7 stars

Eileen

This poster is one of those great film posters
that tells you absolutely nothing about the flick at all

dir: William Oldroyd

2023

This film… Does it actually exist? Did I imagine it all?

I bet you’ve probably never heard of this movie’s existence. I’m not saying this from the perspective of like a music vinyl snob sneering at someone in a record shop “you’ve probably never even heard of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, have you?” I mean it more from the perspective that this flick was made in the covid years, was released December last year and then the world acted like nothing had happened.

You know, like sometimes when you’re on public transport, and someone does something absolutely psychotic, but everyone looks away and tries to pretend that nothing happened, because they don’t want to draw the attention or the ire of the lunatic that did the thing?

I imagine that Eileen made negative dollars at the box office, if it was even ever released. I would not even know of the film’s existence if I hadn’t heard of a review from some other film reviewer who feels compelled to review absolutely everything that is ever released.

I understood absolutely nothing about this flick until the very, very end. As in when the credits started, and then I saw that this was based on a novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, and then it all fell into place.

I have not read the novel this was based on, which was Moshfegh’s first published novel, but I have read My Year of Rest and Relaxation, so I have some idea of where she was coming from with this screenplay, which she wrote as well (along with her husband Luke Goebel).

But I didn’t twig on to this while watching the flick. If you know of Ottessa Moshfegh’s work, or you skim articles about contemporary literature, you would know of her name cropping up whenever there’s a discussion about “unlikeable” or “unpleasant” female main characters in novels, as in the heavily gendered idea that male characters can be absolute arseholes, and that’s fine, if not desirable, but if there’s a female main character who exhibits the same kind of behaviour or possesses similar character traits or motivations, then it’s unpleasant and icky. Ew, gross. Women have bodies? Ew.

Rating:

7 stars

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1609 reads

Damsel

They fight and bite and fight and bite and fight.
Bite Bite Bite Fight Fight Fight, it's the Eleven and
Dragon Show!

dir: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

2024

Maybe this flick doesn’t need to exist, but I super duper enjoyed it anyway.

Anyone who has watched Stranger Things on Netflix has already seen hundreds of hours of Millie Bobby Brown playing a kickass character who suffers a whole hell of a lot. This flick Damsel has her playing a character who doesn’t have superpowers, but does suffer a whole hell of a lot before she maybe triumphs, or dies in shame.

Either way it requires you to be on board right from the start. And it’s a pretty slow start, let me tell you.

When the movie starts, it’s set in a fantasy / medieval land possibly called Generica which could just as easily be the beginning of Frozen or Brave or any other kind of place where women have long cumbersome dresses and braided hair, and the men are either chubby old guys with long hair and beards, or young ponces. It’s all doublets and curtsying and thees and thous with weirdly dodgy British accents. Even in fantasy realms people have to sound like posh plumy jerks at all times. Even Angela Bassett.

Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown) is a princess from an impoverished realm. She is essentially sold by her father into marriage, to somewhere on an island. Long build up, lots of mystery and ambiguity, and then the other shoe drops (when she is thrown into a pit).

The island kingdom tricks other realms into sending their daughters, they marry the women in a sham marriage, somehow share their blood with them, and then throw them in a pit in order to satisfy the beast that lives below.

It’s a common story, as in, it’s familiar to anyone who’s ever heard or read any stories, ever. The theme of sacrificing people to monsters, gods, volcanoes etc is as old as humanity, I think, considering the place it holds in almost all old cultures’ mythologies. The theme of sacrificing young women for the “good” of society, well, it’s the very definition of patriarchy: women viewed as commodity, and valued in ways that takes none of their personhood or autonomy into account.

And arranged marriages? Well, it’s all about sacrifice, isn’t it?

Rating:

7 stars

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1711 reads

Red Right Hand

He'll wrap you in his arms
Tell you that you've been a good boy
He'll rekindle all the dreams
It took you a lifetime to destroy

dirs.: Eshome & Ian Nelms

2024

You call something Red Right Hand, and it comes with certain expectations.

