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david-meldrum
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Civil War (2024)
Vice Like Tension Coupled With Huge Ethical Questions For All Of Us
Kirsten Dunst and colleagues embark on a trip across a modern-day America ravaged by civil war under an authoritarian third-term president, seeking to get to Washington to interview that same president. Along the way a young war photographer wannabe, who idolises Kirsten Dunst's character, joins them to learn on the job. It's tense, violent, and unremitting. Brilliantly directed and shot, with a good performance from Dunst and a great one from Cailee Spaeny as the young woman following her professional inspiration ... and there's an extraordinary cameo from Jesse Plemons.
On release the film gained some criticism for not going into specifics on the politics of the conflict or being seen to take a side in light of the current political crisis enveloping the country. To take that view is both understandable but also in my view to misread the film. It's about taking sides, and more specifically the importance (or otherwise) of neutrality; to insist that every piece of art has a specific political viewpoint is to fall into to precisely the rage-bait trap that so besets so much of what we're living through. Sometimes we need to be dispassionate, as best we can, in order to report what is observed and allow the light to shine on it. The still picture that comes into focus as the credits roll is a statement in that line, harking back to Guantanamo photos of abuses of alleged terrorists in the prison camp. To truly understand we need to observe first, which is precisely what so many are not doing. The film is clear about the awful price such a stance can extract from those who take it, but it's no less important for all that.
In framing it as a road film it also avoids the sort of nauseating self-mythologising that I object to in many films about that seem to elevate journalists to untouchable status. This is a film that asks deep ethical questions about all of us, in an all-too plausible scenario. What makes it all the better as a film is the taut, sleek running time and the visceral, vice-like tension that is shot through the whole piece. Containing echoes of much of Garland's other work as both writer and director (especially 28 Days Later), it's an important, thrilling, and troubling film that's well worth the time invested.
Ratatouille (2007)
Warm And Tender-Hearted
Warm-hearted, tender animation with more than a hint of Cyrano de Bergerac - if you substitute romantic love for cooking. The voice over narration works quite well, and it did seem to me to sag a little in the middle - but my 15-year old daughter loves it, and eventually managed me to watch it with her, which I enjoyed. Funny and with a heart in the right place, it's easy to see why it's such a loved film - even though it's not my personal favourite. Bags of wit and a whole lot of good intentions, it's one of those you can watch time and again and still find something new to enjoy. It hasn't aged at all in the years since release, still looking fresh and vibrant.
Women Talking (2022)
Thoughtful, Intelligent, And Well Crafted
The premise of Women Talking is simple: the women of an isolated, extremely conservative, religious sect meet to discuss what they will do in response to their repeatedly being drugged and subjected to violent rape. Their choices are stark: do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. Although the film (based on a book) apparently has its roots to some degree in real events, it is deliberately artificial, perhaps even 'stagey'. It's an ensemble piece, with excellent performances rather than one or two leads. Throughout, colour is saturated almost to the point of the film appears at times to be almost in black and white - only on a few occasions allowing more conventional colour schemes. It all contributes to the sense that this occurs in a liminal space between truth and fiction, reality and imagination. This serves to emphasise that though the film is to a degree a thought experiment, it is also a film about the experiences and choices of all women, establishing a universality through its lack of specificity (which extends even to the ambiguous location of the events). Thoughtful, serious-minded but leavened with flashes of humour, this is a film that seeks to articulate what is too often not allowed to be said. It also benefits from not stigmatising or patronising the religious faith of the characters, convincingly placing us in the minds and lived realities determining the course of their future and the forces acting on them in the dilemmas they face.
Deliverance (1972)
Technical Mastery, Surprising, Nuance, Pertinent Questions.
