#89: RUNNER

 

STARRING: Alan Ritchson, Owen Wilson, Rodrigo Santoro and Leila George. Written by Miles Hubley and Tommy White. Directed by Scott Waugh. Budget $35 million. 

This one caught me unawares, I only became aware of it last week as part of a comparison with the new Gal Gadot film, The Runner, with which this shares half the same title. 

The plot to this one sees 'runner' divorced ex-Seal, ex-alcoholic Hank Malone (Alan Ritchson) living on a house boat in Melbourne Harbour. He's a Deliveroo driver, although when we first meet him he's busy doing the following, engraving a girl's name into a tiny padlock, eating French sandwiches and learning French. He's stoic, tacit, somber, sober and solemn. You see he's atoning for his past. He makes a living driving 'hi-end' stuff around town, like endangered golden parrots, Subway orders, or forcefully picking up belligerent politicians for a government vote (don't ask). Meanwhile, Ben Bishop (Owen Wilson) makes his living as a different sort of runner, flying round the world in first class and delivering organs for transplant, in this case a liver (in a codeword protected hi-tech freezer box) for a little girl who's lying in a hospital and slowly dying. Hank arrives at the airport to pick up the organ and parks beside a huge black SUV, with blacked out windows. I wonder it that'll play a part later? Hank agrees to take Ben to the hospital and we learn that if the freezer box's temperature goes above 8 degrees or if it takes longer than five hours to deliver will expire. So off they go, along with the mysterious black suv with the blacked out windows. 

WITHIN seconds the baddies, who were in the all-black SUV with the blacked out windows, ambushes them leading to the first of many full-out gun battles, in the streets of Melbourne, which will leave scores of nameless tattooed henchmen dead, but oddly enough not from gun shots. No, because of Alan Ritchson's massive size, the man is simply humongous, all of the henchmen are literally broken into pieces, arms, legs snapped, backs broken, necks bent into pretzels,  faces are crushed with single punches, and many people are killed, including random bystanders, who are shot, but not by Hank. Luckily the Australian police aren't on hand to investigate any of this and the chase between Hankben (Ritchson and Owen, to save time) and the baddies led by psychotic Rodrigo Santoro (Damian Zaldivar), he's one of those baddies who executes his heavily tatooed henchmen as a lesson to the others. It's clearly a lesson that the others don't learn as they continue to get stuff wrong. Actually, the reason he, Rodrigo, doesn't kill those who fail him is because the Hank half of Hankben does, in horribly brutal ways. Add to that the following: an old woman dying of the exact same thing as the little girl, a kidnapped surgeon, a mole in the hospital where the little girl is staying, an ex-wife with a spare car, when Hankben's car is destroyed. A vengeful second tier henchman. Oh and to make things more time sensitive, the cooler box and one half of Hankben gets ventilated with a hole meaning time is running out. And that's the plot from then on, Hankben get chased, steal a car, crash the car, bicker, banter and get into one incredibly violent fist/gun fight after another. Then just repeat till the insane final showdown in the hospital where everything just goes batshit crazy and one half of Hankben gets shot, stabbed multiple times with a stiletto and an actual bone saw, and here's a clue, it's not Owen Wilson. Then, finally the police show up and the film ends with a coda of one half of Hankben in Paris honouring their dead daughter from the character backstory. 

Fast, violent, and moderately fun. Apparently it's a lot more fun than The Runner. The Australian setting makes it look fresh and the weather and sun look lovely. The effects and car stunts augmented by CGI are in the Fast and Furious school of car physics, but it does suffer from ridiculous plot contrivances and holes and it's painfully clear that logic is clearly asked to step away from the plot at points during the film to make the whole thing somehow work. 

It would have been made for a tenth of the budget back in the 80s by Canon and probably starred Charles Brosnson, or Chuck Norris, but while this is on it's fine. Nothing big, it's amusing, very violent and utterly over the top and Alan Ritchson is clearly being groomed as the next big action hero. I'm still hoping for the day he becomes Doc Savage. 

Anyway this, well it's okay. But you'll do just as well with it at home than at the cinema. 

6/10

#88: INDEPENDENCE DAY

STARRING: Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Ary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Margaret Colin, Randy Quaid, Robert Loggia, James Rebhorn, Vivica A. Fox, Adam Baldwin, Brent Spiner, Harry Connick Jr. and Harvey Fierstein. Written by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. Produced by Dean Devlin. Directed by Roland Emmerich. Music by David Arnold. Budget $75 million. Box office: $817 million. Running time 145 minutes. Originally released in 1996

Featuring over 3000 special effect shots, the majority of which were practical, to 'save money', including the glorious iconic shot of the White House getting utterly destroyed, as well as some truly spectacular scenes of utter devastation of skyscrappers exploding, streets on fire and a world obliterated. The legend goes that it was written over a month-long holiday in Mexico, green lit by 20th Century Fox chairman Peter Chernin just one day after it was pitched, and put into pre-production just three days later! This film exploded onto our screens and psyches 40 years ago to humungous applause and insane cheering and just devoured the box office. It took over $50.2 million on its opening three-day weekend and spent the next 10 weeks at number #1, ultimately finishing its cinematic run with over $817 million. It slammed Will Smith on the map cementing his legend as a leading man for years to come, and also blasted Jeff Goldblum onto the A List, and it's without doubt one of the most exhilarating, exciting, and entertaining science fiction blockbusters ever made and it just never gets old or boring. 

The plot sees 15 mile wide flying saucers take up position above key points across the globe and then launch a planetary-wide wave of utter destruction. From then on we follow a rag-tag team of heroes as they at first fight to survive, then unite together, before fighting back in pure Hollywood style, but only after the President of the United States of mother-fucking America (Bill Pullman) has given the greatest mother-fucking speech in the history of the world (and cinema) to rally the troops for one glorious mother-fucking counter-attack, while eco scientist David (Jeff Goldblum) and ace pilot Stephen Hiller (Will Smith) fly a stolen alien fighter craft right in the heart of the mother-fucking alien mother ship to deliver Earth's mother-fucking payback in the most ludicrous way possible and all you can do is cheer! 

What a thrill ride, what a treat! What a mother-fucking fantastic film! Back on the big screen to celebrate it's 40th anniversary. I loved this the first time I saw this at a multi-media preview in London in 1996, where the entire crowd of hardened, cynical critics cheered as one and applauded at the president's speech. By no means could this be called high-brow, or clever, or intellectual, but what you can call it is an utter delight, and sod the need to call it a 'guilty pleasure'. The fact that 40 years after its release it's coming back and people want to see it proves what a total classic it is. This is utterly unapologetically the purest popcorn movie ever made, it revels in its own trashiness, it honours the history of the science fiction B-Movie and it stands tall and proud and shouts, I'm loud, I'm proud, I'm goddam bloody epic, me!

I for one refuse to find fault with it, or scoff at it, or sneer, I don't care if the dialogue is lame or cliched, I don't mind a jote if it's just a B-Movie, I bloody love B-movies and I bloody love this. It's a throwback to a simpler time, it's almost a Hollywood WWII movie in style, the gungho attitude the rugged heroes fighting back against a much bigger enemy, and its not ashamed to be downright and outrageously fun!

I was lucky enough to see this several years ago at the Royal Albert hall with a full live orchestra and it was sublime! This time round it's just as nature intended but on the biggest screen High Wycombe has to offer! if you get yourself a chance, do yourself a favour and go and see this on the big screen, sit as close as you can to the screen and just get ready to be utterly entertained. It's defo not clever, but boy, is it big, epically BIG!

10 out of mother-fucking 10, bitch!

