2023 - March
Tell No One (2006) 4/4
The Zone (2011) 3.5/4
24 Exposures (2013) 3/4
Police Python 357 (1976) 3/4
Cold Weather (2010) 3/4
Unknown (2011) 3/4
The Verdict (1946) 2.5/4
The Burning Court (1962) 2.5/4
Art History (2011) 2.5/4
15 Ways to Kill Your Neighbour (2022) 2.5/4
Devil Town (2015) 2.5/4
No Exit (2022) 2.5/4
Wild Canaries (2014) 2.5/4
Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023) 2/4
Masquerade (2022) 2/4
Murder a la Mod (1968) 1.5/4
Portrait in Black (1960) 1.5/4
Serenity (2019) 1/4
The Snowman (2017) 1/4
The Zone (2011) 3.5/4
24 Exposures (2013) 3/4
Police Python 357 (1976) 3/4
Cold Weather (2010) 3/4
Unknown (2011) 3/4
The Verdict (1946) 2.5/4
The Burning Court (1962) 2.5/4
Art History (2011) 2.5/4
15 Ways to Kill Your Neighbour (2022) 2.5/4
Devil Town (2015) 2.5/4
No Exit (2022) 2.5/4
Wild Canaries (2014) 2.5/4
Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023) 2/4
Masquerade (2022) 2/4
Murder a la Mod (1968) 1.5/4
Portrait in Black (1960) 1.5/4
Serenity (2019) 1/4
The Snowman (2017) 1/4
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- DirectorJaume Collet-SerraStarsLiam NeesonDiane KrugerJanuary JonesWhen a man awakens from a coma only to discover that someone has taken on his identity, he teams up with a young woman to prove who he is.09-03-2023
Liam Neeson, one of the world's unlikeliest action stars, plays Martin Harris in "Unknown", a straightforward but surprisingly enjoyable thriller that takes the Hitchcockian route of placing an ordinary man in a decidedly extraordinary situation.
Here Neeson is not a trained CIA agent or an alcoholic cop, he's a scientist visiting Berlin with his beautiful wife Elizabeth (January Jones). He's in town for a biotechnology summit where a famous eccentric chemist (as if there is any other kind) is scheduled to give a groundbreaking presentation. The movie only briefly sketches out what this presentation entails. It is, after all, only a McGuffin, one of the ingredients every good Hitchcockian thriller needs.
When Martin and Elizabeth arrive at their swanky hotel, he realizes that he's left his briefcase at the airport. No problem - he'll take a taxi back and retrieve it. Then, on the way back, there is a massive car crash and the cab Martin was in plummets into the river.
Four days later, Martin wakes up in a German hospital with a concussion and holes in his memory. Moreover, he finds out that his wife has not been informed of his accident. He rushes over to the hotel, finds his wife, goes to embrace her but she pulls back. "Who are you," she screams as another man leaps to her help. Martin protests that he's her husband! "No," the other man (Aidan Quinn) says, "I am Dr Martin Harris".
This is one of those wonderful moments that we watch thrillers for. The utterly preposterous Earth-shattering moments in which the lead character's entire life and concept of reality break apart in an instant. What is the truth? Is this other man an impostor? Is his wife having an affair? Is she being blackmailed? Or is the man we think is Martin Harris really utterly deluded?
The film has some trouble convincing us the latter is possible since we see Martin and Elizabeth interact before his accident. Without going into spoilers it is hard to completely explain this point but I do think the film would have been more compelling and ultimately more plausible had it begun with Martin waking up in the hospital. Then him not being who he thinks he is would seem more possible and the mystery at the film's heart would be a whole lot more intriguing.
But never mind, what is our hero to do? He turns for help to two people. One is Gina (Diane Kruger), a Bosnian illegal immigrant who was driving the taxi when it crashed into the river. She'll be able to confirm his identity? Well, not really, especially since she's unwilling to talk to the police.
The other person he turns to is the film's most interesting character, a former Stasi officer who has turned into a wheezing, hardboiled private eye operating out of a dilapidated apartment that looks like a museum of East Berlin memorabilia. He is played magnificently by Bruno Ganz, an actor who is able to be compelling even in such a minor role. There is a superb little scene in which he calls up his old colleague, now the head of Berlin airport security. Upon hearing who's calling him, the big tough security man's face turns pale from sheer terror.
By the way, for those of you keeping score, we now have an Irishman playing an American scientist, a German playing a Bosnian cab driver, and a Swiss playing a former German Stasi agent. That's the magic of movies for you!
To my great surprise, "Unknown" is more "Frantic" than "Taken". It's more Hitchcock than James Bond. Despite a few obligatory action scenes and a car chase in the night through the streets of Berlin, this is not one of those idiotic action movies in which Liam Neeson beats up everyone for information. It is a more elegant, more mysterious thriller that does a decent job of keeping up its respectable facade.
Based on a novel by Didier Van Cauwelaert, the plot quickly turns more and more ludicrous with assassination plots, secret biochemical plans, and international hitmen entering the fray. It has many plot twists each of which tips the film further and further into the territory of pure nonsense. But in a way that's what we're here for, isn't it?
I found myself caught up in its silly plot mostly due to its clockwork pace and terrific supporting cast. Liam Neeson has never been one of my favourite actors but he is suitably likeable and confused in a part that requires him to be a respectable scientist in one scene and an ass-kicking action star in another.
The one aspect of "Unknown" that did stop me from enjoying the film's preposterous charms even more is Jaume Collet-Serra's workmanlike direction. Thanks to him, the film lacks the stylishness of "Frantic" or the relentless intensity of "Taken". His visual style is bland and lacking in atmosphere and he doesn't seem to care all that much about providing his characters with quiet, emotional moments. We are supposed to believe in a budding relationship between Neeson and Kruger and yet Collet-Serra never once allows them to have a conversation that doesn't get interrupted by a bad guy.
Still, "Unknown" scratched my itch for silly but entertaining thrillers that take their premises with a grim seriousness like the good old-fashioned spy yarns of John le Carre and Frederick Forsyth used to. With some good supporting turns (especially the one from Bruno Ganz) and a few unexpected plot twists, I think this is a rare Liam Neeson action movie that is genuinely worth seeing.
3/4 - DirectorSteven KnightStarsMatthew McConaugheyAnne HathawayDiane LaneA fishing boat captain juggles facing his mysterious past and finding himself ensnared in a reality where nothing is what it seems.10-03-2023
I hate twist thrillers. The kind of movies which end in ludicrous reveals that are supposed to change your entire perception of what happened before but all they do is frustrate and cheat their audience. Maybe I'm an old-fashioned moviegoer but I prefer the kind of thriller that slowly develops its plot and characters across the movie climaxing in a well-prepared and carefully thought-out finale over a thriller that throws its entire runtime away for the sake of an instant gratification rug-pull.
"Serenity" is such a movie. In fact, it is one of the most infuriating examples of a twist thriller since before the rug-pull happens, it is actually a very enjoyable if a little overly homagey neo-noir.
Matthew McConaughey stars as a Hemingway-esque character named Baker Dill, a fisherman by day/penniless bum by night living an empty, aimless life on the shores of a small island somewhere on the outskirts of human memory. His life is so devoid of aspiration that he has become fixated on the idea of catching a mythical big tuna.
The film quickly changes gears, however, and goes into James M. Cain territory with the arrival of Baker's ex-wife Karen (Anne Hathaway) who walks onto his boat one rainy night with a familiar proposition. She asks him to kill her abusive husband Frank (Jason Clarke), a truly despicable character, an alcoholic and a paedophile, for 10 million dollars.
At first, Baker refuses but his morality is shaken by the thought of Patrick, his and Karen's son who, as it turns out, is also a target of Frank's abuse.
So far, so good. The first half of "Serenity" is admittedly unoriginal and almost comical in its assistance on noir cliches and homages. However, I found myself being caught up in the fable of Baker Dill. I enjoyed Matthew McConaughey's mumbly, dishevelled performance. I thought Anne Hathaway worked well as a femme fatale with her luscious blonde hair and air of deceitful mysteriousness.
The film is written and directed by Steven Knight, the man behind "Locke", one of the most intense and compelling thrillers of the century. He does a terrific job of capturing the punchy noir dialogue and the humid, sizzling atmosphere of a summer-set erotic thriller. I like those kinds of movies and I genuinely liked the first half of "Serenity".
And then the plot twist arrives with a clang. To be fair, its arrival has been prepared from the very beginning but every time the film would hint at it I would wince and hope my instincts were wrong.
It would be unfair of me to reveal what this twist is but I will describe what it does to the movie. Not only does it totally invalidate everything that happened over the previous hour but it also renders any kind of further plot and character development impossible. It grinds the entire picture to a halt and writes it into a corner that has no way out. The moment it comes, the film is over.
