#63: THE INVITE

 

STARRING: Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton. Written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones. Based The People Upstairs by Cesc Gay. Directed by Olivia Wilde. Musice Devonte Hynes. Cinematography Adam Newport-Berra. Running time 107 minutes.

This has been a good year for relationship comedy/dramas what with the utterly superb Splitsville and the divisive The Drama before it, meaning that The Invite has a lot to live up to and it's a delight to report this delivers in spades, despite having the overbearing presence of Seth Rogen to mug and snort through the whole thing. I really don't like his schtick and his mock nasal laugh really gets my goat. 

Anyway, the plot sees Joe (Seth Rogen) as a miserable failed popstar with a bad back now teaching music in a third-rate college while his wife Angela (Olivia Wilde) fills her life buying expensive rugs and ornaments for the spacious double sized San Franscisco flat, while caring for their young daughter. Their marriage is in the doldrums and they spend their time bickering and sniping at each other over anything and everything, they no longer have sex and seem to put all their energy into staying miserable, or at least he does. When Joe comes home after work one night he's mortified to find out Angela has invited their neighbours over for the evening. Joe is mightly pissed and makes no bones about his displeasure when said neighbours, Pína (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton) arrive bang on time. Pína and Hawk everything Joe and Angela aren't, they're vibrant, vital and supremely confident. He's an ex-fire captain and she's a psychologist and sex therapist and they easily dominate their hosts. As the evening progresses, the four connect and when at last Joe and Angela are relaxed Hawk and Pína reveal their hidden secret and agenda, they're swingers and invite Joe and Angela to join them in a foursome. Then the fireworks really begin and one couple are forced to accept the truth of their relationship.

Beautifully acted, this in turns makes you squirm in discomfort, laugh-out-loud, and ponder the sadness that lurks beneath the surface. Thanks to four actors of this calibre, the film brilliantly soars, they aren't cliches or cyphers, these are real characters with real back stories and story arcs and the power struggle between them ebb and flows. This isn't a film with a huge twist in it's conclusion, just a sense of perhaps of hope. 

With a superb soundtrack and some excellent cinematography, this is a damn good looking film. And for me the icing on the cake was the use of demo tape of I'll Light The Fire, one of my favourite songs, over the closing credits. 

A very enjoyable, very adult, and very sophisticated comedy drama, this gets a very satisfied 9/10

#62: JACKASS: BEST AND LAST

Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Dave England, Wee Man, Danger Ehren, Preston Lacy, Sean ‘Poopies’ McInerney, Zach Holmes, Jasper Dolphin, Rachel Wolfson, Eric Manaka, and Compston ‘Dark Shark’ Wilson. Written by Andrew Weinberg, Colton Dunn, Derrick Beckes, Eric Andre, Knate Gwaltney, Nick Kreiss, Sarah Shermona, Johnny Knoxville, Jeff Tremaine and Spike Jonze. Directed by Jeff Tremaine.  Budget $10 million. Running time: 96 minutes.

Apparently the last in the series, and judging by their ages, it's perhaps not a bad thing, apart from Chris Pontius who clearly has a hideous portrait in his attic the rest of the original cast are beginning to look their years. This is a mix of talking head interviews as the cast reveal important moments in the Jackass history along with vintage, unseen and new material from a still game, if not slower, bunch of menboys who are still willing to get the asses, dicks, bumholes and bodies beaten, kicked, punched, electrocuted and doused in human excrement all in the name of amusement. There's a genuine sense of connection between them all which is infectious and charming and Johnny Knoxville's affable manner is a delight.  

If you didn't laugh at the last four Jackass films it's highly unlikely you're going to find this outing funny, however I did, even if this outing did rely on far more scatalogical matter that I wanted. I had to look away for fear of vomiting. 

A great send off for a brilliantly funny comedy franchise.

9/10 

#61: EDGE OF TOMORROW

 

Starring Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt and Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson. Screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth. Based on All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Cinematography by Dion Beebe. Directed by Doug Liman. Budget $178 million. Worldwide Box office take: $381 million. Originally released in 2014. Running time: 113 minutes.

12 years later...

