#11: PRIMATE

 

STARRING: Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander and Troy Kotsur. Written by Johnanes Roberts and Ernest Riera. Directed by Johnanes Roberts. Budget $24 million. Running time 89 minutes. Certificate 18!

A group of victims - comprising one vet, one deaf author who's also the father of two of the four girls, one handsome young man, and two random boys, whom the girls meet on the flight to Hawaii and invited over for a drinking and sex-party all end up in a cliff-top villa with an infinity pool all promptly become the soon-to-be victims of a man in a monkey suit pretending to be a chimpanzee with rabies. Much hilarity ensues as the bloke in the suit lumbers around the place offing teenagers, ripping off faces, biting chunks out of them, breaking fingers, smashing skulls, and generally not being a good boy. 

Offering nothing new to the tired genre of teenagers getting killed by somebody, save for the conceit that it's a bloke in a monkey suit doing the killing, while pretending he's been bitten by a rabid mongoose and thereby suffering from Rabies, which as we all know turns you into an almost superhuman, supernatural being able to come back to life for one more go, even though he's quite clearly dead. And which also means the victim of Rabies becomes phobic about water leading most of the cast to get in the pool to wait things out, only getting out constantly to progress the plot and provide victims for the ape-suited killer.

Not much to say about this really, there's the occasional jump scare, which always makes me tut, some gruesome deaths, the best in a bed will have you squirming, and the rest are gorily unpleasant. The cast, or at least their characters all deserve death, so that's fun, watching them die horribly. Continuity takes a holiday at times during the proceedings when it's needed to make sure this thing stays on the tracks. Characters avoid saying things or doing things that could help them, and injuries are only obstacles when needed and can be ignored if necessary - like broken hands, blood loss, broken ribs, skulls and/or limbs. Thankfully, the ending trundles into view briskly and you realise it's only taken 90 minutes of your life. 

Not the worst thing I've ever seen.

7/10

Actually, come to think of it, maybe it wasn't a man in a suit, maybe it was supposed to be a monkey with Rabies, but it was being played by a bloke in a monkey suit. That might explain why he was living in a cage in the garden. The monkey I mean, not the man in the monkey suit. Unless of course he's a method actor. 

#10: WILD AT HEART

 

STARRING: Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe, Diane Ladd, Isabella Rossellini, Harry Dean Stanton and Crispin Glover. Written and directed David Lynch. Based on the book, Wild at Heart by Barry Gifford. Music by Angelo Badalamenti. Budget $10 million. Running time 124 minutes. Originally released in 1990.

Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) leaves prison after serving two years for man-slaughter, to reconnect with his teenage lover Lula Fortune (Laura Dern). Their relationship is raw, passionate, all consuming and forbidden by Lula's mother Marietta (Diane Ladd) who lusts after her daughter's lover. Skipping bail, the two young troubled lovers head south while Marietta sends a couple of killers to kill him and bring her home. 

Like Lynch's previous film, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart is another Neo-Noir crime movie, one filtered through a fever-induced nightmare by means of the Wizard of Oz, it's a film so pure, so raw, so infused with relentless energy that it positively vibrates with power, it's a film staggering sexy, and seemingly obsessed with cigarettes, smoking and the mechanics of lighting said fags. It's filled with violence, and has a quality unsettling and sinister, although this is not as dream-like as Eraser Head, Blue Velvet or his later films, Lynch brings a sense of fantasy to the film with the Wizard of Oz playing a strange part in the proceedings. Through it all stride Cage and Dern taking no prisoners, shinning brilliantly and committing to their roles 100%. Likewise Willem Dafoe is positively mesmerising as the twisted Bobby Peru bringing true malevolence to the role.

A strange intense film that roars with passion and energy but doesn't quite stick the landing, Cage feels uncorked at times and there's a sense of nasty misogyny that permeates proceedings. Ultimately there's just too much of everything, sex, violence, dancing, music and smoking, so much smoking. 

8/10  

#9: IS THIS THING ON?

 

STARRING: BRADLEY COOPER, Will Arnett, Laura Dern, Andra Day. From a story by John Bishop, Will Arnett and Mark Chappell. Screenplay by BRADLEY COOPER, Will Arnett and Mark Chappell. Directed by BRADLEY COOPER. B Camera Operator BRADLEY COOPER. Produced by BRADLEY COOPER, Weston Middleton, Will Arnett and Kris Thykier. Budget $6 million. Running time 121 minutes. 

BRADLEY COOPER is Balls, the best friend of successful investment banker, Alex Novak (Will Arnett) and basketball Olympian Tess Novak (Laura Dern). Balls is a permanently stoned and waster, actor who we meet following a prat-fall during an uncomfortable dinner party. Despite only being a secondary character we'll get to spend far too much time with Balls, as he returns at intervals for updates on his utterly parasitic-like life, which his so-called friends seem to accept without any comment, and his marriage to Christine (Andra Day), which is used as a flimsy barometer to the Novak's own failing marriage.

