#22: DEATH OF A UNICORN

STARRING: Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter, Tea Leoni and Richard E. Grant, Jessica Hynes, Anthony Carridgan, Sunita Mani and Steve park. Written and directed by Alex Scharfman. Budget $15 million. Running time 107 minutes.

Another horror release from distribution company A24, made for a fraction of the price of Gladiator 2 or, Crapton American't: Bland New World. In fact, you could make 16.6 of these types of horror film for the cost of the last/next MCU offering. 

While driving to a weekend retreat with the Leopold family, the founders of the charity he works for, newly widowed Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his emo daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) hit a unicorn leaving Elliot to 'humanely' kill it with a wrench before taking its body to the Odell compound where it comes back to life and has to be shot and killed (again) by Shaw, the Leopold's personal assistant.

There at the compound we meet the uber rich Leopold family, patriarch, Odell (Richard E. Grant) who is dying of cancer, his wife, Belinda (Tea Leoni) a vapid, over privileged and neurotic trophy wife, their ultra-spoilt, wastrel and indulged son, Shepard (Will Poulter), family butler Griff (Anthony Carrigan), the forementioned Shaw (Jessica Hynes) and a retinue of scientists lead Dr. Bhatia (Sunita Mani) and Dr. Song (Steve Park). Oh, and an army of unnamed cannon folder for what is about to occur.

It doesn't take long for the Leopold's to realise that Unicorn has astonishing healing powers and Odell is cured, and Shepard is snorting ground up Unicorn horn powder, while Belinda is dreaming of curing the super-rich of terminal illnesses for a fee of course. And through it all, Elliot keeps hoping it'll all turn out alright for him and his daughter.

HOWEVER, the Unicorn's parents are pretty peeved with the treatment dealt out to their 'dead' fowl and come looking for retribution. From there on it's gravy train time in the gore department and a game of 'last man' standing. 

This is an amusing film, with a good cast, all hamming it up royally, with some nice social commentary, although not enough, some good kills and a light-hearted, tongue in cheek horror romp vibe. 

This is okay, not brilliant and entertaining but sadly not clever enough, you wish it'd gone all in on the gore and social commentry, but the film lands a thumbs up for the excellent casting of Grant and Leoni, while Rudd and Ortega just phone it in with ease and charm a plenty.

7/10

#21: A WORKING MAN

STARRING Jason Statham, Michael Pena, David Harbour, Jason Fleming, Arianna Rivas, Emmett J. Scanlan, Eve Mauro, Noemi Gonzalez. Written by Sylvester Stallone and David Ayer, based on the book Levon's Trade by Chuck Dixon. Produced by Sylvester Stallone. Directed by David Ayer. Running time 116 minutes.

Stath is Levon Cade, an ex-Royal Marine commando now working as a site foreman for building construction family lead by Joe Garcia (Michael Pena) and Noemi Gonzalez (Carla Garcia) whose daughter, Jenny Garcia (Arianna Rivas) gets Taken and sold to Russian mob guys, leading to Levon to use his particular and unique skill-set to go off on a one-man-army rampage to bring her back while killing every single bad guy who gets in his way. Using a variety of guns, knives, grenades, boots and fists, while only suffering a slight twinge in his left bicep after carrying one gun too many. 

Featuring some, but not enough, amusing kills, particularly Jason Flemyng's demise, which comes all too soon, this is a Ronsil action movie delivering nothing new, or that exciting, just the Stath racking up the biggest kill score for one film since Arnie's vastly superior Commando. It's a by-the-numbers, A-Z romp which the Stath can do in his sleep, in fact I'm not entirely sure he wasn't sleep-walking through this.

I have a theory that Hollywood replace old actors with new versions, Brad Pitt for Robert Redford, Stallone, himself, for Victor Mature, and to a far lesser extent we see an attempt for them to try and replace successful directors of old – Christopher Nolan vying to be the new Stanley Kubrick (and failing) and J.J. Abrams struggling to be the next Steven Spielberg and now we have our first fully successful attempt as David Ayer becomes the new Michael Winner and boy does he nail it! He'll be writing restaurant reviews and coming up with catchphrases for insurance adverts before we know it. This film could have been made just was well by Canon Movies back in the 80s starring Charles Bronson. And boy, can you tell it's a Stallone scripted film, the action, the characters the cliches they all scream Stallone, it has all the subtly of a sledgehammer to the balls. Indeed, if this had been made 20 years earlier, he'd have starred in it too.

Despite this being very generic, the Stath continues to be very entertaining and every year he pumps out another action blockbuster, last year it was Ayer's The Beekeeper. Apparently next year Ayers is going to combine both into a film he's calling The Working Beekeeper Man, which will see not one but two Statham's wiping out not one but two families of gangsters, one American and one Russian. I'm already looking forward to it. 

This is intriguing for some of the British actors who turn up in it and also the fact a lot of this looks like it was filmed in the UK. There's nothing new here, but it's fun and silly and the Stah is the only action hero who is funnier the more seriously he takes it. 

6/10

#20: DR. STRANGELOVE - NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE

 

Starring Steve Cogan, Dharmesh Patel, John Hopkins, Giles Terer, Tony Jayawardena co-written by Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley, directed by Sean Foley. Running time 150 minutes.

If you've ever wanted to see what an Am-Dram re-telling of Stanley Kubrick's truly superb and vastly superior 1964 comedy masterpiece Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, looks like then you've come to the right place. 

The film sees the events leading up to WWIII through the eyes of Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, US President Merkin Muffley, B52 pilot Major T.J. 'King' Kong, and wheelchaired bound Dr. Strangelove all played by Steven Coogan, who uses the genius move of just putting on a different funny accent for each character. 

Lacking the power, cast, and vision of Stanley Kubrick who directed the original vastly better film from a screenplay by Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George based on the book Red Alert by Peter George. This just feels like a poorly staged church hall performance that seems incredibly dull and boring in comparison and managing to be an hour longer than the movie. 

Most people will come for Coogan, well you'll get four times the dose but it's not vintage Coogan, more like going through the motions Coogan as he recalls his lines while remembering what accent to use, his least effective is his King Charles voice for Mandrake, while his Strangelove is the most successful. 

This just made me want to rewatch the original film. So it's not all bad, but I certainly won't be watching it again.

4/10

#19: THE ALTOID KNIGHTS

STARRING: Robert De Niro, Robert De Niro, Debra Messing, Cosmo Jarvis, Kathrine Narducci, Michael Rispoli and every Italian American male actor over the age of 58 in Hollywood, or so it would seem. Written by Nicholas Pileggi. Directed by Barry Levinson. Budget $45 million. Running time 123 minutes.

