickly sentiment into the script and subsequent performances or maybe it’s just leakage from the dazzling, knowing beauty of the film that seems to have softened some of the harshness out of this tale. Another classy Lee film that’s definitely a spectacle.

Kirk Douglas’ gurning and grinning performance as the archetypal man adrift, Ulysses, in the 1954 adaptation sets the tone for a lurid, cheap and cheerful retelling of Homer’s classic saga. The obvious highlights of Polyphemus, Circe & Tiresias are included in the adventure and though it’s budgetary restraints are always evident it’s swept along with some tidy direction and a bucket load of brio with Douglas accompanied by the similarly ‘large’ actor Antony Quinn. It’s good, frothy adventuring for the most part and even musters some menace for the final scene but it like, Life of Pi, lacks the emotional depth or boldness to address the darker aspects to the tale. Apparently this film kicked off the Italian Peplum industry that churned out innumerable sword and sandal epics and I can see why, old fashioned, quite good fun.

Loving Ain’t Easy

Jerry Skolimowski’s 1970’s cult coming of age drama Deep End follows a young teenager into his first job as an attendant at a particularly grimy London bathhouse. Falling quickly under the spell of his attractive, whoring colleague, played by Jane Asher, the young man finds difficulty coping with the strains of his extracurricular responsibilities and his clumsy, stalkerish yearning. Reeking of the Sixties and directed with a lovely brooding atmosphere which overshadows the young actors shortcomings, things march inevitably towards a nicely er executed, quite stylish final act. A little dated I guess and a bit rough around the edges but it’s a period gem that still holds plenty of lustre.

 

Robert Aldrich’s adaptation of stage play The Killing of Sister George, released a year before  Skolimowski’s grubby tale, is a similar tale of fraught, uneven desires set against the backdrop of a swinging Sixties London. Beryl Reid stars as a TV soap actress with an acid tongue and drinking problem whose relationship with a young, seemingly simple woman is threatened by her belligerence and news that her beloved character is soon for the axe. Though it’s rightly lauded for it’s brave, ‘realistic’ depiction of lesbianism it’s should be remembered for the marvellous performances of Reid and York who filter the melodramatic, darkly humorous script with emotional nuance as well as histrionics.

Terrorising TV

Tommy Lee Jones stars as a Vietnam vet who wigs out and takes control of Central Park in the ropey 80’s TV movie The Park is Mine. Using his military skills and his dead buddy’s war plan, Jones seals off the greenery for 48hrs to highlight the plight of neglected vets and faces off against the police and national guard desperate to oust him. Jones shouts his way through the script as if it was written in capitols and there’s a tonne of unintentionally amusing lines and though there’s some action to be had it’s mostly non-lethal in a tragically A-Team kind of way. Like a neutered Rambo, here it is anyway just in case you’re a fan of the so bad it’s good stuff.

The Town that Dreaded Sundown, on the other hand, is a grittier affair, mainly due to it’s docu-drama approach, based as it is on an actual series of murders in ‘40’s Texarkana. A masked man stalks the neighbourhood slaughtering a variety of locals and the police are stymied by a lack of clues and his erratic MO. With a titchy budget and little acting skill on display it’s quite surprising that it manages to muster a reasonably unsettling atmosphere but it does, maybe it’s the murky/cheap cinematography or the weird nature of the crimes themselves but it’s definitely worth a look. Getting a remake apparently.

Featureless Features

I quite enjoyed Andrew Dominik’s snail paced western The Assassination of Jesse James blah blah and even thought Pitt did a decent job but their recent reunion on comedy thriller Killing Them Softly is a surprisingly clumsy and cliched affair. When two idiots rob a mob run poker match Pitt’s fixer is called in to clean up the mess but his employers and employees only lead to frustration. Though nicely filmed It’s a right rambling mess with a unfounded somewhat smug reliance on the ‘characters’ to entertain but is hamstrung by a navel gazing script that allows the assembled talent too much room to overact, underplay and phone it in variously. Shiny bland garbage that even skimps on the violence. 

 

Director Martin McDonagh’s excellent In Bruges was a much needed hit for Colin Farrell but their reteam effort Seven Psychopaths is, like Killing Them, a lazy self satisfied dud that coasts by on ‘quirky’ characters and lacks the poignancy that underpinned their previous comedy thriller. Farrell plays a screenwriter struggling with his next script but finds inspiration, irritation and some jeopardy whilst in the company of his dog-napping, motor mouth friend, Sam Rockwell after he pinches a gangster’s mutt, throw Walken and Woody into the mix and an occasionally amusing, utterly predictable caper ensues. My expectations were probably too high going into this but still there’s little to recommend it. Half hearted hokum.

