Fargo

Posted on June 12, 2014 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip series for French Toast Sunday.

Car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) is a bit down on his luck. He’s run up some pretty substantial debts, and will be in trouble for fraudulent affairs any day now, as soon as the bank realise the cars he has been claiming against don’t actually exist. The solution to his problem? Arrange for his wife to be kidnapped, so Jerry can collect on the ransom from his wealthy father-in-law. Unfortunately the miscreants hired to do the kidnapping, Carl and Gaear (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare), bungle the escape, leaving enough clues for the police chief, a heavily pregnant Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), to begin tracking everyone down and sorting this mess out.

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Open Range

Posted on June 11, 2014 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip series for French Toast Sunday.

A small-time cattle operation, led by Robert Duvall’s Boss Spearman, sets up grazing near the town of Harmonville, with the intention of moving on before they do any major damage to the local vegetation. When one of their number doesn’t return from a supply run to the town, Spearman and his right hand man Charley (Kevin Costner) head to Harmonville in search of their friend, only to find he’s been beaten and locked up by the town marshal (James Russo), at the behest of Harmonville’s ruthless land owner Baxter (Michael Gambon). Baxter, it would seem, isn’t too keen on free-grazers around his land, and he makes it all too clear to Boss and Charley that if they plan to hang around, bad things are going to happen to them and their herd. Unfortunately for everyone, Charley and Boss are more concerned with enacting vengeance for their man than anything else, so needless to say things get a mite violent in town.
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All About Eve

Posted on May 27, 2014 by jaycluitt

At a prestigious awards ceremony, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) is being presented with their highest honour for their Best Actress in a stage production. However, judging by the looks she is receiving from the guests at the event, a lot of people don’t seem to be in a celebratory mood about this turn of events. Via flashback we are transported less than a year back in time, when Eve – then nothing more than a down-on-her-luck theatre fan – met Karen (Celeste Holm), the wife of writer Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe) and friend to Eve’s acting idol, Margo Channing (Bette Davis). Continue reading →

Slumdog Millionaire

Posted on May 24, 2014 by jaycluitt

Jamal grew up in the slums of Mombai, orphaned at an early age and left with nothing in life but his older brother Salim and childhood friend Latika, from whom Jamal would soon become separated. Yet, somehow, Jamal has grown up and found himself on the television gameshow Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, and even more bizarrely, this barely-educated street rat – currently working as a chai wallah, or tea boy, at a call centre – is doing extremely well, and is a mere single question away from the maximum prize. How did he get so far? And can he make it to the end? Continue reading →

Shame

Posted on May 13, 2014 by jaycluitt

On the surface, Brandon has it all. He’s got a great job with colleagues he gets on with, a modern apartment in New York and a level of confidence and self-assurance that makes him a hit with the ladies. Plus, the dude looks like Michael Fassbender, which has to help a little bit. However, Brandon has a problem – several in fact. Firstly his work computer has just been taken away to repair a virus from all the porn he’s been downloading. Secondly, his messed up sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) is about to fall back into his life. And thirdly, Brandon seems completely incapable of maintaining a relationship with anyone who doesn’t charge by the hour. Continue reading →

His Girl Friday

Posted on April 26, 2014 by jaycluitt

When I was a child, I remember wanting to be a journalist when I grew up. I liked writing, and was good at English at school, so it seemed the right thing to do would be continuing said activity into my adulthood. At the time this presented precious few options, with journalist or novelist being the most obvious and apparent to my juvenile outlook on life, and I’ve never been a terribly creative person, so the concept of coming up with fictional works was beyond me. It was settled then; I would be a journalist. I even undertook my obligatory two weeks work experience in Year 10 at the Southern Daily Echo, a local newspaper, where I actually wrote a couple or articles that were published under the editor’s name, and probably weren’t very good anyway. Needless to say, my journalism dream never quite solidified, as is the case with most childhood plans, and to be honest I’m not all that bothered, as judging by His Girl Friday I’d never be able to survive in such a world. Continue reading →

Performance

Posted on April 21, 2014 by jaycluitt

Chas (James Fox), a young gangster in late 1960s East London, runs into a spot of bother when he lets his personal history interfere with the latest hit. When he finds himself the next target for his former colleagues, Chas flees and searches for a place to lie low for a while. He stumbles upon a basement room that’s recently been vacated, and blags his way in. However, his new landlord is none other than former rockstar Turner (Mick Jagger), whose bohemian lifetstyle with live-in-lovers Pherber and Lucy (Anita Pallenberg and Michele Breton) isn’t exactly the kind of surroundings Chas is used to. Continue reading →

The Back to the Future Trilogy

Posted on April 18, 2014 by jaycluitt

Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), a young slacker who dreams of rock and roll stardom but lacks the courage to showcase his talents, finds himself in something of a unique situation when, during a late night experiment with his friend Dr. Emmet ‘Doc’ Brown (Christopher Lloyd), Marty is transported back in time 30 years to 1955. His only way back is to contact the 1955 Doc Brown to help fix the time machine, but in doing so he must also ensure that his own parents (Lea Thompson and Crispin Glover) – now the same age as Marty – get together, which is made all the more complicated by the fact that his own mother has taken a shine to him.
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Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie

Posted on April 14, 2014 by jaycluitt

I think it’s time to come clean: I’m not a documentary guy. I’ve seen very few, and liked even less. To date, the only documentary I’ve watched that I have any inclination to see again is King of Kong, because fuck Billy Mitchell. I’ve seen Hoop Dreams – it’s OK, but I forgot a lot of it within a week, hence why I never got around to reviewing it for the 1001 Movies list, and thus why I’ll therefore have to watch it again eventually. Night and Fog and Land Without Bread both left me severely depressed, and were both reviewed during a period of my blogging life where I hadn’t quite worked out what I was doing yet, which should go some way to explain the 1/10 scores I gave them (although I kind of stand by that for Land Without Bread, because Luis Bunuel is an utter dick for what he did in order to make that film). Shoah moved me, but the 9 hour running time was almost unbearable. And so it is that on my list of Least Anticipated Movies on the 1001 List I have not one but two long-ass documentaries, with Hotel Terminus being neatly packaged with the similarly 4 1/2 hours long The Sorrow and The Pity, which I look forward to watching later this year. I don’t really know why I’m not a huge fan of documentaries – maybe I’m just not intelligent or receptive enough for them. I’ve had debates with colleagues before as to whether they can really be classed as films of not – I’m fine with the classification, but it seems many others are not – but that hasn’t stopped there being an awful lot included in the 1001 book. Continue reading →