From the men who've brought us, Goodfellows, Casino, American Gangster, Bugsy, Diner, Rainman, Young Sherlock Holmes and Sphere comes this long, bloated, dull dirge featuring two Robert De Niros for the price of one. Charting, or at least based on the last two great American Mafia dons, Frank Costello and Vito Genovese in the twilight of their years, with one, the nice one, Frank (Robert De Niro), wanting to retire with his wife Bunny (Debra Messing) and Vito (Robert De Niro), the really grumpy one wanting to take the other down, despite both being best friends since childhood. Vito killed two witnesses and had to go to Italy to avoid prosecution and so Frank took over the business, built a vast criminal empire and ran it, apparently without war, grief or internal conflict. But once Vito came back to the US after WWII he wanted everything back and then more and went to war to get it. 

What follows is a really slow, boring film interspersed with flashes of violence to wake you up, which was good for me, because it woke me up twice in time to watch people get killed. 

Filled with an entire cast of elderly overweight and mobility impared Italian-looking white men, except for the criminally underused and simply superb Debra Messing, this film becomes an absolute slog which leaves you lost at sea with a veritable who's who of now long-dead American Mafia gangsters with impenetrable names all sitting around in clubs, or diners playing cards while Robert De Niro as Vito does his best Joe Pesci impersonation as the dangerous Vito, while Robert De Niro delivers a measured performance as the seemingly kindly, nah saintly gangster who never carried a gun, Frank, loved his wife Bunny and had two dogs.

Starting with a botched assassination attempt on Frank Costello (Robert De Niro) by one of Vito Genovese's (Robert De Niro) men, the whole slow moving hunk gently trundles along gathering no momentum on it's pub-crawl through historical events until Frank, agrees to hand over all control to Vito at a gangster BBQ retreat with the heads of every crime family in America leading to the entire dismantlement of the Mafia in America. 

Sounds like a great idea for a film and it is, shame it's not this one. In the hands of a in-his-prime Martin Scorsese this could have been a masterpiece but not so in Barry Levinson's hands, with a script originally written by Nicholas Pileggi back in the 1970s and turned down by every studio til now, this is a gangster film that lacks bite or any real drama. There are no young bloods vying for power just sad, slow moving old men played by sad, slow moving old men and when hits happen they happen with all the speed of an assassin on a zimmer frame.

Rather than watch this, go back and watch Goodfellows and Casino back-to-back and have a great evening rather than a thoroughly mediocre one.  

5/10

#17: JOHN WICK

Starring Keanu Reeves, Micheal Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrianne Palicki, Ian McShane, Willem Dafoe, John Leguizamo and Bridget Moynahan. Written by Derek Kolstad, directed by Chad Stahelski. 101 blissful minutes of pure heaven.

Four films in and it's time to rewatch the original back up on the big screen, and what a delight!

Keanu Reeves is John Wick, retired assassin for the mob, grieving for his dead wife who saved him from his life of evil. Now John's days are spent thrashing a beautiful vintage 69 Mustang Mach 1 muscle car around an airfield and looking after Daisy the dog a posthumous gift from his wife to help him grieve. But when the son of his old friend and boss, Russian crime boss Viggo Tarasov, and his posse of hoods, break into Wick's house one night, beat him half to death, stealing his car and unwisely killing Daisy, Wick dusts off his old killing box and heads to town for vengeance.

 Unfortunately, John Wick turns out to be, Baba Yaga (The Boogeyman), a hitman feared by all and famous for killing three men with one pencil. To protect his son, Viggo puts a bounty of 2 million dollars on his John's head and unleashes an army of killers to get him, including the enigmatic assassin, Marcus played by Willem Defoe and Miss Perkins, Adrianne Palicki, the ultimate femme fatale.

And that's the plot, more or less. What follows over the next 101 minutes is simply the best Western action film of the 21st Century so far. It is one glorious, relentless, unflinching continuous gun and fist fight for 95 fantastic minutes, from one audacious action set piece to the next, each more awe-inspiring that the last, the sequence in the night club will leave you blissfully dazed and that's just after the brilliant assault on his house by a gang of heavily armed men. But this isn't just a balls-out action film, there's also humour and great performances too, coupled to stylish direction and superb soundtrack.

Keanu Reeves gets mocked a lot for his wooden performances, but here he brings a world weariness and believability to the role. He gets beaten and takes knocks, no Arnie invincibility here. He might be the worlds most lethal killer but he's also vulnerable to blades, bullets and car crashes, of which there are many.

Simply cannot think of a reason not to love this film, it's just about the most fun I've had at the cinema in an absolute age and I loved it. Go and see it and have a blast, I just hope there's a sequel.

10/10

#18: TERMINATOR 2

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Edward Furlong, Linda Hamilton,  Robert Patrick and Joe Morton. Written by James Cameron and William Wisher. Directed by James Cameron. Running time 137 minutes.

Eleven years after the events of Terminator and Skynet is trying it on again by sending another pesky unstoppable cyborg back in time to terminate someone, this time it's 10-year old John Connor (Edward Furlong), rather than his mother Sarah (Linda Hamilton). However Skynet are upping their game by sending not a cybernetic endoskeleton hidden inside the body of a 6' 4" Austrian bodybuilder but prototype, shape-shifting T1000 (Robert Patrick), a liquid metal killing machine and it's up to a reprogrammed T100, Arnie to save the life of the leader of the future human resistance. After that it's a perfect masterclass in action, featuring note-perfect action beat after beat building to a dramatic showdown in a foundary.

Originally released back in 1991, this is a digitally restored, which I last saw in 2017. And it was an utter delight to watch it again up on the big screen. It's a simply superb film. The script is tight, the dialogue utterly memorable, I was able to silently whisper each line of the film, so ingrained was it in my psyche. Seeing it again on the big screen in this new digital 4K transfer was a treat, the effects remain surprisingly convincing, but the biggest revelation is the in camera effects and stunts, which in this day and age of cgi remain simply staggering. By god, they fly a helicopter under a bloody bridge!

If you've only ever seen this on your TV and you get a chance, give this a go! It's a staggering and thrilling experience and deserves to be seen up there back on the big screen. Cameron is a consummate action director, perhaps the best we've ever seen and his skill with the camera is perfection and never does he need to resort to shaking his camera like his army of imitators. And despite being well over two hours long, this film never relents, never gives up and just keeps coming. Seriously the time just flew by!

A note perfect and exhilarating 10/10.

#16: IN THE LOST LANDS

 

STARRING: Dave Bautista, Milla Jovovich and Arly Jover. Written by either 15 monkeys on one typewriter or Constantin Werner and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Budget $55 million. Running time 101 minutes. 

Jesus H. Christ. Do I really have to try and write a synopsis for this piece of shit? Would it make even one iota of difference to you, I mean I doubt any of you are actually going to go and see this, I mean seriously if you had even any niggling sensation that, just from the poster alone you have to know this is a piece of shit?

Set in the far flung future following a war, blah blah blah, Milla is a witch who seems immortal and grants wishes and Dave, is a legendary hunter and together they're going into the Lost Lands to look for a werewolf in the Lost Lands. Filmed exclusively against green screen and featuring a palette of colours as broad as sepia and night blue this is an ugly film filled with shitty tracking shots across digital backdrops with acts of violence thrown up over us every few minutes to stop us from going to sleep, although it didn't stop me. Characters are introduced to be slaughtered by a demented church warrior in a secondary story arc that ends abruptly before the third act robbing the film of an even vaguely entertaining through arc. Bautista is big, bloated and boring, but not as boring as Jovovich who seems to have cornered the market in female action stars. This one's directed by her husband who also directed his wooden wife in the Resident Evil films.

