2022 - January
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) 4/4
The Heartbreak Kid (1972) 4/4
Jar City (2006) 4/4
Out of Order (1984) 3.5/4
What's Up, Doc? (1972) 3.5/4
Heaven Can Wait (1978) 3.5/4
Monsieur Hire (1989) 3.5/4
Scream (1996) 3.5/4
A New Leaf (1971) 3.5/4
Train to Busan (2016) 3.5/4
Scream 2 (1997) 3/4
Mikey and Nicky (1976) 3/4
Ishtar (1987) 3/4
Perfect Strangers (2016) 3/4
Scream 4 (2011) 2.5/4
The Curve (1998) 2.5/4
Bad Manners (1997) 2.5/4
Above Suspicion (1995) 2.5/4
Scream (2022) 2.5/4
The Lesser Evil (1998) 2.5/4
Below (2002) 2/4
Scream 3 (2000) 2/4
Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) 2/4
Cut Off (2018) 1/4
The Heartbreak Kid (1972) 4/4
Jar City (2006) 4/4
Out of Order (1984) 3.5/4
What's Up, Doc? (1972) 3.5/4
Heaven Can Wait (1978) 3.5/4
Monsieur Hire (1989) 3.5/4
Scream (1996) 3.5/4
A New Leaf (1971) 3.5/4
Train to Busan (2016) 3.5/4
Scream 2 (1997) 3/4
Mikey and Nicky (1976) 3/4
Ishtar (1987) 3/4
Perfect Strangers (2016) 3/4
Scream 4 (2011) 2.5/4
The Curve (1998) 2.5/4
Bad Manners (1997) 2.5/4
Above Suspicion (1995) 2.5/4
Scream (2022) 2.5/4
The Lesser Evil (1998) 2.5/4
Below (2002) 2/4
Scream 3 (2000) 2/4
Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) 2/4
Cut Off (2018) 1/4
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- DirectorYeon Sang-hoStarsGong YooJung Yu-miMa Dong-seokWhile a zombie virus breaks out in South Korea, passengers struggle to survive on the train from Seoul to Busan.01-01-2022
Bad zombie movies focus on rapid-fire action set-pieces and jump scares. Good zombie movies focus on the characters caught up in the apocalypse. Their interpersonal conflicts, emotional responses and survival instinct. Great zombie movies, however, combine the two into a seamless blend of bloody, gory fun and tear-jerking drama. "Train to Busan" is one such movie. In fact, it is the finest zombie movie since "28 Days Later" and overall one of the best representatives of the genre not directed by George A. Romero.
It falls under the "running zombies" category, a more threatening if less jump-scare prone cousin to the more famous staggering, stumbling zombie. I love the way the zombies in this film move. The contorting, bone-breaking body jerks they use to lunge towards their victims. It is such a simple, yet terrifying effect. But more than anything else, I love the way writer/director Sang-ho Yeon treats his characters.
Pretty much every character in the movie with more than one line of dialogue gets a defining characteristic. Even if it's a brief, almost imperceptible character beat it counts for a lot once the zombie outbreak happens. Look at the short, seemingly throwaway scene in which the chief conductor fixes the hostesses crooked scarf. You barely register it at first, but when she becomes the first person to get mauled in the film you already have some sort of connection to the character. You remember her. You know who she is and what her job on the train is.
The major characters, of course, are far more fleshed out and are constantly brought into conflict with each other which they have to get over in order to work together against the zombies. This is Screenwriting 101, of course, and it is a sad state of affairs when such basic elements count for qualities, but it does seem that most horror writers these days skipped that particular class.
The characters are, it's true, archetypal but Yeon and his all-around excellent cast manage to flesh them out into believable and (more importantly) recognisable characters. For instance, the nominal lead (Gong Yoo) is a workaholic hedge fund manager who is taking his little daughter (Su-an Kim) to stay with his ex-wife as he has no time for her. Archetype indeed, but I was impressed by the way Yeon has the father deal with the crisis. He calls up his contacts in the army and tries to get him and his daughter special treatment once the rescuers arrive.
On the other side of the economic border, we get a working-class man (Ma Dong-seok) and his pregnant wife (Yu-mi Jung). Again archetypes, especially in horror movies, but it is a wonderful touch to have the man show more anger towards the father than the zombies. "Hedge fund manager? So he's the real bloodsucker."
A running thread throughout the movie is the question of whether the people trapped in the train by the zombies should fight to save their fellow survivors or only care for themselves. Unusually, Yeon has his lead advocate for the latter choice, at least at first. His conviction slowly wavers through the film and the change is handled subtly and convincingly. Another man on the train, a seemingly suave businessman (Eui-sung Kim) is more firm in his convictions. Using his position as the railway line CEO, he takes command of the train and sections off the safe part for himself. I won't reveal how this situation is eventually resolved, but the final confrontation between the father and the businessman is one of the most eerily terrifying finales in any zombie movie.
There are plenty of wonderfully written, character-driven scenes in "Train to Busan". So many, in fact, I couldn't even hope to commend them all. The biggest quality of this film is that it is deep down a humane movie. It is not a film about the zombies or the carnage, it is a film about the way humanity shows itself (or doesn't) in a time of crisis.
But don't worry, there's more than enough action in this film to satisfy even the most bloodthirsty viewer. Set in an unusual and effectively used location, a train, there are numerous thrilling set-pieces in which the survivors have to use their surroundings in clever ways to defeat the zombie threat. Yeon does cheat a little bit by giving his zombies some quite convenient handicaps, but I was impressed by the inventive problem-solving the characters employ in the movie.
I was also impressed by the only major set-piece outside the train. The survivors reach a station on the way to Busan and disembark thinking they've found a safe haven. They get on an escalator at the bottom of which waits a whole platoon of soldiers. In one epic shot, the platoon of soldiers is revealed to be a zombie army and the mayhem begins anew.
Sang-ho Yeon has previously directed several animated films and the experience shows in the way he is able to impeccably orchestrate both kinetic, exciting action scenes and quiet dramatic moments within them. Once it gets going, "Train to Busan" never stops but Yeon infuses each and every action scene with several key character moments so that whenever one of the characters dies I cared. There is not a single major death in this film that didn't provoke an emotional reaction from me and that is quite a feat.
A great deal of credit for this goes to the excellent cast. There are far too many memorable performances to name them all here but I will give special credit to Gong Yoo for the way he turns an unlikeable character into the film's unlikely hero and Eui-sung Kim for a chillingly cold and terrifyingly humane performance that hammers home the old adage that "man is zombie to man".
There are few zombie films that are as good as "Train to Busan". True, it doesn't have the barbed social critique of "Dawn of the Dead" or the gritty brutality of "28 Days Later", but within its many inventive but recognisable action scenes there beats a human heart. The final scene of the film proves this superbly. Without spoiling it, suffice to say that after 110 minutes of almost non-stop action, the film ends with a little girl singing to chase away her fears. It is a deservedly heart-wrenching stop to what has already been an emotional and hugely entertaining ride.
3.5/4 - DirectorDavid TwohyStarsBruce GreenwoodDavid CrowMatthew DavisStrange happenings occur on a WW II submarine.01-01-2022
Submarines are such a good setting for horror movies that I'm surprised they've not been used as such before "Below". Cramped tin cans trapping a group of nervous and claustrophobic men under the ocean. Coupled with the howling of the water, the banging on the hull, and the unnerving beepings of the sonar, everything seems to be tailor-made for an eery, atmospheric horror movie. A ghost story does seem an obvious choice. The submarine is too small for a slasher movie and the crew too few for a zombie apocalypse although I'd love to see someone try.
"Below" is indeed a ghost story though it doesn't begin as one. The time is 1943 and the place is the Atlantic Ocean. A US submarine commanded by Lieutenant Brice (Bruce Greenwood) is out on patrol shadowing a German warship. On the way, they pick up three British castaways, survivors from a shipwreck. One of them is nurse Claire Paige (Olivia Williams), a piece of news that quickly echoes throughout the sub. The men are nervous. This is ostensibly because a woman on the boat is bad luck, but probably because they've been staring at nothing but pin-ups for weeks.
Perhaps they do have something to be nervous about though. A series of unusual occurrences such as an inopportune gramophone going off revealing their position to the ship they're hunting, make them suspicious that one of the Brits is a saboteur. However, Claire has suspicions of her own. For one, what happened to the sub's original commander Captain Winters (Nick Hobbs)? Where is the submarine responsible for the sinking of the British ship? And why is Brice so evasive in providing the answers?
Soon enough, the crew begin hearing strange voices and Morse code-like bangs on the hull. Then they start dying one by one. Are mechanical failures to blame? Are these hallucinations caused by hydrogen? Or has the ghost of Captain Winters come back for revenge?
There are a lot of questions in "Below" and credit where credit's due the film does provide answers. The screenplay by Darren Aronofsky and Lucas Sussman provides a good basis for a neat little supernatural thriller. It's all hoaky stuff, of course, and shockingly predictable but there's a charm and efficiency to it comparable to 1940s B-movies. Furthermore, director David Twohy proves himself capable of staging both action scenes and horror scenes with the same capacity for tension and suspense.
So why exactly does "Below" not work as well as it should? Well, I suggest that the problem resides in navigation. Throughout the film, I had a feeling that Twohy could never make his mind up as to which course to steer the film towards. The goofy story would suggest a knowing B-movie, the kind that winks at its audience as it indulges in its various cliches and twists but Twohy's film is too dour and serious for that. The war scenes, especially, are played without a hint of levity almost going for the intensity of "Das Boot". The script's more outlandish moments, however, don't gel at all well with such a po-faced background. The submarine crew, for instance, are drawn so crudely that they verge on grotesque. The performances are overstated and forcefully humorous although it seems that the movie's atmosphere is so bleak that there's no humour to be found.
Poor CGI effects don't help either, especially once the ghosts start showing up. There's a neat scene in which a group of submariners swim outside the boat to fix a leak. The atmosphere of claustrophobia and oceanic darkness is well accomplished as is the men's paranoia. Then one of them sees a flash of a ghost. Although the actor reacts with all earnestness, the moment is laughable because the CGI ghost is so poorly rendered that it resembles a cut-scene from a PS1 video game. The poor effects ruin some of the otherwise quite effective action scenes as well as the models of the submarine and the other ships are sorely lacking in detail. These are the kinds of effects you'll encounter if you rewatch late 90s TV shows which "Below" frequently resembles with its overlit cinematography.
"Below" could have been a fascinating movie had it only decided what kind of a movie it wanted to be. Is it going for a B-movie vibe? Is it a serious psychological study of men's psyche under extreme pressure? Is it a grotesque comedy about a group of randy seamen debating comic books underwater? I don't know and neither does the film's director it seems. This wild swinging between tones is whiplash-inducing especially as none of them seems to fit the outlandish story being told. Coupled with some over-the-top performances and unconvincing visual effects, the terror quickly dissipates and turns into disappointment.
2/4 - DirectorPeter BogdanovichStarsBarbra StreisandRyan O'NealMadeline KahnThe accidental mix-up of four identical plaid overnight bags leads to a series of increasingly wild and wacky situations.02-01-2022
Before Quentin Tarantino usurped his position, there seemed to be no greater film fan in Hollywood than Peter Bogdanovich. And be it through his treasure trove books, TV interviews, or through his referential, homage-heavy movies, he delighted in reminding us of the fact. "What's Up, Doc?" is a hell of a reminder. A very personal love letter to screwball comedies of the 1930s (mainly the ones by Howard Hawks). It recycles all the elements of those movies. There's the one-sided courtship, the lightning-fast dialogue, the pratfalls, the jacket tears, the farcical misunderstandings and the happy endings. Thankfully, like Tarantino, Bogdanovich is a master of makings sparkling new films out of old materials and "What's Up, Doc?" is no exception.
The plot is far too complicated to summarise and therein lies the joke. It is, after all, less of a coherent narrative and more an excuse to congregate thieves, spies, musicologists, arrogant critics, bumbling professors, ditzy blondes, sexy hustlers, and a Chinese dragon into a single 90-minute movie. To achieve this, Bogdanovich uses the familiar narrative device of four identical bags. One contains rare archaeological finds, one contains top-secret government documents, one contains priceless jewels, and one contains underwear. The device works and we never question the logic of the numerous mix-ups, confusions, and twists because the film moves at such a breakneck pace.
At the centre of all this insanity is the absent-minded musicologist Howard Bannister (Ryan O'Neal) staying in a San Francisco hotel with his overbearing fiance Eunice (Madeline Kahn). He is the owner of the rocks. Besides unwittingly foiling the plans of two sets of bumbling thieves (ones after the documents and ones after the jewels) he also finds himself the target of a charming young hustler by the name of Judy (Barbra Streisand). Quite what she sees in him we never find out but she's not letting him go.
The set of most of the action is a long hotel corridor with six identical doors. As is customary in a farce, these doors will be repeatedly slammed throughout the film as the characters hide from each other behind them. There are nude women in closets, thieves on window ledges, and spies under the bed.
We've seen it all before, of course, but once in a blue moon when a farce actually works it is such an entertaining and frenetic ride that you don't care. Films rarely come as frenetic and entertaining as this and I howled with laughter all the way through even though I've seen all the films Bogdanovich gleefully references here. His direction is taut, unfussy, and restrained as is required by a farce. He has learned from the best and allows us to watch the insanity at play.
