Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

This is a curiously unengaging and unsatisfying bank heist thriller.  Superficially it has all the right ingredients: a terrific cast, an intriguing plot, a quality director (Spike Lee), good dialogue. But yet...  As usual Roger Ebert gets to the heart of the problem: " Here is a thriller that's curiously reluctant to get to the payoff, and when it does, we see why: we can't accept the motive and method of the bank robbery, we can't believe in one character and can't understand another." Yes, about halfway into the film I realised that my attention was beginning to wander, due to the lack of urgency.  Part of this is down to the fact that we realise quite early that the hostages aren't in any real danger.  Given the lack of dramatic tension my attention focused on what the robbers up to, and how  they are going to escape.  We soon learn the answer to the first mystery: they are targeting one of the safe deposit boxes.  It holds some incriminating evide...

This is the middle of three action films that Nicolas Cage starred in over a two-year period (1996-97), the others being 'The Rock' and 'Face/Off'.  All three are OK, but I found this one to be the most fun, for most of the running time at least. I was pleasantly surprised to find that for a film of this type the dialogue is surprisingly witty, with John Malkovich in particular enjoying himself as Cyrus 'The Virus'.  It moves along at a good pace, and has a great supporting cast, featuring among others Steve Buscemi and Ving Rhames.  Unusually we also get to see John Cusack in an action film, as a US Marshal who has to try to work out what Cyrus's plan is.  The film starts to become less fun for me towards the end when Cusack gets directly involved in the action, concluding with  an absurd crash landing of a plane on the Las Vegas strip, when we are supposed to believe there are no civilian casualties. As for Nicolas Cage, he makes even less attempt than usu...

This 2019 film written and directed by Kitty Green may be the first drama inspired by the #MeToo movement. It covers one day in the work experience of a junior female assistant, Jane, at a film production company.  On the surface not much is happening, but  there is a lot of small and subtle stuff  going on that accumulates to create a claustrophobic and unsettling atmosphere. Playing Jane is Julia Garner (Ruth from the Netflix series 'Ozark') who is superbly able to convey someone who resembles a coiled up spring - intent on doing her job, and trying to ignore the culture in the office, and the small slights she suffers.  The lack of a s core, further adds to the oppressive atmosphere. As the film unfolds it slowly becomes clear that the head of the company, her boss, is sexually exploiting young women.  The fact that we never see him makes this somehow even more disturbing.  It also emphasises the gap in status between him and his staff.   The m...

Does the world need another film about con artists?  In the case of this film probably not, although it passes the time away pleasantly enough.   The way the story is told, in distinct episodes going back in time, each focussing on a different main character, is diverting and intriguing but ultimately a bit of a con itself in that it enables the screenwriter to paper over some of the implausibilities in the plot.  It features a good cast, headed by Julianne Moore, and is visually stylish.  The challenge for this type of film is to come up with a conclusion that the audience doesn't see coming.  This film does a decent enough job I guess: it's obvious that the two con artists are going to have the table turned on them eventually by their victims, but there was some pleasure for me in seeing how this was achieved. RATING : x Curb Your Enthusiasm 

Martin Scorsese's previous film 'The Irishman' was both very long and quite dull.   So for a while I resisted seeing this 206-minute epic, especially since I found the trailer rather offputting.  Eventually though the favourable critical response overcame my objections, and I am glad to be able to report that this is a pretty impressive effort from the veteran director (I'm sure that's a relief to him.) It's an adaptation of the non-fiction book of the same title which recounts how in 1920s Oklahoma there were a series of murders of Osage Native Americans after oil was discovered on their tribal land. The main villain of the piece is a local rancher and bigwig, King Hale, here played by Robert De Niro.  We sense straight away that he might be a bad 'un despite his outwardly benevolent attitude to the Osage, and that he might use his rather malleable and somewhat simpleminded nephew Ernest (played by Leonardo Dicaprio) to further his schemes. One of these sch...

I read David Mitchell's source novel quite a while ago and enjoyed it immensely. The most striking thing about the novel is its structure of six interconnected and nested stories, spanning a large time span, from the nineteenth century to the distant future. Because of the structure it would seem to be one of those novels that is unfilmable. This didn't stop Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis from making this 172-minute masterpiece or folly, depending on your point of view.  They decided to move away from the Russian doll structure of the novel and instead try to tell the six stories in parallel, jumping frequently from one story to another, creating a kind of mosaic. On paper this sounds nuts, but (maybe because I had read the novel so had some familiarity with the stories) I found myself thinking after about ten minutes that this is fine, what's the problem? To emphasise the interconnectedness of the stories (or maybe to cut production costs), the six actors who play the six m...

Matt Whitlock (Denzel Washington), a police chief in a small town in the Florida Keys, finds himself in a predicament.  A woman he was having an affair with and her husband die in a suspicious fire. There's also some business to do with money and insurance policies that involve Matt.  He knows that the more evidence is uncovered the more guilty he will look.   So he is in a race against time to uncover who has set him up, and why, before he is inevitably arrested.   In other words, this plot owes a big debt to the 1946 novel 'The Big Clock'.   Because of the Florida setting, and that Matt's troubles stem from his steamy affair, this film reminded me of 'Body Heat', itself a reworking of the Billy Wilder film noir 'Double Indemnity'. Whilst this film is nowhere near as good as either of those two classics, it does make for  an entertaining viewing, and I enjoyed it more than those critics who found it too contrived or overly predictable. ...