Nothing new to offer, apparently based on a RR Martin short story, he who wrote Game of Thrones books.

The action in this is shit, the acting is shit, the characters are shit, the look of it is shit, the script is shit, the motivation is shit, the CGI is shit, the soundtrack is shit, the special effects are shit, there wasn't one thing about this that wasn't shit. Indeed this wasn't even shit enough to become funny, this was just shit from beginning to end. And not in the way that 'bad' became 'good', but shit in the way that only shit can be shit. As someone who has to pick up dog shit on a daily basis, since I stupidly got myself a dog, I have to deal with more than my fair share of shit on a daily basis, so I'm really quite annoyed with myself today since having picked up not one but THREE big bags of dog shit today I then took myself off to the cinema and sat down to watch this huge, steaming pile of shit. The worst thing about dog shit is feeling the heat of it in the palm of your hand through the thin plastic bag. But at least that only last a few seconds before its thrown into a bin. But not so with this, I had to sit there for a whole 101 minutes of unrelenting, middling shit. I wouldn't have minded it so much if it had been explosive diarrhoea, but no, I had to put up with a pile of thin, pathetic sticks of shit.

3/10 

#15: OPUS

STARRING: Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich, Juliette Lewis, Murray Bartlett, Amber Midthunder, Stephanie Suganami, Young Mazino and Tatanka Means. Music especially written by Nile Rogers and The Dream. Written and directed by Mark Anthony Green. Budget $10 million. Running time 104 minutes. 

The Menu has a lot to answer for, since this is clearly inspired by that infinitely better 2022 film. This one sees six people, journalist Ariel, our heroine, (Ayo Edebiri), her boss Stan (Murray Bartlett), TV talk show host Clara (Juliette Lewis), radio shock jock Bill () influencer Emily (Stephanie Suganami) and papararazzi photographer Bianca (Melissa Chambers) invited  for a fabulous weekend to witness the return of a rock god, Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich), after 20 odd years, and the release of his new album, Ceasar's Revenge. It turns out that in the 20 odd years since he last released an album he's only gone and started a cult called the Levelists who all live with him in his Utah compound, or commune. It turns out each of the six invited guests, save one, have major historical issues with said Moretti, as will become clear, but there's more at work here than just a simple tale of revenge, there's also a sinister conspiracy and cult with grand designs.

But there are more literal skeletons in the closet than hot cakes at play here and when our six invited guests arrive at the rock god's cult-like commune you quickly realise not all is right here, and that the outcome isn't going to be good, especially when one of our band discover a secret stash of cyanide on the eve of a final night of revelations. Then there's just the odd matter of a 'TWO YEARS LATER' coda to wrap things up and reveal what was really going on. 

Best thing in this by a goddam country mile is John Malkovich who I'm sure probably exudes menace and malice even when he's asleep. It's been a long time since I've seen him play a villain and it's great to have him back having fun. Sadly this film is too wrapped up in its bigger picture and truth be told, it's not that entertaining. This isn't a bad film or even a shit one, I just wish it's been better. our heroine, Ariel, Ayo Edebiri, isn't that likeable, she comes across as a over privileged and needy and the other invited guests are just cyphers and cut-outs and lack the bite and depth of the Menu inspirations. There's also a lack of any real menace. 

At one point one of our characters is killed and the next day when the others ask about them they're fobbed off. However in the very next scene they arrive in a room where there is one chair fewer, and none of them say anything. This bugged me deeply. Along with the fact we never really learn what it was exactly it was that made them the target of Moretti's ire, and the final 'shocking' reveal, when you think about it, means that they weren't even that relevant to Moretti's plan.

7/10

 

#14: BLACK BAG

 

STARRING: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page and Pierce Brosnan. Written by David Koepp, Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Music by David Holmes. Budget $50 million. Running time 94 glorious minutes.

Super-ruthless and uber efficient spy couple, Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) and George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) are happily married, or so it seems, and working at the top of their collective games for MI6. When George receives word from a fellow spy that there's a mole in their department, he organises a dinner party for the five suspects that includes his wife and so begins a glorious, delightful cat-and-mouse game as George tries to work out who's trying to sell secrets to the Russians and things soon spiral out of control when he discovers his wife isn't being completely honest with him. As tensions mount and his friend, the whistle-blowing spy winds up dead, George realises he's been set up and with time running out he has to try one last desperate ploy to unmask the traitor.

Absolutely delightful from beginning to end, with a brilliant cast, a superb soundtrack from the always excellent John Holmes, this only comes undone in one aspect. There's no way you'll be able to guess who the spy is by the clues presented. This is a complex and gripping spy drama that is all the more impressive because it's just over one and a half hours. 

So refreshing to see something so satisfyingly adult. Fassbender and Blanchett are exquisite in their roles and give measured and precise performances and a masterclass in acting. By god, we're being spoiled this year by some top notch acting and files in the shape of this and the also excellent Enclave.

Can't really fault this, beyond the complexity of the plot which robbed me of being able to work out who the spy was. But bloody hell I loved it. 

9/10

#13: MARCHING POWDER

Starring Danny Dyer, Geoff Bell, Stephanie Leonidas, Lex Shrapnel, Callum MacNab, Arty Dyer, Bailey Patrick and Janet Kumah. Written and directed by Nick Love. Running time 96 minutes.

Danny Dyer is Jack – a 45 year-old marching powder-snorting football thug with a failing marriage to Stephanie Leonidas (can't remember her character's name). After getting arrested for some football hooliganism (him not her), he's given six weeks to turn his life around by a judge or risk going to jail. So off he goes to save his marriage and his liberty. If his marriage fails his father-in-law who finances his life and who hates him will cut him off and throw him out. Add to the mix the following a son who adores Jack but is going off the rails. A gang of middle-aged drug addled mates and thugs. 

Over the next 96 minutes, which will feel like six weeks, you'll get to watch the following:
1. Danny Dyer breaking the fourth wall every other minute to talk to us. 
2. Danny Dyer taking drugs, lots of drugs.
3. Danny Dyer narrating, when he's not breaking the fourth wall.
4. Danny Dyer beating up a variety of people.
5. Danny Dyer with his shirt off. A lot.
6. Danny Dyer, much more of him. 

Why did you go and see this, David? I hear you ask. A justified question. Well, in answer I have to say that I saw this so you don't have to. And more importantly my wife doesn't need to either, dear god I almost took her with me. I saw this because oddly enough I found the trailer to be rather good, and it felt like something altogether different in the pantheon of rom coms, it looked fresh and funny, with Danny Dyer deconstructing himself, I like the idea of a middle-aged man trying to turn his life round and plus it looked funny. 

