if it seems too good to be true: some films i've seen lately

Aside from The Sun Is Also A Star - which you should see - the best films listed below are the French ones (which S. and I watched in order to re-acclimatise to le French-speaking prior to a Parisian weekend break), particularly Lolo written by and starring by Julie Delpy. We did take one photo of a Lolo-style photo of "a view of the Eiffel Tower" from Montparnasse - i.e., barely a view of the Eiffel Tower - as well more conventionally touristic views of landmarks; we also photographed almost every artwork on the fifth floor of the Pompidou Centre (ways of seeing?) and visited Le Caveau de la Huchette jazz club. Nice!

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967, dir. Terence Fisher, starring Peter Cushing, Susan Denberg) - If it seems too good to be true, it probably is; don't go for a picnic in woodland with sexy Susan Denberg if you've a bad conscience.

(Trigger warnings: gender essentialism, outdated attitudes to disability, a trio of 'young blades' who resemble the Bullingdon Club and smash up restaurants in Old Tory style).

Harry, He’s Here To Help / With A Friend Like Harry / Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien (2000, dir. Dominik Moll, starring Stephane Freiss, Anouk Grinberg, Agathe Dronne) –  Pleasingly amoral allegory: everyman character kills & (symbolically) eats/ incorporates murderous friend/antagonist/ shadow, unlocks own creativity, becomes own father (see: existentialism), wins spousal respect, acquires air-conditioned 4x4.  

The Village (2004, dir. M Night Shyamalan, starring Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, Joaquin Phoenix) – This looks and feels a lot like his previous, ‘Signs’; loses by the comparison, though; feels underpowered; the ending (unfelt, unresolved) feels like a shrug, a retreat. 

Albert Camus (2010, dir. Laurent Jaoui, starring Stephane Freiss, Anouk Grinberg, Agathe Dronne) – Down these mean Algerian streets, a man must philosophise; then that wise-guy Sartre shows up, spills his guts about ‘Les Temps Modernes’ and some dame called Simone. 

The Woman In Black (2012, dir. James Watkins, screenplay by Jane Goldman from novel by Susan Hill; starring Daniel Radcliffe) – Couldn’t care sufficiently about glum, bereaved (insufficiently versatile) Daniel Radcliffe as protagonist; repeated shots of Victorian bric-a-brac (clockwork toys etc) felt de trop. Liked car/ quicksand business. 

Lolo (2015, dir. Julie Delpy, starring Julie Delpy, Dany Boon, Vincent Lacoste) – French writers are often wittier, more stylish about the sexual/ romantic marketplace (plus Oedipal and other family romances) than British/ American ones. Just observation, or cultural cringe? 

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018, dir. Susan Johnson, starring  Lana Condor, Noah Centineo, Janiel Parrish) - Y.A. romcom in which young lady’s letters designed not to be sent are sent, accidentally on purpose. A transparent plot-device; life, like art, is full of them. 

Wine Country (2019, dir. Amy Poehler, starring Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer) - Forty- and fifty-something friends celebrate a significant birthday in this ensemble drama which comfortably passes the Bechdel test and contains hints of joy, tenderness, regret, millennial-baiting. 

The Sun Is Also A Star (2019, dir. Ry Russo-Young, screenplay by Tracy Oliver from novel by Nicola Yoon; starring Yara Shahidi, Anais Lee, Charles Melton) – This witty, beautifully photographed romcom showcases NY as third character (and, incidentally, educated me about the Korean-American stake in U.S. black hair care). Self, daughter, mum enjoyed.

 

idea for a comedy sequel to ‘the time traveller’s wife’

Idea for a comedy sequel to The Time Traveller’s Wife, to be called The Time Traveller’s Toilet.

This film is about the man who, once he visits any toilet, may emerge from any other toilet across space and time – it could be a posh WC at the Dorchester Hotel during the roaring twenties, it could be a brick privy in the Gorbals during World War Two, it could even be a dunny in the Australian outback in the post-apocalyptic future. Of course, he tries to keep the door fractionally open and to make use of incontinence products in order to avoid this outcome, but sooner or later the inevitable occurs.

Alan Davies, quizzical but in a relatable way, to star – as this film must not, repeat must not, degenerate into slapstick. Also to feature Mikhail Gorbachev in a cameo role as himself, for gravitas.

twenty-seven words following the river of death downstream - and some other films i've watched recently

Cosh Boy; also known as The Slasher in USA (1953, dir.  Lewis Gilbert, starring James Kenney, Joan Collins; feat. Hermione Gingold as Queenie). Bomb damage; table tennis; youth crime; postwar masculinity crisis. You wonder at first whether charismatic anti-hero will win but actually – spoilers – the implied denouement is brutally old-school.

