#70: CARRIE

 

STARRING: Sissy Spacek, John Travolta, Nancy Allen, Amy Irving and Piper Laurie. Screenplay by Lawrence D. Cohen and based on the book by Stephen King. Directed by Brian De Palma. Budget $1.8 million dollars. Running time 98 minutes. Originally released in 1976.

Carrie (Sissy Spacek) is a painfully shy 16 year-old loner who lives with her bible-bashing, religiously fanatical and clearly psychotic mother, Margaret (Piper Laurie). When Carrie experiences her first period whilst at school it triggers not only the awaking of her burgeoning telekinetic powers but also a series of events that will lead to an explosive showdown at the school prom and a bucket of pig's blood. 

Bloody hell, this is a fantastic horror film and features one of the greatest jump scares of all time, indeed it's so good it was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress for being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.

First time I've ever seen this on the big screen. It's a fast film, 98 minutes, so there's no room for the subtlety of Stephen King's book but what we're left with is a masterclass in building tension and atmosphere. De Palma directs with power and consummate skill and the music helps to create a sense of building and impending doom, Sissy Spacek has never been better, staggeringly beautiful and genuinely intimidating, especially once her powers have manifested, it's fascinating to see that Carrie isn't a victim in the true sense of the word, once her powers begin to emerge, Carrie becomes a stronger character and there's that tragic realisation that if only the Prom that creates her had played out differently it would also have saved her. 

The whole cast is great too, Piper Laurie is deeply unsettling as Carrie's horrific mother and yet when we get a glimpse of her back story we feel empathy for her.  The final act of this film, as Carrie returns home to confront her mother is powerful and tragic in equal measure.

Similarly, John Travolta relationship with Nancy Allen is fascinating and the casual physical abuse and cunning manipulation displayed by both characters cleverly hints at a deeply nuanced world. And her control of her thuggish, stupid boyfriend and her friends show her to be the true villain of the piece.  

A power house performance and film, so deeply satisfying. 

10/10

#69: THE APPRENTICE

STARRING: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova and Martin Donovan. Written by Gabriel Sherman, directed by Ali Abbasi, cinematography Kasper Tuxen. Budget $16 million. Running time 123 minutes.

It's 1973 and dough-eyed and dough-bodied, mummy's boy Donnie Trump (Sebastian Stan) spends his days engaged in shaking down his slum tenants for overdue rent on behalf of his bullying, over-bearing oaf of a father, Fred (Martin Donovan). But secretly dreams of building the bestest and biggest ever building in the whole of Manhattan with his name emblazoned on it in the vain hope his father will finally acknowledge him and tell him he loves him. When he meets the legendary attorney Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) in an exclusive club his dreams start to come true, as the two men become friends, Cohn schools Donnie in the art of the deal and helps him to shed those last irritating shreds of decency and humanity all in the name of greed, gluttony and obscene wealth. 

The film follows the appalling rise and rise and rise of Donald Trump, the worst American President in history, a man of such consummate self-belief and avarice that he somehow made it seem like a virtue.

I often find myself during lunch times watching boat fail videos on Youtube, or compilations of rally car or super-car crashes, there's something both fascinating and horrifying about them and yet you can't look away. The same can be said of this, featuring as it does a man so repellent and despicable that you can never take your eyes off him, even as he raping his wife, paying off his suicidal brother, having sex with sex workers, or lying, cheating and clawing his way over everyone to slime his way to the top. You can't help but watch transfixed by the sight of a young Donnie Trump as he bloats his way through NY circa 1970-1980.

Of the film itself, well Sebastian Stan is simply superb and proves in both this and A Different Man to be an actor of great skill and depth. But it's Jeremy Strong who has to be seen to be believed, bringing a horrific malevolence and diabolical energy to his portrayal of  Roy Cohn making him one of the scariest movie villains of all times, like a human shark and yet at the same time imbue-ding him with a sense of fragility, particularly as his health declines. Similarly the look and direction of this aren't flashy or gimmicky, allowing the characters to shine and boy do they shine. 

The cinematography by Kasper Tuxen is perfect capturing the era with a grainy light effect and making it feel as if it was shot in the 70s, the production design too is impressive and the use of vintage footage. 

