#09: CRAPTON AMERICA: BLAND NEW WORLD

 

STARRING: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Harrison Ford, Shira Haas, Carl Mumbly, Xosha Roquemore, Giancarlo Esposito, Live Tyler and Tim Blake Nelson. From a story by Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson. With a screenplay by Rob Edwards, Malcom Spellman, Dalan Musson, Julius Onah and Peter Glanz. Directed by Julius Ohah. Budget allegedly $180 million dollars. Running time 118 minutes. 

Welcome to the 35th movie in the official Marvel Movie Franchise, which started back in 2008 with Iron Man. This is the fourth Captain America movie and the first  since 2016's Captain America: Civil War, when Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) took up the mantel of Captain America. And now, nine years later we have this effort. 

Against all expectations Anthony Mackie, who was great as the Falcon, makes an adequate 'new' Captain America, he gives good screen, but rest assured he's no Steve Rogers, and boy do you miss him. 

Naturally, the MCU have copied the Lucas playbook, by making sure that enough shit Marvel related films have been released of late that this new effort will be judged and declared 'not as bad as' as if that was some sort of accolade. Lucas did the same thing with Star Wars by making The Phantom Dennis so shit that the subsequent Attack of the Clowns and Revenge of the Pissed seemed like works of cinematic genius in comparison. 

The stupidly clumsy and over-egged pudding of a plot see Wilson brought back into the fold of government by newly elected red-in-the face president, Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford). He pardons all previous grievances between the US Government and Mackie and welcomes back Wilson asking him to reform the Avengers in one breathe then throwing him out of the White House the next. Ross is determined to force through something called the Celestial accord between Japan, America and India over the massive Celestial Island that was last seen in the dreadful Eternals movie shit-show back in 2021.
    Wilson is invited to the White House and so drags along Falcon-in-training Jaoquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) and Carl Lumbly (Isaiah Bradley) who was once a super soldier during the Korean war and we're now told a mentor to Sam Wilson. Turns out Lumbly was imprisoned for 30 years and experimented on and now hates the government. Anyway the three turn up at the White House shindig and for reasons that become clear Lumbly and some other guests pull guns and try to kill the President, forcing Wilson and Torres to go on the run and find out what's really going on.
    In the meantime, Japan and India pull out of the accord and try to claim the Celeste Island, the only place on Earth with Adamantium (don't tell Wolverine) leading Ross to instigate a race to the island to claim it first. In the meantime the mysterious international terrorist for hire, Seth Voelker aka Sidewinder (Giancarlo Espoisto) has been hired to mess shit up by The Leader (Time Blake Nelson), last seen in that Ed Norton Hulk movie.
    Turns out that The Leader has beef with Ross for numerous reasons that too will be revealed over this slow running-plodding, rather dull, spy romp.
    Added to a needlessly and rather obvious complicated plot about Wilson trying to find out who's pulling the strings behind the scenes and why Ross keeps getting red in the face, we have diminutive ex-Red Room trained ex-Black Widow agent Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas) slowly realising Wilson isn't the baddie. And all the time we have Ross who we won't like if he gets too red in the face. I wonder if that's related to the pills he keeps popping? 

Anyway, if you've seen the trailer, you know it all comes to a showdown between the Red Hulk and Sam Wilson's Captain Falcon/America. Leaving many questions mulling around in your rather vaguely engaged brain including:

1. How is an ordinary human being like Wilson able to survive in fights with Hulk level beings, as well as hi-explosions and impacts that would kill an ordinary man?
2. How the hell is an ordinary man able to kick and punch an vibranium shield with his shin, fist and foot without causing himself extraordinary pain?
3. Why is it in films that you only feel pain if you're punched, not when you're doing the punching?
4. Why don't the authorities ever investigate stuff that happens in these sorts of films?
5. How is The Leader able to just turn up wherever and whenever he wants with no difficulty?
6. Where is Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man or Spider-Man in all this? Sure Bucky turns up but that's just to chew the shit for one scene. 
7. Why have all these comic book films morphed into second rate spy capers?
8. Why do super-hero films have to be so epic in scale?

Add to that the whole load of implausible coincidences that string this whole rather bland splodge of movie together and you have a middling, rather dull movie that's slightly better than anything the MCU has spewed out since 2021's Black Widow.

It's all just so goddam un-engaging. I find in my dottage that I fall asleep during films these days, usually during loud fight scenes, however during this I didn't fall asleep, although I came out thinking I had and trying to remember when I dozed off. I was amused to realise I hadn't. 

