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From ZERO to 6 ♥s. 100% ad-free. Run on pure love for movies, documentaries and TV-series. April 2024: Countdown to: Top 10: Best heist movies - Upcoming review: Inside Man (2006)
Sensationalist poster for a rather dull film, Curt Siodmak's Bride of the Gorilla
QUICK REVIEW:
One night deep in the jungle, an unpopular man of wealth dies under mysterious circumstances. His wife remarries quickly; - unfortunately with a man, who soon will only stay in the jungle, persuaded by black magic and plant-toxins that he is a gorilla! Despite this fascinating obsession, Bride is a luckless acquaintance. Cover images are inter-cut with unconvincing studio jungle-trash and squarely dumb lines such as the police commissioner's (played by Lon Chaney, Jr.): "I know my jungle!" Raymond Burr (Perry Mason (1957-66)), however, does a nice job in the gorilla lead. The film is one of the more suggestive creature features, as you never really see anything much in that department, which will disappoint many audiences, and the film has also mostly been revived for ridicule since its creation. A shame, since it has some nice talent involved, besides Chaney, Jr. and Burr, the film is directed by German Curt Siodmak, who wasn't much of a director, but who wrote great scripts for many films, most notably The Wolf Man (1941).
Raymond Burr and Barbara Peyton in Curt Siodmak's Bride of the Gorilla
Watch this trailer, with director Joe Dante (Gremlins (1984)) talking interesting, lurid trivia about Bride
Gruffy poster for Ethan and Joel Coen's folk musician movie Inside Llewyn Davis
Inside Llewyn Davis is a dramedy period portrait of a week in the life of Davis, a struggling folk musician in New York anno 1961.
The character is inspired by the real Dave Van Ronk, who was a known musician in the New York folk music scene, but who never broke through to the public, although the inspiration is mostly music-wise, it appears. The film is the story of a struggling, faltering artist, who is down to his last legs as a creative performing artist, and who spends most of his days securing his next couch to sleep on and mope about his unfulfilled existence. There are also plot points about a cat going missing, abortions and a hope-induced trip to Chicago. The film is in a way sad, because it takes very real looks at some facts of life without sugarcoating them, - namely that not all great artists make the cut to the public, - but it is never heartbreaking, because Davis never succumbs to total desperation or despair. He is a character who holds his head high, - although it is a surly, moody head, - and defends his way of life, what he at one point claims "pays his rent", (although he doesn't actually ever pay any rent, because he doesn't have a place.) SPOILER He even takes a beating for his unfeeling arrogant heckling without sentimentality which both opens and ends the film in a very touching way. People go in and out of each others' lives and sometimes rub up on each other, creating friction, (be the outcome sex, violence, kids, hatred or despair), and that is the thing which is showcased in Davis. It is very real, very disarming, and often hilarious. It dodges ever getting near to being a downer by having tons of dry and black humor and wonderful characters in it. There are awfully funny situations, (the first cat-scenes are extremely wonderful, for instance), and rich New York-characters like the lady at Davis' management's office. The trip to Chicago features a funny performance from John Goodman (Argo (2012)) as an obnoxious, unhealthy individual, but he is just one of so many who shine vigorously in the film: Among its great performances especially Carey Mulligan (Drive (2011)) as a very bitter and angry woman, F. Murray Abraham (Amadeus (1984)) and Garrett Hedlund (Tron (2010)) excel. And Oscar Isaac (The Two Faces of January (2014)) is just so fine as Llewyn Davis, and his actual guitar-playing and singing are a marvel.
Oscar Isaac with cat in The Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis
The music is wonderful, and the songs get to have their space and make their impressions. The photography by Bruno Delbonnel is evocative; New York (and Chicago) is grim, wet, messy and cold in Davis. Nothing glamorous or romantic about the big cities or the land in between them here. Some of the musicians who were around in the early 60s New York folk scene have complained that the film makes the environment at the time look dreary and sad, and that Ronk was a nicer guy than Davis; but the writer-director brothers Ethan and Joel Coen (The Big Lebowski (1998)) never claim that this is the film about Ronk, (check the title for that for instance!), and they are really free as artists to not make a happy-go-lucky folk musician movie, - in fact I for one am glad that they didn't. Llewyn Davis in the film is a man who frequently is called an idiot, and who has more or less gotten used to seeing himself as a loser. But he is stubborn and believes in himself, and he has feelings and can write songs. It all makes him very human, and a very good acquaintance. Inside Llewyn Davis is surely one of the best movie acquaintances of 2013, and one of the best Coen films ever. I can watch this one over and over again.