I have never seen in my life a movie unravel and go off the rails as much as "Serenity". It's as if halfway through the writing of "Double Indemnity", a lunatic killed James M. Cain and replaced his tightly-wound prose with his incoherent ramblings.
There have been plenty of good films with bad endings before but "Serenity's" twist completely undoes every quality the film has. It takes the entire previous hour and tosses it overboard. Nothing matters anymore and nothing of interest happens afterwards. At the one-hour mark, Steven Knight sabotages his own movie. He slits its throat with the most ill-advised plot twist I've ever seen and lets it bleed out slowly throughout the remaining 40 minutes.
There's a lot of good work in "Serenity", not the least from its game stars, but the way the film self-implodes makes it impossible to recommend at any level except one. I do think there is value in watching "Serenity" but only as a cautionary tale. It should be shown to film students who aspire to be M. Night Shyamalan as a tool to teach them that maybe being "just plain old" Billy Wilder isn't all that bad.
1/4 - DirectorJamie PayneStarsIdris ElbaCynthia ErivoAndy SerkisBrilliant but disgraced detective John Luther breaks out of prison to hunt down a sadistic serial killer who is terrorising London.10-03-2023
"Luther: The Fallen Sun" is the cinematic debut of DCI John Luther, a fascinating character whom Idris Elba has played on and off for the past thirteen years on BBC's same-named hit show. Aired among a slew of police procedurals "Luther" always stood out due to its comic book stylings (noirish photography, outlandish villains, far-fetched gambits) and its fascinating central character who was a cop always teetering on the edge of vigilante justice. As played by the magnetic Elba Luther has a palpable edginess, a real sense of rage and danger that makes the threat of him going to the dark side more than just a screenwriter's conceit.
I can't say I was always on board with the show, however, and by the time its final season had aired I found myself watching it more out of a desire for completionism than genuine interest. It had all become a little too silly, too preposterous, and too comic-bookish for my liking.
Now, as befits all comic book heroes in this day and age, John Luther gets to star in his own superhero movie. "Luther: The Fallen Sun" is a popcorn superhero flick in every sense except for one: Luther does not wear a cape. All the other elements are in place: the tragic backstory, the conflicted psyche, the elderly father figure/helper, the psychopathic supervillain with a grandiose plan... We even get the shot of Luther pointlessly standing on top of a skyscraper looking over London like Batman. For a moment there, I thought he would actually fly.
The plot revolves around the hunt for a psychopathic serial killer played with glee and menace by the always terrific Andy Serkis. This guy is a real sadist who first blackmails his victims into servitude before eventually kidnapping and torturing them to death.
In the film's excellent opening sequence, he invites all the families of his victims to a countryside mansion where they find their loved ones hanged in a circle. As they stare in shock at their corpses, the killer sets the mansion on fire.
There are several grandiose set pieces of varying success in this film. A very memorable one involves a mass suicide in Piccadilly Circus. A far less original one is set in a torture room where a mother must choose between torturing her colleague or watching her daughter die.
Yes, this is all very familiar stuff. "Luther: The Fallen Sun" cribs its gruesome elements from a wide variety of sources ranging from the "Saw" movies to Gregory Hoblit's "Untraceable" and even Dario Argento's "The Card Player".
I must confess I was immediately disappointed by how derivative and predictable Luther's cinematic debut is. Couldn't writer/creator Neil Cross have come up with something a tad bit more original?
However, the film's Grand Guignol set pieces are not really its biggest problem. That would be the scenes that come between them most of which involve Luther aimlessly running around London collecting clues and almost comically failing to apprehend Andy Serkis despite the fact he seems to show up wherever Luther goes.
"Luther: The Fallen Sun" is 130 minutes long and far too much of it is spent on dull procedural cliches. It could have been a much leaner film had it cut down on the endless scenes of police detectives tracking down phone calls, going through databases, and arguing around whiteboards. It certainly could stand to lose around 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, far more interesting scenes are speedrun to make room for more serial killer action. A terrific character moment occurs midway through a foot chase through the London underground. I won't spoil the scene except to say it includes a pair of young coppers who have an admiration for Luther's loose-cannon ways. It is a rare moment of humanity in what is otherwise wham-bam regurgitation of stock serial killer cliches.
I like that Cross has decided to frame "Luther: The Fallen Sun" as a standalone piece. It doesn't bring up old storylines or characters. But in erasing its history it loses pretty much all of its identity because it doesn't bother creating new stories to replace the old ones.
We get curiously little information on John Luther who is introduced in the film as if we are supposed to already be familiar with him and his unusual methods. We also get almost no background on the killer who remains as mysterious at the end as he was in the beginning.
The result is a largely underwhelming film which is nothing more than a straightforward trudge through serial killer cliches. If you were to replace the names, you could easily pass this script as unrelated to "Luther". Furthermore, despite all of its grandeur and bustle, it cannot escape the feel of being merely an extended TV episode. "Luther: The Fallen Sun" simply lacks the originality, the texture, and the humanity to make the leap to the big screen.
2/4 - DirectorSantiago MitreStarsDaniel HendlerVimala PonsSergi LópezJosé and Lucie live a beautiful marriage together, however, one day, boredom sets in and Lucie goes to see a therapist to save their marriage, while her husband goes to see Jean-Claude, their neighbour.12-03-2023
Jose (Daniel Hendler) is an Argentinian living in France who still barely speaks the language. This greatly annoys his partner Lucie (Vimala Pons) who declares that she will stop speaking Spanish with him until he learns French. Jose shrugs his shoulders and continues speaking in his mother tongue. Eventually, she gives up on her protest and the status quo continues.
He is a cartoonist who hasn't drawn anything for a year. The couple moved to a small and decidedly non-picturesque French town so that he can design a logo for a start-up. Unfortunately, Jose gets fired from that job quite quickly and it falls to Lucie to provide for them and their newborn daughter.
Meanwhile, Jose spends his days in a tedium-induced stupor looking after the baby and murdering his pretentious jazz-loving, wine-sniffing, bohemian neighbour Jean-Claude (Melvil Poupaud). Yes, murdering. Every Thursday, the two men go through a bizarre, supernatural ritual which begins with Jean-Claude playing his favourite vinyl of Sidney Bechet's glorious song "Petit Fleur". Jose then murders him in one of the many creative, brutal ways and flees. The next day, Jean-Claude turns up alive.
The result of the ritual is that for that one Thursday, Jose and Lucie get to spend a deliriously happy, romantic night going to a variety of concerts, dancing until dawn, and then making love. Afterwards, the everyday tedium of their lives proceeds until the next Thursday when Jose sacrifices Jean-Claude once again.
The premise of this film, the original title of which is "Petite fleur", reminded me of Emmanuel Carrère's wonderful "The Moustache" which also dealt with a routine, suburban life being interrupted by an unexplained, supernatural event. But "Petite fleur", based on a novel by Iosi Havillio and directed by Santiago Mitre, is not nearly as incisive nor as tonally consistent as "The Moustache".
The first problem is that the repeated event of Jean-Claude's murder is not given nearly enough attention. Jose goes through it every single time without any particular trouble or guilt and accepts this event without question. It doesn't seem to alter his life all that much nor does it affect him. Similarly, the screenplay by Mariano Lilnas fails to satisfactorily tie the murdering in with Jose and Lucie's relationship problems. Meanwhile, Mitre seems to become bored with the ritual and eventually altogether stops showing it.
The repeated murders of Jean-Claude become almost incidental to the film which is one of the many reasons why I think the English-language title, "15 Ways to Kill Your Neighbour" is one of the most disastrous I've ever seen.
As I mentioned earlier, the film never manages to achieve a consistent tone. It does not have the bizarre satirical edge of "The Moustache" nor does it even try for the farce of those wonderful French black comedies. Strangely, the film most reminds me of one of those Woody Allen comedies that coquette with the supernatural but never quite indulge with it.
Indeed, "15 Ways to Kill Your Neighbour" is at its best when it fully commits to being a Woody Allen-esque comedy about a middle-aged man who finds his life slowly coming apart around him. The funniest scenes involve Lucie gravitating towards a flamboyant new-age psychiatrist played with superior aplomb and verve by Sergi Lopez. He managed several times to make me do what the rest of the film almost never did - laugh out loud.
I love the premise of "15 Ways to Kill Your Neighbour" and its game leads are wonderfully charismatic and likeable. Unfortunately, after a perfectly pleasant 90 minutes, the film comes to very little. It has nothing new to say about its themes, it is not particularly insightful nor biting, nor is it all that funny. Ultimately, I suppose, it lacks the unforgettable tone, precise timing, and the haunting atmosphere that made Sidney Bechet's "Petite fleur" one of the defining jazz classics.
