djw180 6,839 Posted June 4, 2023 Share Posted June 4, 2023 All Quiet On The Western Front (2022) dir Edward Burger An adaptation of a book of the same name (when translated into English) by a German World War 1 veteran. Two previous film versions have been made. This is the first one I have seen. It's very good, although I'm not sure about the best Film Bafta. It has some stunning cinematography, great wide-angle shots of the country side and battle fields and a pretty good score too. The acting is top class. The main cast were unknowns to me, but it has Daniel Bruhl and a couple of faces I recognise from TV in support. The book and films are often described as very anti war. It's certainly anti First World War – something it's hard not to be with the benefit of hindsight – but that is of course the only war it deals with. The book, and I think the 1929 film, were banned in n*zi Germany, which should be seen as badge of honour. 4 German boys, just finished school, eagerly enlist in 1917. You would have thought the enthusiasm for the war would have worn off in its 3rd year of trench stalemate, but they believe the propaganda, that it just needs one more big effort and they will be in Paris in a couple of months time. Arriving at the front line they soon see the horrific reality. The story then expands a little to include a couple of more experienced soldiers and builds towards the end of the war, with German politicians accepting the reality of their defeat even if the generals do not. You can kind of sense where some elements of the plot are going to end up, with it starting near the end of the war and moving quickly to the final few days, but that doesn't detract from the ending. 9 / 10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted June 4, 2023 Share Posted June 4, 2023 What I Watched This Week #70 (April 30 – May 6) Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse dir. Eleanor Coppola, Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper/1991/1h36m Hearts of Darkness is arguably the definitive making of documentary, chronicling the lengthy, troubled production of Apocalypse Now. Shot in part by Francis Ford Coppola's wife, Eleanor, this gives us very personal access to the director, getting a raw and real portrait of a man suffering from crippling self doubt. As well as Coppola, we get an insight into one of the most legendarily difficult film shoots in history. Problems included severe storms destroying sets, a civil war breaking out just over the border from where they were shooting, Marlon Brando turning up 100 hundred pounds overweight and having not read the script or the book it was based on, and lead Martin Sheen suffering from a heart attack – in his twenties! - and a severe emotional breakdown. What's most fascinating however is how the production of the film started to mirror the themes of the film itself. As they get deeper into the shoot the more they lose themselves and the more Coppola starts to become a Kurtz like figure leading his own mad cult deep in the jungle. Watching this documentary just makes the fact that Apocalypse Now is so incredible even more amazing. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Bad Trip dir. Kitao Sakurai/2021/1h27m Bad Trip is a road trip prank movie starring Eric Andre and Lil Rel Howery as best friends Chris and Bud. They take a trip across the country after Chris meets his old high school crush and feels like they made a connection. To make the trip they steal Bud's insane sister Trina's (Tiffany Haddish) bright pink car. They think they're safe as she's in jail, but she breaks out near the start of the film and is out for blood. But really the plot is just an excuse for a series of hidden camera pranks. If you've seen Andre's television show then you'll know the kind of surreal, gross and outrageous stuff they'll be doing. There's also a hilarious running gag about the film White Chicks and a brilliant musical number where Andre breaks out into song in public. These are all great, but what I loved about this is how genuinely sweet and sincere it is. The friendship between Chris and Bud is so wholesome that I was really saddened when they had an argument and went their separate ways, even though that was just shoehorned in in order to give the film some dramatic tension. This is not the j*cka** knockoff I thought it was going to be, and Andre's unique charm shines throughout. 9/10 Son of Rambow dir. Garth Jennings/2007/1h36m Will (Bill Milner) is a shy, lonely boy from a deeply religious family and Lee (Will Poulter) is the school bully who is from a wealthy family but has a bullying older brother and his parents are never around. Lee enlists Will to help him make their own version of his favourite film, First Blood – despite the fact that Will is forbidden from even watching films – and as the shoot progresses they find themselves slowly becoming friends. This is a quirky and sweet film that is an ode to childhood creativity and finding your own family. There are some really funny things in this film, my favourite being how everyone instantly falls in love with the cool French foreign exchange student Didier (Jules Sitruk). The best thing about this film is the remake they shoot, and the grand finale where it gets a premiere at the local cinema is a really beautiful moment. Milner and Poulter do a decent job in the leads for young actors, Poulter especially, but the film suffers from trying to force conflict where it isn't needed nor reasonable for the characters to feel that way. But those moments are few and far between in a film that is brimming with creativity. 8/10 The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! dir. Peter Lord/2012/1h28m From the claymation geniuses at Aardman comes The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! Hugh Grant stars as The Pirate Captain, a dim but enthusiastic pirate whose only dream is to win the pirate of the year award. To this end he gets into a partnership with the devious Charles Darwin (David Tennent), over the discovery of the last dodo – which had been serving as The Pirate Captain's parrot - a discovery that would surely clinch the award. When it comes to their feature film work Aardman are pretty hit and miss. For every Chicken Run there's a Flushed Away. Thankfully, this film falls firmly on the hit list. Everything that Aardman does well is on full show here, from the distinctive character design and animation, the detailed sets, and the constant deluge of physical and verbal gags. Grant is fantastic as The Pirate Captain, preening and oblivious and the best beard in the business. This is a fun film for all ages and it left me wanting to go on more adventures with The Captain and his madcap crew. 8/10 David Lynch Short Film Bonanza: David Lynch Cooks Quinoa 2007/21m Ant Head 2018/13m The Cowboy and the Frenchman 1988/22m Premonitions Following an Evil Deed 1995/1m The Alphabet 1969/4m The Pig Walks 2002/2m Head with Hammer 2001/1m So I fell deep down the David Lynch short film rabbit hole and found them to be both typically Lynchian but also surprisingly diverse. I'll get the stuff I didn't really like out of the way first. Head with Hammer is a short animation where a suited man sat at a desk gets hit in the head with a hammer which is controlled by some complicated mechanism. I laughed at the clown horn noise when the hammer hit his head. A Pig Walks is another animation where a grotesque looking pig walks on its hind legs across a hellish landscape. Premonitions Following an Evil Deed was made as part of a project to celebrate one hundred years of film. The directors had to use a camera like the ones used in 1895, it had to be one take, use natural lighting and be less than a minute long. Even with these restrictions Lynch manages to make a film that is dripping in atmosphere and feels like a 19th century precursor to Twin Peaks. Ant Head is pretty literal. In it a head, which is sculpted from some sort of food, is swarmed upon and devoured by ants. This one static shot is accompanied by music by Thought Gang, a collaboration between Lynch and his long time composer Angelo Badalamenti. About halfway through the shot turns negative, and that's about it. I found this to be hypnotic and disturbing. The way the ants were going in and out of the eyehole really creeped me out. The Alphabet is a very early Lynch film, an animation it goes through the alphabet with intricate designs for each letter. This is accompanied by a voiceover repetitively reciting the alphabet. David Lynch Cooks Quinoa is exactly that. In his kitchen Lynch walks us through his favourite quinoa recipe step by step. Shot in black and white on a handheld camera even this manages to have that pervasive feeling of danger that runs through all of his work. At one point while waiting for the quinoa to cook Lynch tells a story about seeing moth frogs coming out of the ground and flying off in the desert and I have no idea how this man's mind works but I love him so much. Lastly, but not leastly, is The Cowboy and the Frenchman, an absurd comedy starring Harry Dean Stanton as a hard of hearing cowboy, Slim, whose ranch is visited upon by a Frenchman, Pierre (Frederic Golchan). They know he's French because he has wine, cheese and a bagette in his bag. There's no plot here, and that's for the best because I just want to watch Harry Dean Stanton yelling WHAT THE HELL and singing Home on the Range. David Lynch Cooks Quinoa 9/10 Ant Head 8/10 The Cowboy and the Frenchman 9/10 Premonitions Following an Evil Deed 6/10 The Alphabet 7/10 The Pig Walks 4/10 Head with Hammer 4/10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted June 16, 2023 Share Posted June 16, 2023 What I Watched This Week #71 (May 7 – 13) EO dir. Jerzy Skolimowski/2022/1h28m EO is the latest film from Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, well into his eighties at this point, and it looks at life and the world in all its cruelties and kindnesses through the eyes of a simple donkey. This is an homage to Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar, which has a similar premise, but where I found that film kind of distant and austere, here the opposite is true. This is a beautiful film full of empathy for this animal, and the direction really makes us feel what it is feeling. There are moments where EO (which is the name of the donkey) is remembering his time with the circus, missing his loving handler Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska) before he was “liberated”, and I swear there is a real sadness in this donkey's eyes when we go in for a close up. The use of colour here gives the film a dream-like surreality at times, especially the reds in the flashbacks and the greens in a foggy nighttime hunt scene, but there are also moments of brutal reality, particularly the ending which is such a gut punch. When the screen cut to black I just had to sit in silence for a while I was so affected by it. If a film about a donkey doesn't sound that interesting to you then I urge you to consider watching this. Jean-Luc Godard said that Au Hasard Balthazar was “the world in an hour and a half”. I say that that is more true with EO. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh dir. Wolfgang Reitherman, John Lounsbery/1977/74m This anthology film takes three Winnie the Pooh shorts and links them together with some new material to turn it into a cohesive whole. The various adventures here include Pooh (Sterling Holloway) getting stuck in the entrance to Rabbit's (Junius Matthews) hole after eating too much hunny, a great storm bringing a flood to the Hundred Acre Woods and Tigger (Paul Winchell) promising not to bounce anymore. What I love about this film is what I loved about the recent Paddington films, the sincere, sweet innocence that just feels like a warm hug. These films don't need to sully themselves with contemporaneous references like Shrek or those god awful Minions movies. The animation is also really good and imaginative here, with the characters coming to life in the pages of a storybook and interacting with the text and the page boundries in a very meta way. This is a real comfort watch that I'll keep on the back burner for a cold and wintery day. 8/10 Saint Omer dir. Alice Diop/2022/2h3m Saint Omer is a French courtroom drama starring Kayije Kagame as author Rama who is looking for inspiration for her next book by attending the trial of Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda), a Senegalese immigrant who is accused of murdering her infant child. As the trial progresses Rama sees more and more connections between herself and Coly, which she finds troubling. This is the first fiction film from documentarian Diop, but it is based on her own experience of attending a similar trial some years before. This lends the film a real authenticity that just makes the trial all that more harrowing. Transcripts from the real trial were used when writing the script and that makes the performance of Malanda all that more incredible. Here is a woman who doesn't deny what she did and isn't asking for any sympathy but my heart was breaking for her by the end of the film. This is an emotionally complex film that is handled with care. If you're in to courtroom dramas then you need to watch this as it's one of the best in recent times. 9/10 Rye Lane dir. Raine Allen-Miller/2023/1h22m David Johnson and Vivian Oparah play Dom and Yas, two young adults getting over bad break-ups who meet in the bathroom of a hip London art gallery. The film then follows them as they spend the next day together getting acquainted and helping each other get over their exes while falling for each other. This is a fantastic romcom that feels fresh and vibrant and for the most part avoids the usual tropes and clichés of the genre. Johnson and Oparah have electric chemistry together, I would've been happy to spend another hour with them. This is a romcom that, while very sweet and romantic, also leans heavily into the com part of romcom. I was laughing throughout at the use of flashbacks and cut-aways that are used during Dom and Yas's conversations. My one small negative is the forced conflict in the third act just to give the film some drama. It really didn't need it. The snappy pacing and editing really keeps the energy up and makes the already short runtime breeze by. 9.5/10 The House That Dripped Blood dir. Peter Duffell/1971/1h42m This anthology horror film sees a Scotland Yard detective (John Bennett) investigate the mysterious deaths of the last four owners of a creepy house. Each of the four segments is its own contained story, and each also has a pretty big star leading them – Denholm Elliott, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Jon Pertwee repectively. The stories deal with plots involving a writer whose killer creation seems to come to life, a sinister waxwork museum, a spooky little girl who seems to terrify Christopher Lee and a cloak that turns a horror actor into an actual vampire. This is in the gothic-camp style of later Hammer horror films – the inclusion of Cushing and Lee giving it even more of a connection to that studio – that isn't really scary, though a few shots in the first story did send shivers down my spine. This was written by Robert Bloch, who also wrote Psycho, so there are some very well set up twists and reveals that put it a level above the average b-movie. This is paced pretty well but the connecting scenes with the detective drag it down a bit. I thought I would have enjoyed the Cushing and Lee stories more seeing as they're the bigger names, but my favourites were actually the Elliott and Pertwee ones, with Pertwee's performance being my highlight of the whole film. 7/10 The Proud Valley dir. Pen Tennyson/1940/1h16m (no trailer for this that I can find, so here's a clip from the film of Robeson singing) Paul Robeson stars as David, a wandering American sailor who finds himself in a small Welsh mining town. He soon becomes a local favourite thanks to his incredible baritone singing voice and he becomes the lead of the choir, staying with the choirmaster d*ck (Edward Chapman) and his family while also working down in the mine. After it is closed following a devestating accident the town soon falls into poverty, which leads to a march to London. The mine is re-opened, but a cave in leads to more trouble. This is a surprisingly progressive drama – the one mention of David's race in a negative light by one of the Welsh miners is swatted away by one of the other miners saying “aren't we all black down in the pit”? - that doesn't pull its punches with the social commentary, and that is all thanks to Robeson who had identified with the struggles of Welsh coal miners since the mid twenties. He also carries the film, his commanding presence and warm voice filling the screen everytime he appears. And the chance to hear him leading a full Welsh male voice choir is worth the price of admission alone. 