And before you come at me and say “well, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds don’t have a monopoly on the words “red right hand”, plus Cave lifted the phrase from Milton’s Paradise Lost” I would say to that “yeah but…”

How can you have a movie called Red Right Hand, and not have the song play at any point of the proceedings? I spent the entire length of the movie wondering “is it going to play now? What about now?”

And it’s not there. Not even a cover of it. Not even an instrumental version of it, or an Appalachian version of it. Not even a bad cover of it. Nothing.

Talk about a bait and switch: you baited me with the title, and then gave me nothing.

Well played, you curs; well played, you bounders.

I don’t remember if they ever expressly say where any of this story is meant to be taking place, but rest assured it’s somewhere meth-ridden and gap-toothed, so it’s somewhere in the South. That famous Southerner Orlando Bloom plays a guy called Cash who just wants to look after his family and live a somewhat honest life down on the farm.

Rating:

7 stars

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1422 reads

Perfect Days

Oh it's such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you

dir: Wim Wenders

2023

Like a fair few films that have been nominated for Best International Feature Film this year, I have a hard time figuring out what to actually describe the film as. Is it a Japanese film because the cast is Japanese and they speak in Japanese, and it’s set in Japan? Or, since it’s German director Wim Wenders’ film, does that make it a German film?

Like… when Tom Cruise was in The Last Samurai a bunch of years ago, was that a Japanese movie, since it had some Japanese people in it, and they spoke Japanese, and it was about Japanese history, even though it was in English and the lead was American and it was filmed in New Zealand? Or was it a Kiwi film? Or an American film?

This is a movie about a man who cleans public toilets in the Shibuya district. That’s it. And it was kind of commissioned by the people from the city of Tokyo who built a bunch of public toilets, and presumably wanted to show them off, which is one of the most bizarre reasons for a film to exist. As you might expect the film is not critical towards the toilets as designed or realised.

Also, because it wants to presumably show the toilets in the most positive light, they’re pretty much clean when the cleaner gets to them, which I guess makes the actor’s job a bit easier. They don’t want to gross us out, which is appreciated. I have a weak stomach when it comes to that kind of stuff, and I have a particular terror of public toilets.

None of that was triggered by this unusual flick. Kōji Yakusho is a legend of Japanese cinema. If you have watched only five contemporary Japanese movies, chances are he was in four of them. I remember him from as far back as Kamikaze Taxi way back in the day, but I’ve seen him in stacks of films since then. He can play gentle, he can play ruthless and brutal, but he’s an actor, he’s a man I could watch doing mundane things endlessly.

Rating:

7 stars

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1774 reads

Rustin

Rust in peace, dear fellow

dir: George C Wolfe

2023

I’m all for biopics about relatively obscure but important figures in history. When they’re really obscure then we don’t have a pre-conceived idea of what they should be like.

I guess that’s the main difference between doing a biopic about Bob Marley, as in the recent flick One Love, which seems to be universally hated by film critics, versus something like this flick, being Rustin, which has, at best, been tepidly received, is familiarity.

I go in with no preconceptions, having never heard of the man outside of the context of this flick and the Oscar nomination for the chap who plays the main character. Colman Domingo plays Bayard Rustin like he’s got nothing to lose and like he doesn’t care if we like him or the character or not.

And that’s a good thing. At the start we see that Mr Rustin is close to the prominent people in the civil rights movement, including a certain Reverend, but that for some of the old guard, the power players, like the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Roy Wilkins (Chris Rock) or Congressman Powell (Jeffrey Wright), don’t like him at all.

And why is that? Is it because he isn’t performing in his job? Is it because he’s not passionate about fighting for the betterment of society through improving the lot of African-Americans? Is it the hairstyle?

Nah. It’s because he’s gay.

Rating:

7 stars

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1284 reads

Sixty Minutes

Woah there beefcake, easy on the moisturiser

(60 Minuten)

dir: Oliver Kienle

2024

This isn’t a review of the venerable current affairs program, because that would be really strange.