2.5/4 - DirectorAaron KatzStarsCris LankenauRaúl CastilloRobyn RikoonA guy who moves back to Portland, Oregon becomes involved in the mystery of his ex-girlfriend's disappearance.13-03-2023
It's difficult to make a film about boredom without making the film itself boring. However, the director of "Cold Weather" Aaron Katz doesn't seem to be afraid of that truism. He goes headfirst into the daily tedium of his character's lives and portrays it so cleverly, so accurately, so mind-numbingly that it is impossible for us not to plunge in right after him. Although a noirish mystery eventually conjures itself up, "Cold Weather" is not a movie to be watched for its plot. It's not so much a movie as it is a vibe, an atmosphere of rolling, continuous tedium of approaching your 30s without ambitions or perspective.
The film's protagonist is Doug (Cris Lankenau) and I call him that only because calling him a hero would be utterly ridiculous and he's not even the leading man of his own life. He is one of those people who have no drive to grab ahold of their own destinies and are content to merely ride the waves of chance. Well, maybe not exactly content...
He used to study forensic science in a bid to become a detective like his idol Sherlock Holmes but he gave that up for no discernable reason. Even though he reassures his parents that there's a possibility he might return to university everything we see about him points to that not being true.
After a failed attempt at becoming a chef, he now lives in his hometown, sleeps on his sister's sofa and works in an ice factory. "I didn't even know they had ice factories," says his sister. "Of course they do," replies Doug, "where do you think they get those bags of ice that you buy."
At the ice factory, he befriends Carlos (Raul Castillo) who packs ice by day and DJs at night. Carlos has more drive than Doug but is equally as content spending his life moving ice bags from one box to the other. "I can think while doing this," he explains. Doug lends Carlos some Sherlock Holmes books and Carlos likes them.
Doug's ex-girlfriend Rachel (Robyn Rikoon) shows up in town. She's arrived from Chicago for a training seminar and the two of them meet up. We get the feeling that Rachel is still a little bit in love with Doug but he doesn't seem to care. Instead, he hooks her up with Carlos and the two go to a Star Trek convention together. Doug can't be bothered to show any interest.
"Cold Weather" is at its best with these little glimpses into the mind-numbing everyday routines of its characters. It does such a precise job of evoking the atmosphere of aimless living that in the end, I was surprised by just how much sense the plot made.
It all begins when Rachel disappears. Now, as a former forensic science student and Sherlock Holmes enthusiast, you'd expect Doug to take to mystery-solving like a duck to water but he doesn't. Carlos has to literally drag him into it and convince him to help find Rachel.
Helping them along is Doug's sister Gail (Trieste Kelly Dunn), the level-headed one of the group who seems to have turned responsibility and adulthood into her defining characteristics. Unexpectedly, she becomes the most enthusiastic detective of all of them.
Instead of following a cryptic plot, however, "Cold Weather" is more interested in observing how its characters react when their boring routine is replaced by a moderately exciting noirish mystery. There are secret codes, briefcases full of money, and abandoned hotel rooms full of clues to shake them out of their ennui. Will they succeed?
The film ratchets up some tension towards the end but most of it consists of very well-conceived and performed slices of life. The cast is excellent, especially Cris Lankenau who oozes his character's lack of enthusiasm and ambition. I like the pleasant, loving relationship he has with his sister - a real refreshment from all the sibling rivalry that we usually see in movies.
Since the atmosphere is so well crafted and the actors are so good it is hard not to want "Cold Weather" to be more than it actually is. I wanted it to be more satirical, funnier, sharper, and more incisive. But director/writer Aaron Katz is happy to focus on the mood and the characters rather than any grand statements. In that sense, the film's title is the perfect explanation for its tone. Like the weather, this film merely exists around you and if you let it, it gets under your skin. It has its ebbs and flows and occasional temperature changes but, for the most part, it is even, airy, and deliberately unexciting.
3/4 - DirectorBrian De PalmaStarsAndra AkersWilliam FinleyMargo NortonNaive young Karen wants to help her struggling amateur-filmmaker boyfriend Christopher raise enough money so he can divorce his wife. Meanwhile, jolly psycho prankster Otto stalks the building where Christopher is shooting a low-grade adult movie in order to keep himself afloat.13-03-2023
Five years before the release of his career-redefining classic "Sisters", Brian De Palma shot "Murder a la Mod", a grungy little "art flick" which is more notable for being De Palma's feature film debut and his first flirtation with the thriller genre than for its actual artistic qualities.
It falls neatly in line with De Palma's earliest features like "Greetings" and "Hi, Mom!", experimental comedies that tried to reach the inspired chaos of Godard but instead more often than not merely turned out messy.
Like those films, "Murder a la Mod" incorporates many French New Wave aesthetics including jump cuts, on-screen text describing and commentating on the action we're seeing, and a lot of metatextual shenanigans. In fact, the film's opening sequence, a montage which through a series of jump cuts shows eager young actresses auditioning for a slasher film of dubious provenance, serves as a perfect taster for what the rest of it will be like.
In short, the film revolves around the murder of the naive young Karen (Margo Norton) who goes to visit her photographer boyfriend Chris (Jared Martin) only to find out he's been roped into shooting pornography for a sleazy film producer (played by "Murder a la Mod's" actual producer Ken Burrows). Chris breaks up with Karen and leaves the apartment only for a gloved, ice-pick-wielding killer to show up and stab her to death in an early example of a very typically brutal De Palma murder scene.
The film then follows three people who were around Karen shortly before the murder occurred. The first is her best friend Tracy (Andra Akers), a shrewish social climber who drove Karen to the apartment. The second is an annoying prankster named Otto (William Finley) who works for Wiley and hangs around the apartment scaring people in the corridors. Finally, the film follows Chris' actions after he leaves Karen alone at his place.
I've seen people compare the film's fractured narrative to "Rashmon" which I think is misguided. Unlike Kurosawa's film, the different points of view in "Murder a la Mod" don't actually offer any differing perspectives on Karen's murder. They merely show different pieces of the puzzle which don't contradict each other but instead form (or are at least supposed to form) a clear picture of the events leading up to and away from her death.
Frankly speaking, the film's narrative is less "Rashomon" and more of a mess. It plays out more like a series of short films tangentially strung together into a formless feature which wildly varies in tone, style, and rhythm from one scene to the next. Sometimes it's a Giallo thriller, sometimes it's a profoundly unfunny slapstick comedy, and sometimes it is nothing more than obvious padding. There are needlessly elongated scenes throughout the film during which you can feel writer, director, editor Brian De Palma strain this already paper-thin material into an 80-minute feature. We watch a banker give a mind-numbing monologue on the state of banking these days. We watch a man sit in his car and listen to a soap opera. We watch Otto endlessly wheel a trunk around a cemetery until our heads spin.
"Murder a la Mod" has a lot of neat visuals and some very clever stylistic choices but it never turns them into a film worth seeing. I loved the Hitchcock-on-acid murder scene. I loved the shadowy, sleazy atmosphere of Chris' apartment/studio. I loved the energetic opening sequence. I even loved the derivative but well-executed finale. However, the messy screenplay, the lack of an even pace, and an obvious disregard for any kind of internal logic or point at the end of the film make "Murder a la Mod" a particularly difficult experiment to sit through.
It's an interesting historical document but if you're not a rabid De Palma fan or a film scholar I'd advise you to skip "Murder a la Mod" in favour of some far better Brian De Palma thrillers.
1.5/4 - DirectorJoe SwanbergStarsAdam WingardSimon BarrettCaroline WhiteIn this sexy thriller a photographer who specializes in erotic photo shoots is suspected of murder when one of his models is found dead. Starring the creators of 'You're Next.'13-03-2023
"24 Exposures" is the baffling mix of 80s Brian De Palma and Joe Swanberg's more self-referential work such as "Art History" or "Silver Bullets" which dealt with the impact that making art has on artists. The marriage of the two aesthetics is not an easy one and it doesn't work as often as it does but it is intriguing, weirdly entertaining, and ultimately satisfying for fans of Swanberg's more rough-around-the-edges, homemade-style pictures.
The Swanbergian portion of the film revolves around Billy (Adam Wingard), a photographer who describes his work as "personal fetish photos... but in the classiest way possible". What this actually means is that he takes photos of nude models posed in bizarre and graphically violent death poses. The scenes showing the making of these photos are the film's best. The juxtaposition of the morbid nature of the photographs and the relaxed, matter-of-fact attitude of those creating them alone is fascinating and often hilarious.
Billy works with his girlfriend Alex (Caroline White) and frequent model Callie (Sophia Takal). They plan the shoots together, execute them, and then have threesomes afterwards. One evening, between the shoot and threesome, Callie introduces Billy to her friend Rebecca (Helen Rogers). Billy is immediately drawn to either her ingenue naivete or the painful bruise she sports under her eye. Either way, he asks her to model for him. She accepts.
