July Quick Picks and Pans – Giallo Month

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Death Walks at Midnight (1972) This nifty thriller from director Luciano Ercoli has enough turns to keep you guessing until the end. Top fashion model Valentina (Nieves Navarro, aka: Susan Scott) takes an experimental hallucinogen for money and has visions of a brutal murder with a spiked gauntlet. As Valentina delves deeper into the mystery, she spots the murderer from her nightmares, which might just lead to her doom. Fearing she will be the next victim, she tries to convince her artist boyfriend and police, but they dismiss it as effects of the drug. Only a lone reporter appears to be her ally. The film features a pair of thugs, including a manic laughing assassin, in a climactic rooftop fight. Spoiler alert: Don’t expect Death to appear at midnight. In the context of the movie, he shows up whenever he pleases.

Rating: ****. Available on Blu-ray, DVD and Amazon Prime

The Fifth Cord(1971) Director Luigi Bazzoni’s taut giallo film keeps us engaged throughout, featuring Franco Nero as alcoholic journalist Andrea Bild. As the intrepid reporter gets closer to the truth behind a series of murders, he gets deeper into hot water with the cops and his superiors. As he appears in the film, Andrea isn’t the most sympathetic of characters. He has an abusive streak, and still holds a torch for his ex-wife Helene (Silvia Monti), while spending time with his girlfriend. The Fifth Cord also features another (surprise, surprise) exceptional score from Ennio Morricone (Where would gialli have been without him?).

Rating: ****. Available on DVD

Perversion Story(aka: One on Top of the Other) (1969) This solid suspense movie, set in San Francisco, plays like a classic film noir, albeit with more explicit thrills and a swinging ‘60s vibe. Jean Sorel stars as George, a doctor in a loveless marriage. Marissa Mell stuns in a dual role as George’s asthmatic wife Susan (Marissa Mell) and femme fatale Monica Weston. When Susan suddenly dies from an accidental overdose, all signs point to him as the likely culprit. Monica, a stripper at a nightclub, might be the link he needs to clear his name. Director/co-writer Lucio Fulci’s film is stylish, sexy, and packed with enough crazy plot twists to keep you entranced.  

Rating: ***½. Available on DVD

All the Colors of the Dark (aka: They’re Coming to Get You) (1972) Sergio Martino’s horror/giallo hybrid combines mystery with shocks, in the tale of a woman who becomes mixed up in the affairs of a coven of witches. Edwige Fenech stars as Jane, a woman traumatized by the loss of her unborn baby in a car crash. She repeatedly suffers nightmares of being stabbed by an unknown man, and her constant state of fear begins to forge a rift with her fiancé Richard (George Hilton). The bad dreams become too real when the visions invade her waking hours, and she finds herself pursued by the unknown assailant. Her neighbor proposes a novel approach to her problem, inviting her to a satanic mass. Although it appears to solve her problems with intimacy, it creates new issues. Soon, she’s running for her life from the demonic cult. Martino’s film is unsettling and discombobulating, creating the illusion of a waking dream.

Warning: Pet lovers might consider steering clear, or at least looking away during the animal sacrifice sequence about midway through the film.

Rating: ***½. Available on DVD

Evil Eye (aka: The Girl Who Knew Too Much) (1963) In this fascinating early giallo film from director Mario Bava, Letícia Román plays an American tourist in Rome, Nora Davis, who seems to attract trouble from the moment she steps off the plane. She has a run-in with a drug smuggler, and her aunt dies during the first night in town. Things get worse when she witnesses a murder in the middle of a town square. The local police don’t believe her because she appears to be drunk. Only Dr. Marcello Bassi (played by a youthful John Saxon in a rare romantic role) stands in her corner. Román and Saxon are an appealing couple, who team up to solve the mystery behind a series of murders. Tense and visually gripping (featuring glorious black and white cinematography by Bava), Evil Eye(along with Bava’s Blood and Black Lacefrom the following year) is an excellent introduction to the genre.