Oddly enough, I knew I was in a shit show when the film started and we were blessed with an atrocious animated prologue featuring the life of Jack from birth to his present and the first use of the word, 'cunt', which it would turn out to be the single most used word in the entire film, it's used as a verb, a noun, an adjective and a pronoun by everyone from Jack, to his wife, father-in-law, friends, son and even a nun in a scene I might have dreamed up when I nodded off. 

There is no redemption arc, or even story arc for our Jack and his long suffering and vastly under used wife character, just scene after scene of Jack and his hilarious coked up friends beating the shit out of every body, getting stoned, wasted and off their tits before midly regretting their actions before doing it all over again. The funniest lines are in the trailer so save yourself by just watching that. 

A dull, rather boring, unfunny and rather shitty little piece of shit of a movie, which Danny Dyer fans will no doubt love. 

I on the other hand think it's worthy of a 2/10 

#12: MICKEY 17

 

STARRING: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Mark Rufalo and Toni Collette. Written and directed by Bong Joon-ho, based on the novel by Edward Ashton. Budget $118 million. Running time 137 mintues long.

It's the near future, Earth is fucked and man is heading for the stars and Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) and his childhood friend Timo (Steven Yeun) are in deep doo-do. They owe money to a psychotic loanshark who gets his jollies watching torture snuff porn of those who fail to pay him back. 

With nothing to lose the two friends decide to hitch a ride on a 4 1/2 year journey to a new planet, with Timo as a pilot and Mickey, with no skills, as an 'Expendable', a cloned indentured worker who can be printed anew every time he dies. They set sail on a star ship controlled by Donald Trump, known in this film as Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his puppet-master wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette) a food, or should that be sauce obsessed foodie. 

The first 16 Mickeys meet horrible deaths as they're tested for radiation poisoning, experimented on in medical experimentation or just squandered in a series of near trivial accidents until they reach the new planet, a world stuck in seemingly perpetual winter and popluated by giant sentient woodlice. Over the years Mickey has become quite the fixature on the ship and ended up in a longterm, loving relationship with security officer Nasha Barridge (Naomi Ackie). 

Luck shits on Mickey when he ends up at the bottom of an ice cavern about to be devoured by the woodlice now nicknamed Creepers. However, against the odds, rather than kill and eat him, the Creepers rescue him out of the carven and he returns to his ship only to discover that believing him to be dead, Mickey 18 has been printed. 

And that's against the law...

A lot has been said and expected of Bon Joon-ho, especially after his superb 2019 movie Parasite, which went on to win Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay much to the absolute chagrin of Donald Dump (the worst president in history) who went on a ridiculous rant about it winning. So, perhaps it's hardly surprising Dump plays a major part in this, Bon Joon-ho's eighth film. Some critics are unfairly comparing this, Mickey 17 with Parasite and finding it wanting. But then that's critics for you, not happy unless they're whinging about something. "Oh, why isn't this just like that was? I liked that and now I have to watch this and it's different." Critics are wankers, every last man-jack of them and I should know, I'm not happy unless I'm not only bashing the bishop but smashing the living shit out of him. 

And so to the film. 

Well, it's nothing like Parasite, which I found very annoying, I mean that won three Oscars and this is about something entirely different, even though it's made by the same man. So, I couldn't use any of my previous review on that to use on this. I'm going to have to make up new stuff, which is really annoying. 

Well this is a much more light-hearted and funny outing than Parasite, it deftly explores notions of what it means to be human, and mankind's relentless decline, climate change and immigration, although the out and out comedy and tongue in cheek approach does lessen the blows. Robert Pattison is excellent as all the Mickeys, giving each a slight spin, but the standout performance is that of Ruffalo's Kenneth Marshall, a Donnie Dump of the ages, an arrogant, oafish, bore and utter asshole just out to make a fast buck for himself while proclaming himself the best at everything. Together with a superb Toni Collette as Ylfa, his wife, they give us pantomine villains we can boo and hiss at with glee.

With excellent special effects, some inspired creature design and CGI in the Creepers and a gripping action packed third act this is a satisfying but emotionally flat comedy romp that feels vastly different from the usual Hollywood comedy fair and coupled with the fact this isn't a franchise, or sequel but something new makes it worth a butchers, even if it is based on a book.

A time machine of a movie that makes the 117 minutes simply fly by, Pattison is great, but Rufallo and Collette steal the film and Naomi Ackie is a delight. 

8/10

  

#11: THE BIG LEBOWSKI

STARRING: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, John Tururro, Sam Elliot, Tara Reid,  and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Written by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. Photography by Roger Deakins. Directed by Joel Coen. Originally released in 1998, budget $15 million. Running time 117 minutes. 

Thank god for the release of classic movies, cause I think otherwise I doubt I'd go half as often as I have been, the cinema just seems bereft of new films to watch, or at least variety and so when Cineworld threw this up for viewing I jumped. And I'm glad I did.

The story sees bowling-loving professional slacker Jeffrey Lebowski aka The Dude (Jeff Bridges) mistaken for local millionaire business man Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston), whose ex-pornstar wife, Bunny (Tara Reid) has run up huge debts to local porn movie director Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazarra) who sends two of his henchmen to get his money back. Confusing Jeff Lebowski, the Dude, for Jeffrey Lebowski, the henchmen beat him up and piss on his carpet triggering a ludicrous and escalating series of events that drag The Dude into a world filled with German Nihilists, kidnapping plots, blackmail and the daughter of Jeffrey Lebowski (Julianne Moore) who is rather keen for The Dude to impregnate her, while a sentient tumbleweed called The Stranger (Sam Elliot) watches and ponders. 

I truly love films about nothing and despite an insanely stuffed plot, this truly is a film about nothing and it's glorious as a result. Painfully slow, filled with pure nonsense and perfect dialogue this is the Coen Brothers best film and certainly the most accessible. Jeff Bridges delivers in The Dude perhaps his finest character making him utterly believable and likeable, as a viewer you want him to succeed, he's just so good damn mellow and charming even if he's as annoying as hell. 

The story meanders along from one plot point to the next, there's the odd death, a lot of bowling and a series of beatings delivered almost exclusively to the Dude. It's filled with charming oddball characters and the relationships and some marvellous dream sequences, and yet for some reason, I don't love it, sure I really like it but it doesn't get a 10/10 from me. I think it's the length, I find my patience tested and my attention wandering, I sort of find myself thinking it could be a little tighter in places and I just wish that characters would actually finish their sentences. 

Still, it was great to see it back up on the big screen, but for the life of me I can't work out why this is an 18 certificate. 

8/10

#10: THE MONKEY

STARRING: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin P'Brien, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy Adam Scott, Elijah Wood. Written and directed by Osgood Perkins. Based on a Stephen King short story. Budget $11 million. Running time 98 minutes.

