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Reviews
The Shape of Water (2017)
Wet.
First, the good news: this movie DOES look gorgeous (as advertised), and Sally Hawkins does some real wonders with her luminous treatment of a non-speaking role that in itself is a bit flat, hence the 4 stars.
But there's no more to it than that.
Billed as a sort of modern 'fairy tale' (which usually flags up something pretty inane), this story contents itself with stacking a shedload of clichés on top of each other in a wobbling game of cinema Jenga. We have stereotypical marginalised loners desperate for a hand-hold on their world(s), stereotypical threatening 'government men' breathing down everyone's necks, and a heroically un-original AND stereotypical Top Secret alien studying facility in which our heroine works as a very 'umble cleaner.
WHADDYA KNOW? She strikes up a merry little acquaintance and knocks boots with an abused amphibian extra-terrestrial detained therein -he(?) is another 'outsider', so it MUST be a great match, right? AAUUGH!
Sadly, the only way this trite and soggy mess could have been saved was with the addition of a few belting musical numbers -that COULD have made for something.
Ad Astra (2019)
"DADDY! MY DADDY!"
Well, there IS a decent story in here somewhere, but it is buried under several thousand tons of space junk.
McBride Jr's (Pitt) gruelling quest to find his long-lost Papa would have been MUCH better served by a less fiddly Earth-bound narrative. The significant moment of realisation that McBride Sr (Jones) is not the heroic explorer popular history has cast him as is passed by at warp speed, with but a brief choke from Pitt. The important understanding that McBride Jr finds (he has spent much of his life trying to be the man his father was supposed to be, when he should have been the man Dad was NOT) is briefly dispatched almost at the final credits. The emergent issue (the difficulty and pain of letting go), which is REALLY what the whole story seems to be about, is fatally condensed into a few seconds of cinematic neutron star material during a brief father-and-son space walk in orbit around Neptune.
The rest is all comic-book sci-fi tropes: besting stroppy pirates in a buggy-battle on the Moon (yes, really!), plucky Roy Starr -sorry, McBride, taking manual control of a stricken spaceship and safely landing it on Mars, that sort of thing, and a good deal of not very science-based uhm...science. Cosmic ray bursts from a wee bit of anti-matter? I dunno, you tell me -anyway, it all has a very 'OK; we're movie makers not physicists here, so don't look too closely at this bit...' which is nowhere near good enough nowadays.
A few (dwarf) stars because it looks OK, demands only your attendance, and sort of keeps you following, but I can't honestly recommend it.
The Birthday Party (1968)
Many Happy Returns!
Friedkin does an excellent job of turning Harold Pinter's crunchy little Comedy of Menace into a suitably dank, dreary-looking movie full of dark corners, both visual and characteristic. Cast is spot-on, but Sydney Tafler's Goldberg is outstanding; alternately affable and deeply threatening with sublime ease. Even better is Dandy Nicholls as Meg, a truly pitch-perfect performance in one of Pinter's few sympathetic (and substantial) female roles.
This reading does invite comparison with the 1987 TV production, in which Pinter himself plays Goldberg and Joan Plowright the daffy Meg. For my money, this movie is the winner by a length. Highly recommended.
UFO (2018)
Not-Even-Close Encounter
A sparse, effective romp that pares down the 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' storyline to fit the Twitter Generation. Neatly directed and performed; Alex Sharp is fine as the guy who is unlikely to have a Close Encounter of ANY Kind and veteran Gillian Anderson wears her college Maths supremo trappings lightly, warbling convincingly about Eigenvalues and -vectors as though she had them for breakfast every day. Indeed, this movie is more to do with the Wunnerful World of Math than a rather anticlimactic 'Independence Day'. Fits its running time well and passes a pleasant hour and a half, because it is well made, beautifully photographed and looks great. Just don't Google 'Fine Structure Constant' if you value your sleep...
Snowpiercer (2013)
'Brazil' on a train
That's about it, unless you read it as a valid critique of U.K.rail privatisation. Lacks the earlier movie's narrative head of steam and any dramatic traction. The whole enterprise is lazily 'dystopia-generic' for the 2010s, and comes off the rails WAY before its titular loco. If Ed Harris's character had worn a Casey Jones hat, it would have been a huge improvement -that's how rough the ride is.
Annihilation (2018)
Alex Garland In The Zone!
(*Note*: Viewed on DVD -possibly edited for media release?- on a relatively small screen; would be better served in theatres due to many fine visual details.)
What do you get if you blend 'Solaris' (1972 & 2002), 'Stalker' (1979), 'Southern Comfort' (1981), a dash of 'Tomb Raider III' video game (1998) and a hefty slug of HP Lovecraft's 'The Colour Out of Space' (1927)? Apparently, this. But rather than a mish-mash of ingredients and loose ends, this is actually very good. Alex Garland directs at a smooth, measured pace that suits the story well, it is beautifully filmed, does not demand a lot from the viewer, and is worth a good look.