Rating: ***½. Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Death Laid an Egg(1968) Even in a genre known for oddball titles, this is an oddball title. Sadly director/co-writer Giulio Questi’s thriller doesn’t quite live up to its goofy promise. Anna (Gina Lollobrigida) owns a family estate with an experimental chicken farm, while her husband Marco (Jean-Louis Trintignant) manages operations with the controlling company. His extracurricular activities involve killing prostitutes and lusting after his young secretary, Gabrielle (Ewa Aulin). Death Laid an Egg might not be much of a murder mystery, and moves at a glacial pace, but it might be worth a look for its idiosyncratic touches, including inventive camera angles, funky editing choices, and a batch of headless/boneless chickens created on the farm.

Rating: **½. Available on DVD

Pass Thru

Watch Movies TV -***DISCLAIMER*** The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion (or other commenters), that's fine. To each their own. These reviews are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the reviews are given on a scale of 0-5. 0, of course, being unwatchable. 1, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay. 4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching!  Neil Breen movies really should come with a warning label.  Like never watch them alone and pregnant women and the elderly need to avoid them at all costs.

Pass Thru – 0 out of 5

A couple of years ago I was guided towards a very unique filmmaker by the name of Neil Breen.  Breen is a man with absolutely no education in film production or writing whatsoever.  He’s an architect and a real estate agent who used his wealth to fund some passion projects—but since the films are really just monuments to his own ego, they are realistically vanity projects.  Now because of Breen’s lack of film education, his films are messy and horrendously made.  Their quality and writing are so bad that they are sometimes infuriating to watch and possibly even a health risk because they might cause an aneurysm in some viewers (maybe not but it wouldn't surprise me if they did).  However, they have received cult status because of this and, it is in this utter incompetence, that accidental comedy is achieved.  It was recently announced that he is producing a new film and it reminded me that I missed his fourth film; Pass Thru, that came out in 2016.  It is truly a magical piece of shit but, what’s absolutely astounding about it, is that this is his fourth film and he still hasn’t learned how to tell a story yet.

Ah, yes, Breen's abandoned piano.  It's like Chekhov's gun only it's just a scene
that makes no goddamn sense because this is a Neil Breen film.

Neil Breen movies are really hard to sum up because the writing is just awful but here’s my best and what I was able to decipher from this mess.  A junkie/homeless man living in the desert (Breen) has his body taken over (?) by a being from the future/distant planet (or maybe a person from a distant planet in the future).  He’s come to see the world as a vile, disgusting place where corporations (Breen’s favorite buzz word he uses to describe society’s evils), governments, and banks are being immoral and unethical.  He’s decided that there will be a cleansing and he will kill three hundred million people and then the world can get its act together.  He does this by wandering around in the desert, disappearing into rocks, and having disjointed conversations with a woman who is either a drug smuggler, a drug addict or an immigrant from an unnamed country (this distinction is never made clear).  Also, there’s a B-story about some teenage astronomers that never really connects to the main story beyond them constantly saying, “We found you,” to Neil Breen’s alien/future guy character—who is also named Thgil, by the way (pronounced “Till” because the English language works that way now).

Totally immigrants and not college students Breen got to work for him in exchange
for a sandwich or something.

Yeah...that's not how drugs work, Breen.

Neil Breen movies are hard to review for me.  It would be easy to just say, “This is trash” and move on but I don’t feel that really explores the experience I have watching films and the word “trash” as a descriptive of an item is overused and used way too broadly.  The thing is Breen is a completely incompetent filmmaker.  I admire his drive to make these films but he shows no progress for wanting to learn the art.  Pass Thru suffers all the same downfalls as his first film Double Down and these all stem from his lack of understanding of both writing and the technical process of creating feature films.  As showcased in my synopsis, Breen has a major issue with his scripts.  He doesn’t understand how to introduce characters and he has no clue on how to develop them or the story.  For example, there isn’t a single character (beyond his own) that is introduced by name or even referred to by any sort of title.  As a viewer, you are left to figure out who these people are.  Sometimes Breen throws you a bone by delivering lazy narration to inform his audience what exactly is happening or a character has unnatural dialogue that literally tells you what is going on but the rest of the time you are left to conclude details all by yourself.  Breen’s inability to write is further highlighted when it comes to developing the story.  Characters jump wildly from moment to moment, scene to scene and it’s hard to tell if what you are watching has any connection to what came before.  Too often things feel like you are placed in the middle of a scene where you missed the first minute or two and are left to catch up.  Entire sequences play out with no structure, pacing or narrative development.  The passage of time simply doesn’t exist in a Neil Breen film so you are left wondering if the events you are seeing are taking place over a single day or hour.  To put it bluntly, Breen’s writing feels like the ramblings of a madman that is a never-ending stream of consciousness that chaotically erupt into existence and disappear immediately as different streams come crossing the previous one’s path.  There’s no structure and no flow so you are left wondering if what you are watching actually makes sense to the man who made it.

