Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

I probably saw this film when it came out, but if so it made zero impact.   Given that it was a commercial and critical hit I thought I should check it out again. I associate director Tim Burton with dark, gothic material (such as 'Batman') so I was surprised that for much of the running time this fantasy is light and airy.  Edward (Johnny Depp) is stuck in a castle until Peg (Dianne Wiest) arrives and welcomes him into her home and family.  She's not at all bothered that he's a synthetic creature with large scissor blades for hands.   In fact everyone in her community takes a liking to Edward right from the off.  That's not terribly believable but it's OK because this is a fantasy version of suburban America, complete with pastel-coloured houses. Whilst Edward's 'hands' are an obstacle to carrying out simple tasks, providing some Chaplinesque humour (such as Edward trying valiantly to eat peas), they are incredibly deft at topiary, and coiffure, whe...

Judging by this film, seventeenth-century England was a rough time to be a woman. Take young Sarah for example. She lives with her uncle, a priest, and is happily betrothed to Richard, a handsome and dashing Roundhead soldier (yes, we're in the Civil War).  When he pops by on leave, and hears that she and her uncle are concerned that they might be the target of local lawlessness he promises he will protect her. Great!  Except he then has to re-join his regiment, and isn't at all concerned when on his way out of the village he meets Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price sporting an evil haircut) coming the other way. Hopkins is going from place to place torturing  interrogating suspected witches before executing them, and receiving payment from the local magistrate into the bargain.  And he has no problem with any of his victims offering their bodies to him in the vain hope of being let off. Sure enough he sets his sights on Sarah's uncle (witches are not exclusively female ...

This horror classic from Brian de Palma is so good I felt I had to rewatch it even though, as someone who hates bullying, I find some scenes hard to watch.     After a short scene that establishes that Carrie (Sissy Spacek) is useless at sports and derided by her classmates,  we switch unexpectedly to a borderline soft porn sequence wherein the camera pans lovingly across the girls' changing room as they move in slow motion in varying states of undress.   This lulls us into a false sense of security before the girls bully Carrie unmercifully when she freaks out as a result of experiencing her first period - it's a brutal scene to watch. Carrie's mother hadn't forewarned her daughter about periods and the like, because she (the mother) is a religious fanatic who regards anything to do with sex as sinful.  Poor Carrie's homelife seems to consist of being on the receiving end of diatribes about sinful boys, and whenever she offends her mother (a frequent ...

Apparently Randolph Scott appeared in over 60 Westerns, but this is the first I've seen, and (spoiler alert) it's probably going to be the last. Scott plays Ben, a bounty hunter who is trying to deliver a young murderer, Billy, to Santa Cruz, despite various obstacles which he has to overcome. Firstly there's some pesky Native Americans (or to be more specific Mescalores) who are apt to pop up at any time.  For a film made in 1959 the portrayal of Native Americans here is not very progressive.   Then there's a guy called Sam.  Although they are now on opposite sides of the law, he and Ben know each other from way back and there's a mutual respect bordering on friendship between them.   Sam and his sidekick Whit (James Coburn in his debut performance) are tagging along because Sam would desperately like to be the one to bring Billy into Santa Cruz.  This would be n ot so much for the money as for the amnesty he would receive that would wipe out his outl...

This  was Robert Redford’s last film role and given his recent death this seemed like a good time to view it. One way of framing it would be Happy Crook vs Sad Cop.  Redford plays Forrest Tucker a compulsive bank robber, specialising in small jobs.  He has an effective MO which has served him happily for many years whereby he relies on his gentlemanly charm so as to avoid using his gun. Casey Affleck plays disillusioned Detective John Hunt who is thinking of leaving the force but for whom the pursuit of Tucker provides some purpose. Plot wise Hunt’s pursuit of Tucker isn’t that gripping especially since I found Affleck’s performance unengaging.  In fact the presence of Affleck is my biggest problem with this film.  It’s probably the case that the sexual harassment allegations against Affleck were colouring my response but anyway for whatever reason I didn't enjoy any scene in which he appeared.  That includes a strange and implausible scene in which Tucker ...