You see, after 20 years of marriage and six further years spent in their relationship, resulting in two children, the Novaks have decided to call it quits,  utterly amicably of course. There aren't any exterior forces at play, it's just that they've drifted apart and just don't love each other anymore. Not that you'd know it. They obviously don't have any passion for each other, and that seems enough to call it a day. Anyway, because Alex is a successful investment wanker he's got enough money to move from the suburbs into a flat in New York city just round the corner from an Open Mic bar where he staggers into one night and discovers the audience of hipsters and Millennials just love his utterly humourless observations on his tedious life, and thus is born his new career as a stand up comic. 

Night after night, he stumbles into the bar and regales his audience of vapid dudes and dudettes with yet more staggering middling anecdotes of his crumbling marriage and in doing so discovers a second family of jobbing stand-up comics, who treat him like the second coming. Meanwhile his split life jogs on without issue, his wife decides to return to the world of basketball, this time coachin, and their two children shuttle back and forth between their two parents. Finally, Tess and a prospective boyfriend end up at the bar on open mic night and witness Alex's staggering dull set about his break up with her and the stage is set for more hilarity and japes. 

It's a sort of boy leaves girl, brags about girl to strangers, gets girl back, loses girl, then sort of gets her back. 

And then mercifully it ends. 

If you love looking at the pores of people or staring deeply up their nostrils then this is most certainly the film for you. Old Bradley doesn't just go in for the close up, he's literally boring right into the faces of his cast, I swear to god there were a couple of occasions where the camera bumped into his actors. But beyond that there's just this horrible sense of overwhelming smugness about this whole sorry affair, rich Americans indulging their dreams in huge houses with no worries or cares. 

I was surprised to discover this was based on the life of John Bishop, I mean surprised as in it gave me a whole new reason not to like him, I can't stand him as a stand up and this self preening 'look at me' bio pic is just the fucking limit. 

I hated these characters, they are all scum, but most of all I hated Bradley Coopers Balls (you have no idea how much I liked writing that, indeed how apt) He has such a smugness about him and his Balls is such an odious character and so jarring, shoehorned into his own film, because a simple Hitchcock cameo isn't enough for old Braders, oh no, he's wants his own role crammed into the film to break up the sheer monotony of the whole goddam self-serving, self-important, pretentious bollocks. Arnett is a good comedian but this film seems to hog-tie him, he's best when he's being ott and seeing him here meek and almost pathetic makes his Alex an unlikeable lead, not the same for Laura Dern, who seems to be having a bit of a career resurgence of late, and about bloody time! A damn fine actress, her character is by far the most interesting and entertaining. 

But as for the film, it's boring, up it's own arse. And about as funny as an actual divorce.

6/10 

#8: MERCY

 

STARRING: Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Annabelle Wallis, Chris Sullivan and Kyle Rogers. Written by Marco van Belle. Directed by Timur Bekmambetov. Budget $60 million. Running time 100 minutes. 

It's the future, a bright, glorious future where AI is not only our friend, it's also our justice system, judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one and called Mercy and presidesed over by Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson). Crimbos who've committed capital crimes wake up strapped to a chair and have 90 minutes to prove their innocence or be executed on the spot. And case #19 is alcoholic LAPD Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) who wakes up after a bender to find himself strapped into the chair and facing execution for the murder of his wife. Naturally he's innocent, but can he prove it? What makes it even more amazing is that Raven is the cop who sent the first criminal to the Mercy chair, hmmm, I wonder if that's connected? Now he has less time than the running time of the film to prove he's not guilty armed with only every single bit of digital information at Maddox's disposal from all phone records, CTV footage, emails, texts, smoke signals, morse-code, semaphore, and every other form of communication ever devised by man including every single photo ever saved to the cloud. Plus, the ability to phone whomever he wants to or needs to prove his innocence, and Maddox is more than keen to help him too. Oh, and the entire police force and all his buddies who are all keen to prove his innocence and willing to do whatever it is to save his life, despite all the evidence pointing to the fact Raven killed his wife in a crime of passion. But when Raven points out how was that possible when he had no passion for his wife, Maddox begins to believe he might just be what he says he is, innocent. Then he starts to uncover something that looks like a huge conspiracy and then it all goes ape-shit stupid.

