#15: MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL

STARRING and written by: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Neil Innes. Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. Budget £282,035. Running time 92 minutes. Originally released in 1975.

King Arthur sets out on a quest to find the Holy Grail and much hilarity ensues. 

Without doubt, one of the funniest films I've ever seen. This had me laughing from the first till the last frame of film, and it's still bloody funny to this day. Just a gloriously delightful, anarchic romp of sublime silliness. I can't tell you how much the Pythons inspired and influenced me growing up, them and the Goodies defined my sense of humour. I absolutely love this film. If you get a chance go and see it, it's funnier that a thousand Hollywood comedy movies.

Cinematic bliss. 10/10 

#14: WICKED LITTLE LETTERS

STARRING: Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Anjana Vasan, Joanna Scanlan, Gemma Jones, Malachi Kirby, Lolly Adefope, Eileen Atkins and Timothy Spall. Written by Jonny Sweet. Directed by Thea Sharrock. Running time 100 minutes.

Promoted as a 'hilarious' black comedy the action set in the seaside town of Littlehampton in the 1920s, where a series of incredibly rude hand-written poison pen letters are being sent to the inhabitants, and in particular the family of spinster Edith Swan (Olivia Colman), her elderly mother Victoria Swan (Gemma Jones) and  her super-tyrannical and brutal father, Edward Swann (Timothy Spall). Suspicion falls on her next-door neighbour, a young, fiesty, sexually-active, foul-mouthed, Irish neighbour, Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley) a widowed single-mother dating a black jazz guitarist. When the latest letter arrives, Edward blows his stack and drags the police in to investigate, within minutes Rose is arrested, charged and and a trial is set three months hence, where if found guilty Rose stands to lose not only her liberty but also her daughter. 

Not everyone believes Rose is guilty, especially Woman Police Officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan) who is determined to prove her innocence, despite the attentions of the rest of the man-dominated police force and the weight of the national press. As the story unfolds we learn of the rise and fall of the relationship between Rose and Edith, and the 'whodunnit' aspect takes over the plot to varying degrees of success.

This is an okay movie, which is quite funny, although most of the comedy comes from watching the assorted cast swearing their heads off. The film is populated by the usual crowd of wacky English eccentrics only found in British movies. Olivia and Jessie give great performances, both seemingly relishing their roles, while Timothy Spall delivers a deeply effective performance as Edith's vindictive and bullying father, Edward.

Unfortunately the overall tone is off kilter, the film weaves too often between wacky Ealing Comedy and social commentary or kitchen drama, usually in the blink of an eye, and some of the shoe-horned in modern day affectations particularly with the bizarre choices of cast, just undermines the film authenticity and keeps dragging the audience back into reality whenever it looks as if they're too engrossed in the film.

The trailer painted this film as an out-and-out comedy, like some-sort of a later-day Ealing comedy but with added grade A swearing, although in truth the reason behind the letters and the tormented home life of Edith makes this a film of two halves, which at times don't sit entirely well together.   

Still, at a 100 minutes this is pleasantly brisk and unoffensive little fucking flick.

7/10

 

#13: BLADE RUNNER

 

Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Darryl Hanner, Joanna Cassidy, Brion Jones, M. Emmet Walsh, Joe Turkel, Edward Jones Olmos, William Sanderson, James Hong and Morgan Paul. Written by Hampton Fancer and David Peoples. Directed by Ridley Scott. 116 minutes long.

It's the future, 2019 to be precise, six replicants have escaped off-world and returned to Earth for some unknown reason, ex-Blade Runner, Deckard is press-ganged back on the job to track the skin jobs down and retire them. Along the way he discovers love with an artificial woman and what it truly means to be human from an artificial man, boy imagine the film if those roles had been reversed...

This is an utterly brilliant film and easily in my top ten, indeed it might even be my number one film of all times. I saw it for the first time back in 1982 as part of a special Starburst preview at the Shaftesbury Ave Odeon. The queue stretched around the cinema and so over subscribed was the free screening that the cinema was forced to show it on two screens to meet the demands. I sat in the main cinema, on the left hand side of the auditorium in the middle with my best friend, Rian Hughes. I would discover, many years later that one of my best friends at art college, Dee Block also saw it at the same screening.

