blackeyed0225 Reviews

Irma Vep (1996)

Irma Vep

[7/10 · 29 October 2023]

Take a fish out of water and toss it into a swirling mix of egos and affectations, and Irma Vep is the result. Amid the frictions of creativity chafing against industry, Oliver Assaysas' satire of the world of moviemaking and its accompanying pitfalls is a mixed bag of amusing sketches with a sprinkling of spice to the catty back-biting and snarls of collaborative art.

When Irma Vep was released in 1996, Maggie Cheung was an established star in Hong Kong, and here she plays herself as an outsider who René Vidal (Jean Pierre Leaud), a faded French director, handpicks to be his lead in Les Vampires, a remake of the 1915 silent movie about a cat burglar. The fact that the foreign lead actress barely speaks a word of French only adds to the dysfunction .Cheung ravishes as the slinky and cultivated star who seems up for anything, though she seems oblivious to the flirtations of the set's costumer designer Zoe (Nathalie Richard). The production is a hot mess, with the behind-schedule shoot plagued by cast and crew squabbling over trivialities and a loopy director on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Similar to Francois Truffaut's Day for Night (another film about a troubled Francophone film set, also starring Leaud as a young leading man), Irma Vep pays homage to the those behind the camera just as much as those in front of it. Where Day for Night is a celebration of French cinema, Assayas laments the artistic compromises cinema makes to satisfy the modern global market. In one amusing scene, a French critic takes aim at French films for their artistic pretensions while championing the action movies of Van Damme and Schwarzenegger. It's both a jab at audiences for their shallow tastes and the self-indulgent highbrow of contemporary French cinema.

Irma Vep's chaotic excesses might challenge traditional audiences, but it has found its niche with artists and creative types who might relate to it more than they'd like to admit. In a film about making a film, self-reflexivity is taken to a new level when Cheung assumes the persona of a jewel thief and dances on the rain-soaked rooftops of Paris in a black latex bodysuit. It's a bizarre yet glorious interlude in a film that refuses to be easily slotted into convention or genre.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

[7/10 · 20 July 2023]

Harrison Ford reprises the role of whip-cracking adventurer Indiana Jones for one last hurrah in 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny', the franchise's fifth film and the first not to be directed by Steven Spielberg. Seasoned hand James Mangold, whose filmography includes crime dramas (Copland), biopics (Walk The Line), and westerns (3:10 to Yuma), takes over the reigns, and the film's first twenty minutes are a giddy ride down memory lane.

Ford is digitally 'de-aged' to appear as he did in the original films; only his weathered and cracked voice is a telltale sign of the visual trickery. It's 1944, and archaeologist and adventurer Dr. Henry 'Indiana' Jones is a captive of the Nazis. Staring down certain death, he manages to escape while watching his Nazi antagonist, Dr. Juergen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), plunge to his death from a moving train. Jones takes possession of the antithykera, a device with mystical powers thought to have been invented by the ancient Greek philosopher Archimedes.

The story flashes forward to 1969, and Indiana Jones is old and living alone in New York City, irritable and weary from teaching history to disinterested college kids, a post from which he is about to retire. Out of the blue, his goddaughter, Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), turns up looking for the antithykera. Juergen Voller, who is very much alive and working for the U. S. government, also comes sniffing around for the device. With a CIA hit squad in tow, Voller pursues Helena and Jones for the antithykera and hopes to use it to alter the course of history.

The four writers credited to the film (never a good sign) paper over the scattershot story and its gaps in logic with exciting action set pieces, such as a chase through a gorgeously rendered New York City ticker tape parade. A frenetic tuk-tuk chase in Morocco, in which Jones and Helena dart through traffic while volleying fiery banter, rekindles the thrill of the earlier films.

