Category: Movie

Movie

The Gentlemen (2019)

Where to find it: Netflix
Length: 110 minutes
Synopsis: It’s a Guy Ritchie gangster movie
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: Hugh Grant, Jeremy Strong, surprisingly easy-to-follow for a complex back-and-forth format
What I don’t like about it: Charlie Hunnam, the open racism, so many attempts at “cool” which come off pathetic, failed humour

Review:
Every few years, Guy Ritchie makes a desperate attempt to prove that he made Lock, Stock and Snatch which come off as yet-another British gangster flick albeit with a big budget and only serve to remind us of Matthew Vaughn’s relative talent. This latest one opens with Matthew McConaughey seemingly being murdered in a pub, then cuts to Charlie Hunnam (who really should quit his day job) surprised to find Hugh Grant in his house playing the kind of sleazy ‘dark arts’ tabloid PI he’s been feuding with his whole adult life with great scenery-chewing relish. Grant’s Fletcher (all the characters are conspicuously mononymous) is there to pitch Hunnam a screenplay based on his life as McConaughey’s consigliere and provide comic relief for flashbacks explaining the complicated and violent story of a takeover bid on an underground drug network. Particular highlights include Jeremy Strong’s foppish and effete rival drug lord, Colin Farrell acting like he’s in a much better movie and the film’s laughable attempts at drug slang (“White Widow Super Cheese”). It’s reasonably entertaining but the most exhausting part of watching this movie is trying to overlook its flaws, which come thick and fast in a “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” way.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence, racism, drugs, vomit, rape

No Time to Die (2021)

Where to find it: Amazon Prime Video
Length: a marathon 163 minutes
Synopsis: James Bond does improbable things in exotic locales
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: it can be pretty cool, Bond interacting with a more Millenial MI6
What I don’t like about it: tonal inconsistency, credulity-stretching CGI action

Review:
It’s a Bond movie alright! The problem is it has no idea which kind of Bond movie it wants to be. It opens very dark and stylish and seems like another Skyfall, then goes full Brosnan with laughable action and gadgets in the next scene. After that comes the obligatory overlong credit sequence / theme tune showcase, one of the images here was particularly memorable – Bond is walking through the desert among a ruined statue, calling to mind Shelley’s Ozymandius, and as the sand shifts it reveals that the statue is Brittania and the desert sand is falling through an hourglass. But then just as I’m starting to think this might actually be a good one, the first scene out of the opening titles is a joking scene set in a bio-warfare lab and featuring British comedy perennial Hugh Dennis. Like this, the tone of the film bounces up and down throughout, never quite meshing into what I’m sure they hoped it would be – a tribute to all that is 007, all at once: the cheesy one-liners and risible names (Lyutsifer Safin *eye roll*), the gadgets and action, the more-recent emotional drama and considered themes. It ends up as the worst of all worlds and falls flat on all of its themes, its incomprehensible plot and yeah-that’ll-do acting. Still, it’s a diverting blockbuster if you have nearly 3 hours going begging.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): murder, WMDs, violence and peril

The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)

Where to find it: Amazon and BritBox
Length: 83 minutes
Synopsis: English villagers work together to keep their local train service running
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: charming, witty, pretty technicolor images of the English south-west, great model shots, orchestral train-inspired score
What I don’t like about it: for a trim 83 minutes, it does start to feel stretched and samey

Review:
Set amidst the slow bloodletting of the nationalised British Railways network which preceeded the swing of Beeching’s Axe, this Ealing comedy finds a group of quirky villagers dismayed at the closing of their local railway. They seek to run it themselves and contend with many challenges along the way, often stemming from an enterprising villager who hopes to profit off the closure by running monopolised bus services in their place. Has much to say about the changes faced by rural villages in the post-war years and plenty of dry wit to keep it going – “They already closed the Canterbury line, vicar!” “Well perhaps there are not men of sufficient faith in Canterbury”. A delightful, fluffy diversion

Content notes (may contain spoilers): alcoholism, hunting scene, racism and all-white cast

Festen (1998)

Where to find it: BFI Player
Length: 100 minutes
Synopsis: Hard-to-watch Danish family melodrama
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: fascinating psychological drama, the theme of avoidance
What I don’t like about it: this one is going to haunt me for a long time, ending doesn’t feel cathartic enough

Review:
A party for a wealthy Danish family takes a very dark turn around the 30 minute mark, which makes it hard to pull away from as we watch the fallout through unassuming home-video-style camerawork. This film was a big influence on HBO’s Succession but even as dark as that can get sometimes, this hits horrifying lows they wouldn’t touch. It’s a very good film but not much fun at all.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): child sexual abuse, incest, suicide