John Boorman's classic made a huge impact when I first saw it. I'm not sure when that was - whenever it was, the sexual assault scene lodged itself in my brain with disturbing effect. Revisiting it, the technical mastery of the film is more apparent to me now - the muted colour tones, the brilliant cinematography, Boorman's never-better direction, and the star-making performances. The scene which scarred me the first time around still disturbs and upsets. Still, the whole film exerts a vice-like grip and asks searching, pertinent questions about masculinity, the relationship between people and the environment, the fissures which still run ever-deeper through American-society, and the way we deal with the worst parts of ourselves. There's a convincing argument to be made that it's a folk horror film, but it's more purely hits the beats of a survival/psychological thriller. However you classify it, it's an upsetting, surprisingly nuanced film that exerts a huge influence over American cinema.
Palm Springs (2020)
Fun, engaging time-loop romcom
Infinite time loop romcom set at a wedding (seriously, could you think of much worse than being stuck at the same wedding for eternity?). There's not a huge amount that's new about it, but it's easy to see why it became such a lockdown hit. It's witty, with several laugh-out-loud moments, and some good performances - especially from the excellent Cristin Milioti. We could have done with more J. K. Simmons, who shines in every scene he's in, but that's a pretty much given of every film Simmons is in. It's not revolutionary, but it's a fun, engaging watch. It perhaps lack the warm heart of the big daddy of the genre, Groundhog Day, but it's well worth the time.
Casino (1995)
Much To Appreciate, But Ultimately Not In Scorsese's Top Tier
I don't know why it took me quote so long to get around to watching this, but in the end it was pretty much as I anticipated it might be. All of Scorsese's trademark brilliance is on display, but too much of it feels like a return to the well of gangster crime dramas once too often (even if for me The Irishman is a better film). The arc of Sharon Stone's character feels a little queasy and too much like a version of a hysterical woman trope. There is too much narration, and at times the collection of needle drops on the soundtrack gets in the way. Though it's undoubtedly kinetic and gripping, it never feels surprising, and it doesn't quite achieve the greater depth of his major films. It's not a bad film, of course; but we do know that given the heights that Scorsese can and has hot so often, it just feels like a little bit of a let-down, despite all that there is to appreciate and enjoy.
The Fabelmans (2022)
A Stellar Michelle Williams In A Romantic Take On Spielberg's Childhood
In which Steven Spielberg looks back at his own childhood, and tells us what he saw. It's clearly and well-known to be autobiographical, but I'm not fully aware as to quite how much of it is fiction and how much his own story. It is, of course, beautifully made, even if the writing is at times a little strangely on the nose. It does a brilliant job of showing us everything from the boy's point of view; so even if we as adults/viewers can see a plot-development coming from a mile off, we are still deeply aware of the shock it is to the child who doesn't see what we do. The real star who holds this together is Michelle Williams, who shines as the mother/wife of the family. It's self-consciously about performance, art, film, and the nature of a vocation; and it's also, unsurprisingly, romantic and sentimental in classic Spielberg ways. All the better for it, it was an appropriate and helpful watch in the week that Trump was elected President (again).
The Bad Guys (2022)
Derivative Animated Heist Film
An animated heist movie that tries to draw on all manner of things - the Oceans films, Zootopia, Reservoir Dogs (and other Tarantino) ... and doesn't really work. It does that thing that quite a few films aimed at children do by nodding to adults like me forced by children to watch with them to various 'grown-up' films. I almost always find this doesn't work, and gets tiresome - and this was no exception. Just make a good film, and I'll probably be at least passably entertained. Richard Ayoade is the best of a not that great voice cast - but he usually is the funniest thing in any film he's in. But what do I know? My daughter was super engaged and involved by this the whole way through.
The Thing (1982)
An Icily Efficient, Nihilistic Masterpiece
It's often said that the scariest part of Halloween (by the same director, preceding The Thing) is the moment suburban doors go unanswered and curtains are shut in response to a girl pleading to be let in somewhere to save her life. The Thing takes the grim nihilism of that moment, and spins it out to the length of a whole film. A isolated Antarctic research station is attacked by a shape-shifting alien life-form ... and the film gradually whittles away at the crew's numbers. The lack of trust the alien's shape-shifting form injects into the relationships between the crew is starkly terrifying, as each tries to survive; the final conclusion that there is no hope for survival, inevitable.
