Talking Movies

May 24, 2026

Miscellaneous Movie Musings: Part LXII

Filed under: Talking Movies — Fergal Casey @ 8:47 pm
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As the title suggests, so forth.

The Grand Hitchcock Homage

Well, don’t I feel like a right gobdaw now. In 2014 I reviewed The Grand Budapest Hotel thus “Anderson showcases an unexpected flair for blackly comic suspense”, with Willem Dafoe’s menacing pursuit of Jeff Goldblum in mind. And now on YouTube I fall over a video putting that sequence side by side with the same sequence in Torn Curtain. Which makes it seem a good deal less of a bravura sequence, being stolen bravura. I hadn’t really liked Torn Curtain for its brutal quality when I saw it and so hadn’t revisited it and thus fell for this outrageous rip-off/homage hook, like, and crocheted sinker.

A retired host named Doll

It is time to once again agonise over who should play Happy (Hank) Doll in the entirely speculative film trilogy based on Jonathan Ames’ LA noir novels. Re-reading the first one made me wonder – who could play this part? A 50 year old red-haired lean permastoned 6 foot 2 inches half-Irish half-Jewish ex-cop ex-NCIS PI, with a penchant for books, meals of tinned fish, gherkins, sauerkraut, and wearing the same outfits on rotation. Oh, and a dog called George. I had discarded potentials like Robert Downey Jr, Jason Schwartzman, Patrick Stewart and Russell Crowe, to end up with Ryan Gosling as first choice, with John Krasinski as backup. Later I decided that Stephanie Beatriz seemed perfect for the tough bartender with an on and off, mostly off, involvement with our hero. But then The Engineer threw in a suggestion from left-field – Conan O’Brien. He has the height and the hair and the physique, and could pass as younger than his years. And now we have proof of concept, his dramatic turn in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. No gurning, no joking, just playing it straight, quiet, defeated. And, in one scene, using his great height to seriously menace a disruptive patient in the clinic into leaving. Yes, yes, there are possibilities. Conan O’Brien needs a PI badge, people.

Quote the Keanu Cut

The Engineer denies that he re-watches movies much, even though we watch Heat, it seems, on a yearly basis. One of these rewatchings raised the question of whether it was really possible to imagine Keanu Reeves in the role that Val Kilmer ended up taking. (Reeves had famously committed to playing the Dane onstage during the production window) The answer was yes, with one caveat. It was hard to imagine Keanu doing Kilmer’s burst of rage at Ashley Judd when he trashes their kitchen and shouts at her. Not that Keanu hasn’t shown his villainous capabilities in The Gift, and later The Neon Demon. It was just hard to imagine him, in 1995, doing that scene. But then a few months ago an article in the Atlantic made me think of the flipside of this. There is a line from Heat, which I am almost certain would be far more frequently quoted now than it is, if it had been delivered by Keanu rather than Kilmer – “For me, the sun rises and sets with her, man…” 

December 24, 2025

Any Other Business: Part CVII

Filed under: Talking Books,Talking Politics,Talking Television — Fergal Casey @ 5:53 pm
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As the title suggests, so forth.

I can’t believe it’s not House

Watson, currently airing on Sky Witness in double bills, is a curious beast. Transparently a rip off of House, it purports to be inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle, but blatantly lifts from the 2010s series Elementary on which showrunner Craig Sweeny used to be an esteemed writer. One wonders who is more baffled looking at this oddity? David Shore? As he looks at a maverick doctor running a specialist clinic that only deals in diagnosing the trickiest of cases who encourages his hand-picked staff to root in patient’s houses to find out what they’re hiding and kind of has a thing going with the ball-busting head of the hospital? Robert Doherty? As he rummages thru his notes for later seasons of Elementary and finds post-concussion syndrome and Shinwell Johnson circled in red? And what is Craig Sweeny up to? How did a man responsible for the gleeful insanity of Limitless find himself shepherding such a bland creation as a Watson who is both a Watson without a Holmes, and a House without a personality. The only real reasons to watch this show are – a morbid fascination in to just how much they can rip off from others shows without getting into trouble – a curiosity as to what elements must always appear even when Holmes is nowhere to be found (Moriarty, Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Irene Adler, Shinwell Johnson, Sebastian Moran). I’m honestly amazed it’s been renewed.

Who’s going to celebrate you, tonight?

People often rave about the bravura scene in Miami Vice where Tubbs and Crockett simply drive while “Can you feel it coming in the air tonight?” is sung repeatedly. So it’s surprising that nobody seems to mention in the same vein an extended sequence in the final season of Magnum PI. Magnum PI is a show with some exceptional transitions between scenes. Indeed one might say the showcase episode “Home from the Sea” that opens season 4 is built around transitions from character to character via chiming dialogue. The sort of showy and amusing trick, where a question is ‘answered’ in a different context, that Aaron Sorkin used to introduce all his characters in The Trial of the Chicago 7. But in “Unfinished Business”, as Magnum comes to terms with unimaginable loss, the dialogue stops. Magnum is bent on vengeance. And with the doggedness and methodical savvy of an intelligence officer he tracks down his target, then prepares his weapon and approach. All to the sound of the Genesis instrumental “The Brazilian”.

“Marcus Aurelius has already relieved you of the obligation to have a take!”