At eighty years of age and sharp as a razor, sprightly Ford instills a weariness in the long-in-the-tooth action hero, and Waller-Bridge's livewire Helena brings a spark to the old man/young heroine dynamic. The buttoned-down Voller menaces with the practiced slickness of a Bond villain (Mikkelsen portrayed one in 2006's Casino Royale), but Indy's greatest foe might be time itself. After a life of death-defying, globe-trotting escapades, Dr. Jones finds his greatest treasure much closer to home. 'Dial of Destiny' is a bittersweet but fitting swan song for a beloved icon.

In the Aisles (2018)

In den Gängen

[7/10 · 5 March 2023]

In Thomas Stuber's austere drama about the lives of supermarket employees in Germany, Strauss' 'The Blue Danube' conveys the lyrical magic of forklifts skating amidst the vast rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves, paying homage to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Introvert Christian (Franz Rogowski) has a chequered past but finds work as a shelfstacker at a Costco-style supermarket. He's urged to hide his tattoos and wear his name tag to maintain the company's clean-cut image. Assigned to the beverages department, Christian finds a trusty mentor in no-nonsense veteran Bruno (Peter Kurth), who schools him on the politics of 'forklift conflicts' and who patiently trains him to drive pallet jacks in between smoke breaks on the sly.

Christian's first time operating a pallet jack is a wry exercise in slapstick. Possessing a reserved charm, Rogowski makes the meek Christian likeable with a largely physical performance of bashful turns of the cheek, wistful glances and approving nods. Christian's frequent encounters at the coffee machine with Marion (Sandra Huller) from the Sweets aisle sends tongues wagging, but their innocent flirtations barely crack the ice. Upon learning of Marion's martial unhappiness, Christian's wounded vulnerability compels him to self-medicate with alcohol to numb the pain.

Stuber would have done well to play up the romance angle to give his inert film more energy and direction, but that's not the goal here. 'In The Aisles' celebrates the human connections formed in the daily grind of work. Christian and Bruno bond during smoke breaks, looking out to the world beyond from behind a wire fence, with the older Bruno reminiscing of Germany before reunification when he used to drive trucks, recalling the landmarks that were markers that told him home was close. Stuber is careful not to turn it into a battle cry against the collossus of global capitalism, but the bleakness hangs over like a dark cloud nonetheless. 'In The Aisles' handles tonal shifts well, and by adding deadpan jokes to undercut the gritty, urban gloom, its shades of light and dark are sketched with convincing realism; however, more laughs to cut through the grey wouldn't have gone astray.

Aftersun (II) (2022)

Aftersun

[8/10 · 28 February 2023]

It's the late 90s, and eleven-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) and her dad Calum (Paul Mescal) are holidaying in Turkey for the summer. For Calum, a youthful 30-something, bonding with the daughter he adores is a rare experience. They spend their days swimming, playing pool and soaking up the sun. That's about all that's conventional about Charlotte Wells' heartfelt and unhurried coming-of-age drama, 'Aftersun', which is a mosaic of hazy and fragmented memories interwoven with digital video footage, tethered to the present by an adult Sophie longing to uncover what eluded her during her childhood.

Both father and daughter are at pivotal moments in their respective journeys. Calum is approaching middle age, and Sophie is watching her childhood disappear in the rearview mirror. Calum is divorced from Sophie's mum but maintains an amicable relationship, and despite keeping a tight lid on his emotions, perceptive Sophie can see that her dad is troubled by an underlying unease. Mescal's remarkable performance alternates between restraint and heartfelt emotion, while newcomer Corio shines as the youngster exploring life and documenting it with a camcorder.

The organic and authentic feel of 'Aftersun' can be attributed to Scottish-born Wells drawing inspiration from her personal relationship with her father for her debut feature film. Collaborating with cinematographer Gregory Oke, Wells uses visual elements such as glass tabletops, swimming pools and mirrors to distort time and place. Wells' imaginative use of the camera is underscored in a dinner scene in which a freshly snapped Polaroid of Calum and Sophie rests on the table. While their conversation carries on, the undeveloped film reveals its subjects, like a memory in reverse that, instead of fading, comes alive with vivid lucidity.

