#94: BAD APPLES

 

STARRING: Saoirse Ronan, Eddie Waller, Nina Brown, Jacob Anderson, Rakie Ayola, Robert Emms, Sean Gilder and Kerry Howard. Written by Jess O'Kane, story by Jonatan Etzler and Jess O'Kane. Based on De Oonskade by Rasmus Lindgren. Directed by Jonatan Etzler. Running time 101 minutes.

Primary school treacher, Maria Spencer (Saoirse Ronan) is having a bad old time of it, she's disliked by the parents of her students, the school's Head and staff think she's incompetent, her boyfriend's dumped her, her Scandinavian home is a building site and her life is been made a living hell by one of her 10 year-old students, Danny (Eddie Waller). He's a rage ball and utterly uncontrollable, violently disrupting classes and school outings, defying her and bullying all and sundry. On the verge of an Ofsted visit, Danny pushes fellow student, Pauline (Nia Brown) down a staircase and breaks her arm and he's suspended. When Maria tries to tell Danny's father Josh (Robert Emms) she ends up 'accidentally' kidnapping Danny and locking him in her basement. Over the next six weeks her life is transformed with his disappearance, her class thrives, the parents love her, and even her ex-boyfriend - the schools' deputy Head Sam (Jacob Anderson) sees her in a different light. However, Maria has a second problem student, Pauline (Nina Brown) who's fixated on Maria and blackmails her when she discovers Danny is locked in the basement. The town every man jack of them, save for Josh, thrives now that Danny's missing and things come to a head during a PTA meeting. 

This is Saoirse Ronan's film, she is superb bringing a desperate weariness to her portrayal of Maria, she's a victim of fate, and even the kidnapping isn't what it seems, and yet with Danny now her prisoner a bond develops between the pair of them and we get a glimpse of his life and reasons why he might be so horrible. This is when the film is at its strongest, the connection between her and him is great and offers an intriguing plot point, but this is squandered with the progressively more unhinged Pauline whose antics just cause you to groan in frustration. The film is soon to be revealed to be a black comedy and although laughs are in short supply it does have its moments. 

There are several plot points that seem to offer different routes which are ignored and a major plot hole late in the third act derail the whole thing.

There was a similar film out this year called The Good Boy starring Stephen Graham and Andrea Risenborough which covered a similar set up but with more skill. This can't decide what it is and ultimately leaves you feeling a little flat.

7/10  

#93: THE TRUMAN SHOW

 

STARRING:  Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor and Ed Harris. Written by Andrew Niccol. Directed by Peter Weir. Music by Burkhard Dallwitz, Philip Glass and Wojciech Kilar. Budget $60 million. Box office $264 million. Running time 103 minutes. Originally released in 1998.

Written by Andrew Niccol and directed by Peter Weir this 28 year-old film seems more prescient with each passing year, predicting with apparent witchcraftian ease the prolific growth of reality TV. Jim Carey is Truman Burbank, the unknowing star of a world-famous live TV show called The Truman Show. His whole fabricated life, from birth has been broadcast live to the world to see. He spends his days in a fictitious costal town of Seahaven Island working as an insurance broker, and even his mother (Holland Taylor), his wife, Nurse Meryle Truman (Laura Linney) and child-hood best friend, Louis Coltrane (Noah Emmerich) are just actors playing out lines read to them through their ear-pieces. And from his office in the moon, Christof (Ed Harris) the god-like figure who produces and directs the Truman Show watches over Truman dictating every minute of his life. But Truman has an urge to explore, to travel the world and when, one day, he narrowly avoids death from a falling spotlight Truman begins to see the cracks in his reality and realise his world might be something else, something sinister and he sets out to escape, while the whole world watches with baited breath.

What a profoundly moving film this is, a brilliantly brisk 103 minutes of cinematic gold, funny, tragic and emotionally moving. Nowadays it would be an eight-part Netflix series, with one filler episode and dragged out across eight hours, although it wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't one in the works already.

But this glorious little film is a modern marvel, emotionally moving, powerful and superbly acted, Jim Carey is a revelation and showed in this one film that he could act and well, keeping his little comedic gimmicks in check apart from his crazy dance in the car and the rain storm on the beach and playing it straight. He's gone on to prove he was more than a clown in both Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Man in the Moon. In this you'll find yourself drawn to his plight and rooting for him, yearning him on and when at last he triumphs you feel as if you've escaped too. Similarly the music is exceptional and the use of the main Truman hero music twice, first as he defies the system, and then when he finally sailing free. There's also a strange feeling of anti-climax at the end when you realise just how different and difficult his life is about to become and it's bittersweet despite the fact he's broken free, you want to know he's going to be safe and you wonder whether he'll be able to find true love with Sylvia, or if she'll turn out to be just an obsessive fan. And what of poor Christof, the other prisoner of the show, what now for him now that Truman has escaped, for him his life is effectively over there'll never be another event like The Truman Show for him while Truman himself is going to become a global megastar forever in the spotlight and glare of publicity. I'm sure there'll come a time for him when he realises he was never freer than when he was a prisoner of Seaheaven. 

If I had one criticism it would be the length (which is what my wife said to me on our wedding night) I wish it was longer (also what she said to me). Normally I winge about films being too long, but every now and then I watch a film and wish it was longer, this, Blade Runner, The Paper, Master and Commander and Spatacus. Actually, I'm lying about that last one, it's perfect just the length it is (which is what I said back to my wife on our wedding night).

