#15: SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

 

STARRING: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn and Ted Levine. Screenplay by Ted Tally based on the book by Thomas Harris. Directed by Jonathan Demme. Budget $19 million. Running time 118 minutes. Originally released in 1991. 

Trainee FBI agent Clarice Sterling (Jodie Foster) is called in by the Head of Behavioural Science, Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) to help him investigate a series of serial killings carried out by a killer called Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). Crawford sends her off to interview the legendary, personal friend of Donald J. Trump, Hannibal Lecter (Sir Anthony Hopkins) a.k.a Hannibal the Cannibal. And so begins the utterly gripping, atmospheric and Oscar winning Silence of the Lambs, a film much copied but seldom bettered, and the film that successfully launched Hollywood's super-intelligent serial killer genre. 

The film was a huge success both financially, critically and also went on to win five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay, making it only the third film in movie history to achieve this incredible feat.

Described as a psychological horror thriller film, Silence of the Lambs is a truly impressive film, serious, sombre and utterly engrossing, but also bloody entertaining, gripping and scary! Jonathan Demme directs his cast face first, with the actors looking and talking directly into the camera, which gives the film a surprisingly intimate and personal connection that works brilliantly, it makes you feel as if you and Starling are interviewing Hannibal in the basement of hospital together. The film is unfussy and brilliantly directed and feels like a fly-on-the-wall documentary. The cast is outstandingly good too, not just Jodie Foster, who's simply superb, but everyone, even the bit parts, like legendary director Roger Corman. The music by Howard Shore gives the film an uneasy edge that just enhances the tension brilliantly. 

There's also something that is much more significant today than it was when first made, and that's the way Starling is treated, throughout the whole film, she is constantly battling outdated male attitudes towards her, and is often the only woman in the scene, apart from her Quantico fellow student, she's battling the system and it gives the film yet another level, or edge. 

Not seen this at the cinema since it was released and it was an utter joy to see it again on the big screen. 

There are people who over the years take a pompus attitude towards the film and say, about Anthony Hopkins, that Brian Cox was a better Hannibal, well I'm here to tell them they are utterly wrong, Anthony Hopkins is a brilliant actor and creates in his version of Hannibal one of the greatest screen monsters ever!

Anyway, enough waffle. This was brilliant, if you haven't seen it, drop everything and go and see it while it's on at the cinema, cos it's the best way to see films.

10/10 

 

#14: SEND HELP

 

STARRING: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O'Brien. Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. Directed by Sam Raimi. Budget $40 million. Running time 115 minutes.

In a nutshell the plot of this couldn't be simpler, socially awkward, but fantastic at her job as a strategist for some sort of financial company, Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) and her horrible, entitled, arrogant and deeply bullying new boss, Bradley Preston (Dylan O'Brien) find themselves shipwrecked on a beautiful desert island in the Gulf of Thailand after a plane-crash. What follows is a 21st Century remake of The Admirable Crichton but far more psychological, gory, and fantastically intense. Oh, and funny, cos this is the darkest comedy I've seen in a long time.  

The plot of Send Help most certainly isn't new, the idea of social status reversing due to location and situation, but in the hands of Sam Raimi it's never been this intense, gory, or as entertaining. McAdams seems to revel in her role as Liddle, who comes to life on the island using her survival skills (she's a keen 'outdoors person', and dreams of being a contestant on Survivors), from nerdy, clumsy, and and awkward, to a confident, powerful and more than capable, Linda thrives on the island and quickly becomes the person she was always meant to be. While, on the other hand, O'Brien's Bradly is a fish-out-of-water, hating every grain of sand of the beautiful island and longing to get back to his pampered corporate life, his trophy fiancee and his beloved golf courses. He hates Linda and as their dynamic changes that hatred grows stronger. However, due to an horrible injury he suffered due to the plane crash, his very survival depends on Linda. 

The power dynamic see-saws as their survival fortunes ebb and flow, tensions rise leading to an exhilarating final act. With plot twists galore, a clever, witty script and some seriously game performances, this was an absolute hoot and had me wincing, yelping, and roaring with laughter, along with the audience. Indeed it's been a while since I heard an audience so invested in a film. There are many scenes you'll watch through your fingers and Sam Raimi expertly nails the landing, despite a nervous tonal shift in the final act that threatens to sink the whole affair. Luckily, Raimi knows what he's doing and steers the ship away from the rocks. It's been four years since we had a Raimi film and it's great to see him back doing something small and horror based again, rather than a big budget Hollywood blockbuster.  