"This has been Breen News.  All Breen, All the Time."

Breen’s next big issue that he seems adamant on never improving on is literally every single technical aspect of filmmaking.  Editing is probably one of his biggest issues and hinders any possible flow his incomprehensible stories could potentially have but he also has the added problem of inadequate lighting, poor shot composition, weak audio and use of green screen that borders on an almost satirical usage.  Breen is notorious for re-using footage over and over again (sometimes dozens of times) and sequences of meandering establishment shots that feel superfluous at best and like he is just trying to pad out his movie to a feature length at worst.  Pass Thru showcases all of these Breen tropes to the point that you could literally edit out about 45 minutes of footage and still have the same film and still have it make the same amount of sense.  

If you like tons of drone footage of rock formations in the desert then this
is the movie for you!

As badly as I am dragging Breen through the ringer here, there is a magic to his products.  Bad movies have their own majesty to them.  Sometimes, they are so bad that they are just hard to sit through but sometimes they are so bad that they are an utter joy to experience.  Breen’s work is exactly the latter.  Pass Thru (and all his other work) is so poorly constructed, so terribly acted and so horribly written that they are fun to watch.  The crummy camera work, the inane dialogue, the horrendous acting are easily to riff on and laugh at.  Most of the time you don’t even have to tease the film and can just laugh at what is presented—for example, the truck that is clearly not moving but the driver is pretending it is or the character who is supposedly the niece of another character but they literally look the same age or trying to figure out what country the college kids who are supposed to be immigrants are fleeing from and sneaking into (and that’s just for starters because Breen’s films offers up a lot of nonsensical moments and bad filmmaking sequences to laugh at).   Hell, you can make a drinking game of all the reused footage or the times Breen tries to act like he’s making social commentary but really isn’t saying anything (like just saying the word “corporations” doesn’t mean you are actually saying anything of substance).  The only real take away Pass Thru (and all of Breen’s works) offer is they are fun to laugh at and become more so when viewed with friends.  I’m just shocked that RiffTrax hasn’t done one of his films yet.

Wow, what a seamless effect.  It really looks like they are in a man--
I can't finish this sentence.  They guy has ties to real estate.  He couldn't
find a mansion to film in?  What exactly did he do with the money that
help crowd fund this project?

Breen clearly is in love with himself.  His next movie will
probably be a romantic comedy that involves him
cloning himself and...well...you can imagine
the rest.

There’s no getting around how bad Neil Breen’s Pass Thruis.  The story is barely a concept, there’s no development of characters or situations.  The conflict is barely introduced and never thoughtfully explored.  The technical aspects are well below what an amateur would create and the performances lack subtlety and nuance.  However, it is in all this incompetence that makes Pass Thru a movie to behold and find an odd entertainment value in.  I would warn against watching it alone (because I’ve done that before with his other films and the effort can be exhausting and make you question your sanity) but when viewed with others in a group, his movies can be a joyful and hilarious experience.  I will rag on him for how awfully produced his films are and how he seemingly can’t (or won’t) learn how to improve as a filmmaker but the magic that occurs from this can’t be beat and I’m sorta glad he is so egotistical that he already thinks he’s at the pinnacle of his abilities (this is the guy, after all, who makes himself the lead and the lead is usually a Christ-like character) because, if he showed a desire to learn, his films might get better and they might lose the accidental comedy quality that they have and then something like Pass Thru would just be a mundane bad movie and not a fun one.