As the film progresses we see the birth of Donnie's many mannerisms and physical ticks that Stan captures with subtlety, we also see the birth of a friendship between Donnie and Cohn that grows to become all consuming and we see how true the old saying power corrupts as Donnie sheds the last semblance of humanity as his greed takes over completely. 

This is a film you can't take your eyes off, it's horribly compelling and deeply unsettling and perfectly displays the birth of a real life supervillain. 

8/10

#68: SALEM'S LOT

STARRING: Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh, Alfre Woodard, John Benjamin Hickey, Bill Camp. Written and directed by Gary Dauberman. Running time 113 minutes.

Writer Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) returns to his childhood town of Jerusalem's Lot to research something or other to do with his parents who died when he was a child in a car crash and a creepy old house that over looks the town owned by the mysterious Mr Straker and a man called Barlow, who own the local antique shop. Then people start going missing and no one seems to care, whole families die, but no one investigates. Then Ben sort of finds out vampires are responsible and so puts together a team of vampire hunters that includes his girlfriend (Makenzie Leigh), the only attractive young woman in the town, a school teacher (Bill Camp) a child soldier (Jordan Preston) and the town doctor (Alfre Woodard) who only have 5 minutes of each day to try and stop the vampire menace before you know shade occurs due to the setting sun. Then the film limps to a showdown so dull and boring that you feel as if your own will to live has been drained from your body. 

Filled with characters doing stupid things regardless of the evidence presented to them, where our heroes split up with just 5 minutes to go till sundown, where kills happen off camera, and events aren't so much telegraphed but actually high-lighted by huge neon signs that flash 'this is important for later'.

Look, I can't be arsed to rant about this pathetic piece of shit poor excuse for a movie, it's shit. Lazy, boring, and horribly bland. There's no depth to it and all the glorious world building of Stephen King's book is dumped for a series of pathetic jump scares that don't jump and don't scare. It's all filmed with energy saving low wattage bulbs and features a group of characters who are so staggeringly stupid that they deserve to die at the hands of vampires. 

The ending, or showdown when it finally rolls slowly round the corner is so obvious I guessed not just the location of the vampire horde, but how the young boy soldier would kill all of the vampires in one go. And then the final boss battle is over so quickly you're left surprised assuming there's something more to come, but thank the fucking lord there isn't and you can escape back into the light.

Everytime 'they' remake a Stephen King movie they get it wrong, Firestarter, Carrie, Pet Semetary spring to mind. How anyone can get this so wrong is very sad, the 1980s TV mini-series with David Soul and James Mason is infinitely superior and I urge you to watch that over this pile of steaming, excrement.

Truly this is one of the worst films I've seen all year and has nothing to recommend it. It's one of those films that so bad, it's bad, and not bad in a good way, but bad in the way that freshly trodden on dog shit can smell bad, bad. 

2/10  

#67: JOKER: FOLIE à DEUX

STARRING: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Beetz, Steve Coogan, Harry Lawtey and Leigh Gill. Written by Scott Silver and Todd Phillips, directed by Todd Phillips. Budget $200 million. Running time 138 minutes.

The plot sees a heavy withdrawn and depressed Arthur Fleck an inmate at Arkham State Hospital awaiting his day in court for the crimes he committed two years earlier in the first film, Joker, where he killed six people, including executing Murray Franklin (Robert DeNiro) on live TV. His lawyer, Maryanne Stewart (Catherin Keener) is doing her damndest to help him and determined to show that Arthur suffers from dissociative identity disorder and not responsible for his actions. Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson) a prison guard who tries to help Arthur for his good behaviour enrols him in some music therapy where he meets uber Joker fan, Harleen 'Lee' Quinzel (Lady Gaga) and a romance begins. She re-ignites his joie de vie. The court case begins with Harvey Dent leading the prosecution and Joker begins to come back, however, Arthur sacks his lawyer and defends himself leading to an explosive closing statement that sees Arthur admit the truth. He returns to Arkham and his destiny.

This starts with a wonderful animated sequence in the style of an old Loony Tunes cartoon expertly animated and directed by Sylvain Chomet, the French genius behind the truly wonderful Triplets of Belleville. In the short, Joker is tormented by his own shadow who ends up getting Arthur arrested. Having read all the reviews and talked to people who'd been to see this I went in expecting to watch a two hour 20 minute, $200 million train wreck. 