I came across that celebrated gloss on a passage of the Meditations earlier this year, and have been thinking of it a lot recently. The deaths of those titans of 1970s cinema Robert Redford and Diane Keaton should probably each have been marked by a piece on this blog, if I was invested in doing that kind of thing in defiance of Aurelius. Neither meant as much to me as Donald Sutherland though, who I had already written about elsewhere, so I didn’t attempt a timely piece to grab eyeballs because I felt I didn’t have enough extant knowledge to do it justice. Sometimes I come in late with off-kilter pieces like I did on Gene Hackman, or will at some point in the near future do so for Terence Stamp. Which is all prefatory to saying when Charlie Kirk died, I was stunned. To me he was a constant popping up presence on YouTube shorts as they vainly tried to imitate TikTok. I had read the Atlantic’s lengthy profile of him, but above all he was a voice. Which made the shock of seeing him being shot in the throat mid-debate all the greater, literally a voice silenced forever.  I thought about writing something, but I didn’t feel I had anything to add. Not so other people… If you think that it is not disgusting and weird but in fact very moral and indeed charitable of you to say that it is regrettable someone died only because it robbed them of the chance to repent their life’s work, well, unless they are a war criminal or habitual denizen of the prison system, which Charlie Kirk was not, then you reveal only your narcissism and moral bankruptcy.

August 7, 2025

Heat: 30

Filed under: Talking Movies — Fergal Casey @ 2:46 pm
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Some films stand towering above the others of their decade as a monument to be approached with awe; after 30 years we can say Heat is one of those films.

The Oscars, hilariously and customarily, did not think it worthy of a single nomination because it would not be influential; the way Il Postino would be. Snarf. The Dark Knight obviously borrows an actor William Fichtner to stage a bank job as its opening sequence, and Christopher Nolan has admitted the interrogation scene between Batman and Joker and the sense of urban combat were indebted to Heat. Key to the success of Heat is its sense of reality. From the deafening sound of “WW2 on the streets” when LA’s finest interrupt the getaway of the best crew in the business, to the care with which writer/director Michael Mann has small charges set off to simulate cars being peppered with bullet holes, to the intricacies of metals research and planning that characterise the work of Robert De Niro’s Neil McAuley.

Mann’s 1989 TV movie LA Takedown has the same basic outline as Heat, for which it acts as perhaps the most outrageously developed proof of concept in history, but what it is missing isn’t just the charisma of A-list Hollywood stars but the blockbuster budget that buys Time and Space. The coffee scene in Heat works, not just because it has the fabled first onscreen dialogue between Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, but because it has Time: for thoughtful silences, shifting facial expressions, dramatic pauses – in a word, nuance. Heat is nearly three hours long, and it uses every second of it to really immerse you in the world of these characters. And Mann paints on the broadest of canvasses, from aerial views of Los Angeles, and emptying hotels, to military grade street gun battles, and deserted lot ambushes.

And yet, Space isn’t simply the ability to fill the screen with vast cityscapes, it is the freedom to tell the story thru tense close-ups that rival those of Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns. Look at the first (sic) stand-off between Pacino and De Niro. Mann shoves the camera into Pacino’s face as he holds his breath hoping that the suddenly tipped-off De Niro does not call off the metals heist. We feel the characters reacting to each other, though they have not yet both become aware of each other. Later the tension of Val Kilmer’s attempted rendezvous with his wife is conveyed thru a closeup of Pacino on a phone waiting for word on whether he’s got his man. But neither Pacino nor De Niro is simply a lone wolf. Mann richly fleshes out two opposing forces, and their connections.

Mann paints a Greek tragedy in a crime thriller: a man who lives by a code is home free, bathed in beatific light as he drives thru a tunnel, and then his face flickers from its contentment, and the light fades, as the urge for revenge surges and undoes him.

May 5, 2025

Any Other Business: Part CIII

Filed under: Talking Movies,Talking Philosophy,Talking Politics,Talking Theatre — Fergal Casey @ 9:07 pm
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As the title suggests, so forth.

Yes, and/No, because

GK Chesterton in The Crimes of England spoke of the spirit that affirms and the spirit that denies, and averred that Prussia was very much the spirit that denies – made flesh. I’ve come to think that when it comes to people these truly are the animating spirits. And not, unlike improv, the spirit that affirms says “Yes, And” to any and all propositions presented. The natural predisposition is to action, to adventure, and to figuring out solutions to problems. On the other hand is “No, Because” which magicks up multiple problems without any interest in ever finding solutions, because the problems are never real. They are after the fact rationalisation of the natural predisposition to veto, to shut down any hint of fun or progress. Why? Because. And in our time it has morphed from “Because, Health & Safety” to “Because, GDPR”. There is never further explanation offered, which is convenient because there wouldn’t be any behind the bullsh-t facade of respectability. The dynamic is familiar from watching bullies at play, if one can call it that: Whenever you see a larger child take something away from a smaller child, not because they want to play with it themselves but expressly to deprive the smaller child of it. The pleasure is gained entirely in causing someone else pain by capriciously depriving them of something they want; Shakespeare might put it as robbing someone “of that which enriches you not but makes him poor indeed”. When these people grow up, if they enter positions of power they are very recognisable by their words and deeds as people whose only positive pleasure in life is inflicting suffering on others and denying pleasure to others. I think the agreeable/disagreeable split is a precursor towards this affirming/denying dynamic, possibly interventions in childhood can prevent disagreeable people entering adulthood as brazenly cruel jobsworths. Instead they become disagreeable wretches, who could find quarrel in a straw.