DVR Diary: TAMANGO (1958)

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On one hand, John Berry's Tamango feels like a film about a decade ahead of its time in its blunt treatment of slavery and resistance. On the other, it might be of a piece with such contemporary pictures as Salt of the Earth and A King in New York, gestures of nothing-to-lose leftism from filmmakers blacklisted or effectively exiled from Hollywood. This was a time when the film mecca could still produce stuff like Band of Angels with Clark Gable as a sympathetic slaveowner. In Europe, Berry and a team of writers adopted a story by Prosper Merimee, the original author of Carmen, about a blighted romance between a slave ship captain and his black mistress Ayesha -- she who must obey. The girl is Dorothy Dandridge, going farther afield in search of work after Hollywood failed to do much with her. The captain is that improbable international he-man, Curt Jurgens. She thinks she has a privileged position as the captain's lover, but is told he plans to dump her and get married when he finishes the current middle passage, his last. That is his plan, but he finds Ayesha more difficult to dump than he thought. Meanwhile, a captive warrior, the title character (Alex Cressan) appeals to her sense of morality and racial solidarity. When Tamango leads an uprising, Ayesha must choose between her white lover and the outgunned but adamant Africans. She chooses the Africans, which is to choose death.

Jurgens carries the film, making his slaver something more subtle than a seaborne Simon Legree. He has a great scene when he tries to cajole some hunger-striking prisoners to eat. He addresses them patiently, soothingly explaining how good the food is. When one still refuses to eat, he lets it slide, merely suggesting that he might try it later. But when the next man knocks his bowl away, the captain gestures to his crew and the victim is abruptly grabbed and unceremoniously thrown into the sea. It's a great shock moment to remind the viewer that lethal force never lies far below the slavers' civilized surface. During the revolt, he's determined above all to make sure that Ayesha survives, and you can see some quiet agony as it becomes clear to him that she won't leave the hold and prefers to share the rebels' fate. Yet it seems he can write her off all too easily after he orders a cannon fired into the hold. Dandridge has a much more flamboyant moment of agony moments earlier as Ayesha's survival instinct struggles with her conscience, with a feeling that she should not abandon the rebels even if it means her death. In a way it's a camp moment out of classic cinema, almost out of silent cinema as she marches toward the steps to the deck while the rebels chant some sort of defiant death song. She's about to climb up as the song seems to possess her. Haltingly she babbles the syllables, almost not knowing what she's saying, until finally she gives in completely as if ironically liberated by her choice of certain death. I can't quite say hers is a great performance, but that's a great melodramatic movie moment. It's right, however, to close the film with Jurgens and the cannon in Berry's abruptly matter-of-fact fashion. Snuffing the romanticism of Dandridge's big scene that way drives home the indifferent injustice of slavery in effective fashion. Tamango's grim finish helps make it seem more like a Sixties of Seventies film than the Fifties film it is, though Dandridge's histrionics are more in keeping with that decade. Compared to later slavesploitation cinema, Tamango is arguably more politically correct because it insists on the dignity of the enslaved in a way more hard-hitting treatments of the peculiar institution would not. That doesn't make it a better film than, say, Farewell Uncle Tom, but Tamango definitely deserves more attention from movie buffs than it's received in the last sixty years.

New-ish Releases, Spoiler-Free Reviews: Justice League (2017); It (2017)

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Justice League (2017)

No Spoilers!

Director: Zack Snyder

This one was OK, which actually qualifies as a pleasant surprise to me.

Justice League was the fifth film in the "DC Extended Universe" (DCEU). After paying to see the underwhelming Man of Steel in 2013 and then the utter mess that was Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice a couple of years ago, I swore off paying theater prices to see any of the DCEU flicks. While I broke that vow to see Wonder Woman, after all of that movie's mostly-deserved high praise, that initial boycotting paid off by my avoiding the sloppy Suicide Squad. While I am glad that I didn't shell out theater price for Justice League, I have to say that it was a reasonably satisfying at-home rental.

The story picks up several of the ostentatiously dangling and flapping threads left over from Batman v. Superman. With Clark Kent/Superman's apparent death at the hands of the Doomsday monster, the alien conqueror Steppenwolf sees his chance to lead an assault on Earth and take over the planet. It's an attempt which he had made in the past, only to be rebuffed by the collective forces of several of earth's mythically powerful races. Now that Steppenwolf is back with a massive army of fear-feasting insectoids, Batman recruits one known ally, Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, to enlist the aid of other people with apparent superpowers. These lead them to band together a group that includes Barry "The Flash" Allen, Arthur "Aquaman" Curry, and Victor "Cyborg" Stone.