"Does your girlfriend get jealous," she asks him one day. He pauses for a moment and then replies that she understands that his attraction to his models is a key part of his artistic process. He is fooling himself. Both of the women in his life, Alex and Callie, girlfriend and mistress, are jealous of the newcomer.
As the tensions grow among the bohemians, the film occasionally shifts gear into a De Palma-style thriller following Michael (Simon Barrett), a drunken cop facing divorce and sleeping in his car. The two storylines intersect when Michael begins hunting a serial killer targeting Billy's models and staging their corpses in tableaux resembling his photographs.
So far, so cliche, but this ultimately is a Joe Swanberg film and the thriller portions definitely do not develop the way you may think they will. The murders soon become insignificant as a strange friendship develops between the two men which then turns into a strange kind of artistic partnership which cleverly mirrors the real-life partnership between the actors playing the characters. They are director Adam Wingard and his writer Simon Barrett.
I love the scene in which Billy invites Michael to one of his shoots. The experienced cop fits right into the relaxed set as he watches a woman get made up into a suicide victim. "You see this a lot," asks Billy. Michael doesn't even have to answer.
Anyone walking into "24 Exposures" expecting a thriller will be sorely disappointed. Besides a few artistic flourishes and the murder plot which soon gets forgotten, this is a Joe Swanberg film through and through. It is interested far more in the sexual dynamics of its characters and the relationship between exploitative art and the gruesome reality it is trying to copy.
For instance, in one scene we watch Michael act out the discovery of a fake corpse for Billy's camera. Very soon, we see him discover the same woman's real corpse. But Swanberg is a self-aware director and he adds a further level of metatextuality by creating a deliberate air of artificiality around this supposedly real policeman. We are constantly aware we are watching fiction about the relationship between reality and fiction.
"24 Exposures" loses its way a bit in its somewhat misshapen third act. I also wish it spent more time on the Michael/Billy relationship which is arguably the most important one in the film and the least examined. However, as a fan of Swanberg's edgier, less polished work, I really enjoyed it but more, I must admit, for its clever and bold ideas than its somewhat lackadaisical execution.
3/4 - DirectorJoe SwanbergStarsSophia TakalLawrence Michael LevineKate Lyn SheilA mysterious visitor spends the night at an apartment belonging to a young engaged couple and their friend.13-03-2023
Do you like Joe Swanberg? In all my experience in cinephilia, I've never seen anyone give a middle-of-the-road answer to that question. Those who hate his movies often chide them for being slight, nonsensical, naval-gazing softcore. They complain about the actors mumbling, the amateurish camerawork, and the lack of an actual plot.
I absolutely love watching Joe Swanberg films. What I personally love about them is precisely how small and intimate they feel. These are not some grandiose, sweeping cinematic statements. They're not out to impress, change the world, or push some political agenda. To me, they feel like homemade experiments among artist friends who are going out there and trying to achieve - create "something". Often they themselves don't know what that something is and more often than not they don't quite reach it but the journey itself is sometimes just as revealing. That's what "The Zone", probably the most Swanbergiest of all Swanberg films, is about.
It begins as mind-numbingly dull softcore porn. Almost like a self-parody on behalf of Swanberg. A tale of three roommates (Sophia Takal, Lawrence Michael Levine, and Kate Lyn Sheil) who let a mysterious, seductive man (Kentucker Audley) into their lives. He sleeps with each of them in turn and completely changes their lives before disappearing into thin air.
"The Zone" then cuts into the editing room where Swanberg and his actors watch the assembled footage. They're not really pleased but nobody is saying it in quite those words. Can the film be saved? Not even Swanberg himself seems to think so.
One more scene remains to be filmed. A threesome between the roommates. Swanberg, naive to a fault, unknowingly walks into a minefield here when he asks his actors to improvise the scene. "Do what feels right". You see, Larry and Sophia are a couple. She is jealous but refuses to acknowledge it. He's scared of her but can't muster up the courage to say so. Both of them, however, are keeping an eye on one thing: who starts making out with Kate first?
Joe Swanberg films always have a layer of metatextuality to them but "The Zone" has layers upon layers. If you thought it was a film-within-a-film you're wrong. It's actually a film-within-a-film-within-a-film about a director-complaining-about-directing-films-about-complaining-about-directing-films. Confused yet?
I loved "The Zone". I have to admit that I didn't think I would, but much like "One Cut of the Dead", once the gambit is revealed, the film becomes terribly entertaining, wonderfully witty and incisive both about the filmmaking process and the complex relationships at play.
The actors play themselves (or at least versions of themselves) but their characters are so clearly defined. Sophia is the bossy, jealous girlfriend who still insists on her impenetrable thespian integrity. Larry is the concerned boyfriend who pretends to be an irreverent, carefree bohemian. Kate is the poetic, sensitive soul who senses trouble before she sees it and Joe is trapped between them utterly unable to deal with the sexual politics before him.
The actors come to him with a plea: please force us to have fun and tell us what to do. That is the only way we'll have fun and be spontaneous. His head begins to spin.
In the end, Joe's wife (Kris Rey) chastizes him. "The Zone" is too similar to "Art History", she tells him. It's too whiny and loses steam by the end. It does and that's the point, he retorts. I agree with both of them.
3.5/4 - DirectorJoe SwanbergStarsJoe SwanbergJosephine DeckerKent OsborneTension mounts between a director and his lead actress on the set of a sexually explicit low-budget film. As the actress and her co-star develop real feelings for each other, the director's jealousy erupts, sabotaging his own production.13-03-2023
On a rewatch, "Art History" suffers in comparison with "The Zone". Joe Swanberg directed both films in 2011 and both of them cover very similar terrain. "The Zone" portrayed a director navigating the shooting of a tricky threesome scene starring a real-life jealous couple and a sensitive actress. "Art History", similarly set during the shooting of a sexually explicit indie movie, portrays a situation in which the director is secretly and passively aggressively in love with his leading lady.
The film begins with the shooting of a sex scene starring Juliette (Josephine Decker) and Eric (Kent Osborne). Directing on the sidelines, at first heard but not seen, is Sam (Joe Swanberg). This is a tremendous opening scene in which a seemingly intimate moment between two people is coordinated by a cool, even disembodied voice.
Things start to get complicated after the scene is finished shooting. Sam goes away to review the footage and Juliette and Eric remain alone in the bedroom. Then they do the sex scene for real.
While "The Zone" was satirical, metatextual, and almost obsessively self-referential, "Art History" is a self-serious mood piece. Instead of focusing on its characters or directly grappling with the issues at hand, Joe Swanberg instead chooses to slowly develop the tension in the air. Very little happens in cinematic terms on screen in "Art History" but a lot of emotional turmoil goes on underneath the bare skin. Swanberg is skilled at creating a sense of unspoken tension and awkwardness. The atmosphere builds until it inevitably climaxes in physical violence. I was, I must admit, frequently physically uncomfortable while watching this movie and for that, I give it a lot of credit.
Where "Art History" fails, however, is in the characterization of its leads. Unlike "The Zone" which profiled its protagonists so succinctly, I really have no idea who Juliette, Eric, and Sam really are. They feel less like real people and more like pawns in Joe Swanberg's thin allegory. Consequently, it was impossible for me to identify with them or get truly invested in their relationships.
The film, then, works only on the surface level. It effectively builds tension and there is a kind of voyeuristic quality to it but it never touched me or made me think the way "The Zone" did. It left me intrigued but ultimately cold.
This is a shame because the actors really are terrific. I love the almost childlike enthusiasm Kent Osborne displays after Eric and Juliette first have sex. He thanks Sam profusely for giving him a role in the film and decides on the spot to break up with his girlfriend back home. Similarly terrific is Joe Swanberg, eerily effective at portraying repressed rage. Caught between them, Juliette is superbly portrayed by Josephine Decker as a free spirit who sort of goodnaturedly wanders into a full-on dick-measuring contest.
At the end of "The Zone", Joe Swanberg's wife criticizes the film by saying it's too much like "Art History". She is right, I suppose, in principle but if I had to choose between the two I'd much rather watch "The Zone". It adds so many layers to the same story both in terms of complex interpersonal relationships and in terms of metatextuality which "Art History" craves but never achieves.
2.5/4 - DirectorMichael GordonStarsLana TurnerAnthony QuinnRichard BasehartAfter a married woman and her lover murder her cruel husband, they find themselves targeted by someone who is aware of their crime.14-03-2023
If you want to know what kind of a movie "Portrait in Black" is, just listen to Frank Skinner's fabulous score. It's melodramatic, operatic, sweeping, overwrought, muscular, and just about any other adjective you can think of. It's a real masterpiece of musical melodrama, so overwhelming that it utterly overshadows the thin and tedious movie it is playing under.