Scifi Scenery

Twisted horror/comedy John Dies At the End gets butchered down into a reasonably successful 90mins by  Don “Phantasm” Coscarelli.Two slackers get drawn into some fantastical hijinks after ingesting an other-worldly drug called Soy Sauce and fumble about dodging death and some unsavoury and unusual characters. The dark, deadpan wit of the novel is mostly intact and there’s a lovely grubby sheen to the production but the sfx occasionally betray its low budget and the plot’s over simplification is at times baffling with some of the funnier, weirder scenes omitted, still a pleasantly offbeat slice of nonsense.
There’s more juice in the recent adaptation of Dredd with plenty of eye popping action decorating it’s deliberately straightforward plot. Karl Urban stars as the titular antihero who, whilst indoctrinating a rookie into the world of instant justice in a degenerate, over populated future, gets trapped in a drug lord’s tower block and a brutal slaughtering ensues. The unabashed action and perfunctory script keep things ticking along nicely and the modest introduction of the comic’s key elements nicely set up a sequel or two. It’s a shame then that despite it’s charms it bombed at the box office.

Page Based Productions

Cronenberg’s shiny/grimy adaptation of Cosmopolis (a sharp knife in the shallow guts of 21st Mammonism) retains some of it’s edge despite the uneven performance from Twilight Pattison. The film follows the book quite closely with most of the billionaire-on-the-brink’s varied antics included during his slow limo crawl across a gridlocked city and I’m sure there’s a fair bit of dialogue lifted too but there’s not enough time to give either their significance. It’s a fine looking film and there’s still plenty of smarts behind it’s gleeful, grim comedy so it’s worth catching but I’d recommend the novella first.

Another thought provoking, nuanced novel, Steppenwolf, got a big screen version back in 1974 and although good, similarly lacks the depths of the original. Max von Sydow stars as the melancholic scholar who, adrift after WW1, finds his mind and life lifted by an unusual jazz loving woman oh and lots of drugs and esoterica. The acting is excellent, the production not so much, peppered unnecessarily with some dated, gimmicky animations and sfx . Still there’s an effectively dreamy, dissolute weirdness that pervades proceedings and like Cosmopolis plenty of the big thoughts are intact.

British '78s

Richard Burton stars in the curious British paranormal chilller The Medusa Touch from 1978. The chronologically jumbled narrative follows a detective’s investigation into the attempted murder of a man who’s witnessed a few too many tragedies but perhaps unsurprisingly a far darker truth is slowly revealed. This is a low budget curio which, despite some of it’s frippery, musters an effective brooding atmosphere that ticks along nicely towards a suitably grim finale and of course It does help to have Burton in the centre of the piece exuding a smouldering menace that far outweighs his screen time. Understated & underrated.

Shape shifting aliens, cannibalism & lesbians feature in Prey, another British horror from ‘78 that, although quite ridiculous, has a potent, dreamlike atmosphere that masks most of it’s shortcomings. On arrival to Earth the alien adopts human form and infiltrates a nearby mansion only to loaf about for days winding up the squabbling lovers that live there – so far so idiotic and though the script  is half baked and the acting, er, shit it somehow kind of works. There’s some nice directorial touches but I guess it was the sheer weight of all that strangeness that kept me watching to it’s baffling denouement. Probably just for aficionados of cult crap but there’s enough here to justify a remake,

Doltish Double

Seth Macfarlane peddles his particular brand of shtick onto the big screen with the foul mouthed fable Ted. A young boy's wish comes true when his ursine companion comes to life but 20 years later the bear has some nasty habits, a potty mouth and seems to be dragging his friend down. Wahlberg's acting isn't much better than the CGI bear's and though there's a couple of decent laughs the script consistently aims low and I found it a depressingly tawdry watch. Probably quite enjoyable when drunk.

There's  a few more dull witted chuckles in 321...Frankie Go Boom but it has a meanness of spirit that really shouldn't be encouraged. Chris Dowd stars as an unrepentant bunghole who thrives on humiliating his brother on camera and on his return to the family home post rehab he recommences the torture despite being a fully grown adult. Lurching from jape to jape the script never really picks up momentum and it, like Ted, prefers the low hanging fruit of pratfalls and crudity to crafting any decent character comedy. Instantly forgettable nonsense with sour note.

Drivelling Low Lights

Sometimes even I am surprised by the lazy, craptaculars that get churned out by Hollywood machine these days but Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter was quite astonishing in it’s vacant, soulless idiocy. Retelling the story of an American hero with some fang action thrown in probably seemed a good idea on paper but it’s a pitiful, by the numbers plotted pile of steaming dung that has literally no redeeming merits and will no doubt be an endless source of embarrassment for the director Bekmambetov, producer Burton and the talented cast including Brits Sewell and Cooper. Avoid.

