Film Reviews by LC

Clearly aimed at the literate arthouse crowd, this is a fascinating mix of high art and the banal. Every few minutes there is a flash of great photography, camera movement, or non-linear editing that keep this feeling fresh, experimental and bold. At the same time, the narrative (such as it is) is built around a series of interminable navel-gazing conversations between the main characters, that frequently circle around aimlessly for tens of minutes without actually progressing anywhere. The result is a film which is equal parts fascinating and boring. I think this may be my first Godard film - are they all like this?

Elements of this film work to an extent, or are at least pleasing to look at, with Brad Pitt's story strand as a silent movie star overtaken by the talkies probably coming out the best. However, taken as a whole, this is an overlong, over-ambitious mess of a film. The situations and characters feel so unnaturalistic and over-the-top that it's hard to feel any emotional connection, the tone is all over the place (the extended sequence with Tobey Maguire in particular feels like it's from a different film altogether), and the bloated narrative takes far too long to get anywhere. There are some interesting bits here worth watching, but compared to the same filmmaker's tightly controlled masterpiece 'Whiplash' this feels like a case of an artist given way too much money and freedom, and stumbling badly.

The cast alone make this an interesting watch for David Lynch fans, and the moody guitar soundtrack only adds to the 'Wild at Heart' feel. Lara Flynn Boyle is predictably wooden, but Cage and Hopper are both entertaining, and the thriller plot starts off with a decent enough hook. Unfortunately the film slightly loses its way in the final third, as the requisite plot twists push it into increasingly ridiculous and corny situations. Ultimately a mediocre thriller, but there's enough going on here to make it reasonably entertaining viewing.

Of the two films, I found 'Is Your Honeymoon' Really Necessary' to be terribly predictable and unfunny. It's one of those formulaic 'quick, my wife's coming - hide in the other room' bedroom farces, that stretches out a single supposedly mildly awkward situation out for its entire running time. Even the presence of Sid James can't stop this from becoming a total slog to get through.

Dors has a lesser role in 'My Wife's Lodger', but it's actually a much better film. The script is rough around the edges, and it's very hit and miss in its humour, but it does at least try to tell a reasonably engaging story, and there is some emotional heart buried in the whacky narrative.

In terms of plot, this is a modern spin on fairly familiar classic gothic horror - the isolated house and the secrets of it's forbidden room, a brooding matriach, the haunting presence of a dead woman whose aura is so inescapable she threatens to overwhelm the heroine (strong shades of Daphne Du Maurier's 'Rebecca' here, among others). What elevates the film over its clearly low budget is that it's very artfully shot and edited, and the combination of visuals and music turn what could easily have been a bog-standard horror flick into something quite trippy and hypnotic. Recommended for those who appreciate more thoughtful and arty horror films.

The opening scenes showing a girl living with her genetically-engineered superpig in South Korea are charming, but unforunately once the English-speaking cast turn up, everything turns into a zany comedy, with exagerrated performances dialed up to the max. With such broad comedy, it makes it difficult to feel any emotional investment in the film, no matter how hard it tries to tug on the heart-strings in the final act. Despite the 15 certificate (mostly for some swearing, as far as I can tell), this ultimately has the feel of a children's film - it's pleasant enough, in a generic Disney/Pixar way, but it lacks any real bite.

Nicholas Cage playing an exagerrated version of himself is a fun conceit, and his perfermance keeps this watchable throughout. The idea does start to wear thin after a while though, and the more the bog-standard 'CIA vs drug lord' plot takes centre stage, the less interesting it gets. Still worth a watch however, not least for Cage's brief-but-hilarious undercover role as he dons a latex disguise, and some incredible moments where he is de-aged to his totally unhinged 1990 'Wild at Heart' era persona (this latter one is so good, it almost makes you wish he could have performed the whole movie in this mode). Ultimately this is a fun ride - I just wish the central idea had been paired with a more interesting plot.