I saw this twice back in 2014 and then at least four times since then. It blew me away then and my only major criticism was the title. Oh, if only they'd use the tagline. But that's beside the point. What's the plot Mr. Leach?

The world has been invaded by a mysterious alien threat called Mimics and is slowly losing the war. In a last ditch, desperate fight back, Earth launches a huge counterstrike on the beaches of France and American PR expert, Major John Cage (played by Tom Cruise) is an ex-ad man and professional coward is press-ganged into the big assault, only to die, horribly, minutes after landing on the beach, doused in the steaming blood of one of the terrifying, lighting-fast, multi-tentacled beasties, which he kills with a claymore mine, but then he awakens on the morning of the day before and finds himself reliving the same day again, each time he dies - reliving the day before, slowly he begins to avoid his deaths as he learns the times and starts to solve the mystery of what's happened to him and how to defeat the aliens. Along the way he encounters  Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) who was also once doused in the blood of a Mimic and relived the same day until she lost the ability, together they fight they way off the beach and towards Paris in search of the Mimic's hidden home-base, codenamed 'Omega' and the means of ending the war.

Back then I described this as 'The most interesting and original summer blockbuster [of the year].' And I stand by that, infact I'd say it's still one of the most original and interesting science fiction films I've seen.  

It's got a superb cast, with note-perfect performances from Cruise, as the cowardly John Cage and Emily Blunt as the 'Iron Arch of Verdun', for once a truly believable kick-ass female warrior, who schools Cage in the art of bloody warfare. Limen directs the massive chaotic film with great skill, and from a script co-written by Christopher McQuarrie, who would go on to collaborate with Cruise on the Mission Impossible films. The special effects are superb, as is the cinematogaphy and music. There's no other way of saying it, but Edge of Tomorrow is a hell of a movie.

Sure, it's a mash up of Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers meets Saving Private Ryan but it's one of those rare films that once it gets its claws into you it doesn't let up. I completely forgot I was in a cinema so engrossed did I become. The opening battle scene on the beach is visceral, noisy, chaotic and exhilarating and forms the backbone of the film. Doug Liman also manages to seed the film with some much needed gallow humours.

Despite the fact the film deals with a character reliving the same day over and over again, it never becomes repetitive and Liman does a superb job keeping this engrossing and involving throughout its entire running time.

Blunt and Cruise work extremely well together and their unique relationship is what lies at the centre of this film, Cruise excels in his role and give one of his strongest performances in ages.

This is Cruise's fourth science fiction film and arguably his best so far.

9/10

2026 VERDICT.

12 years later and this still thrills and excites in equal measure. A totally satisfying film and well worth a repeat view. 

9/10

#60: SUPERGIRL

 

STARRING: Milly Alcock, Matthias Schoenaerts, Eve Ridley, David Krumholtz, Emily Beecham, David Corenswet and Jason Momoa. Written by Ana Hogueira. Produced by James Gunn and Peter Safran. Directed by Craig Gillespie. Budget $170 million. Running time 108 minutes.

Coming in at just short of two hours this is one of the most anticipated and trailed films in living memory, trailers seem to have been on our screens all year and it's only in the past week that we've finally been given a new one. Nowadays, unless I avoid social media entirely I run the risk of knowing the entire story, outcome, major plot points, and all the big bombastic beats before I've even sat down in my seat. Supergirl is a case in point. I'm going in pretty blind and with my expectations set to low, despite the number of features, click baits and rumours I've seen hinted at on the internet, so far I've avoided them all and read none of reviews so I'm going in with no preconceptions other than my own. I like the trailers, the character looks fun, I'm excited by Lobo and we get to see some more of David Corenswet's excellent Superman, so I'm looking forward to this one. 

See you in 108 minutes.

