#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. 

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