Based on a long-forgotten Broadway flop by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, "Portrait in Black" is the kind of movie that was eventually superseded by those lavish prime-time soap operas like "Dynasty" or "Falcon Crest". It's Sidney Sheldon's wet dream - a melodrama about infidelity, murder, love, and hate set in the world of the rich and the decadent. It's so torrid, so overheated, so grand that it frequently plays like a self-parody. When informed of some particularly upsetting news, women swoon with their hands on their foreheads, men break every mirror in sight as onlookers clutch their chests agonized by the emotional turmoil they are witnessing.
The film opens as Sheila Cabot (Lana Turner), the long-suffering wife of a bed-ridden shipping magnate falls in love with her husband's doctor, David Rivera (Anthony Quinn). Despite his debilitating illness, her regal, abusive husband (Lloyd Nolan) shows no intention of dying so the two decide to speed him along to his maker.
The murder plan works without a hitch but trouble ensues when the pair have to remain separated until "the dust dies down". Sheila begins suspecting that David is falling out of love with her, especially when she hears of a lucrative job offer he has from a cutting-edge Swiss hospital. And then, to make matters worse, an anonymous letter arrives congratulating the pair on a successful murder.
This is enough plot to fill out a movie but, for some reason, Goff and Roberts continue adding characters and subplots until "Portrait in Black" becomes unbearably unwieldy and unfocused. The film keeps cutting between Sheila and David and all the people who surround them with little sense of pacing or logic.
We get to follow Sheila's stepdaughter, an ingenue named Cathy (Sandra Dee) who is secretly in love with a dockworker (John Saxon). Then there's also Howard Mason (Richard Basehart), the old man's sleazy business partner who sets his eyes on Sheila. If that's not enough, Goff and Roberts throw in a nosey Chinese maid (Anna May Wong), a debt-ridden chauffer (Ray Walston), a good-natured secretary (Virginia Grey), and a rather annoying child (Dennis Kohler).
The result is a seemingly endless film, tediously bloated and disorganized which never achieves any kind of cohesion or rhythm. Director Michael Gordon struggles to build any sort of tension and eventually seems to give up as all the storylines converge into a completely nonsensical finale which wouldn't pass muster even on one of the later seasons of "Dynasty".
"Portrait in Black" has a lot going for it, not the least its beautiful score and some striking, Douglas Sirk-like colour photography from Russell Metty. Unfortunately, its bloated, silly, boring screenplay sinks it. It takes a full hour before anything remotely interesting happens and by that point, I was long since checked out.
The final 30 minutes of "Portrait in Black" were agony for me. As it dragged towards the end, I felt like breaking the TV screen dramatically, shouting a few choice words at Lana Turner, and then collapsing on the floor from emotional exhaustion. But first, I'd have to find someone to fan me and offer me some smelling salts!
1.5/4 - DirectorLawrence Michael LevineStarsSophia TakalLawrence Michael LevineAlia ShawkatA Brooklyn couple suspects foul play when their rent controlled neighbor suddenly drops dead.14-03-2023
"Wild Canaries" is Lawrence Michael Levine's take on the "Manhattan Murder Mystery" and if you're anything like me that description will say you on seeing this movie regardless of what the rest of this review says. Be warned, however, he doesn't quite pull it off.
The premise is pretty much the same: a couple of nebbish New Yorkers get themselves involved in the mysterious death of their elderly neighbour. This time around the couple is much younger and they're not yet married. In both films, however, it is the excitement-hungry woman who has to almost literally drag her uninterested male partner by the lapels into danger.
The elderly neighbour is again a sweet lady but the prime suspect is not the husband but rather the wastrel son who begins selling off her belongings before she's a day in the grave.
For those familiar with Levine's work either as the writer of genre-subverting, fiercely feminist films such as "Always Shine" and "Black Bear" or as an actor from Joe Swanberg's edgy, home-made sex comedies, this foray into a breezy murder mystery is a definite surprise. I, personally, would have preferred to see him give the "Manhattan Murder Mystery" his usual darker treatment exploring the wife's need to seek her kicks in other people's murders rather than in her own marriage.
Instead, "Wild Canaries" is a rather goofy and light romp through an array of thriller homages and cliches with some thinly-sketched relationship drama thrown in for good measure. The movie constantly balances the murder plot and its leads' disintegrating romance.
So why doesn't it work? It sounds like it would be fun. Well, I have three major issues with "Wild Canaries":
The first is the character of Barri (Sophia Takal), the relentlessly bubbly wannabe detective. This film is not kind towards her painting her in fairly unlikeable colours. She's an irresponsible fantasist who disregards the personal safety of both herself and her husband in order to pursue this somewhat perverse and voyeuristic game she's cooked up.
Unlike Diane Keaton in "Manhattan Murder Mystery", Barri's enthusiasm is not infectious but increasingly annoying. I found her a grating and immature character which made it impossible for me to get involved with the mystery. In Woody Allen's film, there was a real sense of adventure, of fun and games regardless of how macabre and dangerous it all eventually became. Here, there's just a sense of being dragged down a dark alley by a complete madwoman.
The second problem is that the relationship between Barri and Noah (Lawrence Michael Levine) is obviously doomed from the start. They are terrible for each other. She's a buzzing ball of excitement and neuroses while he's a down-to-earth, lethargic, pedantic bore.
I kept rooting for them to break up because every scene they're in together turns into a bickering match. I wonder if Levine was going for Nick and Nora-style banter? If he was, then he failed spectacularly because the scenes between Barri and Noah are not only charmless, they're downright unbearable. Watching them, I experienced that sense of shrinking discomfort that you get when you watch your friends argue.
This lack of chemistry between the two of them is awfully problematic, mainly because so much of the movie revolves around their relationship and the question of whether it can survive this current crisis. The thing is, I didn't want their relationship to survive the crisis because it's so horrifically toxic.
The third (and probably the least) problem is the very mystery they're investigating. Levine cooks up a hilariously convoluted story and then barely devotes any time to it. He explains it to us in long, confusing info-dumps which are neither funny nor illuminating. I suppose he thinks he's being clever by overcomplicating this ludicrous noirish plot. Maybe he's trying to imitate Raymond Chandler. But the thing is Chandler was able to spin impenetrable yarns because he would populate them with fascinating characters and a rich atmosphere you wanted to soak in. "Wild Canaries", meanwhile, has grating characters and an atmosphere of urban tension I couldn't wait to escape from.
I like the idea behind "Wild Canaries" quite a lot and I enjoyed its terrific supporting cast (Alia Shawkat and Annie Parisse especially shine). I also loved the score by Michael Montes but making the leading characters so unlikeable and then focusing the entire film on their relationship was a fatal misstep.
"Wild Canaries" is not pleasant enough to enjoy nor is it incisive and honest enough about its characters' failings to be fascinating. It exists in an awkward limbo between the films of Woody Allen and Joe Swanberg lacking the likeability of the former and the complexity of the latter.
2.5/4 - DirectorHarvey MitkasStarsSophia TakalLawrence Michael LevineNoah GershmanA young woman's sister goes missing. She then sets out on a quest through Brooklyn to find her on her own, enlisting the help of a motley crew of New York weirdos.14-03-2023
"Devil Town" is a tough movie to review mainly because reviewing a film means rationally boiling it down to its essentials and then describing those elements in words. But "Devil Town" eludes any such rationalization. It is a movie only in the strictest sense of that word. I, personally, think the word "experiment" is better suited to describe it but even "experiment" feels a little too vague and cliched.
The film appears to be a straightforward remake of "The Seventh Victim", a sleek 1943 Val Lewton thriller about a woman searching for her missing sister. I say appears because "Devil Town" plays out like a group of actors trying to recall scenes from "The Seventh Victim" but only managing to call up the haziest of memories. It's a remake of a cinematic remembrance. An attempt to photograph memory itself.
The film was directed by Sophia Takal but released under the pseudonym of Harvey Mitkas. I understand why. "Devil Town" does not appear to have been directed but rather captured by Takal. Everything that plays out in front of her camera, however, has a chaotic vagueness about it. Nobody seems to be aware of the whole, there's no feeling of a plot being played out, all the actors seem unsure of what their part in the movie even is. They just replay their own hazy memories of scenes from "The Seventh Victim".
The plot, such as it is, closely mirrors the Val Lewton film. It follows Eve (Sophia Takal), a naive young woman who comes to New York in order to find her older sister Isabel (Lindsay Burdge). First, she goes to the brewery she owned but finds out that she's sold it. Then, she goes to her rented apartment and finds it empty save for a chair and a noose.