A wonderfully gory, exciting and funny little romp and I was thoroughly entertained!

9/10

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#13: MELANIA

STARRING: Melania Trump. Directed by Brett Ratner. Budget $47 million. Running time 104 miserable minutes. 

The plot to this fly-on-the-wall mock-umentary follows Melania Trump (the world, and history's most success trophy wife) over 20 days back in 2025 leading up to the inauguration of her husband, the orange-faced, pedo-protector, convicted felon, insurrection-instigator, sexual predator, failed business man, and worst President e-ver, Donald J. Trump. The camera slavishly follows her, ogling her killer heels shoes, lusting after her perfectly coloured & coiffured hair, simpering over her permanently smoky made-up eyes, and positively drooling over her pouty pinched mouth. From the genuinely hideous Trump Tower in NYC, where every square inch is either gold, marble or mirror and gaudy beyond belief, although the view's nice. Then on to Mar-a-Largo, not as much gold but just as tacky. We get to watch Melania as she meets a series of grovelling lackies and 'designs' her outfits, picks carpets, wall fabrics, and furniture for her White House take-over, then styles every aspect of the coming inauguration ball, from the gold-leaf toilet paper to the army of arse lickers eager to clean the orange fool's huge fat arse. Throughout the whole film, Melania glides around on castors dispensing vizdom on a vide range of subjects, from orphans, to Hamas hostages, to der children. She teaches world-class experts in their fields how to be better and she fawns over her freakishly tall son, Baron, who according to this film is the only child that Donnie seems to have, as so little mention of the other spawn of his loins is made. 

All we get, endlessly, is her telling us vat a vonderful humanitarian she is, how much she loves her dead mother, and fantastic her son Baron is, how vunderful is family and her husband is too, and just how lucky she is to be so very talented at everything. We get to spend much time with her, as she changes outfits every scene and sunglasses, we get to see her interacting vid der little people who run her life so perfectly, ve get to zee her mourning her dead mother at a private little pilgrimage to St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, which has been specially cleared of people so she can sashay up the isle and light a candle. Ve are told how much she loves everybody and ve get to see the staff of the White House and Mar-Largo and I found myself wondering what they must look like after ICE.

This film is an afront to all that is decent, the music made up of a veritable list of well-known pop stars and pop music include 'Who Wants to Rule the World', by Tear for Fears and that other well-known peado, Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. We get to see the sheer opulence of the Trump world, everything tacky and gold and  everything disgustingly gauche. Because this is right back in the beginning of his second presidency, everyone we see seems to have a semi-lob-on for that stinking sac of orange shit. They love him, although this is before the abhorrent ICE raids that saw the deaths of two people, the splitting up of family through deportations, the naked avarice, the open greed of the Trump presidency and the absolute contempt for foreign countries, international law and just good old fashioned common decency. 

This film is a fantastic reminder of just what a hateful, petty, spiteful, and shit the fake orange-faced, small-handed president really is. He gloating over Biden then pathetically patting him on the back in a shallow show of support. Trump waddles through this all, vindictive and eager for retribution, he can't wait to start sowing seeds of destruction, but we don't get to see any of that, the film mercifully ends with one last peek of her high heels before a sickening final series of captions tell us what a fucking saint she is and how much she's achieved, and how wonderful her freakishly tall son is. 

And through it all Epstein acolyte and accused sexual predator, Brett Rayner, directs with all the subtly of a porn film, as he oggles every inch of his 'star', listen carefully and you can hear his drool-filled mouth muttering fawning appreciations of his Slavic heroine. 

This film tries hard to position the Dump Dynasty as some sort of royalty fawned over by other world leaders and sycophantic worshippers, but scratch the surface and all you get is shit. One of the things you realise watching this, is that at no point does Melania ever actually interact with ordinary human beings, she lives completely isolated inside her sickeningly gilded cage, whisked from Dump Towers by limo to a private Dump jet to another limo and then to Mar-a-Lago, or driven in a motorcade to some city location before being driven home. She doesn't do anything remotely normal, by Christ she can't even dress herself without help and I doubt she even knows how to boil a kettle, let alone where the kitchen is. This whole film is the purest form of an empty experience, for she has nothing to offer beyond the glamour and opulence. How anyone thought that a country as ridden with bread-line existence as America would react well to something so filled with hubris and greed and that cost $75 million dollars to make is beyond me. The fact Bezos spent so much trying to humanise these parasites is despicable. 