The cast too plays their parts with pitch-perfect precision. The witty dialogue is delivered straight and fast, the gags are executed cleanly, and the characters are suitably over-the-top and stereotypical. Barbra Streisand in particular impresses in what could be termed the Katherine Hepburn part. She handles her comedic patter with the assuredness of a borscht comedian. Her partner Ryan O'Neal is slightly less convincing. He doesn't quite bring the same irresistible charm to the part as Cary Grant used to and consequently is made to look like a patsy. We feel more sorry for him than we should.
There are too many brilliant gags (both visual and verbal) in "What's Up, Doc?" to list them all and it would be impossible to pick out even a dozen favourites. They all work. This is the kind of film where there's at least one gag in every shot. I must have missed at least half of them because I was laughing so hard at the ones that came before.
"What's Up, Doc?" is now regarded as a classic comedy and that reputation is well deserved. It is howlingly funny and made with the kind of comedic precision Howard Hawks and Ernst Lubitsch are known of. If I had a complaint, I'd maybe say that once the big chase scene is over the film loses steam and sort of limps along for the last 20 minutes, but perhaps such a breather was necessary after the riotous 70 minutes that came before it.
3.5/4 - DirectorWes CravenStarsNeve CampbellCourteney CoxDavid ArquetteA year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.03-01-2022
The great thing about "Scream" is that it is not disdainful towards horror fans. Yes, it is satirical, it is referential, but it's never cynical unlike quite a few of the "postmodern horror films" it inspired. In 2018, I left David Gordon Green's "Halloween" feeling insulted. Like I had spent 90-minutes being mocked for enjoying slasher movies. Perhaps that's because David Gordon Green's film tries to be above its material, to seem more hip, more (dare I say it) woke. Wes Craven, on the other hand, crafted with "Scream" a movie which was self-critical in a downright revolutionary manner but still worked as an excellent straightforward slasher. That balancing act is a marvel and a hell of a feat to observe. Craven pulls it off largely because he knows when to laugh and to play it dead straight.
The plot of "Scream" is about as straightforward as they come. It's set in a small town in America populated, as it seems, largely by horny teenagers. Introduce a masked serial killer and you've got a slasher film. There are no complicated plot devices here, no gimmickry, no real mystery to solve. The film barely concerns itself with the identity of the killer and their motives. As one of the film's characters puts it "It's the millennium. Motives are incidental."
This, however, doesn't mean that "Scream" ignores its characters. The teenagers being stalked are a lively and varied bunch. Their characterisations are not particularly original but they are played with such vivaciousness and good humour by the cast and given such sharp, believable dialogue that we get to genuinely care if they live or die. These are career-defining performances for Rose McGowan, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy, and Skeet Ulrich. Funnily enough, the one performance that does not stand out in the film is the performance of Neve Campbell but maybe that is as it should be. After all, she is the virgin, the square, the mythical final girl.
Also wonderfully memorable are the "grown-ups", all of whom are clearly having a blast with their parts. David Arquette is hammily hilarious as the goofy local cop. There's a great scene in which he's having a tense meeting with his sheriff outside the police station. The sheriff nervously lights a cigarette. Arquette pulls out a cornetto ice cream. Similarly funny is Henry Winkler in a very brief but memorable turn as the school principal. He transforms a throwaway scene in which he expels a pair of teenage pranksters into the film's funniest moment.
Courtney Cox, on the other hand, plays it delightfully straight as Gail Weathers, the antichrist of television journalism covering the murders. She is pitch-perfect as the sleazy tabloid journalist, fake smile perenially on her face, a dictaphone in her pocket. But once the mayhem starts and Gail turns out to be far braver than she appeared at first, Cox's transformation is wholly believable.
It is not at all surprising that Wes Craven can craft an exciting horror scene. What is surprising is that after making so many horror classics, he still had a whole lot of tricks up his sleeve. There are kills here to rival anything in "A Nightmare on Elm Street". The intense and ironic cold open in which Drew Barrymore is famously slaughtered is especially effective even after all these years and all those imitators.
Had "Scream" been just a straightforward slasher movie it would have still been the decade's best. However, Kevin Williamson's screenplay adds a whole another dimension to the proceedings. What sets "Scream" apart from all the films that came before it is that its lead characters have seen all the films that came before it. They are aware of all the rules, the mistakes, the twists, the red herrings. This makes the scares all the more effective because, like the characters, we at home all believe that we could never be juked. "Scream" shows that even if you do know all the slasher tricks, the killer always has a few new ones.
Probably my favourite scene in the film has movie fan Randy (Jamie Kennedy) watching that scene in "Halloween" in which Michael Myers is creeping up behind Laurie. "Turn around, Laurie," he says over and over again. What he doesn't know, however, is that the killer is creeping up behind him. As if this isn't ironical enough, Wes Craven has a local newsman (W. Earl Brown) watch the whole thing unfold over a hidden camera. "Turn around, kid," he says over and over again. I won't reveal the brutal punchline to this scene, but it is satirical perfection.
In fact, upon this rewatch, I was struck by just how blatantly "Scream" plays with audience expectations. It downright telegraphs the identity of the killer every time they appear, but because the audience believes itself to be genre-savvy, we dismiss these clues as red herrings.
"Scream" is a cult classic because it is a film that invites us to laugh along with it. Unlike David Gordon Green's "Halloween" which is deeply cynical and critical of its audience, "Scream" shows great respect for its viewers' knowledge of the genre. It doesn't merely reference the movie cliches, it inverts them, subverts them, and occasionally plays them dead straight just when you don't expect it to. It consistently works on two levels as both a witty commentary on slasher films and a slasher film. And it is a credit to Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson that it is equally excellent as both a satire and a horror movie.
3.5/4 - DirectorWes CravenStarsNeve CampbellCourteney CoxDavid ArquetteTwo years after the first series of murders, as Sidney acclimates to college life, someone donning the Ghostface costume begins a new string of killings.03-01-2022
As is hotly debated in "Scream 2", horror sequels are precarious things. Rare are the ones that manage to better or repeat the success of their predecessors. Even rarer are the ones that manage to better them. To be honest, an obvious answer does not leap into my mind. The two most often cited, "Evil Dead 2" and "Dawn of the Dead" are so far from the originals, in the first case tonally and in the second plotwise, that they might as well be wholly original movies. No, a true sequel repeats the tone and builds on the formula set up by its original. After all, that's how you get a franchise.
The original "Scream" movie was such a genre-bending and defining movie that a sequel seems almost impossible. Sure, you can have Ghostface stalk the teenagers of Woodsboro once again but all you'd get is a cheap copy. An unworthy imitator. A plodding run-through of the original's plot without its humour, wit, and intelligence. Right? Well, Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson prove that theory wrong with "Scream 2", a rare horror sequel that impresses all on its own.
"Scream 2" picks up a few years after the Woodsboro massacre and whereas the original "Scream" was a commentary on slasher movies, "Scream 2" is a biting satire on sensationalism. The cold open is a bold statement of intent as it opens at a movie screening. The movie? "Stab", a by-the-numbers slasher based on the true story of the Woodsboro massacre. "It's a dumbass white movie about some dumbass white girls getting their white asses cut the fuck up," protests Maureen (Jada Pinkett Smith), a girlfriend unwillingly dragged to the theatre by her overexcited boyfriend (Omar Epps).
In spoofing their own movie, Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson use the opportunity to acknowledge some valid criticism of its entirely white casting, some of the illogical mistakes made by its characters, and, most importantly, the sensationalism of violence inherent in all slasher flicks. After Maureen and her boyfriend become the first victims of a copycat killer, the students at a local college debate this very point. "The murderer was wearing a ghost mask just like in the movie. It's directly responsible." argues one student. "Life is life. It doesn't imitate anything," replies Randy (Jamie Kennedy) who really should know seeing how he survived the original massacre.
The college is where we pick up our leads, the survivors from the first movie and "Scream 2" spends a lot of time examining the impact news and film sensationalism has had on their lives. Sidney (Neve Campbell) is trying her best to pick up her life and carry on, but that's hard to do when you're being woken up by prank phone calls. On the other side of the sensationalism, debate stands news reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) who has earned a small fortune by publishing a book on the murders. Her accomplice in this endeavour is Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber), a local creep who was wrongfully accused all those years ago. He's chosen to rebuild his life on the ruins of his old one by going on talk shows and selling his life story for a pretty penny.
The copycat killings bring new attention to their lives and while some hide, others revel at the reignited press interest. But this is exactly what the killer wants. Their motive is newer and more original than before. They want to get caught and they want to blame the movies for the killings.
The subtext of "Scream 2" is a lot more textured and complex. On the one hand, neither the previous murderer nor the new one was made into a psychopath by the movies, but in the words of Billy from the first film "movies make psychos more creative". Unexpectedly, "Scream 2" does a fascinating job of tackling that issue head-on and in the metatextual fashion, we'd expect from Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven.
"Scream 2" is also in many ways bigger and better than its predecessor. The scope of its victims is certainly wider and instead of targeting only the attendees of a small-town house party, the killer is now targeting the entire student body of a college. The kills, also, are bloodier and more elaborate even though not necessarily more original. I had a lot of fun watching the horror scenes. The chase through the hallways of the college theatre is especially effective. Also marvellously suspenseful is the scene in which our heroes realise the killer is watching them in a park and slowly have to figure out which one of the many visitors is the person they're after.
Unfortunately, the script of "Scream 2" is less taut than its predecessor's. The manner in which all the survivors from the previous film are reunited is convenient, to say the least. The identity of the killer is also less of a shock since the perpetrator when revealed, is someone we have no emotional connection to. Speaking of the cast of characters, I liked the new additions, especially the goofily charming Jerry O'Connel and the always reliable Sarah Michelle Gellar. However, the performances of some of the returning principals feel off-key here. Jamie Kennedy, especially, seems to go way over the top as if Wes Craven couldn't hold him back anymore. This is a shame as he was one of the most likeable characters from the first film.
The biggest problem with "Scream 2", however, is that at 2 hours it is at least 20 minutes too long. It frequently feels flabby and in need of a good tightening. Too much time is devoted to side characters who end up not playing too much of a role in the film itself. Cotton Weary is one. The sorority sisters are another. The scene of the sorority party goes on for far too long, feels like a retread of the much better party scene from the first film and results in only one kill. Even though the kill is one of the best in the film, the pacing suffers.
But never mind. "Scream 2" is perhaps not as tight and perfectly crafted as "Scream", but it is every bit as witty and even more intriguing with its barbed commentary on the exploitation of tragedy for the entertainment of the masses. I had a lot of fun with it and I'm sure any fan of the original will as well.
3/4 - DirectorWes CravenStarsDavid ArquetteNeve CampbellCourteney CoxWhile Sidney and her friends visit the Hollywood set of Stab 3, the third film based on the Woodsboro murders, another Ghostface killer rises to terrorize them.03-01-2022
"Scream" and "Scream 2" were two of the cleverest, wittiest slasher films ever made. They managed to offer insightful commentary on the traditions and cliches of the genre without ever being disrespectful or cynical. Oh, and they were smashingly fun horror films on top of that. Now comes "Scream 3", the supposedly final chapter of the trilogy (yeah, right) and as Randy (Jamie Kennedy) tells us in a video message, "all bets are off".
Apparently, there are three rules to the final chapter of a trilogy. 1) The killer is downright invincible, 2) Anyone can die, and 3) The past is not at rest. Well, the first one is definitely followed as the killer in "Scream 3" gets repeatedly beaten down, shot, and yet always manages to get the upper hand even when faced with an experienced bodyguard the size of a medium house. The second one, though, isn't. "Scream" is a franchise that enjoys bringing back its leading characters even from beyond the grave and it is no big spoiler to say that they all make it through this one as well. If the killer is invincible then Deputy Dewey must be some kind of deity seeing how he's been fatally wounded in all the "Scream" movies.
But let's focus on the third one for a second. "Scream 3" begins, pretty much like "Scream 2" did with a copycat killer. However, this killer is leaving photos of Maureen Prescott at his crime scenes. As faithful fans of the franchise know, Maureen is the mother of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), the perennial final girl of the "Scream" trilogy whom we now find hiding out in the mountains like Arnold Schwarzenegger at the beginning of "Commando". Guess those college classes didn't pay off...
The murders themselves are centred around the set of "Stab 3", a derivative slasher movie based around the lives (and deaths) of our leads. Someone is offing the cast in the order they die in the screenplay. This set-up is an ideal opportunity for the kind of satire "Scream" films are known of. Comparing "real-life" murders with movie murders, showing us how sensationalistic slasher films can be, how they distort reality. Wes Craven had already gone down this path before with his decidedly postmodernist "New Nightmare". Surely, he'll do it again in "Scream 3" except in a bigger, better, funnier way.
Except he doesn't. Working from a screenplay by Ehren Kruger, Craven's "Scream 3" uncannily resembles "Stab 3". Instead of using the fictional slasher film as a device for offering satirical commentary, it seems they took it as a model. Both films are derivative, repetitive slasher flicks, featuring long-since distorted versions of the characters we met in the original "Scream". Preposterous plot twists abound and little intelligence or true wit is to be seen anywhere. Sure, the film is still self-referential but the movie references in "Scream 3" are cheap gags rather than witty critiques. Here, Craven satisfies himself with a pointless Jay & Silent Bob cameo, a chase around an unrealistically elaborate movie set, and the casting of Roger Corman as a movie executive.
