'Wendy and Lucy'
Or...Michelle Williams looks for her mutt. A slowish mover, but not boring one, by independent film maker Kelly Reichardt, sees a young woman, Wendy, drift into a one horse Oregon town on her way to Alaska. Her car breaks down and she is stranded, because she doesn't have the money to get it fixed. Wendy is travelling with her dog Lucy (the director's own dog), but they get separated and Wendy has to look for her, before she can move on.
Reichardt's story dumps us into Wendy's life without telling us much about her. We never find out why she's on her way to Alaska, or what she hopes to do when she gets there, besides find work. She's obviously not had the best of times, though, and while not exactly a maudlin character, she does come across as a bit downbeat. This is made all the worse when her dog, Lucy, parts company with her as the dog appears to be her only real companion in life.
Williams puts in a very convincing shift here as Wendy and as an actress I never seemed to have much regard for, as I still think of her as part of the 'Dawson's Creek' alumni, she was pleasantly surprising. There's a danger that, as a viewer, one can feel a little cold toward the main character because we are dropped into a slice of life without knowing anything about her and not finding out much by the end of the film, but Williams manages to make Wendy a genuine person and one that we can sympathise with.
Reichardt's direction is fine, if it seems a little casual and aloof. But the simple story doesn't require much flare and it keeps the interest over its 80 minute run time.
9/10
'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2'
Tobe Hooper's sequel to the excellent 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' misses all of the beats that made the 1974 film so great. Why Hooper decided to play the sequel almost exclusively for laughs, when the original was a pure horror movie, is quite the mystery and it never once sits comfortably. It can be said that the Sawyer family possessed some darkly humorous attributes in the first film and Hooper himself has always said that he wanted some laughs in there, but it never went into overtly camp territory like it does here. Thusly, the macabre fascination of Leatherface's clan is completely diluted and they never capture the absurd horror that they embodied in the 70's.
The protagonists this time out are Vanita "Stretch" Brock (Caroline Williams), a late night Texan radio DJ and Boude "Lefty" Enright (Dennis Hopper), a Texas Ranger who is investigating the Sawyer family. They eventually do battle with Leatherface and his kin who are holed up in an abandoned theme park, where they have built an elaborate underground hideaway.
While the first half of 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2' feels relatively different, the second half repeats much of the first film, even down to letting grandpa (who is surprisingly still alive) try and kill the heroine by belting her with a hammer, despite him making a mess of it in 1974. Caroline Williams, like Marilyn Burns, spends much of the time screaming her head off too. But, unlike her predecessor, her character "Stretch" eventually fights back.
While the original film was almost completely bloodless, the sequel up's the gore content thanks to the involvement of the great make up effects artist Tom Savini. But, unfortunately, it's just not enough to offset the poor story and the lacklustre atmosphere that is ruined by the over all comedic tone. But I suppose that Hooper figured that he'd already made one of the greatest horror films of all time, so he set out to do something different with its sequel. But in the end the result was a very bad misfire.
'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2' wasn't very well received at the time of its release in 1987 and was outright rejected by some fans of the original, because of its comedic value. But, it has since gone on to develop a cult following of its own, like most of these movies do. It will have a certain appeal for people who like black comedies, I suppose. But if someone is a fan of the original film, they won't find the same kind of entertainment in its sequel.
3/10
'Rambo Last Blood'
I'm tempted just to say that it's mostly rubbish and leave it at that, but it continues to be a source of wonder at just how much life can be dragged out of John Rambo, when his story ended in 1982 on perfectly agreeable terms. But, it's amazing that for 34 years these rubbish movies have been churned out when the quality plummeted off a cliff in 1985 and exploded at the bottom.
This time John Rambo is ensconced on an Arizona farm, where he farts about with horses and rescues people that get into trouble from floods. He works the farm with a woman called Maria and her granddaughter Gabriela, who finds out the whereabouts of her estranged father and she goes off to Mexico to confront him about her abandonment. Obviously this doesn't go well, and subsequent events lead poor Gabriela in sex slavery as a cartel gets hold of her, and bish, bash, bosh, poor old Rambo gets dragged into another little war were he has to become a one man army again.
Anyone familiar with Rambo movies will instantly know what to expect here as there is absolutely nothing new, except perhaps the lack of an exotic setting. Last Blood therefore returns to an American setting like 'First Blood', but that's where its kinship with that film ends. Whereas 'First Blood' was a well made and hugely enjoyable story, 'Rambo Last Blood' is a poorly made farce that makes the other sequels in the series look like masterpieces. The acting is spotty at best, with the incredibly inane dialogue doing the characters no favours and the production looks terribly cheap in many places.
There is some entertainment to be had in the movies's final setting, in which Rambo dispatches the bad guys in a series of tunnels he has constructed under his farm and there is a delightful amount of silly carnage as the cartel's men get shot, chopped and blown to pieces when Rambo channels his inner Kevin McCallister, utilising traps he's made and weapons that he has laying around. But the film outside of this dubious enjoyment is very poorly handled indeed.