In most ways, the movie is fairly paint-by-numbers. I will admit that I suspect Joss Whedon, who was brought in as a post-production writer/director after Snyder had a family tragedy to deal with, probably was responsible for some of the more intriguing and clever narrative ties in the film. I also wouldn't be surprised if he had a hand in writing some of the more engaging fight sequences. The one which I found most entertaining seemed very much like something we would have seen in The Avengers. Whether it was Whedon or co-writer Chris Terrio, this movie definitely had the lighter tone and funnier gags that Batman v. Superman was painfully lacking. It still wasn't nearly on par with the best MCU or even X-Men flicks, but it was a clear improvement.

Jason Momoa certainly cuts a striking figure as Aquaman, but
the outline and dialogue never came together for me. Most of
the other characters were handled more deftly.

The core characters are a mixed bag. The villain Steppenwolf is dull - a typically one-dimensional warmonger who wants to crush everything in his path. The voice acting by Northern Irish acting veteran Ciaran Hinds is powerful, though. In terms of "The League," I found it hit-and-miss. I've personally never had a problem with Ben Affleck as Batman, and he continues to be fine here. Gal Gadot continues to be great as Wonder Woman, as well. Ezra Miller was rightfully hailed as maybe the biggest revelation in this one, as he plays the iconic Flash exceptionally well, lightening things up nicely. Cyborg, however, I found extremely dull, and this particular vision of Aquaman felt completely off to me. As a group, though, the good outweighed the bad, and the dynamics work well enough.

I can't say that Justice League won me back over to the DCEU, but it did give me an enjoyable two hours. Looking ahead, the film franchise's next movie is Aquaman, headed up by James Wan, known for recent "Fast...Furious" films and the recent Star Trek Beyond. Given my feelings for how Aquaman was handled in Justice League, and my apathy towards the Fast and Furious movies, I don't anticipate that I'll be seeing that one. I do hope that the powers behind the DCEU take some note of what worked in Justice League, though, as they really are sitting on a wealth of great fantasy characters whom they could use to make some wildly entertaining movies.

Spoilers!! You've Been Warned!

Great intro sequences with Wonder Woman. While her solo movie last year had some solid action scenes, her rescue at the bank was top-notch. And the sequence with the Amazons trying to defend the Mother Box from Steppenwolf's attack has some really fun visuals, too.

It was a brief moment, but I absolutely loved the moment when the Flash is running up on a still-deranged Superman, thinking his he has the jump on him, only to have the Man of Steel's eyes turn directly towards him, well aware of the Scarlet Speedster's approach. I have to think that that was a Joss Whedon addition, as it seems like just the type of subtle-but-awesome moment that Whedon has a knack for.

Speaking of Superman, it was probably the least surprising "twist" to bring him back in this one. It was handled fine, if not exactly in a compelling or creative way. The iconic superhero does serve as a half-decent deus ex machina, but he does raise the eternal concern with such a powerful character - how do you find a villain strong enough and interesting enough to contend with him, let alone him and his super-powered buddies?


It (2017)

Director: Andy Muschietti

A solid horror movie, if one that is drawing from several wells that have been heavily tapped by earlier scare flicks.

Based on the hit 1986 novel by popular horror master Stephen King, It follows a group of young kids in their pre- and early teens in the fictional town of Derry, Maine, a seemingly quaint little area that has a history of disturbingly high rate of missing children and horrific disasters. This tale begins in the summer of 1988, when a little boy, Georgie, is apparently sucked into a drainage opening by a monster masquerading as a circus clown. We fast forward a year, with Georgie's older brother, Bill, and his friends wrapping up the school year and looking forward to a summer of freedom. Soon, however, other children start to disappear, and Bill and his friends start to have terrifying hallucinations embodying their worst fears. Wrapped up with these fears isthe same clown, which calls itself Pennywise, that took Bill's kid brother Georgie. Sure that Pennywise means to take and devour them all, Bill and his friends must decide what to do in order to survive and possibly find any of the other children whom Pennywise has already taken.

The movie is a very solid horror movie that I put in the same box as recent horror hits like The Conjuring - it's not really doing anything new, but it uses tried-and-true horror movie techniques extremely well. You get the creepy piano music, a scary clown, creaky doors, dark basements, a spooky and dilapidated house, and almost every other trope you can imagine from such films from the past. Fortunately, director Andy Muschietti executes everything effectively, and he does implement some creative visual scares with sharp editing and a few truly startling moments. On the whole, though, I wasn't dazzled by any wealth of novelty here.