Living by a Mann Code

“And what cheese-eating yahoo of a Governor signed that idiot bill into law? … … … It was me, wasn’t it?” – The West Wing

“Hoist on his own petard”.That’s what happened to Jed Bartlett there. And it’s not a phrase that is much heard these days, despite its applicability. It is something that, say, the French rugby coach at the Six Nations refused to do: if it happens to his player it should result in after the fact official complaints and hell and damnation for the entire Ireland team, if his players do it -well, rugby is a contact sport after all, and if you can’t take the rough and tumble of it… Hypocrisy! And yet, it is easy. The rules shouldn’t apply to us because we meant well, or, more accurately the rules shouldn’t apply to us – because we’re us. It makes me think of something The Engineer came across some years ago. Across many different cultures a survey found that men most deeply admired men who lived by a code. This is the point of the Mann Code. Across many films Michael Mann has portrayed characters who are men of their word, men of honour, who believe, par Chesterton, that people avoid making vows not because they are silly but because they lack the faith in themselves to be true to them. De Niro’s master thief tells Pacino’s cop in Heat that the discipline of the job is not forming any attachments that you will not be willing to walk out in thirty seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner. Kilmer and De Niro’s characters then do exactly that later in the film. It is not easy, but that’s the point of living by a code – it requires self-abnegation. Pete Hegseth, alleged macho man who is going to bring back masculine values to the Pentagon, does not live by a Mann code.Though he would care for you to think he does. He lives by the weasel code, which is far more common. He lambasted Hillary Clinton’s emails, but he’s allowed send classified information to every group chat. After the Six Nations I thought of Trevor Sargent. He swore that he would not lead the Greens into Government with Fianna Fail, and then resigned his leadership when it became clear that the party willed it. That seems … anomalous. Imagine a politician keeping their word, at such considerable cost. And yet it is admirable. Certainly compared to the ABBA parties in Downing Street during COVID-19 lockdown. So why did people just sort of snigger and raise eyebrows at the time rather than celebrating it? Perhaps the answer is from another moment in The West Wing: “No one expects.” “No one expects! Toby, more and more it seems to be that we’ve come to expect less and less from each other” Living by a code is damn hard. That’s why Mann has built such a distinctive filmography from interrogating it. Just look at 2020, as a recent Jon Stewart podcast had me thinking, and the clash between COVID-19 and BLM. Gatherings were bad. You couldn’t pray together. You couldn’t eat together. You couldn’t even walk on a beach or a moor alone. But if you wanted to protest together, well, that’s different. At which point the idea “of listening to the science” became defunct. Because the virus sure as hell could not tell the difference between good gatherings and bad gatherings. If it was bad for evangelicals to gather and shout and sing because that would spread the virus, then it was also bad for activists to gather and shout and sing because that would spread the virus. But, to their eternal shame, 1288 medicos signed an open letter saying the opposite, because it was easier. It’s always hard to tell your friends they are in the wrong: Imagine being the NIH person instructed to tell his political cohort that they aren’t allowed to do what they want, and being shunned socially for it. You can see the same dynamic at work with Bishop Barron of Minnesota who rightly castigated the Paris Olympics for their sacrilege last summer, which they didn’t have the decency of admitting was a deliberate impiety. But he is lamentably silent now as President Trump posts an AI image of himself as Pope, which is also sacrilege; and galling during the official mourning for Pope Francis. Trump also doesn’t have the decency of admitting it was a deliberate impiety. But it’s hard to tell your friends they are in the wrong. Perhaps this is another reason that Mann’s characters are so often lone men – living with someone who lives by a code is challenging, it’s as exasperating as trying to be friends with an actual saint.

Holy Generational Age Gap, Druid!

I still, from time to time, think of moments from DruidShakespeare’s Richard III back in 2018. Indeed it semi-poisoned my very belated viewing of Laurence Olivier’s 1955 film of Richard III because I had been trained to expect the black comedy of the White Boar’s race for the throne to be brought out, and it was not. So, I should be very excited that Druid are now tackling Macbeth for the Dublin Theatre Festival in September. And with Marty Rea as the bloodsoaked Thane, no less! And Marie Mullen as Lady Macbeth. … Wait, what? And there’s the rub. Marie Mullen is 72 years old. I don’t know what exactly Garry Hynes is thinking here, but it means that this dynamic will not be that of an imperious Ciara Gough in a 2007 Astra Hall production of Macbeth; sexually toying with her returning husband till he agrees to her ambitious desires. For context the historical Eleanor of Aquitaine was 12 years older than Henry II, and it was much discussed at the time, and ever since, as an unusual age gap in a marriage intended, as many medieval monarchical matches were, to unite dynasties thru the getting of children. What exactly is this casting aiming for? The (cough) Freudian interpretation of Hamlet has been more or less erased from the repertoire because it never did very much except show how 20th Century the director was. But Freudians never really went for Macbeth. Why start now?!

January 21, 2024

Ferrari

Filed under: Talking Movies (Reviews) — Fergal Casey @ 8:51 pm
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Michael Mann’s probable final film is a good swansong – finally bringing a tale of motor-racing obsession to the screen after nearly 30 years of trying.

