#49: LONGLEGS

Starring Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt, Michcelle Choi-Lee and Dakota Daulby. Written and directed by Osgood Perkins. budget $10 million. Running time 101 minutes.

Maika Monroe is Lee Harker, a low budget Clarice Starling, and likewise FBI agent with psychic abilities who's assigned to investigate the 'Longlegs' cases, a series of mass family murders that stretch back decades that all have two similarities, each of the young girls killed in the attacks all share the same birthday and a letter written in code was left at the scene of the massacres signed 'Longlegs'.

Within a gnat's fart, old Harker has solved the cryptic code and the connection between all the murders and sets off to find out what it all has to do with her memories of a strange white haired old man who visited her single mom decades earlier when she was just nine years old. And whether it has anything to do with Harker's boss, Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) and his eight year-old daughters impending birthday...

Murky to look at, gloomy to watch and unrelentingly miserable, this is a film lit by 30 watt bulbs where not a shred of sunlight breaks through, where everybody is depressed, and horribleness lurks behind every corner. Lee Harker mopes about the whole film, looking like she's clinically depressed and every character is as damaged emotionally as she is. Indeed everyone appears to be half asleep. 

I liked the trailer and went into this thinking it was going to be a later-day take on Silence of the Lambs, with a horror twist, but what it was instead was yet another horror film with Christianity at its core, or the Devil, because all the recent horror films I've watched have been about the Devil and evil manifest, indeed this one ends with a close up of Longlegs's face as he blissfully cries out "HAIL SATAN."

This was most certainly not for me. Growing up, my formative years were spent watching every single stalk-and-slash serial killer movie that came out in the 1980s and 90s, and after years of 24-hour horror movie marathons at the Scala Cinema in Kingscross I think my capacity for horror films got burned out. This just left me sad and bored, I've seen it all before and there's nothing new here, apart from Nicolas Cage as Longlegs who I wanted to know more about, the trouble is by making him supernatural I failed to connect and lost interest, if he'd been more human I'd have been far more invested, his crimes would have been more horrific, however the reveal of how he managed to be involved in so many mass murders over the years is so ludicruous and revealed as one huge plot reveal late in the third act that I lost any patience I might have had with it. 

I'm fascinated by Hollywood's obsession with these types of horror films where evil always wins, it's all so nihilistic and bleak. There is no hope, no salvation, just the cold embrace of the grave. Enjoy.

6/10

 

#48: QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE

STARRING: Lupita Nuyong'o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff and Djimon Hounsou. Written and directed by Michael Sarnoski. Budget $67 million. Running time 99 minutes.

Arriving 'hot' on the heels of 'A Quiet Place II', well four years anyway, this is the third in the film series known as A Quiet Place and it's a prequel detailing the arrival of the blind, vicious, psychopathic alien monsters from outer-space who hunt by sound. Explaining nothing and offering no origin story, this film instead focuses on two survivors and one cat and their desperate fight for survival as they try to escape the island of Manhattan on the last boat out of Dodge.

The film follows Lupita Nuyong'o as Sam, a terminally ill cancer patient and her support cat, Frodo, on a day trip to New York City to see a puppet show with a bus load of other hospice patients when the aliens attack. From then on, it's a fight for survival as Sam teams up with an English law student called Eric, Joseph Quinn and they concoct a plan to escape. Sam wants to return to Harlem for one last slice of pizza and Eric just wants someone to help him survive. When the authorities blow up all the bridges in New York and then tell any survivors to make their way to the river front where boats will rescue them (it turns out these aliens can't swim), the race is on! But first there's a side mission involving a perilous nighttime trip through the shattered streets of New York in search of pain relief medicine through an alien nest, lit by bonfires. 

And that's the plot! What follows is a gripping, tense, deeply moving and satisfying movie that had me on the edge of my seat for all of its blissfully crisp running time of 99 minutes (aaaah, the good old days). But don't worry, this isn't a wham-bam! relentless action romp, due to the alien's hunting by sound, this film for the most part is silent, save for the odd whisper, but there is also a wonderful scene in a deserted jazz club where our two heroes get to communicate and connect that is both deeply affecting and moving. 