Although this movie is based on a much earlier novel, which had previously been adapted for TV in 1990, it's almost impossible to ignore its similarities with recent nostalgia-laden smash hit TV show Stranger Things, which itself is a bit of a love letter to fiction creators like Stephen King. If the 1980s setting, small town, and gang of 12- and 13-year old misfits isn't enough to make the comparison clear, It even features Finn Wolfhard, one of the young stars of Stranger Things. It doesn't do quite as good a job as the Netflix TV show of invoking the sense of fun and camaraderie, but the bond between the young kids - who dub themselves "The Losers' Club" - is effective enough.

The movie isn't one for subtlety, beyond even the standard horror elements already covered. The secondary characters leave no scrap of doubt as to their roles. The bullies are sneering, cackling, jackal-like predators whose every actions are despicable. The single, sleazy father of female Loser's Club member Emily simply oozes lecherousness. The shut-in mom of hypochondriac Eddie seems to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. And on it goes, with anyone who is not a Loser's Club member being no more than two-dimensional, and basically of no help to the kids. This is an overly convenient narrative device, as it is about the only way that the kids are left to fend for themselves. It's not a fatal flaw, as the movie does need to keep its focus on the kids themselves, but I would have appreciated seeing one or two adults who actually seemed to care about their kids suffering through hellacious trauma.

Though It didn't stun me with anything exceptionally novel, it was a decent enough horror flick. It was always meant as the first of a two-part film series, with the sequel It: Chapter 2 set for a September 2019 release. I doubt that I'll bother seeing it in theaters, but I'll check it out eventually. The concept of a horror movie flashing forward 27 years to see the adult versions of the first movie's children protagonists deal with the returning horror is an interesting concept. 

Nico, 1988 (4½ Stars)

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This is a biographical film, following the last two years in the life of Christa Pfäffgen, better known as Nico. Maybe the title is misleading. Most of the film takes place in 1986. I would have called it "Nico: The End", a reference that her fans would recognise immediately.

To quickly sum up her life: Christa Pfäffgen was born in Cologne in 1938 and moved to Berlin with her family in 1940. When she was 16 she became a fashion model and moved to Paris. This was when she began to call herself Nico. She became an actress in 1958 and made a series of films, including the lead role in "Strip-Tease" (1963). She had a brief affair with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, who encouraged her to record her first single in 1965, "I'm not saying", produced by Jimmy Page. Shortly after this she became associated with Andy Warhol, who used her in his experimental films. He encouraged the band Velvet Underground to add her as a singer, which they did grudgingly, because they didn't think she fitted their style. From 1967 on she began a solo career as a singer.

From the 1970's on she began to hate the name Nico and wanted to give it up, but her managers persuaded her to retain it because that was how her fans knew her. She wanted her friends at least to call her by her real name, Christa, but it was too difficult to overcome old habits. She remained Nico, whether she liked it or not.

That's the prologue. The film begins in 1986 when she's practically washed out. She's a heroin addict and she's suffering because her son Ari is in a mental institution, but she wants to pull herself together and go on tour. She rents a small house in Manchester as her base of operations. The film shows her performing an unsuccessful concert in Paris and a very successful concert in Poland. Despite her poor physical state she still has boundless talent which she can unleash when she's not high.

All the time she travelled she had a tape recorder with her which she used whenever she heard interesting sounds. She said she was trying to rediscover the sound that she first heard when Berlin was being bombed in 1945. Was that a drug-induced mania? I don't know.

The actress Trine Dyrholm, who I've never heard of before, puts on a stunning performance as Nico. We can feel her pain in every scene, but what's most amazing is her singing. She isn't quite Nico when she's on stage, but she gets remarkably close.

During her solo career Nico referred to herself as the Priestess of Darkness. Posthumously she was called the world's first goth girl. Those are just titles. She was an incredible singer with a powerful voice tinged with sadness. I just regret that she was ruined by her heroin addiction. We lost her too soon.

Ant-Man and the Wasp (5 Stars)

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This is the year of Marvel. I like the Marvel films anyway, but there have never been so many good films in a row as this year. "Black Panther", "Infinity War" and "Deadpool 2". Later this year there will be "Venom". It's a great time to be a movie fan.