Hopefully, this is the last we ever see of John Rambo, which is something that I said after 'Rambo III' in 1988, but this character keeps getting dusted off and dragged through the mud on an all too regular basis, so I wouldn't be surprised at all to see another Rambo movie made before Stallone shuffles off his mortal coil.
2/10
'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'
Quentin Tarantino is, without doubt, an accomplished film maker who has a definite style that he stamps upon his work. This style is readily evident in his more recent output than it was in the likes of 'Reservoir Dogs', or 'Jackie Brown' and while quirkily distinctive, it can be quite jarring. Films like 'Inglourious basterds' can throw out history or narrative sense and still be entertaining (although I disliked it immensely). But ultimately they feel worthless. Likewise, something like 'The Hateful Eight', which has a great setup and a brilliant first half, gets ruined by a terrible second half where Tarantino just abandons sense in favour of the ridiculous.
His latest, a story set in the Hollywood hills in 1969, exhibits these quirky traits too, as Tarantino throws the historical record on the fire and constructs his own alternative history, this time concerning the infamous Manson Family's viscous attack on Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and several others, which is used as a backdrop for a tale about Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), a TV cowboy who's in the midst of a career crisis and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), Dalton's stunt double and driver. Dalton lives next door to Tate and Polanski, which has significance to the story in the final act.
'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' doesn't really have all that much to say about anything in particular and despite being well acted and directed, its frivolousness results in a very underwhelming conclusion. It's a Quentin Tarantino film, through an through, and will be greeted as such by fans of his work. But, for many others in the audience, it could lead to some head scratching and wondering what it was all supposed to be about.
5/10
'Joker'
Like 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood', Todd Philips's 'Joker' leaves the viewer confused as to why it even exists. But unlike Tarantino's film, which operates in its own singular revisionist universe, 'Joker' is (ostensibly at least) part of a larger universe because it belongs to the Batman story, which makes its destruction of the Batman timeline bizarre and perplexing.
'Joker' is an origin story about Batman's greatest adversary, The Joker, who has been part of the Dark Knight's story since issue No1 of the comic in 1940 and has been front and centre in Batman's fight against crime in the city of Gotham. But the film's main problem is that this Joker cannot possibly be the same Joker that Batman has fought for nearly 80 years, as he meets a ten year old Bruce Wayne half way through the movie, which would make the Joker an OAP by the time Bruce comes of age and embarks upon his crime fighting career. This scene, which feels incredibly ill judged (as are all of the connections with the Wayne family), completely obliterates not just the familiar Batman timeline, but also anything a possible sequel (or sequels) may have to offer should Batman make an appearance at a later date.
This central problem aside, the film itself is a decent attempt to tell a story of a psychopath (played excellently by Joaquin Phoenix) who experiences his final turn and falls into an unrecoverable spin. But, it's nothing we haven't seen before and it's not as well handled here as it has been in other films. The obvious examples being 'Taxi Driver' and 'The King of Comedy', which have been discussed in conjunction with this film since its first appearance.
'Joker' is a depressing look at Arthur Fleck, a 40 something who still lives with his mother in a manky 1970/80's New York (Gotham) apartment which she never appears to leave. She is cared for by Arthur, who also has to make money by getting gigs as a clown in a two bit agency that has him doing work for kids in a hospital one day and holding a sign for a closing down sale the next. His life is something that nobody in their real minds would ever envy and while the viewer can feel a pity for Arthur, he remains quite an unsympathetic character. Over the course of two hours, certain events conspire in Arthur's life that eventually lead to him realising his "true" self and he eventually becomes the titular character.
Phoenix, it has to be said, is very good in the role, although Heath Ledger remains the benchmark. But unlike Ledger's madman, the Joker of this film gets a backstory that unfolds on the screen, even if much of it is obviously unreliable. His mother is competently played by Francis Conroy (of 'American Horror Story' fame), and she does well as a character who possess her own psychological issues and who is clearly an anchor, in the worst possible way, for her son. The secondary characters are all handled satisfactorily too, even if Robert De Niro looks terribly out of place.
It's directed fine by Todd Philips, but there isn't really much to write home about in that department. It's sufficient, while never being outstanding, and it commendably manages to keep its tone throughout. Whether he returns for the inevitable sequel is unclear, and at a billion in box office returns you can bet that there'll be a sequel.
6/10
|
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. [click for more]
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by MinionZombie
). It's also fun to watch it as someone who's fascinated by that particular stretch of 42nd Street between 7th and 8th avenues (as shown in the movie). At the time the street was mostly shuttered with almost all of the theatres closed, but they brought it back to scuzzy life for the movie (e.g. the theatre that the kid visits is the Empire, which was later moved east down the block and is now the lobby of the AMC 25 cinema). Crackin' soundtrack, too, both the needle drops and the score.
Bookmarks