There is no insight to be gained from "Scream 3". It doesn't follow in the tradition of its predecessors in offering up biting, yet respectful commentary on the genre. It lacks wit and humour, instead opting to be the kind of movie people who've never seen "Scream" think "Scream" was.
OK, so "Scream 3" does not work on multiple levels, but does it work as a slasher flick? No, not really. At least not consistently. There are still, of course, several neat set-pieces and scares. This is, after all, Wes Craven at work. However, the screenplay by Ehren Kruger is inane at best. The "Scream" movies have never been particularly plot-oriented but the big reveal of "Scream 3" is idiotic even by the franchise's standards. The clues to the killer's identity are so vague that pretty much anyone from Sidney down to Silent Bob could have done it.
Speaking of the characters, they are wafer-thin. Especially the new characters all of whom are crudely drawn cliches. There's the innocent ingenue, the dirty old man producer, the nearsighted director complaining that his vision is being compromised, the hateful starlet who's sleeping with the said director, and the dumb-as-rocks leading man. None of them is in the least bit likeable or convincing. It is shocking to me that a Wes Craven film features such a group of inauthentic Hollywood characters when his previous foray into the world of filmmaking, "New Nightmare" showed real insight and understanding into the mindsets of filmmakers.
The returning characters, meanwhile, are dumbed-down to their bare essentials. Dewey (David Arquette) is dumber than ever, Gale (Courteney Cox) is meaner than ever, and Sidney (Neve Campbell) has been completely sidelined which, seeing how she's always been a rather lifeless character, is not such a bad thing at all. She spends most of the film away from the main action and remains secondary to the plot even when she eventually does join in the fray.
There is a gleeful lack of logic. Multiple times, the killer's plan relies entirely on chance and works only because the screenwriter says it should. One kill, for instance, depends entirely on a character using his lighter to read a piece of paper instead of simply putting the lights on. Not only would the latter make more sense, but he also didn't appear to have a problem reading without the lighter just a second before.
The killer is also now in possession of what appears to be a magical voice changer using which he can effortlessly and perfectly imitate any character in the film. Maybe I could have gotten past the ludicrousness of such a machine had it been used in any clever or significant way, but the killer only ever uses it to pull bad pranks on his victims. I've heard better prank callers on "The Howard Stern Show".
"Scream" was a genre re-defining movie. A real breath of fresh air after more than a decade of staleness. "Scream 2" repeated the same formula but did it in a witty, fun way which made it seem a lot more original than it actually was. "Scream 3", however, simply feels tired. There was no reason to make it and Craven and Kruger never manage to justify its existence. It does nothing new with the material, it doesn't change our perspective on previous events, and it simply isn't good enough to stand on its own. It's a rather limp, overlong genre exercise that feels more like a rip-off than an official entry into the franchise. If this was meant to be the final chapter then it would have been a sad send-off.
2/4 - DirectorWes CravenStarsNeve CampbellCourteney CoxDavid ArquetteTen years have passed, and Sidney Prescott, who has put herself back together thanks in part to her writing, is visited by the Ghostface Killer.04-01-2022
Probably my favourite scene in the original "Scream" occurs towards the end during the lengthy and memorable party massacre sequence. Randy is watching that scene in "Halloween" in which Michael Myers is creeping up behind Laurie. "Turn around, Laurie," he says over and over again. What he doesn't know, however, is that the killer is creeping up behind him. As if this isn't ironic enough, Wes Craven has a local newsman (W. Earl Brown) watch the whole thing unfold over a hidden camera. "Turn around, kid," he says over and over again. Then the newsman remembers his camera has a delay on it, turns around and the killer slashes his throat.
14 years later, "Scream 4" revisits the set-up. Tenacious journalist Gale (Courteney Cox) has infiltrated a late-night slasher marathon taking place in an abandoned farmhouse (because, why not). Expecting the killer to show up, she places cameras all around the place. Meanwhile, the distracted teenagers don't notice her, too busy watching a girl getting stalked on the big screen. Just as she hides the final camera, unbeknownst to her, the killer starts creeping up behind her back. Watching from his car, her husband, Sheriff Dewey (David Arquette) starts shouting at the screen "Turn around, Gale".
The two scenes are fairly similar in idea and execution but not in impact. The scene in "Scream 4" strips the scene of its self-referential, satirical commentary and plays it for straight scares. I mention these two scenes because this is how the entirety of "Scream 4" compares to the original. Unlike that genre-bending and re-defining film, "Scream 4" is a dead-straight slasher flick with no satirical edge, irony, or commentary in it. But just like the scene outlined above, the set-up is solid and the result is genuinely thrilling.
There's not much originality in the plot of "Scream 4". Just like in all the sequels, a Ghostface-mask wearing copycat killer shows up to terrorize the survivors of the original Woodsboro massacre. There's no particular gimmick here, no new twist on the premise. There's just a series of murders and a group of characters struggling to survive. Thankfully, in his usual manner, screenwriter Kevin Williamson presents us here with mostly likeable and memorable characters. Characters we can discern during the chaotic action scenes, and characters we care about when they die. That is a key component for a good slasher film.
The core cast remains the same. There's the indefatigable investigative journalist Gale and her push-over husband Dewey, now the sheriff of Woodsboro. These two have slowly been taking over as the de facto leads of the series from the first movie's final girl, Sidney (Neve Campbell). This comes as no surprise seeing how Sidney, even three films later, is still a fairly bland character who has now been saddled with a tendency towards righteous nagging.
The new characters, or cannon fodder, as they should be more accurately called include Sidney's cousin Jill (Emma Roberts), the homely policewoman Judy (Marley Shelton) who has her eye on the good sheriff, Sidney's sleazy book publicist Rebecca (Alison Brie) and a whole host of teenagers for the killer to slaughter. It is refreshing to hear movie teenagers be given sharp, smart, and believable dialogue. Kevin Williamson, like Debra Hill before him, is one of the rare slasher writers who can consistently achieve this. His characterisation is stereotypical, but his dialogue does wonders in bringing the characters to life.
Like in all the "Scream" sequels, the plot twists are arbitrary. Anyone could be the killer because the clues are vague and suspicion is freely dispersed. These films rely on horror set-pieces and chase scenes and few directors can pull those off as well as Wes Craven. His career has featured many regrettable duds, the worst of which "My Soul to Take" came only a year before "Scream 4". However, he returns in good form here, for what would prove to be his final film. Even though the film is too long at 2 hours, he does manage to keep a consistent sense of danger and suspense. The biggest help towards this goal is the first-class score by Marco Beltrami, one of those composers whose name on the credits always grabs my attention.
"Scream 4" is not a terribly memorable movie, nor does it in any way redefine the way I see the genre. There are some attempts to bring the "Scream" franchise into the internet age, but Craven & Williamson's understanding and portrayal of the internet and vloggers is lacking any authenticity or edge. But what it is is an effective and entertaining entry into the slasher genre which delivers a reasonable amount of scares and thrills for the price of the ticket. The characters are likeable, there's ample humour in the well-written dialogue scenes, and there's a terrific performance from Hayden Panettiere as the film's resident movie nerd that gives Jamie Kennedy a run for his money. All these qualities are rare in slasher sequels.
2.5/4 - DirectorDan RosenStarsMatthew LillardMichael VartanRandall BatinkoffTwo college students kill their roommate and make it look like a suicide.04-01-2022
The first thing that struck me about "The Curve" is just how witty its opening title sequence is. It's unassuming, nothing special, just a few clever in-jokes to amuse an attentive viewer while the plot is being set up. My favourite occurs towards the end. Two college seniors (Matthew Lillard and Michael Vartan) are asking a psychologist (Dana Delany) about suicidal behaviour. More precisely, what kinds of movies are signs of suicidal thoughts. "Any period piece. A Scandanavian film. And anything by a first time writer-director. I hate those," answers the doc just as the title card reading Directed and Written by Dan Rosen flashes up on the screen.
The two college seniors are Tim and Chris, underachieving children of overambitious parents. They are both under immense pressure to graduate with the highest grades or they won't be able to get into the universities of their choosing. The tension looms over the entire film and the severity of the choices made by these young, immature people is heavily underlined. "How depressed were you when you found out you weren't getting into Harvard because of one fucking B-plus," asks Tim. "The rest of your life you were perfect, but for one second you were average." "I wanted to kill myself," replies Chris. "Exactly," says Tim.
So the two of them come up with an alternative solution to the education problem. Legend has it that if your roommate commits suicide you get a free pass with the highest grades. But their roommate Rand (Randall Batinkoff) is a vivacious fellow with a pretty girlfriend and a lot of money in his parents' bank account. Unlikely to jump off a cliff... without someone's help.
The first third of "The Curve" charts Tim and Chris' insidious plan to kill Rand and make it look like a suicide and it's the best part of the film. Like a particularly mean-spirited episode of "Columbo", we follow the two killers as they deftly manipulate everyone around them to fit their story. It's highly contrived stuff but undeniably entertaining.
Then the film takes a curve. The body is not found as planned, another death follows, and the cops become suspicious. As so often is the case in these kinds of films, the two partners turn on each other and start using Chris' girlfriend Emma (Keri Russell) as a pawn in a whole new game of chess. But who's manipulating whom here and who will take the fall for Rand's death?
The plotting in "The Curve" is as difficult to swallow as the rat poison the killers give Rand. The only way Rosen makes us buy for even a second that these two are getting away with it is by making the cops investigating the case look like rejects from a Keystone Cops audition. Furthermore, the plot twists, once they eventually come, are highly predictable and highly contrived.
But the thriller elements somehow feel secondary here and I'm willing to give the film a pass because the rest of it is so fun. I liked the characters Rosen writes especially. Matthew Lillard's Tim is an interesting beast. A bored sociopath with Iago tendencies. Although he seems a fairly straightforward stereotype for most of the film, he's given a monologue towards the end that gives his character unforeseeable texture. I also enjoyed Keri Russell's thoughtful, heartfelt performance as Emma, the loving but unappreciated girlfriend.
Rosen doesn't pass up a single chance to populate the film with colourful side characters. The psychologist, for instance, is trying her darndest to stop smoking which is making her particularly jumpy. The two cops are entirely mismatched, one of them straightlaced and bland, the other a cigar-chomping slob in a surprisingly sharp suit. None of this stuff is particularly original but "The Curve" is a tightly packed movie and the gags hit the mid-range targets they're aiming for.
It seems to me, in fact, that Rosen has made a movie about the high pressures put on young people. They have to make choices at 19 which will decide the rest of their lives. But Rosen doesn't present a simple argument. He could have easily made a film defending Tim and Chris' actions and blaming them on the stress. However, he goes out of his way to show how other students are coping with the same problems in different and much more legal ways.
"The Curve" came out on the heels of the "Scream" fad and it is predictably overflowing with random movie references and similar stylistic choices. Thankfully, these scenes ease up after the first 20 minutes and Rosen's film settles into a pace all of its own. This is not high art, nor is it nearly as smart as it could have been or imagines it is. But it is a really entertaining movie if you don't ask too much from it and with some surprising depths.
The direction is assured and pacy, the cinematography occasionally quite stylish and effective. I was particularly taken by the almost theatrical shots of the two killers and their victim on a fogbound hill lit only by the searching rays of a lighthouse. The cast is top-notch all around with Matthew Lillard giving a typically off-the-wall extension of his performance from "Scream". Only Michael Vartan fades in the background with his bland, goody-two-shoes take on what could have been a far more complex character.
No, "The Curve" does not break any new ground, nor would I say it accomplishes everything it sets out to do, but it is a handsomely-mounted, unassuming little thriller that entertained me a great deal for 90 minutes.
2.5/4 - DirectorElaine MayStarsWalter MatthauElaine MayJack WestonHenry Graham lives the life of a playboy. When his lawyer tells him one day that his lifestyle has consumed all his funds, he needs an idea to avoid climbing down the social ladder. So he intends to marry a rich woman and - murder her.06-01-2022
Characters in black comedies are usually unlikeable and corrupt. The former so that we can laugh when horrible things happen to them, and the latter so that the horrible things that happen to them feel ultimately just. In her directorial debut "A New Leaf", Elaine May succeeds in inverting both. This is a film that starts out as a fairly run-of-the-mill black comedy, complete with a murder plot, corrupt characters, and an unsuspecting victim but then takes a sharp turn and ends up as one of the warmest, sweetest movies you're ever likely to see.
The plot kicks off when the spoiled and incompetent heir Henry Graham (Walter Matthau) finds out he has squandered all of his money on fast cars and expensive lunches. "I am poor," he mutters to himself as he wanders around New York saying goodbye to all of his favourite places: his expensive tailor, his chic restaurant, his gentlemen's club... He realises that he cannot survive poverty. Described by his uncle as an "ageing youth", he's unable to look after himself. He can't even change without the help of his Jeeves-like butler Harold (George Rose).
Of course, in P.G. Wodehouse tradition, it is Harold who comes up with a fast solution to Henry's problems. Marriage. "It's the only way to acquire property without labour," explains Harold. Henry is unenthusiastic about the proposition ("Oh, I can't, Harold. I couldn't. I mean she'd be there, asking where I'd been, talking to me, talking. I wouldn't be able to bear it."), but ultimately realises he must accept. But where will he find a suitable candidate seeing how he is about as stiff as a board and charming as a child's open grave.