Anyway, when the lights went down and the Alan Ladd in association with Sir Run Run Shaw digital tree logo filled the screen, line by line, a tingle flowed up my spine from the small of my back to the nape of neck as all my hairs on my back stood up on end and I knew I would love this film. Two hours later, I left, having experienced an epiphany of sorts, it was such a thrilling and inspiring movie and I've lost count of the number of times I've seen it on TV, on VHS, on DVD, on Blu Ray and re-released at the cinema! In fact I last saw it on the big screen back in 2014, Christ, that 10 years ago! 

Looking back on 1982 it's incredible what a great, great year for cinema it was, with the likes of: The Thing, ET, Tron, Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, Mad Max: The Road Warrior, Conan The Barbarian, Dark Crystal, Android, Basket Case, First Blood, I, The Jury and Megaforce all being released in the same year. But of them all, Blade Runner remains my absolute favourite of that year.

And despite knowing it backwards, indeed I can quote nearly every line, tonight  I learned something new about the film, for the past 32 years I had always thought that Roy tells Tyrell that he, 'wants more life, FUCKER!' in answer to Tyrell's question about what he wants. Tonight, I discovered, he actually says: 'I want more life, father.' Now, I think fucker is better, but Pet says 'father' is better. She also thinks the Vangelis music dates the film but I think she's wrong about that too and told her she's on a warning. Let's see who the divorce court agrees with...

Watching it again tonight I was impressed that at no point does Blade Runner make any effort, beyond explaining what a replicant is, to explain the world it's set in, or give us a tour, it's just there right from the offing. Almost as if this was a noir film of the 40s. There's no showboating, no grandstanding special effect shots, just the story and a quick bit of scene setting. If it was made today, we'd have a long lingering shot of the city and dozens of pointless scene-setting shots to show us how amazing the film maker is. Thankfully, we had Ridley Scott who didn't need to show off, he knew he's the dog's bollocks at this stage of his career having already directed Alien.

I remember that when I first saw it, I left feeling that I would have happily sat there and watched another five hours more of the world of Blade Runner, maybe the camera could just have traveled down a few flights of Deckar's tower block and focused on another inhabitant of that world, I'd have been happy.

Because this is the 'Final Cut' version of Blade Runner, we have no voice-over, no drive through the forest at the end - the film ends as Racheal and Deckard step into the elevator - and we have the unicorn scene. It's also almost shouted that Deckard is a Replicant.

However, I don't hold any truck with that notion. Deckard is a human otherwise the film makes no sense. It's how a man, reduced to nothing more than a robot in terms of emotions is taught the value of life by a Replicant. For Deckard to be one too, makes no sense since it would mean that he was planted into the LAPD, if so for what reason? What was supposed to happen to him once the mission was over, and for that matter what was he doing before the mission began? Why was he walking round so freely before Leon shoots Holden? Look I could go on but I won't, I love this film, whatever version I watch, although I would LOVE to watch the original with the voice-over, and the drive through the forest.  

If you've never seen it, go and be amazed and if you have, go back and be reminded of how amazing it truly is. See, it's so good I said amazing three times in the same paragraph and I never do that.

10/10

#12: MADAME WEB

 

STARRING: Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O'Connor, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts and Adam Scott. Written by Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Claire Parker and S.J. Clarkson, from a story by Kerem Sanga, Matt Szama and Burk Sharpless. Directed by S.J. Clarkson. Budget $80 million dollars. Running time 116 days, or at least it felt like it, but turned out to only be 116 minutes, still that's time I'm never getting back, despite me asking the usher on the way out if I could.

This took five people to write. Five, and yet not one of them, clearly, would recognise a well-structured film with believable dialogue if it ran them over and asked the way to the Syd Field screenwriting workshop.

Directed by S.J Clarkson, a British director who previously directed the likes of Doctors, Casualty and Eastenders.

SPOILER ALERT

The 'plot' sees Cassandra Web (Dakota Johnson) orphaned at birth after her heavily pregnant mother is shot in a Peruvian rain forest by the baddy, Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim). She's left to die but is rescued by the mysterious Tree Spider People of Peru.

Cut to 30 years later and a 'mummy issue' Cassandra is now driving an ambulance and 'work' partnered with a certain Ben Parker who takes his responsibility very seriously. Naturally Cassie as she's known is a grumpy old bag who develops psychic powers after she almost drowns. Straight away she's predicting death at every turn and later at a firework factory fire in the Pepsi Cola warehouse she foresees the death of a work colleague who then promptly dies right behind her in an absolutely hilarious fashion. 