Oscar Isaac and F. Murray Abraham in a 'climactic' song session in the film's Chicago-segment
Watch a trailer here. - The film is better!
Budget: 11 mil. $ Box office: 32.5 mil. $ = Big hit What did you think of Llewyn Davis and the film? Do you know any other fine movies about folk musicians?
Dark, strange poster for David Cronenberg's The Brood
QUICK REVIEW:
A worried husband suspects that his wife, who is admitted in a psychiatric institution, is abusing their daughter. However, it turns out SPOILER that it is really the work of the wife's fury, which manifests itself as little homicidal freaks that she gives birth to out of her stomach. This bizarre, scary story is told with unnerving music by Howard Shore (Se7en (1995)), varying qualities of acting and a lack of effects, particularly regarding 'the brood'. The birth scene towards the end is repulsive, though, and remembered by everyone who has seen the film:
Woman, thy name is repulsive birth-giver, - in David Cronenberg's The Brood
The end, in which SPOILER the daughter has gotten two warts, is anticlimactic and failed. The Brood is an odd, almost psychedelic serving psycho-terror. It is one of the first films of Canadian 'body horror' master director David Cronenberg (Scanners (1981)), and he made it while going through his first divorce and acrimonious child custody battle. His embitterment carries on greatly into this unusual horror; the crazy mother in the film is inspired by Cronenberg's then wife/ex-wife Margaret Hindson. The anger behind it is clearly felt, but it doesn't elevate the film as such. The Brood also holds the distinction of being loathed by both Leonard Maltin (BOMB rating) and the late Roger Ebert (who called it 'reprehensible trash'), America's two most canonical, horror-slighting film critics.
Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone in an erotic craze on the poster for Paul Verhoeven's Basic Instinct
QUICK REVIEW:
An LA murder investigator, who is under the scrutiny of Internal Affairs, gets a tough case on his hands: A rich author's high-profile rock-star lover's murder, committed in a fashion that she has written about in a novel. - But her lie-detector test clears her...! Although Sharon Stone (Casino (1995)) doesn't quite have the nonchalant diva-self-assurance, her performance as a modern femme fatale became iconic nonetheless:
Dutch genre-director Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall (1990)) mixes Jan De Bont-type action (De Bont (Speed (1994), director) the cinematographer on Instinct) with Rob Bottin-gore (Bottin (The Thing (1982) special make-up effects designer and creator on Instinct) and steamy sex scenes with top-trained, ever-LA-pissed Michael Douglas (Falling Down (1993)). Tackiness and clichés are not avoided, and the film is hardly poetic, but boy is it an effective thriller .
Watch the film's 90s-house-music-infused trailer right here
Budget: 49 mil. $ Box office: 352.9 mil. $ = Mega-hit What do you think of Basic Instinct and Paul Verhoeven's other films? If you've seen the panned sequel, tell us about it
A strangely broad-headed Clint Eastwood on the poster for Don Siegel's The Beguiled
QUICK REVIEW:
The Yankie-soldier McBurney gets rescued half-dead into safety by a 12 year-old girl to the girls' school that she attends. Here he convalesces slowly and constitutes an attraction and danger for the members of the opposite sex ... The plot is a 100 % solid and is at the same time spellbound by a wonderful literary quality; it is an adaptation of the Southern Gothic novel A Painted Devil (1966) by Thomas P. Cullinan. The end of the film offers more than one surprise.
Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino (2008)) bites the apple as a world champion charlatan for the first 2/3 of Beguiled. In the last third, the suspense really takes off, and particularly Geraldine Page (Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)), who plays headmistress Martha, does outstandingly. Great American director Don Siegel (Escape From Alcatraz (1979)) has said that Beguiled has themes of sex, violence and vengeance, and that it is based on "the basic desire of women to castrate men." - This makes for an exciting movie!