Running out of time, Henry settles for Henrietta (Elaine May), a klutzy heiress with a penchant for botany. The two couldn't be more different. Henry enjoys the finer things in life, expensive clothes and aged wines. Henrietta puts her head through the armhole of her nightgown and exclusively drinks Mogen-David extra-heavy Malaga wine with soda water and lime juice. Henry prizes his art pieces and antique furniture. Henriette douses them with coffee during her first visit to his flat. But, daunted by the thought of poverty, Henry must soldier on and marry the woman. Braving him on in this endeavour is the single overwhelming thought - the thought of murder.
Taking an instant dislike to Henrietta's goofiness and common ways, Henry decides to kill her off and inherit her wealth. He dedicates himself to studying toxicology, botany, and accounting, and surprisingly becomes quite proficient at all of them.
What sets "A New Leaf" apart from all the other black comedies? Certainly not its plot. Nor its gags, which are genuinely funny but not terribly unusual. No, what sets it apart is the characters, or rather the hidden depths that the situation they find themselves in reveals. I won't spoil the wonderful twist ending, but let's say that Henry finds out that he is a lot more capable of love and taking care of himself and others than he was led to believe. What's more, he does this 10 years before Arthur Bach did the same to considerable more acclaim.
Elaine May has gone on record saying that she is unhappy with the final cut of "A New Leaf". It was taken away from her and shortened by more than an hour. The cuts do show in that most of the film's supporting characters and side plots fade away with little to no conclusion. But what the cuts do achieve is to focus the film entirely on Henry's personal growth which may not be such a bad thing.
Walter Matthau's performance is the perfect balancing act between a caricature of an upper-class fop and a real human being terrified of the wide, wild world outside his apartment walls. Elaine May is a perfect foil for him, hilariously clumsy and absent-minded but in a way that doesn't feel overstated. These are not over-the-top Eddie Murphy performances or something you could see on "Saturday Night Live". Both Matthau and May and the varied supporting cast give convincing and fleshed-out performances rarely seen in comedy films. This reality is another aspect of "A New Leaf" that makes it stand out.
"A New Leaf" is not perfect. It could have been funnier, more rounded, and should have been longer, but what is there is a charming, intriguing, and highly unusual comedy the kind of which we rarely see these days. Nowadays, comedies have to be broad, bawdy, over-the-top, and running at the speed of at least ten gags a minute. "A New Leaf" has a kind of believability and genuine humanity that is usually reserved for indie dramas. Packed with wonderfully written dialogue ("in a country where every man is what he has, he who has very little is nobody very much"), a variety of comical performances, and a whole lot of heart, "A New Leaf" is a bold and eye-catching debut for one of the most underappreciated comedic voices of the 20th century.
3.5/4 - DirectorBaltasar KormákurStarsIngvar SigurdssonÁgústa Eva ErlendsdóttirBjörn Hlynur HaraldssonA murder opens up a bleak trail of long buried secrets and small town corruption for a worn out police detective and his squad.06-01-2022
They say that the opening shot of a movie should immediately establish the atmosphere and tone the filmmakers are going for. "Jar City" opens on a close-up of a man crying his eyes out. His head plopped in his hands in wailing desperation. It is the perfect taster for this gloomy, severe, frequently hopeless movie. The crying man is Orn (Atli Rafn Sigurðsson), a father visiting his child in hospital where she is awaiting a slow and torturous death from a rare brain disease. The disease is hereditary and he informs his wife that he has been looking into his family history. "You would have been more useful here," she replies, "spending time with her". "Let the doctors do their jobs".
The world of "Jar City" is one of filth, depression and corruption so that when a murder occurs it feels like business as usual. The rotting corpse is discovered by two children who use it as a polygon for a toy car race. The victim is a known sexual deviant, living in a rundown apartment smelling of faces. "It's a typical Icelandic murder," says one of the cops, 'messy and pointless".
The police inspector investigating the case is a stern man called Erlendur (Ingvar Sigurdsson). In his zipped-up sweater and tie, he resembles a school teacher but his life is in shambles. For one, he has to take care of his pregnant, drug-addicted prostitute daughter Eva (Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir) and blames himself and his job for her life choices. "You live in the gutter for so long you forget how regular people live".
The two storylines combine when a photograph of a grave leads Erlendur to investigate a 30-year old suicide. The victim killed herself after her daughter, a child of rape, died of the same rare brain disease Orn's daughter has. The two men, it turns out, are fascinated by the same object. The dead girl's brain, immortalised in formaldehyde and kept in a laboratory storage room nicknamed 'Jar City'.
The plot of "Jar City" is predictable and unoriginal in a way Baltasar Kormákur's film is not. The script is based on what must be a run-of-the-mill crime novel by Arnaldur Indriðason, but Kormákur is wise to quickly sideline the mystery device and focus on the characters and the atmosphere to create a unique take on the burdens parents inflict upon their children. How the corruption of today was seeded a long time ago.
He masterfully uses the locations to his advantage. Unplastered buildings, small, mouldy rooms, damp walls, and graffitied apartment blocks are symbols of a failing, hopelessly polluted society. Icelandic wastelands resembling the surface of the Moon, vast, unending vistas, and the blood-dark ocean mimic the loneliness in the characters' souls.
There are many stunning scenes in "Jar City": Erlendur reading the Bible aloud as he tears apart a sheep's head with his bare hands; a ruthless murderer crying like a small child because he has been locked up in solitary; a blind woman surrounded by old photographs. "Photographs are like mirrors of time". The cinematography by Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson is unforgettable. Almost every shot submerges you further into the thick atmosphere of the film. Every scene reveals another stitch in the complex tapestry woven by a masterful director with the help of an eerily beautiful score by Mugison and a reserved, stoic performance by Ingvar Sigurdsson.
What Kormákur achieves with the decent but unremarkable material he has chosen is a minor miracle. A film so rich in atmosphere, character, and depth. So evocative, affecting, and powerful. Such a mesmerising portrait (or should I say landscape) of a world rotting from the inside. Sure, there are plenty of shots of rotting corpses (one of them rotting for 30 years in a cesspool), but the real stench comes from the people's souls.
4/4 - DirectorElaine MayStarsCharles GrodinCybill ShepherdJeannie BerlinA newlywed man on his honeymoon has second thoughts about his marriage and falls for a different woman.07-01-2022
Lenny and Lila (Charles Grodin and Jeannie Berlin) are a pair of newlyweds on their honeymoon. Sitting at a roadside diner they observe an elderly married couple as they dodderingly help one another with their coats. "That's us in 40-50 years," says Lila. Lenny is not so sure. The two of them have done everything by the book. They've been having chaperoned dinner dates, a family wedding, and no sex before marriage. Now, finally spending time together, they realise they are a poor match indeed. What's more, Lila constantly gets on Lenny's nerves with her insecurities and her constant reminders about how they are going to spend the rest of their life together.
Lenny reminds me of a quote from Harold Pinter's "Celebration". The palms of his hands always seem to be burning, but his eyes are elsewhere. Full of nervous energy, he is unable to stand still for a minute and is particularly eager to get away from Lila. He's into the acquisition of inaccessible goals and after consummating his chaste wife he becomes tired of her. After all, there are taller mountains to climb. Namely, Kelly (Cybill Shepherd), a sexy and manipulative rich girl, the perfect distraction for Lenny's unquiet mind. He is immediately infatuated by her and decides they should get married on a whim. He doesn't love her, of course, but he is unable to resist the unapproachably beautiful girl who is obviously way out of his league.
Unexpectedly, Kelly is not uninterested. She is clearly able to bend men's wills by a simple smile in their direction but is unable to get them to honestly love her for more than her supermodel body. Even her overly possessive father (Eddie Albert) treats her like an object, a prized possession he is unwilling to let anybody else have. He will give Kelly anything she wants, as long as she never leaves his side. Lenny, with his impressively hackneyed romantic schtick, manages to convince her he is different from the rest. He ditches Lila and follows Kelly across the United States to propose. But what happens if Lenny finally manages to climb this mountain as well?
With a sharp, funny, unpredictable script by Neil Simon such as this, most directors would be tempted to make a fast-paced, almost farcical comedy. Elaine May, however, makes a virtue out of silences, small rituals, and imperceptible reactions. Take the gut-wrenchingly awkward scene in which Lenny asks Lila for a divorce. It goes on and on, for far longer than is comfortable to watch as he spews more and more comforting words while his wife sobs (and slobs) on his shoulder. It's a scene that begins with being funny, turns excruciating, and then becomes hilarious due to its awkwardness alone.
Another brilliant moment occurs when at the roadside diner Lila chows down on a particularly savoury egg salad sandwich. As the sauce drips down her chin, the camera lingers on Lenny's face as we realise how turned off he is by her. May builds the entire film around little moments such as these, not around the sparkling dialogue or the gags. Just like in her wonderful debut "A New Leaf", she allows her characters to grow from comedic stereotypes into genuinely complex human beings. The situation at hand in "The Heartbreak Kid" is a hurtful one, and the film never makes excuses for Lenny, but we do understand him and even though we don't approve of his actions we hope he finds happiness with Kelly.
More surprising, however, are the female characters. May resists the temptation of turning Lila into a grotesque caricature. Her behaviour is a little kooky at times and her insecurities border on neurosis, but she comes across as a perfectly reasonable and pleasant young woman. Jeannie Berlin's understated performance is a true gem in this film as she manages to elicit sympathies and show the pain and embarrassment her character goes through when all her dreams and plans are crushed by Lenny's fickleness.
Kelly is also an unusually complicated character. She enters the film seeming like a confident, manipulative person using her good looks like a weapon. But by the end May gently exposes her loneliness and her emotional immaturity which Lenny deftly takes advantage of. She is possibly the most accurate portrayal of an overprotected child. Spoiled, greedy, but easily hurt and even more easily swayed.
Rounded out with a superb supporting performance from Eddie Albert, "The Heartbreak Kid" is a triumph. An unusually complex and original comedy. Smart and funny, yet probing and painfully truthful. In fact, it is downright revolutionary as no comedy like it would come along until more than 30 years later with the rise of TV dramedies. But no episode of "Sex and the City" was this honest, this smart, and this well-made.
4/4 - DirectorChristian AlvartStarsMoritz BleibtreuJasna Fritzi BauerLars EidingerThriller set in the world of Forensic Pathology. Coroner Paul Herzfeld finds a capsule in the head of a heavily mutilated corpse, containing a phone number and single word: the name of his daughter.07-01-2022
I bet you've heard this one before. A storm is brewing over the North Sea threatening to hit the small island community of Heliogland any minute. Hoping to prevent disaster, the authorities order that the island be cut off - no one can leave and no one can arrive. But unbeknownst to them, they have cut the island off with a serial killer. The only two people aware of the danger are Linda (Jasna Fritzi Bauer) and Paul (Moritz Bleibtreu). Linda, a young woman hiding on the island from her abusive ex-boyfriend, is the one to discover a corpse, the first in a series. Paul, a pathologist, is the man the killer has a special pique on. Hidden in each of the corpses is a message, directed at Paul, leading to the next corpse. "Like a corpse treasure hunt," says Linda.
But Paul is trapped on the other side of the sea, unable to cross. The ferries aren't working and the planes aren't flying. So he has to rely on Linda to carry out the investigation for him, the investigation which carries with it a high price indeed. Namely, the killer has kidnapped his daughter (Barbara Prakopenka) to force Paul to play along and if he doesn't find him in time, she will become the final corpse.
"Cut Off" is an unusually dumb movie and a slog to sit through. It is the kind of thriller in which the killer's entire plan hinges on the leading character visiting certain places and remembering certain people he'd met once three years ago in a precise order and at a precise time. For instance, had Paul not remembered that the father of one of the probably hundreds of dead people he'd examined over the years lives in a village close to Heligoland, the killer wouldn't have been able to complete his plan.
To say that this film stretches credulity is a horrendous understatement. I am always willing to turn a blind eye to such mistakes as pathologists not wearing masks or even gloves during an autopsy, but some of the things "Cut Off" asks us to believe are absolutely preposterous. Each new twist, each new victim, makes the plot even more complicated and even harder to grasp. What is worse, the film continually lies to the audience using decidedly underhanded and unimaginative methods. There is no intelligence or logic behind its twists, just creaky technique and devious machinations.
On top of it all, this is a deeply unpleasant movie. A movie that takes too much pleasure in showing us the raping and torturing of an underage girl. A movie that exploits the despair and suffering of the victims and their families for cheap thrills and hackneyed scares. Director and writer Christian Alvart shows no reverence or sympathy for the disturbing topics he has chosen to handle. Instead, he lingers on the gruesome details with the glee of a 1970s exploitation director. Watching "Cut Off", I felt dirty, as if I had stumbled upon a corner of the internet I shouldn't be seeing.
There is no merit in this limp, disturbed thriller. It is not a fun watch and it spreads its material far too thin, padding its 130-minute runtime with as much violence and gore as possible. There are no real scares in it either as Alvart quickly resorts to fake-out jump scares and well-worn cliches. In the end, the plot proves to be so stupid and ineptly conceived that it feels more like a punishment to the attentive viewer than a well-deserved reward. "Cut Off" has left me feeling like I a need shower, an activity infinitely more enjoyable than watching awful movies.
1/4 - DirectorNuri Bilge CeylanStarsMuhammet UzunerYilmaz ErdoganTaner BirselA group of men set out in search of a dead body in the Anatolian steppes.08-01-2022
Three cars drive down a steep hill in Anatolia, their headlights barely lighting the way through the sunset. The cars carry a ragtag group of small-town cops, a cynical doctor (Muhammet Uzuner), an idealist prosecutor (Taner Birsel), and a killer (Firat Tanis). They are searching for the place where a corpse is buried, supposedly beneath a round tree or next to an old bridge, the killers aren't sure. They've already been searching the whole day and the men are tired and bored. To pass the night, they crack inappropriate jokes, carry on philosophical conversations, and try to jog their prisoners' memories using methods definitely not sanctioned by the Geneva convention.
