Movie-Viewing Experiences 4/10/18 - 20/10/18
A+ = Adored Masterwork A = Excellent A- = Very Good B+ = Good B = Nice Try B- = Passable
C = Significantly Flawed D = Pretty Bad E = Truly Dreadful: Looking Into the Void F = Vile & Repugnant: The Void
JUNEBUG (2005)
A- RE-EVALUATION Original Grade: B+
d: Phil Morrison
CAST: Embeth Davidtz; Amy Adams; Benjamin McKenzie; Alessandro Nivola; Scott Wilson
> a gentle and gradual story with a poignant pay-off; Chicago Art dealer Embeth marries Alessandro after a one-week courtship, mainly because he's great in bed...she joins him on a stayover with his North Carolina family...the culture clash is immediate; starts off as a city slicker / country hicks joke, but slowly turns into so much more...everybody grows and becomes more interesting; greatest line of divide: Embeth is all touch and emotionally demonstrative, while the family only uses the word "love" in relation to Jesus and saves physical contact for special occasions; nothing is forced on you...you'll like these decent people all by yourself
Award-Worthy Performance
Amy Adams
AMERICAN ANIMALS (2018)
A- FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Bart Layton
CAST: Evan Peters; Barry Keoghan; Blake Jenner; Jared Abrahamson; Ann Dowd
> a slowly-engrossing docu-drama about the 2004 theft of rare books from a university library in Kentucky; nimbly-crafted film (handheld kept to a minimum + interesting & effective editing choices) that I initially thought was going to be another one of those "jolly jape" heist movies where the criminals are comic and the crime is a skit (and it does start out like that)...but the last half hour raises it to a social statement: It is more difficult than you think to hurt someone just to get your own way...y'know...Ethics; the four guys are pathetic twerps who are clearly closer to child than man...the lowkey casting is actually a plus here...they possess no starpower charisma to help kindle appeal...for once, you are not being asked to envy how Cool the thieves are (quite the opposite); Crime Does Not Pay...about time somebody said it again
LADIES IN BLACK (2018)
A- FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Bruce Beresford
CAST: Angourie Rice; Julia Ormond; Rachael Taylor; Celia Massingham; Ryan Corr
> in his review, Aussie-film-critic-icon David Stratton stressed that this film was NOT a lightweight...well, King David is wrong...it IS light, but it is NOT slight; I kept postponing viewing this, assuming that it wasn't my kinda thing (fashion...ugh) but, I too, was wrong: this is a thoroughly enjoyable, stunningly shot (bathed in Antipodean sunshine, 1959 Sydney and the Blue Mountains have never looked so gorgeous), beautifully-costumed and strongly acted (hosannas to young Angourie...the essence of happy charisma) movie, filled with appealing characters who don't seem to have even a drop of darkness in them; refreshingly nice
Award-Worthy Performance
Angourie Rice
BODYGUARD (1948)
B+ FIRST VIEWING
d: Richard Fleischer
CAST: Lawrence Tierney; Priscilla Lane; Phillip Reed; Elisabeth Risdon; June Clayworth
> an impressive B-Movie; hard-but-true detective quits the force after one-too-many run-ins with his boss...he is hired as a bodyguard for the old lady owner of an L.A. meatworks...there's something underhanded going on...he's framed for murder...etc etc etc; Director Richard (of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea & 10 Rillington Place fame...and, er, Mandingo & Doctor Dolittle infamy) is still learning his trade here, but his skill is already apparent (striking close-ups and interesting stuff going on in the background); the script (co-written by big-name-to-be Robert Altman) is tricky with small touches of humour and quirkiness (love the death-by-train and the eye-doctor stoush!); the acting is admittedly pedestrian but gets the job done, and the whole mystery is solved and finished off with a cute ending in a sprint of 62 minutes
ME & ORSON WELLES (2008)
B+ SECOND VIEWING
d: Richard Linklater
CAST: Zac Efron; Christian MacKay; Claire Danes; James Tupper; Eddie Marsan; Ben Chaplin
> a High School kid lucks his way into a small role in Orson Welles' 1937 monumental stage production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar...during the experience, he learns about theatre folk, genius and sex; quite a Woody Allen kind of film (New York + artistic people + muted-trumpet jazz + an oversupply of talking), this is brightly lit with crisp cinematography and totally devoid of grit (the closest you get is the great man's occasional tantrum and his payback for arguing)... so I found it a little, well...lightweight; Christian succeeds in an impossible role (who could convince as Orson Welles?) and the snatches of the climactic performance impress
Award-Worthy Performance
Christian McKay
VICTORIA THE GREAT (1937)
B+ FIRST VIEWING
d: Herbert Wilcox
CAST: Anna Neagle; Anton Walbrook; H.B. Warner; Walter Rilla
> I am not a Royalist...I think that Australia should have become a republic immediately after Churchill tried to bully our P.M. John Curtin into putting Britain first at the expense of Australian defence...the swine; this film makes a rather breathless "greatest hits" run through the reign of Queen Victoria: her ascension + marriage to Albert + Crimean War + Indian Mutiny + attempted assassination + near-war with the USA + death of Albert + crippling grief + Mr Brown + old, jowly & beloved; arthritic in spots, reverent dullness is avoided via strong lead performances and the courtship which has been staged as a rom-com...well, a 1930's British version of rom-com...