Eastwood has talked very interestingly of his character in Beguiled and the characters he plays in general: "Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino
play losers very well. But my audience like to be in there vicariously
with a winner. That isn't always popular with critics. My characters
have sensitivity and vulnerabilities, but they're still winners. I don't
pretend to understand losers. When I read a script about a loser I
think of people in life who are losers and they seem to want it that
way. It's a compulsive philosophy with them. Winners tell themselves,
I'm as bright as the next person. I can do it. Nothing can stop me."
Geraldine Page and Clint Eastwood in Don Siegel's The Beguiled
The film was shot mostly on location near Baton Rouge, Florida. Unfortunately, Universal had difficulties marketing it, and, in consequence, it suffered a very undeserving flop, although it was hailed in France. The Beguiled is an utter joy of a film with ripe performances, vivid imagery and juicy themes and meanings.
Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg's recent, triumphant Lone Survivor was in no way an original plot. 12 years before it, John Moore made Behind Enemy Lines!
QUICK REVIEW: An American pilot is thoroughly bored as a peace-observer, until one day when he gets shot down over Bosnia during the 90s Bosnian War behind enemy lines and has to fight his way out on foot!
Owen Wilson as the survivor pilot in John Moore's Behind Enemy Lines
First of, debuting Irish director John Moore (A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)) chooses the realistic solutions, and I bought the rest; a dang exciting, albeit a bit CGI-heavy, serving of old-fashioned war action suspense prone to showy cinematography. Lines is loosely based on a 1995 incident with an American soldier shot down over Bosnia, surviving 6 days there before getting saved by US Marines. He sued the filmmakers, because they hadn't gotten his accept for the film, and he felt he was misrepresented in it, but they settled that out of court. Critics have called the film jingoistic (meaning that it is excessively biased in its portrayal of one country (America) as extremely superior to others, in this case Eastern European countries) and video-game-like. I didn't think think so, and had no problems with the film showing America as superior to these hoodlum states, which is/was obviously the case in fact. And sure the film is shallow, but it's no serious war film; Behind Enemy Lines is not terribly deep, but it is fine entertainment. - A fun, exciting, entertaining movie.
John Moore's Behind Enemy Lines is about a plane going down, behind enemy lines, and it stars Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman ... what more do you need?
Watch the awesome trailer for this good movie right here
Budget: 40 mil. $ Box office: 91.7 mil. $ = Minor flop What do you think of Behind Enemy Lines?
Billy Bob Thornton and Lauren Graham in Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa
QUICK REVIEW: We meet the world's worst mall-Santa and his midget side-kick, who rob the malls on Christmas night. This Christmas, Santa moves in with a little fat kid with problems.
Film Excess-treasured director Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World (2001)) directs a script by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (I Love You Philip Morris (2009), writer-directors), which mostly doesn't hold much evolution for its characters, but instead wallows in really awful people in a sick society.
Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox in Bad Santa
Bad Santa is Zwigoff in his blackest corner with fine images and a great lead in Billy Bob Thornton (The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)), with great supporting performances from Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls (2000-07)) and John Ritter (Hacks (1997)) in his last live-action role before his premature death. - And from Brett Kelly (Trick 'R Treat (2010)), who plays the afflicted kid really well with great honesty and realism.
This film is very funny, very sad in a way, and taboo-breaking (the whoring, boozing, abusive, thieving Santa), - and it has a moving end. The achieved realism is quite something.