A pair of twin boys, living with their mom inherit a wind-up monkey from their dead-beat father, the only thing he left them. When the monkey's key is turned and it starts to drum, someone will die. After the death of their mother, the boys get passed to family after family until they grow up to be a dysfunctional pair of neurotic deadbeats, both with their own crosses to bear. The Monkey, long believed to have lost resurfaces in their lives the two Theo Jameses battle over the monkey leading to an extraordinary level of death, mayhem and relentless gore. 

From the man who brought us Longlegs, a film I did not like, no sir, comes this. But, unusually instead of a intriguing and clever attempt to create something different out of the King shortstory, Perkins opts instead to make an out-and-out wacky comedy, mixing the style of the Final Destination films with a liberal slice of American gross out humour, because this film is equal measures horror and comedy. Now, I've always been interested in how the two seemingly different genres can work well together, give the audience something horrific or gory but then add a joke at the end and the spell is broken and you can get away with murder, so to speak. However in this 'hilarious' film, Perkins goes one better by making sure that the shits and giggles starts from the very beginning and as such this film has no teeth, bite, or anything interesting or new to say. If you enjoy the fantastically inventive of the FD franchise then this will be your cup of tea. The deaths get more ridiculous and comical as the film goes along leading to a blow-out ending that will either have you laughing your head off, or just sighing. Me, I just sighed. 

It's not a bad film, in fact it's quite funny, Theo James is a game actor and gives it his all and the deaths are ingenious, but robbed of any sense of reality this just becomes a series of outlandish deaths each more outrageous than the last and that's about it.

Nothing else to say. 7/10

#09: CRAPTON AMERICA: BLAND NEW WORLD

 

STARRING: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Harrison Ford, Shira Haas, Carl Mumbly, Xosha Roquemore, Giancarlo Esposito, Live Tyler and Tim Blake Nelson. From a story by Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson. With a screenplay by Rob Edwards, Malcom Spellman, Dalan Musson, Julius Onah and Peter Glanz. Directed by Julius Ohah. Budget allegedly $180 million dollars. Running time 118 minutes. 

Welcome to the 35th movie in the official Marvel Movie Franchise, which started back in 2008 with Iron Man. This is the fourth Captain America movie and the first  since 2016's Captain America: Civil War, when Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) took up the mantel of Captain America. And now, nine years later we have this effort. 

Against all expectations Anthony Mackie, who was great as the Falcon, makes an adequate 'new' Captain America, he gives good screen, but rest assured he's no Steve Rogers, and boy do you miss him. 

Naturally, the MCU have copied the Lucas playbook, by making sure that enough shit Marvel related films have been released of late that this new effort will be judged and declared 'not as bad as' as if that was some sort of accolade. Lucas did the same thing with Star Wars by making The Phantom Dennis so shit that the subsequent Attack of the Clowns and Revenge of the Pissed seemed like works of cinematic genius in comparison. 

The stupidly clumsy and over-egged pudding of a plot see Wilson brought back into the fold of government by newly elected red-in-the face president, Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford). He pardons all previous grievances between the US Government and Mackie and welcomes back Wilson asking him to reform the Avengers in one breathe then throwing him out of the White House the next. Ross is determined to force through something called the Celestial accord between Japan, America and India over the massive Celestial Island that was last seen in the dreadful Eternals movie shit-show back in 2021.
    Wilson is invited to the White House and so drags along Falcon-in-training Jaoquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) and Carl Lumbly (Isaiah Bradley) who was once a super soldier during the Korean war and we're now told a mentor to Sam Wilson. Turns out Lumbly was imprisoned for 30 years and experimented on and now hates the government. Anyway the three turn up at the White House shindig and for reasons that become clear Lumbly and some other guests pull guns and try to kill the President, forcing Wilson and Torres to go on the run and find out what's really going on.
    In the meantime, Japan and India pull out of the accord and try to claim the Celeste Island, the only place on Earth with Adamantium (don't tell Wolverine) leading Ross to instigate a race to the island to claim it first. In the meantime the mysterious international terrorist for hire, Seth Voelker aka Sidewinder (Giancarlo Espoisto) has been hired to mess shit up by The Leader (Time Blake Nelson), last seen in that Ed Norton Hulk movie.
    Turns out that The Leader has beef with Ross for numerous reasons that too will be revealed over this slow running-plodding, rather dull, spy romp.
    Added to a needlessly and rather obvious complicated plot about Wilson trying to find out who's pulling the strings behind the scenes and why Ross keeps getting red in the face, we have diminutive ex-Red Room trained ex-Black Widow agent Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas) slowly realising Wilson isn't the baddie. And all the time we have Ross who we won't like if he gets too red in the face. I wonder if that's related to the pills he keeps popping? 

Anyway, if you've seen the trailer, you know it all comes to a showdown between the Red Hulk and Sam Wilson's Captain Falcon/America. Leaving many questions mulling around in your rather vaguely engaged brain including:

1. How is an ordinary human being like Wilson able to survive in fights with Hulk level beings, as well as hi-explosions and impacts that would kill an ordinary man?
2. How the hell is an ordinary man able to kick and punch an vibranium shield with his shin, fist and foot without causing himself extraordinary pain?
3. Why is it in films that you only feel pain if you're punched, not when you're doing the punching?
4. Why don't the authorities ever investigate stuff that happens in these sorts of films?
5. How is The Leader able to just turn up wherever and whenever he wants with no difficulty?
6. Where is Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man or Spider-Man in all this? Sure Bucky turns up but that's just to chew the shit for one scene. 
7. Why have all these comic book films morphed into second rate spy capers?
8. Why do super-hero films have to be so epic in scale?

Add to that the whole load of implausible coincidences that string this whole rather bland splodge of movie together and you have a middling, rather dull movie that's slightly better than anything the MCU has spewed out since 2021's Black Widow.

It's all just so goddam un-engaging. I find in my dottage that I fall asleep during films these days, usually during loud fight scenes, however during this I didn't fall asleep, although I came out thinking I had and trying to remember when I dozed off. I was amused to realise I hadn't. 

The numerous action sequences seem shoe-horned into the plod, sorry plot, just to spice things up, but there's no jeopardy or urgency, and there's no threat or risk of death. It turns out nearly every single person this new Captain Falcon/America fights is being remotely controlled, so no real damage is done, and considering what a powerful opponent Sidewinder is shown to be in the trailer he turns out to be little more than a mild irritant, like a pebble in a Doc Martin boot, rather than an actual force equal to Crapton Falcon/America.  

This film apparently suffered many reshoots, and the film has a definite uneven quality, during some scenes characters motivations seem to change, at times going in the opposite direction, and sequences shown in the trailer have clearly been reshot. The big reveal that someone big behind the scenes is manipulating the drama elicits a sort of 'oh' response, nothing really seems to matter. Added to that is a distinct lack of actual villains for Captain FalconAmerica to fight and you have a film that feels like Captain America Lite, a film lacking flavour or bite. One that will wash over you like another person's rancid fart, which once sniffed will soon be nothing more than a rather unpleasant, rapidly forgotten memory.

Roll on The Fantastic Four and Superman movies!  