Meanwhile psycho baddy, Ezekiel is having visions of three spider themed superheroines killing him horribly at some point in the future and so goes out to kill the girls before they kill him. Trouble is, the three girls in question, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced and Celeste O'Connor are currently just three over entitled and deeply irritating teenagers who are so ego-centric you actually hope Ezekiel kills them. 

Through a staggering convenient chain of events, the four girls end up on a train with Ezekiel hot on their trail who promptly and without reason, other than he's the baddy, kills a whole bunch of police men. Luckily, Cassie rescues the girls, and steals a yellow cab. For the rest of this staggeringly dull piece-of-shit movie, the four girls take a deeply boring drive around New York, while mopey Cassie struggles with what to do with the three girls she's kidnapped and the girls go out of their way to put themselves in danger, just so Cassie can save them.

Then at the end of the second act she pisses off to Peru to find out about her secret origin before jetting back for the showdown at the fire damaged Pepsi Cola factory firework factory where she saves the girls, kills Ezekiel and then takes another bath in the Hudson where she's blinded and paralysed from the waist down and becomes Madame Web and Peter Parker is born.

SPOILER ALERT OVER

Then the film ends and you realise that your life is shorter by 116 minutes. 

This commits the single worse crime any film can commit, it's boring. Although not staggering boring, or even mind-numbingly boring, just boring. The sort of boring that saps your will to live. Nothing about this film is good. The acting is boring and only poor Adam Scott brings anything to the party as a young Ben Parker who'll one day teach Peter about power and responsibility. 

Dakota Johnson plays the role of a 30 year-old Cassandra Web as if she's an old woman, who whines and strops around telling off the three teenage girls who are so grating you relish each time Ezekiel kills them in one of Web's premonitions and groan when Web rescues them from that fate. 

The direction is perfunctory at best and it's obvious that Clarkson cut her teeth making shit afternoon soap operas, the film has no flair or dynamic centre. The film shuffles along until the ending finally drags its dreary carcass into view as we revisit the firework factory for the obligatory showdown. What follows is a truly dull fight to the death and that elicits not one iota of excitement. 

Then after 10 minutes of credits the film ends without a single post credit sting to add one last big fat dollop of disappointment on your shoulders, just think if I'd known there wasn't a post credit sting I could have saved myself ten minutes of my life. I bet I'll wish I had those precious minutes back when I'm lying on my death bed. 

There are a few unintentionally funny moments, that got big laughs, like the death of her colleague, any time the baddy turns up and most amazingly the whole trip to Peru.

Sadly this isn't one of those bad films that's so bad it's funny, this is one of those boring, generic and dull movies that's so bad you despair at the state of modern Hollywood cinema.

A lot of late has been written about Super-hero fatigue, and with crap like this thrown up over us, it's hardly surprising. This is a film with nothing to recommend it. 

Boring crap. 2/10 

#11: THE TASTE OF THINGS

STARRING: Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel. Written and directed by Trần Anh Hùng. Running time 134 minutes.

Have you ever asked yourself what the difference between America and France is when it comes to movies about culinary excellence? Well, here's your answer, in America you get films like 2014's Chef, about a chef played by Jon Favaeau who aspires to run a toasted cheese sandwich food truck in Los Angeles, while in France you get The Taste of Things, aka The Passion of Dodin Bouffant, a beautiful, sumptuous celebration of culinary excellence and cookery played out against a deeply spiritual love affair and set in rural France of 1885. 

This is an beautiful, delicious movie as engrossed in the art of cooking as it is in the love affair between Juliett Binoche's Eugénie and Benoît Magimel's Dodin Bouffant. He the rich gourmet resturanteer and nobleman and she his head chef of 20 years. 

Set in 1885 The film follows Eugénie and Bouffant as they prepare to serve an extraordinary multi-course monthly banquet he holds for his friends and fellow gastronomes. The film opens with an astonishing 38 minute long kitchen scene as she and he seemingly dance around the kitchen creating simply astonishing dishes of exquisite delight that look so good you can almost taste them.

However, when tragedy strikes and Bouffant loses his passion for the culinary arts he grudgingly starts a journey to rekindle his love of cooking with the aid of his 13 year-old apprentice.