The lead investigator Naci (Yilmaz Erdogan) is a mercurial fellow. His socks are wet and his wife is nagging him about some medication he's forgotten to buy. He is also trying to give up smoking which isn't making him any friendlier. It is his job to get the location of the corpses and he's aware that everyone is blaming him for the seemingly endless search. He decides to take his frustrations out on the prisoner which the prosecutor tries to stop. "How will we ever get into the EU with behaviour such as this," he shouts.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor and the doctor are debating a case from the past. A woman told her husband she would be dead in five months, immediately after giving birth to their child. Indeed, her words come true. The doctor suspects suicide, but the prosecutor seems a little too eager to believe the woman died of natural causes. "Nobody just dies like that. It doesn't happen in medicine," argues the doctor.
While the other policemen argue, joke around, pick fruit, and complain, the killer spends most of the trip quietly coming to terms with his fate. He committed the murder, we learn, in self-defence. The victim attacked him after learning the man was actually his son's father. Guilt-stricken and realising that his young son will now remember him only as a murderer, he quietly sobs amid all the chatter around him. But why does he seem unable to recall where he buried the body?
Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" tells a decidedly small story. At one point, the film teases a twist, but the twist never comes. Its characters never notice the clue. The wonderful thing about the film, however, is not the major revelations and life-changing events, but the tiny details, throwaway conversations, and character flaws. In one scene, the prosecutor makes a joke about Clark Gable. His clerk (Safak Karali) remarks that he looks like Clark Gable. The prosecutor laughs off the comment, then promptly slicks his hair back with his hand.
As the night falls, the prosecutor suggests they retire to a nearby village until the morning. One of the cops, a typically gregarious chap (Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan), turns sullen and tries his best to convince him to drive to a village that's farther away. It turns out the man's wife was born in the nearby village and he is not too keen on running into her family.
The entire film is made out of such small moments. Moments that would be deemed too small and insignificant to be included in most films. "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" takes its title from the films of Sergio Leone, but resembles "Apocalypse Now" more. I say that because this film feels like a journey. With its 150-minute runtime, long scenes, and unbroken takes, it makes you feel like you're along for the search with these ordinary, flawed, but oddly likeable men. It achieves what I believe is the greatest goal of filmmaking. It makes you feel like you're actually there.
In a sequence reminiscent of Coppola's French plantation non-sequitur, the men find themselves in the house of a village mayor. He complains to them that they need a new chapel because unburied corpses tend to rot in the summer. Why are they not buried asks the prosecutor. It turns out that their relatives, who have moved abroad, won't let them be buried until they've had a chance to say goodbye. But the relatives never find the time to come around. "They want to kiss their bodies," says the mayor (Ercan Kesal), "but where will they kiss them now they've rotted".
The mayor has a beautiful daughter (Cansu Demirci) who easily charms the visitors. In a scene that might or might not be a dream, she serves them drinks on a platter. Everyone gets exactly what they asked for, no matter how silly the request. When she gets to the killer, she points to the seat next to him, and when he turns around he sees his victim sitting there, alive and well.
"Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" is a brutally honest film. For one, it is honest about the economic situation in Turkey. Dogs are defecating on the unburied bodies in the dilapidated village chapel, the coroner has to perform autopsies with a rusty handsaw, the hospital walls are crumbling and the dust falls on the backs of the victim's grieving wife and child. But more intriguingly, it is honest about the mentality of the people. A brilliant touch sees one of the cops collecting fruit and vegetables wherever they stop to search for the corpse. In the end, the trunk of his car is filled with apples and pumpkins. It is a tiny story arc that mostly occurs in the background of scenes, but it is exactly the kind of true and character-defining trait this film is built on.
With a lot of humour, some astounding cinematography by Gökhan Tiryaki, and a first-rate cast, "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" is a spellbinding experience. I was especially impressed by the performance of Taner Birsel as the prosecutor. He has the most amazing smile, bright and wide, and yet so obviously hiding a world of pain and sadness. We are told very little about the prosecutor, but by the end of the film feel like we've known him our whole lives. That is exactly how I feel about this movie. Barely anything happens in it and yet it made me feel like I've experienced a whole lifetime of troubles.
4/4 - DirectorSteven SchachterStarsChristopher ReeveKim CattrallEdward KerrA paralyzed cop struggles with his life following a failed special operation and gets depressed. His wife and brother try to get him out of that state which causes a series of unpredictable events.09-01-2022
Dempsey Cain (Christopher Reeve) is one of those superstar detectives you only see in thrillers such as these. He's a hunk of a guy, sharply dressed, effortlessly charming, and able to cold-read a crime scene like a book. We first meet him doing just that, stealing a cop-killing case from right under the nose of Rhinehart (Joe Mantegna), a resentful, old-school cop. But luck abandons Dempsey this time round and when he bravely charges into the suspects' apartment to arrest them he gets shot. The wound is serious and Dempsey barely makes it out alive, but perhaps he wishes he didn't as he will have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
Suffering from depression, Dempsey considers suicide. He puts his gun in his mouth but is stopped from pulling the trigger by a nosy next-door neighbour. Looking after him day and night are his trophy wife Gail (Kim Cattrall) and his underachieving little brother Nick (Edward Kerr). Living in Dempsey's shadow has brought them closer together than they should be and the two conduct an illicit and decidedly steamy affair behind his back. But let's not forget, Dempsey is a detective, the best on the force as his awe-stricken boss loves to remind everyone.
One day, Dempsey asks to speak to his wife and his brother. Fearing they've been discovered, they gingerly agree only to receive an even bigger shock. Dempsey tells them he wants to die and asks them to help stage his suicide to look like a robbery gone wrong. He entices them with promises of insurance money and the two agree, a little too easily and a little too readily. But the plan goes awry and at the end of the night, it is Dempsey who is left alive.
Investigating the murder of Gail and Nick is none other than Dempsey's old enemy Rhinehart who quickly catches on that there's more to Dempsey's story than he's letting on. His colleagues and his boss tell him to move on but the man is a bulldog, an old-fashioned plodding policeman who slowly and methodically begins gathering evidence against the former supercop.
"Above Suspicion" feels like one of those short stories you'd run into in an Alfred Hitchcock book or an Ellery Queen magazine. It is stripped down to the core of its plot with no texture to speak of or subplots. The characters are flat and functional, exposition is kept to a minimum and the twists keep coming. The script was written by Jerry Lazarus and William H. Macy (who pops up in a small but welcome role towards the end of the picture). It is a neat piece of work, a twisted little potboiler with no pretensions and a lot of suspense.
I especially enjoyed the first half of the film which constantly keeps us in suspense as to the precise nature of Dempsey's intentions. We suspect there's something more going on than we're seeing but the movie is enticingly secretive about what. Once the murders occur, however, "Above Suspicion" was never able to engage me in the same way again.
Christopher Reeve is terrific as the depressed and ambiguous supercop and Joe Mantegna is his perfect foil. It is a shame then that the two men share so few scenes together. As any "Columbo" fan can tell you, the real fun in stories such as these is watching the bloodhound cop mercilessly chase down his suspect. The few scenes in which this happens are the film's best.
Unfortunately, the way the denouement is handled is hoaky and lacking in any real suspense. It boils down to a stagy and dull courtroom drama in which the case is argued not by Reeve and Mantegna but by a pair of lawyers we've never seen before. No thriller can end without a proper showdown between the cop and the killer and "Above Suspicion" lets us down in this key element.
Also found lacking is the direction by Steven Schachter. Schachter is an experienced TV director and in that medium, his work would have certainly been fine. He keeps the film moving at a nifty pace and manages not to get himself entangled in its complicated plot. However, a theatrical movie requires more style than Schachter shows here. His direction is flat and undynamic, informative rather than evocative. Paired with Ross Berryman's overlit cinematography and Michael Hoenig's cheap-sounding synth score, "Above Suspicion" resembles a TV movie more than a cinematic thriller.
But still, here is a very straightforward and unpretentious thriller that actually does manage to entertain. It is a blast seeing Christopher Reeve in a different role than he usually plays and I liked his character and the plot enough to be engaged in the movie all the way through. Playing almost like an inverse "Double Indemnity", it is old-fashioned fun and it's hard to resent that.
2.5/4 - DirectorJonathan KauferStarsDavid StrathairnBonnie BedeliaSaul RubinekWes and Nancy are a married academics couple. One day they host Nancy's long-ago lover Matt and his current sexy girlfriend Kim. Matt is a musician and Kim is a computer specialist who helped Matt to make some discovery in his science. Wes suspects Kim of stealing 50 dollars from him and that starts tension, intrigues, mistrust.12-01-2022
What happens when three academics meet up for a weekend? Not much, I presume. Certainly not enough to fill a 90-minute runtime of a conventional movie. But add a free-spirited, mean-spirited, sexy games player in the mix and fireworks just might go off. Mind games among the intellectual elite (or at least those who consider themselves part of the intellectual elite) have provided ample inspiration for many writers over the years, "Bad Manners" is one of them. Based on a play by David Gilman and directed by Jonathan Kaufer it doesn't reach the intensity or humour of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" or even Tom Noonan's "The Wife", but what it does give us is more than entertaining enough.
Wes (David Strathairn) and Nancy (Bonnie Bedelia) are a married couple of academics. The kind of intellectual snobs who choose their friends based on the number of papers they've published. She's a professor at Harvard, tenured (this is especially important for them), and capable of some truly cutting turns of phrase. He is not nearly as successful and it is eating him up inside. Being incapable of getting tenure at a second-rate college makes him incapable of being a husband and the bitterness frequently turns to frigidity. "Fuck you," he barks at his wife. "You could try that sometimes," she responds.
Coming for a weekend visit is Matt (Saul Rubinek), another academic, successful enough to be a visiting lecturer at Harvard. He is also Nancy's old college friend and as we learn later her ex-boyfriend. The cocky, talented, self-assured Matt makes Nancy reconsider her life choices. He also manages to irritate Wes pretty much from the word hello and an uneasy, unspoken rivalry develops between them. Wes lies that he's a tenured professor, Matt tries to seduce his wife.
Following Matt in tow is an uninvited guest. His much younger girlfriend Kim (Caroleen Feeney), a seductive IT specialist who was Matt's collaborator on his most recent academic success. Kim is the bombshell thrown among the frigid, restrained and well-mannered trio. She is a devoted games player but not of the computer kind. When a 50 dollar bill goes missing, she uses the uncomfortable situation for her entertainment and her sexuality and Wes' feelings of inadequacy to cause mistrust among the group.
However, the best aspect of "Bad Manners" is that characters have abilities they themselves are unaware of and we're never quite sure of who will come out on top and who will end up playing the patsy. By the end of the film, a couple breaks up, a friendship is soured, and a career is ruined, but you won't know whose until the very end. David Gilman's script does an admirable job of springing twist upon twist on us in convincing and utterly unpredictable ways. The dialogue is witty and the characters compelling even though at first, they seem distant and dull.
The cast, also, is excellent. Saul Rubinek especially does a superb job of portraying a cocksure, superstar academic who rolls into the picture driving a sports car with a hot girlfriend under his arm but turns out to be the most honest and gullible person. On the other side of the spectrum lies the character well played by David Strathairn, one who at first seems naive and impotent but definitely has a nasty dark side.
The two women also develop a rivalry, but a far less open one than the men. Bonnie Bedelia subtly draws a woman who suspects she may have made a mistake marrying the man she did. The arrival of Kim upsets her but also awakens repressed sexuality. Kim herself as played by Caroleen Feeney is somewhat more straightforward and less likeable than she should be. You'd think a character that is essentially a composite of Martha and George from "Virginia Woolf" would be far more complex and intriguing than this. But Gilman treats her like a deus-ex-machina, a means to spring the other characters into action, make them do something to change their lives rather than just intellectualize about them. Kim sadly remains merely a device in Gilman's hands and it is not until her very last scene that we see some glimmer of humanity in her, but it is too little too late.
Gilman adapted his own play for the screen and while the dialogue is good and the exposition deftly handled, it still feels primarily like a theatrical piece. The problem is not, however, as you'd expect that the film portrays primarily dialogue scenes in small rooms. It is rather that all the major twists, all the major emotions are talked about rather than seen. It is a bad idea to gather such a good cast, give them such potent material, and then not use the subtler methods cinema offers. Exchanged looks, hand gestures, small acts of resentment tend to speak louder on the screen than monologues.
Jonathan Kaufer's direction is rather flat and televisual. He does little to elevate the theatrical material into the realm of cinema. There is no visual imagination on display here, no telling shot choices, no attempt to make the screenplay visually interesting. Coupled with Denis Maloney's overlit, uninteresting cinematography, the film resembles an HBO special more than a movie. Most damningly, Kaufer doesn't succeed in making the conflict between the four characters reach boiling point. There is little genuine intensity and suspense in the film until the climax which seems to come out of nowhere.
But "Bad Manners" is an entertaining film mainly due to a sharp script from Gilman and some excellent performances. There is also a terrific scene in the third act between Saul Rubinek and Julie Harris which I won't spoil. It is notable, however, because Rubinek and Harris all on their own manage to make it sizzle with conflict and uncertainty even though it is shot as boringly as possible.