Award-Worthy Performance
Anna Neagle
BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE (2018)
B FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Drew Goddard
CAST: Jeff Bridges; Cynthia Erivo; Dakota Johnson; Lewis Pullman; Chris Hemsworth
> everyone's criticism of this is its overlength (141 minutes)...and everyone is right; one of those multiple storyline films where all the strands tie-up together at the end, this has clearly grown from the same source as the Coen Brothers and Mr Tarantino: lotsa blood + dark humour + terrific music + quirky characters + strong scenes linked by sidetrack conversation + the unexpected...it's a formula which will always work if the filmmaker is good at his/her craft...and Director/Writer Drew is getting there; loaded with excellent performances, the story(s) falters when it drifts from being intriguing to being ugly...the entertainment quotient takes a hit
Award-Worthy Performance
The ensemble cast
FIRST MAN (2018)
B FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Damien Chazelle
CAST: Ryan Gosling; Claire Foy; Jason Clarke; Kyle Chandler; Corey Stoll; Lukas Haas
> a must-see for Spaceheads, this is a so-so experience for ordinary people like you & me; essentially The Neil Armstrong Story, this pretty much picks up from where 1983's The Right Stuff left off: the early 60's NASA space program and the competition to beat the Russians to the Moon; while this film's strength is the human stuff (the title is spot on...after all, it's not called First Landing), I found the cinematic craft itself to be an annoyance (lots and lots of shuddering camerawork, blurry close-ups and chop-editing, to give it that "You Are There" feel); during the Gemini 8 near-disaster, I recalled "Revolution 9" from The Beatles' White Album...all cut'n'paste noise and something I've only ever played once; the moon landing itself is terrific...but did Neil really leave his daughter's bracelet there...or is that just a Spielbergian touch?
RUN FOR THE SUN (1956)
C FIRST VIEWING
d: Roy Boulting
CAST: Richard Widmark; Jane Greer; Trevor Howard; Peter van Eyck
> essentially a rejigged remake of the classic 1932 The Most Dangerous Game, the basic premise (man is big-game-hunted by a macho-baddie) is so durable that it has even been used in sci-fi shows such as Star Trek and Lost in Space...but this rather limp version is more standard search than sadistic sport; the movie is weighed down by the usual: soapy romance that keeps raising its tedious head at the most inappropriate moments + the woman is a useless burden the man has to drag along with him (why can't they ever keep up?); the build-up to the manhunt itself is slow, totally peripheral to what's coming up and just plain boring; on the plus side, the Technicolor is gorgeous (it usually is) and the WWII/Nazis-in-hiding twist is at least a little interesting; still, the 1932 original is in the Public Domain and on YouTube, so...