Fun is not necessarily the first word that comes to mind when I think of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films, although of course he has shown in films such as ‘Boogie Nights’ that he has that weapon in his armoury.  But right from the outset we know this film is going to have a comedic or satiric edge to it, with a frankly bizarre scene between black and fearsome freedom fighter Perfidia (Teyana Taylor)  and the very white Colonel Stephen J Lockjaw (played wonderfully well by an almost unrecognisable Sean Penn), in which the latter becomes sexually aroused in a ridiculous manner which had me worried about where the film might be going tone-wise. Perfidia is in a relationship with Pat (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), both of them being members of a resistance group named the French 75.  When she  gives birth to a baby girl he naturally assumes he is the father, oblivious to the fact that she has been enjoying sexual high jinks with Lockjaw.    We then get some quickf...

By a strange coincidence 1944 saw the release of two film noirs starring Edward G Robinson which have some similarities in plot. In 'Double Indemnity' he plays an insurance investigator who doesn't realise that the salesman he trusts and keeps informed is actually the murderer in the case he is looking into. In this film, it is Robinson himself who is the murderer who is kept informed as to how the police investigation is proceeding by his friend who happens to be the DA. But whereas the Billy Wilder picture is a classic and in my opinion the definitive film noir , this Fritz Lang movie is merely entertaining. Anton Chekhov, had he still been alive in 1944, might have been astonished at how liberally his Chekhov's Gun concept is being applied in this film. We start off with overhearing part of a psychology lecture by assistant professor Wanley (Robinson) in which he refers to murder in self defence, and sure enough not that long afterwards he himself is committing just...

This is a slight comedy drama set in 1970 from director Kelly Reichardt about a character, JB, played by Josh O'Connor, who can best be described as a waster.   At least that's how his father, an eminent judge, sees him, lambasting JB in an early scene for not making more of himself.  JB's wife is also not a fan; she seems to have given up on him and the marriage, but staying with him  for the sake of their twin boys.   But hold on!  Maybe they (and we) have misjudged JB because it turns out that he has been quietly putting together a masterplan to steal some paintings from a local art gallery, which has required him to put in some effort casing the joint and assembling a ragtag team of ne'er-do-wells.  Needless to say the heist doesn't go smoothly (the title of the film is clearly intended to be ironic).  For starters JB has to unexpectedly look after his boys because of a teachers' work day, but despite various mishaps it seems he has got a...

I remember seeing this British disaster film on TV in my youth, and it having quite an impact which has remained with me ever since. The premise (that a couple of nuclear bomb tests have changed the Earth's orbit, sending it towards the Sun) may be ridiculous, but the main strength of this picture is that it succeeds in making this seem a scarily realistic scenario. This is despite the small budget for special effects, which is evident at one point where we see what are clearly model boats being passed off as the real thing. But overall the director (and co-writer) Val Guest does a good job of using stock footage and matte paintings to portray a world suffering from extreme weather, especially (of course) heat. It’s a clever idea to have the entire tale be told from the point of view of journalists because it helps give the unfolding events a veneer of verisimilitude.   An actual newspaper editor plays the fictional editor, and I thought he was (as one would hop...

This 1988 science fiction film by John Carpenter combines elements of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' and 'The Matrix'. Unfortunately it suffers badly in comparison with those classics, due to low-budget special effects, mediocre acting, and an under-developed story. The protagonist is a drifter, George Nada, who finds a pair of sunglasses which when worn reveal the true nature of reality: some humans are really aliens who are controlling us all by the transmission of subliminal messages urging people to sleep, consume and breed. Even though the total running time barely exceeds 90 minutes, it takes an inordinately long time before Nada puts on the sunglasses. When he does it's fun for a while to see the aliens (which to be fair to the special effects department are effective enough), and to see the subliminal messages plastered over every possible wall.  Kurt Russell wasn't available to play Nada, so instead Carpenter cast a professional wrestler.  This came i...

Having given Pinocchio a makeover it was only natural that Guillermo del Toro would turn his attention to another classic story about a creature who wants to be human. Just how radical would del Toro's take be? Well, for starters he completely inverts the structure of the novel, so that instead of the Creature wronging Victor, who then seeks revenge, here it is the Creature who suffers at the hands of Victor, and who then pursues him to the Arctic circle.  He wants Victor to create a companion for him (as in the novel),. Or to find a way of killing him, because i n this version the Creature is literally indestructible and is therefore doomed to wander the earth forever in his loneliness.  Del Toro further loads the dice in favour of the Creature by making him surprisingly easy on the eye (no bolts in the neck, for example).  In contrast Victor is portrayed  as a borderline egotistical maniac who is arrogant and cruel, although (thanks to Oscar Isaac's larger-than-lif...

