Walter Hill’s Cajun siege picture, for a long time barely registering on the cultural radar, for cinephiles now sits nicely in the highly influential late 70’s-early 80’s period of Hill’s filmography. At once a retelling of the wolfpack themed pictures Hill nearly perfected around this time ('Alien', 'The Warriors', 'The Long Riders'), but also sharp allegory to American foreign policy, 'Southern Comfort', like all of Hill’s films resonates on multiple levels – historical and social commentary, cinematic legacy and a good old fashioned movie thrills.
Showing posts with label *** 1/2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label *** 1/2. Show all posts
Monday, 7 March 2016
Tuesday, 17 February 2015
The Selfish Giant
Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur, Shane Meadows' This is England and Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank have, of late, carried on the tradition of the British kitchen sink genre, but as a vivid portrayal of lower class industrial squalor, Clio Barnard's picture resonates even more strongly. It's tragic and haunting, yet beautiful and tender in equal measure.
Thursday, 30 October 2014
The Tragedy of Macbeth
The Bard’s tale of the ambitious Scottish lord who with his wife conspire to take the throne of Scotland by hook or crook has always made for great cinema. It’s one of the more violent and action-packed of Shakespeare plays and through the eye of Roman Polanski, at the peak of his abilities, turns the story into a ruthless and bloody parable of ambition - a film even more resonant with the Charles Manson tragedy only a couple years behind this production.
Monday, 6 October 2014
Gone Girl
If you were to simply describe the plot of Gillian Flynn’s pulpy bestseller it would come off as an outrageous Joe Eszterhas-style potboiler ripped from the era of early 90’s sexual thrillers. But when orchestrated by a master of the genre, at the top of his game, where other filmmakers would have made this picture into a sloppy ham-fisted mess, David Fincher makes two and half hours a completely engrossing experience, terrifying and witty in equal measure and self-aware enough not to take itself too seriously.
Wednesday, 17 September 2014
All That Jazz
The influence of Fellini’s 8 ½ is clear in Bob Fosse’s own memoir-like fictional film. The story of a theatre director under immense pressure to make his next show a hit, while under the usual pressures of the business, told with a mixture of fantasy and realism is cut from the same mould as Fellini’s great picture. The creative evolution of Fosse’s work from 'Sweet Charity', 'Cabaret' and 'Lenny' seems to culminate in this overly ambitious yet invigorating explosion of cinema.
Friday, 22 August 2014
Insomnia
While Erik Skjoldbjærg built upon the established cinematic traditions of procedural crime thrillers, in the light of the recent trend of atmospheric crime procedurals such as True Detective, The Killing, Prisoners, 1997’s Insomnia, in hindsight looks to be a direct aesthetic antecedent for these other more successful pictures/series.
Wednesday, 12 March 2014
A Brief History of Time
The story and science of renowned astro-physicist Stephen Hawking was given the Errol Morris cinematic treatment in A Brief History of Time in 1991. Morris’ ability to probe deep into unique idiosyncratic characters is put to the ultimate test in Hawking, the wheelchair bound genius with no way of communicating other than his hand controlled clicker and computer-translated voice. And yet through his inert facade emerges perhaps the most enlightening character study he’s ever made.
Friday, 7 March 2014
Tess
Thomas Hardy’s tragic 19th century novel adapted as a luscious period film by Roman Polanski is a unique notch on his filmography rarely discussed or acknowledged. Made in 1979 after his escape to France, the film beautifully rounds out Polanski’s long and successful career as it remains one of the three pictures of his nominated for best picture and best director (along with Chinatown and The Pianist).
Thursday, 19 December 2013
Her
While the idea of a lonely man developing a genuine relationship with a Siri-like talking Operating System, is the stuff of high concept science fiction, Spike Jonze’s trumps the intimate character study of a heartbroken lonely man looking for love in the most unlikely of places. Once again Jonze and turned in a film so unique, original and bold, and yet remarkably accessible and identifiable to almost anyone.