"Ant-Man and the Wasp" takes place after the events of "Captain America: Civil War", but it also refers to the events of "Ant-Man". It also takes place parallel to "Infinity War". It's useful to watch all the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films in order. There will probably be a gigantic box set of all the MCU movies on Blu-ray. I don't just mean the MCU Phase One and MCU Phase Two box sets with six films each, I mean a mega box set with at least 22 films, maybe a lot more. That will be a good starting point for newcomers, but not for me. I've been buying the Blu-rays one by one as they're released.

The film starts with Scott Lang (Ant-Man) under house arrest because of his illegal activities in "Captain America: Civil War". It's very noble of him to obey the requirements of the law. With his powers he could shrink out of the electronic tag, travel halfway round the world, then return home to put the tag back on. But he's a reformed man now.

Most of the story has to do with him helping Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, to retrieve his lover Janet Van Dyne, the original Wasp, from the Quantum realm where she's been trapped for thirty years.

When the film started I thought it had too much humour. As it considered I changed my mind. It wasn't too much, it was just enough humour to prepare for the hard-hitting action scenes.

This is one of the best films of 2018.

The Birdcage Movie Screenshots (1996) Part 13

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The Birdcage
1996

   

   

  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  

   

  

   

 

Mission Impossible Series - Ranking

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I had an absolute blast re-watching the previous five films in the Mission Impossible series leading up to Fallout – all of which made it easier to see which really was the best. I am more convinced than ever now that this is the best action series going – and really, one of the best we have ever seen.

 

6. Mission: Impossible III (2006) – Yes, Philip Seymour Hoffman is the best ever villain this series has ever had – and it has less overt problems than Mission Impossible II – but I’ll take flawed but going for it over less flawed, but less inventive.

 

5. Mission: Impossible II (2000) – This film goes for it, and yes, it’s all over the map, and wildly over the top, and the villain is bland – but Thandie Newton is terrific, and the action sequences in the back half are as good as they possibly could be. I don’t care if I’m the only one in the world who doesn’t rank this as the weakest entry, I’m still right.

 

4. Mission: Impossible (1996) – It’s really kind of insane that a major studio gave Brian DePalma the reigns for a blockbuster like this in 1996 – and basically allowed him to make a film that at the very least is visually very much a Brian DePalma film. It’s probably too confusing, and the love interest doesn’t work, but I loved it way more than I remembered loving it when I watched again. Not only is the Langley robbery sequence Riffifi level genius, the reveal of what really happened is Hitchcock worthy. Still, nowhere near DePalma’s best – but this is great just the same.

 

3. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015) – This probably has my favorite set piece of any of the films – the Vienna opera house attempted assassination, and I absolute adore Rebecca Ferguson more than any other love interest, apart from Thandie Newton. I think it ranks below Ghost Protocol simply because it isn’t quite as jaw dropping – or have quite as much fun. But it’s so close, who cares?

 

2. Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011) – The visual imagination on display from Brad Bird here really makes the film spectacular. This is as close to live action animation as you can get, but also has elements of silent cinema as well. And the whole thing is just so damn much fun. Truly one of the great action movies ever – and even if this series continues to be great.

 

1.Mission Impossible – Fallout (2018)

After re-watching all five previous films in the series leading up to Fallout, I wonder if the series could really top itself – or if perhaps I would be a little sick of this series. It was, and I wasn’t – as Mission Impossible Fallout really is the best of the series – the most viscerally exciting from beginning to end, with the best performances, and the film that makes you care about these characters – at least as much you need to for a film like this. One of the great action films ever made.

Mission Impossible Series: Mission Impossible Fallout (2018)

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Mission: Impossible – Fallout **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie.

Written by: Christopher McQuarrie based on the television series created by Bruce Geller.

Starring: Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt), Henry Cavill (August Walker), Rebecca Ferguson (Ilsa Faust), Simon Pegg (Benji Dunn), Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell), Vanessa Kirby (White Widow), Michelle Monaghan (Julia Meade-Hunt), Angela Bassett (Erica Sloan), Alec Baldwin (Alan Hunley), Wes Bentley (Patrick), Sean Harris (Solomon Lane).