This 1947 film is a psychological drama which would like to think it is scarier than it is. Never mind, it’s well enough put together to hold my attention (just) although a bit of pruning here and there from screenwriter Dudley Nichols wouldn’t have gone amiss, just to cut out some repetition and make it tauter. Edward G Robinson and Judith Anderson play Pete and Ellen, a brother and sister who live on an isolated farm, with teenage Meg who they have adopted. Meg's parents supposedly left the area when she was a baby and then subsequently died.  Around the same time, Pete had an accident whereby he fell into a nearby quarry, losing a leg in the process.  It’s no great surprise when eventually we learn that there is a sinister explanation for the disappearance of Meg's parents.   But let’s not run ahead of ourselves. The film starts gently enough with Pete and Ellen taking on a teenage lad Nath to help out on the farm in the evenings. Meg is sweet on Nath but he only ...

This is a rather odd film noir directed by Fritz Lang. It starts off predictably enough. Middle-aged Chris (Edward G Robinson), who has a low paying job as a bank cashier and a very unpleasant wife, meets pretty young Kitty (Joan Bennett). He falls madly in love with her, not realising that she is just humouring him.  She has a grifter for a boyfriend Johnny (Dan Duryea) who immediately sees the opportunity for some easy money.  Very quickly Chris is persuaded to set Kitty up in an apartment even though their relationship is so chaste they haven’t even kissed.  Chris is an amateur painter who pretends to Kitty that he is successful and well-off.  In reality the only way he can fund her lifestyle is to steal money from both his wife and his bank.  It’s at this point that the story takes a bizarre turn.  Johnny takes it into his head to try to sell some of Chris' paintings, and through an improbable series of events an eminent art critic sees them and, very...

The setting for this film, directed and cowritten by Peter Bogdanovich, is a small oil town in Texas in 1951.  As one of the characters says, the place is ‘flat and empty’, a description that equally well applies to life there.  So it’s not surprising that most of the characters spend a lot of time hankering after sex even if in virtually all cases the reality is sterile and unsatisfactory. It’s perhaps appropriate that Hank Williams’ ‘Cold Cold Heart’ is heard playing in the background at least a couple of times. The only sexual liaison we see that has some genuine warmth and affection to it is an affair between young Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and middle-aged Ruth (an Oscar-winning performance by Cloris Leachman) who is trapped in an unhappy marriage.  Indeed all of the marriages we see are unhappy.  As one of the characters observes, “80% of married life is misery.” The main object of lust among the young folk is Jacy (a perfectly cast Cybill Shepherd making her film...

I'm not really into this genre so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this film didn't do much for me, despite it being directed by Francis Ford Coppola. On the plus side it is a visually stunning experience, due not just to the cinematography but also to the overall production design and the costumes. I liked the idea of making this a kind of love story, between Dracula and Mina, Jonathan Harker's fiancée, who reminds him of his wife Elizabeth back in the day when he was a prince defending Christendom.  It was Elizabeth's suicide that drove him to become what he now is. Unfortunately whilst Gary Oldman gives a towering performance which carries the entire film, there's not much chemistry between him and Winona Ryder as Mina.  Perhaps the fact that she fell out with him during filming contributed to this, but I can't help feeling that she is miscast - she has her strengths as an actress but maybe she's incapable of providing the erotic energy needed fo...

The best way to describe this 2011 adaptation of a Terence Rattigan play is 'exquisitely bleak'. I t was a rare pleasure to experience a film so masterly in its execution. Everyone involved should have got every accolade going, but of course they didn't.   I get that the deeply moving music wasn't eligible for an Oscar nomination given that it is a violin concerto by Samuel Barber. But what about, for example, Florian Hoffmeister (who later got an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography for his work on Tár)?  E very frame here is beautifully composed and shot.  Or Rachel Weisz, who gives a phenomenal lead performance as Hester, a woman driven near to suicide by her somewhat unrequited love for an ex-RAF pilot (Tom Hiddlestone)?  At least the New York Film Critics had the good sense to give her the best actress award. I can always happily watch Simon Russell Beale, and needless to say his performance as Hester's husband is note perfect, and the expression o...