‘A weird combination of brash and dour’ … Adam Driver in Ferrari

The year is 1957, and Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) is in trouble. His marriage to Laura (Penelope Cruz) is falling apart after the death of their son Dino the year before. His mistress Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley) is pressing him to acknowledge his other son Piero (Giuseppe Festinese) before Piero has to make his confirmation under her surname. Creditors are at the door. The life expectancy of his drivers is in decline. And a terrible bargain must be struck between his personal life and professional life – giving Laura the power of life and death over the company, just as she discovers the secret of his illegitimate son. This pact will allow Enzo’s racing team one last shot at glory in a prestigious road race, to try and bolster the fortunes of his car making business; clearly second fiddle to him.

Adam Driver is aged up a couple of decades to play Enzo Ferrari, but once you accept that thereafter he immediately becomes compelling as the man who has built a wall around his heart because his friends have died in his fast cars, and has ascended to an aloofness befitting one addressed by all as Commendatore. Even his rival Agnelli, the head of Fiat, addresses him as such, though of course Ferrari equally calls him Avoccato. Driver has a standout speech on the discipline of being a top racing driver, with ice for blood and a fatalistic acceptance of death as the price of doing business, that seems very much like Mann finding an equivalent to De Niro’s speech in Heat on the discipline of being able to walk away from everything if you feel the heat around the corner.

And yet despite this Mann enjoys contrasting Ferrari’s hilarious ‘pep-talks’ to his drivers with those of rival Maserati. Maserati and Stirling Moss (Ben Collins) have laconically terse conversations about routes and driving faster than everyone else. Ferrari tells Piero Taruffi (Patrick Dempsey) that if he doesn’t finish in at least the top three then his own children will be too ashamed to ever speak to him again. The script from the late Troy Kennedy Martin (The Italian Job, Edge of Darkness) ramps up the tension in the final act as the lethal Mille Miglia takes place. The kind of motor-racing equivalent of cycling’s grand tours that just doesn’t happen anymore. Because of the events depicted here.

3.5/5

July 20, 2018

From the Archives: The Dark Knight

Filed under: Talking Movies (Reviews) — Fergal Casey @ 2:20 pm
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On this day ten years ago I saw The Dark Knight on the biggest IMAX screen in the world. Yeah…

“Where do we begin?” The Dark Knight is a sequel that expands upon and darkens an existing cinematic universe so successfully and unsettlingly that it ranks far above what one would think of as the obvious reference point The Empire Strikes Back and instead starts advancing menacingly towards The Godfather: Part II…

Director Christopher Nolan and his screenwriter brother Jonathan are very clever, as evidenced by their last collaboration The Prestige, and see greatness where others do not, as evidenced by reading the original novel of The Prestige. In The Dark Knight they have constructed a story that takes the mythology of the DC comic books and turns it into both high tragedy and violent mayhem.

Christian Bale is superb as Bruce Wayne who is quickly becoming a physical and emotional wreck after one year of being the Batman. What was intended as a short-term project to clean up corruption looks to be nearing its end with a final audacious swoop on the mob’s money-men. Bruce’s only chance of a normal life is slipping away though as his sweetheart Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal at her most winning), tired of waiting for Bruce, is dating the idealistic new District Attorney Harvey Dent (a wonderfully charismatic Aaron Eckhart who also communicates an underlying instability that could lead Harvey to places of great moral darkness). Bruce can only compete against Dent for Rachel if he can trust Dent enough to retire Batman and leave the crime-fighting to the legitimate forces of Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman) and his Major Crimes Unit. However such plans are wrecked when the mob in their desperation at Batman’s success decide to fight back by hiring, in the Don Sal Maroni’s own words, “a two bit whack-job in a cheap purple suit and make up”…The Joker.

Heath Ledger’s Joker, physical and unhinged – licking his lips like a snake sensing its prey, blows away the inert Jack Nicholson performance and retires the role for a generation if not all time. Oscars don’t go to films like this but Ledger’s performance here is worthy of consideration. His Joker is blackly hilarious and utterly terrifying, usually at the same time, and even his musical theme is chilling. The Nolan brothers cross many lines in depicting his psychopathic unpredictability. One of the taglines for this film was “Welcome to a world without rules”. Batman cannot understand Joker.  Carmine Falcone wanted power, Scarecrow wanted money, Ras Al’Ghul wanted order, The Joker? –  “I’m an agent of chaos”… His escalating mind games in the film move from straight crime with a superbly staged opening heist against a Mob bank, to terrorist attacks, to sick mass murder and beyond…

The Dark Knight is fiercely intelligent, ingeniously structured (to reveal plot details would be a sin) and gives memorable lines and moments to each member of a large ensemble, while the twisted bond between Batman and Joker that exists in the comics finally receives a cinematic depiction. This is all incredibly realistic looking with 60% of the film shot on location and if seen on an Imax screen, as Christopher Nolan indeed shot it especially for, Gotham becomes a character in its own right with its cityscape lovingly captured in vertiginous shots. Written, played and directed with supreme assuredness this is one of the most gut-wrenchingly suspenseful films of the year that looks to 1970s crime thrillers like Serpico rather than superhero films for its modus operandi with its theme of police corruption. Indeed this is unlike any previous Bat-sequel, as can be seen by the difference between the grisly Two-Face in this film compared to previous camp interpretations, and is even tonally different in many ways to Batman Begins. Wanted may be the most fun blockbuster this summer but the Bat has captured the classy end of the spectrum with a film that combines meaty drama with explosive action.