It's not perfect, there's some continuity issues with having a cat as one of your three main leads and it tends to disappear at times in the plot, and there's a side plot involving medicine that just there to ratchet up the tension but these are very minor quibbles and don't ruin the film. The design and look of the film is also impressive borrowing from War of the Worlds and every disaster movie since 2001. 

Lupita Nyong'o is outstanding as Sam bringing a reality and vulnerability to the role and at no time does the film forget her physical frailty for the sake of the plot. 

I avoided the sequel to the 2018 original, which I enjoyed but had continuity issues with, but this was a totally different kettle of fish. It's a deeply satisfying, tense and emotional ride that will keep you gripped and tense throughout.

8/10 

#47: DESCIPABLE ME 4

 

Directed by Chris Renaud, written by Mike White and Ken Daurio. Voice talents include: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Pierre Coffin, Joey King, Miranda Cosgrove and lots of others. Budget $100 million. Running time 95 minutes. 

Steve Carell, as family man and ex-super criminal Gru, returns for the fourth film in six film 'franchise', which includes two Minions films. This arrives with an increased roster of characters that includes Kristen Kiig, Pierre Coffin, Joey King, Steve Cogan, Steven Colbert and Will Ferrel all fighting for screen time and attention and because of it the film ends up being just a series of funny scenes which don't all jell together.

The first Despicable Me was released in 2010 and proved to be a smash hit for Illumination the French animation company behind it. It was fresh, funny and gorgeous to look at thanks to some great design work from a truly talented bunch of artists and animators. 14 years later and it all just feels a little dull.

The film suffers from way too many characters, but not nearly enough Minions, it's also packed full of some incredibly old references to older films that won't even click with most of the parents of this era's new rugrats, I mean, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Terminator 2 - seriously you're referencing films that are 56 and 34 years old respectively?

The addition of Kristen Wiig was a good one, both thematically and comedically because Gru has always worked best as a man becoming a better person thanks to the pressures of having a family. This time, his three adopted daughters are joined by Gru junior, a baby who obviously hates his father. 

What follows is a convoluted plot involving witness protection sub plot, an adversary for Gru from his childhood who holds a grudge as the main story, and then there's the arc involving four of the Minions who get transformed into superheroes, oh and then there's another storyline where Gru has to help the daughter of his neighbours commit a super-villain caper or risk getting exposed, then there's the story-line with the three main Minions and a vending machine, then there's the one where Gru's wife, Lucy becomes a hairdresser, then there's the arc with Gru and his son. Then there's the one with Gru's three daughters attending a Karate club, Look, there's a lot of story and not much in the way of laughs to go with it. And the trouble is, that what's good about the Despicable Me films gets completely lost in all this guff. I wanted more of the three adorable girls, but all I got was OTT action sequences with a little old lady in a rocket powered wheelchair, which I know sounds like fun, but really isn't. 

Still it all looks very pretty, the production design is delightful and the sound track is fine, Gru and the other main characters are still fun, but I miss him being the main focus of the films. All in all, there's just too much stuff and not enough heart.  

Basically, it's just more of the same and then some. 

6/10  

#46: THE IRON GIANT

Featuring the vocal skills of Eli Marienthal, Jennifer Anniston, Harry Connick Jr, Vin Dissel, Christopher McDonald and John Mahoney. Based on the book by Ted Hughes, from a story by Brad Bird and a script written by Tim McCanlies. Directed by Brad Bird. Budget $70-80 million, running time 86 minutes.

On its original release back in 1999 this utterly glorious animated masterpiece was considered a flop when it bombed at the box office and that's a crime, because this is one of those rare films that's, for all intensive purposes, flawless. Considering it came out in the same year as Tarzan, Toy Story 2 and South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut, it could be argued that it maybe just got lost in the mix, and certainly the lacklustre marketing campaign that limped along promoting it didn't help. The argument is that Warner just didn't know how to sell it. If so, then shame on them.