Bad Santa isn't for everyone; people who never reach a limit for their endurance of holiday spirit and materialism will probably loathe it. For all of us who do get enough sometimes, though, Bad Santa is a perfect anti-Christmas present. A Christmas-deterrent, if you will. There's been talk about a sequel for years now, and it seems that production will commence in '14, but without Zwigoff as director, I don't expect much from the film, although Thornton is returning. This picture really has nothing to do with the film, only that it came up when I browsed for Bad Santa-pics. If you don't find anything humorous about this picture, Bad Santa won't be for you:
A poster for Joe Cornish's sci-fi actioner Attack the Block
Attack the Block is a youth-oriented science-fiction action movie with high entertainment value and cool monsters. A nurse gets mugged in her South London neighborhood by a bunch of no-good local kids. We follow the kids, as they subsequently kill an alien that falls out of the sky and bring it with them, and the woman, whose confidence in her home situation is shaking. Then, a more elaborate alien attack befalls the block, and the juvenile delinquents battle the beasts and find themselves attacked time and again, while being confronted with their victim from earlier in the evening. In the end, of course, SPOILER the kids join forces with the nurse and regret their mugging. It was a hurdle for me to get into a film that takes young mugging, knife-carrying, drug-pushing teens as its (anti-)heroes, and all the way through, it is best for the film not to think too much about its message; something optimistic about young thugs not being entirely useless, if, for instance, aliens attack. (Which doesn't really happen that often in real life, so in consequence, these characters would be useless in the real world.) I can only conclude thus, because the only thing that redeems them in the film is the fact that they have survival skills when facing the alien attack. - As I said, the film doesn't win from too much thinking about it. Attack lives anyhow, due to a string of finely cast local amateur boys and girls, who have charm and great likability, despite their rough attitudes. Singling out any of them is hard, because they all were very good, but John Boyega (Junkhearts (2011)) as Moses, the group's leader, and Alex Esmail (Strippers vs. Werewolves (2012)) as his right-hand-man Pest were especially good. Nick Frost (Cuban Fury (2014)) plays an unheroic weed lab 'technician' and takes a few laughs. What also draws is Attack's fine editing and high but suitable pace. It's action scenes and creatures are well-made. The aliens (except the first one, which seems to be the female) are pitch black, eye-less and have luminescent teeth. It's a film that only takes place in the dark and which includes kids and drugs, weapons, violence and multiple bloody deaths. It won't be deemed wholesome or edifying by many, but it makes for excellent entertainment for ages 12 years and up, who are excited by such genre-fun. - I certainly enjoyed it.
John Boyega as Moses, the group's leader, runs for his life in the finale of Joe Cornish's Attack the Block
The original, urban music in the film is composed by Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton of Basement Jaxx and Steven Price. Boyega seems to be the break-out star of Attack, this year both heading the American Imperial Dreams and also set to star in Caesar. Writer-director Joe Cornish is set to direct Section 6, a period thriller set in 1919, and has also been busy since Attack with writing the scripts for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011) and the coming Ant-Man (2015). Adding credit to Attack is the monster work in it: Rather than doing green-screen and CGI for almost all the creature shots, the film employed people in puppet costumes with added animatronics, and then later enhanced the effects with CGI. Apparently the young actors were genuinely scared of the 'creatures' on set and were easily able to get into states of terror, as they were attacked and ran from them before the cameras. This translates greatly into the finished product and is definitely the way to go. Unfortunately, though critics and audiences liked the film, it flopped. For its relatively low cost, this is a shame and probably can be attributed to illegal downloading from the film's peer (young) demographic and from fierce competition from American block-busters (ha-ha) Thor and Fast and Furious 5 that both beat Attack at its pivotal UK box office. The film had a limited run in the US. The flop is also a shame because inventive, non-Hollywood, wild and good movies for youngsters are few and far between.
A cool, graphic poster for Joe Cornish's Attack the Block
Watch the film's trailer here and especially watch for Frost's last line, which is a real crack-up
Budget: 8 mil. £ Box office: 3.8 mil. £ = Big flop What do you think of Attack the Block? Don't you think it sucks that a film like this can't make its budget back at least?
Ronny Yu's Bride of Chucky takes the horror franchise in a new direction of self-referential, dark humor
QUICK REVIEW:
Chucky is resuscitated by his old flame Tiffany, but when he won't immediately marry her, she punishes him, - and he transforms her into a puppet. Bride of Chucky is the 4th Chucky-film, the former three known as the Child's Play-horror films (1988/90/91). The franchise alters substantially in this film, as there's no child possessor of the evil puppet involved, but instead sex, murders and lots of self-referential, irreverent, black humor. Everything is very tacky and 90s-Hollywood-over-done in Bride, - from Jennifer Tilly's (Bound (1996)) cleavage to the killings, - but the film stays entertaining in a bizarre kind of way. Still, the original Child's Play (1988) by Tom Holland is a far better film. Bride of Chucky is directed by Hong Konger Ronny Yu (Freddy vs. Jason (2003)), whose latest project was Saving General Yang (2013), a Chinese period piece.