This is a slow, elegant meticulous movie, beautifully directed by Trần Anh Hùng. It looks glorious, the acting is naturalistic and refined. The relationship between Eugénie and Bouffant is moving and beautiful.

I absolutely loved this film and was as captivated by the cooking as I was by the romance at it's centre.

9/10

#10: THE IRON CLAW

STARRING: Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, Stanley Simmons, Maura Tierney, Holt McCallany and Lily James. Written and directed by Sean Durkin. Music by Richard Reed Parry. Budget $15.9 million, running time 132 minutes.

Ironclaw is a sporting biopic which follows the fortunes and miss-fortunes of the  Von Erich wrestling family during the 1970s and 80s. The film follows four brothers and their tyrannical father as they fight to climb to the top of the wresting world and the profound effect it has on all their lives. Lead by Zac Efron as Kevin, the oldest surviving brother and his three siblings, Harris Dickinson as his David, Jeremy Allen White as Kerry, and finally youngest brother, Mike (Stanley Simmons). Looming over them all, king of all he surveys and whose word is law is Fritz (Holt McCallany) who rules the family with an iron claw.

Early on in the film, Fritz casually tells his sons at the family dinner table, and with no shred of irony or malice, of their standing in his affections and reminds them that the order can change depending on how well they do in the squared circle.

His wife, Dorris (Maura Tierney) never questions or defends her sons telling Kevin, when he seeks help in freeing his youngest brother from his father's dominating control he is told to talk to his brothers because, "That's what they're there for."

When Kevin fumbles his chance to pick up the championship belt, he finds himself sidelined and has to watch as each of his younger siblings are given a shot at the big time with deeply tragic results. Only the love of his girlfriend and later wife, Pam Adkinsson (Lily James) saves him from the sheer weight of emotional wreckage that threatens to utterly engulf and destroy him too.

This is a moving, and profoundly sad film, charting the seeming cursed lives of the Von Erich family. Zac Efron gives a powerful and focused performance and is aided by the extraordinary Holt McCallany as the dreadful patriarch, Fritz. Everyone turns in a strong and emotional performance and the script and direction by Sean Durkin help to deliver a moving and tragic tale that still manages to leave us with hope for the future. It's a good looking film too and the attention to period detail is well handled. All in all this is a satisfying, and dramatic movie that you'll find yourself thinking about days later. Well worth two hours and 10 minutes of your life.  

8/10

#09: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

Starring Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood. Written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. 142 minutes long.

Simply one of the greatest films ever made, it's scope, skill and creativity are off the chart. With this single film, Stanley Kubrick changed an entire genre and influenced film makers for the next 46 years, including 2014's Interstellar which owes a huge debt to Odyssey and indeed pays homage to it with it's own spiralling spaceship docking sequence.

Telling the story of mankind from his very dawn on the Earth to his next evolutionary step to the stars as our destiny is gently nudged by an alien intelligence we never glimpse, hear nor understand. With no attempt made to explain the reasons behind their extraordinary gift of technology, nor any efforts made to explain the final act of this extraordinary film, 2001 is a truly stunning and genuine work of cinematic genius.

Despite having seen this countless times both at the cinema and at home, 2001 never fails to thrill me, and I continue to marvel at its scope and achievements.

Whether it's marrying long, non-speaking special effects shots of spaceships in orbit, docking, landing or just flying, perfectly, with classical music, or throwing us a stunning 45 million year forward in the story thanks to its legendary jump cut, or it's exquisite attention to detail or even just the sequence where HAL 9000 pleads for its artificial life, 2001 is an utterly brilliant film that allows you to supply your own answers to the final act without leaving you feeling cheated or frustrated.

I don't know if I've noticed it before but on this viewing I was struck by two things, the first just how powerful the sound mix and use of music and human voices is, during the opening 'Dawn of Man' sequence, indeed, throughout the movie the use of music and sound is used to profound effect.

The second thing I noticed is just how much food and eating plays a part in this film. From the ape-men eating roots to hunting and eating tapirs, then to the Pan-Am shuttle where Dr. Floyd is served his inflight meal, before a shuttle to the moon with more food and an urgent trip to the Zero-G toilet, then a trip onboard the moon bus for some sandwiches and a discussion about them, before the meals onboard Discovery, and then Bowman's final meal as an old man before he transforms into the Starchild. Incidentally, have you noticed that the meal he eats then is the same consistency and colour as the meal he ate onboard the Discovery.