With it's high concept body horror, this feels very much like a classic David Cronenberg film, jacked up with the addition of some trippy '2001: A Space Odyssey' style visuals. Frustratingly, it's almost brilliant, although the film drifts very close to campy 'Jekyll and Hyde' nonsense when the hero is running around in his fully altered state, and the climax is extremely underwhleming. Despite this, the film hits more often than it misses, it consistently looks great (especially on blu ray) and there is something audaciously bizarre in it's mix of highbrow concept and goofy lowbrow genre thrills.

It's hard to tell if this erotic thriller is a deliberate tongue-in-cheek parody, or just falls into 'so bad it's good' territory. The dialogue and stilted performances give this the feel of a soft-core porn film, whilst the plot ends up piling so many twists and double-crosses on top of each other that it rapidly becomes ludicrous. And yet, it's so bonkers I just had to watch to the end. Impossible to take seriously, but it has a certain campy charm.

This offbeat romance has little in the way of a contentional plot, feeling more like a free-wheeling series of incidents and encounters. Coupled with its relatively long running time, this may not exactly be gripping viewing, but the way it pleasantly ambles along has a lot of charm, and there are a host of bizarre and humourous characters to encounter along the way. The pimple-spotted and gawky leads are a long-way from the conventional idea of Hollywood glamour, as is their frequently akward and jarring romance. This, coupled with the film's refusal to settle into any obvious and standard style of narrative, ultimately won me over as a refreshingly different take.

An enjoyably dark thriller, this is an evocative portrayal of carny folk and a highly troubled lead. It's certainly not perfect, and it does tend to lean into the pulpier aspect of the genre, particularly when it comes to Cate Blanchett's femme fatale (whose motivation I never could quite grasp) and the ending, which is both an obviously contrived moral comeuppance, yet still nicely satisfying. The performances are great all round, and the whole thing is gorgeous to look at. Those with short attention spans may be offput by the measured pacing, but if you like movies like 'Chinatown' I'd highly recommend this.

I found the first half of this film pretty annoying, due to the relentless comedy routines. It's impossible for any scene to have any emotional weight, as not as single exchange of dialogue can go by without being undercut by 'hilarious' comedy zingers, and oh-so-whacky Marvel humour - all so obviously telegraphed that none of it is actually funny. Thankfully the relentless mugging settles down in the second half, and we actually get a reasonably involving narrative. As a fan of the original Sam Raimi trilogy it's great to see so many elements back, and the interaction between the various Spider-Men is nicely done. Unfortunately there are so many bad guys to cram in (5 of them in total), that whilst they each get some nice moments, it's tough to do any of them full justice, with even Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin feeling slightly short-changed by the end. Ultimately, it's a nice love-letter to the past, and fun to revisit these characters, but I'm not sure I'll ever want to watch it again.

The two 'Kingsmen' films were great fun, but fairly obviously James Bond parodies. Shifting the action here to the First World War era gives this film a much more distinctive feel, and breathed new life into the franchise. Some outrageously over-the-top set pieces and extremely impressive direction, the film clearly doesn't take itself seriously, but the storyline is involving enough to be engaging, and there's a nice unexpected twist midway through which completely shifts the narrative off of it's expected course. All in all, just great fun entertainment - probably the closest in feel I can think of is 'Indiana Jones on crack'. The film also stands alone as a prequel, so requires no knowledge of the previous two 'Kingsmen' films to enjoy.

This film isn't entirely without merit - the ambitious cosmic storyline is fairly interesting, and there are some epic visuals at times. The major flaw is that the characters are so dull it's hard to get that invested. Even the moments of irreverant humorous dialogue that are sprinkled throughout feel forced and fall completely flat: half the time this feels like it wants to be a serious, weighty movie, the other half it wants to be a 'Guardians of the Galaxy' style romp - in the end it falls between two stools and ends up being neither. Ultimately, this is just another in the endless converyor-belt run of Marvel movies - just about worth watching to see what elements will be picked up and developed in further films, but on it;s own it's not a particularly satisfying experience.

This is not a review of the film itself, but a head's up that the only DVD version currently (2022) available here is shockingly bad quality - I could only make it through 20 minutes of grainy footage and muffled audio before giving up and watching a far better quality scan on youtube. A shame - hopefully a new updated restored version gets released at some point, as this is borderline unwatchable.