One day, I'll find my own way out of the David Leach Show*, but until then I'll have to make do with Truman's adventure. Perfection is rare, so is this. 10/10

*FOOTNOTE:
Actually, if you're interested in reading David's own adventures in the real world then check out his autobiographical graphic novel David Leach Conquers the Universe available direct from the author and Dead Universe Comics in Aylesbury. It's all true!

#92: TRANSFORMERS THE MOVIE (ANIMATED) 40TH ANNIVERSARY

 

STARRING: Eric Idle, Judd Nelson, Lenoard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Lionel Stander and Orson Welles. Screenplay by Ron Friedman and Flint Dille. Directed by Nelson Shin. Music by Vince DiCola. Animation companies Sunbow Productions, Marvel Productions and Toei Animation. Budget $6 million. Box office $5.9million. Running time 85 minutes. Originally released in 1986.

Sorry to swear right off the bat, but FUCK those godawful live action Transformers movies, every goddam one of them from the first five truly hateful Michael Bay abominations: 2007's Transformers, 2009's Revenge of the Fallen, 2011's Dark of the Moon, Age of Extinction in 2014 and the fucking, unbelievably atrocious The Last Knight in 2017 which brought to an end a decade-long cultural attack that Michael Bay vomitted over the world. Then, just one year later Travis Knight spat out Bubblebee, and finally to add insult to injury Steven Caple Jr ejaculated Rise of the Beasts all over us in 2023. 

Those eight live-action movies went to gross over $5.42 billion dollars worldwide, proving that age-old adage of 50 million files eating shit can't be wrong. And so to this, the hand-animated animated feature film that's celebrating its 40th anniversary. Unlike other 40th Anniversary films that have been released this year, this is the only one I've not seen on the big screen and I went as eager as a proverbial beaver to see it. I've seen it a dozen or more so times on video and DVD, but up there on the big screen, never! 

Enough rambling, old man, tell us of the film, tell us of its plot, then describe the experience and final wrap it up in a pithy final paragraph before scoring it out of 10 like you normally bloody do!

The plot to this 40 year old film is just about as bonkers as you can get, indeed as I sit here and write I realise there wasn't a plot, there was just a series of explosions linked by a limitless number of transforming robots. There was the giant planet sized one, Unicron voiced by Orson Welles he wanted the gem thingie from Optimus Prime's chest and then there was Megatron leader of the Deceptorcons who also wanted it. He launched an all-out attack on Earth which finally killed Optimus, forcing him to hand the power gem thingie to Ultra Magnus, and Megatron was mortally wounded and revived by Unicorn and told to destroy the power gem crystal thingie. So he chases the Autobots around a bit, until they crash on a junk planet, get captured by some sort of fish-like Trannies, then Unicorn attacked the Transformers home world, and the lead Ultra Magnus gets killed and Megatron tries to double cross Unicorn, but gets eaten, so then the other Autobots unite the Trannies on the junk planet and they attack Unicorn, put out his eyes and blow him up killing him, but not before bringing Ultra Magnus back to life with the Matrix, that's what the glowing gem stone crystal thing was, the power Matrix. And then the film ends.  

Jesus that wasn't good, sure my nostalgia for it was strong but even that couldn't help. I know I'm blind to the short-comings of Godzilla films, but not so this. At the end of the day this was a badly animated 85 odd minute toy advert with some truly awful heavy metal songs thrown in. It's repetitive, confusing, and utterly baffling. Then Eric Idle turns up spouting not one line of dialogue, just an endless stream of random TV jingles and ads, at times this film seems to almost Dada-esque in its approach. And spare a thought for Orson Welles in his last ever movie, his voice hidden behind filters to make it almost unrecognisable, save for his last weary death groan as Unicrom get his head chopped off.

But damn it if it wasn't oddly entertaining at the same time. The hand-drawn animation of gigantic planet transforming was spectacular, Unicrom when he finally transforms is amazing but sadly it's not enough. The robots change size quicker than a Conservative heading to Reform, I mean at one point Megatron is huge, then next he's sitting in the fist of another having transformed into a gun. And the ones that go from robot to Boom box and then eject tiny cassettes which transform into little robots. And Grimlock, the sodding transforming dinosaur, who is so stupid he has to be pushed up the ramp of a spaceship to escape death. The dialogue is just sound bits and catchphrases and the voice acting is painful. This is  looks like a 85 minute long Saturday morning cartoon. It's cheap looking and scrappy and repetitive and packed full of stupid plot points and holes.

But, and I say this in all honesty, it was still somehow stupidly enjoyable! The cinema was packed, the audience of students and dads taking their kids were up for it and enjoyed it, laughing and revelling in the chaos, and it was 1000% better than all of the other animated films trailers before it. Seriously each and every one were just the same generic sassy, wacky kids flicks, all CGI animated and all looked exactly like each other. At least this looked different, infinitely different and I'd watch it over all those in a heartbeat. 

Despite all its many failings this is still better than each and every one of those motherfucking, godawful live-action Transformers film put together.

7/10

P.S.

For all you film nerds out there. Name the other film Orson Welles and Robert Culp starred in? 

#91: 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

#90: 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 30 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!

#89: 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.

#88: 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