One by one, other characters come into the film. We're not sure if their mysteriousness comes from the characters, however, or from the confusion of the actors playing them. Lawrence Michael Levine, for instance, seems entirely self-assured in the part of Isabel's secret husband. Contrasting him, however, Caveh Zahedi doesn't seem to have a clue what he's doing.
The film is manically shot in disorienting close-ups and with shaky camera movements. The framing is always off with lots of negative space and no sense of balance or symmetry. On top of all of that, pretty much every shot is overlaid with some kind of effect. Double expositions, lens flares, and oversaturated colours blur our vision constantly. The hazy image only contributes to the illusion of watching a half-remembered movie.
Sophia Takal builds up a terrifically bizarre and disturbing atmosphere. There's a real tension and confusion to this movie. I constantly felt on edge and disoriented. With a jazzy score blaring away in the background, "Devil Town", more than any other movie, nails the feeling of a mumblecore neo-noir.
I hope I've described at least some of the experiences of watching "Devil Town". It's an interesting movie and effective in the sense that its sinister mood really does get under your skin. But this is not a genuine narrative movie. You can't watch it for its plot or its characters. It's a metatextual commentary on cinematic memory that manages to intrigue but never to engage.
I always felt at a distance from "Devil Town". Like I was watching someone's private entertainment. It was made as an experiment and I'm sure everyone who was in it had a blast but most of that fun doesn't carry over to the audience. Even if you know "The Seventh Victim" and recognize all the familiar faces who pop up I wonder if you'll not find yourself checking your watch around the 40-minute mark. That's about when I figured out what the movie was doing and when I realized it wasn't going to do much more.
2.5/4 - DirectorNicolas BedosStarsPierre NineyIsabelle AdjaniFrançois CluzetAdrien, an attractive dancer whose career was shattered by a motorcycle accident, squanders his youth in idleness. His life changes when he meets Margot, who lives off scams and amorous manipulations.17-03-2023
One of those screenwriting truisms that have now degenerated into cliches is that third-act problems usually stem from a bad first act. Nicolas Bedos' "Masquerade" has such a dreadful, overcomplicated, overwritten first act that by the time the third act rolled along I didn't even care if it had problems. Truth be told, it's a decent, competently executed third act but this uninspired, unfunny caper lost me before I had even met all of the characters.
At its heart, Bedos' film has a very simple premise. It follows a pair of layabout con artists who mooch off of rich, bored, and most importantly ageing denizens of the French Riviera trying to recapture the exciting sexual glories of their youth. The first of these con artists is Adrien (Pierre Niney), a sardonic toy boy for an actress whose many, many plastic surgeries cannot stop the fading of her stardom (Isabelle Adjani). The other is Margot (Marine Vacth), a wounded, deeply cynical woman sleeping her way through Nice in order to support her young daughter.
The two become lovers and concoct a plan. Margot is to seduce one last rich man, an estate agent in the throws of a mid-life crisis (François Cluzet) and then accuse him of physical abuse. He will then pay her off and Margot and Adrien will finally be able to leave the Riviera rich.
With such a simple, almost elegant premise, you'd expect a tight, twisty, focused caper film but Bedos' script is so messy and bloated with subplots, flashbacks, flashforwards, and pointless backstories that it takes almost an hour for the caper to even begin.
Before that, we get a series of expositional monologues about each and every minor character in the film. We learn all about the ex-husband of Isabelle Adjani's character who, apparently, turned out to be gay. We learn about Adrien's dancing career which was cut short by a motorbike accident. We get a series of flashbacks showing Margot's previous conquests of rich, piggish men.
We get to meet Adrien's former sugar momma, an Italian restauranteur who still pines for him. About an hour in, we unexpectedly meet the wife of François Cluzet's character. She seems to become an important character, has an affair with Adrien and then completely disappears from the film without a trace or impact on the plot.
And all of these flashbacks and subplots are loosely tied together by a framing story which ultimately proves to be completely insignificant.
The temporal structure of "Masquerade" is more complicated than a Christopher Nolan movie and I got a headache trying to keep track of all the characters, their backstories, and how they all tie in with the framing story only for all of these complications to be revealed as red herrings.
Despite its ludicrously convoluted structure, "Masquerade" has a disappointingly simple plot lacking in invention, twists, or much humour. It's essentially a French retelling of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", a less farcical version of "Heartbreakers", or a less charming take on Ernst Lubitsch's "Trouble in Paradise". In a phrase, it's old hat.
2/4 - DirectorAlain CorneauStarsYves MontandFrançois PérierSimone SignoretAn inspector is having a secret relationship with a woman. When she is murdered by his boss, all proof is against him.20-03-2023
Inspector Marc Ferrot (Yves Montand) is France's answer to Dirty Harry. A grim, cynical, often needlessly violent chancer, he even wears Harry's trademark beige jacket and sweater vest. We first meet him as he meticulously cleans his beloved revolver, reassembling it before rushing head-first into a shootout with a pair of robbers. His boss chastises him for staging an ambush with no backup. Ferrot remains stony-faced. He doesn't need backup when he has his Police Python 357 in hand.
But Alain Corneau's "Police Python 357" is not a Dirty Harry-style actioner and immediately sets out to deconstruct Ferrot's macho image. For the first hour of this deceptively titled film, we watch as this older man, slowly approaching retirement age, falls for a much younger and enticingly mysterious photographer Sylvia (Stefania Sandrelli). Ferrot falls madly in love with her as they conduct an illicit affair. They make love in fields, meet in parks, and have weekends in small villages. Even though his feelings are clearly reciprocated, she never lets Ferrot near her private life. She won't tell him about her past, she won't even tell him where she lives. Every one of their dates ends when her alarm clock rings and she rushes off. Ferrot quickly susses out that she's off to meet another man which makes him jealous.
Then one day, after a fiery row with Ferrot Sylvia is found dead in her apartment. The experienced cop is placed in charge of the investigation which quickly becomes focused on finding Sylvia's mysterious lover. As he himself becomes the prime suspect, Ferrot has to put all of his ingenuity to use in order to stall the investigation long enough for him to find the real killer.
Unbeknownst to him, however, the real killer is right under his nose. He is Commissioner Ganay (Francois Perier), his quiet, even-tempered boss who was Sylvia's lover and benefactor until she fell in love with Ferret.
"Police Python 357" is based on Kenneth Fearing's terrific novel "The Big Clock" which had already spawned the seminal same-named film noir in 1948 and would go on to be remade as "No Way Out", one of the very best thrillers of the 1980s. Unlike those films, however, Alain Corneau's take on the novel is focused more on the characters at its centre than its tightly-wound, erratic plot twists.
Deliberately paced and possessed of a quiet, simmering intensity, "Police Python 357's" most interesting elements are Ferrot and Ganay. Two ageing cops who both fall in love with the same woman and find themselves working together towards opposite goals. Ganay's wife Therese (Simone Signoret) is another fascinating character. A paraplegic who allows her husband to seek pleasure elsewhere and eventually becomes his unwilling accomplice and only confidante. Signoret doesn't get nearly as much screen time as she should but her performance is absolutely mesmerising. She projects a kind of silent emotional turmoil which goes unnoticed by her distracted husband but which the camera definitely registers.
Like every other Alain Corneau film I've seen, "Police Python 357" definitely suffers from glacial pacing. Despite the almost farcically complicated series of near-misses and gambits that Ferrot plays in order to avoid getting caught, the film lacks any sense of urgency or suspense. It is a lot more contemplative than you'd expect from a film with its title and certainly a little slower than it should be.
I also found a lot of its plotting to be awfully haphazard. Too many plot points rely on coincidence and too many characters behave like idiots in order for Ferrot to remain undetected and the film to continue. Admittedly, even Fearing's novel featured some leaps in logic and hail Mary escapes for its protagonist, but its frantic pace and intensity more than made up for those failings. By slowing down the action and focusing so intently on the characters, Corneau, unfortunately, exposes many of the novel's failings.
But the film does work on several other levels. I found it fascinating as a deconstruction of the Dirty Harry, macho cowboy cop stereotype that had become quite popular in the 1970s. I also admired some of the filmmakers' bolder choices such as Georges Delerue's creepy, horror-like score and Etienne Becker's stark, realistic photography.
Ultimately, however, it's the performances that make "Police Python 357" a film worth watching. Yves Montand is terrific as the cynical, raging policeman who unexpectedly falls in love and is made to feel like a fool for it. Francois Perier makes for an unusual villain, playing the murderous Ganay as more of a depressed, conflicted loner than a sadist. Also very good are Stefani Sandrelli as the mysterious girl who seduces the two older men and Matthieu Carriere as Ferrot's partner who grows more and more frustrated by his evident absentmindedness. But the best turn comes from Simone Signoret in an unexpectedly layered and striking performance.