There is no need to re-hash the simple plot here. There are some gruesome bits, some effective shocks, and a somewhat duff 'wave of the hand' climax, and performances are (as military teams in survival movies are prone to say) 'by the numbers'. Sciencey Stuff is kept to a minimum; a nod to Hox Genes is about all there is, and all that is needed in this context.
Please drive through if you're looking for 2 hours of heavily armed Space Marines zapping bugs, a genre-defining (or -redefining) epiphany, or have difficulty spelling your name. But if a persuasive slice of slow-burning Survival (or Annihilation?) Horror appeals to you as a late night treat, grab a couch and a cat, sit back and enjoy.
The Black Hole (1979)
Abyss-mal.
On its own merits, quite possibly the worst film I have ever seen. Cardboard sets and performances -except possibly by Maximillian Schell, who creates an efficient if hackneyed villain; everyone else looks bored to death long before the threat of spaghettification within the titular singularity becomes a thing. Production values are terrible (unforgivable in the wake of 'Star Wars', 'Close Encounters Of The Third Kind' and 'Alien', so much more so from a zillion-dollar outfit like Disney). It is impossible to ascertain what kind of audience this drivel is aimed at: uncritical youngsters may appreciate the two annoyingly over-Disneyfied droids, one of which is meant to be telepathic. Yes. ("Vincent, search 'electronic component recycling near me'...") They may also accept the appallingly bad 'action' shenannigans and pantomime robots aboard the 'Cygnus'. But then, out of nowhere, we have gratuitous, implied limb amputation and the awkward grafting on of a couple of dark(ish) pseudo-philosophical threads. The ending, truly head-slappingly anti-climactic, should be used by film schools everywhere as a definitive How-Not-To.
OK, I gave it a single (neutron?) star -it is SO hideous that, like some celluloid Gorgon, I have to keep looking at it whenever it turns up on TV. Pandering to my inner ghoul, maybe...
Barbarella (1968)
Garbarellage
Even in the 1960s, there is no excuse -even the (then) decorative Fonda presence cannot redeem this tacky, tawdry, unfunny splat of a movie. Avoid at all costs.
I'm Not There (2007)
He Isn't...!
...and yet, somehow, the highly regarded and cunningly poetic Nobel winner Mr Zimmerman is an even more forceful presence in this movie than on a number of his recordings. There: I said it. I'm not a massive fan of The Dylan Legend, although I do enjoy a lot of his very masterly work. But I do adore movies; they are a medium that still admits this type of free-range expression as well as the next additive-fuelled slice of the 'Transformers' franchise. Everyone here does a magnificent job, the casting of Marcus Carl Franklin and Cate Blanchett is particularly inspired. I can't guarantee you'll like it, but I DO urge you to see it. I'm not sure I like it, but I'm pleased as heck that I watched it!
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Do Androids Dream Of Decent Scripts?
Possibly one of the five WORST movies ever. This unholy mesalliance of Pinocchio and Blade Runner suffers lazy, dismal scripting that relies solely on emotional manipulation. The production design can be politely described as 'generic', the characters (possibly excepting Jude Law's Slightly Good Samaritan) hewn from styrofoam, and there is a total lack of purpose to the whole enterprise save a gruelling lecture on whether machines can experience 'real' emotions, or hope to be 'real' people. Urgh. Oh yes: the pay-off for Haley Joel Osment's tiresome cyber-brat at the end makes you want to beat your head against the nearest wall. To quote another, better-accredited man-made man, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe..." Well, ya won't believe THIS. Also my first 0/10 review -I'm feeling generous.
The Duke of Burgundy (2014)
Butterflies, Bicycles And BDSM -Oh My!
Up front: I would be lying outright if I claimed to understand this movie entirely. Outwardly, it is an adroit (if somewhat clinical) dissection of the quirky relationship between a lepidopterist and her apparently submissive lover. However there are, I am quite sure, many nuances and sub-references that managed to elude me. If the aim of the director was to pin the affair onto a sort of mounting board for examination without killing it stone dead in the process, it was at least partially successful. The narrative neatly begs the question: who is actually the Dominant party in a Dominance/Submission context? The inevitable ritualisation of such a partnership comes under efficient scrutiny, as do the erotic mechanics -but thankfully, those seeking abundant titillation (or, indeed, much of a story) would do well to look elsewhere.
Everything plays out over a season in a rather eccentric all-female community of bicycling scholars of butterfly, moth and insect matters. Somehow, this seems perfectly reasonable and not remotely surreal within the ambit of the movie.
I believe this to be a work of great brilliance, if devoid of much human warmth. It is a tribute to the direction that I didn't miss that warmth, and the whole enterprise succeeds effortlessly. Certain scenes are quite sublime (the visit of the 'Carpenter', for example); the acting first-class, and the vision disciplined -I use that term advisedly! Please see it for yourself; at least you will not find anything else very like it.