#87: STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME

 

ORIGINAL 1986 MOVIE POSTER

40TH ANNIVERSARY MOVIE POSTER 2026 

STARRING: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Catherine Hicks, Michael Berryman, Mark Lenard, Jane Wyatt and Robin Curtis. Story by Harve Bennett and Leonard Nimoy, screenplay by Steve Meerson, Peter Krikes, Nicholas Meyer and Harve Bennett. Directed by Leonard Nimoy. Music by Leonard Rosenman. Budget $25 million. Boxoffice $133 million. Running time 122 minutes. Originally released in 1986.

All together now. 

"Computer. Computer. Ah! Hello computer."

It's 2286 and a dirty great big cylindrical dustbin has arrived in our solar system, taken up a parking orbit above Earth, and started broadcasting a signal that takes out the global power grid, causing untold environmental disaster with huge planet-wide storms blocking out the sun, triggering a possible ice-age and generally acted like a massive dick because somebody on Earth couldn't be bothering to answer their intergalactic phone call. Luckily, pointy-eared, child psychologist and science officer Spook has discovered the signal was meant for the now (then) extinct Hump-Back whales and so him, Kirk and the others set off through a time warp back to 1986 in search of some whales they could bring back to communicate with the alien interlopers and save the world. Urgh, Mondays, am I right?

And so we arrive at the fourth Star Trek film made back in a time when Star Trek existed only at the cinema and re-runs on TV and hadn't spawned five progressively bad spin-offs filled with valuable life-lessons and gender politics, when the world wasn't over saturated with an excess of science fiction, super-heroes and fantasy, a time when this sort of good-natured and dare I say, old fashioned entertainment seemed rather exciting and, fun! Hedy, happy days before the internet and streaming ruined everything.

A novel idea for the franchise, take the crew and throw them in the real world and see how they react. And what a fun ride that turned out to be. Because this is by far the most light-hearted Star Trek film they ever made, with a game crew eager to have a bit of laugh with their roles while still sticking to the world of Star Fleet and a quite serious scenario.  

What you take away from this is just how enjoyable and exciting it is, how they managed to mix amusement and action, drama and fun. It's not a comedy but it's funny, but that is never at the expense of the characters or story. The story split across three different objectives keeps you hooked, it also gives Scotty his moment to shine with perhaps one of my favourite Star Trek scenes of all time, when he has to interact with a computer, watching his fingers dart across the keyboard, it's clear that actor James Doohan who played Scotty so well, hasn't the foggiest notion what the hell a 'computer' is, leading to the sublime moment he picks up the mouse to talk into the infernal machine. Then there's Spock's re-emerging humanity and the re-awkening of his friendship with Kirk and a profanity spouting Spook is worth the admission fee alone, then there's, Uhura and Chekov's mini-adventure aboard the Enterprise aircraft carrier leading to the hospital escape and finally Captain Kirk's deeply creepy flirtation with Marine Biologist Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks). He might have been a hit with all the aliens hotties in outer space, but back on terra firma he's just a middle-aged man standing way too close and flirting so badly he might as well just dropped his pants. Way back in Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan I marvelled at William Shatner's acting, particularly when his voice breaks during his eulogy for Spook, but here, when the camera is often right up there in his face it seems to be mugging and gurning are his preferred methods of acting. And that kiss from Gillian on Kirk's cheek at the end when she tells him they'll always be friends makes my toes curl.

That minor quibble probably explains why this doesn't get a solid 10/10, but regardless, I bloody love this, great fun and a joy again, as always, to see on the big screen. Finally it's as old as my relationship with Petra, so happy 40th to us both.

9/10

P.S.
You might wonder why I posted the two posters at the top of this review, well the first is the Bob Peak painted artwork for the original cinematic release and the second is the bag of shit some stupid intern spewed up for the 40th Anniversary release, it's a never-ending source of great sadness for me to see how utterly piss poor modern film posters have become and that photoshopped abomination above just shows the decline, what the fuck is going on with Gillian Taylor's pick up truck on one side and the taxi on the other, as far as I can remember there isn't a single taxi in the film, unless it's driving past in the background. This poster is lazy, badly constructed and enticing as a mouldy loaf of bread. Explain to me Paramount how that poster is going to encourage anyone new to this film?

Poster artwork 2/10 (actually I might even do a top ten of film posters this year). This one be on it.

#86: DE GAULLE: RESISTANCE

STARRING: Simon Abkarian, Niels Schneider, Thierry Lhermitte, Karim Leklou and Simon Russell Beale. Written by Antonin Baudry and Berenice Vila. Directed by Antonin Baudry. Budget $74 million. Running time 158 minutes.

The plot sees Charles de Gaulle (Simon Abkarian) escape Paris following the surrender of France to Germany in World War II. Winston Churchill (Simon Russell Beale) grants him exile in London and he sets about setting up the Free State of France in London and leading the French Resistance. It charts his highly confrontational relationship with Churchill and the deeply harrowing Battle of Bir Hakeim. 

Serious, ponderous, dramatic and deeply engrossing. This was a satisfying cinematic experience with a good cast and some powerful acting. Some of the CGI work is a little poor, but it's not a film about that, it's about the powerful political battles that are seldom discussed in WWII films. I racked my brains for ages trying to remember where I'd last seen Simon Abkarian only to be reminded he was a villain in the Daniel Craig Bond film, Casino Royale. Simon Russell Beale feels and looks like he was born to play Churchill. The British come out of this looking like a slimy bunch of back-stabbing toads, but perhaps that was the sort of attitude that was needed to beat Hitler. 

This was a sombre and powerful film that despite its long running time never dragged. Well worth a punt. 

8/10

#85: GODZILLA, MOTHRA AND KING GHIDORAH: GIANT MONSTERS ALL-OUT ATTACK a.k.a GMK

 

STARRING: GODZILLA! MOTHRA! BARAGON! KING GHIDORAH!!! Also Chiharu Niiyama, Ryudo Uzaki, Masahiro Kobayashi, Shiro Sano and Hideyo Amamoto.  Written by Keiichi Hasegawa, Masahiro Yokotani and Shusuke Kaneko. Directed by Shusuke Kaneko. Budget $9 million, running time 105 minutes. Box office $20 million. Originally released in 2001.

If your only experience of Godzilla is the handful of Legendary movies so far released and the terrible 1998 film directed by Roland Emmerich then you ain't seen nothing yet!

This astounding film released in 2001 by the Toho studio was the 26th film in the Godzilla franchise and was written as a direct sequel to the original 1954 Godzilla film and shares the same universe as the aforementioned 1998 outing and is the third instalment of the Millennium era.

The story sees a very angry, white-eyed Godzilla, this time possessed by the spirits of the people killed during the Pacific War, rising from the depths to wreck bloody havoc against the Japanese populous, but help is on hand in the guise of Baragon, Mothra and King Ghidorah, the legendary Guardian Monsters who are destined to rise and defend the land when Godzilla threatens. Meanwhile, b-movie maker and daughter of a commander in the Defence League finds herself caught up in the mayhem and destruction that shatters the land. Bravely the monsters face off against the Big G but with little effect, Baragon is brutally destroyed, and Mothra (never my favourite) can't do much except batter herself senseless on lightbulbs, so it's up to Ghidorah to try and save the day but will even he be able to stop the relentless onslaught, or is he going to have to level up? The final boss battle in the bay of Tokyo is truly and utterly extraordinary and leaves you absolutely dazed. 

Nothing can truly prepare you for the joys of a Japanese Godzilla movie, they have a charm, an energy and a feel all of their own, the characters, the strange humour, the wonderful man-in-a-rubber-suit special effects, the amazing models and that never date and the sheer forward momentum the films possess. As with any giant monster movie, the story that lives between the action beats matters not one jote and yet these Toho films seem to create characters you oddly care for. Japanese films make big jumps in logic and plotting and expect the audience to catch up, they don't spoon feed their audienced, so you have to be on your toes at all times, plus you can never guarantee who's going to live or die and death is only ever a blink away. The one thing that strikes you about this superb film is just how truly collateral the damage is, Shusuke Kaneko doesn't shy away from depicting how terrirfying it would witness first-hand a Kaiju attack.