 

I have stopped being surprised by just how good the Mission Impossible movies are. Preparing for this, the sixth installment in the 22-year-old series, I went back and watched the other five films – and there isn’t a bad one in the bunch. Every time you think you have the series figured out, it throws another curveball at you. With Fallout, that curveball may just be that for the first time, they have essentially made a direct sequel to the last film – and it brings back other plot elements from the previous films as well. That doesn’t mean you have to know a whole lot about those other films to get this one – you can walk in cold if you want, and you will still be knocked out by the action in the film. That is really what this series has always been about, and Fallout delivers some of the best action sequences of the series. It also has a plot that movies a mile a minute, and some genuinely good performances. This movie runs nearly two and half hours, but doesn’t feel long at all. This is the new high point in what was already the best action series going.

 

The plot is simple enough to describe – a group known as The Apostles want to get their hands on nuclear weapons, because their theory is that peace will only come from pain – the greatest the pain, the greater the peace. Their leader is Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), the villain from the last film that Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and his team captured instead of killed. Since then, he has been shunted from one government to the next for interrogation purposes. Hunt and his team had a chance to secure the nuclear material the Apostles need early in the film – but Hunt chose to save his teammates rather than the material, which has now fallen into the wrong hands – so now they need to get it back. Hunt is joined by Benji and Luther (Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames) who have been around for a while now, and Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) who joined last film. They are also saddled with August Walker (Henry Cavill), a CIA agent they don’t really want. As Sloan (Angela Bassett), the head of the CIA says early in the film, Hunt is a scalpel, Walker is a hammer.

 

From there, it’s one great action set piece after another – and one double cross after another. I will fully admit that when I found out that McQuarrie was doing the fifth installment, I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to maintain the high level of action the series had always had – and he proved me wrong with Rogue Nation. With Fallout, he proves he is one of the best directors of action working in the world right now. The sheer volume of action sequences in Mission Impossible Fallout is amazing. The fact that they are so varied and different from each other is even more so. There are hand-to-hand combat scenes, a car/motorbike chase, shootouts, perhaps the best sequence of Tom Cruise running ever captured on film (and THAT is saying something), and of course the helicopter climax. The action direction here is clear and clean. This series has never relied on shaky cameras or rapid fire editing to goose the tension, nor has it relied on too much obvious CGI. The only special effects this series has ever needed is Tom Cruise. I half expect that he’s going to kill himself one day working on these films, because he really seems to be throwing himself into these roles. While I really do wish he would take on more roles than just action movies – he isn’t the best actor in the world, but his performances in films like Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia are as good as they get – but I’m still grateful he goes for it each and every time in these films. In a way, he’s the only one who could pull these roles off – so perhaps it’s good he concentrates on them.

 

The supporting cast is also great. Sean Harris was a decent bad guy in Rogue Nation – he’s far better this time around, as he’s got more to work with. Ferguson has become my favorite leading lady in this series so far – she matches Cruise’s intensity, and works well with him. Best of all is probably Henry Cavill, who is perfectly cast as a hammer.

 

Mission Impossible Fallout joins the ranks of the best action films of the 21^stCentury so far – alongside films like Mad Max Fury Road, and both Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation. As pure entertainment, these films are tough to beat. This is one of the best films of the year – action or otherwise.

Film Review: THE LIGHTHOUSE (2016)

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THE LIGHTHOUSE *** UK 2016 Dir: Chris Crow 102 mins

Welsh co-writer – director Chris Crow made the excellent PANIC BUTTON a few years ago and his fourth movie is an often-tense slice of isolationist psychological horror let down by a disappointing final act.
Inspired by real events at the turn of the 19th century, it unfolds in Pembrokeshire, 1801, 25 miles from the shore, and revolves around a pair of lighthouse keepers (Mark Lewis Jones, Michael Jibson) posted to Smalls Island Lighthouse. One of them, for whom lighthouse keeping is in his blood, relishes the challenge and the isolation (“This is peace – there’s nothing else like it…We live and die to keep those at sea safe…”), while the other fishes in a bid to stay sane. Their existing tensions escalate when omnipresent fog, increasing squalls and depleting stocks of fuel and rations spell increasing peril. A largely two-handed addition to the cycle of single-location survivalist thrillers, this has credible character interplay and a vivid sense of impending doom (“Our time could be up and  no one would know”), all set against a marvellously imposing and atmospheric backdrop. A shame that the final descent is melodramatic and unsatisfying.

Review by Steven West