4 Reviews: 4 Movies, 4 Days...

Monday is movies. And sometimes TV. Today it's all there in the title: Quick film reviews. Let's go!

I have been going to the movies a lot. How much, you ask. Well, the clue is somewhat in the title. We are in the second week of 2024 and I’ve seen half a dozen movies at the cinema. I saw Saltburn and Wonka right at the very end of 2023 too - but during the official holiday period. I also saw Next Goal Wins and it was way more charming that I was expecting to be the case.

But in the last four days, I’ve seen four films. A movie a day. And that’s just my cinema viewing. I’ve been watching all sorts of stuff on the streamers and via DVD at home. Like what, you say. Well, a partial list would include Headliners Only, Fando y Lis, Homebound, I Know Who Killed Me, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Scary Movie 2, La Cravate, Hollow Earth, Can You Keep A Secret?, The Last Jaws, Elvis and Priscilla, Harvey, How To Blow Up A Pipeline, Beware: Children at Play, The Moderator, Rock and Roll High School, The Phantom of The Opera, Puzzlehead and, um, Dot and The Kangaroo.

It’s fair to say I am living alone right now. My family has ditched me. And not because of my omnivorous viewing habits. But while they’re abroad and I’m here holding down the fort, I’ve decided to really double-down on the movie-watching. I’ll get over it this week and move on to reading or something else. (I hope). But for now, I’ve loved submerging myself in movie watching. Even more so than usual.

And so each day for the last four days I’ve been to a new release film at the cinema - different cinemas too. So, here are my reviews for each movie.

Thursday night. Night Swim. Island Bay’s Empire Cinema.

Actually, on many levels, a perfect horror film, in that it’s goofy, a tiny bit terrifying, and then can’t ever stick the landing due to overt silliness. But it goes all in to set up a mood, and delivers big time. But about half way through I couldn’t suspend disbelief any further and basically amused myself by dubbing this Pooltergeist. But again, a classic horror trope: White people not prepared to just leave their haunted house, er, pool…

But hey, I actually got jump-scared rather big time in one scene. And that almost never happens these days. Geez, it felt good to feel alive!

You go to Night Swim because you’re a fan of big, dumb horrors. And you are pretty much not disappointed all up. That is the news here. Good fun. Good commitment to the bit.

Friday night. Anyone But You. Empire Cinema again.

I have a couple of first cousins that are young enough to seem like they should be my son’s first cousins. They are teenagers. They were in town for the night. So that is the reason I went to this. It is unlikely I would have gone to this on my own, even for a bit of stunt-reviewing…

Anyway, Anyone But You probably thinks it’s 10 Things I Hate About You-clever, but it’s really My Best Friend’s Wedding-passing distraction. It tries, a little too hard, to shoehorn the plot of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing into a romcom for Gen Z. It’s giving: headache!

You know this plot, over and over again, and that doesn’t matter. There is some fun to be had if you switch your brain off. Sydney Sweeney’s character even hails a cab while in a bridesmaid’s dress. She has no phone, no wallet, no bag, but can somehow pay for a cab. Plenty of scenes like that. That’s just one example. You’re not supposed to pause on it long enough to think.

Also this film is set and shot in Australia. Just because/tourism.

There are some laughs. But there’s almost no chemistry at all. Glen Powell is far from great, but I’m going to lay the blame, almost entirely, on Sweeney. I realised, watching this, that she’s a very selfish acting partner. This of course is why she was so great in season one of The White Lotus. I’ve never seen her be close to decent in anything else.

Anyone But You feels like a good plane film. But it also has some excruciating dialogue. And some really bad line readings. At one point, a character asks another if he has showered. The reply comes and he’s actually showered that morning and the previous night. Scintilating, right? But wait. His friend then says, “Two showers in eight hours, go off King! Get clean!” It lands, as you might hope, with a dull thud.

I weirdly did not hate this film.

Saturday afternoon. Poor Things. Brooklyn’s Penthouse Cinema.

I went to this with my friend Emily Writes. So you might get to read about this in her newsletter, which you should check out at any rate. Highly recommended. Always nice to catch up with Emily, love a trip to the movies with a fellow film buff too. Though I’m also very happy to go it alone to the cinema - you don’t talk when you’re there, so it’s fine being there on your own. Anyway, Poor Things arrives with some hype, and I was of course worried it might not be warranted. But, at this very early stage of the year, I’m confident that Poor Things will be the best movie I’ll see in 2024. I like big calls.

This film, based on a novel from 30 years ago, is wild! It is funny as hell, dark, weird, and wonderful. It would be cruel to spoil it. Let’s say, it made me think Saltburn (which is getting thrown some shade, but I loved) was like some Sandra Bullock outing. I loved Poor Things almost instantly. And that love grew throughout the film’s 142 minute run-time. I thought of Eraserhead, and A Clockwork Orange, and Breaking The Waves, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and then I imagined them all sorta smooshed together, various flailing limbs signalling a series of wonderful new directions. Good lord, but this movie was rollickingly filthy and laugh-out-loud funny, and it just might be Yorgos Lanthimos’ masterpiece. And I say that as someone who loved his films The Lobster (2015) and The Killing of Sacred Deer (2017). And who thought The Favourite (2018) was fine (but a bit overhyped) but who really, really loved Dogtooth (2009). But all of those pale when compared with Poor Things, which features a delightfully bent and glorious performance from Mark Ruffalo; somehow it is simultaneously hammy and nuanced. Willem Dafoe is, as usual, weird and wonderful in equal measures. But Emma Stone is just incredible. So much so I can now forgive her for her part in La La Land. I think.

This movie should win Oscars and various other awards for its cinematography and costumes and make-up but I’d like to think it could win an acting award or two as there are several amazing efforts here. And a director nod too? Sure, why not eh.

Sunday afternoon. Ferrari. Lighthouse Cuba.

Given what the film was about, it seemed some sort of cosmic irony to be all but clockwatching as this played out like a meta-prank in a big long, slow crawl. God, it was awful. And slow. And boring. And what the actual fuck? And also why?

But, there are some good performances. Specifically Penelope Cruz. She’s not even given much to do - the script is a confusing mess - so I think she basically acted the shit out of it as a fuck-you to her agent, or to the film’s director. And, yeah, I went to this because it was a Michael Mann film. And I adore a lot of his work, and we’ve been waiting (well, us Mann Fanns have! We call ourselves The Mann Fanns. If you know, you know). But I’m not quite sure what most of this film is. Adam Driver was kinda great but mostly not good at all. Which is a weird way to put it - but I think it holds. I barely recognised him which was a welcome relief. He’s usually So Fucking Adam Driver, and either in a very good way (Marriage Story, Girls) or a very bad way (the Star Wars franchise). But here he iced himself right out of the role as he was performing it. It was almost a magic trick, but also not really.

The film’s actual magic trick is that after boring any sane person for 95 minutes, Mann has a set-piece that is dazzling and jaw-dropping and emotionally confronting and beautifully realised. And a reminder of all of the greatness of and in his style. And this then leads to a perfectly strong and acceptable end to the film. But it’s too late. Way too late. It reminded me a bit of Bradley Cooper’s recent Maestro, in that it’s one great performance and one over-acted but sorta trying to be great performance, and both are equally in search of the decent film they were almost sure they were in.

Okay, there you go. Four films, four days, four reviews.

Seen any of these? Agree? Disagree? Like the format? Hate it? Have more questions? Don’t like all these question marks? What are you having for dinner? Don’t care to comment? Agree this is getting weird? Seen anything decent lately? Etc…