As their holiday nears its end, Calum reaches out to Sophie. "You can do anything," he reassures her, "just talk to me about it." It's a memory that seemingly haunts adult Sophie. The ending of "Aftersun" plunges into choppy emotional waters. Bubbles of detail storm to the surface to form a more complete picture, and it's then left to the audience to colour the story with their own deeply emotional perspective.

Ex Machina (2014)

Ex Machina

[6/10 · 16 February 2023]

Taking place in the here and now, or not too far from now, Alex Garland's sleek yet superficial sci-fi thriller "Ex Machina" plays on humanity's fears of being surpassed by artificial intelligence (A. I.). Garland's beguiling directorial debut reaches for grand philosophical ideas about men who play gods and overstep their limits, but it doesn't quite hit the mark.

Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a geeky young programmer at a fictitious tech giant, no doubt based somewhere in Silicon Valley, wins a company lottery to spend a week with the company's reclusive CEO, Nathan (played with menacing charm by Oscar Isaac). A helicopter delivers Caleb to Nathan's compound, a fortress of glass and concrete carved into a verdant wilderness miles from civilisation. At first, Nathan's frat boy aura of muscles and smugness impresses Caleb, who agrees to take part in a 'Turing test': an experiment to prove whether the A. I. Nathan has built, named Ava, can pass for a human.

Ava (Alicia Vikander) is a machine that resembles a female human, slight and willowy with a dancer's fluid grace. Instead of being a box with a disembodied electronic voice, Ava was given a human female form because 'sexuality is fun, man,' as Nathan explains. The facility is prone to regular, inexplicable power interruptions, which Caleb begins to suspect is a ruse so that Nathan can observe Caleb and Ava under assumed privacy. Between Caleb's surrender to Ava's cool playfulness and Nathan's talent for stoking the fires of paranoia, what takes shape is a demented psychological game.

The icy ambience of the minimal electronic score by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow (Portishead) adds the right dose of apprehension. The script by Garland (Sunshine, Never Let Me Go), snaps with crisp dialogue sprinkled with droll touches. The banter between Nathan and Caleb is an intriguing clash of intellect. For its first hour, "Ex Machina" is thought-provoking and intelligent but gets lost in its final act; Ava is reduced to a ham-fisted plot device to serve the film's dramatic needs. When things go pear-shaped, the film shifts to psychological thriller mode.

Instances of horror and comedy that punctuate "Ex Machina" don't mesh with the slow pace and the clinical mood of the film. A Saturday Night Fever dance number is worth a chuckle but otherwise adds little. The film makes brief references to data mining and surveillance, actual technologies that pose a real danger to humankind, unlike the humanoid A. I. of "Ex Machina". Despite its flaws, it's a welcome addition to the science fiction genre.

Insiang (1976)

Insiang

[7/10 · 30 December 2022]

Within the slums of Manila's Tondo shantytown, tales of urban melodrama unfold as sexual abuse runs rampant in Lino Brocka's gritty revenge fantasy 'Insiang', a film hailed as one of the late Filipino filmmaker's finest. With a powerful blend of unflinching realism and thorny political commentary, Brocka masterfully portrays the struggles of the urban underclass striving for social mobility. For Insiang, an unskilled young woman without prospects, fending off the advances of intoxicated and lecherous men is only half the battle; she longs for escape from the squalor, and with that, the wrath of her scornful mother.

Hilda Koronel's portrayal of Insiang, a domestic maid confined to the slums, is nothing short of captivating. In spite of her dreary surroundings, Insiang radiates with a glow usually reserved for soap opera starlets. Brocka and cinematographer Conrad Balthazar filmed her in the most flattering angles. Tonya (Mona Lisa), the matriarch, toils long hours at the fish market for little pay. Bitter after her husband abandoned her, Tonya's corrosive disposition erodes the spirits of those around her, including her unemployed in-laws, who she spitefully evicts because they can't help with the household expenses. Soon after, her younger lover, Dado (Ruel Vernal), moves in to tend to her carnal desires day and night, but Dado's consuming lust for Insiang leads to his downfall.