The numerous action sequences seem shoe-horned into the plod, sorry plot, just to spice things up, but there's no jeopardy or urgency, and there's no threat or risk of death. It turns out nearly every single person this new Captain Falcon/America fights is being remotely controlled, so no real damage is done, and considering what a powerful opponent Sidewinder is shown to be in the trailer he turns out to be little more than a mild irritant, like a pebble in a Doc Martin boot, rather than an actual force equal to Crapton Falcon/America.  

This film apparently suffered many reshoots, and the film has a definite uneven quality, during some scenes characters motivations seem to change, at times going in the opposite direction, and sequences shown in the trailer have clearly been reshot. The big reveal that someone big behind the scenes is manipulating the drama elicits a sort of 'oh' response, nothing really seems to matter. Added to that is a distinct lack of actual villains for Captain FalconAmerica to fight and you have a film that feels like Captain America Lite, a film lacking flavour or bite. One that will wash over you like another person's rancid fart, which once sniffed will soon be nothing more than a rather unpleasant, rapidly forgotten memory.

Roll on The Fantastic Four and Superman movies!  

6/10 

And if you're going to wait around for the post credit sting, I wouldn't bother, it's just a 3rd rate sequel bait, and certainly no Nick Fury level event. Save yourself 10 minutes of difficult to pronounce surnames with far too many Consonants.

#08: BRIDGET JONES: ABOUT A BOY

STARRING: Renee Zallweger, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Leo Woodall, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson and for some in explicable reason, Islas Fisher. Screenplay by Helen Fielding, Dan Bazer and Abi Morgan. Directed by Michael Morris. Budget $50 million. Running time 125 minutes. 

The title is misleading and the trailers have lied to you. The 'boy' of the film is not the focus of this very bittersweet romp but rather a stepping stone to true love, and rather than being yet another light-hearted romantic romp about the love-life of a scatter-brained career woman, it's a rather emotional exploration on the impact of grief when the one true love of your life up and dies and leaves you all alone and bringing up two rather horrible children, and it's all the better for it. The touching moments come unexpectedly from the relationship between Renee's Bridget and Hugh Grants Daniel Cleaver, who's grown from a drunken lothario into a true friend, one who babysits Bridget's truly terrible children whenever she's out on a date. The film comes alive when we see Bridget interacting with the likes of her children's school teacher, Mr. Scott Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and her new, 20 year-younger love interest, Roxster (Leo Woodall). While you'll find yourself truly hating her old friends who come across as a group of horribly self-centred, self-serving and conceited arseholes who throw horrible advice at Bridget every opportunity they get and think it's absolutely fine to just drink galleon sized glasses of red wine every chance they can.

Weirdly enough, I rather enjoy the Bridge Jones films and have marvelled at Renee for her portrayal of Bridget, her accent is a delight and she enhabits the role almost like a second skin. She somehow makes Bridget believable, even if her insane London town house isn't. This is filled with fine jokes and I think the Helen Fielding script enhances the film by helping to craft something that isn't you standard generic romcom, something altogether more emotional.

The only fly in the ointment is the running time, which far outlasts the concept and you'll find yourself wishing the film could have gotten to its conclusion 30 minutes sooner, particularly when the main plot point of the whole film is concluded with half way through the movie. 

Nevertheless, this was a great date night movie and one which gave both me and Pet much to discuss, particularly the type of "Do you think you'll date someone after I die?" conversation. Which, Pet answered by saying: "God no, I'd relish the quiet." Happy Valentines everyone.

7/10  

07a: THE BRUTALIST

 

STARRING: Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce, Felicity Jones, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird, Isaach de Bankole, Alessandro Nivola. Written by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold. Directed by Brady Corbet. Budget $9 million. Running time 215 minutes. Or THREE HOURS AND 58 MINUTES. There's also a 15 minute intermission, I don't know it that's part of the running time or extra. Either way, it four minutes shorter than Cleopatra and doesn't even include the fabulous entry into Rome. 

PRETENTIOUSNESS thy name is THE BRUTALIST, a 215 minute style over content film of such turgid tedium that even the inclusion of some vintage black and white hardcore p*rn shoe-horned in for some inexplicable reason can't save it from being an exercise in self-indulgent of such epic proportions that it boarders on the most astonishing piece of cinematic onanism ever committed to film. 

