Tag Archives: 3.5/5

Star Wars 2: Attack of the Clones 3.5/5

Attack of the Clones

Well, I think whenever Annakin is on screen in dramatic parts, it feels quite poor and drags by his mopey teenager persona, but there were two dramatic scenes I thought were decent. The first, the death-scene of Shmi Skywalker, was actually very good, and the second, where Annakin reveals what he did to the Sand People to Padme, was reasonable. The action parts are mostly fine as long as Annakin isn’t speaking.

On the other hand, I very much enjoyed the scenes where McGregor was present and not encumbered by the presence of Annie, as well as any scenes with Yoda, Mace Windu and Count Dooku. Particularly enjoyable parts were the fight between Obi-Wan and Django Fett, and the whole last act in fact (especially the fantastic fight between Dooku and Yoda).

Also good was Jar Jar was in this one much less than I remembered, thankfully.

I think, and I need to rewatch Revenge of the Sith to be sure, this is my favourite among the main prequel movies.

Stone Cold 3.5/5

Stone Cold

Whilst Brian Bosworth has all the acting ability of a tree stump, the charm of this movie is generated by 3 things; the grandiose scene-chewing of Lance Henriksen, delivering lines like ‘This reminds me of my father’s last words: “Don’t son, that gun is loaded!” ‘ and doing a world-class evil laugh; a raging William Forsythe who acts like a cross between a coke-up Harvey Keitel and a grumpy bulldog who has been forced to sleep on a bed of Lego; and the rather fine action set pieces. It’s all 80s through-and-through, which is a shame because it was made in 91, and hitting the tail-end of that particular action era.

Baggy in places, but starts well (with a game of chicken where guys shoot beercans off each other’s heads which quickly escalates to using uzis), and ends really, really well. How the hell did they get permission to do all that mayhem in a great building like that?

The Killer 3.5/5

The Killer

Parts of this film have not aged well. The parts that have aged well are the insanely great action pieces – if there’s gunfire, you’re gold. To some degree if there’s doves, churches, candles, hospitals, or fast cars, you’re also gold. It’s the rest of it that is distinctly shaky. While some of the more thoughtful scenes look and sound great (reminiscent of Sergio Leone and Ennio Moricone), other’s have bad dialogue, endless emo grimacing, and quite terrible synth music.

So it’s 80s, and parts haven’t aged well. But the action stuff and the cool of Jeff (this film is channelling Le Samourai, right?) allows you to forgive the more creaky parts of it.

Also, did the villain have a major share in a white sweatsuit business? Because all the cannon-fodder henchmen looked like that’s were they got their outfits…

Fermat’s Room 3.5/5

Fermat's Room

Nicely made film that looks great, and solid script and performances. The central conceit intrigues right up until you find out exactly who is responsible, and the revelation doesn’t live up to the original promise, and as you think it through, the logical flaws start to be bothersome. In some respects, it’s a slicker version of 1997’s Cube, but that movie at least had the balls to not explain itself – and the explanation here makes the film weaker by explaining the mystery. Still, great first and second acts.

Jason X

Jason X

Okay, we’re now on the 10th Friday the 13th movie, and this alone should alert you you’re heading for a barrel of crap. If so, your film radar is suitably developed, but switch that beeping screen off. It’s misleading you. And don’t expect a full-horror fare – this is comedy/action with the horror being a simple springboard. This is to the Friday 13th Series what ‘Army of darkness’ is to the Evil Dead series.

What Jason X is is a fun, dumb film that has just enough wit, action and snippets of cool dialogue and self-reference to make it a tip-top popcorn movie. And believe it or not, no less than David Cronenberg apparently liked the script and premise enough to do a cameo. Good times!

So I think this is actually non-canon and doesn’t really follow on from number 9, and is set in the future, where a deep-frozen Jason is recovered from the now-uninhabitable Earth, but then circumstances and lack of attention allow the big guy to thaw out.

Okay, Jason comes back to life on a space ship, that happens to be carrying space-Special-Forces guys, a group of college kids, and a very cute lady robot.