2.5/4 - DirectorDavid MackayStarsColm FeoreTony GoldwynArliss HowardWhen four young boys decide to go over-board with dealing with two bullies, they believe they can get away with their crime. Years later, new evidence appears and the cops are back on the trail to solve the murders. The four - now the owner of a failing lumber company (Colm Feore), a priest (Arliss Howard), a policeman (Tony Goldwyn), and a lawyer (David Paymer) - gather in a remote cabin to discuss what their future actions should be. Told in harrowing flashbacks and with obvious difference of current points-of-view, the men argue out their circumstances.17-01-2022
The story begins with four friends, four teenagers living in a sleepy American town in 1976 who decide to pull a prank on the local bully. The bright idea goes like this. They'll go to a popular beauty spot, a cliffside overlooking a lake, and wait for the bully to drive up with his girlfriend. Then one of the boys, the put-upon George, the bully's favourite victim, will sneak up and scare him with a gun. Giggling at their cleverness, high out of their mind, the boys hide at the spot elated by the possibility of seeing their tormentor humiliated. But, predictably, the prank goes awry because when the boys sneak up to the car they find someone other than the bully inside and accidentally open fire.
22 years later, the boys have grown into very different men. The nerdy George has become a sleazy, hotshot lawyer (David Paymer), the cocky Ivan has become a guilt-tormented priest (Arliss Howard), Frank, the jock, is now a local cop (Tony Goldwyn), and the juvenile offender of the group, Derek, has turned into a respected business owner (Colm Feore). They believe they've gotten away with the murder but their lives remain uneasy as they wait for the police to come calling. Then, the call comes. The lake has been drained, the body found, and with the body the gun which connects the boys to the crime. A crisis meeting is called and the four former friends have an unsettling reunion in a secluded cabin.
"The Lesser Evil" begins like one of those Stephen King stories about small-town teenagers with big damn secrets but quickly turns into a thriller more reminiscent of a David Mamet play. Trapped in a claustrophobic cabin with no one else to turn to, the four friends end up turning on each other as they struggle to figure out a way out of the situation. Each one approaches the problem from their own viewpoint. The priest advocates confession, the lawyer proposes lying to the police, the businessman tries to bargain with them, and the cop resorts to violence.
Meanwhile, the story of what happened 22 years ago is spoonfed to us in a piece-meal fashion. Although I'm not usually fond of flashback-heavy films, I enjoyed the way the story unfolds here. Every time we flashback, we see a new piece of the story that turns everything we thought we knew upside down. With each of these new pieces of information, the way we view the characters in the present changes and this is where the true dynamics of the picture come from. Nothing particularly new or terribly interesting occurs at the cabin, but the constantly switching viewpoints provided by the twisty flashbacks make us sit on the edge of our seats.
The script is by Jeremy Levine and Stephan Schultze, a production designer and a cinematographer respectively, who here present a compelling debut. Their dialogue is not Mamet-level, nor do they quite go as far with the story as I wish they had, but the plot twists are believable and surprising and the premise sufficiently intriguing to hold ones attention. The characters are well-drawn, as well, even though they frequently resort to cliche behaviour. The priest, especially, seems unable to speak without sounding like he's delivering a sermon.
The script is deftly filmed by David Mackay, a director of no particular renown who never-the-less handles the material in a pacy, unobtrusive manner. There are a few enticingly stylish shots and some unusual editing choices, but ultimately the film ticks away like a well put together TV movie.
A lot of the credit goes to the cast who carry this dialogue-heavy film. Getting a long-deserved chance to shine are two underrated actors I've long since admired, Colm Feore and David Paymer. Feore is especially good as the jumpy hoodlum turned businessman. The other two actors are less stellar but this is probably because their roles are less interestingly written. Arliss Howard does a great job of portraying a priest who used to be a cocky tough guy but is saddled with some truly unspeakable dialogue. Tony Goldwyn, meanwhile, frequently fades into the background and his small-town cop is a tad too summer-stock for my liking. There's only so far you can take a performance that relies on "Top Gun" sunglasses and thumbs hooked behind a belt.
"The Lesser Evil" could have been a more compelling thriller had its writers taken the characters farther in their wickedness and moral decay. While their darker sides are frequently hinted at, the filmmakers are unusually reticent to truly dive into their depths. Mamet would have not been so puritanical. However, it is a more than competently made and enjoyably pulpy thriller. The kind you're delighted to run across while browsing your local TV station (does anyone still do that?). There is plenty of juicy twists and good acting here to keep your attention for 90-minutes and sometimes that's just what the doctor ordered.
2.5/4 - DirectorCarl SchenkelStarsGötz GeorgeWolfgang KielingRenée SoutendijkTwo former lovers, an embezzler, and a messenger boy become trapped on a Friday in a stalled office elevator.18-01-2022
I love disaster movies. Not so much for the special effects or the dazzling stunt sequences but for the psychological drama of a diverse group of people forced to work together in order to survive despite their clashing personalities. The master of the genre, Irwin Allen, knew that for the action-packed scenes to work the opening 40 minutes had to be flawless. The characters had to be relatable, troubled, and in conflict with each other. Bonus points if the conflict is internalised and deep seethed so that once the disaster breaks out the conflict can reach boiling point. Right now, I couldn't tell you much of the plot of "The Towering Inferno" or remember many of its action scenes, but I vividly recall Richard Chamberlain's corner-cutting architect, Fred Astaire's love-lorn conman, and the oneupmanship between Steve McQueen and Paul Newman that carried over onto the film's billings. Characters are everything indeed and Carl Schenkel's "Out of Order" is a movie that knows it.
The location: an elevator. The disaster: a mechanical fault that causes the said elevator to get stuck. Not too bad, right? Press the buzzer, wait a few hours, and you'll be out. But what if your fellow travellers are not the kind of people you want to spend a few hours with? Yes, there are a few heart-pounding stunts in "Out of Order", a well-shot fight scene, and several moments of genuine suspense, but the real sparks fly between the characters.
The first to board the elevator are Jörg (Götz George) and his girlfriend Marion (Renée Soutendijk). He is a brash businessman, she's beautiful and knows it. He is desperate to keep a hold of her, she's playful and bored. No longer needing him to buy her expensive things her eyes are wandering for farther horizons. In comes Pit (Hannes Jaenicke). With his sunglasses, Walkman and leather jacket, Pit is the kind of youth an honest capitalist like Jörg hates. Marion and Pit soon develop a playful rapport. Jörg believes she's doing it to make him jealous. If that's true, she achieves her goal very quickly indeed.
The fourth passenger of the elevator is a kindly old man (Wolfgang Kieling) clutching a worn briefcase. "I know exactly what's in that briefcase," says Marion. "Your washing. Every evening at half-past seven. Like clockwork." The kindly old man nods his head, smiles, and says very little. Like all kindly men, he has spent his whole life retreating, timidly keeping his head down, doing his job, asking no questions. Now his time for the axe has come and a computer has arrived to replace him. But this kindly old man has had enough and on his last day at work, he has decided to take something more than his laundry home. If his fellow travellers find out that the bag he is clutching contains 500,000 DM, will the situation change?
There is so much conflict between the characters that it would be hard to summarise it in writing. Every scene new alliances are made and new conflicts break out. The beauty of Schenkel's script, however, is that the conflicts are rarely if ever talked out. He keeps the tension through looks, actions, witty remarks hiding a world of aggression behind them. At first, the conflict seems to be sociological with Jörg and Marion representing the age-old clash between men and women. Jörg and Pit, meanwhile, clash as representatives of the staid middle class and the urban counterculture respectively. Finally, there's Jörg, the capitalist, just the kind of person that has trampled all over the kindly, old Mr Gössmann.
The big twist of "Out of Order", however, is that it is actually a film about ageing. Jörg doesn't see it yet, but it is obvious that he is going the way of Mr Gössmann. His girlfriend is already looking for fresh meat, I wonder how long he will get to cling on to his job. As this becomes more and more obvious, the conflict between Jörg and Pit stops being sociological or even good old fashioned jealousy. It becomes a game of oneupmanship in which Jörg struggles to keep up with the younger and more physically fit Pit.
"Out of Order" is a simply superb thriller. Besides writing a smart and emotionally charged screenplay, Carl Schenkel also manages to squeeze all the thrills and drama of a film the size of "The Towering Inferno" into a single confined space. It is an admirable feat. Despite taking place almost entirely inside the claustrophobic elevator, the film never feels repetitious or visually boring. Quite on the contrary, Schenkel's direction is stylish and inventive. His camera movements are elegant and well thought as is Jacques Steyn's dynamic and moody cinematography.
I suppose by disaster movie standards, "Out of Order" would be considered a small movie. But if ever there was a film to prove that if you have good characters you don't need a massive budget, this is it. With a razor-sharp script, an excellent cast, and a constantly building sense of tension and imminent danger, "Out of Order" doesn't need a burning building or a tipped over ship to excite. It achieves it through close-ups, biting dialogue, and some good old-fashioned acting.
3.5/4 - DirectorPaolo GenoveseStarsGiuseppe BattistonAnna FogliettaMarco GialliniSeven long-time friends meet for dinner. They decide to share their text messages, emails and phone calls. Secrets are unveiled. Harmony trembles.18-01-2022
"How many couples would break up if they looked inside each other's phones?" Well, watch "Perfect Strangers" and the answer is apparently all of them. No one will deny, I'm sure, that we have, as a society, become entirely overly dependent on our phones. They have taken the role of our entertainers, confidantes, diaries, guiding lights... We're lost without them. If they're not in our hands, they're on our desks, in our pockets. We can't imagine our lives without them and when we misplace them we don't know what to do with ourselves. Do you remember when their primary function was making calls? No, me neither. "They're the black box of our lives," says a character in the film. It's an astute observation. Not particularly original, but on the nose. Much like the movie itself.
Paolo Genovese's film (I say that because I'm too lazy to list all six of its writers) has become a minor sensation in the film world. In the short five years of its existence, it has managed to break the record of the most remade film of all time. Apparently, there's 20 of them in existence. All over the world. And several more are in the making. This is not, of course, a sign of quality but it is a sign that Genovese has struck the elusive zeitgeist straight in the bullseye. Who knew it would be so shallow?
The idea is simple and therein lies its charm. Seven friends meet up for dinner. Bored, they decide to play a game. All of them will place their phones on the table and read out any message they receive. Similarly, all phone calls must be answered on loudspeaker. Predictably, in the time span of only a few hours, each of them will just happen to receive the phone call or the message which will expose their biggest secret. One is gay, another is in therapy, but most of them are cheaters. I don't know whether I'm just stupid or simply not Italian, but I'm pretty sure that not all of my friends are cheating on their spouses. Right?
It's all preposterous stuff. Hilariously pulpy in fact. There's no real weight to "Perfect Strangers". It tries to seem important. It raises many important subjects, in fact, with admirable portentousness, but all its earnestness ends in cliched speeches. Even the question of technology taking over our social lives is raised and then forgotten about once all the cheating starts. But what it is is undeniably entertaining. It has that feeling of gossipy salaciousness all the best soap operas have. Had it been a TV show I could imagine myself by the water cooler asking an equally depraved colleague if he could have guessed Cosimo was sleeping with Marika?
The film also absolutely nails the chatty atmosphere of a friendly dinner party. The first 40-or-so-minutes of the film are the best, in fact, as the friends gather, tease each other, reminisce about old times... The best trick Paolo Genovese pulls is making us feel as if we've known these people all our lives. By the time the game begins, we've already spent a significant amount of time with them and, god forgive us, we've actually grown to care about them... somewhat.
Sure, the characters are stereotypes but anything else simply wouldn't fit the nature of the film. It helps, however, that the performances are so good, nuanced and truthful. No matter how silly the revelations become, the actors always play them for all the heartwrenching drama they're worth. This helps ground the film and make us emotionally invested even when our brains are laughing.
What doesn't help is Maurizio Filardo's awful score. Saccharine and intrusive, it seems to repeat the same piano tune every time something remotely heartfelt occurs (which, in this movie, is quite often). By the end, I felt like the bloody melody was oozing out of my ears like treacle.
Also unfitting was the film's hypocritical ending which through a jarring flight of fantasy seems to turn the film into an endorsement of lying and hiding your true feelings. Even though the entire film seemed to be telling us the opposite, the last scene informs us that it's alright to cheat, lie, and even deceive yourself, as long as no one finds out. Lovely.
I am not surprised "Perfect Strangers" has caught the world by storm. It is just the right diet mixture of faux social commentary, shallow philosophy, and soap opera the world needs. It is also undeniably fascinating, quite unexpectedly witty, and surprisingly well made. While I don't deny it will all evaporate out of my brain by tomorrow, I had a rollicking fun time while it lasted and I don't doubt you will as well. Maybe when I forget it I can get down to watching its 20 remakes. On second thought...
3/4 - DirectorIrvin KershnerStarsFaye DunawayTommy Lee JonesBrad DourifA famous fashion photographer develops a disturbing ability to see through the eyes of a killer.21-01-2022
"Whatever happened to beautiful," asks a shocked patron of an art gallery. Naked, dead women, beautifully made up, their corpses posed in graphic sexual positions are on exhibit. Photos of men abusing bare-chested vixens. Work with all the stark violence and stylish gloss of Helmut Newton. Controversial, inflammatory work. All the more shocking is the fact that it is the work of a woman named Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway), the latest cause celebre of the art society, instant star of the world of chic and the target for every conservative, feminist, and religious nut out there. "America is pushing murder on us," reasons one of Laura's models, "So we'll use murder to sell deodorant so that you'll just get bored with murder. Right?"