The film is split into three sections called: Overture, Part 1: The Enigma of Arrival, Part 2: The Hard Core of Beauty, and finished off with Epilogue: The First Architecture Biennale.

The film starts promisingly enough in 1947, as Jewish Hungarian H*l*caust survivor László Tóth (Adrien Brody), arrives in New York to see the Statue of Liberty upside down and celebrates his arrival and freedom by getting a bl*wjob off a prostitute before bussing off to Philadelphia to live in the backroom of a furniture showroom run by his cousin, Attila and his wife. There he befriends a Gordon (Isaach de Bankolé) a young man and single parent in a poverty food line. Later László and Attila are hired to renovate the library of the Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), a fantastically wealthy industrialist and cultural snob. Discovering his wonderful Art Deco library has been converted into a Brutalist atrocity, he refuses to pay and László gets thrown out by his cousin and ends up living in a charity work house with Gordon and his son. It's there we discover László is addicted to heroin. However Van Buren tracks László down and tells him that he had no idea he was an internationally acclaimed architect and asks him to build a gigantic monument to his dead mum in the Brutalist style and László says 'yeah, why not, I've got nothing else on.' and so begins the main story.

From then on it's a 'so slow, it's barely moving' journey of ennui, I mean think of a slug in a race with a snail kinda slow, as a serious of banal events happen to hamper the building of the world's ugliest building in the history of building.

Meanwhile László beloved wife Erzsébet Tóth (Felicity Jones) and Zsófia, László's orphaned teenage niece, who has been struck mute by her Dachau experiences are still trapped in Soviet controlled Europe and Buren offers to get them repatriated to the US. Then more stuff sort of happens, there's a train wreck, some drug taking, lots of waffle and we're reminded that the core message of this film is "No matter what the others try and sell you, it is the destination, not the journey.” that counts and you begin to suspect you've been duped. In this case, the journey is 215 minutes of slow tedium, which you hope is going to lead you somewhere and it just doesn't. 'Maybe', you think, 'just around this corner something is going to happen, something profound and powerful', but then another corner has been rounded, and another, and still nothing beyond what is on display has been revealed. Late into the second half, and after the 15 minute intermission, a drunken László is raped by Van Buren in an act of domination, while they're scouting for Italian marble. This too is just sort of just noted, and despite the fact László becomes more driven, more belligerent and more angry nothing more is said, until his wife brings it up at a dinner party and Van Buren has her thrown out.

Then the film sort of ends with a pointless epilogue set in Venice in the 1980s  for the first Architecture Biennale where everyone is dead except for, guest of honour, László, who now sits in a wheelchair with stupid old man make up on.

Add to that all a strange choice of ambient music that pervades every goddam second, with whisper level random music from the era intercut with radio, popular music of the day, it's non-stop and fucking annoying. 

Actually of the two parts, the second is a lot more 'drama packed', drug overdoses and some shouting sort of drama. But nothing really happens, The gigantic, hideously ugly multiple blocks of poorly poured concrete sits atop of the hill like a humongous blocky dog shit and we discover that tunnels László built beneath it  symbolise the spiritual link between László and Erzsébet while they survived the death camps of the N*zis, and its tall blocky towers represent the chimneys at the Death Camps. Very noble and very button pushing. Oh, we can't criticise this film cos it deals with serious issues like the H*l*caust. 

Well, 215 minutes of this is enough for anyone and frankly I couldn't care less about any of the characters, for a profound film about the absolute horrors of the N*zis and Auschwitz I'd say watch Zone of Interest, which staggered me to the core and left me profoundly moved and shaken. But this, it's all so ponderous and arrogant, "look everybody! We're all a bunch of serious actors and film makers striving to make something worthy enough to win loads of Oscars and shit."

Well, shit off.

5/10

#06: BECOMING LED ZEPPELIN

 

STARRING: Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, John Bonham and Robert Plant. Written and directed by Bernard MacMahon. Running time 121 minutes.

Following the lives of Page, Jones, Bonham and Plant during the early 1960s until their meeting in 1968 and the birth of LED ZEPPELIN! Told exclusively by the four members of the band, with Bonham represented by a previously unheard audio interview. The film features full length performances and never-before-seen footage from UK and US shows and includes unseen material from the band's archives. 

Like any autobiography, this follows each member of the band's life from childhood until their coming together in 1968 and then just 18 months later when they're hailed as the world's No 1 band. What a fantastic spectacle, Page, Plant and Jones each take turns to talk through their experiences interspersed with uncut footage of their performances, behind-the-scenes and vintage footage which all helps to create a truly immersive experience.