After some fun dispatching the grunts in various amusing and ‘ouch!’ ways, it’s time for Jason to do that hoodoo he does so well. Along the way, he does his usual machete thing (of course), has a face-off with the ladybot who gets suitable software updates to turn her into a terminatrix (played by a lady that reminds me a lot of Karen Black), and he appears to be dead. But… he is rendered lifeless in the medic lab, where the nanobots used to repair damaged tissues have escaped, and the little fellows find their way into Jason, giving us… BIONIC JASON!

There’s lots of funnies that are even funnier if you know anything about the Friday 13th series, but you don’t really need this background to enjoy – it’s still pretty good without this. The most amusing is, when the few survivors need to distract Jason for a short time during escape, they create a holodeck around him of Camp Crystal with 2 hotties in sleeping blankets who say stuff like ‘we just love premarital sex!’ – suitably enraging the big lug while escape is attempted.

This is way, way better than it has any right to be.

Hound of the Baskervilles 1959 3.5/5

Hound of the Baskervilles

Fine Hammer take on Sherlock Holmes from Peter Cushing. Christopher Lee is also present and rather good as Sir Henry Baskerville, and I liked that the Watson in this was rather capable and less of a bumbling audience-substitute who only serves to listen and admire Holmes. This is Hammer of course, so we get the bombastic school and more blood and violence than more conventional versions, but it’s good fun. Cushing was a great Holmes, it’s a shame he didn’t play Holmes again for Hammer.

Mighty Joe Young 3.5/5

Mighty Joe Young

I really expected this to be a rerun of King Kong, and for the first 2/3rd it mostly was, but it then wildly diverged into unexpected territory of a chase, followed by rescue that was genuinely exciting. The male lead was one of the worst actors I’ve ever seen, but the rest of the cast was solid. Pretty decent.

X The Unknown 3.5/5

X The Unknown

Rather fine 50s scifi that is very Quatermassy (it was intended to be a sequel to the original Quatermass movie, but Hammer couldn’t get the rights), and rather good. It has a creature reminiscent of The Blob, and the effects in this film are better than The Blob, actually. Dean Jagger does a really good job as the American scientist in Scotland – good character actor. Very enjoyable scifi from Hammer before they concentrated so much on horror.

Mark discussing Quatermass on the Talk Without Rhythm Podcast

The Haunted Palace 3.5/5

The Haunted Palace

Rather fine, and I think a little forgotten, Roger Corman movie with Vincent Price. The film looks really crisp and lush, and Corman knew how to stretch the dollars to keep the film looking classy, but kept it cheap by running the smoke machines for every single exterior shot. Price isn’t too hammy here, and gives a fine performance. What is funny is that Corman is trying to sell this as being an Edgar Allen Poe-based movie when it’s clearly an H.P.Lovecraft story. There’s mentions of the elder gods, Yog-Sothoth, and some very fine imagery going on here, with a story of a wizard burned for mating young girls with beasts from the other dimensions, cursing the whole village to horrible mutations, and then resurrected into his own ancestor. Enjoyable shennanegins.

Paperhouse 3.5/5

Paperhouse

This is a weird and subtle British horror movie that is really about a child’s dreams. The acting is generally quite poor from the children (who are essentially the leads), but it static quality actually works fine in this movie, whose qualities come out really in the visuals and sound design, especially (but not entirely restricted to) in the dream sequences. More subtle and Lynchian than, say, Freddy Krueger in its exploration of dreams. Recommended.

Saturday Night Fever 3.5/5

Saturday Night Fever

Travolta is absolutely terrific in this, giving the reasonably complex script his all by an excellent portrayal of a conflicted, trapped, working class young guy. He’s helped by the pounding soundtrack, especially the BeeGees tracks, which add several points of cool to his already deep-freeze cool presence. There’s some great scenes with him, and he’s like liquid gold on the dance floor.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie doesn’t live up to it, except the scenes of his home-life. His friends are shallow and one-dimensional, with the only interesting one being a girl that is smitten with him, but who he doesn’t feel much of anything for. The main female lead, Stephanie, is poorly acted with a grating, unsympathetic manner, and you get a kind of overload of self-inflicted tragedy very near to the end, saved somewhat by the subtle, downbeat ending.