Also, I can imagine that a lot of Dumpy's MAGA supporters are going to be truly upset when they realise his wife is just another immigrant stealing jobs from Americans, although in this case it's a job no American clearly wanted. 

This was a hideous, miserable, fawning spectacle that gives us nothing new but shows the world just how naked and hateful the avarice filled world that Melania and Dump inhabit truly is. 

1/10

   

#12: SHELTER

 

STARRING: JASON STATHAM, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Bill Nighy, Naomi Ackie and Daniel Mays. Written by Ward Parry. Directed by Ric Roman Waugh. Running time 107 minutes.

It's time for The Stath's new action movie! Nothing new there you might think, he's been releasing new action films every year for almost 25 years. However what is new is the formula! Last year the Stath played Levon Cade an ex-Marine, and one-man killing machine, who was working as construction site labourer, in 2023 he was Adam Clay a bee-keeper who just so happened to be an ex-government one-man killing machine, and in 2021 he was a one-man killing machine, who worked as a security guard. This year, he's a lighthouse keeper who used to be the world's greatest one-man killing machine. See, real change! He's working in light house!

Actually, this one is different from the rest, perhaps because The Stath is getting older, but it feels more grounded, more weary. His portrayal of its hero, Mason as a man carrying the woes of the world on his shoulders, he's weary, he's insanely stoic but he's living his life in a state of permanent fear. He feels vulnerable. 

The story sees Mason forced to end his self-imposed exile as a lighthouse keeper when Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), an orphaned teenage girl who delivers his groceries, gets ship-wrecked on his outer Hebridean Island following a storm and suffers a nasty ankle injury that gets infected. This forces Mason to go to the mainland in search of medicine and accidentally getting his retina scanned by a CCTV, which  in doing so triggers a variety of government kill squads and assassins who are all determined to kill him for something he's done in the past. What that something is has something to do with Manafort (Bill Nighy) who used to run M.I.6. but who now operates a covert government-sanctioned kill squad utilising the world's CCTV capabilities. Then it's bloodbath time as Mason and Jessie are forced to go on the run while Mason finds a way to save his young charge.

Filmed in and around the UK gives this an all-together different feel and helps to ground the film, making it feel far more real than last year's rather turgid Working Man, similarly Mason isn't your usual Statham hero, he's jaded and more real than the others, more grounded. Although he still has that fantastic ability to shrug off gunshot wounds and stabbings and takes a beating that would kill lesser men.

Look, no beating round the bush (not a pun), this is another by-the-numbers, Ronsil-style action movie, it references John Wick at times but it's not a gun orgy, the fights are short and brutal. Sure, The Stath does his usual hard-hitting kicks and punches but it looks plausible. The fight scenes are frantic and very kenetic. It's more than competently directed by Ric Roman Waugh, a former stunt man and director of Angel Has Fallen who knows his way round a fight scene and that certainly helps in spades! And through it all Mason becomes human again and that gives this film something that The Stath's films don't usually have, heart. 

It's a film that doesn't out stay its welcome, it's a compact, action romp that actually rather entertaining and more grounded than most, and it has an emotional core that really rather sweet. And I enjoyed it greatly! Most satisfying.

7/10

#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.

6/10

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 Bradley Cooper's Balls, as he returns at intervals for updates on his utterly parasitic 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'll marvel with delight as his career as an actor leads him to landing a role in a TV western, his role as Jesus and many other 'hi-larious' stories.

However, he's not the focus of the movie, no that's Alex and Tess. You see, after 26 years of marriage and 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 chat, go off on couple dates, and discuss their career futures. It's just that they 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 own a massive house in the suburbs and to move 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 coaching, 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 real worries or cares. 

Based on the life of John Bishop, a stand-up comic whom I'm not a fan of, is still  funnier than this cinematic version of himself. 

I hated these characters, they are all scum, but most of all I hated Bradley Coopers Balls. He has such a smugness about him and is such an odious character, so jarring, seemingly shoehorned into his own film, because a simple Hitchcock cameo wasn't enough for old Braders, oh no, he's wanted 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. 

Actually, this film proves that Laura Dern is the British Double Decker bus of Hollywood. You wait ages for one of her films, then three turn up at the same time! Thank you, my name is David Leach and you've been lovely.

But as for the film, I found it dull and rather 'meh', plus it's up its own arse too much. There are some nice moments, but it's too safe and about as funny as an actual divorce.

6/10