The only false note is the bizarrely brief scene, with very ropey special effects, of a spaceship crashing to earth; the need to explain how the alien arrives is superfluous. But it takes away nothing; and the practical effects on show in the rest of the film are amongst the best in film history. The score is simple, and haunting; the performances admirably lacking in hysteria; the whole film icily efficient. A masterpiece.
Coco (2017)
Thoughtful, Moving, And Visually Stunning
My daughter wanted me to watch this with her - a repeat view for her, a first-time for me. I wasn't fully focussed for the first part of the film, which may explain why I found the first act of the film a little aimless and shapeless, like it was drifting. But it really kicked up a gear for me, providing a thoughtful, nuanced take on different cultural perspectives on death, memory and grief. As such it's both moving and potentially helpful. It's also one of the most visually beautiful Pixar films I can remember, the colours popping off the screen, and the realisation of different ideas is quite stunning.
The Omen (1976)
Gregory Peck's Performance Makes The Film
Watching this (I think for the first time, but I feel I may have sneaked a childhood watch under the nose of my parents) nearly 50 years on, it's hard to separate the film itself from what it spawned or popularised. I've lost count of serial killer stories with hackneyed references to the book of Revelation, there's a lot of bad theology around that seems more based on the film than on authentic Christianity, and we've heard scores like this far too many times now.
But trying to forget all that, this has a latent dread soaked into it. An American diplomat whose wife has a miscarriage, swaps his dead child for another one born at the same time (whose mother died in childbirth). He turns out to be - probably - the Antichrist. There's less gore than I expected, even if on a couple of occasions the film delights in a spectacular kill or two; but it's Gregory Peck's not perfect performance, played with the seriousness of a Shakespearean tragedy, that means this film still works quite so well. Aspects play very differently if you've adopted a deeply traumatised child with a habit of acting out their trauma dramatically, something which almost certainly wasn't on the film-makers' minds, but is there nevertheless if you do bring that to the film with you. Whatever your life experience, this remains a core horror text, and one deserving of its place.
Woman of the Hour (2023)
A Well-Directed And Written, Unsensationalised True Crime Film
Anna Kendrick - who also directs this film - is an aspiring 1970s actress who finds appears on a dating game show. The bachelor who she picks is someone with whom she has an unsettling encounter; intercut with this story we see the stories of some of what some to believe to be up to 130 murders for which he was responsible. He had been investigated several times, arrested and released on bail once; whilst on bail, he murdered twice before being rearrested. Kendrick is a fine actress, and in her debut directorial effort she shows herself to be more than able on the other side of the camera as well. Telling the story with understated power, she manages a neat trick of putting the stories of the victims front and center, despite having to spend quite a bit of time with the perpetrator. Much of this is down to the writing also, and the fact that little detail of the crimes is shown. The film as a whole does better than much of the true crime genre by being truly honouring of the victims and free from bloody sensationalism. A fine quality piece of acting and directing from Kendrick, there's more than enough here to suggest her career as director will be an interesting one to watch.
The Creator (2023)
Decently Enjoyable, But Lacks Structure And Weight
A science-fiction film in which humans battle A. I., humans hunt for what may or may not be the ultimate A. I. weapon, and a man searches for his wife who may or may not be dead. It has Gareth Edward's customary visual beauty, and it's reaching after big (and very contemporary) ideas but it doesn't amount to as much as it could do. The plot is messy, and the whole thing feels like it lacks weight. Part of this is the visual effects, much of which lacks the necessary physical heft no matter the beauty; but it's everywhere else, too. It's not quite clear why everything matters so much; it feels like a series of things stitched uncomfortably together. The last 20 minutes or so feel especially messy and tacked on. It's decently enjoyable, but ultimately no more than that.