Tony Manero is a great screen character, with great moves and presence, but unfortunately he dwarves almost everything except his home life and the soundtrack.

I definitely recommend this to see once at least, as it has useful and resonant things to say about working-class aspirations and escapes, and about growing out of your surroundings, but be prepared for a slog in the second half.

TV: PSYCHOVILLE – Very very dark comedy with horror elements 6.5/10

PSYCHOVILLE

Season 1, Halloween Special, Season 2

Spawned from half the team that brought the world ‘The League of Gentlemen’, Psychoville occupies a similarly-dark universe to the village of that show. Indeed, ‘Psychoville’ is named after the Japanese title of The League of Gentlemen.  It’s a series written by and starring Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, each playing several different characters in this weird and sometimes wonderful show.

Season 1 occupies itself with a group of seemingly disparate characters whose stories slowly draw together as the series climaxes. There is a weird mass-murder-obsessed mother and son (the Sowerbutts); a troubled dwarf; a midwife who cares for a toy baby like it’s real; a blind millionaire dealer in toys who has dark secrets; and my favourite, a bitter and twisted one-handed clown called Mr Jelly who is vexed by a competitor called Mr Jolly.

Season 1 trundles along at a good pace, leading to the story of a shared, dark history of these characters.  It starts with each getting a note saying “I know what you did.”  It is very, very darkly funny and odd, and culminates in a semi-satisfying conclusion, and recommended to all people who like their comedy both weird and dark.  If you liked the darker elements of Twin Peaks, say, you may like this.

The Halloween special is, to my mind, the best of this show.  It takes the form of a set of short stories joined by a bigger strand, and these stories are classic horror tales – mysterious children; killer on the loose on a dark night; and a tale about transplanted eyes seeing more than they should.  It also serves as a decent bridge between seasons 1 and 2.

Season 2 is slightly different.  In this one, the main characters in the first start to get bumped off.  There are new characters (one of them – a librarian – sees a weird dancing figure that is very reminiscent of the dancing dwarf in Twin Peaks), and the story is about a mysterious necklace,  It’s a little baggier than the first series (there’s one major storyline involving a TV makeup woman called Hattie that adds virtually nothing to the main story – but it’s amusing nonetheless).

This is clearly a series for adults, and I’d say the best laughs come from Mr Jelly and the inappropriate behaviour and phrases of mother-and-son, the Sowerbutts.

Recommended.

OVERALL: 6.5
REWATCHABILITY: Once or twice every 5 yearas. Suitable for adults only.

 

Movie: 28 Days Later – Fast zombies, excellent first half, not great second half 6.5/10

28 Days Later

The whole premise of this film can be summed up in two words: Running Zombies. That’s not to denigrate this cool B-movie with A-movie ambitions, but that’s what it is. And it’s a great premise, even if similar films like the remade Dawn of the Dead have watered it down some by repetition.

This movie is set in England, where a group of animal rights’ activists unwittingly unleash a ‘Rage’ virus that decimates the whole country, leaving anyone who gets it as ‘The Infected’. The Infected are very angry, bloodthirsty ‘zombies’, by any other name.

The hero of this movie, played nicely by Cillian Murphy, has been in an accident, and wakes up 28 days later, finding the place deserted. And when I say place, I don’t mean some little-out-of-the-way hospital, I mean London. He wanders empty London streets in daylight, passing overturned buses, trying to make sense of it.

Finally he encounters other people and these running, raging zombies, and starts to understand what has happened. The survivors show him – graphically – how you have to be ruthless against anyone who might be infected without mercy if you yourself are to survive. More survivors are encountered, and finally they find themselves going northwards, following a faint radio broadcast.