8.5/10 Two more Pixar SparkShorts: Nona dir. Louis Gonzales/2021/7m Out dir. Steven Clay Hunter/2020/9m I'm ending the week with another couple of Pixar's SparkShorts, the initiative that gives animators at the studio the chance to make a film in any style on any subject. Nona is the story of an old woman settling down to watch the big wrestling PPV, but she is interrupted by having to babysit her granddaughter with no notice. She tries to watch both the PPV and her granddaughter, but her granddaughter needs much more attention, and this leads to her missing the show. This sounds like the grandmother is being quite selfish, but with some very simple visual storytelling we are made aware of the emotional reasons she has for wanting to watch it. But it does have a happy ending as the two now have time to bond, and there's a great, and cute, fight scene between the two who imagine themselves as wrestlers. Out is about Greg (Kyle McDaniel), who has invited his parents over in order to come out to them, but just before they arrive he swaps bodies with his dog. As the dog, Greg has to try to stop his dog – in his body – from wreaking too much havok. Nona is well made but it is in the usual Pixar style so it doesn't really stand out like some of the other SparkShorts like Kitbull or, indeed, Out. Out has a beautiful pastel colour palette that is animated in a painterly way that's full of texture. The best thing about it though is the animation of Greg's body when it's possessed by his dog. It's absolutely hilarious and I could watch a feature length film of just that. The story culminates in a very sweet and tender way that matches the warmth of the animation. Nona 7/10 Out 9/10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted June 16, 2023 Share Posted June 16, 2023 (edited) Voyagers (2021) dir Neil Burger A reasonable sci-fi, but with a flawed plot that annoys me and that could have offered a lot more. In the near future an inhabitable planet is found just near enough to reach, with whatever space travel technology they have then, and fearing the Earth may become un-inhabitable in a century or two, a mission is sent to scout out the new planet. It will take 86 years to get there, so a crew of 30 is specially bred from donor eggs and sp*rm of geniuses and kept in isolation from birth so that they will never know, and therefore never come miss the Earth, as they set off on their one way trip to a new planet. Their one contact with the rest of the world is Richard (Colin Farrell) who as children they come to see as an almost god-like figure. He deicides to go with them, knowing of course he will die of old age before they reach their destination, but he will guide them along the way, setting up the multi-generational mission that will colonise the planet. Most of film concerns a series of incidents that take place 10 years into the mission, when the crew are now in the late teens. What happens at this point is a bit too predictable to me. The crew are obviously very intelligent, as they were bred to be. Some work out that facts are being withheld from them and that that are being fed drugs to make sure they behave. It descends into a Lord-of-the-Flies-like anarchy. This and the aftermath makes up the bulk of the film. They split into factions, which one will prevail? That becomes the basic story. After that it rapidly moves via a montage scene and we only see the arrival at the new planet at the very end. So what happened in other 76 years? This seemed at first like it would be a film exploring the morality of what the mission planners back on Earth have done and the challenges of exploring the universe when you are restricted to travelling at a lot less than the speed of light.. But it doesn't really touch on the ethics. There is also a flaw in the plot for me. Maybe most people would not notice, but it's just a silly mistake. Though they never say how far away the planet is, you can work it out from a message Richard sends back to Earth, travelling at the speed of light, that the computer tells them how long it will take to arrive. Assuming that 10 years into the mission they are travelling at top speed, and why wouldn't they be, I quickly worked out their final destination is only about 3 light years from Earth. The nearest other star to us is 4.5 light years away. There are no other stars closer, we would surely have found them by now if there were. And even if they did exist we would probably already have found out if they had potentially Earth-like planets orbiting them by now. They don't say anything about the means of propulsion, so there is nothing stopping them hypothesising the space ship being able to reach somewhere much further away than 4.5 light years in a human lifetime. Having said all that, it is still watchable and well made. The sets are impressive. Most of the cast are relative unknowns, but they do a good job. 6/10 Edited June 16, 2023 by djw180 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 (edited) What I Watched This Week #72 (May 14 – 20) The Rescuers dir. Wolfgang Reitherman, Art Stevens, John Lounsbery/1977/1h18m Two mice who belong to the International Rescue Aid Society, Bianca and Bernard (Eva Gabor, Bob Newhart) set out to rescue little orphan Penny (Michelle Stacy) who has been kidnapped by the evil Madame Medusa (Geraldine Page) to help her retrieve a diamond from a nearly inaccessible cave. My biggest memory of this film from watching it as a child – and I watched it a lot – is the prevailing sense of melancholy. Rather than a sense of adventure or triumph over adversity that Disney films usually have, this is more like a desperate cry for help in a rain soaked night. Madame Medusa, while not a top tier Disney villain, is pure trash in a very real way. She is over the top but not to the extant of Cruella De Vil etc. It's not all doom and gloom, there is comic relief in the form of Medusa's bumbling assistant and a cute dragonfly who runs a speedboat service, and of course there is a happy ending for Penny, who gets adopted by a loving couple. I can see why this isn't the most popular Disney film – even though it did get a sequel – but I really enjoyed it. 8.5/10 Blue Jean dir. Georgia Oakley/2022/1h37m Set in 80's Newcastle, Blue Jean is the story of gay high school gym teacher Jean (Rosy McEwan) who is living a double life, closeted at work and to her family while also being in a long term relationship with Viv (Kerrie Hayes). A new student, Lois (Lucy Halliday), transfers to Jean's school and one evening sees Jean at a local gay bar. Jean's life becomes more and more full of fear and paranoia as her two worlds threaten to collide. This is a fantastic film that is anchored by McEwan's performance in the lead. She perfectly conveys the tension that lies under her surface. There is a scene late on where she lets out all of that tension and bursts into laughter afterwards that feels so deserved and freeing. The supporting cast is just as good as McEwan, particularly Halliday, though I did also love Hayes as the foul mouthed voice of reason. A simple but excellently crafted story of self acceptance. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Imagine dir. John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Steve Gebhardt/1972/1h8m This is essentially an extended music video for Lennon's Imagine album, as well as featuring several songs from Ono's Fly album. It feels like improvised home-movie footage mixed in with some surreal skits, some of them featuring a few of the couple's famous friends like talk show host d*ck Cavett, Jack Palance and Fred Astaire. This totally matches the couple's vibe of freewheeling fun. My favourite part is probably the end where they run toward each other on a beach while shouting each other's names getting increasingly loud and insane sounding. Obviously the music is good, but what surprised me is how much I enjoyed the Yoko Ono songs. She has that reputation of making avant garde music where she just screams into a mic, but I really liked songs like Mrs. Lennon and Don't Count the Waves. This isn't amazing, but it does give a fascinating insight into th lives of one of the most famous couples of all time. 6/10 Carry On Henry dir. Gerald Thomas/1971/1h29m The twentieth film in the series sees a return to historical spoofs, this time following the misadventures of King Henry VIII (Sid James), who wants to divorce – or behead – his new wife Marie (Joan Sims) on account of her stinking of garlic (she's French). This will also leave him free to pursue the gorgeous Bettina (Barbara Windsor). This is a slight return to form for the series. When it comes to period settings the Carry On films always put in a lot of effort when it comes to costume and set design and that's true here. I've complained before that James doesn't work when he's playing upper class characters, but he's a perfect fit for Henry. The rest of the regular cast are all good in their roles, especially Kenneth Williams as Thomas Cromwell. About as historically accurate as Braveheart, this is nonetheless a rare bright spot in the final run of Carry On films. 6.5/10 High Life dir. Claire Denis/2018/1h53m This sci-fi horror stars Robert Pattinson as Monte, a man living alone with his infant daughter on a space ship heading towards a black hole. He is the sole survivor of a group of criminals – death row inmates – who were sent on a one way mission to the black hole in order to perform experiments. We find out what happened to the rest of the crew through a series of flashbacks. This is a very deliberately paced film that keeps you at arms length for the majority of the runtime – the non-linear way the narrative is laid out adding to the mysterious atmosphere. The slow decent into madness and violence is excellently done, with some real disturbing scenes that leave an impression. Denis is a director who seems to take the less-is-more approach and it works for the most part here. The supporting cast, including Juliette Binoche, Andre 3000 and Mia Goth, are all solid but no one really stands out. Maybe a bit too enigmatic at times, particularly the ending, but this is still a solid film that horror fans should check out, especially if they like films like Event Horizon. 7/10 Two more Pixar SparkShorts: Purl dir. Kristen Lester/2018/9m Float dir. Bobby Rubio/2019/7m These are the final two films from the Pixar SparkShorts initiative that I've yet to see, so hopefully I've left the best until last (Kitbull, Loop, Out and Twenty Something have all set a very high bar). Purl (Bret Parker) is a sincere pink ball of wool who gets a job in an office full of business-bros. She finds it hard to fit in at first, getting left out of meetings and trips to the bar. She changes who she is in order to fit in, but finds that that may not be worth it in the end. Float is the story of a father (Bobby Rubio) who tries to hide his son from the world because he has the ability to float. Both scared for and ashamed of his son he one day learns to accept and love him for who he is. Two very on the nose messages here, and I think that Float does a better job of presenting it. Purl is very obvious, and the main character is honestly quite unlikeable. It's well written otherwise, and it does contain a joke that I never thought I'd hear in a Disney film - “what's the difference between a hedgehog and a BMW? With a hedgehog the pr*cks are on the outside”. Float feels like it comes straight from the heart and the moment the father screams at his son “why can't you just be normal?” was genuinely shocking but so understandable. All of a parent's fears and worries about their children and their future and how the world will treat them all come to the fore in that one moment. The animation style of both of these films is the standard Pixar one. It's very well done but nothing eye-catching like some of these other SparkShorts. Purl 6.5/10 Float 8/10 A Spark Story dir. Jason Sterman, Leanne Dare/2021/1h27m After watching all of the Pixar SparkShorts I was pleased to discover this behind the scenes documentary that looks at the making of two of the films, Twenty Something by Aphton Corbin and Nona by Louis Gonzales. This covers the concept of the initiative, and the process that the filmmakers went through, from initial ideas and pitch meetings through to storyboarding and animation. While I love seeing how these films were made, a lot of the film is taken up with presenting Pixar as this amazing and supportive place to work, which comes off as a bit of cheap PR after the exposure of toxic, and even abusive, practices at the company. That aside, this is also a fairly conventional documentary with nothing really imaginative or interesting in how it's presented. This could have been an hour long and focused fully on the filmmaking process and a much better film for it. 6/10 Edited June 23, 2023 by LimeGreenLegend 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted June 24, 2023 Share Posted June 24, 2023 What I Watched This Week #73 (May 21 – 27) Kill Boksoon dir. Byun Sung-hyun/2023/2h17m Jeon Do-yeon plays Gil Bok-soon, middle aged single mother to her fifteen year old daughter Gil Jae-young (Kim Si-a). The two have a cold, distant relationship, exacerbated by the fact that they are both leading double lives and hiding a big secret from the other. Jae-young is gay and in a relationship with classmate, which is under threat of being exposed. Meanwhile, Bok-soon is a highly skilled assassin and the star employee of the contract killing