3/4 - DirectorJulien DuvivierStarsNadja TillerJean-Claude BrialyPerrette PradierA group of people visit a weird old man who is a student of the black arts. The man lives in an ancient, cursed castle. Soon people in the group start being killed off.20-03-2023
Considering that he was one of the defining authors of the Golden Age of Mystery Fiction, John Dickson Carr has seldom been adapted to the screen. The problem is not that his stories are uncinematic. Quite the opposite, in fact. His plots, full of murders committed in locked rooms and ghostly sightings in Victorian London, would make for fine movies. No, the problem lies more in his telling of these tales. You see, Carr wrote true detective novels, in the sense that he focused wholly on detection over action. His detectives spend pages upon pages meticulously debating theories and pouring over ludicrously detailed witness statements. In Carr's novels, a timetable is given more attention than an appearance of a ghost and a floorplan is more exciting than a car chase.
Julien Duvivier and his writer Charles Spaak did a valiant if not altogether successful job of adapting "The Burning Court", one of Carr's most famous novels, in 1962. It is a classic John Dickson Carr yarn about an old family cursed by a 17th-century witch and an old man who was poisoned in an empty room and whose corpse then mysteriously vanishes from a crypt buried in the ground. It is also quintessential Duvivier with its doomed gathering of characters whose hands are bloodied before the film even begins. It's "Marie-Octobre" meets "The Curse of the Living Corpse".
The film opens up the action of the novel by actually showing us the events which are merely discussed in the book. It begins with the arrival of Michel (Walter Giller), a writer, to the mansion of the Desgrez family where he hopes to investigate the story of Madame de Brinvilliers, a 17th-century poisoner who was arrested by a Desgrez and then burned at the stake.
His plans are scuppered, however, when Mathias Desgrez (Frederic Duvalles), a roguish old man obsessed with the supernatural is found dead. His death is ruled to be of natural causes but a series of mysterious events occur on the grounds of the mansion. A ghostly woman is seen walking through a wall, objects related to witchcraft are found in the old man's bedroom, and, finally, his body disappears from the family crypt.
This first half of the film is a lot of fun. Duvivier does a superb job establishing a moody gothic atmosphere with the help of Roger Fellous' misty, chiaroscuro photography. The story is intriguing and there is a real sense of the macabre in the air.
The second half falters, however, as it strays too far away from the John Dickson Carr original. Duvivier's desire to open up the action of this already rather complex novel leads to a series of scriptwriting decisions that ultimately cause more confusion than excitement. The plot becomes muddled, characters who seemed to be of great importance are suddenly forgotten, and a whole subplot (which was, actually, the main plot of the original novel) slowly but surely peters out into utter insignificance.
The most baffling choice on the part of the adaptors is to reveal the identity of the old man's killers so soon in the film. We find out who poisoned him in the very next scene after he dies and even though this isn't the biggest mystery in the story it certainly ruined some of the mystery for me.
The film also lacks a detective or at least a trustworthy lead for us to identify with. Initially, it seems that Michel will be our protagonist but he fades into the background once Mathias is murdered.
As one of the very few cinematic John Dickson Carr adaptations, "The Burning Court" comes admirably close to emulating the spooky, gothic atmosphere of his novels but it makes a complete pig's ear of his carefully considered and meticulously led plot. Julien Duvivier might not have been terribly interested in the puzzle at hand but he seems to have forgotten to compensate for it with complex and interesting characters.
Admittedly, the film does manage to build up a wonderful atmosphere and has several memorably kooky scenes such as the old man's funeral at which the mourners waltz around the coffin. Duviver's direction is dynamic and imaginative with the help of Roger Fellous' moody and picturesque photography.
"The Burning Court" never manages to overcome its muddled script but the mood and the look of the film still make it an engrossing and enjoyable watch.
2.5/4 - DirectorTomas AlfredsonStarsMichael FassbenderRebecca FergusonCharlotte GainsbourgDetective Harry Hole investigates the disappearance of a woman whose scarf is found wrapped around an ominous-looking snowman.24-03-2023
In the interest of full disclosure, I will confess to having read Jo Nesbo's bestselling and much-lauded thriller "The Snowman". I didn't love it. Having intuited the killer's identity (and the truth behind the mysterious policewoman) about 60 pages in, I spent the remaining 440 pages ticking all the serial killer cliches off my imaginary naughty list. There's the alcoholic anti-hero, the psychotic murderer whose MO seems more exhausting than forced labour, an army of red herrings muddying the predictable plot, a murder from the past that illuminates the murders from the present, tut-tutting pencil-pushing superiors, rare diseases, and a cinematic action climax straight out of a James Bond film.
Not being a fan of the original novel, I came into this film adaptation with no preconceived expectations and still came out disappointed. Actually, discombobulated might be the right word because Tomas Alfredson's film of "The Snowman" is not only a terrible adaptation but also a singularly awful movie. An unfinished atrocity held together by ill will and greed unleashed onto the unsuspecting public much to the embarrassment of everyone involved. I've seen actual unfinished films that are more coherent such as George Sluzier's "Dark Blood" or Orson Welles' "Don Quixote".
According to director Tomas Alfredson who has since disowned the film, about 20% of the screenplay was never actually filmed. The result is a muddled mess of a movie which feels exactly like what it is: a hopeless patch-up job made out of half-finished scenes, reused footage, obvious ADR, and lots of sleepless nights for the haggard editors.
It's astonishing seeing the name of legendary editor Thelma Schoonmaker on a film as poorly put together as this. Characters appear with no introduction and disappear with no explanation. A lot of the time there are some baffling intercuts between scenes that are clearly not meant to go together. Expositional dialogue is horrendously ADR'd over establishing shots which would feel more at home in a Coca-Cola commercial. There is no sense of cohesion or pacing.
The editing fails even on the most basic technical level. There are janky jump-cuts in the middle of shots, scenes play out entirely in masters, and there's no apparent regard for continuity. Characters seem to teleport across rooms and their haircuts change between shots.
The screenplay credited to three separate writers changes key elements of the novel with no regard for logic or plotting. Some things are changed around for no apparent reason. Characters' sexes change, subplots are removed but still hinted at, the killer's motivation is overhauled so that it makes absolutely no sense... And yet, the one thing that should have been changed for an American adaptation of Nesbo's books remains the same. That is the name of the leading character Harry Hole. I couldn't help but guffaw whenever he introduced himself.
He is played by Michael Fassbender who has the right look and air of utter defeat to play the part but who is severely constrained by a one-note screenplay. That is about the only decent bit of casting in the whole movie. The rest of it is... well, frankly, bizarre. Excellent actors such as Sofia Helin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, J.K. Simmons, James D'Arcy, and Adrian Dunbar are brought in to play characters of no depth or significance. Chloe Sevigny plays two utterly unimportant characters over the course of three minutes!
The most baffling bit of casting, however, must be Val Kilmer. Ravaged by cancer, he was unable to speak at the time of the filming so all of his dialogue is poorly dubbed making his scenes feel like unintentional homages to the most distracting proclivities of Giallo films. Alfredson doesn't even bother to conceal the fact that Kilmer is dubbed by clever filmmaking. He merely cuts away from him whenever he has to speak so that the already hilarious dubbing becomes even more obvious.
There are other good elements to "The Snowman" besides Fassbender. I liked Dion Beebe's picturesque cinematography. I absolutely loved the location work shot in Norway. Full marks also for Marco Beltrami's characteristically atmospheric score.
However, I'm not convinced at all that "The Snowman" would have been a decent movie even if it had been completely filmed. (What a strange sentence to write!) Underneath all the obvious, goofy, amateurish problems there's still a thin, badly adapted screenplay full of outdated cliches and terrible dialogue based on a predictable novel that doesn't offer a new spin on a very, very tired genre. Compared to other Scandi Noir books it lacks the social critique of Sjowall and Wahloo, the interesting characters of Henning Mankell, or the intellectual proclivities of Peter Hoeg.
Also, I'm sorry but snowmen just aren't scary. No matter how frowny their little faces are.
1/4 - DirectorGuillaume CanetStarsFrançois CluzetMarie-Josée CrozeAndré DussollierAn accidental discovery near a doctor's estate stirs up some painful memories eight years after his wife's hideous murder, and now, things are bound to take a turn for the unexpected. Does the good doctor know more than he's letting on?25-03-2023
Consider a chase scene from Guillaume Canet's "Tell No One". Dr Alexander Beck (Francois Cluzet), a paediatrician wrongfully accused of murdering his wife sees police cars outside of his surgery. Realizing he is about to be arrested he leaps out of the window and runs for his life. He finds himself in front of a freeway. A thick flurry of cars cut off his path to freedom as the policemen relentlessly close in behind him. What is he to do? He stands there for a second thinking. Weighing his options. Realizing he has only two, he closes his eyes, lets go, and walks out into the coming traffic. Like Indiana Jones in "The Last Crusade", however, his blind faith pays off and he manages to walk between the cars to safety.