My expectations were extremely low, I mean I hated 2019's Joker, I mean HATED it, nihilistic, miserbale and deeply depressing. I'd heard how badly it had done box office wise not even making $40 million on its opening weekend, and the fact it had the lowest score for any superhero film and I was sold. I saw it at 11:00am on a cold Sunday with my daughter in tow, her too expecting a trainwreck.

How wrong we were!

The film starts with the animated sequence, which was wonderful, and I wondered when it would start going down hill and it didn't, the introduction of Harley Quinn arrived and that too didn't suck, much has been said about the fact that this was nothing but a musical and so I thought that when the songs started I would begin to hate it, but I didn't, I heard that the court room drama was dragged out and boring, and although it did slow the film down it didn't suck and then I heard that the ending had left audiences losing their collective minds in rage and shock, but if you'd watched the film, you knew what was coming and when it did, I was delighted by it's guts. Critics have moaned that Lady Gaga isn't used enough, and to that I would agree but would say this film is about Joker and she was never going to be more than a co-star. 

Gritty, moody, mean, edgy and at times touching and poignant, Joaquin Phoenix is superb, Lady Gaga is committed and excellent, Brendan Gleeson, who offers the only glimpse of hope is superb, the direction by Todd Phillips is divine and the cinematography by Lawrence Sher is gorgeous. The film dips in and out of Arthur's imagination with glimpses of a TV special featuring him and Quinn where the sing and dance, and the musical numbers which never feel jarring or out of place add real depth and emotion to the film, there's a hearbreaking sequence where Arthur sings a message to Quinn which she listens to on her answer phone machine. 

Honestly I was captivated by this film, was swept up by heart, and the doomed romance at its centre, by the journey of Arthur as he struggles with his Joker duality, and the shocking ending perfectly fitted the tone and shape of this film. 

It's been postulated that Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix had no desire to make a sequel and went out of their way to destroy the legend of the two Oscar winning, Billion dollar box office Joker. A film that cost 'just' $60 million to make, a third of what this did. But up there on the big screen is no sign of loathing, no sign of two men sabotaging their legacy, to me it seems like a genuine attempt to do something more, something new with the film and would make it shine and for me it more than shined, it exploded like a supernova!

Fantastic performances, wonderful songs and a film that shrugged off the usual superhero guff to deliver a film that in time will be seen as a classic, if there's justice in this world.

8/10 

#66: GLADIATOR

STARRING: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, Derek Jacobi, Djimon Hounsou and Richard Harris. Written by David Franzoni, John Logan and William Nicholson. Directed by Ridley Scott. Budget $103 million. Running time 155 minutes. First released in 2000.

It's 180AD, and Russell Crowe is Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius, Rome's bestest general -E-VER! and he's only gone and beat Rome's last enemy, the Germanic tribes, on behalf of his boss, surrogate father, and emperor, Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris). To reward his adoptive son, Marcus offers him the job of Caeser much to the chagrin of his real son, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) who up and kills his father and usurps the throne before Maxie has time to take up the post, then tries to have him killed. Badly wounded, Maximus escapes to find his family slaughtered and himself captured and sold into slavery to a gladiator school run by Oliver Reed's Proximo. From then on, Maximus, masquerading as the Spaniard, hacks and slashes his way to fame and glory and back to Rome to lead an uprising against Commodus in the Colosseum.

Bloody hell! What a year for re-issues at the cinema! Films I never thought I'd ever see back up on the big screen and this is one of them. Still as fresh as it was 24 years ago. I've watched this many times at home on DVD and Blu-Ray, but once again, it's only when it's back up on the big screen that it truly comes back to life. At home, your mind wanders, you pause for coffee and bog breaks, you might even stop to go and do something else, or worse yet pause it, to finish it off another time. But not so when you're sat in the biggest screen in your local cinema where you find yourself immersed in a film that fills your peripheral vision to such an extent that you forget you're in a cinema.