Village of the Damned (1960, dir. Wolf Rilla; starring George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Michael Gwynn, Laurence Naismith). Stoicism, pluck, mental reserve; when headteacher Mr K. summarised this for us in 1982, what was he thinking? Glad I finally caught up with his mid-life crisis.

Night Caller from Outer Space, also known as Blood Beast from Outer Space (1965, dir. John Gilling; starring John Saxon, Maurice Denham, Patricia Haines; feat. Warren Mitchell, Audley Morris). Not Britain’s best ‘interplanetary sex tourism’ movie – that’s Devil Girl From Mars - still, Audley ‘Wicker Man landlord’ Morris as creepy Soho shopkeeper’s superb; deserves own film.

The Chairman (1969, dir. J. Lee 'Guns of Navarone' Thompson, starring Gregory Peck, Anne Heywood; feat. Conrad Yama as Chairman Mao, Burt Kwouk as Chang Shou). British, American and Soviet deep states jointly consider but decide against assassinating Mao Tse-Tung using an explosive device implanted in Gregory Peck’s head... oh, surely you remember?

The Final Programme (1973, dir. Robert Fuest, adapted from Michael Moorcock's 'Jerry Cornelius' novel; starring Jon Finch, Jenny Runacre; hair by Leonard's of London). Studied amoralism does date, rather. Intermittently watchable (sadly Hawkwind-less) curiosity, referencing 2001, Alice in Wonderland, lifestyle supplements. If only they'd filmed (the equally unfilmable) 'An Alien Heat'.

*Watership Down (1978, dir. Martin Rosen; starring John Hurt, Richard Briers, Ralph Richardson, Denham Elliott, Zero Mostel). Comparative theology: trickster species-hero tussles with interventionist God (freedom and authenticity), or a captive, fatalistic theology/ poetics (sometimes ‘high culture’= not knowing where your food comes from)?

The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy (TV series, 2002- ; dir. William Cran, Greg Barker, from the 1998 book by Daniel Yergin, Joseph Stanislaw). Thatcher, Solidarnosc, Bolivian hyperinflation, USSR’s fall; details (Keynes, von Hayek share WWII air raid duty). Corporate sponsored; unashamedly neoliberal, this DVD box-set’s a historical artefact in itself.

Moana (2016, dir. Ron Clements, John Musker, Don Hall, Chris Williams; starring Auli'l Cravalho, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Rachel House). Plucky heroine (born to rule) pursues pantheistic quest narrative with hero’s journey detailing, only for Flight-of-Concords Jemaine to steal show with best Bowie pastiche since Velvet Goldmine. 

A Wrinkle in Time (2018, dir. Ava DuVernay, starring Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon). Daughter and I’ve both loved Madeleine L’Engle’s classic. This looks beautiful, great casting, a film we need maybe - but I was willing it to be better.

Ready Player One (2018, dir. Steven Spielberg, starring Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke,  Lena Waithe, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance). A sugar-rush of a film with a 1970s/ 1980s mix-tape soundtrack, blink-and-you’d-miss-it in-jokes and plenty to say about our virtual-reality-addicted near future. 

*Pub quiz fact: Art Garfunkel’s Bright Eyes, the song from Watership Down, was the UK no. 1 as Margaret Thatcher first took office as Prime Minister (4th May 1979); once you learn that, it becomes hard not to hear it as a kind of elegy for the postwar consensus. “A fog along the horizon, a strange glow in the sky-y…”

  

twenty-seven word review of my favourite 1960s b-movie which i watched for, perhaps, the fifth time, plus some other films i watched during november, december, january and february

X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (1963, dir. Roger Corman, starring Ray Milland, Diane Van der Vlis). This Kennedy-era thriller – creepy, hilarious, theremin-enriched – set, by turns, in clinic, fairground, Las Vegas, revival meeting is resonant for our own moment, which fetishes (also weaponises) ‘transparency’. 

Time Traveller’s Wife (2009, dir. Robert Schwentke, starring Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams).  He keeps vanishing from marital home, arriving naked elsewhere. She’s super-accepting about it. Genetic defect, yeah right. I dozed, sorry (busy week) – form of time-travel in itself. 

Equals (2015, dir. Drake Doremus, starring Nicholas Hoult, Kristen Stewart).  Well-realised, -acted, -designed emotion-phobic dystopia; this film dares to be quiet (minimal soundtrack). Equal but opposite ‘Jeremy Kyle World’ dystopia also possible (where emotional grandstanding is obligatory*).

Space Between Us (2017, dir. Peter Chelsom, starring Asa Butterfield, Britt Robertson). With this title, we shouldn’t get real-time Earth-Mars communication (where’s the average twelve-minute lightspeed delay? come on!); this passable, somewhat linear coming-of-age drama makes other unforced errors. 