And I'm back in the room having sat through Supergirl. The plot sees 23 year-old Kara Zor-El aka Supergirl, Superman's cousin, in the middle of an intergalactic pub-crawl and bender with her dog, Krypto staggering from one red sun planet bar to the next just so she can get shit-faced, turns out red run rays mean she can get pissed, and boy is she doing her best to fuck up her liver. ANYWAY, on one of those planets a generic group of brigands from the film Serenity led by the lead baddie Kerm of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts) who looks, and acts like a cross between Charlie Day and Vivian from The Young Ones arrive at the home of a blacksmith and sword-maker, kill him, the wife and their eldest son but leave the daugther, Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley) alive for the plot to work, big up to 1982's Conan The Barbarian for the plot point. SO Ruthye doing her best Little Needle from Game of Thrones goes on a quest to find a warrior to help her track Kerm down, thanks to True Grit  for the plot point. She finds Kara, pissed in a bar and the two team up. However, Kara has no skin in the game so Kerm shoots Krypto with a poison that takes three days to work and steals her space ship, so now Supergirl and Ruthye have to take the space bus to chase Kerm to another planet where a chance encounter with the immortal bounty hunter Lobo (Jason Momoa) brings the final member of the gang to the party, and off they go chasing after the brigands who are stealing women to be their wives, thanks to Mad Max: Fury Road for the plot point. From then on, people die, get killed, Kara finally excepts her destiny and becomes Supergirl, thanks to every superhero origin film ever made for the plot point and saves the day, stopping Ruthye from killing Kerm herself for, you know, karma shit and stabs him to death herself, once in the gut and then once up through his throat into his brain. And this isn't the only person Kara kills and the film ends with Kara, now Supergirl returning to Superman back on Earth, but only after she's finished her intergalactic pub-crawl with Ruthye. 

What a throughly wholesome and life-affirming little film this isn't. Within the first ten minutes we are introduced to Kara, a pissed young woman who constantly wakes up unconscious after an all-night dinking session, which usually ends up in extreme violence, and her lying in a tatty spaceship camper van with her untrained dog who pisses wherever he likes. Later on we'll get to see her have a piss on the toilet before falling asleep, then she'll stab an opponent in the gut with a bloody great knife with no consequences, it would seem that knife crime in outer space is absolutely fine. And whereas we once watched Superman forced to take a life to save a planet, his cousin doesn't give a shit about life, human or not, and murders her way through the cast of villains with utter impunity and disregard and it ends up making the whole spectacle a little bit unpleasant. Rated 12A for a reason I would not take young kids to see this and how sad is that? To think the studio and DC couldn't be arsed to make a film aimed at kids opting instead for a nihilistic, suicidal and borderline alcoholic heroine to showcase this all-new 21st Century Supergirl. 

Despite how unpleasant and mean spirited this is, Milly Alcock is great and deserves so much better than this slop. This is yet another film aimed squarely at a female audience following on from last week's Toy Story 5, where the women and female characters are all strong, heroic and uber pro-active while the men or males are either villains or bungling sidekicks there mostly for comic relief. 

Owing a lot to Star Wars  for it's look and intergalactic drinking establishments, this has no unique look or style of its own and borrows liberally from all that's come before it. There's nothing new to see here. It's just a Frankenstein film built from plot points and parts from other movies with knowing winks and featuring strangely anachronistic musical choices, alien bands playing their versions of The Girl From Ipanema for example.    

The film builds to its never-in-doubt conclusion where Supergirl kills every single member of the brigands in quite a brutal fashion, but it's alright as they're all bad. And then it ends.

This was a bog-standard trainwreck rather than a spectacular derailment, it's nowhere near as bad as Morbius, Madame Webb, Blue Beetle, Black Adam to name but four, and sadly that's its only saving grace, and it's only blessing and those are in short supply. Another plus is there's no post credit or mid credit scene so sit through 5 minutes of credits for so you can get up and leave as soon as the film ends without missing anything. 

The audience for this left briskly and silently, there was no chatting to overhear afterwards. It's not a dreadful film, just not dreadfully good. And that's that.

6/10

#60: ARMAGEDDON

STARRING: Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Billy Bob Thornton, Will Patton, Peter Stormare, William Fichtner, Micahael Clarke Duncan, Jason Issacs, Peter Stormare, Keith David, Owen Wilson, Steve Buscemi and Ken Campbell. Story by Robert Roy Pool and Jonathan Hensleigh, adaptation by Tony Gilroy and Shane Saleron, screenplay by Jonathan Hensleigh and J.J. Abrams. Directed by Michael Bay. Budget $140 million. Running time 150 minutes. Originally released in 1998. Box office haul $553.7 million.