Brocka's disdain for President Ferdinand Marcos and his authoritarian rule of martial law is evident in the film's harrowing opening scene set in a slaughterhouse, in which the slaughter of a pig and its subsequent grinding in a meat grinder metaphorically represent the ruthless nature of the dictatorship. Not surprisingly, authorities in the Philippines were up in arms and tried to have the film banned. Brocka and Balthazar shot the movie on location in an actual slum, and they captured the streets teeming with residents coexisting in cramped conditions.

A timid young man who covets Insiang from afar hopes to exit the slums armed with education, offering a glimmer from the oppressive gloom, but it's the school of hard knocks that dishes out life's harshest lessons. 'Insiang' is foremost a charged melodrama about a damaged mother and daughter locked in a cycle of poverty with no escape. The flammable mix of lust, jealousy and tragedy can only end in tears.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Thor: Love and Thunder

[8/10 · 11 August 2022]

The Marvel Cinematic Universe juggernaut rolls on, but instead of returning to the well with the same formula designed to maximise box office and make truckloads from licensed merchandise, 'Thor: Love and Thunder,' breathes new life into the clichéd genre. It's polarised audiences, thanks in no small part to the surreal vision of director Taika Waititi, that re-imagines Thor more as a goofy layabout than as an omnipotent deity.

After teaming with the Guardians of the Galaxy in Avengers: Endgame, Thor has become restless, so he strikes out on his own to find his purpose. Chris Hemsworth reprises his role as the God of Thunder and is clearly having a ball milking the role for laughs. He's threatened by Gorr, the God-Butcher (played fantastically by Christian Bale) a ghastly, reaper-like bogeyman who suffers a personal tragedy, causing him to seek retribution against all gods. Tessa Thompson returns as the female warrior Valkyrie, now the King of Asgard, and Waititi reprises the role of the softly-spoken rock warrior, Korg. Thor's old flame, Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), reappears as the super-powered Mighty Thor, thus complicating matters. This triggers flashbacks of their domestic life together and the basis for settling unresolved feelings.

Waititi has carte blanche to make a romantic comedy with superhero elements, rather than the other way around. Credit to him for having the deftness to balance the levity with the pathos in a style that doesn't diminish either. The sentimentality isn't fully convincing, but his heart is in the right place. Waititi's modus operandi has been to stay true to his idiosyncratic brand of absurdist humour. The arbitrary and whimsical jokes come from beyond deep left field. Every scene is a set up for a gag, whether it be a pair of screaming goats, or the infinity ice cream cones (infinity stones, geddit?), so when a very familiar figure shows up as Zeus speaking with a thick Greek accent, well why not?

The film's costumes and technical expertise is top rate, which is to be expected given the budget for this blockbuster. A brilliant, vibrant colour palette livens the proceedings, with mythical and fantasy elements fused into a vivid and gorgeous spectacle full of scintillating battle scenes and special effects. When a song from the 80s rock band Guns N' Roses starts playing, it's just another incongruous element that shouldn't work, but it does. All of these disparate pieces make this an amusing and entertaining romp, giving the Marvel Cinematic Universe another colossal shot in the arm.

Wanda (1970)

Wanda

[6/10 · 29 July 2022]

The disenchantment of blue collar folk in America's rust belt is front and center in Barbara Loden's 'Wanda'. Divorced factory worker Wanda Goronski (Loden) barely scrapes enough money to attend her court hearing in which she surrenders custody of her children to her ex-husband. She falls in with petty criminal Dennis (Michael Higgins), and they drift from town to town, breaking into cars and committing other petty crimes in order to scrape by.

Barbara Loden, an accomplished model and Broadway actor, not only wrote and directed but also plays the eponymous lead in the film. Wanda is hopelessly passive and observes events without judgement. The film lacks a conventional plot and doesn't explain the unlikely bond between Dennis and Wanda, whose lives are destined to lead to nowhere, as their aimless travels through the economically desolated landscape of 1970s America mirrors their discontent.

