Wednesday 3 October 2018

2014 Page Added

Movie-Viewing Experiences  22/9/18 - 3/10/18     
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



THE DROP (2014)
A-   FIRST VIEWING
d: Michael R. Roskam
CAST: Tom Hardy; James Gandolfini; Noomi Rapace; Matthias Schoenaerts
> yet another American mean streets movie, this one is a cut above a hundred or so of the others...it doesn't emphasise the bloodshed, but instead aims to keep you tense for 107 minutes... a classy example of slowburn in storytelling; Tom works for James in a Brooklyn bar, which operates as a money drop for Chechen thugs...resentments, brutal paybacks and big plans simmer away while Tom just wants a peaceful life with his dog and new girlfriend...but it isn't gonna be that way...; masterfully created using sound (thunder cracks while hard men talk softly) and ominously-held shots, this succeeds in being more thriller than gangster movie 
Award-Worthy Performance
Tom Hardy



THE WILD BUNCH (1969)
A-   THIRD VIEWING
d: Sam Peckinpah
CAST: William Holden; Robert Ryan; Ernest Borgnine; Edmond O'Brien; Warren Oates
> while most of the applause for this classic Western was given to the graceful violence, it is the exuberant craftsmanship that impresses me: staging + cinematography + music + editing...all amazing; I find the macho sentimentality (how can anyone admire these men?.."if they move, kill 'em") and the broad humour jarring (like in many John Ford Westerns), but the action scenes thrill in a dusty, rock-video kinda way, especially when the war-weaponry comes into play...although the climactic mass slaughter eventually numbs...one blood squirt too many; Edmond overdoes it in a Walter Brennan role, but everybody else packs a punch
Award-Worthy Performances
William Holden; Ernest Borgnine



THE PRIZE WINNER OF DEFIANCE, OHIO (2005)
A-   FIRST VIEWING
d: Jane Anderson
CAST: Julianne Moore; Woody Harrelson; Laura Dern; Ellary Porterfield
> affecting movie set in 1950's suburban America...Julianne is married to Woody and they have 10 kids...Woody is a weak, weak man who drinks and goes off on tirades, draining the family of money...Julianne gets them all through via her eternal optimism and regular entries in (and winning of) numerous slogan / jingle competitions; film is adorned with some glitzy overlays and speak-to-camera pieces, all of which work surprisingly well; labelled a comedy, it is the behind-closed-door confrontations which give the film substance and raise it above a mere colourful pastiche of Fifties middle-class culture...the woman is a truly-heroic domestic goddess
Award-Worthy Performance
Julianne Moore



THE TRACKER (2002)
B+   RE-EVALUATION   Original Grade: A-
d: Rolf de Heer
CAST: David Gulpilil; Gary Sweet; Damon Gameau; Grant Page; Noel Wilton
> this has been called THE great Indigenous Australian Experience film...on second viewing, I can't entirely join the fanclub...I noticed flaws which I didn't pick up first time around; while David is riveting (the man has presence) and Damon's decent-hearted kid plays well, Gary doesn't convince as the bigoted hater (imagine Russell Crowe) + as much as I love Archie Roach's voice, the frequent songs are moody without being grabby; however, this 1922 tale of three white men on the trail of a black fugitive, led by a tracker through a hostile landscape, remains emotionally affecting, particularly for an Australian with any sense of national history
Award-Worthy Performance
David Gulpilil



BUTCH & SUNDANCE: THE EARLY DAYS (1979)
B+   FIRST VIEWING
d: Richard Lester
CAST: Tom Berenger; William Katt; Peter Weller; Brian Dennehy; Christopher Lloyd
> a comedy-Western which is obviously a prequel to the classic Western-comedy (psst...the billing switch is deliberate)...and in a number of ways, I prefer it to what came first; Director Richard does here what he did for Superman and The Beatles: use light slapstick and perky to-and-fro to liven up the characters and make them amusing & appealing...buffing up what was already there; Tom > Paul Newman and William > Robert Redford are feasible transitions and the rapport maintains the original's competitive friendship angle; whoever scouted the locations had an eye for striking scenery and the outdoor sets have impact (love the boxy buildings!)
Award-Worthy Performance
Tom Berenger & William Katt



THE 14 aka EXISTENCE aka THE WILD LITTLE BUNCH (1973)
B-   FIRST VIEWING
d: David Hemmings
CAST: Jack Wild; 13 British child actors
> set in 1973 London, a poverty-stricken family of 14 kids (all boys...buy them condoms NOW!), living in a rundown house, are suddenly orphaned after Mum dies and their home is up for demolition... Welfare steps in and the kids are split up and sent to various institutions...but, of course, they just want to stay together; British Kitchen-Sink to the Max (grime everywhere with fag-ends and soggy chips, bleedin' this & guv'nor that); highly regarded by European critics (very real life, very England-is-crap), I found it to be rather unfair: the kids are little feral terrors who we're supposed to admire (they're tough + resourceful to the point of thieving + put family first...hey, they're just like The Krays!) while everyone who tries to help (social workers, neighbours, nuns) is humiliated; I mean, what would you do with 14 parentless kids?