6/10 

And if you're going to wait around for the post credit sting, I wouldn't bother, it's just a 3rd rate sequel bait, and certainly no Nick Fury level event. Save yourself 10 minutes of difficult to pronounce surnames with far too many Consonants.

#08: BRIDGET JONES: ABOUT A BOY

STARRING: Renee Zallweger, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Leo Woodall, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson and for some in explicable reason, Islas Fisher. Screenplay by Helen Fielding, Dan Bazer and Abi Morgan. Directed by Michael Morris. Budget $50 million. Running time 125 minutes. 

The title is misleading and the trailers have lied to you. The 'boy' of the film is not the focus of this very bittersweet romp but rather a stepping stone to true love, and rather than being yet another light-hearted romantic romp about the love-life of a scatter-brained career woman, it's a rather emotional exploration on the impact of grief when the one true love of your life up and dies and leaves you all alone and bringing up two rather horrible children, and it's all the better for it. The touching moments come unexpectedly from the relationship between Renee's Bridget and Hugh Grants Daniel Cleaver, who's grown from a drunken lothario into a true friend, one who babysits Bridget's truly terrible children whenever she's out on a date. The film comes alive when we see Bridget interacting with the likes of her children's school teacher, Mr. Scott Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and her new, 20 year-younger love interest, Roxster (Leo Woodall). While you'll find yourself truly hating her old friends who come across as a group of horribly self-centred, self-serving and conceited arseholes who throw horrible advice at Bridget every opportunity they get and think it's absolutely fine to just drink galleon sized glasses of red wine every chance they can.

Weirdly enough, I rather enjoy the Bridge Jones films and have marvelled at Renee for her portrayal of Bridget, her accent is a delight and she enhabits the role almost like a second skin. She somehow makes Bridget believable, even if her insane London town house isn't. This is filled with fine jokes and I think the Helen Fielding script enhances the film by helping to craft something that isn't you standard generic romcom, something altogether more emotional.

The only fly in the ointment is the running time, which far outlasts the concept and you'll find yourself wishing the film could have gotten to its conclusion 30 minutes sooner, particularly when the main plot point of the whole film is concluded with half way through the movie. 

Nevertheless, this was a great date night movie and one which gave both me and Pet much to discuss, particularly the type of "Do you think you'll date someone after I die?" conversation. Which, Pet answered by saying: "God no, I'd relish the quiet." Happy Valentines everyone.

7/10  

07a: THE BRUTALIST

 

STARRING: Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce, Felicity Jones, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird, Isaach de Bankole, Alessandro Nivola. Written by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold. Directed by Brady Corbet. Budget $9 million. Running time 215 minutes. Or THREE HOURS AND 58 MINUTES. There's also a 15 minute intermission, I don't know it that's part of the running time or extra. Either way, it four minutes shorter than Cleopatra and doesn't even include the fabulous entry into Rome. 

PRETENTIOUSNESS thy name is THE BRUTALIST, a 215 minute style over content film of such turgid tedium that even the inclusion of some vintage black and white hardcore p*rn shoe-horned in for some inexplicable reason can't save it from being an exercise in self-indulgent of such epic proportions that it boarders on the most astonishing piece of cinematic onanism ever committed to film. 

The film is split into three sections called: Overture, Part 1: The Enigma of Arrival, Part 2: The Hard Core of Beauty, and finished off with Epilogue: The First Architecture Biennale.

The film starts promisingly enough in 1947, as Jewish Hungarian H*l*caust survivor László Tóth (Adrien Brody), arrives in New York to see the Statue of Liberty upside down and celebrates his arrival and freedom by getting a bl*wjob off a prostitute before bussing off to Philadelphia to live in the backroom of a furniture showroom run by his cousin, Attila and his wife. There he befriends a Gordon (Isaach de Bankolé) a young man and single parent in a poverty food line. Later László and Attila are hired to renovate the library of the Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), a fantastically wealthy industrialist and cultural snob. Discovering his wonderful Art Deco library has been converted into a Brutalist atrocity, he refuses to pay and László gets thrown out by his cousin and ends up living in a charity work house with Gordon and his son. It's there we discover László is addicted to heroin. However Van Buren tracks László down and tells him that he had no idea he was an internationally acclaimed architect and asks him to build a gigantic monument to his dead mum in the Brutalist style and László says 'yeah, why not, I've got nothing else on.' and so begins the main story.

From then on it's a 'so slow, it's barely moving' journey of ennui, I mean think of a slug in a race with a snail kinda slow, as a serious of banal events happen to hamper the building of the world's ugliest building in the history of building.

Meanwhile László beloved wife Erzsébet Tóth (Felicity Jones) and Zsófia, László's orphaned teenage niece, who has been struck mute by her Dachau experiences are still trapped in Soviet controlled Europe and Buren offers to get them repatriated to the US. Then more stuff sort of happens, there's a train wreck, some drug taking, lots of waffle and we're reminded that the core message of this film is "No matter what the others try and sell you, it is the destination, not the journey.” that counts and you begin to suspect you've been duped. In this case, the journey is 215 minutes of slow tedium, which you hope is going to lead you somewhere and it just doesn't. 'Maybe', you think, 'just around this corner something is going to happen, something profound and powerful', but then another corner has been rounded, and another, and still nothing beyond what is on display has been revealed. Late into the second half, and after the 15 minute intermission, a drunken László is raped by Van Buren in an act of domination, while they're scouting for Italian marble. This too is just sort of just noted, and despite the fact László becomes more driven, more belligerent and more angry nothing more is said, until his wife brings it up at a dinner party and Van Buren has her thrown out.

Then the film sort of ends with a pointless epilogue set in Venice in the 1980s  for the first Architecture Biennale where everyone is dead except for, guest of honour, László, who now sits in a wheelchair with stupid old man make up on.

Add to that all a strange choice of ambient music that pervades every goddam second, with whisper level random music from the era intercut with radio, popular music of the day, it's non-stop and fucking annoying. 

Actually of the two parts, the second is a lot more 'drama packed', drug overdoses and some shouting sort of drama. But nothing really happens, The gigantic, hideously ugly multiple blocks of poorly poured concrete sits atop of the hill like a humongous blocky dog shit and we discover that tunnels László built beneath it  symbolise the spiritual link between László and Erzsébet while they survived the death camps of the N*zis, and its tall blocky towers represent the chimneys at the Death Camps. Very noble and very button pushing. Oh, we can't criticise this film cos it deals with serious issues like the H*l*caust. 

Well, 215 minutes of this is enough for anyone and frankly I couldn't care less about any of the characters, for a profound film about the absolute horrors of the N*zis and Auschwitz I'd say watch Zone of Interest, which staggered me to the core and left me profoundly moved and shaken. But this, it's all so ponderous and arrogant, "look everybody! We're all a bunch of serious actors and film makers striving to make something worthy enough to win loads of Oscars and shit."

Well, shit off.

5/10

#06: BECOMING LED ZEPPELIN

 

STARRING: Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, John Bonham and Robert Plant. Written and directed by Bernard MacMahon. Running time 121 minutes.