By using a single hand held camera, Loden's minimalist cinema verite style elicits naturalistic performances from the two leads. The lack of a soundtrack allows their sparse dialogue to develop the dynamic in a way that feels off-the-cuff. The raw sound quality and 'student-film' aesthetic is heightened with the sounds of everyday life: tolling church bells, the whoosh of speeding cars and the chirping of insects.

Barbara Loden would never make another feature film and died in 1980. Today, 'Wanda' is celebrated as a feminist work; not so much for its narrative, but rather for the fact it was written, directed and acted by a woman in male-dominated Hollywood.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

I'm Thinking of Ending Things

[4/10 · 31 July 2021]

A surreal, dream-like quality pervades Charlie Kaufman's frustrating adaptation of novelist Ian Reid's psychological thriller, 'I'm Thinking of Ending Things'. A young man takes his new girlfriend to see his parents amid a snowstorm. A back-and-forth of stilted dialogue dominates their monotonous car ride, during which the boy seems attuned to the girl's growing realisation that their relationship is a dead end. As the story progresses to the young man's childhood home, the girl is jarred by a revelation: a supposed photo of the young man as a child is a picture of her younger self.

If you want things explained to you in a clear and definitive manner, good luck with that. After all, this is a Charlie Kaufman film. It has the hallmarks of a Kaufman movie: offbeat, quirky and unconventional. However, the suspense doesn't sit well alongside Kaufman's propensity for long-winded talkiness. The tension also builds too slowly, and the story unravels under the weight of its esoteric pretensions.

Early Kaufman works, 'Adaptation' and 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', were a breath of fresh air that blended inscrutability with childlike fun. But the whimsy and flair of those films belonged to others (Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry). In contrast, the tone here is cynically self-aware and heavily depressing.

Jesse Plemons and Jessie Buckley, who do the bulk of the heavy lifting, are top-notch as the young couple, with terrific turns by David Thewlis and Toni Collette as the parents. Lovers of highbrow art will eat this up, but the film doesn't earn its 134-minute runtime. It's a psychological thriller without the thrills. Charlie Kaufman may be smarter than your average bear, but the line that separates endearing from alienating is a very thin one.

Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

My name is Joe and this is what I do

[6/10 · 1 March 2021]

A contract killer arrives in Bangkok to carry out four hits for a mob kingpin. Joe (Nicolas Cage) seems like any other tourist to the Land of Smiles. He enlists local two-bit hustler Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) to run errands. Unbeknownst to Kong, hitman Joe has a habit of terminating his business associates once the job is done - like literally. Kinda like Collateral (2004) only with Tom yum instead of Tom Cruise.

Joe lives by a strict code which prevents him from forming personal relationships. But when Joe is smitten with a local girl (Charlie Yeung), he begins to question his career choice. Turns out Joe is a lost soul like the rest of us, trying to find respite from his loneliness. It's not long before Joe abandons his code and risks losing his ice-cold edge.

A far cry from his days as an A-lister, Nicolas Cage turns in a dialled down performance treading in familiar waters, having being a veteran of the action blockbuster. He just doesn't have a whole lot to do here except look the part of a taciturn gun for hire. Yamnarm on the other hand has boatloads of charisma and is a perfect foil for the laconic Cage.

The dialogue is spare and succinct. Veterans of Hong Kong action flicks, the Pang Brothers happily let the butt kicking do most of the talking. The thrilling fight scenes and chase sequences exert an energy that's swift and brutal. The body count runs up quicker than a Bangkok taxi meter. t's a boilerplate neon-lit action film enamoured with style over substance. 'Bangkok Dangerous' isn't out to re-invent the genre. It's mildly enjoyable, if largely forgettable.