What a spectacle! I'd come to this after rewatching the classic Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Rex Harrison, so I was well up for another dose of Roman epicness and boy does this deliver. Powerfully acted by Harris, Reed, Phoenix and Russell, who's perhaps only ever been better in La Confidential. Under Ridley Scott's expert direction this film looks the part and apart from the odd bit of dodgy CGI it's a visual masterpiece. The fights in the Colosseum are spectacular, savage, brutal and gory, the big location sets feel real filled with hordes of people that look and move so convincingly you can almost smell the stench of old Rome. 

The story is full-blown epic, and looks like the 103 million dollars it cost to make, but the money looks like it's been spent up there on the big screen. 

This was a deeply satisfying, and glorious romp and I loved every second. Roll on part 2!

10/10

#65: A DIFFERENT MAN

 

Starring Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve and Adam Pearson. Written and directed by Aaron Schimberg. Running time 112 minutes.

When Edward Lemuel (Sebastian Stan) a painfully shy and socially awkward struggling actor with a face horribly disfigured with neurofiromatosis is giving a miracle cure that cures him overnight of his hideous visage and turns him into Sebastian Stan he does what anyone would do. He tells everyone that Edward is dead and embarks on a new life, as his own cousin called Guy, then quickly becomes a successful real-estate brooker. The trouble is that he soon begins to find life as a handsome man almost as difficult as being hideous, and when his old next-door neighbour, writer Ingrid (Renate Reinsve) writes an Off-Broadway play about the old him called Edward, his grip on reality begins to slip, especially when he wins an audition to play himself in the play and then becomes friends with a young British man called Oswald who also has Neurofiromatosis. And then begins a relationship with Ingrid, one he couldn't do when he was Edward. From then on things start getting really crazy as life, as Guy/Edward knows it spirals out of his control leading to a confrontation during a perfomance of Edward that is crushingly funny that in turns leads us to an ending that's both sad, poignant and funny.

A very hard film to synopsis and do justice to, this is a terrific film, very funny, blackly so and featuring some excellent acting from the three main leads, Stan, Reinsve and Pearson. It's by turns, sad, touching, profound and very funny and I loved it! The ideas behind it are brilliant handled, Guy's difficulty in seeing Oswald easily interact and befriend people with a face far more disfigured than his own was is fascinating and Sebastain Shaw, a man known for playing Bucky in the MCU is exceptionally good in the film bringing an awkwardness and despair to the role. Adam Pearson in what is only is second film is fantastically good and makes Oswald a brilliantly loud and over top character with no guile. Similarly, Renate Reinsve as Ingrid, Edward's next-door-neighbour is wonderful as the young confident author growing stronger with each encounter. The three relationships as they intertwine are superbly explored and this film never lags or disappoints.   

Well directed by Aaron Schimberg who also wrote this stunning film, A Different Man is a unique, brilliant, funny and highly entertaining little movie and I urge you to see it! You'll not have see anything quite like it before.

9/10

#64: RETURN OF THE JEDI

 Starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Phil Daniels, David Prowse, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew and Frank Oz. Script by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas, from a story by George Lucas. Produced by Howard Kazanjian, music by John Williams directed by Richard Marquand. Running time 132 minutes. 

The concluding chapter in the original Star Wars trilogy arrived three years after Empire into a world that was Star Wars obsessed, and its haul at the boxoffice set a record that wouldn't be beaten until the arrival of Avengers: End Game in 2019.

This time round, Lucas (creatively spent) embraced the maxim, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." and elected not to come up with something new but just to remake Star Wars and change some of the locations. It was so successful that Disney used the same technique with 2015's Star Wars: The Farce Awakens.

This time round, Luke, who has grown up to become a 'self-identifying', self-taught Jedi knight armed with his kit-built part-works light sabre, embarks on the most ridiculous rescue mission in the history of anything by giving away all his worldly goods (two third-hand droids), getting his sister kidnapped, his best friend's best friend arrested and handing himself over to the galaxy's worst gangster in multi-staged mission that needs everyone involved to be captured and delivered to a location in the middle of the desert to work. After that, Luke remembers he's left a vulnerable old man alone in a run-down, damp-ridden hovel with no food or fuel after promising he'd be back and races off to make sure he can't be accused of elder abuse by social services. Meanwhile, his dad is suffering some serious work-place bullying from his boss and is forced to try and recruit his own son into the business. 