The story, set in 1957 just after Sputnik has been launched, sees the Iron Giant (VIn Dissel) - an intergalactic weapon of unbelievable power - crash land off the coast of Maine with a nasty head injury and no memory of what or who he is. He's found by young Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal), a nine-year old boy with a passion for rescuing lost animals, who realising how the huge metal robot will be perceived decides to keep him hidden from his mother – Annie (Jennifer Annisto), the fellow inhabitants of Rockwell – the small town he lives in – and Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald), an obsessed government agent sent from Washington to investigate reports of a giant metal man. Hogarth enlists the help of a jazz-loving sculpturist and scrapyard dealer, Dean McCoppin (Harry Connick Jr), to help him.

I last saw this on the big screen in 2014, Jesus, 10 years ago and couldn't wait to see it again on the big screen. Wow, it's lost not an ounce of its extraordinary charm, it's simply fantastic, beautifully animated with a lovely use of CGI and directed with real subtly by Brad Bird who later went on to direct The Incredibles, Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol and Ratatouille.

It's a wonderful film, dramatic, exciting, emotionally engaging and at times downright funny! It's perfect and deserved to be a huge hit when it was first released. Today it is considered to be a Modern Classic and beloved by all who've seen it. I Cannot think of a single thing to fault this on. If you get a chance to catch it at your local Cineworld cinema over the half-term break do! your kids will thank you and you'll leave with a smile on your face and a warm glow in your heart.

Perfect. 10/10 

#45: KINDS OF KINDNESS

Starring: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn, Mamoudou Athie and Hunter Schafer. Written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Budget $15 million. Running time 161 minutes.

After last year's truly fantastic Poor Thing comes this tour-de-force of madness from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, who also directed Lobster, and The Favourite.

Kinds of Kindess  defies classification, but what is it is three short stories featuring all the cast in different roles that are all loosely linked by a character known only as R.M.F. Although who he is only revealed in the very last, mid-credit sequence. In each of the three deeply different films characters act in a way that is most certainly dreamlike and as deeply, deeply strange. 

In the first: The Death of R.M.F Jesse Plemons plays a man whose entire life is dictated and controlled by Willem Dafoe to the smallest detail. When Jesse rebels, his life is thrown into existential despair, especially when he meets a woman, Stone who seems to be under the spell of Dafoe too.

The second, R.M.F is Flying sees Jesse now playing a policeman whose wife, Stone goes missing only to return but not the same leading to an escalating series of encounters that leads to cannibalism. This is without doubt the absolutely funniest sequence, which left me weak from laughing, seriously I had tears streaming down my face.

The final story, R.M.F Eats a Sandwich, finds Stone now playing a cult member looking for a woman with the power to bring the dead back to life. 

This is a true challenge for anyone, if you've seen Poor Things or The Lobster then you know what to expect.

It's bizarre, unsettling, very funny, and deeply creepy, imagine Twin Peaks crossed with Black Mirror and Inside No. 9  and you're still not prepared. Of the three stories the first, The Death of R.M.F is the most satisfying and the last is by far the creepiest. 

Me and the daughter loved it, my wife not so much. It's not as good as Poor Things, but it's a weird and bizarre flick that tickled me greatly.

9/10

#44: HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA – CHAPTER ONE

Written, directed and starring Kevin Costner along for the ride Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Danny Huston, Story by JOn Baird, Kevin Costner and Mark Kasdan, screenplay by Jon Baird and Kevin Costner, music by John Debney. Directed by Kevin Costner. Budget $100 million. Running time 181 minutes. 

Epic in scope, ambition, vista and running time this is a Costner western so expect a lot of staggering beautiful landscapes, contemplations about the meaning of existence, and period detail out of the wazoo. The last epic western to be this realistic was Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate and that one ended up not only destroying his career but it also caused the collapse of a movie studio.

This three hour epic is the first of four epic three hour films to be released over couple of years. 