Directed by Russian director Timur Nuruakhitovich Bekmambetov, he what directed such classics as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Unfriended and the extraordinarly awful 2025 classic War of the Worlds. Actually he also directed the much loved Night Watch and Wanted. This is a kinetic, frantic and frenzied action flick made more remarkable by fact that our two lead characters, Raven and Maddox are for 90% of this film just head and shoulder shots and sitting down, although that doesn't prevent everyone else running their little hearts out, or flying massive four-turbine man-sized drones, or engaging in chaotic gun battles to a pounding soundtrack. Actually it doesn't stop Raven either. 

The trouble is that what starts as quite an intriguing premise begins to spiral out of control as Hollywood demands their highly paid action-orientated hero get some action in the final act, but not before he manages to solve and uncover an utterly ridiculous conspiracy involving an half-ton of explosives hidden in a runaway truck and a conspiracy at the very heart of the Mercy program itself that if exposed to cause the very fabric LA society to come crashing down. 

Seriously.

Chris Pratt is beginning to wear thin, funny as hell in Parks and Recreations, highly amusing and charismatic in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1. and those two Marvel films with Thanos, he's being repositioned as a serious man of action and he just doesn't have the chops. Sure he's capable of sweating and frowning like a bitch, but that's about it. Although it's not really his fault in this, I suppose. The plot is so ridiculous there's not a lot he can do to salvage it. And spare a thought for Rebecca Ferguson who only exists from the neck up and doesn't even get to turn her head left or right, let alone smile, or frown. She's as one dimensional as her human co-star. 

Added to that is the plot that as it unravels becomes more and more ludicrous in its revelations. I mean you can guess who's the guilty parties right off the bat,  not through detection but through piss poor acting, then added to that is the fact the film suddenly changes gear, not once but twice in the final act, before ending with a shouty final face off which in turn triggers one last reveal before the whole film just ends with a jarring full-stop, leaving a huge question hanging as to what the outcome of these revelations would be to the fictitious world they take place in?

Mercy, I plead, please, Mercy.

4/10

#7: MULHOLLAND DRIVE

 

STARRING: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller and Robert Forster. Written and directed by David Lynch. Cinematography Peter Deming. Budget $15 million. Running time 147 minutes. Originally released in 2001.

This is only one of two David Lynch films I've never seen before, this and Inland Empire. And I am so glad I got to see this again on the big screen, a true cinematic delight.  

The film seems to follow the life of actress called Rita played by Laura Harring, who following a car crash, awakens suffering amnesia, and stumbles into an empty house and into the life of a wannabe actress, Betty (Naomi Watts) just arrived in Hollywood, who having won a jitterbug competition, dreams of making it big. Together the two women try to uncover who Rita really is, the mystery of a blue key, a bag full of money she carries and who the mysterious Diane Selwyn is. At the same time multiple other characters carry on their extraordinary lives revealing a twilight world of corruption, murder, movie making and several other unexplained mysteries. And as the film and its octopus-like threads seemingly coagulate, a blue box matching the colour of the key is found and opened and everything changes. And you realise that the whole film has been the fever-dream of a woman who's just committed suicide. But which woman and why?

Ultimately, like all of Lynch's films it's not the plot that's important, or the journey, it's the feelings it invokes, it's the emotions it stirs and it's the sense of impending dread and despair it pours into your soul. 

Lynch surely ranks up there with the likes of Kubrick as one of cinema's most unique creative talents. His films have a feel and quality which is instantly recognisable, from the sound design, to the visual look of it, the stilted almost amateurish acting style of his characters. The weird dream-lite quality of the dialogue and black as ink humour. No scene is safe from the deeply unsettling machine sounds that gnaw away at your psyche enhancing the sense of paranoia. And there's a grubbiness and an almost tactile feel to his films, that scratch away at you like a itch you can't scratch. Beyond the label of Neo-noir, his films simply defy classification, it simply is what it is, a dream that refuses to provide answers to any of the questions it throws at you, that's not it's role, it seems to be saying, that's up to you. Make of it what you will.

It's strange, deeply unsettling, engrossing, infuriating and profound and you'll either loathe it with a passion or love it to your core. There's a story there if you're looking but you'll need to work damn hard to fathom it out, and yet it all seems to come together at the end. Or does it?

And that's what sets this aside from any other film or film maker. Lynch doesn't seem to care what you make of his films. This, like Blue Velvet before it confounds your expectations and laughs in the face of simple logic, it just is what it is. 

And what that is, is a solid 10/10. 

#6: BLUE VELVET

 

STARRING: Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern, Hope Lange, George Dickerson and Dean Stockwell. Cinematography Frederick Elmes. Music by Angelo Badalamenti. Written and directed by David Lynch. Budget $6 million. Originally released in 1986. Running time: 120 minutes. 