The main thing you take away from this is not only just how driven the four young men were, or how committed and dedicated to their craft, but that in just 18 months those four young men come together, practice for a month, play one gig as the Yardbirds then re-name themselves Led Zeppelin and become the biggest band in the world. When they finally come together it isn't four friends at art school saying one drunken night, 'hey, let's put together a band', it's four professional musicians each with their own visions and reputations who want to perform and make music together. And what a reputation, Page and Jones were both very successful session musicians, while Bonham and Plant, who were both friends, were already established in their own fields. They'd each spent their lives practising, and honing their skills and the bands they each played with on their journey are astonishing. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones both performed on Shirley Bassey's Goldfinger, and the names of bands and singers they were worked was simply astonishing.

However, if you want a warts and all expose then you'll be disappointed, there isn't any, the four members of the band, who are all interviewed separately (although in the same location) talk with nothing but fondness for each other, and the best is left to John Bonham's final comments where he explains that he loved them all. It just seems that these four men were just friends and played together because they enjoyed it. I am happy to accept this as gospel.  

I was captivated and sat centre four rows from the front and just lost myself in the music. If you're a fan of Led Zeppelin this is the film for you, and even if you're not I'd still say give this a go! It's always fascinating to watch truly creative people working and creating something unique and extraordinary. Plus the music is EXHILARATING!! 

Have to stop now, it's just superlatives. 

9/10

#05: COMPANION

 

STARRING Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Guillen and Rupert Friend. Written and directed by Drew Hancock. Budget $10 million. Running time 97 minutes.

Josh (Jack Quaid) and his nervous girlfriend, Iris (Sophie Thatcher) are heading off for a weekend stay at the fabulous private lake-house of his friend, Kat's (Megan Suri) boyfriend Russian mafia boss, Sergey (Rupert Friend), there they meet gay couple Eli (Harvey Guillen) and Patrick (Lukas Gage). Iris is desperate to make a good impression on Iris whom she believes doesn't like her. The next day, while Iris sunbaths down by the lake side, a very drunk Sergey tries to rape her and in defence she stabs him to death. Blood soaked and shocked, she staggers back to the lake-house where shit gets real. 

To say more would be to reveal too much. This was a terrific film, that had me hooked from the off, I was utterly engaged by it and as the conceit played out I became more invested. It's not hard to guess what's really going on, just listening to the dialogue between Josh and Iris and how they meet should be enough for you to guess what's going on. And that doesn't matter, because this is just so damn entertaining.

This isn't just a cabin in the woods story with a woman on the run, this is far more with something to say about relationships and the difficulties of connecting with other people in the present world, and how to go about forming relationships.

These sorts of films survive on their own internal set of logic rules, and for once Companion doesn't break them.  

Great direction, a witty script and terrific performances all round, especially from Sophie Thatcher.

A thoroughly satisfying and hugely entertaining little flick that gets an extra point for not outstaying its welcome. 

8/10

#04: A REAL PAIN

 

WRITTEN, STARRING AND DIRECTED BY Jess Eisenberg, also starring Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy and Daniel Oreskes. Running time 90 minutes. Budget $3million.

Two Jewish American cousins set out on a Holocaust tour of Poland in honour of their dead grandma, one Benji Kaplan (Kieran Culkin) is a self-centred, obnoxious, arrogant, entitled, whinny, unfiltered little shit and the other, David (Jess Eisnberg) is a meek, neurotic, emotionally needy, spineless, enabling, milquetoast of a man. 

During their wretched tour of Poland, Benji emotionally and intellectually bullies his cousin and all the other guests on the tour with his ridiculous rants and emotional baggage, forcing everyone to just keep their heads down and weather his odious, tedious rants. None more so than his cousin, who we are told used to be more like a brother to Benji, but now isn't. David moved away, has a family, and holds down a job as an online ad salesman, while Benji lives in his mother's basement and smokes dope. As their smug self-indulgent tour of Poland drags its sorry arse from city to city towards the emotionally-shocking stop at Auschwitz, we have to witness Benji just being an absolute shit, spouting random outbursts of opinionated bullshit at the other characters. And apparently it's 'funny'. 

Scoring 96% on Rotten Tomato where it's described as: "Funny and sincere", "uproariously funny, quietly witty, achingly sad and excruciatingly well-observed." or a "masterpiece", this was by far the most obnoxiously self-indulgent piece of shit I've seen in a long time.