You need to see The Dark Knight. Repeatedly…

5/5

October 7, 2015

Sicario

Filed under: Talking Movies (Reviews) — Fergal Casey @ 2:15 pm
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Emily Blunt is an FBI agent in over her head in the crusade against cartels in director Denis Villeneuve’s gripping thriller of a dirty war.

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Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is a ‘thumper’. She kicks in doors to rescue hostages. Or, as in the startling opening sequence, her armoured car kicks in an entire wall before unleashing her gun-toting squad. But all her rescues don’t really make a dent in the war on drugs, so when prosecutor Dave Jennings (Victor Garber) offers her the chance to join a taskforce led by Graver (Josh Brolin) she volunteers. But the taskforce soon starts to trouble her. It’s bad enough being surrounded by Graver’s crew, trigger-happy jocks like Forsing (Jeffrey Donovan), but their stoic DoD ‘adviser’ Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) is troublingly mysterious, and their mission soon creeps over the border from El Paso to Ciudad Juarez. Her FBI partner Reggie (Daniel Kaluuya) urges her to quit after that mission erupts into quasi-legal slaughter, but Kate needs the truth.

Sicario is a triumph. Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson’s extraordinary score makes you anxious even before the first image, with its insistent sinister rhythm. At times he almost mischievously quotes Brad Fiedel’s Terminator 2 T-1000 cue, as if to relieve tension, but his melding of digital beats with brass and strings consistently unnerves. Sicario is always riveting, and even when the script (by Sons of Anarchy actor Taylor Sheridan) appears to be losing its tension it’s merely misdirection to increase paranoia. Roger Deakins’ cinematography is jaw-dropping: aerial photography gives a drone’s eye view of the warzone, while a pan across the border-crossing makes Juarez seem incredibly alien, and a climactic sequence with thermal imaging surpasses Zero Dark Thirty. Villeneuve equals Michael Mann in his staging of a prisoner transfer in cartel-run Juarez and a gun battle in a stalled motorway jam.

The opening titles tell us originally ‘sicario’ were Jews murdering occupying Romans. Like Villeneuve’s Incendies, this is a contemporary film with mythic echoes of savagery past. Kate in her conflict with Alejandro is Creon to his Antigone: devotion to upholding the law is the right thing for Kate, where Alejandro believes in breaking the law to do the right thing. Meanwhile Graver’s cynical “If you can’t stop 20% of Americans putting stuff up their noses and in their arms, let’s have some order at least” is not only as grimly realistic as the similar dirty war tactics depicted in ’71 but also oddly reminiscent of the simultaneously historically inspiring and dubiously propagandistic message of Zhang Yimou’s Hero. A major achievement for Villeneuve is that, despite Deakins and Brolin’s involvement with No Country for Old Men, Sicario is its own universe.

Sicario, powered by Blunt’s assured lead performance as a heroine too dogged for her own good, grips from its thunderous opening to its soft-spoken and extremely resonant last lines.

5/5

October 2, 2015

9 Days of 90s Horror

Filed under: Talking Movies — Fergal Casey @ 1:08 pm
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Hallowe’en comes to the Lighthouse with 9 days of 90s horror films from 23rd to 31st October culminating in a Scream-themed party before a screening of the late Wes Craven’s third reinvention of horror cinema.

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While the IFI’s Horrorthon unleashes a slew of new genre entries, the Lighthouse will hark back to the 1990s; the origin of the ‘ironic slasher’ sub-genre which was murdered by torture porn, and found-footage, which, like many a horror bogeyman, just won’t die. In association with the Bram Stoker Festival the 90s Vampire strand brings Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 adaptation of Stoker’s text back to the big screen, placing it beside other 90s vampire movies Blade, From Dusk Till Dawn, and the original iteration of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The most important film being screened, however, is Scream. Wes Craven redirected the current of horror cinema three times: Last House on the Left, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream. Teamed with razor-sharp screenwriter Kevin Williamson he delivered a totemic movie well worthy of a Scream-themed Hallowe’en night costume party.

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FROM DUSK ‘TILL DAWN

Friday 23rd October 10:30pm

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s first blood-soaked collaboration is presented in a digital restoration; that won’t make QT happy… A grimy, violent B-movie about a seedy Mexican bar that happens to be crawling with vampires this had its origins in VFX guys wanting a showcase script for their handiwork. So, after some quintessentially Tarantinoesque build-up, with fugitives George Clooney and Tarantino trading taunts and riffs with their hostages Harvey Keitel and Juliette Lewis, Rodriguez’s aesthetic takes over: Salma Hayek and energetic mayhem.

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BLADE I & II – (Double Bill)

Saturday 24th October 9:00pm

Never let a high concept get in the way of a good double bill! Guillermo Del Toro’s 2002 sequel sees humans and vampires form an uneasy alliance to defeat the mutated vampires known as ‘Reapers’, who threaten to infect and/or eat everyone. But first we have to see Wesley Snipes’ vampire superhero take down Stephen Dorff, with some help from Kris Kristofferson, in the 1998 debut of the ‘Daywalker’. All together now: “Some motherf****** are always trying to ice-skate uphill.”