Back in the day, competing Hollywood studios would often release conflicting films based round the same idea and back in 1998 it was asteroids, there was this and my personal favourite Deep Impact. But of the two, this one, the Michael Bay one was by far the most stoopidist and outrageous, with ridiculous overblown performances, action excesses and insanely bombastic action set-pieces. Released at Cannes of that year, the howls of derision that greeted its screening by the assembled critics of the day prompted a very peeved Bruce Willis to growl, "Well I'm glad you all find the end of the world so amusing." Watched today 28 years later it transcended mere ridicule to become a overblown, over-wraught and expert rollercoaster of pure excess, Michael Bay's OTT direction style is perfect for this film, filled with patriotic sepia tinted slow-motion shots of space-suited heroes, or explosions, or Norman Rockwell middle-America huddled round bakerlite radios and montagues of famous foreign cities and monuments getting obliterated by chunks of sky rocks. All accompanied by a blistering rock soundtrack. This is a world where women are all big breasted and stunning and don't have a lot to do except for being trophies to be won. This is a film that starts with the destruction of the dinosaurs and just keeps getting bigger and louder till the never-in-doubt ending when Bruce Willis saves the whole goddam world, thank you very much!

The plot, as if you need telling, sees the world threatened by an asteroid 30 x bigger than the pissant little pebble that took out the dinos 150 millions years ago, as Charlton Heston, no less, informs us at the beginning. Cut to the present and a space shuttle and crew are shredded alerting the Earth to its impending fate in just 17 days. This forces Nasa, lead by Billy Bob Thornton, to recruit the best-of-the-best oil-rig men in the world on a suicide mission to the asteroid to drill 800 feet into core and detonate an atom bomb, just the sort of thing oil-rig men are trained for. Well, lucky for NASA the best goddam oil-man in the business Harry (Bruce Willis), his daughter Liv Tyler, and his misfit gang of loveable rough-neck work men that includes Ben Affleck (who's in love with Harry's daughter), Will Patton, Owen Wilson, Michael Clarke Duncan while back on Earth Billy Bob Thornton and Willaim Fichtner do their damndest to save them from the attentions of Keith David who's the President's main general. 

Look it doesn't matter what the plot is, this film isn't about plot it's about bombastic, over-blown action delivered in a glossy box of cutting edge effects, well cutting edge at the time, and more explosions and car crashes than you can shake a shitty stick at. It's directed by Michael Bay who wrote the book on explosions and would go on to make some of the most awful action films in history, including too many of the Transformers movies, Bad Boys I & II, The Ambulance, Pearl Harbour and The Rock (his only good film). But when you consider that he's fifth-most commercially successful director in history and his films have taken over $6.6 billion dollars worldwide shows that I know nothing about film.

Watched as a full-blown comedy action caper this was a mindless, ridiculous and unbelievably silly romp that entertained and didn't outstay its welcome, despite being over 2 1/2 hours long. Bruce Willis fully commits to his role as the world's greatest dad and hero and you can see he truly believes in the role. The effects are terrific and the sense of American jingoistic fervour drips from the screen. 

A hoot to see it up there on the big screen again and a reminder that Hollywood just doesn't make this sort of thing any more.

All that said, I still preferred Deep Impact.

When I first saw this back in 1998 I was far less forgiving and slated this with a brutal 4/10.

This time round, 28 years later, I enjoyed it far more and perhaps because of its ridiculous earnestness and OTT excesses I feel a bombastic score of 8/10 is more worthy. 

#59: TOY STORY 5

 

STARRING: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Conan O'brient, Scarlet Spears, Greta Lee, Shelby Rabara, Mykal-Michelle Harris and Craig Robinson. Story by Andrew Stanton, screenplay by Andrew Stanton. Directed by Andrew Stanton. Budget $250 million. Running time 102 minutes. 