The Bob’s Burgers Movie (2022)

Where to find it: Cinemas for now, Disney+ later
Length: 100 minutes
Synopsis: The Belchers get involved in a murder mystery
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: the song and dance numbers, characters I love from the TV show, increased animation budget and cool scene transitions
What I don’t like about it: could be better, basically an extra-long episode

Review:
Bob’s Burgers is a TV cartoon that has been running for over a decade and this, the obligatory movie version, fits in well with it. It won’t blow anyone away, especially people new to the franchise as a whole, but it’s funny and diverting and most everything one could want from a Bob’s Burgers movie

Content notes (may contain spoilers): innuendo and peril, buried alive, cartoon corpse

Wolfwalkers (2020)

Where to find it: Apple TV+
Length: 100 minutes
Synopsis: A curious young girl defies her father’s orders and frolics in the woods with a werewolf
Recommendation rating: 5/5

What I like about it: gosh, everything – the impressionist art style with guide lines left in, the buddy relationship between the two main girls, the themes of colonialism, urban growth and conservation
What I don’t like about it: nothing – I wouldn’t change a single frame of this movie

Review:
Cartoon Saloon is an Irish animation studio with a 100% success rate since blowing the animation world away with The Secret of Kells and this movie refines that movie’s techniques to an awe-inspiring level. The film finds us in the thick of the Plantation of Ulster and introduces us to a young girl who lives in a walled colonist city. Her father ventures out every day into the untamed, natural Irish forest to hunt wolves who are threatening the city’s woodcutters. She follows him one day and meets a girl who lives in the woods and can turn into a wolf. This sets up a conflict against the judgement of her elders as she sympathises with the wolves and attempts to stop the systematic destruction of their home. Its ripe ground for exploring worthy themes and the film doesn’t miss any of them, coming down didactically hard on the side of nature, Ireland and paganism as it jolly well should. These films are only ever made thanks to EU funding, they never seem to find an audience but they really deserve one. This film is perfect, please watch.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): cartoon (but serious) violence and peril, especially against animals; patriarchal control; fire

The Dead Zone (1983)

Where to find it: Any given cardboard box full of VHS tapes, Channel 5 on a Wednesday night
Length: 105 minutes
Synopsis: A man wakes up from a coma to find he has developed clairvoyance
Recommendation rating: 1/5

What I like about it: it filled some time, has one decent shot
What I don’t like about it: it didn’t succeed at anything it tried

Review:
This movie finished five minutes ago and I’m already forgetting about it

Content notes (may contain spoilers): death, violence, fire

Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)

Where to find it: Disney+
Length: 95 minutes
Synopsis: Dale tries to convince Chip to reunite their double act to cash in on nineties nostalgia
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: funny, meta, well-paced and easy to watch
What I don’t like about it: Andy Samberg, animation can be a little janky, feels like a cover version of a Phil Lord and Chris Miller movie

Review:
The premise of this one can be a little disconcerting; it involves a parallel Earth in which cartoon characters live among humans and the 90s cartoon of the same name was shot on a live-action set by the cartoons themselves. It’s odd but soon established and then the writers begin to cram in jokes. Some are really quite funny: Dale has gotten “the CGI surgery” to make himself more appealing to the youth but it hasn’t worked out and he’s working nostalgia conventions alongside some notable and hilarious characters that I won’t spoil here. The main problem with this one is acknowledged in an early line from Chip: “Dale, absolutely no one wants to see our cartoon rebooted” – it’s enough for a fun, distracting Sunday afternoon movie but not enough to bring any real excitement to the viewing experience and that puts a ceiling on the enjoyment level. The team behind this one is basically The Lonely Island and it is funny and competently made but this nod-wink “we know you don’t want it so we made it meta funny” thing has been done over and over since 21 Jump Street and it starts to feel like when you’ve seen one, you’ve heard the joke(s).

Content notes (may contain spoilers): cartoon body horror

The Double (2013)

Where to find it: Rent on BFI Player or wait until it’s on Film4
Length: 90 minutes
Synopsis: A meek office worker finds his life usurped by an assertive doppelgänger
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: the retrofuture aesthetic, arresting visuals, music
What I don’t like about it: slow and quiet, demanding lots of attention

Review:
Jesse Eisenberg ably plays the double role of nerdy doormat and arrogant charmer but the real star here is Richard Ayoade, setting up visuals and sequences that Kubrick would be proud of. The music, a mix of staccato stings and Asian crooning, is another highlight. Worth watching if you don’t care much for plot.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): stalking behaviour, suicide, violence, cutting, depersonalisation