It's worth noting that despite using over 350 CGI shots, the majority of the effects in the film were achieved practically, and CGI was used to enhance the action. and boy do those effects stand up, seriously impressive and the use of actual actors inside the monster suits doing the stomping and fighting just enhances the whole movie. The Godzilla suit itself featured in this film was the largest and heaviest one ever made and stood over 2 meters tall and weighed 70kgs!

I was lucky to see this as a 35mm print at the Barbican, a pre-recorded video introduction accompanied the film with the director giving us a brief history of the film and his work before both Mizuho Yoshida (Godzilla) and Akira Ohashi (King Ghidorah) too gave video intros explaining briefly their methods, Mizuho was told to be furious all the time, and Akira demonstrated his technique for being King Ghidorah by squatting down, with both arms raised and roaring. Then both men turned to face off against each other and began roaring together. It was wonderful, those three clips were worth the admission alone. 

If you ever get a chance to see a proper Japanese monster movie at the cinema then do it, it's a true thing of wonder. 

Ladies and gentlemen, Godzilla, King of all the monsters has left the building, standing!

The gods of cinema dictate that I can only score this a 10/10. They are indeed cruel and unusual deities. 

#84: KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE

 

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Hayao Miyazaki. Based on Kiki's Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono. Japanese vocal talents: Miniami Takayama, Rei Sakuma, Kappei Yamaguchi and Keiko Toda. Music by Joe Hisaishi. Running time 102 minutes. Budget $6.9 million. Box office takings so far: $41.8 million. Originally released in 1989.

In a world where witches are just accepted, 13-year old witch, Kiki follows the time-honoured tradition of being a witch by flying off on her broomstick to find a town she can practice being a witch in. She sets off with her talking black cat Jiji and lands in an un-named French coastal town where she ends up living in a granny flat of a bakery run by a friendly couple. While she's there Kiki becomes friends with a boy her own age, Tombo, an artist who lives in the woods, and an elderly woman whom Kiki does deliveries for. She also briefly loses her magical powers and still helps to avert a terrible catastrophe when a huge Zeppelin-like airship crashes in the town square and then it ends. And you realise you're close to tears.

What an utter, utter treat. A hand-drawn animated classic of sublime charm, with a warmth and emotional core completely missing from most, if not all, CGI animated  films of the past 36 years. Produced by the legendary Studio Ghibli and directed to perfection by the animation genius, Hayao Miyazaki. This is an exercise in artistic brilliance. The endless street scenes, the crowds, the lighting, the skies, the clouds, the small, tiny bits of artistry that if you blink you'd miss. It's all so wonderful. It fills your soul with joy and I found myself smiling all the way through. There's something about this film that actually enhances your soul, that makes you feel good about your fellow man. It's a film where there's no life lesson to be learned, no sassy, wise-cracking, girl boss beating up stupid male characters, there's just the story of a young girl trying to make her way in the world and encountering a group of people who try to help her. At times she is peevish, and even down right rude, on a couple of occasions she is sad and lonely, but each time there's reasons why and they feel organic and real.  

Finally, just before the film there were the obligatory trailers and because Kiki's Delivery Service animated, nearly all the other trailers were for upcoming animated films all of which, with the exception of a new Shaun the Sheep movie, were generic, bland CGI sludge including a film called Forgotten Island, about two sassy, wacky teenage girls who get sucked into a magical realm and befriend a stupid werewolf boy who's there to provide the obligatory hilarious stupid male character. You just know that there'll be wacky adventures and valuable lessons to be learned before the two girls are returned to their real world. It's just another forgettable animated life-lesson featuring an off-the-rack plot and yet another cast of forgettable female characters, because god forbid a Hollywood animated film should ever have a male character like Tombo. 

Give me Kiki's Delivery Service every time. This is an absolute animated classic and I loved every minute. There is not one thing wrong with this beautiful, joyful, life-affirming film and to see it, once again on the big screen, with Japanese subtitles and in all it's full 4k glory, was a dream come true. 

10/10 

      

#83: THE DOG STARS

 

STARRING: Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley and Guy Pearce. Screenplay by Mark L. Smith. Based on the book The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. Directed by Ridley Scott. Budget $110 million. Running time 118 minutes. 

For many years Ridley Scott worked on developing a movie based on the classic science fiction novel, I am Legend by Richard Matheson. It would have been the third adaptation of the book and would have starred Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role of Robert Neville, played previously by Vincent Price in Last Man on Earth (1964), and Charlton Heston in The Omega Man (1971). Alas it was not to be. 

That was back in 1998, now in 2026, 28 years later Scott bounces back with this! The Dog Stars, a film with that original sf classic embedded in its DNA, featuring as it does a flu-ravaged, post apocalyptic wasteland of ruined, overgrown cities, hordes of nomadic Reapers ravaging the countryside and a stoic, grief-stricken hero and his dog, although this time he's joined by not one, but two stoic, grief-stricken old men with serious anger management issues and one beautiful young woman. That's also the plot, bar the introduction of a mysterious community of survivors operating out of a small town airport.

The book upon what this film is based on, is a staggering slow read, filled with chapters of seemingly endless descriptions of the leaves moving in the wind and stoic PDSD men droning on about nature, and survivalism. It depicts a world much reduced from the one in the film. In the book, chapters fly by with nary a glimpse of another human being. And when they stumble, starved and desperate they number in the ones, or twos. Or in the 'big action beat' scene nine, while in the film it's like bloody Piccadilly Circus, I mean like every five minutes another roaming group of survivors stumble into view only to be executed without a word or difficulty. 

Hig (Jacob Elordi) and Bangley (Josh Brolin) spend their days bickering and shooting anyone who dares to wander onto their patch – a rundown airfield, from where Hig goes flying almost everyday to nearby Denver on supply runs. It's been nine years since the world ended in a flu pandemic and the world is gone. Everyone, except Hig, his much loved dawg, and Bangley, an ex-combat marine, are desperate and starving, but old Hig has it down good, every week he goes off on the weekly shop, just unlike you or I, he goes off in his still functioning light aircraft, fuelled by petrol that's not gone off. He shoots off to Denver with his dog, lands takes out an electric buggy, visits his old home, mourns his dead wife, then goes shopping, picking up sodas and drugs he keeps hidden in a functioning walk-in refrigerator, then on the way back he stops off a nearby Mennonite community  near the airfield and benevolently hands out the drugs and Cokes. But good ole Hig is an ickle sad, his wife died in the pandemic and he sort of blames himself. Then one day he picks up a radio transmission and decides to go off to investigate. Along the way, his engine fails and he's forced to crash-land, but luckily it's only a minor inconvenience as he comes across Cima (Margaret Qualley) and her dad, Jack (Guy Pearce) who are also surviving quite nicely thank you in a secret hidden valley. Anyway, there's a army of reapers who stumble across our gang of friendly survivalists so Hig, Cima and Jack fly away looking for the home of the transmission. Meanwhile, back at home, Bangley is swamped by an sodding army of tattooed skinheads who want what he has. 

This looks beautiful, the post apocalyptic city scapes are eerie and impressive, the cast are fine, although they seem a little bored by it all, and it's competently  directed by Scott, but this is most certainly third tier Scott, down there with the likes of A Good Year, G.I. Jane and Robin Hood. Beyond the expertly finessed art direction, there's nothing here that screams Ripley, sorry Ridley. It's just a generic plod. It's also not helped by the introduction of a truly ridiculous third-act action set-piece which feels like an entirely different film shoehorned in because of the lack of some action, unless your idea of action is watching people clearing a field of rocks and stones.