They encounter, after losses, an army unit holed up against the Infected. But things aren’t quite as you’d expect…

I won’t say any more, but this is a film of two halves. The first half is absolutely terrific, and if you’d only seen that, you’d be not far wrong thinking it was one of the best horror movies ever. First, you get our hero wandering an empty London. This is completely startling (especially to someone like me, from London), as is the first contact with the ‘Infected’. These are scary monsters. The old-school shambling zombies are creepy and tend to build tension (you only die if you get complacent or careless with those guys), but these running zombies are terrifying, with no easy way to stop them, knowing one bit of contact with them might turn you the same…

Finally, the survivors decide to move on, following a broadcast radio message, and travel through London to get to the northbound motorway, and hit the quiet country and roads, and there’s a sense of both peace and dread. Finally they hit a roadblock, and meet an army troupe.

This marks the end of the first, great half of the movie. There are lots of distinct and clear homages/echoes of other apocalyptic and zombie movies. Day of the Triffids, The original Romero Zombie films (especially Dawn of the Dead in the first half), The Omega Man, The Last Warrior, The Quiet Earth, as well as the Richard Matheson’s book ‘I am Legend’. It’s startling, scary and engrossing, and shows some of the pain and fear, as well of the humanity and sacrifice of humanity, of the survivors in a satisfying and engrossing way.

In the second half, when the soldiers are encountered, the film, which to me had tremendous potential to go anyway it chose at this point, seemed to close itself down. The soldiers were mostly stupid and unsympathetic (though the only good new thing about the second half is the watchable Chrisopher Eccleston as the commanding officer), and the whole plot was similar, but significantly inferior to, Romero’s ‘Day of the Dead’; bickering soldiers and civilians trying to understand what to do, and not knowing what’s left of the world and whether they will be rescued.

While it continues at a steady pace, and resolves reasonably well, the film is unsatisfying for the disparity between the fantastic first half and the formulaic second half. Overall though, it’s a solid horror movie that’ll scare and entertain. And really deserves to be seen because of the brilliant and near-hypnotic-in-places first half.

And great music!

This movie is not for the faint-hearted though.

OVERALL: 6.5
REWATCHABILITY: Once or twice a year. Suitable for older teens up.

Movie: The Battle of Algiers – Tense docu-style movie that remains contemporary 7/10

The Battle of Algiers

This is a film made in 1965 about the late 1950’s uprising in French-run Algeria. It has a soundtrack by Morricone, and is filmed in an interesting and gripping documentary style, in order to try and stress the realism of the events portrayed. It’s an even-handed film, showing evil acts perpetrated by both sides during the struggle, and I was quite surprised to find out that it was actually commissioned by the Algerian government. It doesn’t seem particularly biased (or as unbiased as such film can be).

There’s no flinching here from the acts committed. We are shown children and civilians being carried from collapsed buildings after some French action, and emotive, welling music rises (‘hm’, I thought, ‘so it’s gonna be anti-French’), but later similar footage is shown of the aftermath of a bombing of innocent civilians in a cafe, and a similar montage and the same music is used. More bombings – at a race course for example – presenting the approach of the Algerian Liberation Front (FLN) are shown, but again, this is balanced by unflinching footage of the torture of arab suspects by the French – electrocution, drowning, hanging in awkward positions, beating…

There’s more scary stuff here. The ease with which the women change from traditional covering clothing to Western-style clothes and make-up to get through checkpoints with bombs, the hiding of guns in the robes which are quickly pulled and used to shoot policemen going about their jobs (at the start of the agitation), and how the fighters assume (correctly!) that other arabs will willingly help them. Other striking scenes include how one of the fighters is going to be blown out of his hiding place and the French offer to allow a boy to come out – but the man keeps the boy with him. Another is the FLN (early on, before the struggle is really underway) declare they will clear the Kasbah of drink and drugs and prostitution, and a gang of small boys start taunting an old drunk. He staggers up a wide stairway, but the boys whistle and call other boys, until there’s a mass of them, pulling the drunk about, and then dragging/forcing him down the stairs on his back…

There’s a lot to be said for watching this film. I can’t recall any movie quite like it, and it is a cliche, I know, to say it’s never been more relevant. But it’s a true cliche.