Friday, 29 November 2013
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Will Ferrell/Adam McKay's touchstone satire of 1970’s broadcast journalism culture still bristles with some of the most absurd mainstream comedy in recent years. Remarkably most of these gags still land successfully and thus will likely continue to do so in years to come, aligning itself with those timeless classics of the Mel Brooks, ZAZ, Blake Edwards, and Monte Python films of the past.
Tuesday, 19 November 2013
A Hijacking
While the subject of Somali pirating is the same, this already-celebrated Danish film produced before 'Captain Phillips' has considerably less flare but admirably inhabits the same space as Paul Greengrass’s Hollywood version. ‘A Hijacking’ lasers in the attrition of the lengthy negotiation process between the stingy corporation and the wily Somali pirates, with a result no less harrowing and intense.
Thursday, 31 October 2013
Sisters
The first of Brian De Palma’s ‘Hitchcock-influenced films, Sisters boldly begat a career long obsession with the Master of Suspese, recycling and deconstructing his stories, themes, techniques in a dozen films or so over forty years. Without the slickness of later and bigger budgeted works, Sisters feels like a marriage of the director’s handcrafted underground/avant garde works of the late 60’s and the delirious visual showman of the 70’s/80’s.
Tuesday, 29 October 2013
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Though only an effort as producer, the much-maligned, persona-non-grata entry in the Halloween series has all the fingerprints of horrormaster John Carpenter. Featuring one of the most disturbing kill-concepts in the genre Season of the Witch fits in well with the trend of 70’s paranoia filmmaking as well as Carpenter’s career-long obsession with omniscent mental control and thus resounds as one of the most chilling underappreciated horror films of the decade.
Monday, 21 October 2013
Captain Phillips
Paul Greengrass’ docu-realism modus operandi is in full effect in this picture, like Bloody Sunday and United 93, capturing the true-to-facts story of Somali piracy victim Richard Phillips as genre entertainment told with docu-style realism. Despite the wattage of Hanks, Captain Phillips is the lesser of these three pictures, faulted by a murky socio-political theme.
Monday, 7 October 2013
Jackie Brown
With immense expectations to meet or top his game-changer Pulp Fiction, back in 1997 QT delivered what now appears to be his most modest film to date, a rich experience in character and minus the cinematic razzle dazzle he’s injected into every film since then. Jackie Brown ages as well as any of his films including the lauded Pulp Fiction.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Prisoners
Denis Villeneuve executes Prisoners with same kind of bold cinematic panache as the best of the genre, namely 'Seven' and 'Zodiac', but with a moral complexity which separates this picture from Fincher’s cold clinical approach.
Friday, 16 August 2013
The Big City
Friday, 9 August 2013
Only God Forgives
Nicholas Winding Refn’s talking-piece, blasted at Cannes and now viewable by the regular public in theatres and VOD, from these eyes is less the ‘pretentious exercise’ or ‘remarkable disaster’ as described by many critics than a bold audacious Tarantinoesque throwback exploitation picture told with Kubrick-influenced compositional perfection and a strong touch of Asian bombastic grandiloquence.
Monday, 8 July 2013
Rumble Fish
There’s no doubt Mr. Coppola like many other 70’s mavericks suffered to achieve the success and admiration in the 80’s. That said, there’s much to admire in the Coppola ouevre of this decade. In particular Rumble Fish, a difficult film for sure, cold, austere and considerably weirder than the literary treatment of The Outsiders, but astonishing and eye-poppingly brilliant nonethless.
Friday, 5 July 2013
Frances Ha
The choice of shooting black and white for this picture is key to its warm feelings of cinematic nostalgia and the seemingly effortless naturalism. There’s an instant timeless quality to Frances Ha, recalling the works of Woody Allen (Manhattan), Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise), Francios Truffaut and other New Wavers. Perfectly in sync with Boambach’s freeform style is the grand presence of Greta Gerwig whose lively personality is the raison d’etre for this picture. And recalling Diane Keaton’s performance in Annie Hall, we should expect Greta Gerwig to have similar award accolades during award season.
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