I haven't watched many films during the last few months - granted, it's been Christmas, so I must've watched both Big (1988, dir. Penny Marshall, starring Tom Hanks) and Elf (2003, dir. Jon Favreau, starring Will Ferrell, Zooey Deschanel) at some point; also we saw The Greatest Showman (2017, dir. Michael Gracey) at the cinema on December 27th (twenty-seven word review: I mostly slept**, in a fortysomething dad style – not convinced I’d have gained a dramatically greater insight into P.T. Barnum’s life and times if I’d stayed awake... but, actually, this seems churlish; daughter loved the songs, knows them by heart, has them on repeat play. To be a parent is to be - as a wise person once said - no longer the picture, but the frame; likewise it's to be, if all is well, no longer the target demographic but the funding stream; on seeing the Greatest Showman again in May 2019, like life in reincarnation-based theologies it keeps on coming around, I felt I'd definitely been churlish, there's a lot to like: the songs, the spectacle, the expressionistic backdrops, the empathically pro-diversity messaging).

Mainly, instead of films as such, daughter and I have mostly watched Doctor Who; wife and I are mostly on box sets, also First Dates Hotel (those waiters/ waitresses are actually actors, though, did you know? gutted to find that out) and, don't tell me you haven't seen it, Say Yes To The Dress. 


*Are we nearly there yet?

**Second mention of sleeping through something. I could say, well, I work hard, I give; if something doesn't wholly engage my attention and I'm on a comfy sofa or in a darkened movie theater... or you could say, well, it just sounds a bit passive aggressive. Would one perspective be right and another wrong, or are they complementary, partial aspects of a totality (cf, light as wave/ particle)? Let's not even get started on transactional analysis and game-playing.

twenty-seven word reviews of films seen during august, september and october

The Raven (1935, dir. Louis Friedlander, aka Lew Landers, starring Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff) - If your consultant’s other specialisms include DIY and “the torture and murder devices of Edgar Allan Poe”, exercise patient choice. Do not attend said doctor’s house party.

Airplane! (1980, dir. David & Jerry Zucker, Jim Abraham, starring Robert Hays, Julie Hegarty, Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges) - No other PG-rated film (*really*, BBFC?) gets so many laughs from sex, abortion, glue-sniffing... Daughter commented, “seriously?” at one sexist gag; otherwise loved, esp. ‘shit hits fan’.

Blade Runner (1982, dir. Ridley Scott, starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, Sean Young) - “A hundred baby spiders…”; hard to imagine cyberpunk or postmodernity without the eggs, eyes, mothers, Cartesian doubt and memory movie that almost made William Gibson quit pre-Neuromancer.

Forrest Gump (1994, dir. Robert Zemeckis, starring Tom Hanks) - There’s an American route to success through single-mindedness, grit, family values, luck and being mildly learning-disabled. And that’s just about all I’ve got to say about that.

Tank Girl (1995, dir. Rachel Talalay, starring Lori Petty, Naomi Watts, Ice-T, Malcolm McDowell) -  Dystopia-causing cometary impact =off-the-shelf; grunge-era stylings =carefully hand-stitched in this film of the comic book. Vivienne Westwood costumes; Courtney Love-Cobain curates 1995 time-capsule soundtrack: Bjork, Ice-T, Hole, L7. 

Red Road (2006, dir. Andrea Arnold, starring Kate Dickie, Tony Curran, Martin Compston, Natalie Press) - Involving, edgy: CCTV operator, Glasgow, sees someone from her past on camera, becomes involved. Viewer as detective: what happened? Not what you first thought. Ending: redemptive (just). 

Happy Go Lucky. (2008, dir. Mike Leigh, starring Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan) - Abigail’s Party, High Hopes? Priceless. This? Liked swerve from expected rom-com narrative (he’s not just grumpy, he’s….); disliked annoying MPDG-ish protagonist, woefully under-researched social work portrayal. Pity.    

The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009, dir. Chris Weitz, writer: Melissa Rosenberg, starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner) - Build-up: dream sequences, great soundtrack, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as intertext, relatable sixthform problems. The undead, yeah? Can’t live with ‘em…  Denouement: ambiguous at plot junction. (Just me?).

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010, dir. David Slade, writer: Melissa Rosenberg, starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner) - Vampires 90% white, favour Scandi-style interiors; werewolves forest-dwelling Native Americans bikers. (No - really?). Something here for Freudians, Jungians, gestaltists, admirers of the well-developed male chest. Great trilogy.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part I (2011, dir. Bill Condon, writer: Melissa Rosenberg, starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner) - Jacob rips shirt off thirty seconds in – female-gaze in-joke, surely? (Never wear best stuff if werewolf). Uncomfortable watch (for this male): inward struggle referencing pregnancy, also (?)anorexia.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part II (2012, dir. Bill Condon, writer: Melissa Rosenberg, starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner : Interesting finale. Final battle only imagined = M.A.D. for telepaths and vampires. Have seen Twilight sequence on ‘worst movie of all time list’ - so not fair.