It’s tense, it’s gripping, it’s thought-provoking.

This film is in French and Algerian/Arabic.

OVERALL: 7/10
REWATCHABILITY: Once a year. Suitable for middle teens up. Quite grim and bloody, but it is in black and white.

Movie: This Gun for Hire: Tight film noir that is the prototype for all solitary movie assassins 7/10

This Gun for Hire (1942)

Containing Alan Ladd’s first starring role as a stone-cold killer, this is an excellent, though twisty (and rather contrived) plotted piece apparently based on a story by Graham Greene. Ladd is magnificent here as Raven, and I think the first instance of the solitary assassin movie archetype that we see in assorted movies, such as Le Samourai (whose main character Jeff probably saw this movie way too many times), through to Jean Reno’s Leon in The Professional.

Veronica Lake also stars and is rather fine in this movie as a singing magician (yep, that’s right) wo gets involved in this plot about revenge, stolen formulas, traitors and trains.
A classic noir in all senses – the brooding characters, the beautiful women, and the tough dialogue all add up to make this an excellent way to pass 80 minutes.

Overall: 7/10
Rewatchability: Yearly
Age suitability: Early teens or even mature 10 year olds + upwards.

Movie: Arthur (1981) A good comedy with an excellent first and third act 3.5/5

ARTHUR (1981)

Arthur is a cool little romantic comedy about a playboy gagillionaire that is being shoved down a path of marrying a girl he really doesn’t love (Susan), and being forced to shape up into someone respectable to please his family and future in-laws.

The lead is played by Dudley Moore, in his best movie role. The role does seem to be written for a younger man, but Moore is charming and likeable, and makes it easy to overlook this (and the fact he’s English among a family of Americans). Rather than being a spoilt, obnoxious playboy, he’s a spoilt, likeable, but rather sad playboy.

The first section, where Moore plays a happy drunk, is fantastically funny, but it soon settles into a reasonable romantic comedy, where he starts to fall in love with an average working class girl, played very nicely by Liza Minelli. However, as usual, the course of true love doesn’t run smooth, and Arthur is given an ultimatum…marry the girl he should, or possibly lose access to all his money – an awful lot of money…

As I said, Moore is great here, as is Minelli and the guy playing her character’s father (who, when his daughter rejects Arthur, weeps like he’s the one with the broken heart). Even funnier is John Gielgud, playing Hobson, Arthur’s butler, best friend and, in effect, guardian. Hobson is a truly great comic creation. No one can do condescending and sarcastic like a posh Englishman.

The film cracks along at a good pace, and is definitely the funniest at the beginning and whenever Arthur has a good drink, and it’s a pretty cool ending. The theme song ‘Moon and New York City’, was a huge hit at the time, and is okay.

OVERALL: 7/10
Rewatchability: Very rewatchable, at least yearly.
Age suitability: Middle teens upwards.

Alice, Sweet Alice – Interesting American Giallo with plenty of atmosphere and weirdness 7/10

Alice, Sweet Alice  aka Communion

An interesting little thriller that plays like an Italian Giallo, but is set and made in America.  Got famous for the brief presence of Brooke Shields at a young age (and she never acted better than in this), but I find many of the actors interesting – particularly the girl under suspicion for murdering her sister and others – played by Paula Sheppard very effectively.

The movie borrows from a few sources among Giallo, and is also strongly reminiscent of Don’t Look Now, but it also seems to be an inspiration for later movies.  The music and the use of the music, for example, seems a direct precursor to the music and its usage in Halloween, coming 2 years after this.

The director shows flair, with a good build up of tension both in plotting and his use of shots and music, but also in the use of some very strange characters (like the grossly overweight, effeminate landlord who seems morbidly interested in the young girls who live in his apartments, and seems to eat the catfood he feeds to his kittens).  He also uses in-plot music to add to the weirdness (watch out for ‘three little fishies in an itty-bitty pool’).

Overall, recommended and worth seeing.