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BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

Sunday 25th October 10:30pm

Nothing bad is ever Joss Whedon’s fault. That trope began here. His script for this 1992 teen comedy was apparently neutered in production, leading Whedon to dream it all up again for TV; where, even as show-runner, season 4 was also somehow not his fault. Buffy’s cinematic origin story isn’t a patch on the TV development, and, while Donald Sutherland’s Watcher and Rutger Hauer’s Master Vampire add class to proceedings, this is more interesting as a time capsule (Look! It’s Luke Perry!).

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BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA

Monday 26th October 3:30pm

Director Francis Ford Coppola’s screenplay differs wildly from Stoker’s book. Coppola fixated on a ‘true love never dies’ doppelganger love story between Gary Oldman’s Count and Winona Ryder’s Mina Murray, that shaped Jonathan Rhys-Meyers’ recent steam-punk TV adaptation. Cast adrift amidst outré sets that bellow their obvious artifice, Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing and Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker try to ground things, but the best verdict remains Winona Ryder’s acidic “I deserved an Oscar for the job I did promoting that movie…”

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SILENCE OF THE LAMBS – (Cinema Book Club)

Tuesday 27th October 8.00pm

The Halloween edition of the Lighthouse’s Cinema Book Club is Jonathan Demme’s film of Thomas Harris’ best-selling chiller. Harris’ universe has been thoroughly mined, most recently in Bryan Fuller’s hallucinatory series Hannibal, but this 1991 Oscar-winner was the breakthrough adaptation. Jodie Foster’s FBI rookie Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins’ imprisoned cannibal Hannibal Lecter are indelible performances. It’s become fashionable to disparage this in favour of Manhunter, but there’s a reason few people ever saw Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecter…

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THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT

Wednesday 28th October 8.30pm

The greatest horror producer of the 21st century Jason Blum passed on this at Sundance, and has been kicking himself ever since. Some people at early screenings in 1999 thought that this was real; giving its unnerving ending enough power to create a buzz that made it a sensation. It wasn’t real. It was, however, the moment where found-footage horror stomped into the multiplex and declared it would never leave, all because of an unsettling walk in the woods in Burkettsville, Maryland.

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WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE

Thursday 29th October 8.30pm

Wes Craven wrote and directed this late meta-instalment in the franchise he had kicked off with his original vision of Freddy Kreuger. Heather Langenkamp, Nancy in 1984’s Nightmare on Elm Street, plays herself; plagued by dreams of a Freddy Kreuger far darker than the one portrayed by her good friend Robert Englund. Featuring cameos from several of the original cast and crew Craven produces a postmodern musing on what happens when artists create fictions that take on a life of their own.

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CANDYMAN

Friday 30th October 8.30pm

Bernard Rose’s cult classic, an adaptation of genre legend Clive Barker’s The Forbidden, follows a thesis student who is researching urban legends. Unfortunately for him he discovers the terrifying world of ‘Candyman’, the ghost of a murdered artist who is summoned by anyone foolish to say his name out loud into a mirror five times. Masterfully made, still absolutely terrifying, and the reason we all cheer whenever Tony Todd makes a cameo ever since, this also features the unlikely bonus of a Philip Glass score.

HOCUS POCUS, Kathy Najimy, Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, 1993

HOCUS POCUS, Kathy Najimy, Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, 1993

HOCUS POCUS

Saturday 31st October 3.00pm

A token film for the kids is 1992’s Hocus Pocus. Why the misfiring hi-jinks of Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy’s trio of Salem witches is perennially on TV is a mystery, but to present it as the essential kids’ Hallowe’en film is an enigma wrapped inside a riddle. Especially when Nicolas Roeg’s film of Roald Dahl’s The Witches, starring a scary Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch, dates from 1990…

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SCREAM I & II – (Double Bill & Party)

Saturday 31st October 9.30pm.

Neve Campbell confidently carries this 1996 classic, a blackly hilarious self-aware dissection of slasher clichés which is also a brilliant slasher filled with tense sequences. Williamson’s delicious dialogue (“Movies don’t create psychos, they just make psychos more creative…”) is brought to memorable life by an ensemble on truly top form, with star-making turns from Jamie Kennedy, David Arquette, Rose McGowan, and Skeet Ulrich. 1997’s sequel isn’t quite as good, but Kevin Williamson’s dialogue remains a joy, there are some nail-biting moments, it’s as subversively self-aware as 22 Jump Street of its sequel status, and uses Timothy Olyphant, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jerry O’Connell, and David Warner to great effect.

‘9 Days of 90s horror’ ends with a Scream-themed Hallowe’en party preceding the Scream double bill, beginning at 8pm. Dress as your favourite 90s horror icon and enjoy the ironically-named cocktails, soundtrack of 90s hits, and general japery all related to Wes Craven’s classic slasher.

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TICKETS FOR 90S VAMPIRE FILMS:

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TICKETS FOR 90S HORROR FILMS:

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February 3, 2015

2015: Fears

Filed under: Talking Movies — Fergal Casey @ 11:20 pm
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Jupiter Ascending

The Wachowskis return, oh joy, in 3-D, more joy, with a tale of a young woman (Mila Kunis) who discovers that she shares the same DNA as the Queen of the Universe, and goes on the run with a genetically engineered former soldier (Channing Tatum), oh, and he’s part wolf… The unloveable Eddie Redmayne is the villain, but the extremely loveable Tuppence Middleton is also in the cast, and, oddly, there’s a cameo from Terry Gilliam, whose work is said to be an influence on the movie. Alongside Star Wars, Greek mythology, and the comic-book Saga it seems…

 

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jamie Dornan is Christian Grey, Dakota Johnson is Bella Swan Anastasia Steele, Universal are terrible gamblers. Take one novel: which is 100pp of hilariously obvious Twilight homage leading to pornography for hundreds more and an unsatisfactory ending; a sensation because of the ability to secretly read it. Now hire art-house director Sam Taylor-Johnson to make an R-rated film focused on the romance, after 5 Twilight movies of said romance shtick; and force people to say out loud what film they’re seeing, or at least be seen going to it. Sit back, and watch this gamble fail.