company MK. This is a very stylish action film with some standout set pieces, especially a fight in a Russian pub that reminded me of the church scene in Kingsmen, but with more controlled camerawork. The film also uses a device several times where Bok-soon imagines an outcome to a situation and we see it play out. This is used to staggering effect in a scene where she imagines fighting someone, and losing, in dozens of different ways as the camera sweeps around the room. The two performances from Jeon and Kim are great and has the feel of an authentic mother-daughter relationship which really carries the film between the fight scenes. Jeon also has fantastic chemistry with Sol Kyung-gu who plays Chairman Cha, head of the MK organisation. The flashback to their first meeting, when she was just seventeen, might be my favourite of the film and shows why he both loves and fears her. A fun and fast paced thriller that never drags despite being over two hours long. It is another John Wick derivative, what with the all the convoluted lore about the world of assassins and the super slick choreography, but that's easily forgiven when it does it so well, as well as adding the extra family drama on top. 8/10 The Night of the Hunter dir. Charles Laughton/1955/1h33m In the Deep South during the Depression serial killer and preacher Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) learns that the two young children of a bank robber are the only ones who know the location of ten grand. The film is kind of split in two halves. The first sees him manipulate his way into the children's lives by eventually marrying their recently widowed mother Willa (Shelley Winters). The second half is a chase movie as he pursues the children after they run away. This film has a real brooding Gothic atmosphere that is helped by the direction, which is full of expressionist shadows and some interesting framing. One scene during the children's escape they are framed through a spiderweb as they drift down the river. However, the star of the show is Mitchum - LOVE and HATE iconically tattooed on his knuckles - who is such a threatening presence in every scene with violence bubbling just under the surface and a look that could kill you. He is a slightly more controlled, scheming version of the absolute psychopath he played in Cape Fear, Max Cady. Also great was silent film legend Lillian Gish who plays Ms. Cooper, a stern but loving old woman who takes in the kids while they're on the run. Some of the supporting performances are pretty wooden, especially the kids, but that never detracts from what is always a tense and engaging noir thriller. 8/10 The Last House on the Left dir. Wes Craven/1972/1h24m The directorial debut of horror legend Wes Craven - creator of A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream - sees two teenage girls, Mari and Phyllis (Sandra Peabody, Lucy Grantham), abducted, r*ped, tortured and murdered by a gang of insane criminals led by Krug (David Hess). Later that night the gang seek refuge in Mari's house, but when her parents find out what happened they instantly seek revenge. This is a real cheap and nasty exploitation film that failed to meet any of my expectations for it. In his later films Craven was able to blend horror and comedy well, but this kind of horror just doesn't call for it, and it leads to some real tonal inconsistencies. There's one moment where the gang are driving down a road and a jaunty theme song singing all about them starts playing and it honestly reminded me of The Muppet Movie. The entire soundtrack is a mess filled with ragtime piano and electronic bleeping. It's all over the place. The acting is amateurish, and that's being generous. The bad guys don't feel like a threat and the two leads never feel like they're actually scared. The script doesn't help things. Mari and Phyllis don't have a single line between them that actually sounds like something a teenage girl would say. The biggest let down foe me though is the violence. For a grindhouse exploitation film it's pretty tame compared to contemporaneous films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This film doesn't deserve its reputation at all. 3/10 Mindhorn dir. Sean Foley/2016/1h29m A vicious killer is stalking the Isle of Man, and he refuses to talk to anyone except the island's greatest detective, Mindhorn. The problem is that Mindhorn is a fictional character from a cheesy 80's cop show played by now washed up actor Richard Thorncroft (Julian Barratt) who sees this as a way to revive his career. This is another film I had pretty high expectations for, being written by Barrett and Simon Farnaby (who also appears as Mindhon's stunt double Clive), who are partly responsible for The Mighty Boosh and Horrible Histories respectively, two brilliantly absurd TV shows. While my expectations were mostly met I feel like the film could have benefitted from leaning into the absurdity more. The final act of the film has some really funny stuff involving Mindhorn and the killer, The Kestrel (Russell Tovey), and Mindhorn displaying his prowess in Capoeira, the Brazilian dance martial art. The film also could've done more to spoof the cheesy 80's cop/action films. There are moments that do, but they're few and far between, with too much time invested in the plot involving Mindhorn's ex, Patricia (Essie Davis). That said, I still really enjoyed this. Barrett is great as a desperate loser, his face stuck in a grimace for most of the film, and Farnaby, and his ridiculous Dutch accent, is hilarious every time he's on screen. 7/10 The Candidate dir. Michael Ritchie/1972/1h50m The Candidate is a political satire starring Robert Redford as Bill McKay, an idealistic and progressive lawyer and son of a former California governor. He is convinced to be the Democratic candidate for Senator by campaign specialist Marvin Lucas (Peter Boyle), opposing the three term Republican Senator, and dead cert for the upcoming election, Crocker Jarmon (Don Porter). McKay is reluctant at first, but Lucas tells him he can say anything he wants in the campaign, really shake up the system, but still lose in the end so he won't have the burden of actual responsibility. This is described as a comedy, but it doesn't have any jokes in it, the humour coming instead from the scary reality of the situation. This feels like an inside peek into the political system, and the direction brings that out to great effect. At times this has a documentary feel with a lot of handheld camerawork and overlapping dialogue that's full of pauses and mistakes in a very realistic way. It reminded me a lot of Robert Altman films and the way he treats dialogue. Redford is brilliant in the lead, the way he's broken down by the system over the course of the film showing in his performance. There's a scene late on after a montage of him giving the same speech at dozens of different events where he's sat in the back of a car just numbly giving that same speech but jumbling it all up and turning it into meaningless word salad with a look in his eyes that tells us he's dead inside and none of this actually means anything. That just makes the ending even better. The last scene, of McKay and Lucas alone after the election results have been announced, might be one of the most scathing attacks on politicians I've seen. 9/10 11 Minutes dir. Jerzy Skolimowski/2015/1h21m In this film we see eleven minutes in the lives of about a dozen characters that all interconnect, sometimes more significantly than others, which culminates in a surprisingly explosive finale. It is presented in a fragmented, non-linear way with us skipping back and forth to see events from different perspectives. Some of the characters include a sleazy film producer (Richard Dormer), an actress auditioning for him (Paulina Chapko), her husband (Wojciech Mecwaldowski), and a hot dog vendor working outside the hotel where a lot of the action takes place (Andrzej Chyra). Because of the nature of the narrative you never really get to know any of these characters too well, but Skolimowski keeps your interest with his engaging direction - there are even a few scenes where we see things from the perspective of a dog. Despite the small, constrained nature of the film there are some big ideas here, but there's a feeling that there could have been more made of the overlapping paths of these characters. 7/10 Limbo dir. Ben Sharrock/2020/1h44m Amir El-Masry stars as Omar, a Syrian refugee waiting for his asylum claim to be processed on a small Scottish island. He is housed with three other refugees, including the Freddie Mercury obsessed Farhad (Vikash Bhai), who, because they are stuck in a literal limbo, have nothing to do with their time except hang out in the beautifully photographed landscapes and small village. This is both hysterical and moving, with lots of comedy found in their absurd situation, particularly the classes they attend on British culture hosted by Helga and Boris (Sidse Babett Knudsen, Kenneth Collard). There's some really nice sybolism in this film, mainly attached to the oud – a guitar like instrument – that Omar carries with him everywhere, his literal baggage from his homeland. The film ends with a concert held in the local community hall where we see Omar play it for the first time, and when he does the aspect ratio changes from the boxed in format that the rest of the film has been presented in, to a liberating full widescreen image and we can feel the weight being lifted from his shoulders, if just for a moment. El-Masry is wonderful in the lead, giving a very stoic, stony faced performance that, when he breaks, gives it even more impact. But the star of the show for me is Bhai. He starts of as the comic relief, especially when he steals a chicken and keeps it as a pet, but even he has a heart-breaking, humanising reason for having to leave the country that he loves so much. Brilliant stuff. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted June 25, 2023 Share Posted June 25, 2023 In The Earth (2021) dir Ben Wheatley A reasonable low-budget (I assume) British sci-fi horror. It's mostly actually not that much sci-fi really; a lot more science fact until towards the end when they definitely do go off into a fictitious direction that you might even call fantasy. The science behind it is a the study of Mycorrhiza fungi, something former colleagues of mine were doing, these exist in a symbiotic relationship with plants and technically these are some of largest living organisms in existence since one can spread underground over the roots of many different trees. The sci-fi element takes the this, and what else the mycorrhiza may do, to another level. It's also not that much horror in that it's mostly not scary, but it is little gory in couple places with close ups of bloody injuries and people screaming in pain, but not for very long. It stars Joel Fry as scientist Martin, Ellora Torchia as a park ranger guiding him to a remote research station, 2 days trek into the heart of a British forest, Reese Shearsmith as the creepy recluse they meet on the way and Hayley Squires as the chief scientist Martin is on his way to work with. It's reasonably good, but I found the gory-horror aspect detracted from the sci-fi. With it being based on actual science to start with, I would have preferred they stuck to that and toned down the horror aspect. Or you can look at it the other way and say they should have made it a gory horror film with no need for any real science. Half way between those does not quite work for me. So if you want to watch it just for one of those genres, be aware of this. The acting is good, Reese Shearsmith is great, he is very good at the overly-friendly-actually-sinister type of role. It has weird special effects as it tries to depict characters hallucinating and not being in control of their own minds; anyone negatively effected by strobe lighting would probably find it difficult to watch. But it is well shot with some good non-special visuals. It was good, but could have been better for me. 7 / 10 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted June 29, 2023 Share Posted June 29, 2023 What I Watched This Week #74 (May 28 – June 3) Freaky dir. Christopher Landon/2020/1h42 In a mix between Freaky Friday and Friday the 13th – an idea I can't believe hasn't been done before – serial killer The Butcher (Vince Vaughn) swaps bodies with a teenage girl, Millie (Kathryn Newton), thanks to a mystical dagger. Millie, in The Butcher's body, has twenty four hours to track down the killer before the swap becomes permanent. This is a really fun, gory movie with a great performance by Vaughn. He's already known for his comedy roles, so he's naturally great as a teenage girl, but he's also convincing as a cold blooded killer with a genuinely threatening physical presence. That's not something that he's leaned in to too much in his career, but if you've seen Brawl in Cell Block 99 then you know how scary he can be. Newton is also good when she turns into the mute psychopath, thrilling at all of the new possibilities her new body can present. There's some good support from Celeste O'Connor and Misha Osherovich as Nyla and Josh, Millie's best friends. While this does play more as a comedy than a horror there are still some nice slasher film style kills here, though the reliance on CGI blood does take away some of the shock. 7.5/10 Frank and Ollie dir. Theodore Thomas/1995/1h29m This documentary looks at the lives and careers of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two Disney animators who worked at the company from the mid thirties up until the early eighties, and were two of Disney's “nine old men”, long serving animators who were trusted by Walt more than anyone else. It also charts their lifelong friendship, with the two living next door to each other long into retirement. Because this was directed by the son of Frank, Theodore Thomas, it is a warm and loving portrait of two kindly old men with no drama or controversy at all. That's not too much of a problem however, as Frank and Ollie both seem to be genuinely sweet old men. There's a decent amount of archive footage a look at the making of some of the films they worked on. My favourite thing is watching them act out scenes that they were animating for reference footage, you can really see how they innovated giving animated characters actual character. A film more about friendship than the history of animation, this is a fun bit of fluff. 