"Eyes of Laua Mars" is set in the fancy world of commercial photography and its best scenes are drenched in its bizarre pazzazz. It is a world populated by leggy models, lecherous publishers, cross-dressing agents, and sharply-dressed dwarves. Everyone is dressed to the nines and blaring spotlights blind you wherever you turn. It is clearly an incestuous world, one where everyone knows everyone, where everyone has slept with everyone, or where everyone wants to sleep with everyone. It is also a world in which everyone is looking after everyone but by the very nature of the perversity of their business, they are a likely suspect. It is a fascinating, frequently cynical portrayal of the art world shot in that gritty, earthy style 70s films are recognisable for.
Less interesting is the thriller plot which regrettably quickly overwhelms the picture. A crazed killer is slaughtering everyone around Laura Mars. First to go is her publisher, then her best friend... Their corpses are found with the eyes gouged out. To make matters worse, Laura is the sole witness to these killings but not in the way you might think. You see, she suddenly finds herself with the disturbing ability to look through the eyes of the killer. See as he kills. The cops are, of course, dismissive of her claims. That is until the dashing lieutenant Neville (Tommy Lee Jones) takes over the case and he only has eyes for Laura Mars.
This is Giallo by way of Brian De Palma complete with a glove-wearing killer but without the stylish glee. It was written by a pre-"Halloween" John Carpenter, a director who could have no doubt given the picture the edge it so sorely lacks. It was, however, directed by Irvin Kershner, a man with no previous experience directing thrillers and with little evident delight in doing so. His kill scenes lack the thrill of the hunt, the thirst for blood, the necrophilic quest for the beauty in death. Thus, the film is a strangely passionless affair, a dull trod through thriller cliches without any real suspense or stylishness.
Laura seeing through the eyes of the killer in the end proves to be nothing more than a gimmick. She never uses her ability to identify him nor does anything she sees prove to be a vital yet overlooked clue. In fact, no clues are provided to us, only red herrings and consequently the film is also robbed of any sense of mystery. When the killer is revealed at the end it feels underwhelming. Like an anti-climax because we've never been given the chance to play along, try and figure it all out.
The cast is very good, especially Faye Dunaway with her classical blonde beauty and the most striking eyes you've ever seen. However, the characters they play are so deprived of any warmth or depth that it is hard to generate any kind of emotional investment in their fates. As they get slaughtered one by one we feel nothing but an encroaching sense of boredom.
Shame really as somewhere in there hides a decent premise for a Giallo. But without style, energy, melodrama, and suspense you can't have a thriller and "Eyes of Laura Mars" is a decidedly frigid endeavour. The only glimpse of passion and emotion comes from the excellent theme song "Prisoner" intoned by the always welcome voice of Barbra Streisand.
2/4 - DirectorWarren BeattyBuck HenryStarsWarren BeattyJames MasonJulie ChristieA Los Angeles Rams quarterback, accidentally taken away from his body by an overanxious angel before he was meant to die, returns to life in the body of a recently murdered millionaire.30-01-2022
Death seems an unlikely subject matter for a feel-good romantic comedy but "Heaven Can Wait" proves it can work. Perhaps that's because the death in question occurs in such an absurd and yet relatable manner. Essentially, it's a temp oversight, except that the temp in question (Buck Henry) works for Heaven and is in charge of extracting souls from bodies at the moment of death. Taking pity on one of his unwitting clients, "It looked like it was going to be such a painful death", he extracts the soul from Joe Pendleton (Warren Beatty) before the fatal car crash actually occurs. The problem is that Joe was actually meant to survive the car crash.
Now, the good-natured and simple-minded Joe is willing to forgive the overeager angel his mistake if the apologetic Mr Jordan (James Mason), Heaven's head of HR, agrees to return him to life. But there's a slight hitch. He's been cremated. So, instead of returning him to his body, he plants his soul into the recently deceased body of billionaire Leo Farnsworth. In good comedic fashion, of course, Joe has no clue how to run an oil conglomerate. He also has no interest in the wealthy lifestyle as his only life's ambition is to play in the Super Bowl. So with the aid of his former coach (Jack Warden) he sets out to achieve that dream in his new body. It's a comedy of mistaken identity with a celestial twist.
But wait, there's more. It turns out that Leo Farnsworth was not a good egg. Besides being an eccentric with a penchant for wearing naval uniforms ("Do I sail?" "No, sir.") he's also completely corrupt. His nuclear power plants are unsafe, his oil refineries displace entire communities and his tuna business has the unfortunate side effect of slaughtering porpoises. Joe being Joe, he decides to set everything right especially after he falls in love with a beautiful school teacher (Julie Christie) from the village of Paglesham, one of the communities threatened by Farnsworth's businesses. This doesn't engender goodwill with Farnsworth's business associates nor does it please his cheating wife (Dyan Cannon) and sleazy secretary (Charles Grodin) who, as it turns out, were responsible for Leo's untimely death and are less than thrilled with his miraculous resurrection. Certain that his change of attitude is a revenge ploy they are determined to finish what they started as soon as possible.
"Heaven Can Wait" is a busy movie but it works so well largely due to a sharp, continuously hilarious and touching script by Elaine May. The way it effortlessly juggles and doses all of the film's many, many subplots and characters is a feat of great screenwriting gymnastics. Despite being based on a play, it is clearly May's work. It bears all the hallmarks of her cockeyed comedies with its portrayal of clueless rich people, strained relationships between men and women, and verbose humour ("The likelihood of one individual being right increases in direct proportion to the intensity with which others are trying to prove him wrong.") One can easily imagine the unseen Leo Farnsworth as Henry Graham, Walter Matthau's character from May's "A New Leaf".
And yet "Heaven Can Wait" was not directed by Elaine May. A shame. Nevertheless, the directorial duo of Warren Beatty and Buck Henry does an admirable job of evoking the style and feel of Frank Capra's legendary moral comedies of yesteryear. This is indeed a delightful film, a life-affirming comedy full of good humour and positive messages but without being overbearingly peppy. Beatty and Henry strike just the right note between cheer and biting satire, the absurdity and the bizarreness of Joe's situation squeezing all the humour from all of them along the way.
The cast is first-rate. I was especially amused by Grodin and Cannon's increasingly erratic performances as the bumbling assassins straight out of a "Naked Gun" movie. Meanwhile, Joseph Maher provides a nice counterpoint to them as Farnsworth's unflappable butler. The always superb Jack Warden again plays the gruff but warmhearted father figure, a role he perfected, but does it with so much heart and conviction that his Oscar nomination was well deserved. Also perfectly cast is James Mason as the emissary of Heaven. With his suave authority and commanding voice, one gets the impression he barely had to act. Anchoring all this insanity is Warren Beatty, as charming and loveable as ever. He makes Joe an entirely believable character, not just a caricature of a braindead football player. He is a simple man, perhaps, but one with principles and one who wears his heart on his sleeve. His romantic subplot with Julie Christie is smartly underplayed and develops slowly across the entire film. The two have obvious and palpable chemistry and when she looks at him with her distinctive large eyes, the audience melts in their seats.
I had a whale of a time with "Heaven Can Wait", a film which was clearly intended to be an homage to Capra but ended up being so much more. Thanks to Elaine May it is also a razor-sharp satire of the playboy lifestyle, a life-affirming love story, and one of the warmest, most humane comedies I've ever seen.
3.5/4 - DirectorPatrice LeconteStarsMichel BlancSandrine BonnaireLuc ThuillierA recluse is accused of murdering a young woman simply because his neighbors think he is strange.30-01-2022
A great writer once wrote that there are people whose life is like a trace on water. "They're invisible, inaudible, unreal. They leave no trace in the sandy desert of humanity. We don't know whence they came among us, and when they leave, we don't know why or where they went." Monsieur Hire (Marcel Blanc) is one such person, a man whose insignificance has infected every aspect of his very existence. Short, bald, unassuming, he is the sort of man anyone would overlook were he not dressed in a black, funereal suit he wears like armour to repel his fellow humans. He doesn't like them and they don't like him.
He lives in a rundown, antebellum building in the suburbs of a large, unnamed city. When a prostitute is found murdered in a field nearby, the other tenants in the building egg on the police inspector (André Wilms) to investigate Hire. They are sure he's the killer because he's so different, so unlikeable, so unlike them. When the inspector asks Hire what did he do to make them dislike him so much he answers "Nothing. That's the point. I'm not very sociable or friendly, and they don't like that. Conversations stop when I approach and resume after I've passed by. It doesn't bother me. I prefer silence. I don't like to talk." The inspector marks him down as an odd customer but the cruel joke is that Hire is not even that. He's so plain and unnoticable that probably no record of his existance would have survived after his death had he not found himself involved in a police investigation.
But Hire is no innocent. He is rude, short tempered, and a habitual voyeur. He rushes home every afternoon so that he can stare out of the window of his darkened room at the lives of others. In a sense, he is vampiric, feeding on the lifeforce of other people, on their significance, on their relationships, on their lives. The object of his obsession is Alice (Sandrine Bonnaire), whose large French windows are conveniently directly opposite his. He watches her from the moment he returns home until he has to leave again. He sleeps very little, we're informed, and only leaves his cloistered overlook to make dinner.
Then one day, Alice notices Hire. Her reaction is not what one would expect. She's neither horrified nor afraid but intrigued. She tries approaching him, he evades her. She leaves him a letter inviting him to dinner. What does she want? Is she excited by this little man who knows everything about her or does she have some ulterior motives? One thing is sure, however. Alice is the real odd customer here for despite being engaged to a sexy hunk of a man (Luc Thuillier) she seems more intrigued and attracted to the insignificant little Hire.
Patrice Leconte's "Monsieur Hire" is based on a novel by Georges Simenon, a veritable master of crime fiction and one of the most perceptive and insightful writers. It is indeed a superb character study of a life so devoid of meaning or impact that most filmmakers would dismiss its filmic potential. A defining feature is Michel Blanc's measured performance which hides Hire's loneliness behind a facade of indifference. It takes a long time to find out what thoughts lurk behind those cold, dark eyes.
However, the most surprising and intriguing thing about "Monsieur Hire" is that Leconte constructs a love story around Hire. True, it's a bizarre love story, like no other you've ever seen, but it's a love story none the less. Even as we suspect there's a sinister intent behind Alice's interest in Hire we can't help but begin to root for this unlikeable and geniunly creepy man to finally find love and some meaning to his life. There is even a love scene, though not one you'd immediately recognise as such. It is set during a boxing match and the only skin that is exposed is a small patch above Alice's midriff. And yet as Hire touches it, covertly and carefully, there is the same climax of passion as there is in the steamiest of sex scenes.
The mystery plotline takes a back seat for most of the film but we're continually made aware of its presence in the form of the plodding police inspector following Hire's every step. André Wilms plays him like a man who's convinced he is the French answer to Columbo. Dressed in a wrinkly overcoat and looking distinctly disheveled, he ambles and pries into every aspect of Hire's life. He's a continual danger lurking in the background, threating to ruin Hire's happiness just as it is beginning.
3.5/4 - DirectorElaine MayStarsRose ArrickCarol GraceWilliam HickeyNicky is on the run from the mob, and he turns to old pal Mikey for help.30-01-2022
We open on a door. A locked bolted door to a room in a cheap hotel. Next to the door, sweating profusely, unshaven and dishevelled, rolling on the floor is Nicky (John Cassavetes). He's been drinking, he's drunk, he's clutching a gun like a drowning man clutches at a straw. He picks up a phone in what must be the last act of desperation. "Mikey," he says, "I'm in trouble" and indeed he is for he's stolen money from the mob and the mob has responded by killing his accomplice and putting out a hit on him. Now holed up in a cheap hotel room with a bottle and a gun he waits for the arrival of his only friend.
Mikey eventually arrives and seems to be the antithesis of Nicky. Where Nicky is tall, handsome and suave, Mikey is short, ambling, and blunt. Nicky is fashionably dishevelled while Mikey is dressed up like a Jewish accountant. Nicky is nervous, neurotic, capricious, Mikey is passively aggressive, seething, yet outwardly calm. The two men couldn't be different and combine like fuel and fire. Despite Mikey's best attempts to calm his friend down and get him out of town, Nicky seems set to go down the path of self-destruction. He refuses to go to the airport, he picks fights in bars, he antagonises Mikey despite knowing he has no one else to turn to.
Relatively soon in the picture, it is revealed that Mikey is working for the mob hunting Nicky down. As the two men wander through New York City, Mikey tries desperately to communicate their location to the grumbling hitman (Ned Beatty) barely keeping up with them. What we don't find out immediately is why and what we never find out is whether Nicky knows. This makes the already uneasy relationship between the two men feel all the more intense.
The first half of "Mikey and Nicky" is infuriatingly elusive. It depicts a night that begins in hell and only gets worse. Wherever the two men go, Nicky picks a fight and if there's no one to fight with he picks on Mikey until his seemingly calm friend breaks. This usually satisfies Nicky's sadistic urges. The problem for me, the viewer, though was the fact that I had no idea what this was all about. The film is not funny. Despite being directed and written by an extraordinary comedian, Elaine May, it is a decidedly glum experience and meant as such. It also seems, during its first half, not to be particularly insightful. We feel the rage between the two men but we get no clues as to where this rage comes from.