College student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home when his father suffers a near-fatal medical trauma that leaves him hospitalised. One day  Jeffrey finds a semi-decomposed human ear and takes it to the police station and Detective John Williams (George Dickerson), a family friend, who dissuades Jeffery from investigating any further. Later that night, he's approached by Williams' daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern) who tells Jeffrey about a mysterious woman called Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), a deeply troubled club singer who lives down the road from him, and believing the ear and her are somehow connected the young couple set off to investigate. But what starts off as exciting adventure soon becomes far more unpleasant when Jeffrey begins to unravel a sinister conspiracy involving Dorothy, Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) – a truly unhinged crime boss and his gang of henchmen. There's a underbelly of evil and violence in the quaint seemingly normal town of Lumberton that Jeffrey is about to be flung face-first into it.

Described as a Neo-Noir by better hacks than I, this was David Lynch's third movie as a director, and staked his auteur firmly into the filmic firmament. There is something deeply unsettling about the world of Blue Velvet and also something very familiar, you can see the fictional setting of Lumberton as a prototype Twin Peaks, what with it's connection with logging, diners, police stations and small town America. That and the darkness that pervades the town. Kyle MacLachlan plays Jeffrey as a bright-eyed innocent who believes that having a chipper outlook on life and a 'can-do' attitude will see him right. Boy, is he in for a rude awakening. 

This has a stunning sense of unease, it oozes from the screen, as Jeffery gets dragged further into the mayhem, he becomes burnished and changed and when Frank explodes into the fray you feel his unhinged rage. Played by Dennis Hopper, Frank is one of the greatest ever movie villains, from one second to the next he's so utterly unpredictable it's positively frightening, so much pent up rage and sexual violence, he's truly terrifying. Added to that Isabella Rossellini's character, a mother blackmailed into acquiescing to all of Frank's perverted demands. The scene where she finally has agency against someone is thrilling, even if it is against Jeffrey, who has to suffer it. 

This is so brilliantly unsettling, helped by the machine sounds that seems to throb and pulsate, there's an edge to it that's makes you itch. This is an astounding film, one I've not seen at the cinema in 40 years and the chance to see it back up on a huge screen was a true treat. 

Creepy, unsettling, and at times deeply unpleasant, but enough about my ex-sister-in-law. If you want to see something that Hollywood just doesn't make anymore, then get down to your local Cineworld as soon as you can because this deserves your complete and undivided attention. 

10/10

#5: HAMNET

 

STARRING: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson and Joe Alwyn. Screenplay by Chloe Zhao and Maggie O'Farrell. Based on the book Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. Directed by Chloe Zhao. Budget $35 million. Running time 126 minutes.

Charting the moment Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) spots his future wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley) falls madly in love with her, within seconds they're married and she's in the family way and before you can say now is the winter of our discontent, she's given birth to twins, Hamnet (Jacobie Jupe) and Judith (Olivia Lynes), then spotting her hubby has an urge to write she sends him off to London to make his fortune selling handmade gloves. Then the black death hits, and Hamnet dies, while Shakespeare is away and Agnes isn't too happy about that, so Shakespeare follows some good advice about writing, in short write what you know and writes a play about losing his son Hamnet, but calls it Hamlet to protect the identity of its main inspiration and Agnes, pissed off that her husband is always at work rides off to London just in time to catch opening night of said new play. 

This is a beautifully made, well directed and well acted movie with a great soundtrack. But sadly it didn't move me any more deeply than that. I was warned to be prepared to cry buckets, well buckets were taken but narry a tear was shed. The trouble for me is everybody was trying just too hard to out act the other. Jessie Buckley is superb and this film belongs to her hook, line and sinker. Sadly Paul Mescal just comes across as a bungling somewhat belittled dweeb. The rest of the cast, in particular Emily Watson as Shaky's mum plays an absolute blinder, but boy is everyone acting their little boots off.  

So, the over acting just did my head in. That and the naturalist lighting. Look, Stanley Kubrick already did that to perfection with Barry Lydon and the use of candles to light scenes now just seems like an arrogant cry for acknowledgement. Look at me! It screams, or not, since it's rather dim. Anyway, when this film focuses on Agnes, who may or may not be bestowed with almost witch-like powers this film is a triumph, but too many scenes of people screaming with drool dripping down their faces sort of did me in, to a degree. And there's no mistaking that the end staging of Hamlet is absolutely stunning. I just wasn't moved more than that. I went in expecting to be reduced to a quivering wreck and I wasn't. As I was watching this i found my mind wandering as to what score to give it, it starts strong and i though, 'nice' this is a solid 9, then it started to dip and I found myself thinking oh god, this might just be a 7, then that final staging and I was finally won over. Sadly it was just a little too little, too late. Still, I'd recommend it greatly.  

Score wise, it's a solid 8/10