This extraordinary film is very difficult to pigeonhole.  It has supernatural and horror elements but even a scaredy-cat like me got through it pretty much unscathed. It doesn’t have much of a story arc: two guys in an isolated lighthouse go crazy about sums it up. The cast comprises just these two characters: an old sea dog Wake (Willem Dafoe, having a whale of a time) and Winslow, a young guy on the run from his past (Robert Pattinson). Pattinson argued that the film is a comedy but I would be hard-pressed to agree (even as a black comedy) although there is the odd moment of humour. The black-and- white cinematography is stunning, and the two performances are totally committed. I also enjoyed the language which sounded appropriate for the period the film is set in, the late 19th century.  Both characters, especially Wake, get the opportunity to spout long monologues full of curses and invective which are very entertaining. Ultimately though I ended up feeling that it was a f...

In 1951 director John Huston scored a big hit with ‘The African Queen’, and it seems like a few years later someone, maybe Huston himself, had the bright idea of trying to repeat a winning formula. Instead of Africa in World War I we are somewhere in the Pacific in World War II, and instead of Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart as the mismatched companions we have Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum. He’s Mr Allison, a US Marine who gets washed up on a tiny atoll which has just the one inhabitant, a nun, Sister Angela, who herself has only been there a few days. Surprisingly they hit it off straightaway so any dramatic tension comes from whether they can avoid the Japanese who arrive shortly afterwards, and whether their relationship will develop romantically. I was less interested in the former, so that a long and rather unbelievable sequence in which Allison tries to steal food from the Japanese camp struck me as a misstep. Deborah Kerr, even though she has to put on an Irish accent, ...

Lynn and Lucy are childhood friends, now married and living opposite each other in a workingclass district. Of the two Lynn is the 'quiet one', who had a child Lola when she was only sixteen (some ten years ago), whilst Lucy is the party girl with hair dyed blue who now a young baby boy Harrison. Neither of them is particularly happy with their lot when the film starts. Lynn's husband Paul seems dissatisfied with their marriage, and Lynn has just started working at a local hairdresser for someone she was at school with who delights in lording it over her.  It's all rather humiliating for Lynn, especially when she learns that her nickname at school behind her back was 'Pig'. Lucy is struggling with being a young mother, and her boyfriend Clark is not very supportive. Then the film takes a melodramatic turn with baby Harrison dying from some injuries.  The question is whether Lucy or Clark is responsible, and the film explores how this question impacts on the frie...

I saw this 1950 Jean Cocteau film some 40-plus years ago, and it made a huge impact on me, so much so that for all the time since it has sat somewhere in my list of Top Ten Faves.   Therefore it was with some trepidation that I rewatched this  modern retelling of the Greek legend,  given how likely it was that I would be a disappointed. Besides Orpheus, who is now a feted poet who may be past his best, and Eurydice, his wife, there are two other main characters.  These are an elegant and forbidding woman, referred to as the Princess, and her chauffeur Heurtebise.   In the very first scene, at the Café des Poètes, a young poet is knocked down by a couple of sinister motorcyclists.  Once his body is placed in her Rolls-Royce the Princess orders Orpheus to come with them, presumably to the hospital. However things immediately get weird.  The young poet is dead, but instead of going to the hospital the car heads into the country, accompanied by t...

This is Andrea Arnold's follow-up to the very impressive 'Red Road'.    As with the earlier film it is built around a female protagonist, in this case Mia, a troubled teenager who hides her loneliness and vulnerability with an angry attitude to the world, including her single mum who neglects her and a foulmouthed younger sister, Tyler. Things seem to pick up when her mum's new boyfriend Connor moves in.  He has the potential to be a kind of father-figure to her, for example by encouraging her aspirations to develop a dancing career.  There’s a nice scene where the family is out together and Connor shows Mia how to catch a fish. Unfortunately there is a darker side to him, which becomes apparent one evening when after a few too many drinks, he seduces Mia. This causes him to shoot off post haste leaving Mia’s mum distraught.  Mia though manages to track Connor down to his middleclass home where much to my surprise it turns out he has a wife (or maybe partner) as...