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Blackhat

Michael Mann returns with his first film since 2009’s uninspired Public Enemies. Chris Hemsworth, now officially a god in Iceland again, plays a hacker who gets a free pass from jail to help Viola Davis’ FBI agent liaise with her Chinese counterpart (pop star Wang Leehom) following a devastating cyber-attack in China which led to a nuclear incident. Hemsworth is distracted in his mission by Lust, Caution’s Chen Lien, and, if you’ve read the vituperative reviews, an appalling script. Mann’s been on a losing streak for a while, and his hi-def video camera infatuation only doubles down on that.

 

In the Heart of the Sea

March sees director Ron Howard take on Moby Dick. Or rather, tell the true story that inspired Moby Dick, rather than try and out-do John Huston. Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw, and Brendan Gleeson are among the hapless crew of the whaling ship Essex out of New England that runs afoul of a curiously vindictive sperm whale in 1820. Martin Sheen starred in a rather good BBC version of this disaster its grisly aftermath at Christmas 2013. Who knows if Howard will match that, but he’ll definitely throw more CGI at the screen.

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Avengers: Age of Ultron

Joss Whedon takes off the Zak Penn training wheels and scripts this sequel to 2012’s hit solo. James Spader voices the titular evil AI, unleashed by Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man when fiddling about in Samuel L Jackson’s Pandora’s Box of Shield secrets. The great Elizabeth Olsen is Scarlet Witch, and Aaron Johnson is Quicksilver, but I find it hard to work up any enthusiasm for another ticked box on the Marvel business plan. Why? CGI and Marvel empire-building fatigue, a lack of interest in most of the characters, and great weariness with Whedon’s predictable subversion.

 

Lost River

What is the difference between a homage and le rip-off? The French should know and they loudly booed Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut as little more than Nicolas Winding Refn and David Lynch meeting up for a whimsical night out. Gosling also wrote this tale of a boy who finds a town under the sea down a river, and has to be rescued by his mother. Matt Smith, Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan, Eva Mendes, and Ben Mendelsohn are the actors roped in by Gosling to flesh out his magical realist vision of a hidden beauty lurking underneath decrepit Detroit.

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Far From the Madding Crowd
Bathsheba (Carey Mulligan), a wilful, flirtatious young woman unexpectedly inherits a large farm and becomes romantically involved with three widely divergent men: rich landowner William Boldwood (Michael Sheen), dashing Sgt. Troy (Tom Sturridge), and poor farmer Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts). John Schlesinger’s 1967 film of Hardy’s classic novel is a formidable predecessor for this May release. This version from director Thomas Vinterberg (Festen, The Hunt), was co-scripted with David Nicholls of One Day fame; another man whose tendencies are not exactly of a sunny disposition. Can the promising young cast overcome Vinterberg’s most miserabilist tendencies?

 

Tomorrowland

Well this is a curio… Brad Bird directs George Clooney and Secret Circle star Britt Robertson in a script he co-wrote with Damon LOST Lindelof about a genius inventor and a parallel universe, or something. Nobody really seems to know what it’s about. But then given Lindelof’s resume even after we’ve watched it we probably won’t know what it’s about. Bird proved extremely capable with live-action in Mission: Impossible 4, but explicitly viewed the talky scenes as mere connective tissue between well-executed set-pieces; pairing him with ‘all questions, no answers’ man seems like a recipe for more puzzled head-scratching.

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Ant-Man

Ant-Man was in 2015: Hopes until director and co-writer Edgar Wright walked because Marvel shafted him after years of development. I was highly interested in seeing Paul Rudd’s burglar become a miniature super-hero who’s simpatico with ants after encountering mad scientist Michael Douglas and his hot daughter Evangeline Lilly; when it was from the madman who made Scott Pilgrim Vs the World. When this deservedly nonsensical take on a preposterous property is being helmed by Peyton Reed; whose only four features are Bring It On, Down With Love, The Break-Up, and Yes Man; my interest levels drop to zero.

 

Terminator: Genisys

Quietly brushing 2009’s Terminator: Salvation into the dustbin of history in July is this script by Laeta Kalogridis (Pathfinder, Night Watch) and Patrick Lussier (Drive Angry). Game of Thrones’ Alan Taylor directs, which presumably explains Emilia Clarke’s baffling casting as Jason Clarke’s mother. That’s going to take some quality Sarah Connor/John Connor timeline shuffling. And this is all about timelines. Arnie returns! Byung-Hun Lee is a T-1000! Courtney B Vance is Miles Dyson! YAY!!!!! Jai Courtney is Kyle Reese … BOOOOOO!!!!!!! Did we learn nothing from McG’s fiasco? We do not need another muscle-bound actor with zip charisma.