7/10 The Whale dir. Darren Aronofsky/2022/1h56m Brendan Fraser won a Best Actor Oscar for his role in the latest film from the director of The Wrestler and Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky. He plays Charlie, a morbidly obese English teacher who teaches online courses with his webcam turned off because of how ashamed he is of how he looks. He has a fractious friendship with his nurse Liz (Hong Chau), and is trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink), who seems to have nothing but contempt for him. This is a really heavy – no pun intended – chamber drama that is saved from spilling over into melodrama by some exceptional performances, and not just from Fraser. Sink is fantastic as Ellie, and Samantha Morton, who plays Charlie's ex wife Mary, steals the one scene she's in, but it is Chau who is the MVP of the film for me. You start off thinking that maybe she isn't the best nurse because she seems to be enabling Charlie's slow suicide by food, but as their relationship is revealed we can start to see the conflict and nuance in her performance. Fraser is outstanding here, and deserves every award he won. Charlie is sympathetic and pathetic, funny and tragic, loving yet he causes so much hurt. Aronofsky does well to keep his direction engaging in just one set, and his use of light really helps with that. I'm not entirely sold on the ending, which strays over into magic-realism territory, but the very final shot made sure the film ends on a high note. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Adventure thru the Walt Disney Archives dir. John Gleim/2020/1h Another Disney documentary here. This time Don Hahn, producer of films like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, walks us through the vast archives at the studio. There is a trove of artefacts here, from contracts scripts and photographs to props and vehicles from their films and theme parks. And that's the big problem here, there's so much stuff to go through that it ends up being just a procession of “look at this thing, isn't it cool? Here's the next one...” They also spend time looking at stuff from Fox movies. I know Disney owns them now, but why? There's a split second shot of Walt's early business card, before he had even created Mickey Mouse, where he credits himself as “creator of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit”. Why can't we spend more time on that? This is something that needs to be a full series that goes through the archives chronologically, because this hour long film just isn't enough. What was there was still interesting, but it felt very rushed. 5/10 Sweeney! dir. David Wickes/1977/1h37 Sweeney! is a gritty police drama and spin off from the TV show The Sweeney. John Thaw plays DI Jack Regan who is framed and suspended from the force when his investigation into the murder of an informant's girlfriend leads him close to a conspiracy that goes right to the heart of the government. With the help of his partner Detective Carter (Dennis Waterman), he has to go rogue in order to uncover the truth. This is a surprisingly violent film that reminded more of The French Connection than a British TV show. This really feels like an American New Wave film, with the location shooting, grim atmosphere and downbeat ending. Thaw is great as the gruff, no nonsense cop and he really carries the film. I had really low expectations for this and was pleasantly surprised with how gripped I was by it. A cheap and nasty ride through the rough parts of London. 8.5/10 The Missouri Breaks dir. Arthur Penn/1976/2h6m Jack Nicholson is Tom Logan, leader of a gang of rustlers, who decides to buy the ranch next to that of David Braxton (John McLiam), the land baron who hanged and killed one of his crew. Logan intends to use his ranch as a front for his rustling, right under Braxton's nose. To combat any more rustling Braxton hires insane Irish regulator Robert E. Lee Clayton (Marlon Brando) to hunt down and kill any horse thieves in the area. So, Brando's performance totally dominates this film, and mostly in a good way. He was given free reign with his role and it shows. Why the Irish accent? Why does he dress up like an old woman for one scene? In contrast to that, Nicholson seems to really underplay his part, giving a very naturalistic performance. This is the only film that the two did together, and it's a shame that they didn't get more screen time together, and their climactic showdown at the end is a real let down. There's some solid supporting performances here, especially Kathleen Lloyd as Jane Braxton, David Braxton's daughter and Logan's love interest, and Harry Dean Stanton as a member of his gang. A unique western that's worth watching just for the Brando/Nicholson pairing. 7/10 Boyz n the Hood dir. John Singleton/1991/1h52m Boyz n the Hood is a coming of age drama starring Laurence Fishburne as Furious Styles, a strict but loving single father to Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.). Tre has aspirations to go to college, but his best friend Doughboy (Ice Cube), fresh out of prison, has no such ambitions. When another of their friends is gunned down by a rival gang Tre faces a choice, go for revenge or go home. This is a hard hitting piece of social commentary with some incredible dialogue, especially the scene where Styles speaks on the problems of gentrification on a street corner. Gooding Jr. is perfect as the innocent looking fresh faced teenager, while Ice Cube knocks it out of the park as the braggadocios gang b*nger. There are a few moments that feel melodramatic and overplayed, but they are few and far between. Fishburne is incredible here, maybe the pest performance of his career. A film that is still sadly relevant today. Increase the peace. 8.5/10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OllieP 8 Posted June 30, 2023 Share Posted June 30, 2023 Last film I watched was Fantastic Mr. Fix. I love pretty much anything by Wes Anderson. There's something about his style that always makes me smile. His movies are just always so cozy. Mr. Fox is just like the top of the list of his cozy movies. If there's ever a time when I need to unwind or de-stress that movie goes to the top of the list. 5/5 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 What I Watched This Week #75 (June 4 – 10) Raging Bull dir. Martin Scorsese/1980/2h9m Robert De Niro stars in this biopic of boxer Jake LaMotta in a performance that spans decades of his life, De Niro gaining 60lbs of weight in order to play the bloated older LaMotta. The film opens proper with the older LaMotta practicing his club act in a dingy dressing room, aping Marlon Brando's “I could'a been a contender” speech from On The Waterfront, before smash cutting back to his prime in the early 40's and the change in his appearance is startling. We then follow the ups and mostly downs of his life and career – his troubled marriage to Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) who was only fifteen when they met, his antagonistic relationship with his brother Joey (Joe Pesci), throwing fights for the mob and his imprisonment for introducing underage girls to men at his club. He is a paranoid, violent, despicable person so it's a testament to De Niro's performance that you still root for him, you want him to do the right thing, even though you know he won't. The crisp black and white photography is gorgeous, showcased in the incredible fight scenes. Blood and sweat fly in slow motion with the ring getting bigger or smaller depending on whether LaMotta is winning or losing, flashbulbs exploding in the darkness all around. The performances are amazing all round, with De Niro and Pesci having fantastic chemistry between them, their scenes together being some of the highlights of the film. One of Scorsese's best films about violently broken men, and he's made a few good ones. 9.5/10 How a Mosquito Operates dir. Winsor McCay/1912/6m This early silent animation sees a grotesquely huge mosquito follow a man home and attempt to have a little drink while the man is asleep. The detail of this animation, coupled with the design of the mosquito makes this quite unsettling to watch. The part where it slowly pushes its massive proboscis deep into the man's flesh made my skin crawl all over. Ending with a morbidly funny explosion, this short is unexpectedly creepy and more entertaining than I was expecting. 7/10 Revolver dir. Stig Bergqvist, Jonas Odell, Lars Ohlson, Martti Ekstrand/1994/8m Revolver is a surreal animated short made up of several short, looping animations. The intent of the filmmakers was to create a film the same way you would create a piece of music – themes that repeat, build and develop. Knowing that, when you watch it you can really see what they mean. It's quite hard to describe, like trying to describe a piece of music, but it is very hypnotic with a real visual rhythm to it and recurring images, particularly that of fish and the ocean. The style is very crisp and clean and black and white, very reminiscent of a graphic novel. A unique film that is well worth eight minutes of your time. 8/10 Alice's Wonderland dir. Walt Disney/1923/12m Before Mickey Mouse, and even before Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney's first success was his series of Alice films. These films combined live action footage of Alice (Virginia Davis) interacting with cartoon characters in different scenarios. Alice's Wonderland – which has nothing to do with Alice in Wonderland – begins with Alice visiting the Disney studio and being shown how cartoons are made by the man himself. In what is still today a really well done effect, the cartoons on the animator's drawing boards come to life and interact with the real world. My favourite example being a cartoon mouse toying with a real cat. The second half of the film is a dream sequence that Alice has that night where she visits a cartoon world and it is frankly pretty forgettable. I wish the entire thing was set in the Disney studio as it was much more inventive than the second half. I can see why these were a hit one hundred years ago as they are still full of charm, and the mix of live action and animation still looks good today. 7/10 The Fox and the Hound dir. Ted Berman, Art Stevens, Richard Rich/1981/1h22m A young fox called Tod (Keith Coogan) and a puppy hound dog called Copper (Corey Feldman) become friends before becoming adults – voiced by Mickey Rooney and Kurt Russell - and expected to adhere to their expected roles of hunter and prey. This is a very sweet film that never strays into the saccharine, with some beautiful background and character animation, more refined and less sketchy than the last Disney film, The Rescuers. There are some really good performances here, Russell is as charismatic as ever, even when he's a dog, and I was pleased to hear the distinctive voice of Grandpa Joe from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory – Jack Albertson – as Coppers master, Amos. 8/10 The Super Mario Bros. Movie dir. Michael Jelenic, Aaron Horvath/2023/1h33m Whilst fixing a water main underground, New York plumber Mario and his brother Luigi (Chris Pratt, Charlie Day) get s*cked into a mysterious green pipe that transports them to the Mushroom Kingdom where they must help Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) defeat the evil Bowser (Jack Black). This is a long way from the batsh*t insane early 90's Mario movie starring Bob Hoskins in that this actually resembles the games, but that's where I have my main criticism. Everything about this film is totally safe and predictable. If you asked an AI to write a Mario movie this is what you'd get. Chris Pratt is awful as Mario, his voice just doesn't match the character at all, but the rest of the cast do a fine job, and I liked that they gave the original voice of Mario, Charles Martinet, a cameo as Mario's dad. The animation looks great, but again it's very safe with no experimentation, which is a shame because it would've been cool to see the 8 and 16 bit versions of Mario incorporated in some way. A decent film but it's as simple as world 1-1. 6/10 Requiem for a Heavyweight dir. Ralph Nelson/1962/1h35m Requiem for a Heavyweight is a film that I've begun referring to in my head as “Depressing Rocky”. Anthony Quinn stars as boxer Mountain Rivera, a heavyweight at the end of his career who owes money to the mob and is being pressured into a humiliating wrestling job by his manager in order to make a quick buck. The only bit of light in his life is Grace Miller (Julie Harris), a social worker who can see past his gruff exterior and wants to help get him a job as a counsellor at a children's camp. This is an incredible portrait of a broken man who's been beaten down so much all his life that when someone reaches out a hand in kindness he doesn't even know if he should trust it. Quinn's performance is heart-breaking. Like Rocky he is a gentle giant who never got a break but that never dampened his spirit. The scene where he and Grace are on their first date is so beautiful because you can tell that this isn't something that ever happens to him. The boxing scenes are very well done, with a lot of POV shots to really put us in Rivera's shoes, an intimidating prospect considering that the film opens with him fighting the man then known as Cassius Clay. This was written by Rod Serling, the creator of The Twilight Zone, so it's no surprise that the ending comes like a punch to the gut. I loved this. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Killing dir. Stanley Kubrick/1956/1h25m The Killing is a very early film from the legendary Stanley Kubrick. It stars Sterling Hayden as Johnny Clay, career criminal who plans one last job before heading off into the sunset. He assembles a gang to rob a racetrack during a big race. It goes well at first, but thanks to the wife of one of his gang – and her lover – things soon go awry. This is a classic noir but executed at the highest level thanks to the man at the helm. Hayden is perfect as the tough talking lead who keeps his nerve when things go wrong. As you'd expect from Kubrick this is masterfully shot, even at this early stage in his career. The build up of tension is also perfectly done – the entire film is a build up to the climax at the airport, and when you see that old woman and her dog you know something bad is about to happen. If you're a fan of films like Reservoir Dogs – Tarantino has said that it's his favourite heist film – then you need to check this out. 9/10 Creed III dir. Michael B. Jordan/2023/1h56m The third film in the Creed series – and the ninth film in the Rocky series – sees Michael B. Jordan return as Adonis Creed (and makes his directorial debut at the same time). Creed III is a lot like Rocky III. We start with our main character as the champ, beating all comers and at the top of the boxing world. But an angry, unknown challenger soon arrives to knock him off his high horse. This time, instead of Mr. T's Clubber Lang we get Damian Anderson played by Jonathan Majors. But the stakes are upped by the fact that the two were childhood friends who haven't seen each other since Anderson went to jail for protecting Creed. At first the two are glad to be reunited, but soon an uncontrollable, seething jealousy takes over Anderson – who was the better fighter when they were younger - and the two soon become mortal enemies. For his first film as director Jordan has a real confidence to him. The fight scenes are fresh feeling, even this deep into the series, thanks to his new perspective. He has said that the fights in this film are anime inspired, and you can really feel that in the use of slow motion and the close ups on the eyes, like a Sergio Leone western. Creed, as a character, continues to grow in a natural and real way. He and his wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) now have a child together who is deaf, and it's nice to see the kindness and gentleness of this fighter. Many of my favourite scenes in the old Rocky films were the ones where he was acting like a big kid, and that's true with Jordan here. A solid continuation of the series that still leaves me wanting to see more. 8/10 Kill List dir. Ben Wheatley/2011/1h35m This psychological horror film stars Neil Maskell as Jay, a former hitman who is in financial troubled, so is convinced to do one last job by his former co-hitman Gal (Michael Smiley). Things start to get weird when their first target thanks Jay before he is killed. As the killings get more violent – the hammer to the head scene was particularly brutal – and weird we are left with as many questions as Jay. The film culminates in a horrific one on one knife fight between Jay and “The Hunchback” that has serious Wicker Man folk horror vibes and left me with my jaw on the floor. This is a very ambiguous film by design, with many things left unanswered, like the symbol that we see several times, or why the targets are thankful for being killed. That is all to the films favour however, as it just adds to the foreboding, oppressive atmosphere. Jay is not a nice character, but you still feel for him as the film progresses, and that is thanks to Maskell's performance. I hated him at the start of the film, but at the end I felt so bad for him. The supporting cast are all good, especially Smiley – who'll always be Tyres from Spaced to me – as the upbeat cheeky chappie who has a lot of darkness underneath that chipper exterior. 