Trouble is I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic movies and books, I eat them up, call me a prepper, but I just love the idea of wandering the wasteland looking for gazoleen, the last Twinkie or bottle of diet Coke, especially if Margaret Qualley is along for the ride. 

And finally, what's up with Hollywood and this genre of rugged men in light aircraft and their dogs, what with this and the up coming Brad Pitt flick, Heart of the Beast?

This? Slow, sombre, sad but not altogether terrible. That said I bet you a stack of 10,000 dollar bills it's going to polarise people. As for me, I can see myself happily rewatching this as a double bill with The Omega Man on a cold Sunday afternoon. 

7/10

#82: CASINO

 

STARRING: Robert DeNiro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, Don Rickles, Kein Pollak, James Wood. Screenplay by Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese. Based on the book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas by Nicholas Pileggi. Cinematography by Robert Richardson. Edited by Thelma Schoonmaker. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Budget $50 million. Running time 178 minutes long. Originally released in 1995.

If Goodfellas is the blue collar world of organised film, then this, is the sequin encrusted jumpsuit of crime. Set in 1973 and exclusively in Las Vegas, it follows the rise of Sam 'Ace' Rothstein (Robert DeNiro) who's sent by the Chicago Mafia to run the Tangiers Casino, trouble is he's bringing a shit ton of emotional and psychotic luggage with him that's going to make his job a lot harder. 

I originally hated this when it first came out, it felt like an unnecessary sequel to Goodfellas, I couldn't see what was different about it, but over time and repeated viewings it's warmed on me, sure it's far more brutal than GF, it's longer, it's more intense and it feels far more real, there's a sense of excitement about GF, you kinda want the three leads to maybe get away with it. But here, it feels far more real and close. Watching Sam and Ginger's marriage collapse is difficult to watch, the rage and anger unleashed makes you feel like an accidental witness. Similarly, Joe Pesci's Nicky is so unhinged so dangerous you feel no warmth for him, no connection and his final demise is so vicious, so violent and yet you're glad he's dead, there's a sense of relief that washes over you. 

The three main actors are at the top of their game in this, Joe Pesci is truly unhinged and scary, you really feel he is capable of anything. DeNiro seems to inhabit the role of Sam and gives him a sheen vulnerability that feels real, despite the fact you feel he's only a fraction away from lashing out, but is too scared too.  And then there's Sharon Stone  as Sam's wife, Ginger McKenna who has never been better, her raw power, or dependency on her boyfriend/pimp, James Wood feels horribly real. All three bring such a sense of realism to their roles that film feels at times more like a fly-on-the wall documentary.

It's still got all that wonderful Scorsese DNA, the use of popular music as a soundtrack, the extraordinary editing skills of Thelma Schoonmaker and the cinematography is gorgeous. But it's not as good as Goodfellas, it's perhaps a little too long and it's just too raw.

For a film that runs two minutes shy of three hours, it flies by in a blurr. I was engrossed from the moment it started 'till it's explosive ending. This short run of Scorsese films at my local Cineworld has been an utter delight and I thank them for sharing some true stone-cold classics like this. 

An absolute cinematic treat. But it doesn't quite reach the greatness of Goodfellas.

9/10

#81: ONE NIGHT ONLY

 

STARRING: Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner. Also featuring Maya Hawke, Molly Ringwald and LeVar Burton. Written by Travis Braun. Directed by Will Gluck. Budget $25 million. Running time 102 minutes. 

It's the near future and in America the ultra right have won the election and control the country. Their first move is to instigate a total 'no sex before marriage' mandate banning premarital sex. The entire population has been tattooed with a tattoo that changes colour meaning if it's red you can't have sex, and if it's green you can. If you're married you can have sex whenever you want, but if you're single you have to wait for that one day of the year when for 12 hours you can have sex with anyone you like as long as it's consensual. And on that very special day we meet Allie (Monica Barbaro) an aspiring jingle singer with performance issues and jug-eared Owen (Callum Turner) who owns and runs his own pizzeria called Claremont. He's a hopeless romantic waiting to propose to his girlfriend of three years on the night the whole country goes fuck-crazy, while Allie wants to find something more than just a meaningless shag. He finds out his girlfriend wants a hall-pass for meaningless sex with someone else and Allie just wants the D.  Throughout the evening these two cross paths more often than is normal, I mean be it the waiting room of a police station, in the queue to buy the last remaining condom in the city, at a private invite only party for the hottest pop singer in the business, or literally on the street corner, it's almost like fate had commanded these two be together. What follows is the classic Boy meets girl, loses girl, meets another girl, while girl meets another boy, both lose respective boys and girls before meeting other boys and girls before losing those before reuniting with original girl, in his case, before realising they want the other but then losing each other before the happy ending. And oddly enough it's that happy ending that's missing. For a film obsessed with meaningless sex with random strangers this is a film that's ridiculously chaste when it comes to the two leads making the beast with two backs, because when push almost become thrust (or shove) and with literally minutes left on the clock before the no sex rule kicks back in again, these two lug heads decide to wait another year before playing 'let's hide the salami.' because if something is good it's worth waiting for. And the strange thing is that this last minute cock block just reinforces the whole celibacy until married conceit. And while the chant from all the insanely horny sex-upped singletons throughout the film is "FUCK THE MANDATE!" except for our two leads who when we join them a year later, living together the message seems to be, "It's better to wait." Mixed. Fucking. Messaging.

What a weird little film this is. The two leads who are as horny as fuck and twice as sexy are so chaste they could have stepped out of a Hallmark flick. Callum Turner as jug-eared as he is, is nevertheless easy on the eye, as is Moncia Barbaro whose plunging halter-top silver mini dress is silver revelation excude sex appeal by the bucket load and have lovely chemistry and charm to boot but it's all above the waist and the nearest we get to any sex is no-tongue kissing and not a single nork grope, or bum squeeze.  

Also, the logic and complex set-up makes this whole world seem utterly implausible. It's like a reverse Handmaids Tale of sexual politics. Both Allie and Owen have sexless encounters throughout the evening but neither has sex, saving themselves for the other at the climax of the film and it all feels so virginal. Mildly amusing, some of the situations and characters they encounter raise a smile, perhaps none more so than when LeVar Burton and Owen's mum, Molly Ringwald who hook up for some bubblewrap kinky sex. But that's about it for fun, or sex. With neither a bare bum, or boob, save for one chaste sidebob, to see, there's no sex, or nudity, which is weird in a film about meaningless sex. 

It's all so toothless and sweet. 5/10

   

#80: COYOTE VS. ACME

 

STARRING: Will Forte, Lana Condor, Tone bell, Luis Guzman, Martha Kelly, P.J. Byrne, Eric Bauza, Kenneth Choi and John Cena. Screenplay by Samy Burch. Story by James Gunn, Jeremy Slater and Samy Burch. Directed by Dave Green. Budget #72 million. Running time 103 minutes. 

Think of this as the 21st Century response to the utterly superb 1988 Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Set in the present and featuring a world where cartoon characters and humans co-exist side-by-side in harmony.

The plot sees Wile E. Coyote decide to hire the services of a small law firm, Avery, Jones & Maltese to sue ACME – the ubiquitous industrial complex that creates devices for cartoon charactors. After decades of failing to capture the Road Runner, the Coyote decides the defective ACME products he's been using, are responsible and sets out to sue ACME for damages, setting in motion the court case of the century. But as Kevin Avery (Will Forte) and his niece, Paige Avery (Lana Condor) start to investigate they uncover a conspiracy decades in the making, leading ACME's head lawyer, Buddy Crane (John Cena) to go on the attack. Leading to a dramatic race to a congressional investigation, where the Road Runner will testify, assuming he lives long enough...