The second half, however, reveals the game. In a sequence that begins innocuously enough, Nicky plays a particularly cruel joke on Mikey. He takes him to meet his mistress (Carol Grace) telling him she's a prostitute. Then he proceeds to have sex with her and when he's done tells Mikey it's his turn. The poor sucker goes for the girl only to get his mouth bloodied. "You got all the friends. You got all the money. Did you have to do that to me in front of some dumb bitch to prove you got all the women," asks Mikey in the first scene in the film which hints at true insight.
"I don't want you to be my friend just when there's nobody else around," says Mikey. The two men have known each other their whole lives. They started from the same roots, they played in the same streets, they knew the same people. Nicky has always been the successful one. He's the one who had all the girls, who was the popular one, who was the wild one. Mikey contented himself with being the responsible man, the family man, the hard worker and yet, as Nicky delights in informing him, everyone finds him irritating. The one time Mikey had one over on Nicky was when he got a job working for a big mob boss. Then he introduced Nicky to his boss and soon enough Nicky became the boss' best friend.
This is a film about the death of a friendship. A friendship killed by Nicky's greed and insensitivity and by Mikey's chronic jealousy and lack of confidence. The set-up with the mob hitman is a masterstroke from Elaine May. It brings out the worst in both men. Nicky knows Mikey is the only friend he has but at the same time, he is aware of the possibility that he's gone too far with him. Mikey, on the other hand, realises this is his chance for revenge. His chance to finally better Nicky, but can he truly kill his oldest friend? Peter Falk plays the internal struggle to perfection. He is more than willing to make covert phone calls directing the hitman but when a suggestion is made that Nicky gets killed in front of Mikey's house, he baulks at the suggestion. John Cassavetes, for his part, is ideal casting as the mercurial, cruel, manipulative and narcissistic Nicky. He has charm by the truckloads but also an undeniable mean streak. His eyes glow as he watches Mikey get slapped by the girl. He enjoys humiliating his friend even when he knows his time is numbered.
"Mikey and Nicky" is a bold experiment by Elaine May. She is first and foremost a superb writer and yet here she makes a film full of improvisation, a spontaneous, unstructured harrowing. It may not sound like it but it's a tribute to the quality of her writing that the film only works when the actors stick to the script. The first half of the film, as Mikey and Nicky stumble from one bar to the next, is not an unqualified success. It frequently feels like an acting exercise, a private joke between two top-notch method actors. It is meandering, often bloated, and far too talky. The second half, however, which finally brings the two friends on a collision course is absolutely stunning. Falk and Cassavetes sizzle with animosity, their scenes are electric, their dialogue on point. The scene in which they finally fight it out in the street both verbally and physically is a master class in both acting and directing. May and her cameramen do a fantastic job of keeping up with the unrestrained physicality of the performances. There is a directness and brutality to the camerawork which rivals "The French Connection".
Speaking of brutality, the film ends in one of the most horrifying, unspeakably brutal, and unforgettable scenes in American cinema. I won't spoil it but "The Godfather" has nothing on Elaine May.
"Mikey and Nicky" is a curious picture and one which doesn't work as often as it does. May doesn't seem to have the same control of her actors that Cassavates displays in his films nor does she quite manage to sustain the intensity of the finale throughout the entire 100-minute runtime. Still, the film is endlessly fascinating. It is fascinating in its brutality, both physical and mental. It is fascinating in the honesty of its portrayal of friendship and how it can sour over time. It is even fascinating in how artificial it sometimes feels with its theatrical mobsters and wholly unconvincing portrayal of the underworld. After all who cares. This is not a film about gangsters or stolen money or even hitmen. It is about friends and when it focuses on what is truly at stake it is sharp, honest, and heartfelt.
3/4 - DirectorElaine MayStarsWarren BeattyDustin HoffmanIsabelle AdjaniTwo terrible lounge singers get booked to play a gig in a Moroccan hotel but somehow become pawns in an international power play between the C.I.A., the Emir of Ishtar, and the rebels trying to overthrow his regime.31-01-2022
"Ishtar", Elaine May's fourth and (so far) final directorial endeavour, is easily one of the most famous films of all time. If that's not a resounding success, I don't know what is. There isn't a film fan decently versed in the annals of American film history whose eyes don't light up at the mention of its ambiguous title. Then, without missing a beat, their mouth will stretch into a cringing grimace and a mocking groan will escape their throat. "The worst film ever made," they'll say. Nine out of ten times, that person will have not seen "Ishtar".
Truthfully speaking, the toxic reputation of this film is far more fascinating than any single movie could ever be. How can one innocuous comedy attract so much acrimony as to utterly destroy the career and reputation of a writer/director so funny, smart, and original as Elaine May? How is it possible for so many people to discredit the film with absolute authority without having actually seen it? I'm not sure myself. It may all be down to the bad press the film got before it was even released. Maybe it is the side effect of the troubled production it went through. Maybe Elaine May is, indeed, yet another victim of Hollywood's institutional misogyny. Either way, "Ishtar" has become yet another Hollywood legend, as unconfirmed and apocryphal as all the others.
Well, I'm here to tell you it's not true. Well, mostly not true. "Ishar" is no lost masterpiece, nor is it in the strictest sense of the word misunderstood, but it is very, very far from being a bad film. I had a ball watching it. It has that good-natured, gee-whiz type humour and bombards you with it at an unbelievable pace. It is consistently funny even when the jokes in it are so old you can remember Laurel & Hardy doing them in "Sons of the Desert". Sure, I expected the blind camel to step on Charles Grodin's foot, but the moment is so well executed that it still made me laugh. In a way, that alone is a real testament to Elaine May's talents.
Dustin Hoffman & Warren Beatty play Rogers & Clarke a pair of hopelessly untalented songwriters, the authors of such gonnabe hits as "Telling the Truth Is a Dangerous Business", "I Left a Little Love in My Will", and "Living Life Is an Audition for God". After a series of catastrophic failures, their hapless agent (Jack Weston) realises there's no venue in New York his two clients haven't embarrassed themselves in. Hoping to earn them some cash, he arranges for them to appear nightly at a Moroccan hotel with a short stopover in Ishtar, a fictional country in the midst of a Communist revolution.
The plot kicks off after Hoffman unknowingly becomes involved with a dangerous and sexy terrorist (Isabelle Adjani) pursued by the CIA. What happens next is so preposterously convoluted and impossible to follow that I won't even attempt to summarise it. After all, in a film such as this, the plot is only a thin excuse for one gag after the other and the real draw of the film is watching these two klutzy New Yorkers try to survive in the desert with no water and only a blind camel for transport. The jokes worked on me.
I suppose if any of the many criticisms levelled at "Ishtar" are true it is the one accusing its jokes of being old hat. If we were to truly analyse them, one by one, I'm sure we'd reach that conclusion too. However, the one fact I cannot deny is that I laughed all the way through "Ishtar", often uproariously. The film is so full of gags, jokes, and set-pieces that even if one doesn't work on you the next one is on its way. Hoffman & Beatty make for a superb modern-day Bing & Crosby. They're so far out of their element in this Arabic spy plot that their casting alone is a brilliant joke. Among some of the film's funniest moments, I would include the scene in which Beatty tries to reason with a pack of vultures that Hoffman has only passed out and a wonderfully truthful moment in which Hoffman becomes jealous that Adjani recruited Beatty to help her instead of him. "Why can't I be your Communist? Am I not good enough?" Also wonderfully funny (and unexpectedly sinister) is Charles Grodin as the CIA agent trying to extinguish the Communist rebellion in "Ishtar".
Another frequent criticism of "Ishtar" is that it is too long, without a certain pace. This is definitely true as it is true of most of May's films. Some of the scenes in "Ishtar" do ramble on for too long and the film's plot is so incoherent that it is hard to say if it reaches any kind of conclusion. However, Beatty & Hoffman are certainly pleasant company and while I would have preferred a tighter movie I wasn't too bothered by its blind alleys and detours. I was having too much fun for that.
So, is "Ishtar" a forgotten masterpiece? No. It's too meandering for that. Also, unlike similar movies of the time such as "Romancing the Stone", it feels curiously small. As if after all the action, the set-pieces, the trek through the vast, enemy-infested desert not much has actually happened.
But "Ishtar" is a good movie. A good comedy, before anything else. It is genuinely funny, consistently entertaining, and convincing in a way that most 80s comedies weren't. I believed Hoffman & Beatty as a pair of bad musicians. Their songs are hilariously awful and their performances cringe-inducingly awkward but in a way that feels real. I've seen these two guys in cheap bars and on open mic nights. I assure you they exist. Along with some beautiful desert photography courtesy of Vittorio Storaro and an unexpectedly exciting score by Dave Grusin "Ishtar's" reputation is utterly undeserved. It is a joyful 100 minutes and Elaine May goes down in history as yet another victim of so-called general knowledge. The next time someone tells you "Ishtar" sucks ask them if they've actually seen it. I bet my bottom dollar the answer will be a scoffing no.
3/4 - DirectorMatt Bettinelli-OlpinTyler GillettStarsNeve CampbellCourteney CoxDavid Arquette25 years after a streak of brutal murders shocked the quiet town of Woodsboro, Calif., a new killer dons the Ghostface mask and begins targeting a group of teenagers to resurrect secrets from the town's deadly past.31-01-2022
A girl is home alone on a dark, starless night. Her phone rings. "What's your favourite scary movie," a raspy voice asks. She locks all the doors but it is in vain. Still, she gets stabbed. Repeatedly. The killer is our old familiar, the Ghostface mask-wearing, meta spouting, knife-wielding maniac. A new murder spree is underway in Woodsboro, a town that should really be renamed Stabsboro. There's a new cast but all the old familiar faces are back. Sidney's here again as useless as ever, so is Gale, as well as my old favourite, former Sheriff Dewey. "This time it feels different," he says. For the life of me, I can't figure out why though. I bet that line was thrown in just for the trailer.
It's been 11 years since the last "Scream" movie but nothing much has changed. The formula is exactly the same. "It's a meta-slasher whodunnit," says one of the teens. The first "Scream" movie seemed smart and edgy with its genre references, today it seems a bit old hat. Fair dues to the makers of "Scream 5" for avoiding the pitfalls of modern reboots. There are no political statements here, no hamfisted attempts at social significance, no mocking the fans passing as satire. This is not a David Gordon Green movie after all. But "Scream 5" is disappointingly samey. The stakes don't feel higher, the twists don't feel more significant, the characters don't feel like they've moved on from the time we saw them last. If you loved "Scream" one through four, "Scream 5" might satisfy your thirst for more of the same but for this reviewer, after five movies, that alone just doesn't cut it.
The old cast is relatably good even though they get even less to do than in "Scream 4". Fair dos, David Arquette gets a juicy, though relatively small role. It is nice seeing him on screen again and he has definitely grown as an actor over the years. Gone is the mugging and the overacting that plagued his performance in "Scream 3". Here he delivers an understated, haunted version of Dewey that reminded me of Bill Pullman's performance in "The Sinner". Must be the beard.
Courteney Cox and Neve Campbell, however, feel shoehorned into this one. Their characters don't even show up until halfway through the film and once they do show up they only serve as moral support to the new characters. Besides spewing a few commonplace pieces of wisdom, I am at a loss to see why their presence is even needed here besides satisfying the fans.
Speaking of the new cast, they are even blander than the new cast from "Scream 4". The basic characterisations are exactly the same. There's the smarty-pants know-it-all, a 2022 version of Randy from the original. There's the sexy airhead. There's the jock. And then there's the tragic final girl with a dark secret from the past and a troubled relationship with her family. The big twist is they're all relatives of their counterparts from the first film but that won't cover up the fact they're barely even cannon fodder.
I must also report with regret that I didn't particularly like the new final girl Sam (Melissa Barrera) who sulks through most of the film and displays little charisma or originality. Much more likeable is her boyfriend Richie (Jack Quaid) who sadly gets sidelined for most of the film in favour of a soap-opera-ish subplot about Sam's family history. The script by James Vanderbilt & Guy Busick definitely leans in heavy on the heartbreak. Dewey and Gale have broken up again making this their third break-up in five movies. Is a heart-to-heart phone call going to solve all their troubles? Find out in the next episode of "As the Knife Turns".
I would be lying, however, if I said that "Scream 5" is not an effective slasher flick. In fact, in many ways, it is one of the best straightforward examples of the genre I've seen in years. Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett show a definite understanding of suspense and the kill scenes are brutal and imaginative in ways no "Scream" sequel has been since 1998. There is a particularly intense sequence set in a hospital that might just be the finest set-piece in any of the movies.
But it is disappointing to find yourself watching the same movie again after five instalments in a franchise. Each of the previous sequels at least tried to appear different. "Scream 2" was set on a college campus, "Scream 3" tried to move the proceedings to a slasher film set in Hollywood and "Scream 4" was original precisely because it brought things back to Woodsboro, back to basics you might say. "Scream 5" falls back into formula a little too easily for my liking. It is a little too set in its ways. That would be acceptable for a "Friday the 13th" film, an entry into a franchise that has always been happy to slavishly and mindlessly follow its formula. However, I expect more of a sequel to "Scream", a horror movie that revolutionised the game, that turned all the conventions on their head, that inspired the rebirth of a genre long thought dead. I'm pretty sure "Scream 5" isn't going to do that.
2.5/4