In which Nat talks briefly about the movies she’s been watching this week for no particular reason and that probably don’t warrant proper reviews, but hey? Wouldn’t it be nice if we all chatted about them anyway?
I’m back! Yay! I finally managed to find time to write some movie reviews.
Silly, isn’t it? Rob takes me on because he’s too busy to write as much as he used to. “At least one of us will be writing something, even if the other can’t.” But rather than doubling the output, I’ve just doubled the number of people not writing anything. I suck.
I’m hoping that at least this week and next week, I’ll make up for that since although I’ve not been writing anything, I have been watching movies and plan on watching even more. Maybe my new year’s resolution should be try to write more before I forget how to.
I don’t think I’ve got much to add to what I wrote about The Harder They Fall (2021), Red Notice (2021), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and Маша (Masha) (2021). But here are some trailers this time.
Screens 3-12: Classic movies
My regular weekly movie night has been continuing and I’ve now got such a backlog of old movies that I’ve rewatched to review, there’s no way I can do anything more than bulletpoint them and still go to this afternoon’s Christmas party.
Party comes first, obviously – I don’t want to live down to stereotypes, but there’ll be vodka, and not that scary Polish bison one made with grass that my sister bought me and gives me headaches, so I’ll be going, no matter what.
I’ve linked to the trailers for each one, BTW.
- Fight Club (1999)🌪: David Fincher at his finest, with an adaptation that’s better than the book and ultimately sends up silly ideas of revolution and anti-capitalism. I thoroughly enjoyed rewatching because every single scene plays two different ways, once you know what’s going on, and Helena Bonham-Carter’s character suddenly becomes completely sympathetic, once you realise she’s being dicked around by a guy.
- The Princess Bride (1987): Always delightful, even if it takes forever for the Dread Pirate Roberts to show up.
- The Sixth Sense (1999)🌪: Still M Night Shyamalan’s and Bruce Willis’ best work. Thoroughly engrossing and beautiful to watch. In common with Helena Bonham-Carter, Olivia Williams’ character does a complete U-turn by the end, which is fascinating to watch.
- Unbreakable (2000)🌪: M Night Shyamalan’s and Bruce Willis’ second best work in a movie about comic books that uses its calm, matter-of-factness to camouflage what it’s doing.
- The Game (1997)🌪: David Fincher on a roll after Se7en with a completely implausible but thoroughly entertaining roller-coaster where every theory you have about what’s going on is flipped by the next scene, with only the ending eventually showing what’s truly been going on. You can’t take it literally, of course, only metaphorically and as part of the experience, but it’s still fun trying to believe it could happen.
- Se7en (1995)🌪: Still hard-hitting, even if its depiction of New York is so mid-90s and Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey’s stars have dimmed since then. Plus tracking people through their use of the library and what books they borrow? So pre-internet! Whether it’s still the classic the BFI thinks it is, I’m not sure. It’s clearly pitched at people who think they’re intellectuals and are correspondingly cynical and misanthropic, so plays up to that in a slightly obvious way. It’s also a bit misogynistic, too. But David Fincher and Darius Khondji’s direction and cinematography are immaculate, even if streaming can’t really take advantage of Khondji’s silver nitrate retention process.
- Planet of the Apes (1968)🌪: As much poetry as science-fiction, this is still a wonderful musing on culture, society, racism, religion and politics. The Jerry Goldsmith music is wonderful discordant, the Gaudi-inspired set designs are amazing and Franklin J Schaffner’s direction manages to make the planet of the apes remarkably alien.
- The Mummy (1999): A smart bit of silliness that’s just so much fun to watch. I loved how, while not 100% authentic (perhaps not even 50% authentic), enough efforts had been made to have some real ancient Egyptian qualities to the movie that it feels part of the story, rather than just the background. Plus there’s Brendan Fraser and Oded Fehr.
- The Mummy Returns (2001): Almost unwatchably dull sequel to The Mummy. Such an annoying kid and Rachel Weisz isn’t much better.
- Field of Dreams (1989)🌪: It’s easy to be snooty about American earnestness and there’s no movie more lacking in cynicism than Field of Dreams. But it works. You’ve a hard heart if you’re not crying by the time Burt Lancaster turns up, and one made of stainless steel if you’re not crying by the end. Yet it’s all about possibly the dullest sport in the world after cricket – baseball! Just lovely and magical.
You’ll notice that all the movies with a 🌪 had a twist at the end, something that wasn’t deliberate on my part but which my friend had no idea about. So it was really fun both trying to hide the fact there was a twist and then seeing his reaction when the twist was revealed! Even Planet of the Apes! It’s actually really gratifying to see not only that they still worked and that classic cinema still has real power, but that memes and popular culture haven’t ruined those classic movies for those who haven’t yet seen them.
This week’s movies, the BFI Player and the Russian Film Festival
After the jump, though, I’ll be talking about one new movie – Guy Ritchie’s The Wrath of Man (2021) – and one of the movies from the BFI Player’s recent Russian film festival, Большой (Bolshoi) (2017). I’d have watched more from that festival already, BTW, if the BFI Player weren’t the worst streaming player yet devised. It’s just awful! It doesn’t even remember your playback position and if you’re watching on an iPad, you have to buy the movie in your web browser (not Safari – it has to be Chrome, too) then it launches a separate player app. Oh, and the BFI Player is separate from the BFI Player channel you can get in Amazon Prime and on your Apple TV, so has different movies and doesn’t share your subscription. That makes sense, doesn’t it?