“5/10 would not recommend. Exists solely as corrupt tool of capitalist establishment to normalise hideous abuses of corporate class.”

No, this is a brand new German film starring some young MMA fighter playing a young MMA fighter who has to get from one suburb of Berlin to a different suburb of Berlin within an hour.

He’s not a courier, he’s not a delivery driver; he’s just a guy who will get attacked a bunch of times until he nearly gets there.

There is some running involved. This is not Run Lola Run by any stretch of the imagination.

Does…does anyone even remember Run Lola Run anymore? I mean, I guess that was more than twenty years ago now.

Fucking hell. Time flies even when you’re not having fun.

This isn’t in league with that earlier Tom Tykwer classic, either thematically or aesthetically, but it’s hard not to think of it.

Rating:

7 stars

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3157 reads

Orion and the Dark

So we listen to the sounds of the monsters under the bed
deciding it's best if they all work together. AGAINST YOU!

dir: Sean Charmatz

2024

It is a relief for me to have watched and be reviewing a movie in which Charlie Kaufman has some involvement (in the screenplay), and to not be talking about what a disappointment it is, and how the great promise of his early scripts has given way to current and future dread.

But I can unequivocally say I enjoyed this flick, probably because Kaufman didn’t direct it.

Orion and the Dark is an animated movie aimed at kids, yes, but that shouldn’t stop people from watching it even if their kids are now too old to enjoy them.

Just, you know, watch it on a streaming service, not on your (adult) own in an actual cinema, like some weirdy weirdo.

No kids, no entry. Anyway, this isn’t even pretending to be top shelf animation with broad four quadrant demographic appeal. It might say “Dreamworks”, but I think they handballed most of the work to a smaller French animation studio, which is fine.

I have no background on this but this feels a lot like something that was made during the various lockdowns by people in their bedrooms / home offices. It doesn’t feel like seamless, streamlined pure product pumped out by an efficient machine, and is the better for it.

As such it’s not trying to push the technical boundaries of CGI animation whatsoever. All the quality is in the script and the vocal performances, which I thought were really solid. Especially since they somehow and somewhy roped in Werner Herzog for a brief and baffling moment.

And what is it about?

It’s about a kid called Orion who’s anxious about everything. Absolutely everything. And it’s not just a charming level of neuroticism (if such a thing still exists, or ever existed), it’s a paralysing, crippling level of anxiety.

It’s overwhelming, and it impedes his ability to enjoy life, and it impedes his understanding but exhausted parents, who also don’t get to sleep.

Rating:

7 stars

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2055 reads

Maestro

Who would watch this movie based on this poster?

dir: Bradley Cooper

2023

Well, hey! Did you want to watch a film directed by Bradley Cooper? Starring Bradley Cooper? Playing a real life person-type person? That isn’t A Star is Born?

Were you desperately curious to learn about the life and times of Leonard Bernstein? THE Leonard Bernstein? As played by Bradley Cooper?

With a big honking prosthetic nose? One so large and honking that it makes him nasally and sound nothing like Bernstein?

Oi, you. Respect the nose, no mocking, no more shenanigans and no more tomfoolery. That nose previously won Nicole Kidman an Academy Award in The Hours where she played renowned writer and river-enjoyer Virginia Woolf. That nose has won more awards than Paul Giamatti.

And clearly Mr Cooper was convinced that this production and that nose were going to win him the Oscar that he covets so much. We are months away from that vaunted awards night, but I am telling you now, Mr Cooper, you ain’t going to win. You have put all your eggs and your nose in the one basket, believing that playing a real person, and a beloved one at that (maybe 50 years ago), would clinch it for you.

But there’s no way you are going to beat Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer. Sorry, I don’t make the rules. That is a biopic. That has long stretches of black and white too, and it’s three hours long, meaning it’s very important. Your film, on the other hand, is only two hours and ten minutes long, therefore it’s not anywhere near as important.