It's been 31 years since the very first Toy Story film arrived and changed absolutely everything about animation and heralded a new era that spelled the end of full-length hand-drawn feature films. It created the standard look for all CGI animated films for a decade to come and made Pixar the greatest animation force in the world. With it's battle cry of 'Story is King!' and the declaration that they'd never do a sequel, Pixar ruled the roost and each film in its canon roared and zinged. Then Disney took over and 'Greed is Good' became its mantra and they started out churning out sequels to successful animated films. However in the case of Toy Story, this wasn't a bad thing and both Toy Story 2 and 3 set new benchmarks in both the skill of animation and the strength of the stories. And if they'd left it there then those first three films would heralded as the greatest trilogy of all-times. However Disney needed to squeeze more money out of the franchise and did TS4, which while not being a bad film, wasn't that memorable. It came out in 2019 and all I can remember of it is that Keanu Reeves was one of the voice actors. And then in 2022 we were given Buzz Lightyear, an animated film based on the character of Buzz and that was truly bad.

And so we arrive here for the fifth in the series, but has it learned from from those past two miss-fires and returned to the dream of story first or is it yet another soulless, cash-grab?

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean an cargo container washes up on a desert island and disgorges a literally ship load of hi-tech Buzz Lightyears who promptly set off in search of Star Command, not knowing they are toys. Meanwhile thousands of miles away little eight-year old Bonnie, the little girl who inherited Andy's toys, longs to make friends but still plays with old fashioned toys, like Jessie and Buzz, and the rest is gifted the latest 'tech-toy' called Lilypad, who promptly takes over Bonnie's life leading to an existential drama as the toys are left behind and Jessie (Joan Cusack) and Bullseye is forced to go on a complicated and multi-layered quest that sees her taken back to her very first home and the loving hands of another lonely girl called Blaze. Into the complicated mix drops Woody who sets off with Buzz to try and rescue Jessie, thinking she's in trouble. Leading all to a dramatic and emotional ending which will leave you with moistened eyes and a lump in your throat. 

My god, a month ago I was slagging off the last Pixar film, Hoppers as a cluttered, over-complicated and needlessly messy affair that seemed more determined to teach a valuable lesson than to entertain. Coupled with the fear that Pixar had lost its way of late with a series of films that utterly failed to ignite my enthusiasm that I approached this one with a sense of trepidation. Luckily the fact this was co-written and co-directed by Andrew Stanton made me give it a go and I'm bloody glad I did!

Toy Story 5's main focus is Jessie, who takes the lead role leaving Woody and Buzz to more secondary roles as they play catch up and try to help the mostly female cast, With both Bonnie and Blaze providing the  emotional core of the film, Toy Story 5 explores themes of legacy, social media and its effects upon a generation of children who live by the screen, and idenity. And through it all march the army of Buzz Lightyear super toys set on getting to Star Command, which just so happens to be in the back garden of Blazes house. 

Animation wise, this was first class, the lighting is so good it looks utterly natural, which is also its main failing. This looks so realistic that it stops looking like animation and becomes something different, it almost looks like AI cartoons, everything too smooth and perfect. Call me old fashioned but I want my animation a little bit rougher than this. But that is the only failing of this wonderfully joyous and emotional rollercoaster of a film, a film I'm not ashamed to admit left me silently weeping tears. It's at turns funny, emotional and thrilling and for once it doesn't push your buttons and seems to organically arrive at it's central message. By the end I was smiling ear to ear.

I loved it and it's gone a long way to restore my faith in Pixar and to redeem them their recent past digressions of the likes of Hopper, and the woeful Buzz Lightyear. 

9/10

#58: INTER-STELLA!!!! TAKE 2

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Bill Irwin, Ben Affleck, John Lithgow and Matt Damon. Music by Hans Zimmer. Written by Jonathan and Christopher Nolan, directed by Christopher Nolan. Budget $165 million. Box office takings so far $774.7 million. Running time 169 minutes long. Originally released in 2014.

INTER-STELLA!!!!!

One hundred and sixty nine minutes long! That's bum numbing and no mistake and it certainly cost this re-release several punters, but that's over shadowed by just how packed the screen was for this 12 year-old film, it's was practically packed, and since you weren't there you'll have to take my word for it. 

ANYWAY, 12 years ago I gave this 9/10 but what was my take this time round? Before I get to my reconsidered score I thought I'd share my review from that original screening. 