VENOM (2018)
C FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Ruben Fleischer
CAST: Tom Hardy; Michelle Williams; Riz Ahmed; Scott Haze; Reid Scott
> I was hoping this Marvel movie was going to do a Logan and go for something different and darker (a superhero/horror hybrid, which would have been an interesting shift), but no...within minutes, it slips into the same old same old routine: unsteadicam + vehicle chase + too-close-up action + little bits of humour + a crappy villain + Stan Lee; Tom is a TV journalist who absorbs an alien parasite (er, sorry, symbiote) and clashes with a threat-to-the-world evil rich genius...meanwhile of course, the girlfriend (what a waste of Michelle) frets and helps; lots of potential here for a potent thriller (very werewolf; very Mr Hyde), but it devolves into the head-eating monster becoming a funny friend with eccentricities, which is cheesy & dumb
CONNIE & CARLA (2004)
D FIRST VIEWING
d: Michael Lembeck
CAST: Nia Vardalos; Toni Collette; David Duchovny; Stephen Spinella; Debbie Reynolds
> as I'm sure every reviewer has stated, this is essentially a rejig of Some Like It Hot: two performers change genders (this time, females to males who act as drag queens) to earn a few bucks and hide out from gangsters who want to kill them; unfortunately, unlike Billy Wilder's 1959 masterpiece (not to mention Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), this movie is more awkward and shrill than amusing; the flaw which sinks the whole show is its cowardly conservatism... the two leads fall into bog-standard heterosexual romances...imagine how much the movie would have been beefed up if they had fallen in love with each other instead...so there's no perception-challenging punchline like "Nobody's perfect"; throw in a lack of performance-partnership chemistry between Nia & Toni and this is another "snicker at the fairies" movie
GUMMO (1997)
D FIRST VIEWING
d: Harmony Korine
CAST: Jacob Reynolds; Nick Sutton; Chloe Sevigny; Linda Manz; Jacob Sewell
> bizarre, chopped-up and plotless film about American White Trash (er um...excuse me... people of low socio-economic status who are poorly educated, unhappy with their lives and defeated by boredom); labelled as a dark comedy by some desperate publicity guy, I got no laughs out of this; some scenes are in-your-face unpleasant with recurring obsessions such as shooting stray cats for profit, shirtless males of all ages and dirty bare feet; mix in glue-sniffing, nipple-taping, tap-dancing, eyebrow shaving, kitchen furniture assault, a dwarf arm-wrestler and Roy Orbison, and you've got one deliberately weird movie...which wouldn't bother me (hey, I can do weird) if it wasn't for one unforgivable fault: I didn't get to know or care about anybody in it (not even the girl with breast cancer), so...what's the point?
Got something you want to tell me?
GO RIGHT AHEAD: masted59@gmail.com
JUNEBUG (2005)
d: Phil Morrison
CAST: Embeth Davidtz; Amy Adams; Benjamin McKenzie; Alessandro Nivola; Scott Wilson
> a gentle and gradual story with a poignant pay-off; Chicago Art dealer Embeth marries Alessandro after a one-week courtship, mainly because he's great in bed...she joins him on a stayover with his North Carolina family...the culture clash is immediate; starts off as a city slicker / country hicks joke, but slowly turns into so much more...everybody grows and becomes more interesting; greatest line of divide: Embeth is all touch and emotionally demonstrative, while the family only uses the word "love" in relation to Jesus and saves physical contact for special occasions; nothing is forced on you...you'll like these decent people all by yourself
Award-Worthy Performance
Amy Adams
AMERICAN ANIMALS (2018)
d: Bart Layton
CAST: Evan Peters; Barry Keoghan; Blake Jenner; Jared Abrahamson; Ann Dowd
> a slowly-engrossing docu-drama about the 2004 theft of rare books from a university library in Kentucky; nimbly-crafted film (handheld kept to a minimum + interesting & effective editing choices) that I initially thought was going to be another one of those "jolly jape" heist movies where the criminals are comic and the crime is a skit (and it does start out like that)...but the last half hour raises it to a social statement: It is more difficult than you think to hurt someone just to get your own way...y'know...Ethics; the four guys are pathetic twerps who are clearly closer to child than man...the lowkey casting is actually a plus here...they possess no starpower charisma to help kindle appeal...for once, you are not being asked to envy how Cool the thieves are (quite the opposite); Crime Does Not Pay...about time somebody said it again
LADIES IN BLACK (2018)
d: Bruce Beresford
CAST: Angourie Rice; Julia Ormond; Rachael Taylor; Celia Massingham; Ryan Corr