8.5/10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted July 6, 2023 Share Posted July 6, 2023 What I Watched This Week #76 (June 11 – 17) Goodbye, Dragon Inn dir. Tsai Ming-liang/2003/1h22m An old cinema in Taiwan is closing down. On the final night it plays the 60's martial arts film Dragon Inn to a nearly empty theatre. The ticket girl (Chen Shiang-chyi) slowly limps through the empty building searching for the elusive projectionist (Lee Kang-sheng) in order to bring him a snack. A gay Japanese tourist (Mitamura Kiyonobu) is cruising for some action and two of the actors from the film, Shih Chun and Miao Tien, silently watch the film full of emotion. This is a beautifully shot elegy to movie theatres, the slow pace and minimal dialogue – no one speaks until over halfway through the film - gives it a mournful, melancholic atmosphere. There is also a yearning and a longing here, both from the actions of the ticket girl and the way the two actors are watching themselves in their youth. The way that this plays out in real time adds a sadness in that every second that passes we are getting closer to the end of not only the film, but for the cinema. A beautiful and bittersweet film. 9/10 Carry On at Your Convenience dir. Gerald Thomas/1971/1h30m Sid James plays Sid Plummer, foreman at a toilet making factory owned by W.C. Boggs (Kenneth Williams). Plummer's life is made hard by the factory's union representative, Vic Spanner (Kenneth Cope), who will use any little thing as a reason to call a strike. If you want an hour and a half of obvious toilet jokes and anti-union sentiment then you'll love this. For me, this series is getting to be a bit of a slog. I had a couple of laughs here, but the bar has been set so low by previous films that I'm not sure if that means it's funny or just funny for a Carry On film. I still enjoy the chemistry between the long standing cast members, but there's not much else to praise here. 4/10 South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut dir. Trey Parker/1999/1h21m The kids from South Park have to save the world from Satan and his lover Saddam Hussein after they watch a Terrance and Philip film and learn all of the filthiest swear words, which causes the USA to declare war on Canada. My favourite thing about this film, more than the hilariously juvenile satire or the ridiculous cameos – George Clooney is in this! - is the fact that it's one of the best musicals ever made. Trey Parker and Matt Stone already had experience with Cannibal: The Musical, and subsequently made Team America: World Police and the Broadway hit The Book of Mormon, but this is their masterpiece. Every single song is not only funny but really well written both lyrically and musically – the song Blame Canada was nominated for an Oscar and Robin Williams performed it at the ceremony, something you should look up on YouTube right now. They are spoofing musicals whilst also taking it really seriously and the results are magical. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Black Cauldron dir. Ted Berman, Richard Rich/1985/1h20m Taran (Grant Bardsley) is a pig keeper whose prize pig Henwyn – who can also foretell the future – is kidnapped by The Horned King (John Hurt) in order to lead him to the legendary black cauldron, which will grant him control over an unstoppable army of the undead. Disney takes a darker turn here, and in a few ways that works, but there are a few big problems as well. I love the design of this film. There is some of the best background art in any Disney film here, from the gnarled and twisted old trees in the forest to the dark and gloomy dungeons of The Horned King's castle. The character animation is also very fluid and natural looking. The big problem with the film is that it's boring. The plot is boring and the characters are boring. Taran is probably the most forgettable lead in any Disney film. And if they're not boring they're annoying. Cheif culprit there is the cute animal sidekick Gurgi (John Byner) who is like a furry Gollum, but insufferable. John Hurt is good as the villain, but again his character is just a bad guy, not that interesting. This could have been really good had they gone all in with the idea of making a darker fantasy film, but this is just half hearted. 5/10 Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone dir. Francis Ford Coppola/1990/2h40m This cut of The Godfather: Part III was released in 2020 for the film's 30th anniversary and is Coppola says that it “vindicates” the film. This is my first experience with the film so I don't know what exactly was changed. Al Pacino returns as the aging Michael Corleone, trying to go legitimate by donating millions to charities – also a way to try and get rid of some of his guilt – and making dealings with the Pope himself – again looking for absolution. He is also trying to get his hot headed nephew Vincent (Andy Garcia) in the family business. It ends with Michael old and alone. I read that in the original cut he just slumps over and dies in his chair, but here we cut before that and just watch his face as he looks back over his life. So this clearly isn't close to being as good as the first two films, but it's also not as bad as its reputation makes it seem. Pacino and Garcia are both excellent, but the film crashes to a halt every time Sofia Coppola, who plays Michael's daughter Mary, appears on screen. God bless Francis for loving his daughter so much. The tone is very different from the first two films, there's no rise and fall story, it's all fall. This is a tragedy in the classical sense of the term. 7/10 Renfield dir. Chris McKay/2023/1h33m Renfield is a horror comedy starring Nicholas Hoult as the title character, softly spoken servant to his master, Dracula (Nicolas Cage). After decades of moving from place to place to avoid vampire hunters the two find themselves in New Orleans, where Renfield joins a self help group for people in toxic relationships and decides that he's had enough of Dracula's abuse. I didn't have great expectations for this, and was happily surprised by how funny it is. I was worried that it would be dominated by one of those over the top performances by Cage, but he's relatively restrained here, by his standards. He's clearly having a blast playing this character, revelling in just how pure his evil is. But for me Hoult is the star of the show. His attempts to lead a normal life, and his chemistry with Awkwafina, who plays a police officer caught up in his mess, are some real high points here. I do have a few minor negatives, like the plot involving a local mob and the constant use of really bad looking CGI blood, but that doesn't take away from how bloody funny this is. 8/10 Crooks in Cloisters dir. Jeremy Summers/1964/1h37m After pulling off England's smallest train robbery, Walt (Ronald Fraser) and his crew of crims – including Barbara Windsor as his moll Bikini – need somewhere to lay low. Where better than an abandoned monastery on a small island off the Cornish coast? To make sure they're not found out they decide to live and act like monks, slowly getting used to the lifestyle. This is a very charming comedy that, though it does start to drag in the third act, I really enjoyed. Fraser is a likeable lead, a proper cockney charmer, and he has great chemistry with Windsor. Bernard Cribbins plays a member of the gang who forms a strong bond with a goat, and that might be my favourite thing about this film. There's nothing amazing about this, it's just a comfortable watch, and seeing this group of city crooks learning to appreciate the simple things in life is genuinely sweet. 7/10 Hatching dir. Hanna Bergholm/2022/1h31m Hatching is a Finnish horror film about a young girl called Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) who brings home an egg she found in a nest after killing its injured mother. It grows to a huge size before hatching a creature with a special bond to Tinja. The film also explores the relationship between Tinja and her cold, demanding Mother (Sophia Heikkila), who pushes Tinja past her limits with her gymnastics. This is a very effective body horror film that's full of enough bodily fluids to make Cronenberg proud – I've not seen this much vomiting in a film since Triangle of Sadness. Solalinna is excellent in the lead, in what becomes a dual role later on. The way she cares for and mothers the creature that hatches from the egg is both disturbing but also feels real and loving. There were some scenes here that had my stomach churning and it has a brilliantly shocking ending. This feels like a modern Grimm fairy tale, and is every bit as f*cked up as those stories are. 9/10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 (edited) Reviews of a few films seen this week, whilst on holiday. Kate (2021) dir Cedric Nicolas-Troyan Violent thriller about an assassin, Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) working in Japan. Woody Harelson plays her "manager", if that is the right word, he has secured a number of contracts from from various members of the Yakuza. A couple of hits do not quite go as planned, and Kate finds herself with 24 hours to take revenge on the people who double crossed her. So in true over-the-top action film style she almost single-handedly slaughters her way through dozens of Yakuza henchmen until she finds her ultimate target. The only real complexity to the plot comes from the daughter of one of her former victims getting involved. But apart from that it is mainly just a series of fights to the death. Not really my sort of film and I did get a little bored at times. It is reasonably well made but there are other similarly themed films that are far better e.g. Kill Bill, Atomic Blonde. 4/10 Whisky Galore (2016) dir Gillies MacKinnon A remake of the 1949 Ealing Comedy of the same title, which I have never seen. Set during the second world war on a remote Scottish island. The only pub runs out of whisky, but a cargo ship carrying booze to America runs aground on rocks with the crew abandoning it. The locals help themselves before the ship actually sinks. The head of the local home guard, Suzy (aka Eddie at the time of filming) Izzard tries to stop the plundering and when that fails tries to trace and retrieve the contraband goods. Gregor Fischer plays the postmaster who's daughters provide the love interest for a couple of the soldiers, and there are few other familiar TV faces. It's OK, but very light, no great drama, like a "family" TV show. I fell asleep towards the end but I think I saw enough to base a fair rating. It did feel like something that I would have thought more highly of if this were the original, but I expect a more from a modern film. 5/10 Tove (2020) dir Zaida Bergoth Biopic of Finnish painter/author/illustrator Tove Jansson, played by by Alma Posyti. She is best known as the creator of The Moomins children's stories (but do not assume this is a children's film, it definitely is not). I remember watching these on TV as a child, and they were very good, with quite a bit more to them than the usual cute-animal type of kids cartoon. I didn't know who created them or that they started as a newspaper cartoon str*p in early 1950s Finland, then became books before being made for TV decades later. There's 3 strands to the plot; Tove's struggle to be accepted by her father who was a successful and well respected sculptor, the story of how she came make the Moomins something more than just a side-line for a struggling painter to make some money from, and her complicated love life in a post war, bohemian society with lots of artists and intellectuals in open relationships. That third strand is the main one; the love of her life, Vivacia, a theatre director, never really loved her back as much. 8/10 Mary Queen of Scots (2018) dir Josie Rourke Another biopic, this one of the 16th century Scottish monarch Mary I (Saoirise Ronan), focussing on her struggle to actually be allowed to rule and her relationship with her cousin and nemesis Queen Elizabeth I of England (Margot Robbie). It was a time when the very idea of a woman actually being in power was too much for many people to take and it was assumed that her husband would do the actually ruling on her behalf. It was also a time of religious turmoil with almost all of Britain split between Catholics and Protestants. Mary was Catholic, Elizabeth Protestant. Mary also regarded herself as the rightful ruler of England. The Catholic church did not recognise the legitimacy of Elizabeth's parent's Protestant marriage and to them the rightful heir to England had to be someone descended only from those married by the Catholic church. That person was Mary. Elizabeth refused to marry so that there could be no husband to take authority on her behalf. That made Mary and her children, as she did marry, Elizabeth's heirs. So it was complicated and, by the standards of day, Elizabeth felt she had every right to interfere in Scottish affairs. It's good but I think the actual historical facts were a bit too complex to fit into a ~2 hour film plot. I know the history, I'm not convinced someone who does not would have understood some of what went on. The cast is good, with Robbie somewhat outshining Ronan, but her Queen's role was the more challenging I think. The supporting cast of Scottish and English nobles is full of relatively big names, Guy Pearce, Adrian Lester, James McArdle, Ian Hart. But for me the stand out of these was David Tennant as John Knox, the fanatical Protestant Scottish preacher could never decide whether he hated Mary more for being a Catholic or for being a woman. 