To achieve this, the Empire decides to bankrupt itself by building a second Death Star (because the first one was so successful) and advertising the event in the hope that the ever dwindling Rebel Reliance will send its entire fleet, numbering in the 10s of ships to attack the battle station. However the Empire isn't stupid and does away the single exhaust port weak-spot and instead builds a remote shield generator on a planet ruled by teddy-bears so stupid they build huge bon-fires in the tree-top cities of wooden huts and bark ropes.

Anyway, Luke ignores all advice and visits his dad at work and ends up helping to kill not one but two more old men and then secretly burning their bodies in an attempt to destroy evidence, which takes his body count of old men to four. Jesus, Luke really hates the elderly. 

And that's the plot, sort of. 

By the time this came out I was 20 years old, at art college and still dazed by the awesomeness of The Thing, Blade Runner, Wrath of Khan and Megaforce that had come out the previous year and thought that Star Wars now seemed lame-o in comparison.

Over the years I rewatched it countless times and seen it at the cinema each time it's re-released. Of the three Star Wars films it's the most skillful in terms of the special effects, it's bloody well directed by Marquand and the action is deeply impressive, however the writing is weaker, Han Solo has become a shadow of his former impressiveness and at times comes across as a petulant teenager, particularly when chastely snogging Leia or leading a band of generic red coats, sorry green coats, on a mission to take out the field generator. (hey, doesn't he do the same thing in The Farce Awakens, wow, talk about de-ja-vu). And Luke just doesn't cut the mustard as a wise old Jedi master, judging by this film all it takes is a few lame mind tricks and the ability to get your ass handed to you in every fight, and his attempts at wisdom and leadership comes across as delusion.

Anyway, it's still a satisfying conclusion to these first three films and let's face it everything else that came after it pales into insignificance. I never would have believed that I'd reach an age where the news of yet another spin-off TV show, or block-buster film set in a galaxy far far away would leave me, not giddy with excitement, but world-weary with grim foreboding. If only Lucas had left well enough alone.

Anyhoo, it's done! Next up the sequels, I bet they stand the test of time!

8/10

#63: EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

Starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Phil Daniels, David Prowse, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew and Frank Oz. Script by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, from a story by George Lucas. Produced by Gary Kurtz, music by John Williams directed by Irvin Kershner. Running time 124 minutes. 

Of the three original Star Wars films this one is the least mucked about with by Lucas in his 'Special Edition' phase, and beyond the odd added window in the cloud city, the occassional establishing shots, oh and the Bantha in his cave it's pretty much how Kershner made it and it's all the better because of it. Kershner does a damn good job in the director seat and brings a great sense of energy to this outing. First released in 1980 to mixed reviews it's gone on to grow in stature. 

The story, as if you need telling sees teenager emo Luke Skywalker run away to join a cult run by a creepy, smelly, old hermit on a swamp planet, while deadbeat people trafficker and drug runner  Han Solo tries to get it on with an entitled spoilt princess by conveniently stalling his space ship in an asteroid so he can make out with her. Meanwhile, Luke's dad, a single parent working three jobs just to make ends meet tries to build bridges with his wayward son on the most awkward 'bring your child to work' day in history!

The standout character is Yoda, a brilliant piece of Frank Oz puppetry that never looks out of place, you accept him almost instantly and the amount of emotion that Frank puts into his performance is outstanding and proves once and for all that practical is best! Seriously, Oz was his generations "There but the grace of God go I." Andy Serkis. 

The world building in this outing is as strong as Star Wars with new characters and locations introduced with flair, confidence and skill.

Of the three, this is my favourite in terms of story, it's fast relentless and doesn't let up for a minute, you can see the special effects getting better and this one blends stop-motion with matte paintings, models and ILM magic perfectly. The performances are good to, with each actor seeming to be far more comfortable in their roles. And once again the film follows a cake trail of plot points in a way that feels organic and not forced. 

When this first came out I hated the cliffhanger aspect, I was young and wanted a conclusion. However it's wonderfulness soon dawned on me and of the three it's the one I've seen the most. Star Wars beats it hands down in the originality stakes, but this is by far the most satisfying Star Wars outing. 

10/10