Following the lives of Page, Jones, Bonham and Plant during the early 1960s until their meeting in 1968 and the birth of LED ZEPPELIN! Told exclusively by the four members of the band, with Bonham represented by a previously unheard audio interview. The film features full length performances and never-before-seen footage from UK and US shows and includes unseen material from the band's archives. 

Like any autobiography, this follows each member of the band's life from childhood until their coming together in 1968 and then just 18 months later when they're hailed as the world's No 1 band. What a fantastic spectacle, Page, Plant and Jones each take turns to talk through their experiences interspersed with uncut footage of their performances, behind-the-scenes and vintage footage which all helps to create a truly immersive experience.

The main thing you take away from this is not only just how driven the four young men were, or how committed and dedicated to their craft, but that in just 18 months those four young men come together, practice for a month, play one gig as the Yardbirds then re-name themselves Led Zeppelin and become the biggest band in the world. When they finally come together it isn't four friends at art school saying one drunken night, 'hey, let's put together a band', it's four professional musicians each with their own visions and reputations who want to perform and make music together. And what a reputation, Page and Jones were both very successful session musicians, while Bonham and Plant, who were both friends, were already established in their own fields. They'd each spent their lives practising, and honing their skills and the bands they each played with on their journey are astonishing. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones both performed on Shirley Bassey's Goldfinger, and the names of bands and singers they were worked was simply astonishing.

However, if you want a warts and all expose then you'll be disappointed, there isn't any, the four members of the band, who are all interviewed separately (although in the same location) talk with nothing but fondness for each other, and the best is left to John Bonham's final comments where he explains that he loved them all. It just seems that these four men were just friends and played together because they enjoyed it. I am happy to accept this as gospel.  

I was captivated and sat centre four rows from the front and just lost myself in the music. If you're a fan of Led Zeppelin this is the film for you, and even if you're not I'd still say give this a go! It's always fascinating to watch truly creative people working and creating something unique and extraordinary. Plus the music is EXHILARATING!! 

Have to stop now, it's just superlatives. 

9/10

#05: COMPANION

 

STARRING Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Guillen and Rupert Friend. Written and directed by Drew Hancock. Budget $10 million. Running time 97 minutes.

Josh (Jack Quaid) and his nervous girlfriend, Iris (Sophie Thatcher) are heading off for a weekend stay at the fabulous private lake-house of his friend, Kat's (Megan Suri) boyfriend Russian mafia boss, Sergey (Rupert Friend), there they meet gay couple Eli (Harvey Guillen) and Patrick (Lukas Gage). Iris is desperate to make a good impression on Iris whom she believes doesn't like her. The next day, while Iris sunbaths down by the lake side, a very drunk Sergey tries to rape her and in defence she stabs him to death. Blood soaked and shocked, she staggers back to the lake-house where shit gets real. 

To say more would be to reveal too much. This was a terrific film, that had me hooked from the off, I was utterly engaged by it and as the conceit played out I became more invested. It's not hard to guess what's really going on, just listening to the dialogue between Josh and Iris and how they meet should be enough for you to guess what's going on. And that doesn't matter, because this is just so damn entertaining.

This isn't just a cabin in the woods story with a woman on the run, this is far more with something to say about relationships and the difficulties of connecting with other people in the present world, and how to go about forming relationships.

These sorts of films survive on their own internal set of logic rules, and for once Companion doesn't break them.  

Great direction, a witty script and terrific performances all round, especially from Sophie Thatcher.

A thoroughly satisfying and hugely entertaining little flick that gets an extra point for not outstaying its welcome. 

8/10

#04: A REAL PAIN

 

WRITTEN, STARRING AND DIRECTED BY Jess Eisenberg, also starring Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy and Daniel Oreskes. Running time 90 minutes. Budget $3million.

Two Jewish American cousins set out on a Holocaust tour of Poland in honour of their dead grandma, one Benji Kaplan (Kieran Culkin) is a self-centred, obnoxious, arrogant, entitled, whinny, unfiltered little shit and the other, David (Jess Eisnberg) is a meek, neurotic, emotionally needy, spineless, enabling, milquetoast of a man. 

During their wretched tour of Poland, Benji emotionally and intellectually bullies his cousin and all the other guests on the tour with his ridiculous rants and emotional baggage, forcing everyone to just keep their heads down and weather his odious, tedious rants. None more so than his cousin, who we are told used to be more like a brother to Benji, but now isn't. David moved away, has a family, and holds down a job as an online ad salesman, while Benji lives in his mother's basement and smokes dope. As their smug self-indulgent tour of Poland drags its sorry arse from city to city towards the emotionally-shocking stop at Auschwitz, we have to witness Benji just being an absolute shit, spouting random outbursts of opinionated bullshit at the other characters. And apparently it's 'funny'. 

Scoring 96% on Rotten Tomato where it's described as: "Funny and sincere", "uproariously funny, quietly witty, achingly sad and excruciatingly well-observed." or a "masterpiece", this was by far the most obnoxiously self-indulgent piece of shit I've seen in a long time.

Culkin's Benji is so needy and selfish from the very beginning that you have no patience for his shenanigans, and when the film finally arrives at Auschwitz for its emotional apex and Benji's protestations are finally put into perspective, you don't feel sympathy for him you just want him to shut the fuck up and grow up, or else for someone to slap the smug out of him, because the world isn't all about him. From then on it's one last trip to Grandma's old house and some revelations that perhaps shine a tiny little light on Benji's arsehole behaviour and David's reasons for being a little bit distant before jetting back to the US of A and one last emotional beat before the whole sorry film slides to a dreary smug full stop, with a self-satisfying sigh of self-pleasure. 

I struggle to think of why anyone would think this was a, 'funny' film. There's perhaps one or two pithy comments or observations that twang a string, but miss the chord. In fact, this feels more eager to point out how some aspects of Polish life seem rather amusing - like serving sandwiches on trains that once would have transported their ancestors to their deaths amusing, or the obvious rich humour vein of war memorials. It's the sort of film where a passionate tour guide is ridiculed and humiliated for doing his job, while standing in a Jewish graveyard.

It's not all self-indulgent twaddle, The music by Chopin was wonderful and Jennifer Grey as a rich divorcee, was a revelation! How great to see her back in movies, I loved her in Red Dawn. Likewise, the supporting cast, especially Will Sharpe as the luckless tour-guide and Kurt Egyiawan as the converted Rwanda  genocide survivor were both excellent bringing some much needed humility and depth to proceedings.

To quote Horse from Ren & Stimpy, "No sir, I did not like it."

How apt to see a film whose title reflects exactly how you felt when you finally walked out of the cinema with your life 91 minutes shorter than it was. 4/10

#03: A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

 

STARRING: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Dan Fogler, Norbet Leo Butz and Scoot NcNairy. Screenplay by James Mangold and Jay Cocks. Directed by James Mangold. Budget $50-70 million. Running time 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Following the early years of Bob Dylan's professional career, from hitch-hiking in 1961 to New York to visit Willie Guthrie in hospital, to over night sensation, and to his first electric performance at the 1965 Newport Folk festival where he was famously heckled as 'Judas'.