The White Tiger (2021)

Breaking out of the coop

[7/10 · 23 February 2021]

Everybody loves a rags-to-riches story where the underdog triumphs through grit, determination and maybe a little luck. When that isn't enough, it might require being 'sly and sincere, all at the same time,' says Balram, the protagonist of Ramin Bahrani's 'The White Tiger.' Balram is immaculately groomed, sharply dressed and sitting at a desk in a lavish office. How did he ascend from India's lower castes to become a wealthy businessman?

Balram's struggles start early on as an exceptionally bright yet impoverished village boy. His teacher anoints him as a 'white tiger' that appears once in a lifetime: a life with the potential to escape the cycle of poverty. But as misfortune would have it, Balram watches his ill father go to an early grave and is forced to spend his days crushing coal to support his family.

Balram grows up, determined to better his lot in life, and finds work as a chauffeur for a wealthy family in Bangalore. He ingratiates himself with his employers and forms a bond with their son, Ashok, a would-be entrepreneur with grand visions for India's future. It's a tenuous bond, given their respective positions on the social economic ladder. It's not long before Balram sees his employers' true colours: how they accumulate their wealth, how they maintain their privilege and keep the underclass trapped in perpetual poverty.

Iranian-American Bahrani appeared more than a decade ago as the director of the indie films 'Chop Shop' and 'Goodbye Solo', movies about immigrants and the underprivileged. They were well received by critics but apparently not a lot of people saw them. Here Bahrani juxtaposes the confronting slums with the glittering towers with some restraint. He and cinematographer Paola Carnera highlight the stark disparity by showing Ashok's spacious condo bathed in a golden flood of sunlight. In contrast, Balram's bug-infested accommodation seems almost subterranean, with faces lit by a ghostly fluorescent sheen.

In the first part of the film, Balram remains a passive observer. The movie is slow to kick into gear but after a jarring turning point, Balram is reminded of his lower caste roots and that only by being quick-witted and ruthless does he survive. Adarsh Gourav's performance as Balram has earned him praise and rightly so. As the film draws closer to its end, the audience may suspect what may follow. The ending might even be seen as somewhat anti-climactic but gives plenty to think about. This tale of poor boy makes good is a darkly scathing jab at capitalism, political corruption, the caste system and the hypocrisy of the rich.

Greenland (2020)

Disaster porn

[5/10 · 19 February 2021]

An asteroid heading towards Earth is expected to pass without incident, which in Hollywood means only one thing: said asteroid breaks apart to rain death and destruction as mankind scurries to endure the cataclysm. Ric Roman Waugh's 'Greenland' strikes like a hammer to the head with an immediacy that amplifies the apocalyptic hysteria. However, Waugh relies on recognisable tropes and clichés without adding anything to the stale genre.

John Garity (Gerard Butler) is an everyman who lives in suburbia with his wife and son. While at the supermarket, Garity realises that the asteroid is no harmless event. The government offers sanctuary for a select few, and Garity and his family are given priority because of his unique skill set as an engineer. They are given instructions to pack one bag and go to an airfield, where presumably they'll be evacuated. The family's journey to safety is fraught with hazards, their grim and joyless quest taking them from one improbable predicament to the next. Whatever can go wrong seems to go wrong.

Dispensing with the scaled-down emotion of similarly themed films such as Deep Impact (1998) and Don McKellar's excellent Last Night (1998), Waugh keeps his foot firmly on the accelerator. The film rushes along in a state of constant breathlessness to get to the next white-knuckled action set piece.

The scene of a supermarket being looted is a disaster flick staple. 'Greenland' ticks all the boxes of what a disaster movie should contain, but it is sadly short on complex characters who think and behave like actual people. When a man is killed, albeit in self-defence, there's no time to mourn him. He's just another meaningless cipher whose death occurs only to advance the plot.

When Garity stumbles upon a rooftop party where people are drinking and celebrating as the asteroids rain down, it is a scene reminiscent of McKellar's Last Night (1998). In it, humankind has embraced its extinction event, offering a more abstract view on the meaning and value of life: a better film than this one, it has to be said. When the credits roll (and you know how this movie ends) it's clear the survivors feel no exaltation, just despondency from being utterly drained.