Culkin's Benji is so needy and selfish from the very beginning that you have no patience for his shenanigans, and when the film finally arrives at Auschwitz for its emotional apex and Benji's protestations are finally put into perspective, you don't feel sympathy for him you just want him to shut the fuck up and grow up, or else for someone to slap the smug out of him, because the world isn't all about him. From then on it's one last trip to Grandma's old house and some revelations that perhaps shine a tiny little light on Benji's arsehole behaviour and David's reasons for being a little bit distant before jetting back to the US of A and one last emotional beat before the whole sorry film slides to a dreary smug full stop, with a self-satisfying sigh of self-pleasure. 

I struggle to think of why anyone would think this was a, 'funny' film. There's perhaps one or two pithy comments or observations that twang a string, but miss the chord. In fact, this feels more eager to point out how some aspects of Polish life seem rather amusing - like serving sandwiches on trains that once would have transported their ancestors to their deaths amusing, or the obvious rich humour vein of war memorials. It's the sort of film where a passionate tour guide is ridiculed and humiliated for doing his job, while standing in a Jewish graveyard.

It's not all self-indulgent twaddle, The music by Chopin was wonderful and Jennifer Grey as a rich divorcee, was a revelation! How great to see her back in movies, I loved her in Red Dawn. Likewise, the supporting cast, especially Will Sharpe as the luckless tour-guide and Kurt Egyiawan as the converted Rwanda  genocide survivor were both excellent bringing some much needed humility and depth to proceedings.

To quote Horse from Ren & Stimpy, "No sir, I did not like it."

How apt to see a film whose title reflects exactly how you felt when you finally walked out of the cinema with your life 91 minutes shorter than it was. 4/10

#03: A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

 

STARRING: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Dan Fogler, Norbet Leo Butz and Scoot NcNairy. Screenplay by James Mangold and Jay Cocks. Directed by James Mangold. Budget $50-70 million. Running time 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Following the early years of Bob Dylan's professional career, from hitch-hiking in 1961 to New York to visit Willie Guthrie in hospital, to over night sensation, and to his first electric performance at the 1965 Newport Folk festival where he was famously heckled as 'Judas'.

From beginning to end this is Timothée Chalamet's film, his utterly mesmerising performance grabs your complete attention from the first second he appears on screen in the back of car as a hitchhiker to the last as he rides off on his motorbike, 140 minutes later that seem to have flashed by in the blink of an eye. 

His vocal portrayal of Dylan is superb capturing the tone and style perfectly, his performance of the man himself is twitchy and buttoned up, he comes across as a man unable to sleep without an audience and bridled with a creative force that seems to consume him wholeheartedly. But he's not alone, everyone involved with in this film delivers wonderful performances, singing and playing their own instruments, from Monica Barbaro's depiction of Joan Baez, to Edward Norton's political activist and folk legend Pete Seeger, to Boyd Holbrooks' Johnny Cash. And complementing them all is Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, a fictional version of Dylan's first girlfriend, Suze Rotolo after Dylan asked the film not use her real identity. 

The styling of New York in the 1960s seems perfect, at no point do you find yourself dragged out of the illusion and throughout it all the sound track is pure Dylan. Indeed you could be mistaken for believing that this is a full out musical, since Chalamet sings a total of 40 Dylan songs in their entirety, while playing the guitar and harmonica and were all recorded live.

This is a very straight forward sort of musical bio-pic, that sort of thing that Hollywood used to make back in the 50s, like one of my favourites, The Glenn Miller Story, which offered not one iota of detail about Glenn Miller's actual life. 

It's a $70 million dollar Karaoke movie, a visual and musical delight that captivates completely and yet you'll leave the film knowing nothing about the man himself beyond what's on display – that he was a singularly driven young man consumed by music and its creation and that he was a 'tad' ego-centric. If you go in expecting a warts-and-all expose of Bob Dylan you're going to leave a little frustrated, cos you ain't gonna get it, but then maybe that's the truth of the whole thing, maybe there is no deeper hidden truth, and why should there be? He was only 20 years-old at the beginning of the film and 25 at its end. Although I did discover, much to my delight, that he was penpals with Johnny Cash.

One of the things that surprised me while watching this film was that I knew so many of his songs almost verbatim and I realised that with the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and David Bowie, Bob Dylan has been a part of my life's soundtrack for so long that i don't remember the first time I heard his music. It's made me want to listen and find out more about him and any film that can make you do that can't be all bad. 

9/10