From beginning to end this is Timothée Chalamet's film, his utterly mesmerising performance grabs your complete attention from the first second he appears on screen in the back of car as a hitchhiker to the last as he rides off on his motorbike, 140 minutes later that seem to have flashed by in the blink of an eye. 

His vocal portrayal of Dylan is superb capturing the tone and style perfectly, his performance of the man himself is twitchy and buttoned up, he comes across as a man unable to sleep without an audience and bridled with a creative force that seems to consume him wholeheartedly. But he's not alone, everyone involved with in this film delivers wonderful performances, singing and playing their own instruments, from Monica Barbaro's depiction of Joan Baez, to Edward Norton's political activist and folk legend Pete Seeger, to Boyd Holbrooks' Johnny Cash. And complementing them all is Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, a fictional version of Dylan's first girlfriend, Suze Rotolo after Dylan asked the film not use her real identity. 

The styling of New York in the 1960s seems perfect, at no point do you find yourself dragged out of the illusion and throughout it all the sound track is pure Dylan. Indeed you could be mistaken for believing that this is a full out musical, since Chalamet sings a total of 40 Dylan songs in their entirety, while playing the guitar and harmonica and were all recorded live.

This is a very straight forward sort of musical bio-pic, that sort of thing that Hollywood used to make back in the 50s, like one of my favourites, The Glenn Miller Story, which offered not one iota of detail about Glenn Miller's actual life. 

It's a $70 million dollar Karaoke movie, a visual and musical delight that captivates completely and yet you'll leave the film knowing nothing about the man himself beyond what's on display – that he was a singularly driven young man consumed by music and its creation and that he was a 'tad' ego-centric. If you go in expecting a warts-and-all expose of Bob Dylan you're going to leave a little frustrated, cos you ain't gonna get it, but then maybe that's the truth of the whole thing, maybe there is no deeper hidden truth, and why should there be? He was only 20 years-old at the beginning of the film and 25 at its end. Although I did discover, much to my delight, that he was penpals with Johnny Cash.

One of the things that surprised me while watching this film was that I knew so many of his songs almost verbatim and I realised that with the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and David Bowie, Bob Dylan has been a part of my life's soundtrack for so long that i don't remember the first time I heard his music. It's made me want to listen and find out more about him and any film that can make you do that can't be all bad. 

9/10

#02: SE7EN

Starring Brad Bitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow and John C. McGinley. Written by Andrew Kevin Walker. Directed by David Fincher. Music by Howard Shore. Budget $33-34 million. Running time 127 minutes. Originally released in 1995.

Se7en follows Detective Lieutentant William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and Detective David Mills (Brad Pitt) as they investigate a series of horrible murders based on the seven deadly sins. Somerset is a week shy of retiring, his faith in humanity drained and longing to escape the nameless, crime-infested, rain-drenched city he has no love for. While Mills, just arrived is eager to make a name for himself. Let's hope no one loses their head.

30 years-old and still daisy fresh. This is a gruelling film, dark, bleak and superb. The murders are genuinely shocking and the look and feel of the film is almost physical. The performances by all four of the main characters is top class, as is the music, the art direction and direction by a young David Fincher. The two leads play well off each other and balance the film perfectly, Pitt's youth is all ticks and jitters, while Morgan's world-weary wisdom creates the balance.

It also features one of the finest credit sequences of all-times, which helps to prepare you for what is to follow. This is one of those films, like 1982's Blade Runner that utterly re-defined a genre and spawned a slew of imitators and Hollywood's love of the ridiculous idea of genius-level serial killers.  

This is one of those films where you leave shaken and thoughtful.

10/10 

#01: NOSFERATU

 

STARRING: Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Willem Dafoe, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Simon McBurney and Bill Skarsgård. Written and directed by Robert Eggers. Cinematography by Jarin Blaschke, music by Robin Carolan. Budget $50 million. Running time 132 mintues.

1838, Wisborg, Germany. Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) and Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) are newly weds, he is an eager solicitor and estate agent and she a young women troubled by a traumatic past and plagued by bizarre seizures. When Thomas is sent by his boss, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney) to visit Count Orlok, an elderly old man and conclude a deal to sell him a derelict old house in Wisborb he believes it will secure his financial future with a promised promotion. Thomas reluctantly leaves his young wife in the care of his dear friends, Friedrich Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and his wife Anna (Emma Corrin) and embarks on a six-week trek to the castle of Orlok. Things go a wee-bit Pete Tong once he gets there and we discover that old Orlok isn't a sad old man at the end of his days but rather a undead monster trapped in a body of a corpse and only the love of a young woman can free him. Turns out when Ellen was young she accidentally awoke Orlok and he needs to her to declare her undying love to free him from his curse. And he sets out to Wisborg.

Before long Wisborg is invaded by rats, and the plague and people are dropping like flies. Ellen starts going mad and Friedrich's family doctor, Wilhelm Sievers (Ralph Ineson) realises that something else is at work and enlists the help of disgraced professor, Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe), who just so happens to be an expert in the occult, mysticism and alchemy and quickly recognises the psychic link between Ellen and Orlok. And once Thomas staggers back into town our band of heroes set out to kill Orlok and save Ellen.

Obviously this is a remake of the extraordinary 1922 silent masterpiece starring Max Schreck and directed by F.W. Murnau, that was an unlicensed adaptation of Dracula. And it's also the third time the tale has been filmed.

Robert Eggers delivers yet another deeply personal and extraordinary experience with this version of Nosferatu, it's a passion project for him that was first announced in 2015. Succeeding in making the vampire something disgusting again, this version of the Dracula mythology is a deeply atmospheric cinematic experience, thanks to the skills of cinematography Jarin Blaschke, the score by Robin Carolan, which is unsettling and dream-like, the production design is glorious and the look of the whole thing boarders on perfection to such a degree you'll swear you can smell it. It's a creepy film, but never scary, it's held aloft by the performances of Lily-Rose Depp whose dedication to the role of Ellen is genuinely impressive and backed up by the likes of Hoult, Ineson, Dafoe and McBurney, who is fantastic! However, the Keanu Reeves of this Dracula-esque outing is Aaron Taylor-Johnson, whom I used to really like, but I'm now beginning to think is a bit of a personality vacuum as well as a tad on the wooden side, his clipped British delivery boarders on the comical and his performance feels awkward. 

At 132 minutes this tests your endurance and I wonder if it really needed to be this long. It's nevertheless engrossing and like all the best train crashes you just can't look away. The only fly in the gruel is Orlok himself who just doesn't look as horrific as the staggeringly iconic Schreck version. Bill Skarsgård does a fantastic job, and his voice is like liquid gravel but ultimately his Orlok is just a big-nosed, massively moustachioed old man in a big coat.

Grotesquely beautiful but somewhat disappointing and sadly, in the final analysis, lacking in bite. It's a film of style over substance. 7/10