> in his review, Aussie-film-critic-icon David Stratton stressed that this film was NOT a lightweight...well, King David is wrong...it IS light, but it is NOT slight; I kept postponing viewing this, assuming that it wasn't my kinda thing (fashion...ugh) but, I too, was wrong: this is a thoroughly enjoyable, stunningly shot (bathed in Antipodean sunshine, 1959 Sydney and the Blue Mountains have never looked so gorgeous), beautifully-costumed and strongly acted (hosannas to young Angourie...the essence of happy charisma) movie, filled with appealing characters who don't seem to have even a drop of darkness in them; refreshingly nice
Award-Worthy Performance
Angourie Rice
BODYGUARD (1948)
d: Richard Fleischer
CAST: Lawrence Tierney; Priscilla Lane; Phillip Reed; Elisabeth Risdon; June Clayworth
> an impressive B-Movie; hard-but-true detective quits the force after one-too-many run-ins with his boss...he is hired as a bodyguard for the old lady owner of an L.A. meatworks...there's something underhanded going on...he's framed for murder...etc etc etc; Director Richard (of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea & 10 Rillington Place fame...and, er, Mandingo & Doctor Dolittle infamy) is still learning his trade here, but his skill is already apparent (striking close-ups and interesting stuff going on in the background); the script (co-written by big-name-to-be Robert Altman) is tricky with small touches of humour and quirkiness (love the death-by-train and the eye-doctor stoush!); the acting is admittedly pedestrian but gets the job done, and the whole mystery is solved and finished off with a cute ending in a sprint of 62 minutes
ME & ORSON WELLES (2008)
d: Richard Linklater
CAST: Zac Efron; Christian MacKay; Claire Danes; James Tupper; Eddie Marsan; Ben Chaplin
> a High School kid lucks his way into a small role in Orson Welles' 1937 monumental stage production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar...during the experience, he learns about theatre folk, genius and sex; quite a Woody Allen kind of film (New York + artistic people + muted-trumpet jazz + an oversupply of talking), this is brightly lit with crisp cinematography and totally devoid of grit (the closest you get is the great man's occasional tantrum and his payback for arguing)... so I found it a little, well...lightweight; Christian succeeds in an impossible role (who could convince as Orson Welles?) and the snatches of the climactic performance impress
Award-Worthy Performance
Christian McKay
VICTORIA THE GREAT (1937)
d: Herbert Wilcox
CAST: Anna Neagle; Anton Walbrook; H.B. Warner; Walter Rilla
> I am not a Royalist...I think that Australia should have become a republic immediately after Churchill tried to bully our P.M. John Curtin into putting Britain first at the expense of Australian defence...the swine; this film makes a rather breathless "greatest hits" run through the reign of Queen Victoria: her ascension + marriage to Albert + Crimean War + Indian Mutiny + attempted assassination + near-war with the USA + death of Albert + crippling grief + Mr Brown + old, jowly & beloved; arthritic in spots, reverent dullness is avoided via strong lead performances and the courtship which has been staged as a rom-com...well, a 1930's British version of rom-com...
Award-Worthy Performance
Anna Neagle
BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE (2018)
d: Drew Goddard
CAST: Jeff Bridges; Cynthia Erivo; Dakota Johnson; Lewis Pullman; Chris Hemsworth
> everyone's criticism of this is its overlength (141 minutes)...and everyone is right; one of those multiple storyline films where all the strands tie-up together at the end, this has clearly grown from the same source as the Coen Brothers and Mr Tarantino: lotsa blood + dark humour + terrific music + quirky characters + strong scenes linked by sidetrack conversation + the unexpected...it's a formula which will always work if the filmmaker is good at his/her craft...and Director/Writer Drew is getting there; loaded with excellent performances, the story(s) falters when it drifts from being intriguing to being ugly...the entertainment quotient takes a hit
Award-Worthy Performance
The ensemble cast
FIRST MAN (2018)
d: Damien Chazelle
CAST: Ryan Gosling; Claire Foy; Jason Clarke; Kyle Chandler; Corey Stoll; Lukas Haas
> a must-see for Spaceheads, this is a so-so experience for ordinary people like you & me; essentially The Neil Armstrong Story, this pretty much picks up from where 1983's The Right Stuff left off: the early 60's NASA space program and the competition to beat the Russians to the Moon; while this film's strength is the human stuff (the title is spot on...after all, it's not called First Landing), I found the cinematic craft itself to be an annoyance (lots and lots of shuddering camerawork, blurry close-ups and chop-editing, to give it that "You Are There" feel); during the Gemini 8 near-disaster, I recalled "Revolution 9" from The Beatles' White Album...all cut'n'paste noise and something I've only ever played once; the moon landing itself is terrific...but did Neil really leave his daughter's bracelet there...or is that just a Spielbergian touch?