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Fantastic Four

August sees Josh Trank shoulder the unenviable task of rebooting the Fantastic Four after two amiable but forgettable movies. Trank impressed mightily with the disturbing found-footage super-yarn Chronicle, and scripted this effort with X-scribe Simon Kinberg and Jeremy Slater (The Lazarus Effect). The cast is interesting; Miles Teller as Reed Richards, Kate Mara as Sue Storm, Michael B Jordan as Johnny Storm, Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm, and Toby Kebbel as Dr Doom; but this has had a troubled production, and carries an albatross around its neck as it must bore us senseless with another bloody origin story.

 

The Man from UNCLE

August sees CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and KGB man Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) on a mission to infiltrate a mysterious criminal organization during the height of the cold war. Steven Soderbergh nearly made this with George Clooney from a Scott Z Burns script. Instead we get Guy Ritchie and Sherlock Holmes scribe Lionel Wigram. Sigh. Hugh Grant plays Waverley, while the very talented female leads Alicia (Omnipresent) Vikander and Elizabeth Debicki will highlight the lack of suavity and comic timing of the male leads; particularly troublesome given the show was dry tongue-in-cheek super-spy nonsense.

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Black Mass

Poor old Johnny Depp is having something of an existential crisis at the moment. People moan and complain when he does his quirky thing (Mortdecai). But when he doesn’t do his quirky thing people moan and complain that he’s dull (Transcendence). September sees him team up with Benedict Cumberbatch and Joel Edgerton for Scott Cooper’s 1980s period thriller about the FBI’s real-life alliance with Boston crime boss Whitey Bulger, exploring how  the bureau’s original good intention of running an informant was derailed by Bulger’s clever connivance, ending up as a sort of state-sanctioned take-over of the criminal underworld.

 

The Martian

Ridley Scott just can’t stop making movies lately, but he’s having a considerably harder time making good movies. November sees the release of The Martian starring Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on Mars after being presumed dead in a ferocious storm. The supporting cast includes Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean, Michael Pena, Sebastian Shaw, Kate Mara, and the regrettably inevitable Jessica Chastain. Damon must try to send an SOS forcing NASA to figure out how on earth to go back and rescue him. Drew Goddard wrote the script. There’s the reason this might work.

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The Hateful Eight

November sees the return of Quentin Tarantino. The writer/director who never grew up follows his rambling gore-fest Django Unchained with another Western. But this one is shot in Ultra Panavision 70, despite being set indoors, and has more existential aspirations. Yeah… Samuel L Jackson, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth, Walton Goggins, and Zoe Bell return to the fold for this tale of bounty hunters holed up during a blizzard, while newcomers to Quentinland include Bruce Dern, Demian Bichir, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Nobody’s told Tarantino to stop indulging himself in years so expect endless speechifying and outrageous violence.

September 12, 2012

The Sweeney

Filed under: Talking Movies (Reviews) — Fergal Casey @ 2:28 pm
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The beloved 1970s British TV cop show gets an appropriately tough makeover with Ray Winstone and Ben Drew (aka Plan B) stepping into John Thaw and Denis Waterman’s iconic roles.

Jack Regan (Winstone) is the chief of Scotland Yard’s Flying Squad, the slightly unhinged individuals who respond to armed robberies. These are police officers who, explicitly in the case of Regan’s right-hand man George Carter (Ben Drew), joined the force for the thrill of the chase that the Flying Squad provides – if there’s no Sweeney, then there’s no Detective Carter. Regan and Carter’s heavy-handed tactics, including the use of baseball bats, raise the hackles of Internal Affairs chief Lewis (Steven Mackintosh), who has a grudge as his wife (and Sweeney member) Nancy (Hayley Atwell) is sleeping with Regan. Regan’s hands-off boss Haskins (Damian Lewis) defends the Sweeney, until Regan becomes obsessed with pinning a senseless murder committed during a diamond robbery on old criminal nemesis Allen (Paul Anderson). Can Regan and Carter unravel the mystery linking a bank heist, a diamond robbery, and an execution before they’re thrown to wolves?

This is not a warm nostalgia trip infused with energy because Nick (The Football Factory) Love is directing. This is a quite brutal thriller with tons of energy. There is an edge of the seat high-speed chase along a narrow country road that conveys the insane drive of these officers to catch criminals. The action highlight of the movie is a truly spectacular gun battle in Trafalgar Square. The geography of the shootout is impeccably set up from an earlier reconnaissance trip, and the choreography of the fight spilling towards the Tube before being diverted into the National Portrait Gallery is equalled by the suspense generated by the cat and mouse chase within the Gallery. Love’s use of aerial night-shots of London is also astounding because by focusing on the skyscrapers of the City he makes this feel like a glossy Michael Mann crime movie.

Love is a better director than a writer though as the dialogue displays a bit of a cloth ear despite the best efforts of his co-writer; Trainspotting scribe John Hodge who recently won an Olivier for his play Collaborators. There are some very funny lines, and a hilarious sequence of ordering delicious food as mental torture, and there’s also a wonderful cockney geezer in Regan’s informant Harry (Alan Ford), as well as delightful usages of the “You’re Nicked” catchphrase. But too many characters are left totally undeveloped like Allen Leech’s Irish Sweeney member Simon Ellis, while the critique of 1970s style brutal police tactics being out of date in the modern world but also sometimes necessary feels a bit heavy-handed.

Overall this is an enjoyable and visually impressive British film which deserves plaudits for eschewing the glib irony that infects TV adaptations for a realistic and nicely savage updating.

3/5

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