Funny, meta, packed with gags, visual and verbal and enough Easter Eggs to keep even the most hardened fans of the Warner Bros. cartoons happy, this was an absolute hoot! The animation is top notch and the the cast list of legendary WB characters includes Bugs, Daffy, Tweety, Sylvester, Porky, Foghorn and even includes a legendary 1930s character actor by the name of Lorre. 

I've not laughed this much at a film in ages, it's such a playful, joyful and funny film that doesn't pander, doesn't preach and still packs a rather sweet little ending. 

Sadly, this is going to tank and tank hard. Its story to the big screen is worthy of a film in its own right. Originally scheduled for deletion back in 2023 as part of a tax write off, that included Batgirl, the film was rescued and sold off, but released at the tail end of August with an almost non-existent press campaign, which is a great shame because this was a terrifically funny flick, it's got heart, silliness and some brilliant gags. 

If you love the films of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones Go and see it, you'll love it. The characterisation of Wile E. Coyote is spot on, and he stays utterly true to his cartoon origins. The animation is a treat and really looks hand-drawn, John Cena continues to show his comedic chops but gets a little sidetracked. And finally fantastic to see Leghorn Foghorn back in action. 

8/10   

#79: TRAINSPOTTING

STARRING: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle, Kelly MacDonald, Peter Mullan, Eileen Nicholas, Shirley Henderson, James Cosmo, Kevin and Keith Allen. Screenplay by John Hodge. Based on the book by Irvine Welsh. Cinematography by Brian Tufano and edited by Masahiro Hirakubo. Directed by Danny Boyle. Budget £1.5 million. Box office takings £48 million. Running time 93 minutes. Originally released in 1996.

It's 30 years since this film first debuted and I can still remember it vividly, it's one that has stayed with me all these years, so the chance to revisit it on the big screen was too much to resist. But, has it stood the test of time, or has it become jaded and old? It's funny, but the same week I watched this again and I've seen both Ewan Mcgregor and Kelly MacDonald in new stuff, The End of Oak St. for him and the new Lanterns show for her.

The Trainspotting plot is told from the point of view of Renton (McGregor) and starts off as an apparent love letter to the joys of heroin and drug taking and a rejection of normality, a carrion call to reject 'life' and embrace the joys of smack, but it soon becomes clear that Renton is lying to himself and he desperately tries to crack his addiction. The trouble is, his whole life and all of his friends are involved in one way or another and every time he seems to get clear he falls back into his old ways, leading to one final attempt to escape his chaotic life. 

By god this is a great film, directed with true passion and energy by Danny Boyle. Brilliantly edited, and photographed. The soundtrack – a compilation album of bangers perfectly captures the mood and spirit of the times. The writing is sharp, funny and crisp, capturing Renton's inner monologue perfectly. But it's the acting that truly elevates this to something special. The six young leads are just note perfect, McGregor has a lot of carrying to do and he does it with effortless skill. Robert Carlyle's Begbie is one of cinema's greatest villains and the menace and violence he brings to the role is outstanding. Jonny Lee Miller's James Bond obsessed Sick Note brings both pathos and humour. while Ewen Bremner's Spud, perhaps the film's funniest character is also its saddest, although Kevin McKid's Tommy is by far the most tragic. 

This is a film that starts off by telling us the reason kids do drugs, and in particular heroin, is because it feels so good, but which never glamourises or sensationalises drug use, it just shows the reality, of five friends lying on the floor of a drug den littered in fag butts and discarded needles in slums lost in a bliss-filled haze of a drug rush. 

This is a funniest, intense and sobbering film that's lost none of its power and feels as fresh today as it did back in 1986. This new 4K restored version of the film presents an Edinburgh that is hideous in tooth and claw, which only helps to make the whole experience feel even more real. If you get a chance go and see the sort of film 'they' just don't make any more. 

10/10

 

#78: MUTINY

 

STARRING: Jason Statham, Annabelle Wallis, Roland Møller and Adrian Lester. Written by Lindsay Michel and J.P. Davis. Directed by Jean-Francois Richet. Budget $50 million. Running time 95 minutes.

Jason's job in this new outing is bodyguard and chauffeur to shipping magnate, Tibor (Ramon Tikaram). Jason or Cole Reed as he's known in this outing has naturally a hidden past, he used to be not only a commando, a special forces operative but also a policeman, highly decorated, stoic, deadly serious, driven, committed, lethal, dangerous, fighter, loner, chess-champion, and most importantly one-man-killing machine. So when his surrogate father figure Tibor gets killed on his watch during a botched kidnapping attempt, that sees Cole framed for the murder of Tibor and death of four policemen and the small army of thugs out to kill Tibor he does the only thing he can. He goes undercover as a sailor on a shipping container ship Tibor owned to find out why Tibor was killed.

That's the plot, sort of, there's other stuff too, a container holds trafficked people who a bunch of pirates want, but mostly it's just Cole on a ship killing off the 20+ sailors under the stewardship of villainous Captain Marko Madsen (Roland Møller), who it turns out had something to do with the killing of Cole's dad some years earlier. Added to the mix is 3rd Mate Angie Ellis (Annabelle Wallis) shoe-horned into the script because the focus group that shaped and moulded this felt it was a little sausage heavy. So in comes Angie who's more than capable of fighting and killing with impunity.

And so with the scenario set up and the plot running it's just a case of watching JS butcher 20 odd men using his fists, feet, and whatever guns, knives, hay hooks and harpoon guns that come his way. 

But unlike his previous cinematic outing's character, Shelter's Michael Mason, Cole Reed isn't invulnerable and actually gets stabbed in the chest, top left, which after a minimal bleed does no more than to make him even more peevish. 

Then it's Die Hard on a boat, or Underseige: The Remake, as Cole just does his thing in confined spaces before finally confronting Marko Madsen for one last fight. then it's back to Far East to get revenge on the man who set the whole film in motion. 

If you've read enough of my posts you know I like Jason Statham films and this is no exception. It's vicious, nasty, and surprisingly violent. The action isn't edited to death and the gore and injury details are surprisingly not skimped on. This isn't big or clever, it's not creating something new, and it most certainly isn't reinventing the wheel. There's no humour to undercut the violence and the only one liner we get is Cole thanking Tibor for gifting him a Rolex watch that enables Cole to unscrew some screws. 

Like all Statham films it's not big, or clever, it just gets the job done. Bish Bosh. And unlike the American based adventures, he gets to keep his British accent. 

6/10 

 

#77: TONY

 

STARRING: Dominic Sessa, Emilia Jones, Dagmara Dominczyk, Rich Sommer, Stavros Halkias, Leo Woodall and Antonio Banderas. Written by Matt Johnson, Matthew Mller, Todd Bartels and Lou Howe. Directed by Matt Johnson. Running time 106 minutes. 

It's 1975 and Jaws is playing in a double bill with the classic Charles Bronson movie, Violent City, while staggeringly creepy 19-year old Vassar College student, Anthony 'Tony' Bourdain (Dominic Sessa)lies to everyone he meets, knows or has even the merest of interactions with that he's a budding writer and winner of a writing scholarship, even his family. Latching on with all the focus of a laser guided missile, Tony fixates on fellow student Nancy Putkoski (Emilia Jones) and follows her to Provincetown in Massachusetts, for the summer, after stealing a couple of hundred dollars from his doting father. Once in Provincetown, Tone gets pissed, runs up a debt in a lobster restaurant called the Flagship, loses all his money, gets beaten up and knocked unconscious. In the morning he wakes up in a hammock on the back porch of the kindly owner of the Flagship (Antonio Banderas) and blags himself a job as a dishwasher where he slowly befriends the gang of psychopaths and maniacs who work in the kitchen. Every morning the unnamed Flagship owner throws a bucket of water over Tony, who then spends the day, smoking, taking drugs and flirting with Nancy. All the while Tone pretends to be a writer while not writing anything while secretly observing the practices of the kitchen. Finally he convinces the owner to open a special Friday night dinner service and serve lobster thermidor to impress Nancy, so he can shag her, and ends up burning down the restaurant. Which naturally upsets Antonio who tells Tone he was going to offer him a full time job. To repay the kindly old man, Tone and his junkie friend break into Antonio's house, steal a cooking book and stage a clam bake BBQ on the beach pretending to raise money to rebuild the Flagship. Happily the two young men collect a huge amount of money for 'charity' when Antonio arrives and Tone decides to make amends for being an absolute shitberg for the previous 100 minutes and sods off to culinary school in New York, but only after reuniting with his family so they can forgive him for stealing and running away. Before a series of captions tell us that the real life Anthony Bourdain went on to write a book about kitchens and travel the world. 