This is the first of five Westerns directed by Anthony Mann starring James Stewart, and although I haven’t seen them all (yet) I would be surprised if this isn’t the best. Mind you, it gets off to a sedate start with an opening caption screen that tells us how great the Winchester ‘73 rifle was, followed by a shooting contest to win one of these rifles.  The contest comes down to Lin McAdam (James Stewart) versus Dutch Henry (Stephen McNally), who clearly know and hate each other. Their relationship goes further south when Dutch steals the rifle from Lin after the latter has won it fair and square. This then launches us into the film proper in which we follow the rifle’s journey from one owner to another, all the while knowing that the film must inevitably end with Lin catching up with Dutch. One of the pleasures here is the skill with which the screenplay, cowritten by Borden Chase and Robert L Richards, creates fully fleshed supporting characters, from  Will Geer's Wyatt Ear...

This 1932 commercial hit also won the Best Picture Oscar but nevertheless I was fearful that after all this time it would be creaky and generally old-timey. Not a bit of it. For a start the main five characters are surprisingly relatable, even if they are staying at a luxury hotel (in Berlin), due to them being recognisably human beings rather than caricatures. Perhaps most of the credit for this should go to Vicki Baum, the Austrian writer who wrote the novel (with the prosaic title of ‘People in the Hotel’) which was first adapted into a play and which then became this glossy star-studded vehicle. Well that description might be over-egging it a little.  I doubt that Lionel Barrymore and Wallace Beery were the George Clooney and Brad Pitt of their day - they come across here more as talented character actors.  And certainly at this point in her career Joan Crawford hadn’t reached full stardom. No, the real stars here are Greta Garbo and John Barrymore.   Garbo plays a Ru...

Notwithstanding that back in my teens I might very well have read the Robert Heinlein story this film is based on I had no idea what to expect. After some confusing scenes that establish Ethan Hawke as some kind of time travelling law enforcement agent who is trying to stop a serial bomber, and show us someone getting badly disfigured in an explosion, I certainly didn't expect that we'd spend the first half of the film with Hawke as a bartender in 1970 New York listening to the life story  of a young customer, John. Yes, if you came to this film expecting an action orientated time travel film (such as the splendid 'Edge of Tomorrow' for example) you are going to be disappointed, serial bomber or no serial bomber. Anyway, back to John and his remarkable life story.  Turns out 'he' was born a woman, Jane, but one who is intersex, so that following a difficult pregnancy she undergoes sex change surgery.  If that wasn't enough, there's a mystery as to Jane...

Towards the end of this Wes Craven thriller I realised I had seen it before, which speaks to how forgettable it is. The setup is similar to that of the disappointing 'Drop': a woman is suddenly thrown into a nightmarish situation in which she has to carry out orders to avoid a loved one being killed. In 'Drop' there is a mystery as to who is sending the orders and why.  Here everything is very clear. Rachel McAdams is the manager of a luxury hotel in Miami, and Cillian Murphy wants her to move some guests to a different suite, or otherwise her dad (Brian Cox) will be done away with. The guests are a prominent politician (and his family), and it's evident that the reason to move them is so that he can be assassinated.  McAdams and Murphy are on a plane back to Miami, which makes things all the more dramatic. There's some good cut-and-thrust between them as she tries to find ways not to carry out his instruction whilst trying to save her dad. Once the plane lands ...

My memory of this film was that it is the worst of the series, even worse than 'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One', although at least it has a snappier title. However for most of the running time (a sprightly 124 minutes) I was pleasantly surprised at the restraint being shown by the director John Woo, and I was enjoying the way the story (courtesy of the great Robert Towne) mashed up 'Notorious' with 'Goldeneye'. Admittedly there were a few things to worry me, such as the length of Tom Cruise's hair, Ethan Hunt having sex, and the abysmal heavy rock version of the iconic theme tune. But overall things were going along OK, and I was even getting tense about what might happen to Nyah (the equivalent of Ingrid Bergman's character in 'Notorious').  This was on top of the tension I always feel whenever there is a deadly virus in town. Unfortunately the picture falls off a cliff with maybe fifteen minutes to go.  It's at the point wher...