Resident Evil: Retribution is a similarly crummy action flick with Jovovich and Anderson seemingly deluded into thinking that there’s mileage left in this weary franchise. Seguing directly from the 4th the action starts with Alice rescued/kidnapped from the wreckage of aircraft carrier by the Umbrella Corp and her subsequent monster stomping escape. Paper thin characters stumble through predictable set pieces with the usual fan favourite critters making intermittent appearances and though I’ve nothing against the games or some of the earlier film efforts this is a complete waste of celluloid that’s neither scary, thrilling, inventive nor even that grisly

Hard Realities

The artful documentary The Impostor is a look at the baffling experiences of a 20 something Euro-drifter who assumed the identity of a missing Yank teenager. A murky, quite disturbing undertone is unfurled along with the facts of the story but none of the well handled interviews with the key players manage to clear up the central mystery, done deliberately I presume, to keep things light and breezy. Still this is riveting, quite barmy viewing that’s presented with some nice flourishes of style.

There’s nothing light or breezy about Kirby Dick’s new documentary The Invisible War which is an unflinching expose of the epidemic of rape in the American military. The testimonies from the victims, mostly women, are harrowing but it’s the systematic obfuscation and half hearted investigations by the authorities that are somehow almost harder to bear and though there has been some policy changes it’s a woeful state of affairs – I hope our own Services are better policed. Tough going but an admirable, entirely necessary watch.

There’s something about Stacy

Stacy Keach puts in a powerful performance in Luther, a 1974 film about the religious reformer produced as part of the so far excellent Masterpiece Theatre series of stage adaptations. The film follows the theologian's career from ordination and onto Wittenberg and his cataclysmic showdown with the Vatican sporting a powerful script which manages to balance the character of the man with his unflinching scorching idealism. Keach is ably supported throughout but dominates this film with a nuanced, quite remarkable turn. Heavy going but brilliant.

 

Keach's stunning portrayal of a damaged Viet Vet focuses the kaleidoscopic threads of 1970 counter-culture classic End of the Road. Adapted for the screen by Terry Southern (famed screenwriter rake) the film charts the recovery of a once catatonic patient and his reintroduction to society under the manic but paternal tutelage of his psychiatrist, played with much brio, by James Earl Jones. Shot with dollops of 60's psychedelic accoutrements that are probably an  acquired taste this is a tricksy, occasionally amusing film that shines a light into the damaged, delirious mindset of late Sixties Amurica that has plenty of substance to back up it’s style.

Scant Cinematics

The Day is a gloomy lump of Canadian post apocalyptica that attempts to blend the bleakness of The Road with the action of Book of Eli but with little success. A gaggle of survivors drift aimlessly across a ravaged America trying to avoid strangers but after resting up in an abandoned farmhouse they become prey for a cannibal horde and a desperate siege ensues. The plot and script are uninspired and though there's a fair bit of action it's filmed in such a blurry, poorly lit way you can barely tell what's happening. Bog standard B-movie stuff.
Barry Levinson tries his hand at found footage horror with The Bay. A survivor recounts her experiences about a small town's 4th July celebrations that are somewhat dampened by a flesh eating parasite from the local estuary which cuts a bloody, grisly swathe through the inhabitants. Rather than focus on a single camera source the framing narrative allows Levinson to mix things up with cctv, mobile and police car footage and though it's admirably modest in it's ambitions it isn't scary and some of the key performances are unconvincing. Better than Day but not by much.

Powerless Paranormals

Red Lights is a starry thriller about psychics and sceptics that, despite the classy production values, has little original to say about either and isn't particularly thrilling. Cillian and Sigourney play a pair of sceptical paranormal investigators who debunk about exposing charlatans and the deluded but when a once-famous medium, played by De Niro, rolls back into town things get all serious and they're faced with someone with seemingly genuine powers. It's well acted, nicely shot and there's a surprisingly realistic representation of the work of parapsychologists but that's all thrown away by a denouement of unabashed mumbo jumbo.

Clint's Hereafter, on the other hand, takes on a more traditionally dim-witted perspective on the paranormal and is just as unsatisfying. Matt Damon leads the cast playing a reluctant medium who slowly ties the disparate threads of the story together into one giant mawkish, internationally-flavoured lump of schmaltz. Eastwood can make decent films and though it looks nice and the characterisation/script are of a reasonable standard I found the plot is too earnest, too po-faced that I almost fell asleep twice. One for the true believers only.

Rummy & Tricky

Richard Lewis stars as a recovering alcoholic in the film Drunks. Set predominantly during an AA meeting our protagonist is asked to retell his saga of booze, pills and heartache but the effort leads him to flounce out and falling with great gusto off the wagon. The script is painfully honest/earnest and there's plenty of talent on display including Faye Dunaway, Amanda Plummer and Sam Rockwell but it all feels a little uneven as the film flits between Lewis' quite tedious, shouty lapse and the remaining addicts quiet recounting of their individual tales of woe. The film has, I guess, quite admirable intentions but it doesn’t exactly make for great entertainment.

Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst star as a pair of ditzy hippy chicks in the Presidential comedy Dick. After straying during a tour of the Whitehouse the duo befriend Richard Nixon and slowly, unknowingly become involved in the Watergate scandal. This is goofy stuff that’s more charming than funny but it’s nicely spun into the actual historical facts of Nixon’s downfall and the endearing leads are supported by a number of surprising cameos playing the key figures.