And that's it plot wise.

This is a tonally weird film about a miserable, self-obsessed teenage arsehole who thinks the fucking world owes him a living. Convinced of his own greatness and happy to roll over anyone he chooses and to lie, steal and cheat to get what he wants, the young Bourdain is a thoroughly unlikable little shit played horribly by Dominic Sessa who makes Bourdain appear to be a serial killer in training. He spends the whole film looking dirty, unkempt and disgusting, he's a boy who never bathes or brushes his teeth. All he does is stalk Nancy and try and groom her into having sex with him. He spends every second he is with her staring at her as if she's a piece of meat he's about to fillet. Every moment Sessa takes the stage you find yourself subconsciously scratching and fantasying about having a wash once the film is over. 

At no point does Bourdain become even remotely likeable and his grubby, greedy, self-obsessed narcissism becomes quite exhausting. The film presents him as a loner, a rebel destined for greatness but Sessa who spends the film slumped over like a hunchback and peering through greasy curly bangs is so unlikeable there's never any chance you'll buy into his self-obsessed bullshit. 

As an award-winning TV chef, I love a film about cooking but it seems the only nation capable of creating fantastic films about cooking are the French. For comparison, the French gave us the exquisite fare like The Taste of Things, about a banquet of fine wine and food while the yanks gave us Chef, about a food van selling cheese toasties. In fact the best movie America has ever given us about food was The Menu.

Because Sessa's Bourdain is so sleazy and unlikeable you spend the film wanting the foppish haired twat to fail, you're practically egging him on to so so in spectacular fashion, however, when the fail finally arrives late in the third act, it's handled with all the finese of a dine and dash. It's clumsy and implausible, he apparently doesn't realise that throwing buckets of water over an oil fire isn't a good idea and only succeeds in setting fire to the restaurant. Thank fuck then for Antonio who at least offers a subtle masterclass in less is more acting, but that's really about all I've got to praise it. 

It looks okay, some of the scenery is nice but that's all it really has going for it. I think a film following Bourdain after he leaves culinary school for his journey round the world would have been more interesting. Not so this, which arrives with all the pomp and ceremony of a disappointing desert.

6/10

#75 & 76: THE END OF OAK STREET. Revisited

 REVISITED

STARRING: Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella and Christian Convery. Produced by J.J. Abrams, Hannah Minghella, Jon Cohen, David Robert Mitchell, Matt Jackson and Tommy Harper. Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. Budget $92 million. Running time 99 minutes. 

Can't help thinking the people who churn out the utterly turgid Jurassic Park films must be slapping their foreheads in disbelief and shouting, "So, that's how you do a dinosaur movie!", their last film – the 2025 woeful Jurassic World Rebirth cost a genuinely staggering $254 million dollars to make, while this one a 'mere' $92 million, which in comparison is low budge and ten times better!

It's 1982 and life, or so it seems is good in the Oak Street neighbourhood, there's a massive street party underway and everything seems wonderful and everyone seems happy, although scratch the surface of Platt family, Denise and Gret Platt (Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor) and you can easily see their marriage is on the rocks and their two children, Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella and Christian Convery) know it. Greg's hiding a secret – that he's lost his job and trying to make ends meet by working as a pizza delivery boy and she's an aspiring novelist who's written something wonderful using her own family as her inspiration. Then one night during a particularly violent lighting and thunder storm, the entire neighbourhood is transported via a worm hole, or ball, back 65 millions years ago to the Cretaceous Period and the family find themselves fighting for their lives as the neighbourhood goes to the dinasours. As their neighbours get whittled down and the family dog goes missing, the family naturally, because it's a film, split up and go off looking for him leading to a genuinely scary sequence that just keeps building. Finally our nuclear family piece together what's happening and how to get home and then late into the third act, something truly shocking and unexpected happens and the stakes rise meteorically leading to a superb third act that does not disappoint. 

Who would have thought dinosaurs could be scary, taking place mostly in the day light, these beasties are feathered, ugly and unbelievably lethal. The action builds nicely and as the town is reduced to a burning ruin, our family keep running looking for a way out. This feels like a Spielberg film, hardly surprising since this is a Bad Robot Production and one of the producers is J.J. Abrams, who for a long time was hailed as the next Spielberg, much in the same way Christopher Nolan is called the next Kubrick.  

This looks, feels and sounds like a Spielberg film, it's packed full 1980s elements, like kids riding their BMX bikes around the neighbourhood, 8-tracks, Battlestar Galactica movie posters, typewriters, and not a mobile phone in sight! Kids take centre stage for much of this and are deeply annoying at times, asking stupid questions, taking ridiculous risks and running off whenever the plot needs them to. 

Overall this was a thoroughly enjoyable, action-packed, dramatic and emotional romp, a true rollercoaster of excitement and one that utterly nails the landing. What an utter treat. Sure without Jurassic Park, we wouldn't have this, but boy what we do have is a dinosaur film that's actually scary.

Do yourself a favour and pay Oak Street a visit, you won't regret it!

8/10

REVISITED
Back from seeing this for the second time, I dragged Petra. So, what was it like second time round? 

Don't get me wrong the dinosaur bits are still great, the whole third act is a hoot and it sure is exhilarating, it's just that there are elements that really drag this down and those elements are the family at the centre of it all. Them and more importantly all the male characters in this film – from Ewan McGregor's Greg, to Brian, his idiot son (Christian Convery), their next door neighbour, Mel (P.J. Byrne) and any other random male we see are all stupid, pathetic and ineffective. While every single woman is dynamic, go-getting, pro-active and the utter opposite of pathetic. Denise (Anne Hathaway) is an uber girl-boss in the mould of Alien's Ripley, who shots and fights her way to victory, while their daughter, Audrey (Maisy Stella) is the brain box able to offer her expert opinion on wormholes and quantum physics. Greg is a milk-sop, weak, wimpy, pathetic, he acts like an anchor slowing them all down, offering empty hope and platitudes, while Brian, the boy child, is just there to put himself and his family in constant jeopardy, and whine incessantly and it grates, boy does it grate. Actually, I really wanted Brian to die horribly. He spends the whole film running round the town armed with a child's bow and arrow set and feebly fires arrows at everything missing every single time. That said, he does happen to hit the side of a barn with an arrow, but that's from inside the barn and the wall is behind the dinosaur that's trying to eat him. Oh, how I screamed for that dinosaur to tear his stupid face off, but sadly Brian survived, only to fall off a roof at the most  in-opportune moment, putting his whole family in danger - AGAIN! Although I don't suppose there's a right time to fall off a roof. 

There's also a bizarre lack of other people in this world, when the Pratt [sic] family first realise what the fuck is going on, they go exploring and beside one single neighbour going to work, there is simply no other living person in this neighbourhood. Finally as the film progresses we see bodies and the occasional group of dinosaur fast food (slow-running packs of humans), and corpses but that's it, I think this would have been better if the neighbours had banded together to survive and then been whittled down. 

