Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrhhhhhh – gasp – aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgghh! Life has gotten away from me recently, but I still want to keep writing these things. I have thoughts on movies, dammit, and how will I know what order to write my Best of 2017 films into (but never actually get around to posting) if I don’t have these handy reminders? Thoughts this week/fortnight/month/eternity [delete as appropriate] will be brief as dammit I just want to post this fucker and move on with my life, alright? Sheesh.
Continue reading
White Heat
Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) is the brash, ruthless, potentially crazy head of a crime gang in California. After a train robbery draws unwanted police attention, Cody decides to take the fall for a smaller job in Illinois, heading to prison for a minimal sentence. The police see through his ruse but entertain the plan anyway, as they have a scheme of their own involving an undercover officer (Edmond O’Brien) who will become Jarrett’s new cell mate, Vic Pardo, whose mission is to discover the identity of Jarrett’s money launderer. Cody must now deal with being away from his gang, his girl (Virginia Mayo) and, worst of all, his Ma (Margaret Wycherly)
Continue reading
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Portsmouth, 1787. Ship’s Lieutenant Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable) press-gangs a pub-load of unwilling men aboard The Bounty, heading on a two-year voyage to Tahiti in search of breadfruit. At the ship’s helm is Captain William Bligh (Charles Laughton), one of the cruellest men to ever sail the seas in the name of the King’s navy, and he more than lives up to his reputation. After Christian and the crew can take no more of Bligh’s cruelty they mutiny and take over the ship, but their problems do not end there.
Continue reading
Hannah and Her Sisters
This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review.
Set over a two-year period, Hannah and Her Sisters follows the numerous exploits of three sisters living in New York and their various friends and family. Hannah (Mia Farrow) seems to have her life most effectively in place. She is an actress, getting back into her work after taking time to raise her children, and is married to her financial adviser husband Elliot (Michael Caine). Elliot however has been harbouring a long-standing infatuation with Hannah’s younger sister Lee (Barbara Hershey), who is in a relationship with standoffish artist Frederick (Max von Sydow). At the apex of Elliot and Lee’s joint feelings of dissatisfaction with their partners, the pair sleep together, and must deal with the ramifications. Meanwhile the third sister, Holly (Dianne Wiest) is a recovering drug addict turned aspiring actress and restaurateur, self-employed as a caterer alongside her friend April (Carrie Fisher), a colleague and competitor for both acting roles and eligible men. Finally Hannah’s ex-husband Mickey (Woody Allen) is a stressed out hypochondriac, whose latest imaginary malady might turn out to be his most serious, and his last.

Continue reading
Wiener Dog
This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review.
Todd Solondz is almost the dictionary definition of an acquired taste when it comes to film. For most directors, subjects like rape, dead parents, domestic terrorism and a lifetime of remorse wouldn’t necessarily inspire a comedy, yet they’re all par for the course with Solondz in this darkly comic anthology following the various owners of an ambivalent female dachshund.

Continue reading
My Fortnight in Film, 2017 Weeks 4-5
We’re five weeks into the year and I’ve still not gone to the cinema, clearly something is wrong with the world. However tomorrow sees the UK release of The Lego Batman Movie, so my streak will be over in a matter of hours, hurrah! I meant to write one of these last week, and in fact I had a whole introduction revolving around my latest expedition to the barber (possibly the worst I’ve ever had) but then I realised quite how dull that idea was, and that writing nothing would be preferable to tosh, hence why I’ll be stopping this introduction and getting on with the films I saw in the past fortnight right about…now.
Continue reading
Senna
Ayrton Senna was a Brazilian Formula 1 driver, who became infamous during the 80s and early 90s as being one of the greatest in the world, and for a much-publicised on-and-off-track feud he had with his McLaren team-mate, Alain Prost. During the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, Senna’s legacy became set in stone when he crashed and died during a race in Italy, provoking racing regulations to be reconsidered and ensuring he would be the last person to die during a race.
Continue reading
2016 Oscar Nomination Predictions
Every year Shane over at Film Actually hosts an Oscar nominations contest, wherein we try to guess what films will be nominated. I’ve won a prize in the past, so I persist every year in the naive hope that I can win something again. As usual I’ve seen precious few of the films I’m predicting, but I shall predict nonetheless. Continue reading
My Weeks in Film, 2017 Weeks 1-3
Well this is a good start, isn’t it? I know I’ve let two weeks go by without a weekly post before, but three? THREE? It’s unheard of. Well, it was, but now it’s happened and, given how this year is going, it may well become the norm. The problem was last weekend, when I took on a fairly sizeable craft commission for Aisha’s work. I say sizeable, but that only relates to the amount of work required, not how impressive the finished result was and certainly not in terms of how much I got paid. The job led to far more post-1am bedtimes than I’d intended, and also led to me going to bed with paint in my hair three nights in a row. It’s done now, phew, so it’s back to planning the wedding and not writing reviews. Also, I’ve not had much of an urge to post a weekly piece because I haven’t actually watched all that many films, certainly not any from my lists. In fact there was a period of eleven days where I watched nothing. Not a damn thing. As it goes, in the past three weeks I’ve watched a total of six movies, which might be my lowest tally since I started this blog. And had I not run out of clean shirts yesterday and spent the evening ironing fresh ones, that total would probably be at least one lower. None of this is all that important though. I know what you’re here for, my mini reviews of these films, so here they are:
Continue reading
Collateral Beauty
Howard Inlet (Will Smith) was a high-flying, smooth-talking New York marketing whizz, until two years ago when his six year old daughter died. He returned to work eighteen months later, but his understandable change of character has left him shut down and closed off to all around him. His work has suffered, and the business he co-owns with best friend Whit (Edward Norton) may go under unless something can be done. After hiring a private investigator, Whit – along with colleagues Simon (Michael Pena) and Claire (Kate Winslet) – discover that as part of his recovery process Howard has written letters to the entities of Love, Death and Time, so the trio decide to hire actors to portray these facets of the world and confront Howard, in an attempt to prove he is crazy so he’ll be forced to sign his ownership of the business over to them.
Continue reading