Now, in any other thriller, a scene such as this would be played for suspense and excitement. In Canet's film, however, neither is the priority. "Tell No One" is nominally a thriller but the effect scenes such as the one outlined above have on the viewer are melancholic rather than rousing. His camera focuses tightly on his actors' faces, not on the incoming threat. The editing slows down so that we can process every emotion and every thought going through the protagonist's mind. Matthieu Chedid's genius score is droning rather than thrilling. Finally, as Beck steps out onto the highway there's a sense of emotional release, freedom, acceptance.
The plot, based on Harlan Coben's bestselling novel, is familiar, convoluted, and not entirely convincing. It embraces that Hitchockian notion that the best thriller plots revolve around an ordinary man having to prove his innocence against extraordinary odds.
What sets "Tell No One" apart from other films of its ilk is that its director and writer Guillaume Canet takes the time to develop the characters. Don't get me wrong, there is a constant urgency, a relentless tension throughout the movie but that doesn't mean that it has to rush headlong in order to catch up with its labyrinthine plot.
Canet finds the time to develop such significant human details as a gangster's love for his haemophiliac son, a bookish policeman's growing cynicism towards the system he's representing, a quiet, unspoken grief in the house of the dead woman's parents, and most importantly, the great, undying love between Beck and his wife Margot (Marie-Josee Croze).
Despite its thriller trappings, chase scenes, shootouts, and mysteries, "Tell No One" plays out like a love story about a man doing everything he can to hold on to the memory of his dead wife.
Fittingly, the film's climax is not a grandiose, melodramatic explosion or a superbly choreographed fight scene. It's an idealised memory, remembered in golden hues, of a beautiful summer's day on the lake beneath a tree that bears a carving, a testimony of an enduring love between A & M.
Harlan Coben's "Tell No One" was a readable, entertaining, thrilling potboiler. Guillaume Canet's "Tell No One", however, is a beautiful, haunting, emotional movie superbly performed by such luminaries of the French cinema as Francois Cluzet, Andre Dussollier, Francosi Berleand, Nathalie Baye, and Jean Rochefort. A real triumph of adaptation that boasts the kind of emotional intelligence and sincerely that is rarely seen in the thriller genre.
4/4 - DirectorDon SiegelStarsSydney GreenstreetPeter LorreJoan LorringAfter an innocent man is executed in a case for which he was not responsible, a Scotland Yard superintendent finds himself investigating the murder of his key witness.29-03-2023
A man is found murdered in his bedroom. The front door is locked from the inside and all the windows are barred. His housekeeper who spent the night in her room next door heard no one come in or out. You know how it goes from here! We're in John Dickson Carr territory.
Well, Israel Zangwill territory to be precise. Zangwill was an intriguing fellow. A leading Zionist thinker, a socialist who vociferously battled for women's suffrage and pacifism, a Charles Dickens wannabe, and the author of one of the first locked-room mystery novels ever written - "The Big Bow Mystery".
"The Verdict", which coincidentally is also the debut of now legendary director Don Siegel, is one of three films based on Zangwill's novel, although to be fair to Zangwill, screenwriter Peter Milne strayed very far from the original. Still, the enticing mystery and some of Zangwill's satire are evident.
The murder is investigated by former Superintendent Grodman (Sydney Greenstreet) who has resigned from the police force under something of a cloud after sending an innocent man to the gallows. However, his motive for investigating this crime is not to clear his name but rather to expose his successor and bitter rival Superintendant Buckley (George Coulouris) for the limelight-hogging bungler he believes him to be. Aiding him in this ignoble quest is his best friend and faithful follower, Victor Emmric (Peter Lorre).
"The Verdict" offers a fairly limited array of qualities. It has a biting if understated sense of humour, an enjoyably sleazy turn from Peter Lorre, and Don Siegel does a deft job of evoking the foggy, gothic atmosphere of Victorian London. The premise of the mystery is also quite intriguing even though there is a disappointingly small amount of actual sleuthing going on in this thriller. Most of the film is centred around the rivalry between the two policemen and their constant attempts to one-up each other with the locked-room gimmick as little more than a backdrop, an excuse for their bickering.
For the most part, however, this is really just another of those cosy and cheap mysteries which had been produced by the truckload in the 1930s and early 1940s but was already waning in popularity by the time "The Verdict" came around. Charlie Chan and Sherlock Holmes were already being squeezed out of the marquees by Philip Marlowe and Mike Hammer.
The question of how much you will enjoy this movie really comes down to how much you enjoy this genre. I am a fan of Charlie Chan, Mr Moto, Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes and other such detective yarns, so I did have fun with "The Verdict" even if its slight story does not quite support its 90-minute runtime. Its older cousins knew what they were doing by limiting themselves to 70 minutes.
I liked the film's atmosphere, as well as its parodic attitude towards the mystery genre. The performances are also a lot of fun, especially that of George Coulouris who is one of those familiar actors I'm always happy to see pop up briefly in famous movies. Here he gets a substantially larger role than usual and absolutely runs away with it.
This is, on the other hand, not one of Sydney Greenstreet's finest roles. He just isn't his usual oily and charming self here spending most of the movie looking somewhat lugubrious and listless. I can't help but wonder if maybe Charles Laughton or even Barry Fitzgerald wouldn't have been better choices to play the vain and sardonic Grodman instead.
"The Verdict" is an enjoyable if slight and fairly forgettable late entry into the cosy mystery genre of yore. Grodman is no Charlie Chan but there is a good mystery here to solve and a few good laughs to have along the way even if the film's surprising and intriguing ending feels like it belongs in a tougher, edgier film.
2.5/4 - DirectorDamien PowerStarsHavana Rose LiuDanny RamirezDavid RysdahlDuring a blizzard and stranded at an isolated highway rest stop in the mountains, a college student discovers a kidnapped child hidden in a car belonging to one of the people inside.31-03-2023
When we first meet our protagonist Darby (Havana Rose Liu), she's in rehab, eight days clean and not expecting many more. She scoffs her way through group therapy, has no respect for her councillors, and remarks that the only reason she's even there is because it's better than prison.
The tense therapy session is interrupted by an urgent phone call. Darby's mom has had an aneurysm and is in hospital. Darby wants to go see her but her doctor won't let her. So, she steals his car and drives away.
I cover this seemingly important part of the movie so quickly because the film does too. "No Exit" establishes almost immediately that it is not here to waste our time. Darby is out of rehab and driving furiously into an oncoming blizzard before the title even appears on the screen.
Like Marion Crane in "Psycho", however, her flight is interrupted by a cop who knocks on the car window. He informs her that the storm is just getting started and the roads are blocked off so she can either go back whence she came or spend the night at a local visitor's centre which has been turned into an impromptu refuge for stranded travellers.
Inside the small cabin, we meet four people: the twitchy Lars (David Rysdahl), the laidback Ash (Danny Ramirez), and a commanding ex-marine Ed (Dennis Haysbert) and his nurse wife Sandi (Dale Dickey).
But there's trouble at the visitor centre as Darby finds out as soon as she peeks into a lonely van parked out front. In the back is a tied-up girl and one of the friendly people inside is a dangerous kidnapper.
At first, "No Exit" feels like a snowy version of James Mangold's atmospheric "Identity" or maybe even a modern "The Hateful Eight". Director Damien Power does a good job of ratcheting up tension especially as Darby tries to weasel out information during a decidedly not-friendly card game.
But the film's mystery pretences drop about a third of the way in and it turns into a kind of "Die Hard" on the snow with the dastardly gun-wielding kidnapper holding everyone hostage and Darby going rogue trying to save them with a box-cutter.
"No Exit" is a decently diverting movie but it's never truly satisfying. The mystery of the kidnapper's identity is revealed far too quickly, the subsequent twists in the tale are predictable, and there is far too much gunfighting and not enough psychological gamesmanship for my taste.
I was also surprised by how little Darby's addiction and her flight from rehab come into play. The other characters never find out about her backstory, her suspicions are confirmed before she even confides herself to anyone, and her drug problems are hardly ever mentioned after the prologue. The villain never tries to play the old "she's an unreliable junky" card and the film would have played out the same way even if she was just a regular passing traveller.
The performances are good (especially Dale Dickey's) and there are some neat suspenseful scenes but ultimately "No Exit" is far too simplistic and familiar to be all that engaging. I knew where this film was going at every turn and try as it might it never managed to backfoot me. It's old material played competently but not all that memorably.
2.5/4 - DirectorHamilton MacFaddenStarsWarner OlandSally EilersBela LugosiThe unsolved murder of a Hollywood actor several years earlier and an enigmatic psychic are the keys to help Charlie solve the Honolulu stabbing death of a beautiful actress.31-03-2023
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