Incidentally, if you want a bit more detail about the BFI’s Russian film festival, the Girls on Film podcast recently did a great rundown on both Маша (Masha) (2021) and Доктор Лиза (Doctor Lisa) (2020) (the latter of which I’m currently watching, BTW). Hopefully, I’ll be back to talk about that next week!
Screen 1: Wrath of Man (2021)
Director: Guy Ritchie
Writers: Nicolas Boukhrief (based upon the film ‘Le Convoyeur’ written by); Éric Besnard (based upon the film ‘Le Convoyeur’ written by); and Guy Ritchie(screenplay by)
The plot follows H, a cold and mysterious character working at a cash truck company responsible for moving hundreds of millions of dollars around Los Angeles each week.
Nat says: ‘It’s Guy Ritchie’s Heat’
Of all the sentences I ever expected to write, ‘I really enjoyed that Guy Ritchie crime thriller’ was never on the list. I mean… Guy Ritchie. He’s a lads director! He’s the British Quentin Tarantino, trying to do for the c-word what Tarantino has been doing for the n-word, while populating his scripts with knowingly purple prose.
I’m happy to admit he’s come a long way from the almost self-parodying Snatch (2000), with movies such as Aladdin (2019) actually really good and not noticeably in that laddish style. But a crime drama? Starring Jason Statham? Please no. Don’t make me watch it.
Yet, Wrath of Man is honestly engrossing. Maybe it’s because it’s based on another movie, Le Convoyeur (2021) – yes, The Transporter, but not that one – that it manages to up the quality level.
Stylistically, though, this feels more like Heat (1995).
Now, I don’t want to lead you astray. Don’t think Wrath of Man is as good as Heat. Don’t think I’m suggesting Jason Statham is suddenly as good as Robert De Niro and you’ll find a scene in Wrath of Man as good as that restaurant scene.
But, if Michael Mann slummed his way through lesser movies such as LA Takedown (1989) and Thief (1981) before he managed to make Heat, you can think of Wrath of Man being similar in Guy Ritchie’s career trajectory. This is a far more accomplished, more disciplined movie than its predecessors. It’s better directed, better written and yes, better acted, too.
There are also similar qualities to the scripts and characters. Statham is the consummate professional and so are his adversaries, just as De Niro and Pacino are both equally skilled at what they do.
It’s perhaps in the action scenes where everything gets the most Heat-ish, though, with some really properly exciting shootouts that atypically don’t involve any martial arts on Statham’s part.
The supporting cast also features the likes of Jeffrey Donovan (The Changeling, Sicario) and Holt McCallany (Mindhunter), as well as Josh Hartnett, Andy Garcia, Eddie Marsan and Scott Eastwood. Ritchie is definitely going for prestige here. Better still, despite all these names, it’s never clear who’s going to survive to the end – even Statham. There are surprises!
You can drive an armoured truck through the holes in Statham’s plan, but this had me properly gripped throughout. If you like smart thrillers, this is definitely worth your time.
Here’s a trailer. It gives away virtually all the best plot points, so watch it at your own risk.
Screen 2: Большой (Bolshoi) (2017)
Director: Valeriy Todorovskiy
Writers: Anastasiya PalchikovaIlya Tilkin(story); Valeriy Todorovskiy(story)
A Russian ballerina struggling for one play in Bolshoy theatre.
Nat says: ‘You’ve got big dreams. You want fame. Well, fame costs’
Well, of course I was going to watch this one first. I did ballet at school and while I never went to the Bolshoi (not enough talent, too tall, living in the UK by then, etc), this all felt eerily familiar in lots of ways. Mainly because of the classes, the exercises, the bad dieting and all the other things you do if you want to do ballet as teenager. But also because it’s more or less the same movie as Fame (1982), just with less singing.
It follows several would-be Bolshoi ballerinas as they struggle to be first accepted then the best of the best at the school, which the movie makers were lucky enough to gain access to and film in. Some have talent; some don’t. Some have money; some don’t. Some have parents who are supportive; some don’t.
Largely, however, the movie is about the capriciousness of the process: who gets to choose these ballerinas for which roles and the politics they play to get their favourites the right roles – or to get those they don’t like chucked out. But as with Masha, that main plotline is partly there to illustrate certain aspects of modern Russia.
The movie is also a quasi-documentary that reminded me a lot of On Pointe (Disney+), not just because of the subject matter, but also because of the same hothousing quality that top ballet schools offer, as well as the similar dreams and aspirations of young dancers.
I didn’t find those storylines that compelling. What was compelling was the dancing, with professional ballet dancers providing most of the dancing and even noted French dancer Nicolas Le Riche playing one of the teachers (with English and French dialogue).
If you’ve no interest in ballet, I’d suggest skipping this. But if you do, the slightly lacklustre plot won’t be an issue – just watch it for the dancing and the warts-and-all, ‘behind the scenes’ quality to the story. I’d happily rewatch it again, just for that. Were it not for the fact it’s on the BFI Player.
Right, I have a party to go to…