Rating:

7 stars

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1462 reads

Master Gardener

Some flowers fight for supremacy over the others in even
the most well tended garden

dir: Paul Schrader

2023

Get this: a recent film about an isolated weirdo who writes in a diary, leads a quiet, austere life and who eventually does something violent.

Have you figured out which movie I’m talking about? Obviously it would make a lot of sense if I were talking about Master Gardener, it being Paul Schrader’s most recent movie.

But let’s be honest, it’s the same plot of every movie Paul Schrader has ever been involved with dating back to Taxi Driver.

More recently he’s made a trilogy of films about men sitting in rooms writing in journals. It seems like he’s really dead-set against men journaling. Like it’s really bad or something. Those three flicks are First Reformed which starred Ethan Hawke, The Card Player which starred Oscar Isaac, and this here film, which stars Australia’s Own Joel Edgerton as a guy who keeps a diary. They are three films about three guys who would rather murder a bunch of people, or harm themselves than ever get therapy or mental health support from anyone. They cannot deal with guilt, or frustration, and so they set themselves apart from the world before they lash out at it, sometimes catastrophically.

Here Edgerton plays a guy called Narvel Roth. Narvel dresses very prim and properly. Always looks very sharp. Always keeps his arms and neck covered. Hmm. Wonder what that’s about.

He is the master gardener of the title, running a very tight ship at some southern estate that you just know used to be a plantation and definitely had slaves at some point.

The owner of the manor is an imperious sort, and Narvel is very deferential to her and her expectations. She is a lethally dangerous sort of dowager duchess called Norma, played ably by Sigourney Weaver.

Rating:

7 stars

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1457 reads

Badland Hunters

If it moves, shoot it; if it stops moving, punch it

황야
Hwang-ya

dir: Heo Myung-haeng

2024

The title of Badland Hunters is so generic, so unmemorable, that I hoped the actual literal translation of the Korean title was going to be something like “Big Guy punches the Apocalypse”, but it didn’t pan out that way. The literal translation is something like “Wilderness”, which is equally unmemorable.

You can’t always get what you want. But beyond a meaningful title, I didn’t want much. About the most I expected was that South Korean action star Ma Dong-seok would punch some people really hard.

I need not have worried. Even though the action sometimes relies on Nam-san (Ma Dong-seok) chopping some creatures or bad guys up with a scary looking machete, or shooting people with a shotgun (the promo poster for the movie has him aiming a shotgun at the audience, which gave me some pause), but rest assured the filmmakers knew exactly why the audience has come along to this flick: to watch him punch people really, really hard.

I also thought that a post-apocalyptic scenario wouldn’t lend itself immediately to punchy-punchy action. It’s usually supercharged V8 Interceptors and guys with guitars that double as flamethrowers. And, yes, most of Nam-san’s opponents are soldiers with rifles and lots of other guns, which is somewhat unusual, in my limited experience of South Korean flicks. But whenever there’s been too much gunplay, Nam-san’s opponents just seem to forget they have guns, and also politely array themselves so that Nam-san can kill them or knock them out one by one.

Very considerate of them. This flick is kind of insane, but it’s an almost reasonable level of insanity.

Three years in the past, there was a massive earthquake. Like, really bad earthquake in Seoul. It destroyed almost every building except one, which is called The Apartment. I had hoped it was a reference to the Billy Wilder classic The Apartment, which starred Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon, but I was just setting myself up for disappointment yet again.

I fully acknowledge that earthquakes can be terrible. They can kill thousands of people. At no stage is there an explanation as to why a bad earthquake ends civilisation in all of South Korea, or the rest of the world such that no-one comes to help during that entire time.

And there really should have been a reference to a catastrophic earthquake devastating North Korea and somehow also improving their quality of life in comparison to what they had before.

Rating:

7 stars

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2434 reads

7 stars

Eileen

Damsel

Red Right Hand

Perfect Days

Rustin

Sixty Minutes

Orion and the Dark

Maestro

Master Gardener

Badland Hunters

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