7/10 Phantom Thread (2017) dir Paul Thomas Anderson An unusual film with a plot that took too long, for me, to get going. Daniel Day-Lewis is on his usual outstanding form as a 1950s London fashion designer, Reynolds Woodcock. His clients are European royals and American millionaires. He leads a team of female dress makers lead by his ever reliable second-in-command Cyril (Lesley Manville). It seems, although this aspect of the plot is not entirely clear, he needs a live-in muse, a model or one of seamstresses. He may or may not develop romantic relationships with them. At the start of the film he is clearly bored with his current muse so goes on the hunt for another. He finds Alma (Vicky Kreps), an eastern European Jewish refugee (presumably having come to Britain in the late 30s) working as a waitress. He immediately charms her, but then it all gets quite confusing for Alma as Reynolds just seems to want to dress her up, not sleep with her. And for me the plot remained confusing. It was quite original, going in directions that made you think you knew what would happen next, and then something completely different happening. The best scenes were the dialogues between Alma and Reynolds but there were not enough of those for me. It won an Oscar for Costume Design, hard to see how it could not given the subject matter. 6 / 10 How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) dir Jean Negulesco I rewatched Blonde a couple of weeks ago, a film I still think is outstanding, and it occurred to me I had never actually seen a Marilyn Monroe film. So with this available through the BBC at the moment I decided to rectify that. It would be too harsh to say I wish I had not bothered, but I don't think it is a good film, and Monroe is not the star. She along with Betty Grable provide the main support to Lauren Bacall. They play 3 models who hatch a plan to each do what the title says by renting an expensive New York apartment, pretending they are much wealthier than they are, to attract their ideal men, based solely on the size of his wallet and nothing else. I've said before that I do find the way films of this and earlier eras were made is just not for me. This is no exception. The plot is very basic. There is almost no character development. They find rich men. They also find not rich men (or at least that is what they think) who deep down they prefer. And it all works out happily in the end. Part of the problem is the run time of the standard around 1 ½ hours. And at least 10 minutes of that is taken up with an opening musical number that has nothing to do with the plot, it's not even playing during the credits. It's just an orchestra play for a bit, and then the film actually starts. I'm all for great film music, but not like this with no connection to the rest of the film. I guess that was what cinema goers in the early 50s wanted, but I do not recall seeing this in anything other than actual musicals before. 3 / 10 Edited July 9, 2023 by djw180 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 (edited) What I Watched This Week #77 (June 18 – 24) Three Colours: Blue dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski/1993/1h38m Blue is the first part of Kieslowski's thematically linked Three Colours trilogy, with each film representing one of the ideals of the French national motto – liberty, fraternity, equality. Blue is about the emotional liberation of Julie (Juliette Binoche) who is the sole survivor of a car crash that kills her husband and child. Wracked by grief and guilt she attempts to remove herself from the world, at first by an aborted suicide attempt then by shutting herself off both emotionally and physically. But she still has connections to the world that can't be easily broken, connections to do with her composer husband's work, and that in some way goes to helping alleviate her grief. This is a very real portrait of a woman totally numbed by the pain of mourning, you can feel the black cloud following her around everywhere she goes. There's one moment where she scrapes her knuckles over a rough wall ripping her skin and shedding blood. She just wants to feel anything. But this film also shows us that that feeling doesn't last forever, even though it seems like it will. The ending shot of a weeping Julie slowly starting to smile is such a beautiful note to end on. Binoche's performance is incredible. She is subtle and nuanced and you believe everything she does. 8.5/10 Three Colours: White dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski/1994/1h32m The second in the Three Colours trilogy, White – which explores the ideal of equality - stars Zbigniew Zamachowski as Karol, a Polish man living in France who at the start of the film is divorced by his wife Dominique (Julie Delpy) on account of his impotence, loses all his money, his home, his job and ends up homeless begging on the street. A chance meeting with a fellow Pole, Mikolaj (Janusz Gajos), gives him the opportunity to go back home where he enacts a plot to get revenge on his ex wife. This is a very different film from Blue tonally – I was surprised at how funny this is, but the humour is very dry. The adventure Karol takes in the suitcase is both hilarious and tragic. Zamachowski is a fantastic lead, always sympathetic but never weak no matter how much life seems to be crapping on him. This isn't as visually interesting as Blue or Red – their uses of their title colours really making those films stand out. However, this is still a skilfully directed film. 8/10 Three Colours: Red dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski/1994/1h40m The final part of Kieslowski's trilogy follows part time model Valentine (Irene Jacob) who meets a retired judge, Joseph (Jean-Louis Trintignant), after running over his dog. The two form a bond after she discovers his secret hobby. Exploring the ideal of fraternity this is my favourite of the three films as it also seems to cover in some ways liberty and equality as well. The two leads are excellent with some really interesting chemistry that starts with her being appalled by his secret but slowly starting to understand him. There's also this theme of fate here that comes to the fore in the final scene which ties the trilogy together in a most unexpected way. This is the most visually interesting of the three films with a stunning use of the colour red. This is a fitting end to a brilliant series of films that covers the whole spectrum of human emotion. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Great Mouse Detective dir. Ron Clements, John Musker, Burny Mattinson, David Michener/1986/1h14m Basil of Baker Street (Barrie Ingham) is London's greatest detective – animal detective at least – but he has met his match when the fiendish arch villain Professor Ratigan (Vincent Price) kidnaps a toymaker for unknown reasons. With the help of his trusty sidekick Dr. Dawson (Val Bettin) Basil must stop the criminal kingpin before he can set his diabolical plot in motion. What surprised me the most about this film is how close it keeps to the source material. This isn't a spoof, it's a loving homage. Ingham's Basil is exactly like the Holmes of the books, apart from being a mouse of course, and Ratigan is as worthy a nemesis as Moriarty. Price is possibly the best thing about the film, his performance being both camp and full of menace and threat. There's some pretty well done CGI shots in the climactic battle inside the clockwork of Big Ben, much better looking than the couple of computer animated shots in The Black Cauldron. As a fan of Sherlock Holmes I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and would be a perfect introduction to the character for a kid. 8/10 A trilogy of Leontine short films: Leontine's Battery dir. Unknown/1910/6m Leontine Pulls the Strings dir. Unknown/1910/7m Leontine's Apprenticeship dir. Unknown/1910/10m These French silent shorts are just a few from a series all starring the titular character, a mischievous whirlwind of energy who causes trouble everywhere she goes and were a big hit when they were released. Almost lost to time, the names of anyone involved are unknown, including the director and star. In battery Leontine gets her hands on a hand cranked battery which she uses to electrocute anyone she can, resulting in them jittering around with the footage sped up, an effective and slightly surreal image still. In Pulls the String Leontine gets her hands on a length of string and uses it to trip people over and bait them with various objects attached to the end. Apprenticeship sees Leontine forced to go out and get a job by her mother, and where ever she ends up – hat shop, bakers, etc – she causes trouble. Like a cross between Dennis the Menace and a St Trinians schoolgirl Leontine is an anarchic anti-hero for kids, never facing any consequences – and they're minor if she does. These are very repetitive, especially Apprenticeship, but they did their job by getting a few chuckles out of me. Battery 6/10 Pulls the Strings 5/10 Apprenticeship 4/10 Edited July 13, 2023 by LimeGreenLegend 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted July 16, 2023 Share Posted July 16, 2023 @LimeGreenLegend I need to watch the 3 Colours complete trilogy again. I really like Blue (a film critic once said the one you like the most is often the one with the actress you fancy the most in, true in my case). I saw the other two once many years ago. The ending of Red is fantastic. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted July 16, 2023 Share Posted July 16, 2023 (edited) Lady Chatterley's Lover (2022) dir Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre An adaptation of DH Lawrence's controversial novel. When published privately, in 1928, is was considered scandalous (I think more for the inter-class affair than the s*x or four letter words), and even when published openly in 1960s it faced obscenity charges. Today I don't think many people would think it shocking at all. Lord Chatterley (Matthew Duckety), wounded in WWI and left paralized from the waist down encourages his wife Connie (Emma Corrin) to take a lover so that she may have a child he can pretend is his. But he didn't count on his wife having an affair with his game-keeper Oliver Mellors (Jack O'Connel). It's a well made and well acted film, but one where I just don't find the characters that interesting. Not really much more I can think to say about it. 6/10 Pearl (2022) dir Ti West A prequel to the same director's film X, set on the same Texas farm, about the old woman from that film when she was young. Mia Goth plays the title character, and I think is outstanding in this. It is the back story of how Pearl became a psychotic mass murderer. She is frustrated by her dead-end life, looking after her sick father, doing farm chores all day, and feels abandoned by the husband she saw as her ticket to a better life, who then then went and volunteered to fight in WWI. It's the sort of horror I like, not that horrific or gory. In fact if you are into gruesome slasher horror, then you may be disappointed by this. The kill count is quite low. But it has some great acted scenes between Pearl and her mother, her sister-in-law and the cinema projectionist she begins an affair with. In fact for me the best scene is near the end, almost a monologue as Pearl pours her heart out to her sister-in-law, telling how she has turned from a loving innocent daughter and wife into a killer. Filmed in a 30s/40s style at times, it has some great cinematography, particularly a “meal” scene (you would not want to eat what is getting served up!) shot with Pearl dead centre and her parents either side, the table almost symmetrically laid out. 9 / 10 Edited July 16, 2023 by djw180 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted July 16, 2023 Share Posted July 16, 2023 2 minutes ago, djw180 said: (a film critic once said the one you like the most is often the one with the actress you fancy the most in, true in my case) Juliette Binoche is a very beautiful women 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted July 21, 2023 Share Posted July 21, 2023 What I Watched This Week #78 (June 25 – July 1) An Irish Goodbye dir. Ross White, Tom Berkeley/2022/23m After the death of his mother, Turlough (Seamus O'Hara) returns home to Northern Ireland for her funeral after years living in London. There he is reunited with his younger brother Lorcan (James Martin) who has Down's syndrome. Turlough wants him to leave the family farm and go live with their Aunt. Lorcan initially refuses, but later agrees with one stipulation - that before he goes they complete every item on their mother's bucket list together. This is a brilliantly funny and tender film about grief and how it can bring families together. The majority of the humour comes from the montages of the lads ticking off items from the list along with their deceased mother, who accompanies them as ashes in an urn – the skydiving scene is a particular highlight. The film also manages to give both main characters real depth despite being a short film. I especially like the fact that Lorcan's Down's syndrome isn't his defining characteristic. It's a big part of who he is but he's not a one dimensional character who is there just to be pitied like how disabled people are often portrayed in films. 9/10 Martyrs dir. Pascal Laugier/2008/1h39m All I knew about this film before watching it was that it is a revenge film about two young women, Lucie and Anna (Mylene Jampanoi, Morjana Alaoui), seeking retribution against the people who abused them – the film cryptically specifies that none of the abuse was s*xual – when they were children. This vengeance is quick and brutal and all too real feeling. And it happens in the first half an hour. The next half an hour is shockingly harrowing and heart-breaking. Then the film gets really f*cked up for the third act where the meaning of the title is revealed. This was a hard watch, especially the third act which is a hopeless slog through pain and torture where the only escape is death. But don't think this is some Hostel style torture p*rn extravaganza of gorenography. This is torture of the soul in a very real sense. But it is also still very bloody and graphic in ways that make you feel like you've sinned just for witnessing it. It's hard to recommend a film this shocking, and it totally isn't for everyone, but I was on the edge of my seat for the entire run time, with my jaw on the floor for most of it. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Driver dir. Walter Hill/1978/1h31m The Driver stars Ryan O'Neal as The Driver, a getaway driver for hire. He is being pursued by The Detective (Bruce Dern) who'll do anything to bring him in, including setting up a sting. The Driver is helped to mislead him by The Player (Isabelle Adjani). This is a bare bones cat and mouse film that seems to be the blueprint for more recent films like Drive and Baby Driver. You can tell from the film and character names that the star of the film here are the car crashes and chases, and there are some great ones here. This is also a very well constructed crime film, with the climactic heist full of action and double crosses that feels like classic New Hollywood. O'Neal is a solid lead but Dern really steals the show as the quintessential *sshole cop throwing his weight around where ever he can. This isn't quite on the same level as the classics of 70's American cinema but it's still a thrilling ride. 7.5/10 Oliver & Company dir. George Scribner/1988/1h17m Oliver & Company is the final film of Disney's Bronze Era, which began after Walt's death in 1967 and the release of The Jungle Book. It is a retelling of Oliver Twist set in contemporaneous New York following the adventures of a stray orphaned kitten, Oliver (Joey Lawrence). He is soon taken under the wing of Dodger the dog (Billy Joel!) who is a member of the bumbling Fagin's (Dom DeLuise) gang of thieves. I'm gonna damn this with faint praise by calling it fine. Everything about it is fine without anything standing out. The best thing about it is DeLuise who is hilarious in everything he does. Billy Joel is a weird choice for Dodger. I guess he's from New York, but so are a lot of people. But I'm never gonna complain about The Piano Man. There are a couple of other decent performances from Cheech Marin and Bette Midler. This is a pretty fitting end to this era of Disney films as it's distinctly average and unremarkable. Things are about to take off with the next era though, as we're about to enter the Disney Renaissance. 6/10 Carry On Matron dir. Gerald Thomas/1972/1h27m Carry On Matron is the 23rd film in the series, and the final hospital set one, which is probably for the best as most of the jokes here have been recycled from Carry On Nurse, Carry On Doctor and Carry On Again Doctor. There's a plot about a gang of thieves planning to steal a shipment of contraceptive pills, but that's just an excuse for a bunch of innuendo and double entendre. The best thing about this film is how Kenneth William's character, hypochondriac Sir Bernard Cutting, is convinced he's turning into a woman. That actually got a few big laughs from me, which is getting rare this far into the series. Not the worst Carry On film so far, but you can tell that it's on auto-pilot by now. 5/10 Locke dir. Steven Knight/2013/1h25m Locke stars Tom Hardy as Ivan Locke, a building site foreman, who loses everything – his job, home and family - during a drive from Birmingham to London. The film is entirely set in Locke's car, with the other characters only being heard over his phone. Single location films like this can often drag, but Knight has done a brilliant job of keeping it engaging with his direction. This is a story that is told on Hardy's face and I think it's the best performance of his career, and as someone who loves him in Bronson I can't believe I'm saying that. The way the plot unfolds naturally over several phone calls is so well paced and builds up tension and frustration perfectly. The other actors in the film, including Olivia Colman, Tom Holland and Andrew Scott, all make their presence known despite being unseen. A big part of that is Hardy's reaction to them, which tells us what his relationship with them is like. The calls with Colman's character are so sad and her character is so rounded and well drawn that you can also interpret the backstory of their relationship despite not being told much about it. My one small negative is that Hardy plays this with a Welsh accent and it took me so by surprise that I was a bit taken aback for the first few minutes. 9/10 The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Original Poem dir. Tim Burton/2008/11m Tim Burton's original pitch for The Nightmare Before Christmas wasn't a script or a synopsis, it was a poem. This short, simply animated film has the inimitable voice of Christopher Lee recite that poem. When I was in college a girlfriend got me a book of Burton's poetry – The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories – for Christmas, and this film is in that same style. Very simple, childlike rhyming schemes and a dark yet innocent fairy tale feel. 8/10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted July 28, 2023 Share Posted July 28, 2023 What I Watched This Week #79 (July 2 – 8) There's a bit of a link that connects all the films I watched this week. If you can spot it you get a gold star! Planet of the Apes dir. Franklin J. Schaffner/1968/1h52m Charlton Heston plays Taylor, an astronaut thrown thousands of years into the future and thousands of light years – or so he thinks – from Earth to a planet ruled by intelligent apes who dominate the primitive, animalistic race of mute humans. If you can get past the dated ape costumes this is still an excellent and surprisingly nihilistic sci-fi film. There's a scene early on after they have crash landed where one of Taylor's crew mates plants a little American flag in the ground and Taylor just bursts out with the most unhinged laughter because he knows that nothing matters anymore, flags, countries, none of it. That streak of nihilism extends all the way to the iconic ending where Taylor discovers the burnt out remains of the Statue of Liberty, remnants of some horrific third world war, and realises that he was home all along, breaking down on the shore beating the sand and screaming into the void. Heston, while not a convincing astronaut, is a good lead here but I think the film is carried by Roddy McDowall and especially Kim Hunter who play Cornelius and Zira, two scientist apes who befriend Taylor and help him escape after discovering who he really is. Despite being spoofed to exhaustion – my favourite being the musical version from The Simpsons, “I hate every chimp I see from chimpan-a to chimpanzee, no you'll never make a monkey out of me” - this is still one of the great sci-fi films of all time. 9/10 Beneath the Planet of the Apes dir. Ted Post/1970/1h35m This first Planet of the Apes sequel is a film of two halves. The first half – or the boring half as I like to call it – is basically a truncated remake of the original. James Franciscus plays Brent, an astronaut sent to look for Charlton Heston's missing crew, is captured by the apes, helped by Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter) and discovers that he's on the Earth of the far future. The second half – the insane half – sees Brent find an underground society of mutated humans with psychic powers who worship a giant nuke. They're like something out of a Fallout game. The film culminates with an army of apes descending on the humans and Charlton Heston just says f*ck it and detonates the nuke literally blowing up the planet. They really went all out to top the ending of the first film in terms of bleak outlooks for humanity. Like I said, this is a film split fight down the middle. The sheer madness of the second half does in some way make up for the slog through the first but the whole still pales in comparison to the original. Franciscus is a bland lead who I'm pretty sure was cast just because of his resemblance to Heston rather than his acting ability. Hunter is again great but she is criminally underused. 6/10 Escape from the Planet of the Apes dir. Don Taylor/1971/1h38m After the literal destruction of the Earth at the end of the last film there is only one place for the franchise to go now, the past! For some reason a pregnant Kira and Corneilus (Kim Hunter and a returning Roddy McDowall) were in a space ship when the Earth blew up and were thrown back in time to the Earth of the early 70's in an inversion of the original film. At first they are treated like celebrities and the film becomes a fish out of water comedy, but then government agents discover the future of humanity and they want to force Kira to have an abortion and get sterilised to ensure that humans remain the rulers of Earth and we're suddenly thrown into a pro-choice political film. Hunter is excellent here, and this is probably her best performance in the series. She is adept at both the comedic scenes but really shines in the second half of the film as a mother desperate to protect her child. There is also support from Ricardo Montalban – KHAAAAAAAANNNNNNNN – as a circus owner who helps Kira and Cornelius. This film has the series most depressing, bleak ending yet which I won't spoil here, but this franchise really fits right in with the New Hollywood movement of the time where happy endings were out of style. This isn't the best film of the series but it is one of my favourites, and a lot better than the previous entry. 8.5/10 Conquest of the Planet of the Apes dir. J. Lee Thompson/1972/1h28m Twenty years after the events of the last film the Earth is now a dystopic, Orwellian nightmare. A space virus has killed all of the cats and dogs so apes started being used as pets, then they were trained to perform simple tasks. They are now a sl*ve race living under a brutal police state. Roddy McDowall returns, but this time as Caesar, the child of Cornelius and Zira, living in secret with Ricardo Montalban's kindly circus owner Armando. After Armando is captured and tortured by the government, who are looking for Caesar, Caesar decides that enough is enough and leads an uprising of the apes, and so the downfall of the human race begins. One of my favourite things about this original Plant of the Apes series is how more and more politically charged each film gets. This one is full of commentary on police brutality, civil rights and government torture. McDowall is great here, the way he gets more and more radicalised is really well done and by the end of the film – another incredibly bleak ending, if you're human anyway - you believe that he could lead a revolution. The film does suffer from a lack of a decent supporting cast. Apart from Montalban none of the other human characters are particularly memorable. But this is all about Caesar and in that respect it delivers. 7.5/10 Battle for the Planet of the Apes dir. J. Lee Thompson/1973/1h33m The final entry in the original series makes another leap forward in time to where human civilisation has totally collapsed, but the now dominant apes are living in peace – uneasy as it is – with the humans. Caesar (Roddy McDowall) has matured, trying to let go of the hate he felt for humanity in the last film and make a peaceful world for his child, Cornelius, but his gorilla general Aldo (Claude Akins) wants to wipe the humans out for good. Throw into the mix an underground race of mutated humans – the precursors of those found in the second film, but without the psychic powers – who want to take back the planet for their kind and you get an all out war. There's a palpable tension that runs through this film that is so well done. The burden of leadership weighs heavily on Caesar and you can feel that in his performance. The final confrontation between him and Aldo is so incredibly emotionally charged that I totally forgot about the still cheesy monkey suits. The film is bookended by scenes starring John Huston as an ape teacher telling the history of Caesar, and at the end it is revealed that he is talking to a group of both ape and human children so for the first time in the series we end on a hopeful note, which at this point was totally unexpected. These films, especially the sequels, don't get the love they deserve as a classic sci-fi series. Apart from the boring first half of Beneath they are all thought provoking, shocking, engaging and exciting films. 8/10 Planet of the Apes dir. Tim Burton/2001/1h59m The first attempt to reboot the franchise is also the first big stain on Tim Burton's filmography, which was pretty flawless up till now. Mark Wahlberg stars – incredibly unconvincingly – as an astronaut working on a space station experimenting on chimps. He is flung into the far future where he lands on a planet ruled by intelligent apes blah blah blah you know the story. I'll start with the good things about the film. Firstly, the design is fantastic. Both the sets and the apes look great. The score is also fantastic, much better than this film deserves. Wahlberg aside, there is also a decent supporting cast including Tim Roth and Michael Clarke Duncan. And that's about it. The tone of the film is off, with it coming across like a comedy at points, which makes it hard to take the film seriously, and in a film about talking apes you need all the help with that you can get. They also changed too much of the plot from the original, and all of the changes they made make the film worse. Instead of an intelligent scientist like Zira helping the protagonist we get Helena Bonham Carter as an annoying human rights advocate. And the ending! Jesus Christ what a joke. I get that you can't just do the Statue of Liberty ending again, but what they came up with is just ridiculous. It's so stupid that I kinda wish that the film wasn't a huge critical and commercial flop so we could see where the sequel went. The absolute worst thing about this film though is Wahlberg. I'm a fan of his but he's an actor who needs to know his range. Playing an idiotic meathead in Pain and Gain, fantastic. A foul mouthed Boston detective in The Departed, brilliant. An astronaut with a genius level IQ? Nah. 4/10 Rise of the Planet of the Apes dir. Rupert Wyatt/2011/1h45m This second attempt at rebooting the franchise was much more successful. This time instead of going into the future we're starting at the beginning and learning how it all starts. James Franco plays a scientist – just slightly more convincingly than Mark Wahlberg as an astronaut – working on a cure for Alzheimer's, something which his father Charles (John Lithgow) suffers from. This involves experimenting on chimps, including the super smart Caesar (Andy Serkis). After attacking a neighbour while protecting Charles, Caesar is locked up and the film then turns into a prison break movie. Caesar is able to get his paws on some of the special gas which makes apes smart and exposes all of the apes in monkey prison to it, leading to an incredible final confrontation between the military and the apes on the Golden Gate Bridge. The success of this film rests on the performance capture CGI for the apes, especially Serkis as he's the lead, and they all nail it. There are a few moments when it looks a bit cartoony and weightless but those are few and far between. Even more than a decade later this still looks incredible, and Serkis's performance is so grounded that you will have as much, if not more, empathy for him than a human character. And he achieves this without talking for most of the movie, and that moment when he roars his first word sent chills down my spine. This film also introduces my favourite supporting character in the entire franchise, Maurice the Orangutan (Karin Konoval). The rest of the supporting cast, including Brian Cox and David Oyelowo, are solid – although Freida Pinto as Franco's girlfriend has nothing to do. An excellent start to a new continuity for the series. 