As we walked home, Pet and I talked about the film and both agreed that the one thing both the children needed was a bloody good thrashing, Greg and Denise are dreadful parents and I for one wish the bastard dinosaurs had eaten them all.

FINALLY, one really important thing for anyone with young children to know. THIS isn't the film for your under 12s, stop bringing them. yet again a performance marred by frightened children who had to be 'rescued' by their parents because this is too violent. It's a 12A for a goddam reason you stupid shits. 

That said, despite the pathetic males, and the annoying family, this was still loads of fun. And more importantly, Pet loved it and gave it an 8/10 so who am I to disagree, 8/10 it remains.

  

#74: SUNNY DANCER

 

STARRING: Bella Ramsey, Daniel Quinn-Toye, Ruby Stokes, Earl Cave, Jasmine Elcock, Conrad Khan, Jessica Gunning, James Norton and Neil Patrick Harris. Written and directed by George Jaques. Running time 106 minutes. 

Ivy (Bella Ramsey) is 10 months into her cancer remission, but living effectively as a shut-in with her loving and supporting parents, Bob and Karen (James Norton and Jessica Gunning) home. Abandoned by her old friends and suffering from survivor guilt, she's terrified of living prompting her parents to enrol her into a four week chemo camp with other cancer survivors, and off she goes reluctantly, defiant and determined not to enjoy it or fit in. But once there she quickly makes friends with a group of young wacky teenagers on the cusp of adulthood including Jake (Daniel Quinn-Toye), Ella (Ruby Stokes), Ralph (Earl Cave), Maisie (Jasmine Elcock) and Archie (Conrad Khan) and locking horns with camp commander Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) the well-meaning rule obsessed and overly cheerful ruler of the camp who naturally becomes her nemesis, until his tragic background cracks Ivy's cynical nature and she begins to emerge from her emotional cocoon. The film broken down into chapters named after each week follows the group as they bond over the four weeks on an overnight camping trip, a day out to a local funfair, go skinny-dipping, fall in love and battle a gang of normals who make the mistake of insulting them leading to a funny punch up. All these events bring the gang of five together and create a bond that only death will end. 

The film offers nothing new and it's tropes and beats are what you'd expect from a coming-to-age comedy/drama about cancer, and yet it's an engaging, funny and kind film. Watching these young people connect and bond is quite powerful, particularly when they gingerly talk about their own cancer experiences. Likewise the relationship between Ivy and Ella, Ivy's room mate is charming and funny. There's no 3rd act fall-out for this gang of survivors, although the film does deal an emotional gut punch in the third act which is quite clumsily telegraphed and in hindsight unnecessary. 

It also does something quite, quite extraordinary, it made me like Bella Ramsey. I find her performance in both the Last of Us and Game of Thorns awful and yet she's expected to carry most of the heavy emotional luggage in this film and does so with grim determination. The rest of the cast are fun and my personal favourite was Ruby Stokes who was genuinely funny. And I think this is saved by being a UK film and not American one, so it avoids giving the young cast lessons to learn, or a bully to thwart or overcome and allows the 17 year-olds to engage in a very touching and sweet sex scene.

Despite some rough edges and clunky direction from director and writer George Jaques, plus some continuity errors that jar, this film also suffers from an over abundance of Ikea dressed sets, which pull you out of the film.

Overall, this is a kind, gentle and fun film about surviving cancer that only suffers from the need to pour on the pathos in the third act, which feels there just to give Bella one last chance to cry and emote. 

8/10  

#73: SUPER TROOPERS 3

 

STARRING: Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Hannah Simone, Nat Faxon, Chace Crawford, Brian Cox, Lynda Carter. Written by Broken Lizard. Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar. 104 minutes long.

The continuing adventures of a group of idiot state troopers as they do very little but prank motorists and each other while swearing, drinking to excess and being marginally crude. I have no desire to do a deep dive into this. I think I saw the first one, the second one was crowd-funded and apparently terrible and this is a soft as putty, vaguely amusing, although not funny, sort of thing. The characters all look the same and it features Brian Cox clearly doing it to pay the mortgage. There's a nice bottom on show, some sexy underwear and a flash of boob, but that's about it. The plot has something to do with drug smuggling and maple syrup. There's some nonsense about the funniest character getting married to the sister of one of the others, but the brother isn't happy and tries to sabotage the wedding. At the stag do, strippers are called in to disgrace the groom to be. Mild racist jokes are made, but they're utterly inoffensive and are mostly unfunny, as is the whole thing. 

There's a talking eco car, a car stunt and a baddy who's hiding in plain sight. That's it. The ending rolls to a halt at the wedding and someone, the baddy is shot and killed. Then there's three weddings and a final post credit sting with Brian Cox and Lynda Carter lying in baths. The whole thing is written by the cast and has all the spark and vim of a ward full of medicated geriatrics. 

I've seen a lot worse and a lot funnier. This is the mildest of films and I doubt any of you will go and see it, and if I'm being honest I'm really not too sure why I went, I knew it was going to be this sort of film and yet I went. Is my life this meaningless that i fill the waking chasm in my soul with this sort of shit? Isn't there a single other thing I could do than sit in a cinema with just two other patrons and watch this. I mean I could have stayed at home with the wife, still recovering from a hip replacement, but oh no, I choose to go and see this. I suppose it was cooler inside and the cherry slushy was nice.

What I will say is that I saw something that deeply shocked me, and no it wasn't the sight of Brian Cox in a bath, it was a trailer for Silent Night 2, a film about an ultra violent Santa Clause that's not out till November. What the hell is wrong with this goddam world, this week, Harrods opened its Christmas department and the cinemas are trailing films for Xmas, it's the middle of August you sons of bitches, we're living through the worst heat wave in living memory and you're already getting excited about Christmas. Put a fucking sock in it you pricks. 

Anyway back to this. I missed the second outing, only vaguely remember the first and will never watch this ever again. I suppose I saw it so you don't have to. So, don't and if you do, then don't say I didn't warn you. 

Middling, dull, and rather bland. Thank god for Brian Cox who gives a 5% performance that still 10 times more than the rest of the regular cast.

3/10 mostly for the fore-mentioned nudity and the occasional chortle. 

#72: DAVID BYRNE'S AMERICAN UTOPIA

 

STARRING: David Byrne. Written by David Byrne. Produced by David Byrne and Spike Lee. Music by David Byrne. Featuring the Chris Giarmo, Tendayi Kuumba, Karl Mansfield, Angie Swan, Bobby Wooten III, Mauro Reosco, Tim Keiper, Gustaveo Di Dalva, Jacquelene Acevedo, Daniel Freedman and Stephan San Juan. Directed by Spike Lee. Running time 105 minutes.

This is the second concert film for me of the year following the sublime EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert. This one, directed by Spike Jones is a filming of the 2020 tour, which due to Covid didn't get released at the time. It's a filmed performance of the New York Broadway run. Back in 2020 I was lucky enough to see this extraordinary performance at the O2 just before Covid shut the country down. It was the second time I've seen David Byrne perform live, the first as part of the Talking Heads tour, was back in 1982, that was an experience that bordered on the religious for me and I was profoundly moved by it. Watching American Utopia live 28 years later was similarly sublime. Sadly this year's David Bryne American Utopia world tour was prohibitively expensive and I had to give it a miss, so when news of this one night screening of the 2020 show was announced I pounced and I'm glad it did.

Featuring among other Burning Down the House, Don't Worry About the Government, Once in a Lifetime, and Road to Nowhere as well as 17 other numbers from Talking Heads: 77 to American Utopia, Little Creatures, Remain in the Light and Fear of Music this really is a visual and audio masterpiece. The band and Byrne surge endlessly across the stage, wearing their instruments and dancing, as they follow their glorious leader from one song to the next, this ebbs and flows and is a vision to behold. As a committed Talking Heads fan I can only fault this for one glaring omission, the lack of Psycho Killer, the song that made me a fan and that I've listened to more than any other song. But that is the only negative I have for this wonderfully moving and extraordinary film. 