Best of Enemies (2015, dir. Robert Gordon & Morgan Neville, 'starring' Gore Vidal, William F. Buckley Jr) - Fascinating portrayal of American civil strife, world disorder during 1960s through lens of famously rancorous set-piece TV debates between two public intellectuals. Something feline about both men.

Had intended to see new Blade Runner movie last weekend; didn't; long story.

twenty-seven word reviews of films seen since April

The Way Ahead (1945, dir. Carol Reed, starring David Niven, Stanley Holloway, William Hartnell).   Romanticised but open-ended portrait of a range of conscripts – training, then into action: North Africa. Prompts reflections on, inter alia, stories that we told ourselves in 1945.

Passionate Friends (1949, dir. David Lean, starring Ann Todd, Trevor Howard). Less of a chamber piece than Brief Encounter (longer time-frames; Switzerland); same emotional acuity and restraint (WW2 represented as a cold wind through an open window); spell-binding.

Robocop (1987, dir. Paul Verhoeven). Hadn’t seen; overdue. Enjoyed; popcorn movie; special effects still credible; satire broad but sharp (war risks; corporate ethics; privatisation; identity vs machine). Also, Leland Palmer’s in it. 

Factotum (2005, dir. Bent Hamer, starring Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor). Bar-dwelling old-timer to hard-drinking protagonist: “I’ve probably been asleep for longer than you’ve been alive.” Watchable, funny, necessarily downbeat biopic of writer, drunk, occasional misogynist Charles Bukowski.

Twilight (2008, dir. Catherine Hardwicke, starring  Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson). Bella: How old are you? Edward: Seventeen. Bella: How long have you been seventeen? Edward: A while. Daughter understands she shouldn’t date vampires in high school. Fun.

Potiche (2010, dir. Francois Ozon, starring  Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu). Brightly-coloured movie starring Depardieu and Deneuve in a sitcom-like plot involving an umbrella factory, la guerre des sexes, strike action, and disco. What more do you need?

Hunger Games (2012, dir. Gary Ross, starring Jennifer Lawrence). Wife and daughter both into the Hunger Games series. Meant to be the dystopia de nos jours, but I dozed partly; didn’t connect; unthrilled. Is that terrible?

London: The Modern Babylon (2012, dir. Julien Temple). Interesting, unexpected about, e.g. Battle of Cable Street but some sections glib, overfamiliar, music choices disrespectful (e.g. Fall’s Leave the Capitol vs WW2 evacuees). Not his best.

Saving Mr Banks (2013, dir. John Lee Hancock, starring Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks). Platonic romcom (film rights =consummation); Travers (‘Mary Poppins’ author), Disney as protagonists. Nice, bright-looking film, uninvolving though. Just say no, Mrs T; Julie Andrews’ll still get work.

twenty-seven word reviews of films watched during March 2017

House of Mirth (2000; dir. Terence Davies; starring Gillian Anderson)  - original novel’s probably good; film felt like a somewhat routine costume drama, though; S. dozed; I kept forgetting who, whom; starts Austen-esque but ends up about drugs.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2011, dir. Edgar Wright) – witty, hyperactive, glorious mess;  references superhero comics, martial arts gaming, garage/ grunge music. I too became tough at vegan academy; dropped out though, completed pescaterian technical college.

The Hundred Foot Journey (2014, dir. Lasse Hallstrom; starring Helen Mirren, Om Puri) –  rival restaurants; French countryside; pro-diversity message;  you’ll see this film’s denouement coming from a hundred miles away; good, heartwarming fun though. Who doesn’t enjoy watching food, TBH?

Still the Enemy Within (2014, dir. Owen Gower) – documentary: how the 1984-5 U.K. miners’ strike was fought and policed; inspiring and moving; also discusses how ‘supportive others’ were mobilised – students, musicians, LGBT activists (seen ‘Pride’?).  

The Student and Mr Henri (L’etudiante et M. Henri) (2015, dir. Ivan Calberac) –  charming, genuinely funny; the kind of intelligent, interestingly morally ambiguous, romantic comedy about grown-up people that you have to be French in order to make (it seems)

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years (2016; dir. Ron Howard) – film about the Beatles live (Hamburg, Cavern Club, Shea Stadium), because whatever the hell happened between ‘Love Me Do’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ happened on tour; essential.

'Still the Enemy Within' and 'Scott Pilgrim' were the joint winners. 'The Student and Mr Henri' came third. 'House of Mirth' came last. It was several dozen times better than the worst film I've ever seen.