The multiple characters we are introduced sure are varied, as we watch a select group of characters linked by the notion of a place called Horizon somewhere in the America landscape, which just so happens to be in Apache territory. For a film running to three hours, the plot is rather sparse, to the point of non-existence, as the vast running time is spent establishing the world of the Wild West of 1845 and just how grim it was to live then. We meet a vast slew of characters some of whom won't even make it past half-way mark, from pissed off Apache warriors to the widow and daughter of an Indian massacre, to a cavalry lieutenant, to a long-in-the-tooth cowboy, to a tart with a heart, to a runaway wife, to grizzled sergeant, to a camp commander, to the gang of Indian hunters, to a vengeful gang of men hunting the woman who tried to kill their father, to the inhabitants of a wagon train and everybody inbetween. 

Indeed there's a lot of characters to cram into the 10,860 second running time of this epic, but very little plot and goddam almost no story. This is just character and incident. With a glimpse of more to come in the second chapter, which seems to offer a lot more pow for your buck.  

Costner is clearly fascinated by the concept of the wild west and epics, indeed his first directed movie was the simply superb, and epic, Dances With Wolves way back in 1990, for which he won the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director. This doesn't match the epicness of Dances With Wolves, and it's hard to judge the entire four-film vison on the strength of this first part, but I hope it has more story in the next chapter, otherwise it might not make it to final part, which is scheduled for 2026.

This looks utterly stunning and is best seen on a huge screen, the soundtrack is wonderful and used beautifully to evoke feeling, without feeling sentimental or manipulative. Costner is a good director and his handling of the action is strong and confident. It's great to see something not propelled by CGI, or superheroes or super spies. This is a film that doesn't try and shoehorn in wise-cracking sassy kids, or appease a diversity blind-casting bingo card, and as such it's filled with old fashioned notions and attitudes which might not sit well with a modern audience. It's not an easy watch but it is impressive and leaves you wanting to know what happens next to this vast gaggle of characters, and the film is wise enough to give you a hint with an extended dialogue free sequence of what to expect in chapter 2.

Best summed up as long, slow, languid, and truly epic, this is only lacking in the oomph and story department. Still you can't fault the man for his vision.

7/10
 

    

#43: THE BIKERIDERS

STARRING: Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist, Norman Reedus and Lukas Eberhard. Written and directed by Jeff Nichols. Budget £40 million. Running time 116 minutes.

The rise and fall of a North American biker gang known as The Vandals, run by Tom Hardy's Johnny Davis, as witnessed by Jodie Comer's Kathy Cross, the wife of gang member Benny Cross (Austin Butler). The film presented as a series of interviews given to photography student and biker Danny Lyon (Mike Faist) by Kathy as she documents the creation of the gang, how she meet, fell in love with and married (all in the space of five weeks) with Benny 'The Kid' Cross, and their lives together across key moments of the 'club's life.

Following the creation of the club and its subsequent rise and demise the film feels like a love letter to the America of the 1950s and the death of the American dream as the returning Vietnam Vets change the shape of the biker gang with their heightened violence and the dreams of the 50s get replaced by the reality of the 1960s and 70s. 

The trailer implies this film is about the internal struggles of the gang and a war between old leader Tom Hardy and new ruler Austin Butler and it could not be further from the truth.

Based as it is on a true story this film is actually very touching, sad, and genuinely funny, although not in a comedy sense, but in the way that real life can be funny and sad at the same time. It's about the various members of the gang and key moments in it and Kathy's life. It captures the spirit of the times very well and the relationships between the various gang members and Kathy are well explored. 

It's perhaps a shame that we learn very little of The Kid, or Johnny Davis but the evocation of the era is a delight and the film, which feels somewhat old fashioned is deeply satisfying and rewarding. 

The film ends with a scene of sudden violence, which is beautifully telegraphed and arrives with both great sadness but also with a sense of hope and there's an unspoken look of pure love between Kathy and Ben that we see at the end which is deeply uplifting and makes us believe that the future might just work out. 

All three leads, Comer, Butler and Hardy give superb performances, and Comer who carries the film as its narrator is utterly beguiling and proves herself yet again to be an exceptional actor. And that's taking nothing away from Hardy or Butler.

A great film and one I believe will reward future watches.

8/10