RUN FOR THE SUN (1956)
d: Roy Boulting
CAST: Richard Widmark; Jane Greer; Trevor Howard; Peter van Eyck
> essentially a rejigged remake of the classic 1932 The Most Dangerous Game, the basic premise (man is big-game-hunted by a macho-baddie) is so durable that it has even been used in sci-fi shows such as Star Trek and Lost in Space...but this rather limp version is more standard search than sadistic sport; the movie is weighed down by the usual: soapy romance that keeps raising its tedious head at the most inappropriate moments + the woman is a useless burden the man has to drag along with him (why can't they ever keep up?); the build-up to the manhunt itself is slow, totally peripheral to what's coming up and just plain boring; on the plus side, the Technicolor is gorgeous (it usually is) and the WWII/Nazis-in-hiding twist is at least a little interesting; still, the 1932 original is in the Public Domain and on YouTube, so...
VENOM (2018)
d: Ruben Fleischer
CAST: Tom Hardy; Michelle Williams; Riz Ahmed; Scott Haze; Reid Scott
> I was hoping this Marvel movie was going to do a Logan and go for something different and darker (a superhero/horror hybrid, which would have been an interesting shift), but no...within minutes, it slips into the same old same old routine: unsteadicam + vehicle chase + too-close-up action + little bits of humour + a crappy villain + Stan Lee; Tom is a TV journalist who absorbs an alien parasite (er, sorry, symbiote) and clashes with a threat-to-the-world evil rich genius...meanwhile of course, the girlfriend (what a waste of Michelle) frets and helps; lots of potential here for a potent thriller (very werewolf; very Mr Hyde), but it devolves into the head-eating monster becoming a funny friend with eccentricities, which is cheesy & dumb
CONNIE & CARLA (2004)
d: Michael Lembeck
CAST: Nia Vardalos; Toni Collette; David Duchovny; Stephen Spinella; Debbie Reynolds
> as I'm sure every reviewer has stated, this is essentially a rejig of Some Like It Hot: two performers change genders (this time, females to males who act as drag queens) to earn a few bucks and hide out from gangsters who want to kill them; unfortunately, unlike Billy Wilder's 1959 masterpiece (not to mention Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), this movie is more awkward and shrill than amusing; the flaw which sinks the whole show is its cowardly conservatism... the two leads fall into bog-standard heterosexual romances...imagine how much the movie would have been beefed up if they had fallen in love with each other instead...so there's no perception-challenging punchline like "Nobody's perfect"; throw in a lack of performance-partnership chemistry between Nia & Toni and this is another "snicker at the fairies" movie
GUMMO (1997)
d: Harmony Korine
CAST: Jacob Reynolds; Nick Sutton; Chloe Sevigny; Linda Manz; Jacob Sewell
> bizarre, chopped-up and plotless film about American White Trash (er um...excuse me... people of low socio-economic status who are poorly educated, unhappy with their lives and defeated by boredom); labelled as a dark comedy by some desperate publicity guy, I got no laughs out of this; some scenes are in-your-face unpleasant with recurring obsessions such as shooting stray cats for profit, shirtless males of all ages and dirty bare feet; mix in glue-sniffing, nipple-taping, tap-dancing, eyebrow shaving, kitchen furniture assault, a dwarf arm-wrestler and Roy Orbison, and you've got one deliberately weird movie...which wouldn't bother me (hey, I can do weird) if it wasn't for one unforgivable fault: I didn't get to know or care about anybody in it (not even the girl with breast cancer), so...what's the point?
Got something you want to tell me?
GO RIGHT AHEAD: masted59@gmail.com