Given this film's mixed reviews, I wasn't expecting much; in fact the main reason for me watching it was just to see what changes had been made to the 1974 original. So I was pleasantly surprised to be entertained by it, even if in the final analysis I prefer the original, and I agree with those critics who thought it a pointless remake. But given that it was remade let's look at what it has to offer. Well for starters it has Denzel Washington as Garber convincing us that he is a mere civil servant working for the New York transit system (albeit one with a sparkly ear stud).  I liked the fact that in this version Garber is a flawed protagonist who has been demoted because he has been accused of taking a bribe.  One of the best scenes here is when the lead baddie Dennis Ford (played by John Travolta) threatens to kill one of the hostages unless Garber confesses to taking the bribe. I also enjoyed the late, great James Gandolfini playing the city mayor, and John Turturro pl...

This film, the latest collaboration by director Yorgos Lanthimos and screenwriter Tony McNamara , who worked together on 'The Favourite', is a weird and wonderful thing which defies description. I t's a fantasy owing a little to 'Frankenstein' and maybe also to 'Pygmalion' in that it s starting point is the creation of a woman Bella (played memorably by Emma Stone) who to begin with has the brain of a child and therefore has to be taught the ways of polite society.  Willem Dafoe is well cast as her creator and all-round mad scientist. Some of the grotesque and absurd elements of the fantasy world presented here reminded me of Tim Burton's work, whilst its hermetic nature brought to mind Wes Anderson. Since I'm not a great fan of either of those directors, or of the fantasy genre, I was surprised to find myself enjoying this.  It certainly helps that there's a lot of humour in the screenplay, stemming in part from Bella's direct and unfiltered...

This could be considered the third of Scorsese's 'Mafia trilogy', after 'Mean Streets' and 'Goodfellas', and is often compared unfavourably to the latter, being viewed as an inferior retread of the same thematic material.  This is fair enough up to a point, but this is a quality film if viewed as a standalone piece of work. The comparison with 'Goodfellas' is inevitable given their similarities.  Both feature De Niro and Pesci, the latter in particular playing the same dangerously unstable character, ending in much the same fate.  Again there is a voiceover commentary, as we look back at how De Niro's period in charge of a Las Vegas casino waxes and wanes. I couldn't get that interested in the fortunes of said casino and certainly felt a sense of d éjà  vu as we run through the mechanics of how the mob makes money out of the casino. Fortunately a couple of things elevate the film. Firstly, there is, as to be expected, the brilliant editing wh...

I love a film that immerses the viewer in an unfamiliar world, in this case that of elite orchestral conductors. In the lengthy opening scene, a live interview in front of an admiring audience, it is established that  Lydia Tár is a  very successful conductor, now with the Berlin Philharmonic.  It also hints at her arrogant uncompromising nature which (spoiler alert) will contribute to her ultimate fall from grace. After that we don't get a lot of handholding as we follow Lydia in Berlin, juggling the demands of her professional position and of her personal life, married to Sharon  who also happens to be a senior member of the orchestra. Although at first all  seems well, even in the early scenes there is an underlying tension, perhaps because there is a former pupil of Lydia's, Krista, who is trying to get in touch with her.  We gradually learn that Krista got on the bad side of Lydia, which has led to Krista's once-promising career stalling.  Things ...

I had low expectations of this film, directed as it is by Tony Scott (who I don't much rate) and scoring a modest 56% on Rotten Tomatoes. In fact I enjoyed it a lot.  Admittedly the story hinges on a ludicrous time-travel device which may be a problem for some viewers and critics, but I can always suspend disbelief if the film is strong enough.  Here the direction and writing is good enough to allow me to do that. But the key ingredient is Denzel Washington as an ATF agent, Doug, investigating a bomb that has killed over 500 people on a car ferry.  He becomes obsessed with a woman, Claire, killed by the terrorist before the bomb is set off, to the point where he risks his life going back in time (!) to save her (and, let's not forget, all the people who died on the ferry, even though that does seem incidental to Doug’s motivation).  Scott has the good sense not to derail the story with too many action sequences, or the flashy visuals we associate with him - in fact I...

This is the directorial debut of Dan Levy, co-creator and co-star of the hit series 'Schitt's Creek'.  He also wrote the screenplay and plays the lead role, so we know who to blame if we don't like it. The Wikipedia outline of the plot runs to only two short paragraphs, which is an indication that the story here is rather slight. Levy plays Marc, whose husband is killed in a car accident at the start of the film.  The rest of the 100 minutes running time explores his ensuing grief, and his friendship with Sophie and Thomas who do their best to support him. Levy is a likeable screen presence, he has assembled a fine cast, and his screenplay is neat and occasionally funny and occasionally borderline profound. The problem is a lack of depth or emotional intensity.  There have been many films that do a much better job of exploring grief, 'Manchester by the Sea' or 'A Single Man' for example. The impression of superficiality is compounded by the fact that thi...

As is my way, I watched this without any foreknowledge, other than it was the second film by writer-director Emerald Fennell, following 'Promising Young Woman'.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, certainly not this entertaining mashup of 'Brideshead Revisited' and 'The Talented Mr Ripley'. Barry Keoghan plays Oliver, a dull working-class student at Oxford, in thrall to the absurdly handsome Felix.  Come the summer and Felix invites Oliver to stay at Saltburn, a magnificent stately pile, w here we meet Felix's parents, wonderfully played by Richard E Grant and Rosamund Pike, as well as Felix's sister Venetia.  Also along for the ride is Felix's American cousin Farleigh who is also at Oxford and who really doesn't like Oliver. This is understandable: Barry Keoghan's Oliver is even creepier than Matt Damon's Tom Ripley, and I did struggle to see what Felix was getting out of their friendship. There is a lot of comedy to be made out of t...