BEAST (2017)
B-   FIRST VIEWING   IN-CINEMA
d: Michael Pearce
CAST: Jessie Buckley; Johnny Flynn; Geraldine James; Tristan Gravelle
> this film has been described by a critic as a "warped adult fairy tale" but the only descriptor that I can agree with is "adult"; a serial killer is at large on a British island (immediately a powerful premise)...a troubled young woman may or may not be in a relationship with him...the good folk of the village are rightly frightened and angry...what is the truth?; biggest problem I had with this movie was its misleading title: Beasts would have been more appropriate: Bullying + Domineering Mother + Mental Illness + Lust + Domestic Violence + Sex With Minors + Lynch Mob Mentality all lay equal claim as the title monster...the motivations of both lead characters are therefore frustratingly muddied and the actors don't overcome it; pretty scenery often shuddered by too much handheld camera; watch Broadchurch (first season) instead



NIGHT BOAT TO DUBLIN (1946)
C   FIRST VIEWING
d: Lawrence Huntington
CAST: Robert Newton; Raymond Lovell; Guy Middleton; Muriel Pavlow
> rather too-mild-mannered WWII espionage drama that could have only been made by the British...by the 1940's British...; obviously-low budget hurts a couple of scenes (the title voyage is laughably studio-stranded, and sawdust dummies do all the toppling off cliffs etc.); none of the touches of humour are particularly funny (exception: the final scene!) and the romance remains more bud than blossom; extreme stiff-upper-lip attitude on display at all times (when a good-guy agent turns up with his head bashed in, floating in the Irish sea, his colleague responds to the news with "Oh"); must be Robert's most restrained performance (he doesn't even raise his voice) and nobody else in the cast is anything more than competent; I have a question: why does the film have that title when it's got nothing at all to do with the plot?



TOVARICH (1937)
C   FIRST VIEWING
d: Anatole Litvak
CAST: Claudette Colbert; Charles Boyer; Melville Cooper; Anita Louise; Basil Rathbone
> a peculiar screwball comedy which is ruinously closer to dumb than it is to madcap; in exile after the 1917 revolution, man & wife of Russian royal blood are hunger-forced to secretly become household servants in Paris...serving at a dinner party, they meet Russian subjects from the old days along with a loathed Bolshevik with a violent past; most of the screwball setups occur in the first two-thirds...in the last third, reminiscences about torture and threats of retribution ("I'll burn your eyes out and fill the empty sockets with salt"...Jeezus...) clash mightily with what went before...like having sweets before the fish course; Charles & Claudette aren't able to strike sparks off each other and only Melville makes any impression in the crucial-to-comedy supporting cast; maybe this worked better on the stage...on the 1935 stage



MAN ON FIRE (2004)
C   FIRST VIEWING
d: Tony Scott
CAST: Denzel Washington; Dakota Fanning; Radha Mitchell; Christopher Walken
> I'm a sucker for Heroes-Who-Rescue-a-Kid stories...but I vastly prefer the surrogate parenting of Aliens over the bloodlust of Taxi Driver...and this film wants it both ways; ex (and now alcoholic & sad) US military guy is hired by a rich Mexican family to be a bodyguard for their 9 year old girl...the kid is kidnapped, the hero is nearly killed, but he sure ain't done yet, not by a hand-shattering, rectum-exploding longshot; I'm not a fan of Denzel the Violent Action Hero...he always seems to be superior to the material...the actor has nuance; the flashy chop-editing is initially used as an interesting way to convey our hero's inner turmoil, but then it becomes the actual style of the film itself...the constant herky-jerkiness is ultimately exhausting and tedious; thanks to cutiepie Dakota, the first half of the film will make you feel all warm inside



RAGE IN HEAVEN (1941)
C   FIRST VIEWING
d: W.S. Van Dyke
CAST: Robert Montgomery; Ingrid Bergman; George Sanders; Lucille Watson
> despite the stellar cast, experienced director and the famous writers involved (James Hilton novel + Christopher Isherwood script), this is hardly Hollywood's finest moment; rich mental patient escapes, marries a beauty, runs the family business, makes a mess of it, is jealous of his best friend and frames him for murder...yep, the soap flies thick and fast, and even the starpower can't give it esteem: apparently Robert was in contractual dispute with MGM at the time and barely inhabits his role (although that distance works to a degree here...he's the nutter) & while Ingrid suffers prettily, I always preferred her when she showed some sass & George is nobody's idea of an all-round nice chum; the last 15 minutes are melodramatic mush and deflate the overblown-but-still-quite-entertaining antics that went on before



MANGLEHORN (2014)
D   FIRST VIEWING
d: David Gordon Green
CAST: Al Pacino; Holly Hunter; Harmony Korine; Chris Messina
> remember the scene at the end of Carlito's Way, where Al is being wheeled through the hospital on a gurney as he mumbles end-of-life wisdom?...now imagine that being puffed up into a whole movie and you've got Manglehorn; a film about loneliness and getting-on-in-years, this rather clumsy oddity has little connection to the real world; Al is a locksmith who pines for a lost love but makes do with a cat, a bank teller and an estranged son; some weird choices in plot and structure have been made in this, with a few of the scenes seemingly from another movie altogether (wanna see a pimp get beaten up? wanna see the slow-mo aftermath of a three car pile-up? how about watching a cat get sliced open?); Al & Holly have their moments of course, but this old-guy character study just doesn't work at all...watch 2017's Lucky instead



Got something you want to tell me?
GO RIGHT AHEAD:  masted59@gmail.com