War Game (2024)
Interesting And Compelling, But Unclear As To Its Fruitfulness
An undeniably entertaining and alarming documentary detailing a war game about a repeat of the January 6th 2021 insurrection in Washington. What it reveals is, to a certain extent, both reassuring and alarming. There are clearly aspects of American - and this will be mirrored in governments across the world - civil leadership that are not as grounded in the real concerns and practices of people who could potentially pose a real threat. I wasn't fully convinced that some of the failures of leadership in the game were shown to have convincingly serious enough ramifications. And whilst a report on the exercise has been shared at the highest level of the American government, the film ends with a sort of misty-eyed patriotism which suggests to me that there's a real danger of this being another exercise in liberal elites talking to themselves.
Threads (1984)
Occupies An Almost Unique Place In Film History
Hidden away for so long, this film has taken on an almost mythically frightening status in the British imagination. I was 11 when it was first broadcast - I don't think i saw it at the time, and I'm can't speak to if my parents did. But we all knew about. It's recent BBC broadcast is one of only a handful of times it has been shown, but now that it's available on iPlayer (the BBC's streaming service), it's available to be seen afresh by wider audiences. Given the global political moment we're in at present, it's quite the time for it to be back in the conversation.
It remains deeply disturbing and starkly gripping. A terrific job is done of giving us real people to care about; the coldly unemotional on-screen text giving information and the occasional narrated voice only enhance the sense of verisimilitude. Many individual moments are likely to haunt for a long time, but (as with much great horror) what's most effective is what's only implied or portrayed through sound. Or left to imagination. The decision to take 45 minutes of run time to build up to nuclear attack pays off with building fear and dread; the later decision to take us through thirteen years after the attack is inspired, giving a degree of hope but also the inescapable sense of how fragile civilisation and order is. The sense of chaos in the immediate aftermath is also brilliantly portrayed; the way plans are shredded by events, and relationships fray.
It's an extraordinary, brilliantly executed piece of film-making that occupies an almost unique place in film history.
Trolls (2016)
Perfectly Fine, But No More Than That
Forced into a rewatch by the daughter, it had more good gags and greater visual inventiveness than I remembered. It also has a weirdly dark central premise to provide jeopardy, that could probably have been engineered in a different way. A very starry voice cast isn't used as well as it could be, and it shoots for an Inside Out style emotional depth, but it doesn't get anywhere close to it, ending instead with an idea that's typically saccharine and twee. Anna Kendrick is enjoying herself in the lead role, and Justin Timberlake is a decent choice, but the script doesn't give anything like enough to most of the cast to do what they can.
May December (2023)
A Strangely Missed Opportunity
It may be that this film is best understood as being a film about performance and film-making itself; which is fine. If that is the case, it does so reasonably effectively. But it could be a little problematic that this is a loosely truth based story about a woman who groomed and manipulated a 13-year old boy she was teaching in school into a sexual relationship, and can see none of the wrong in what she had done even years later, after a spell in prison. They are married to each other, and when Natalie Portman, playing an actress who will play Julianne Moore's character's role in a film, comes to research her part, difficult things are awakened. Things start to be questioned despite the woman resolute refusal to see anything she has done as wrong.
It's perhaps aiming to be darkly comedic, and bar a handful of occasions that didn't work for me. It seems strange that a story about sexual abuse of a young boy can be used as a metaphor for something else, or as a satire on suburban comfort. It seems to lack an awareness, like Julianne Moore's character herself, of the seriousness of what's happened. I feel uncomfortable suggesting that if genders were flipped here, that wouldn't be the case; but discomfort aside, that's probably the case. There's excellence in Portman's oddly physical performance, but this is all told a missed opportunity to tell a story that needs to be taken first at face value before it's allowed to become a metaphor for anything else.
Inside Out 2 (2024)
A Sequel That More Than Earns Its Right To Exist
A lot of films that don't need them get sequels; Inside Out is that rare film that not only has the probability of a sequel written into its DNA, but with the deft execution of its idea genuinely earned a second outing. This second installment sees the centra character Riley hit adolescence, and with a raft of new emotions to add to the cast. The bones of the plot follow a similar structure to the first film - learning to assimilate and use 'difficult' emotions well. And whilst you can see that coming quite a long way off, it bears all the strengths of the first film - hitting its marks with open-hearted compassion, wit, and intelligence. It's genuinely laugh-out loud funny, much of what it says about adolescence is poignantly truthful - and applicable to much of the rest of life. Quite how far this franchise is an interesting question - young adulthood? Middle age? Old age? Are we heading for an animated Malone Dies style internal monologue for the final film? We'll find out - but for now, this is every bit as good as you hope it will be, more than earning its place in continuing to be an important source of thought provocation and conversation starting, not to mention as a general resource for coping well with life. We need these films.
The Batman (2022)
Batman By Way Of Se7en Mixed With The Crow
One of the many things this take on Batman gets right is eschewing the need for an origin story. At this point we've seen how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman so many times that we just don't need to see it again; so here we arrive with Batman already into his second year in the dual identity. What we get is a serial killer thriller which crosses The Crow (original) with Se7en, to great effect. If it lacks the really compelling antagonist of Nolan's films, te rest of the supporting cast are good - especially Jeffrey Wright and Zoe Kravitz, the latter of whom is really well used until the last 45 minutes or so, when she goes missing somewhat - a shame given how well the character is drawn and how good the performance has been to that point. Robert Pattinson is fine, if a little lacking in something, but it's testament to the writing and direction that the three-hour run time never drags. It's the Batman film that's most openly cynical about the super rich, in keeping with the times in which we live; and perhaps it gets even close to critiquing this (excessive wealth) as the title character's only true superpower than any other incarnation. There's more than enough going on here to justify more.
The Last Duel (2021)
A Film That Gets Better As It Goes On, Undermined By A Poor Script
Ridley Scott is showing no signs of slowing down or mellowing out, and though this will probably not stand the test of time as one of his major, influential films, neither is it one of his weaker efforts. Scott's proven world-building skills take us to medieval France, and spins a story of Jodie Comer, married to Matt Damon, accusing Adam Driver of raping her whilst her husband is away. The film tells the story of the central events three times, each with chapter headings defining each chapter as coming from the point of view of one of the three protagonists. Matt Damon's is first, Comer's third - and that includes a fading of text in the chapter heading to emphasise the words 'the truth'.
If memory serves, Matt Damon & Ben Affleck wrote the first section; if they did, they'd be well advised to think again about what they were up to. The dialogue in that section is a mess, and Damon's portrayal is all over the place. Thankfully it picks up significantly for the rest of the film; Driver's section is interesting, and his performance carries it well. Comer's section is gripping and disturbing, culminating in a portrayal of the rape that is genuinely upsetting without being exploitative or prurient. It all culminates in a duel between the two men; if Damon wins and kills Driver, Comer is proved right; if the reverse happens, Comer will be adjudged to be lying and subjected to a cruel, humiliating public death. That climax is savage and gripping - it's the sort of thing that Scott directs brilliantly, and leaves us emotionally engaged as well as viscerally thrilled - uncomfortably so.
It's not the searing critique institutionalised of misogyny it wants to be and should be, however. Damon's performance, and that whole first section, needed to do far more work to set that up, and though the rest of the film does a good job at trying to make up the ground lost in that opening, it never fully recovers. Comer's skills deserve more to work with too, and though the era portrayed require of her a certain passivity, even the section that focuses on her experience needs to do a bit better at emphasising the complexity and injustice of her situation.
All told, Scott's skills do end up taking the reins here, and there's much to admire, enjoy and provoke thought. With a better script, however this could have been a late career high-point.
Barbie (2023)
A Heart Big Enough To Embrace Anyone Who'll Allow Themselves To Be Embraced
The genius of this film lies in it's willingness to set itself up for failure. That it allows itself to be self-referential, metatextual ... and joyfully funny - to set its goals so high and meet them with such confident aplomb whilst being willing to be criticised for some wish it had been but was never trying to be. Brilliantly cast, superbly written and directed, with great songs and performances and a heart big enough to embrace anyone who'll allow themselves to be embraced whilst being challenged.
P. S. My daughter requested me to add that she loved it, and learned that men think they run everything, but they don't.
U2: Zoo TV Live from Sydney (1994)
A Brillaint Document Of A Key Moment In Rock History
It's impossible to fully capture the bone-shaking, epoch-shaping, life-altering experience of this tour in person. But this film comes pretty damn close. It's on YouTube in its entirety if you've never experienced it for yourself. The musical high points are many - Running To Stand Still has never sounded as bleakly beautiful as it does here, and the segue from that to Where The Streets Have No Name is spine-chilling. The opening barrage of songs from Achtung Baby is stunning, and what the whole film manages to capture so brilliantly is the overwhelming experience the tour was when you actually attended. Yes, other bands had tried aspects of it this before; but none were doing so at U2's planet-bestriding size, with quite as much on the line as they had after the confusing mishmash of Rattle and Hum. That it celebrated living inside post-modernism whilst also critiquing is a trick that few, in any medium, have managed since. Other tours may have been more ecstatic, but little else has been as revolutionary as this was. As such, this is an excellent document of a moment in rock history.
Wicked Little Letters (2023)
Terrific Performances In An Enjoyable Light Comedic Crime Story
Cosy crime is a publishing boom at the moment - the sort of crime stories that you'd read with a cup of tea on the sofa on a slow Sunday afternoon. They're fun, laced with gentle humour, and a plot that's just intriguing enough to keep you reading but nothing too taxing. That may sound like damning with faint praise, but I don't mean it that way - doing this well is hard.
Wicked Little Letters is a film version of that. It's 1920s England, and in a small seaside town scandalous, sweary, poison pen letters are being received by a variety of the town's great and good. It seems clear who did it - the Irish migrant Rose, played by Jessie Buckley. Whilst the central crime mystery is not exactly hard to predict, it's a total pleasure getting there - the comedy is beautifully played, Olivia Colman and Buckley leading a strong cast with deft and sensitive performances. If you want to see it, there's more there too - some social commentary on how societies recovered from the collective trauma of global conflict. In the war, a generation of men had gone to fight, and a generation of women held the homeland together. What happens when the surviving men come back, trying to re-find themselves in the light of the inexpressibly horrible; and how do women, who had taken up roles they had previously been excluded from, respond when they're expected to step back aside once again? All that is there, alongside interesting portraits on what damage gossip does, what happens when we suppress parts of ourselves, and how we work out who we want to be,
All that is there - but ultimately this is a fun, engaging, beautifully constructed light crime comedy that it's hard to dislike.
Anatomie d'une chute (2023)
A Masterful Examination Of Human Relationships Wrapped In Absorbing Crime Drama
What stories do we tell - about ourselves, or others? That is the question that haunts this exceptional crime drama. A man falls to his death, and the rest of the film is the story of the investigation into his death, placing his wife at the heart of the investigation. It's a riveting crime story in itself. The solution the film presents is elegant - but the film is cleverly shot, brilliantly written and directed, with some outstanding performances which all combine to make this a film that asks big questions about the way we see ourselves and our relationships - and how these are interpreted by those around us. There's a terrific performance from Milo Machado-Graner as the son of the marriage at the heart of the film, and every part is beautifully drawn and portrayed. A brilliantly intelligent, compassionate and absorbing film.
Reality (2023)
Deserves And Demands To Be Seen
Bizarre, chilling, gripping, and deeply disturbing, this drama relies solely on FB recordings for its dialogue as it tells the true story of the arrest of a young woman (a former servicewoman) for leaking classified material to the press. The material she released alluded to Russian interference in the American democratic process - a fact which the authorities and the Trump government routinely publicly denied. Her sentence was the longest received for such a crime - and it's a crime that her story isn't better known. This film - itself based on the director's play - goes a part of the way to righting that, and Sydney Sweeney's performance is low-key and remarkable. That this was only the beginning of her plight is the most chilling thing; this is a film that deserves and demands to be seen.