Spike Jones directs this wonderfully, the camera never intrusive, flowing with the cast and feels organic. the way the performers move around the small stage is a marvel, performing as they dance, there is no backing track, no speaker stack, no leads and cables just Byrne's crew wearing their instruments, playing, singing and dancing, always moving. I wish I'd seen this on a bigger screen, but regardless it was a joy, and Petra on only her second cinema visit since her hip replacement gave it a very rare, for her, 10/10.

Me I couldn't possible disagree, that would be rude. 10/10

#70: SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY

 

STARRING: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Florence Pugh, Tramell Tillman, Michael Mando and Mark (I'm not the Gruffalo) Ruffalo, Marisa Tomei and Liza Colón-Zayas. Written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers (not the brother of Scott Sommers, who spells his name Summers). Based on the comic strip created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. Budget $225 million. Running time 145 minutes. 

Set four years after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, which saw Spider-Man, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) forced to cast Dr. Strange's spell that robbed the whole of the world of the knowledge that he was Spider-man, including love of his life MJ (Zendaya) and bestest friend in the world, Ned (Jacob Batalon). This Spider-Man has been fully accepted as NY's masked avenger and rightly feted by its populace, there's no J.J. Jameson to sully his name, so he can concentrate on dealing with a seemingly never-ending wave of street level villains from Scorpion, to name but one, as I don't want to spoil anything for you here. That said, there's one wonderful homage to a comic that had me squeaking in sheer delight, and on the Amazing-o-meter it rated a solid 15! He's got a friend in the NYPD, detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas), acting as his Commission Gordon, and a love/hate relationship going on with Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) aka The Punisher. Parker lives an almost monastic life from his attic, alone and mourning his lost relationships. Then, one day an audacious attack on Damage Control HQ by a little old lady in an armoured tank, brings Spider-Man face-to-face with a mysterious villain who can leap into the minds of people and take control, but who are they and what does it have to do with Damage Control?

There is a lot of plot, characters and incident to shoehorn into this film, no wonder it's so long, at its core the loneliness of Peter Parker - still grieving for the loss of Aunt May and MJ, but there's also the sense of hope, of a 'brand new day' as Parker goes about trying to build new relationships, like the unlikely one between Parker and Castle, or Detective DeWolff, as well his feeble attempts to somehow reconnect with Ned and MJ. 

The action aspect often takes a sidestep, which isn't necessarily a bad thing although it certainly spoiled a lot of the younger kids in the audience's enjoyment, this is a 12A film, it's quite sophisticated in its language, plus it's not a live-action animated film, there's a lot of talking and I think younger kids are going to be bored by this, one such tyke in the audience last night started playing with his pinging tablet last night and his mother couldn't seem to care less, till several people around her told her to shut it off. 

ANYWAY, the film itself. It was surprising to see so much of Spider-Man in full costume talking and interacting with people, it felt strange, but in a good way and soon became quite believable, he's a very likeable character perhaps the most relatable of all the superheroes. The action is jawdropping, the Hulk, revealed in the trailer so there's no spoiling to mention him here, is great, brief but great, and when he finally goes full Hulk it's fantastic! Likewise the relationship between Parker and The Punisher is funny and rewarding too, but the Punisher struggles to work in a 12 A universe, ultimately his superpower is just shooting guns, but there's a connection between the two that reminds me of Superman Vs Batman, but done better. In fact all of the relationships at play in this film are deeply rewarding, perhaps none more so than the final one between Ned and Parker which really choked me up.

The phrase Super Hero Fatigue gets thrown around a lot these days, but I can tell you there's no such think as Spider-Man Fatigue, judging from the crowd I saw this with. I think the fatigue comes from a hideous glut of truly mediocre superhero fare with generic off the peg stories, and threats too big to comprehend. Not so this, the story at it's core is the important sauce. Give the audience a strong story with a proper emotional core and some stakes they can relate to will win the day.

This isn't a perfect Spider-Man film, for me that would be Spider-Man Homecoming (2017), Spider-Man (2002) and Spider-Man 2 (2004). This is a tad too long, and the effects are a little soft and murky at times, the direction by Destin Daniel Cretton is very perfunctory and pedestrian and lacks the visual flair of Sam Raimi, he's just a safe pair of hands. Plus the villain, as surprising as they start out to be is, if I'm being honest, a tad disappointing by the end. The soundtrack, which seems to be mostly pop songs doesn't really register and this feels like a TV movie rather than a spectacle and doesn't quite have that gloss of a big Hollywood blockbuster, which at a price tag of $225 million it should have.

Anyway, exceedingly fun and entertaining and filled with some simply excellent Spider-Man moments, with plenty of action and emotional resonance, but sadly not quite firing on all cylinders. It flew but just didn't quite soar.

So this gets an Amazing Fantasy rating of Tim Boo Ba, or 9/10 if you don't know your comics.

#69: RAGING BULL

 

STARRING: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarty. Screenplay by Paul Schrader adn Mardik Martin. Based on Raging Bull: My Story by Jake LaMotta, Joseph Carter and Peter Savage. Cinematoraphy by Michael Chapman. Edited by Thelma Schoonmaker. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Budget $18 million. Box office $23. 4 million. Originally released in 1980. Running time 129 minutes.

For a film that garnished a lacklustre boxoffice haul of just $23.4 million off of a budget of $18 million, and mixed reviews at the time, this black and white biopic certainly packs a punch. It went on to become the first film selected into the Library of Congress's National Film Registry for being 'culturally historically, or aesthetically significant'. It was ranked in 2007 by the American Film Institute as the fourth-greatest American movie of all time. Robert De Niro would win an Oscar for Best Actor and Thelma Schoonmaker one for Best Editing. It was nomitated a further six times by the academy and went on to win a further 16 International film awards. Three more of Scorsese's films would go on to be selected for the the National Film Registry including Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. 

The plot is simplicity itself, it's the biopic of Jake LaMotta, his rise and fall, or knock down, and based on his own autobiography tracking his career from king of the ring to nightclub owner and stand-up comic of sorts.  

What stands out is De Niro's commitment to the role, perhaps no other actor with the exception of Daniel Day Lewis commits so much to a role. In De Niro that commitment saw him pile on a legendary 60 lbs or 27 kg to portray the older post fighting Ray LaMotta. This is not an easy film to watch, it's savage, aggressively so, in fact on its release the sheer violence of the film damaged it with the movie going audience not used to the sort of savagery Scorsese filled his screen with. But it's necessary, Jake was a very violent man inside and outside the ring, he's a man that only ever seemed happy beating another man half to death, his jealousy made him a monster outside the ring and the brutality meted out to his brother, Joey (Joe Pesci) and wife, Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) makes for deeply uncomfortable viewing, but isn't that a good thing? We grow up with films that glorify violence, how many times the noble hero who stabs to death an opponent or shots another with impunity, but when it's on a human level, a domestic one then the violence becomes ugly, and hateful and deeply uncomfortable. Once again, Thelma Schoonmaker's editing is an utter masterclass, as is the cinematography by Michael Chapman, which reminded me of Elephant Man and Eraser Head.  And as always, Scorsese uses music and popular music to powerfully create tension, mood and drama. This truly is a superbly made film and it leaves you emotionally drained. De Niro is mesmerising in the role, his self-made transformation into the bloated LaMotta is genuinely astonishing and you do literally forget you're watching De Niro. Similarly, both Pesci and Moriarty give their roles depth and nuance.

10/10 A profoundly powerful experience.