In the near future, although when exactly is never stated, the world is slowly dying and mankind is in danger of meekly going into the night. With dust storms sweeping the world (or atleast the US, cos let's face it, that's all the world we need to see) to the death of crops due to the 'Blight', things aren't looking all that rosey for mankind and in particular, ex NASA astronaut and engineer, widower, parent of two, Cooper (McConaughey) whose life and farm is slowly becoming entombed in the ever-encroaching sand. One day, while following mysterious magnetic signals he is lead to a secret NASA underground complex and offered the chance to pilot a mission to a universe on the other side of a newly discovered worm hole in orbit around Jupiter. That universe seems to offer a choice of 12 different planets for mankind to relocate to and our plucky, huge-headed, hero takes it like a randy sheep herder left to gaurd a flock of ridiculously attractive young spring lambs. Alas he must leave behind the one thing he loves most in the world, his young brilliantly precocious daughter, Murphy. Oh and his son, Thingie. (not me, that's actually his name.) And to make matters worse he has no idea how long he'll be gone...

What follows is a serious, intense drama that's the true definition of a Marmite experience and no mistake. Loved or loathed and not much in the middle.

It's interesting to note that in the lead up to this film, the expectations of the online film community and its ilk was insanely high and now that the film is out, most of those eager and excited film sites have laid into it with a passion, sighting each and every slight and error, berating it from the sound design to the IMAX ratio to the introduction of the battling banjo sequence during the post credit sequence and most bizarrely the physics behind the science fiction. They delight in pointing out each and everything wrong with it. The trouble is, I think they're missing the point. This is an astonishing film of great scope and superb craft, Nolan is perhaps, the finest and most technically accomplished director of his generation and I'm hard pressed to think of another director with the same scope the same ambition. He might even be the next Kubrick, or at least a Kubrick cut with a healthy dose of Speilberg.

This is a film that reminds you of previous movies, most particularly 2001: A Space Odyssey and Contact, but that isn't a negative comment it's just cut from the same cloth. It feels like a brave film to make in the 21st century and it's amazing that Nolan was able to get an industry obsessed with franchises and super-hero movies to make a one-of-a-kind science fiction flick with no chance of a sequel.

I could sit here and winge on about all the minor plot holes and petty things that niggled me but the truth is that once the film had had finished I felt awed by what I had see, touched by aspects and emotionally satisfied.

I can't remember the last time I saw a meaty, solid, adult science fiction film without a single laser gun, battle fleet or explosion, well okay, one explosion or one that so engrossed me and yet i listen to the haters and I fully understand their frustrations and I even agree with many of the nit-pickers but it didn't matter to me, I was lost in the scope of the thing. It is a spectacle that deserves to be seen. Just don't blame me if you hate it.

9/10 

So, what now 12 years later has my opinion changed, do I see through it like the Emperor's New Clothing or am I still in the thrall of the Cult of Nolan? Well, truth be told a bit of both. On one hand it's a delight to see Hollywood making these sorts of films and it laid the path for films like The Martian, Terry and Dune 1 & 2, Project: Hail Mary and even this year's  Disclosure Day. It's a poe-faced serious science fiction film without space battles, robots and all that stuff, even if it does have robots, a fight in space suits and a frantic space battle, but it's also one of those SF movies that suffers from Star Trek:TOS-itous, that of 'love' saving the day. I went into this bemused by the memory of it ending up with McConaughey in a 5-dimensional library throwing books at his young daughter but wasn't that bothered by it this time. I had more problems with the plot contriving a trip to NASA through a morse code signal, that seems a little plotty for me. That plus the massive concrete spaceship, which similarly made no sense, but beneath it all there was some good stuff here and I found my self engrossed and falling for it again. It's not perfect, there are still things I struggle with plot wise, but once the drama starts it doesn't let up and it's enthralling. Plus this time round I found Hans Zimmer soundtrack extremely effective. Overall this was still satisfying and even a little heart tugging at times. I glad I resaw it and judging by the number of people in the screening I wasn't alone. And once again, how great to see it up there on the big screen again.

This still gets a solid 9/10