8/10 Dawn of the Planet of the Apes dir. Matt Reeves/2014/2h10m Ten years after the events of the first film a virus has decimated the human race and apes now rule the planet, with Caesar (Andy Serkis) ruling the apes. When a small group of humans encroach on their territory in order to access a dam tensions start to mount, and Caesar finds his leadership challenged by the vicious Koba (Toby Kebbell), who still hates humans for experimenting on him. The great success of this film, and where Burton's version failed, is that it takes itself seriously. The relationship between Caesar and Koba is amazing in how it develops into a pure hatred by the end and it is tragic because you believe it. The development of the ape society is also really interesting, especially the use of language and how they talk, using a mix of spoken and sign language. The big factor in what makes this film the best of the series is the introduction of Reeves as director. If you've seen the recent Batman film starring Robert Pattinson then you will know how good his films look, and this is no exception. The image of a pissed off Koba riding a horse through a wall of flames while duel wielding assault rifles is one of my favourite single shots in the series. Add on to that Gary Oldman as the leader of the human survivors and you've got one hell of a film. 9.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! War for the Planet of the Apes dir. Matt Reeves/2017/2h20m The Andy Serkis Caesar trilogy comes to an end with War for the Planet of the Apes. A renegade human army led by a messianic Colonel in the mould of Kurtz from Apocalypse Now and played by Woody Harrelson is waging all out war with the apes in a desperate last stand for humanity. In this film Caesar has to battle his own hatred for humanity and is haunted by the spectre of Koba (Toby Kebbell), who he is afraid of turning into. The character arc that we have watched over the last three films is perhaps the best in modern blockbuster cinema and carries more emotional heft than even that of Robert Downey Jr's ten year journey in the MCU. The language and the way the apes communicate has also evolved, with them now primarily using spoken language. Language plays a rather important role in this film as here we also learn how humans become mute, and that culminates in a shocking end for Harrelson's Colonel. A fitting end to a brilliant trilogy and proof positive that modern big budget Hollywood blockbusters can be full of action and explosions and still tell an engaging and emotional story populated by characters with real depth and relatable motivations. I can't wait for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes next year. 9/10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted July 30, 2023 Share Posted July 30, 2023 @LimeGreenLegend I haven't seen much of the remakes of Planet of the Apes. I liked the originals a lot, so wasn't that bothered about the new one - remakes of films you really liked tend to underwhelm. I do like the original costumes though. As they were actors in ape masks they did give the impression of the apes evolving to be more human like whereas the newer are the apes becoming more intelligent with little physical differences. The original's can be quite spooky as well, I remember being very scared of the gorillas as a child. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted July 30, 2023 Share Posted July 30, 2023 (edited) Paradise (2023) dir Boris Kunz, Tomas Jonsgården, Indre Juskute A new Netflix film, a German near-future sci-fi, that pans out more like a regular thriller. Apart from the main plot element not that much is futuristic. Everything looks like it could be happening now. The main character, Max, works for a company, Aeon, that years earlier invented a way to rejuvenate people. But the extra years of life have to be donated by someone else, who in doing so shorten their own life. Max's job is recruiting donors; poor people, desperate refugees, prisoners reducing the actual time they spend in jail, etc, persuaded to trade 5, 10, maybe more years of their life for hundreds of thousands of euros. So what he is doing, and a lot of what else transpires, is clearly highly unethical, yet in the world of the film a big company like Aeon can do what they like, backed up by their own private army. It is kind of exploring what the consequences of something like this could be if money absolutely rules unchecked. That would be an interesting film if something like this rejuvenation process was actually possible, but as far as I am aware, nothing even remotely like it is and as far as I could tell it wasn't trying to draw parallels with any current technology. So as I said at the start, it is really more like a thriller, with this futuristic plot element. Something happens that forces Max's wife to donate many years of her life, and unsurprisingly, Max's opinion of what his company does changes. They learn there is more to their situation then they first thought, go on the run, meet up with members of a group waging a violent anti-Aeon campaign, etc, etc. It's OK, but nothing that spectacular or thought provoking really. And never come across a film with 3 directors before! 5/10 Edited July 30, 2023 by djw180 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted July 30, 2023 Share Posted July 30, 2023 4 hours ago, djw180 said: I liked the originals a lot, so wasn't that bothered about the new one - remakes of films you really liked tend to underwhelm. If you like the originals then you should definitely check out Rise, Dawn and War. They are very respectful of the originals but stand alone as their own, fantastic story. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,839 Posted August 6, 2023 Share Posted August 6, 2023 (edited) Nothing Compares (2022) dir Kathryn Ferguson Feature length documentary about the singer Sinead O'Connor, made before her death on the 26th July. I was a huge admirer of her, mainly for her stunning music, but also had huge respect for her standing up for her principles no matter what anyone else thought and refusing to conform to what the music industry expected her to be. It opens with her appearance at a Bob Dylan tribute concert in 1992 where after being introduced by Kris Kristofferson half the audience cheer and half boo. Two weeks earlier on Saturday Night Live she had torn up a photo of the pope in protest at child abuse in the Catholic Church. That wasn't the first controversial thing she had done or said. The film then goes back to her childhood in Dublin, when she suffered physical abuse in a school run by nuns. It ends where it started, carrying on to show her refusal to be booed off stage and singing aversion of Bob Marley's anti-racism protest song War, instead of what she had been scheduled to sing. I did find it a bit of strange that it almost completely missed out the rest of her career. It seemed to be not so much a Sinead O'Connor documentary, but a “controversies of Sinead O'Connor in her early career” documentary. Whether the director plans another film, I don't know. It also lacked the sort of interviews you usually get in documentaries and seemed to be just using stock footage and recordings. It did have a lot of content from her first husband and friends, but I'm not sure those were recorded for this or taken from existing sources. It's interesting if your interested in Sinead O'Connor or the things she campaigned against. But maybe not so interesting otherwise. It also lacks her most famous song, her world wide no 1 Nothing Compares to You. But that was not the film maker's fault. It was written by Prince, whose estate refused permission for it to be included. 7/10 Edited August 6, 2023 by djw180 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,175 Posted August 7, 2023 Share Posted August 7, 2023 What I Watched This Week #80 (July 9 – 15) The Little Mermaid dir. Ron Clements, John Musker/1989/1h23m It's hard to believe it now but ever since Walt Disney's death in 1967, and even for a while before, animated films were only being made at Disney out of an obligation to their legacy, with most of them losing money and being poorly reviewed. That all changed with the release of The Little Mermaid and the start of the Disney renaissance, the most successful period in the company's history since the late thirties. Jodi Benson stars as princess Ariel, a free spirited and curious mermaid who falls in love with the human Prince Eric (Christopher Daniel Barnes). She is willing to do anything to be with him, even making a deal with the evil sea with Ursula (Pat Carroll). All of the characters in this film are incredibly expressive, with the animators giving them a real weight and gravity, which is impressive since most of this film is set under the sea. Apart from the animation, what really makes this film stand out as the start of a new era for Disney is the songwriter and composer Alan Menkin. This is his first Disney film, and he would go on to write iconic songs and music for other films from this period like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. This isn't the best of the era, but it's an incredibly strong start, mostly thanks to the catchy tunes of Menkin. 8/10 Dance Craze dir. Joe Massot/1981/1h25m Dance Craze is a concert film showcasing the best of the British post punk 2-tone ska movement playing live. Bands like The Specials, The Selecter, Bad Manners and Madness. This is a really vibrant film that captures the energy of the music and, more importantly, the crowd. A group of disaffected, diverse, working class kids who want to forget about their miserable lives for a night and dance it all out. This is prevented from being a typical concert film for a few reasons. There are a couple of times where the footage is intercut with a news report from a very proper sounding reporter talking about this new craze all the kids are crazy about. There are also moments where the camera moves around on the stage and getting up close and personal with the bands who become larger than life in those moments. Your appreciation for this film is all dependent on your opinions on ska music. While it isn't my favourite genre there are some brilliant songs here, and every single performance is captivating. 8.5/10 Frankenweenie dir. Tim Burton/1984/29m This early short from Tim Burton stars Barret Oliver as a young boy called Victor Frankenstein who lives a cosy suburban life with his loving parents (Shelley Duvall, Daniel Stern) making homemade horror movies starring his pet dog Sparky. When Sparky is hit by a car and dies Victor does what any good Frankenstein would and reanimates him. This horrifies his neighbours and leads to a fiery finale where everyone learns that despite his monstrous looks Sparky is still a very good boy. The story of Frankenstein is something that Burton loves – Edward Scissorhands is another version – and that love is evident in every shot here, especially the ending which was more epic than I was expecting. The gothic-suburban style is executed perfectly here, with the juxtaposition between the mundane and the freaky used to great effect. This is also funny without being cheesy and has some great performances from pretty much the whole cast, even a young Sofia Coppola who plays one of Vincent's neighbours. After watching his attempt at Planet of the Apes recently I needed to see something to remind me that Burton is a great filmmaker, and this hit the spot. 9/10 Foxy Brown dir. Jack Hill/1974/1h34m Pam Grier stars as Foxy Brown, a badass woman who seeks revenge against a syndicate of drug dealers and s*x traffickers after her undercover cop boyfriend is murdered. A classic of the Blaxploitation scene, this is full of violence, s*x, gratuitous nudity and drug use all scored to an infectiously catchy soundtrack. This is clearly one of Tarantino's favourite films. This is clearly a cheap film shot quickly, but that just adds to the overall gritty tone. Grier absolutely carries the film, with most of the rest of the cast being pretty bad, but Antonio Fargas – Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch – was solid as Foxy's cowardly brother Link. The plot is basic, with most of the characters being one dimensional, especially all of the bad guys, but the frenetic pace and funky score you can't help but be swept along. 7/10 Asteroid City dir. Wes Anderson/2023/1h45m The latest from Wes Anderson is set in a small desert town in 50's America where a group of super smart kids, accompanied by their parents, are attending the Junior Stargazers convention. When the event is interrupted by an alien (Jeff Goldblum) taking back the asteroid that gave the town its name, everyone is quarantined by the military, led by General Gibson (Jeffery Wright). It is also the story – shot in black and white – of the New York theatre company who are putting on the play on which the film is based. Sort of how like The Grand Budapest Hotel was a film about a book about a man remembering his time in the hotel – a Russian stacking doll approach to storytelling. If you're not already a fan of Anderson then there's nothing here that will win you over. He is fully invested in his own unique style and I think it's wonderful, like a storybook come to life. All of the components are here, the precise camera movements, all tracking shots and whip pans staged with the intricacy of clockwork, the bright pastel colour palette, deadpan whipcrack delivery of intricate and witty dialogue and a huge ensemble of actors – Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton the list goes on. None of these performances comes close to Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest Hotel, my favourite Anderson film, but everyone works together to build this idiosyncratic portrait of mid century America. 8/10 Bad Lieutenant dir. Abel Ferrara/1992/1h36m While investigating the s*xual assault of a nun a cheating, drug abusing, alcoholic, violent cop (Harvey Keitel) faces a serious crisis of faith that comes to a head in a meeting with Jesus Christ Himself in this modern telling of the Saul on the road to Damascus story. This film is packed with as much Catholic guilt as five Scorsese films combined, at times it can be so oppressive and overwhelming that you feel like breaking like Keitel's character by the end credits. His performance in this film is incredible and it might be the best that I've seen. The entire final act, where he finally has his Saul moment, is beautiful in its soul wrenching pain and fear and, finally, some sort of redemption. When I started watching this film I was expecting a typical crime film about some sort of crooked cop, not the angriest, sweatiest man in New York screaming his lungs out as he wrestles with his faith, and it's all the more better for it. I loved this. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Black Widow dir. Cate Shortland/2021/2h14m What better time to give Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow her own film than after the character was killed off the last time we saw her? Set after Civil War (I think) this film sees Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff, have to deal with her past and her family – Florence Pugh as her sister Yelena and Rachel Weisz and David Harbour as her parents. Ray Winstone appears as the big bad villain, Dreykov, with one of the worst Russian accents I've ever heard – Florence Pugh's might be a close second. This is all filler, no killer, with not a single thing that I can remember about this film just a week later. I do remember that it's very grey. Florence Pugh is cute and I always enjoy watching her, so there's that I guess. This just all feels like a big pointless waste of time. 3/10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts