Year: 2016 Director: Mike Mills

According to The Telegraph a “secret treasure of the season, though – crafted with tender precision, and built to last”

According to the Guardian, a film that boasts a “rush of gorgeous moments, a standout performance from Annette Bening and profound thoughts on family and identity”

According to the Mrs F8 “a load of bollocks”. And I’m inclined to agree.

Across two hours we get lots of “quirky”, something which seems to be director Mike Mills forte. Annette Bening plays divorcee Dorothea, mother to 15 year old Jamie living in shabby bohemian chic in Santa Barbara in 1979. The house is also home to lodgers Abbie – an art student with love of punk music who is recovering from cervical cancer, and William, a handyman still devoted to the hippy lifestyle. Jamie doesn’t have a girlfriend but 17 year old Julie sneaks into Jamie’s room most nights for sleep and conversation, but not sex. Although a willing participant with other boys she is off limits to Jamie who clearly adores her.

Early attempts are made to portray Jamie as a difficult teenager but he doesn’t even seem mildly exasperating. We are told in passing » Continue Reading.

Year: 2017 Director: Chris McKay

‘Every film starts with a black screen….then some creepy music…. then a logo…..Warner Bros? Why not Brothers….’ and right from the off you know that the film isn’t afraid to prick the pomposity of the ultra gothic darkness of the Nolan caped crusader flicks. Batman was the insular macho ass of The Lego Movie and here Will Arnett has the tone of Alec Baldwin’s ‘SNL’ Trump impression although am sure its purely coincidental that both are self important deluded billionaires.

The plot, such as there is one, revolves around The Joker’s annoyance that Batman doesn’t consider him as his mortal enemy or even that they have a relationship. The script throws little barbs at weaknesses in previous Batman outings – ‘that thing with the two boats’ and the campy sixties version with a joke about shark repellent which has a lovely pay off. On the way he drools over Commissioner Barbara Gordon to the soundtrack of Cutting Crew’s ‘I Just Died In You Arms’, accidently adopts his sidekick Robin and with the ever faithful Alfred The Butler (drolly voiced by Ralph Fiennes) tries to foil The Joker’s evil scheme.

There are pop culture » Continue Reading.

Year: 1993 Director: Joe Dante

At the moment the film world is going ga-ga over ‘La La Land’ : a movie that celebrates the golden age of the Hollywood musical. Awards are raining down on it like Gene Kelly pirouetting in a freak shower proving critics and studios alike love little more than a good navel gaze. Yet in 1993 Joe Dante’s ‘Matinee’ paid homage with equal love and nostalgia to an equally beloved era of film-making: the 50’s B-movie that was staple of the Saturday morning matinee.

The film didn’t do great business in 1993, critics were lukewarm, the studio wre sure how to sell it and it sort of sunk without trace despite having a similar vibe as Dante’s ‘Gremlins’ with an equally great score from Jerry Goldsmith. The backdrop of the main action is the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis as the world stands on the brink of destruction, adults panic buy Shredded Wheat and boys think “If the world was gonna end, do you think that pretty girl in class would put out?” With such tension and fear in the air, the last of the celluloid showmen sees a chance to revive his flagging fortunes.

John Goodman’s cigar chomping » Continue Reading.

Year: 2017 Director: Danny Boyle

HERE BE SPOILERS

“Does the sequel have a lust for life?” you’ll read and you’ll want to be out there, pounding down the pavement with store detectives breathing down your neck, arms flailing – direct into the newspaper offices where they write about leisure for your pleasure. Throwing a glass Begbie style into the face of the hack who wrote that “Yous the kind of whiny faced CUNT who says “Costello’s Aim Is Still True” a the end of live reviews.” you’ll be screaming. “it was the sub editor” they’ll whimper but it’s too late. The damage is done – your twentysomething memories have been shat on by a wee fucker.

OK Trainspotting may be better seen as a product of its times and where the audience that put the poster up on the wall were – at uni also purchasing Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Prodigy Fat Of The Land and Taxi Driver or Italian Job posters from the stall in the atrium every Wednesday. It’s soundtrack was a nigh perfect mix of old and new with Pulp, Blondie, Brian Eno, Lou Reed, Leftfield and of course, Iggy Pop’s with Bowie acolytes the Sales » Continue Reading.

Year: 2017 Director: Damien Chazelle

I can’t believe the Afterwrod doesn’t yet have a La La Land review, so here it is. Though you don’t need to be a full on musicals fan, you need to be open to a few basic ideas to enjoy this film. Characters can burst into song and dance in the middle of a scene – fine with me. Open to a bit of jazz? Quite a lot of jazz. Ok? Let’s go then. The story is one of the oldest in the movie business – two dreamers on the make in LA – actress Emma Stone and jazz pianist Ryan Gosling – fall in love with each other, and each other’s dreams. You know what? Success costs and as he hooks up with John Legend (yes) and the success starts coming the cracks in the relationship widen. It’s romantic, it’s a comedy – but most of all it’s a love letter to the MGM musical, to Hollywood and to LA. We go on a whistle stop tour of LA landmarks from the Griffiths Planetarium (Rebel Without a Cause) and gridlocked freeways to the studio backlots. Gosling and Stone twirl, tap dance and croon their » Continue Reading.

Year: 2006 Director: Darren Aronofsky

In the midst of an entertainment culture that’s never seem more focused on guaranteeing excellence – from TV box sets and Josh Weedon helmed reboots – its a pleasure , certainly occasional, perhaps guilty, to focus on a complete howler. Darren Aronofsky, of Pi and Requiem for A Dream, managed to blow 35 million dollars on what appears to be an extended vanity project for then squeeze Rachel Weitz. The film is equivalent to those model portfolio shoots you can do at High Streeet photographers, or the Friday video. All involved, Aronofsky, Weitz and Hugh Jackman – should know way better.

We lay our scene in fifteenth-century South America, where Hugh Jackman plays a conquistador who is in search of the Tree of Life on the behest of the beautiful Queen of Spain – Weitz. No, in fact its the far future, where lotus-position astral voyager Jackman is steering a bonsai tree bubble spaceship into a distant nebula haunted by memories of his dead wife Weitz . Oh wait, in fact we’re really in the present day where Jackman is a brilliant cancer surgeon whose beautiful wife – Weitz in full pixie waif mode » Continue Reading.

Year: 2014 Director: Andrew Horn

Perhaps it best to start with what this documentary about the rock / glam / hair metal band Twisted Sister isn’t/ It’s not ‘Anvil’ – some goofy loveable oldsters getting another crack at the big time in Tap-alike situations. It’s also not a tale of superstardom as despite running 135 minutes the film stops as the band finally sign a major US record deal and get the platinum records they have been dreaming of. That, as the closing captions note, is for another movie.

This is the story of an American bar band formed in the early 70s who spend 10 years playing shithole clubs in Long Island and New Jersey, getting an enormous devoted fanbase who would pack out 3,000 seaters week upon week with zero interest from the music business because they thought they were a joke. And for a while you could see their point – covering Bowie, Slade, Mott and Lou Reed night after night can only get you so far and many of their ilk would be satisfied with the beer money it raised.

Led by the charismatic Dee Snider, the clichéd small town outsider who wanted to be » Continue Reading.

Year: 2016 Director: Michael Bay

Two and a quarter hours long, about two of which is real-time combat, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi is one for all those who found Black Hawk Down a little bit slow and lacking in action.

Canny enough to namecheck Black Hawk Down as an obvious antecedent, 13 Hours is similarly based on a real-life incident, in this case the 2012 ‘Battle Of Benghazi’, with our plucky, outnumbered grunts facing down wave upon wave of marauding jihadists rather than Somali militia. Real life serves the makers well, shifting the action from a consulate location, where the film’s skill at evoking the sheer noise and confusion of war leaves you wondering, like the grunts, what the fuck is going on, to a second setting where, without wanting to give anything away, things settle down a bit, though with no let-up in the action. There’s a car chase scene which is just wow. More gunfire, night vision, sniper scope and RPG action than you can shake a stick at.

Director Bay, returning to the kind of form he first showed in The Rock, consistently finds new ways of framing the action, producing startling » Continue Reading.

Year: 2016 Director: Gareth Edwards

Christmas Eve, the BJB clan are staying at my mum’s. Usually we go to the theatre, but since Mary Poppins was booked up months ago we decided on a visit to The Pictures.

None of us are real Star Wars nuts. My daughters were more into Harry Potter. I was a little too old to surf the first Star Wars wave. In fact, Mrs BJB is the biggest fan in the family as she took her youngest brother to see Episode IV on its original release. Anyway after a bit of to-and-froing, the family decided to see Rogue One while it was still on a big screen.

I had caught up with Gareth Edward’s first film Monsters a year or two after its release. I enjoyed its noirish atmosphere but wasn’t entirely bowled over. So I wasn’t expecting too much from another chip off the old franchise. Hence, being bowled over by R1 was a real surprise to me.

First off, the cast are all proper quality actors and although most of the characters are off the shelf action stereotypes – the seemingly cynical soldier who hides his principles, amoral hustlers who » Continue Reading.

Year: 2014 Director: Greg McLean

The original ‘Wolf Creek’ in 2005 ruled my world with its slow, stealthy build-up, brilliant use of environment, brutal kills and none-more-nihilistic outlook. The story of backpackers meeting grisly ends at the hands of an Outback serial killer, it didn’t do much that was new, but did it with a brio, cynicism and nastiness rarely seen since ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’.

Fast-forward to 2014, when I was among those curling my lip at the very idea of ‘Wolf Creek 2’. It had been a long time. And after all, ‘Wolf Creek’ didn’t need a sequel. It is what it is. Reviews decrying it as a workaday retread lacking those very things that made the original unique served only to reinforce my ‘Wolf Creek 2’ prejudice, and I waved it off the boat.

Click forward two more years to October 2016, when among a treasure trove of birthday gifts was a box set of the ‘Wolf Creek’ TV show, something I didn’t even know existed until that moment. The idea of a series treatment of ‘Wolf Creek’ intrigued me way more than a straight-up sequel, particularly since the cover shows a kick-ass chick with a » Continue Reading.

Year: 2016 Director: Makoto Shinkai

I went to see this with my 13 year old daughter who decided she would rather see the subtitled, rather than the dubbed version. It’s only had a limited release in the UK so we had to travel to Southampton to see it. The fantasy story revolves around two strangers, Mitsuha, a high school girl living in the rural town of Itomori and Taki, a high school boy living in Tokyo. Mitsuha is bored of life in the country and longs to live in the city. One day, Taki wakes up and finds himself in Mitsuha’s body while Mitsuha has been transported to Tokyo and is inhabiting Taki’s body. Taki and Mitsuha wake the next day, returned to their own bodies and lives, having to deal with the fallout from the understandably strange behaviour that went on the day before. As these random body swaps continue, the pair, realizing what is happening, start to communicate by notes and then by messages on their phones until the swaps suddenly stop. Taki discovers that the Mitsuha’s village had been destroyed by a comet three years earlier, Mitsuha and most of the village had been killed and their » Continue Reading.

Year: 2016 Director: John Lee Hancock

When it comes to screenplays, Hollywood sure does love its BOATS – based on a true story. It’s the first letter of the acronym that Tinseltown deal-makers appreciate the most of course, since ‘basing’ the story on factual information invariably give them carte blanche to change everything else about it, for reasons of easy audience understanding and hopefully, maximised profit. Usually, this process involves a heavy use of exaggeration, highlighting the good (or even better, outrageously bad) actions of the protagonist, given that flagrant shock value puts bums on seats more successfully than Madchester pop combo James. Therefore, you’d expect The Founder screenwriter Robert D. Siegel to do such a number on Ray Kroc, the man who ‘found’ (as opposed to founded) McDonald’s. By his own admission, as documented in his autobiography, ‘Grinding it Out’, Kroc was a ruthless business opportunist whose idea of compassion and humanity was such that, if he ever came across a drowning competitor, he’d cheerfully attach a hosepipe to their mouth. Knowing this, it’d hardly be a stretch to depict Kroc – ‘like Crocodile but not spelt that way’ – as a classic pantomime villain since, in addition to » Continue Reading.

Year: 2016 Director: Ken Loach

It’s sobering to think it’s nearly 50 years since ‘Poor Cow’ – featuring the dubious talents of one-time Led Zeppelin enforcer John ‘Biffo’ Bindon, a man so unpredictably violent even the notorious Peter Grant considered him a liability – introduced the unapologetically political filmmaker Ken Loach to the world. What’s even more astounding is the fact that after half a century and numerous films portraying life in Britain, Loach’s work continues to represent a view of the country which is resolutely unjust, inequitable and painful to watch. Such is the case with ‘I, Daniel Blake’, a movie which follows the plight of the titular character, a middle-aged carpenter who, after suffering a serious heart attack, is given the run around by a bureaucratic welfare system deliberately designed to discourage claimants through a combination of obtuse form filling and ritual humiliation. Unable to access the sickness payment his Doctor has recommended, due to not scoring enough ‘points’ in an interview with a so called health professional, Dan is forced to justify his Job Seekers Allowance application by proving he is actually looking for work, despite there being little employment available and no work he could realistically » Continue Reading.

Year: 2016 Director: Louis Theroux

I’ve been bored with Louis Theroux in recent years. His goofy, mock-naive persona was starting to get a little shop-worn, and I thought his Saville documentary was a little misjudged and overly defensive.

But My Scientology Movie is meaty and thought-provoking. As an investigative journalist, Louis was never going to get anywhere near to penetrating this most secretive of (alleged!) cults, but I think he knew that from the start.

Instead, he does what he has always done best. He hovers round the periphery and disarms people with his affability, patiently feeding them enough rope to tie themselves in knots. In the end, they come to him, to an extent. So we get scenes like an ex-enforcer for the Church, berating them for their heavy handed bully techniques, while failing to face up to the fact that he was key to developing those techniques in the first place. And Church security teams trying to see Louis and his team off by following them around and filming them, which Louis diffuses by just remaining bewildered and curious rather than intimidated.

As it’s a cinematic release with a slightly larger budget, the production standards are much classier » Continue Reading.

Year: 2016 Director: Jim Jarmusch

Sitting on a stately chair at the centre of this film about The Stooges is the most unlikely (almost) last man standing of the story is, as billed in the credits, James Osterberg as Iggy Pop – a battle scarred shit eating grinner that you could listen to all day long, Those deep honey mixed with gravel tones simply lay out the facts, m’am, with the other band members, managers and relatives filling in the blanks. Its thankfully free of irrelevant famous musician friend anecdotes or members of U2 telling you how their lives were changed.

Early footage of The Stooges is hard to come by and Jarmusch does a great job in eking it out over 2 hours, smearing it with clippings, sounds and grime. It’s a tale of more dumb luck than judgement as they attach themselves to the fertile Ann Arbor scene and the MC5 who help them get a record deal. Their first two albums are recorded in quick succession seemingly with Elektra having no idea what the hell to do with them. When they decide to drop them the guardian angel of David Bowie swoops down to save first » Continue Reading.

Year: 2016 Director: Adam Curtis

I’m guessing that Adam Curtis is a familiar name to many here, to some not so much – particularly as his work is now mainly seen on the BBC iplayer which those abroad may not be able to access. He’s a journalist and film-maker, who for the last two decades has been crafting a singular approach to documentary making. Curtis’ films are collages of archive clips from primarily the BBC News that explore a particular topic, anchored by Curtis’ own narrative voice and a kicking selection of background music. All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011) argued with a techno-optimist view, suggesting instead that technology has simplified and distorted our view of the world. Bitter Lake (2015) looked at how many Islamist terrorist groups have their origins in the nature of the alliance between the USA and Saudi Arabia; and now we have Hpernormalizion.

Hypernormalization starts in 1975 in New York – where the politicians have bankrupted the city and the financiers take over the running of government; in Syria – where Assad’s father, the first dictator, is trying to create a pan-Arab settlement for the middle East. Frustrated by the Americans’ support » Continue Reading.

Year: 2016 Director: Robert Eggers

Might appeal to people who enjoyed:

It’s 92 minutes long so, for a start, it might appeal to people who enjoy films that aren’t tests of endurance. That said, if you’re looking for something to cheer you up, this might not be for you..

Year: 1961 Director: Val Guest

I recently got 4 Blu Rays for £20 in Fopp so thought I’d review them as they are almost all new views to me.

A fresh 4K transfer from the BFI of Quatermass director, Val Guest’s apocalyptic drama, ‘The Day The Earth Caught Fire’ set in a London after two recent nuclear tests by opposing sides of the Cold War have led to climatic changes and possibly signal the end of the world as we know it. The staff of the Daily Express attempt to discover what is going on with top class investigative journalism (did I mention it was a fantasy?) as the world starts to burn.

It bears all the hallmarks of 50s60s science fiction – nuclear paranoia, a mistrust of the ruling classes and government, a slightly polemic and grandstanding screenplay (a BAFTA winning collaboration by Guest and Wolf Mankowitz) and a feeling that these mad scientists will be the death of us. What raises it above the schlock of films of this type is a more intelligent and nuanced approach which instead of showing the aftermath of a cataclysmic event gives us a sense of the world slowly falling » Continue Reading.

Year: 2016 Director: Ti West

In A Valley Of Violence has got 8 reviews on IMDB to date, four good and four bad. The bad ones criticise the story and the screenplay, comparing the story to the Keanu Reeves shoot-em-up revenge film John Wick (albeit as a Western). Which is fair enough. But the screenplay redeems it for me. It really turns the idea of classic tough guys on its head, showing them as people who really don’t want to get hurt, much less killed. The tough guys are Ethan Hawke and John Travolta, neither of whom fits the usual clearly delineated goodie/baddie stereotype. I was interested to see the baddest baddie is played by James Ransone, who I last saw having a fully explicit wank in the Larry Clark film Ken Park! Nice to see he’s gone on to have a proper career after such a courageously unselfconscious start. Also stars Doctor Who’s old assistant, Karen Gillan. Oh and the dog is brilliant.

Three stars.

Might appeal to people who enjoyed:

John Wick, Unforgiven.

Year: 2013 Director: Lukas Moodysson

Many of the films that convey the essence of making music aren’t actually biopics or documentaries. Joining The Commitments, Whiplash at the top of the tree is this Swedish film from Eurofilm bad boy Lukas Moodysson. Moodysson’s most famous for two extremely depressing films – Lilya 4 Ever and A Hole In My Heart. The latter, which I have seen, is deeply unpleasant and audience-baiting. The clue to the joy that is We Are The Best! lies in his earlier film Together, in which he looks at life in a commune in seventies Sweden with sympathy and humour. Music is well used, and there are some terrific unsentimental and natural performances in Together from the children who have to bear the consequences of their parents lifestyle choices. We Are The Best moves forward ten years to Stockholm of the early eighties. Two teenage girls, Bobo and Klara, take their boredom, their desire to wind up their parents, and political views and decide to mix all this together into forming a punk band. They’ve no idea how to play music – brilliant- and their one song is about how school sports lessons are no answer to » Continue Reading.

Year: 2015 Director: Jeremy Saulnier

Green Room is the third feature from Jeremy Saulnier who’s last movie was the fabulous revenge thriller Blue Ruin. This is a thriller/horror which grips from the off and doesn’t let go. It follows punk band The Ain’t Rights slepping around the bars and dives earning next to nothing when they get a gig in the backwoods playing to a load of Right wing skinheads. At this point we get a rather good cover of the Dead Kennedy’s Nazi Punks Fuck Off but after that a shocking discovery ups the ante. From then on the band are in a fight for survival with limited weapons and no way out.

We really enjoyed this in a gruesome watching through your fingers way. The violence is ultra realistic and shocking when it happens. But there is a dark wit running through the film which is very well played. The performances are excellent with the nervous bassist played by the late Anton Yelchin and the cold calculating club owner Patrick Stewart standing out

A great horror that has been pared to the bone and well worth the 90 odd minutes.

Might appeal to people who enjoyed:

Last House » Continue Reading.

Year: 2016 Director: Colm McCarthy

Of late the world has been overrun with so many zombie films that we assume that creatively the horror genre is pretty well braindead but it helps that ‘The Girl With All The Gifts’ starts from a curious unique scenario and pretty much follows through to its conclusion. MR Carey’s novel was a gripping page turner and the film script which he adapted maintains that tension aided by a superb sound design and clanging industrial music that makes the viewer uneasy. The girl of the title, Melanie, relative unknown Sennia Nanua lives in a military installation, together with several other children who are wheeled to a makeshift classroom each day strapped to their chairs. Reprising her role as Cruella De Ville, Glenn Close’s Dr Caldwell stalks their cells at night often leading to an empty desk the next morning. It’s best you know as little as possible before seeing this film so I’ll try and keep it vague.

The only ray of light in this tomblike existence for Melanie is Gemma Arterton as teacher, Miss Justineau, the only inhabitant to show anything but fear and contempt for the inmates. The authorities want the children to » Continue Reading.