That's why I love this film, there's so much to take away and enjoy. This version came with an intro and outro of classic music to play in and out the movie, including the full-length Blue Danbue and also a much unneeded and deeply jarring intermission that really broke the tension and ingagement.

That said, this still remains as one of my all-time favourite films, and it easily stands the test of time, the effects, mostly practical, haven't dated, as it's still a deeply profound movie. If you get a chance to see it on the big screen, do it. I've now seen this at least four times on the big screen in recent years, the last time being 2018, and it still remains an absolute masterpiece.

10/10

 

#08: ARGYLLE

 

STARRING: Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O'Hara, Henry Cavill, Sofia Boutella, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, John Cena and Samuel L. Jackson. Music by Jorne Balfe. Written by Jason Fuchs. Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Budget $200 million. Running time (urgh) 139 minutes.

Aarghylle is a massive disappointment on many levels, not least in the acting, script, direction, soundtrack, production design, CGI effects and overall enjoyment. 

The labyrinthine plot that twists and turns in every scene sees insanely successful neurotic, cat-obsessed spy novelist, Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) suddenly catapulted into a blisteringly bewildering global-trotting spy romp when real-life spy, Aidan (Sam Rockwell) saves her from an attempted abduction by a snatch squad of agents from a sinister organisation known as the Division, run by a man called Ritter (Bryan Cranston). 

It turns out that Elly's series of Arghylle novels, featuring a super secret agent called Argylle (Henry Cavill), have the uncanny ability to predict the future and they want the location of something called the Masterkey that she's writing about. 

Then it's just a repetitious series of blood-free gun battles and CGI aided and abetted ultra violence all tailored to a 12A audience as Elly, her cat, and Aidan travel the world from one location to the next, with the odd cameo turning up to lend a hand. Gone the relentless violence of Kingsman that was delivered with real verve, style and emotional stakes. Replaced instead by increasingly tedious twists and plot turns that multiply as the not-so-shocking truths are revealed, like just what is the connection between Elly and her creation Arghylle, and why is he talking to her? Either way, you soon pass the point of not caring and just zone out. The trouble is the whole film thinks it's far cleverer than it actually is.

The worse thing about the whole shitty mess, apart from its run time of 139 minutes, is just how cheap and bland it looks, interiors by Ikea, most locations, save a vineyard, feel digital, just one more drone assisted establishing shot of some city or location before cutting to a cheap and tacky set. The soundtrack is horribly intrusive and invades every frame, but it's the lack of teeth that most jars. The relentless violence that pervades this film has no cost nor bite, it's all so effortless and consequence free that it becomes boring, there's never any sense the heroes are playing for any real stakes and overcome every encounter thrown, stabbed, or shot at them with ease, and the over reliance on CGI-enhanced action doesn't help one bit either.

Despite featuring Sam Rockwell, an actor who exudes charisma and charm by the bucket load, and featuring performances from John Cena as the fictitious Argylle's sidekick, Samuel L Jackson as the ex-head of the CIA, Bryan Cranston as the head of Division, and Catherine O'Hara as Elly's mother it's the lead who does the most damage. Bryce Dallas Howard comes across wooden and awkward, and she never feels comfortable in her role, particularly in the action sequences when she's expected to fight and shoot. Similarly, Henry Carvill, who isn't in this film a lot, despite playing the role of Argylle and featuring heavily in the trailer, is as equally disappointing as Howard, and it's hard to work out whether it's him or the stupid flat topped headed character in a three piece green velvet suit he's playing that's to blame, because he comes across so wooden he's almost tree-like. What happened to the Henry Carvill of Mission Impossible: Fallout? 

This is a film clearly influenced by the vastly superior films like, Jewel in the Nile, The Long Kiss Goodnight, The Bourne Identity, and even to a lesser extent 2022's Lost City and last year's Bullet Train, but which falls painfully short of them all and just leaves you wanting to watch those again rather than this, even Lost City, which at least was funny(ish).   

I've been, mostly, a fan of Vaughns previous work, Layer Cake, Kickass, X-Men: First Class, Kingsmen: Secret Service and Kingsman are particularly enjoyable and very satisfying but this, horrible little franchise bating effort is without a doubt his worse. The ending with its hateful sequel baiting leaves one not with a cry of 'oh boy', there's another one coming!' but rather than an 'oh god, there's another one coming!' groan of weariness.

4/10