Hi everyone

Yep. Welcome to the London Graphic Novel Network Film Club’s 2024 in Review.

(Whoops and cheering).

Ah thanks. That’s lovely. 

For those of you who haven’t played before – Here are the rules:

1. Yes. You can talk about any film you like
It doesn’t need to have come out this year. It doesn’t even have to be something that you liked. If there was a film that you really hated then you can talk about that. Or maybe you felt massively lukewarm about it. The only real requirement is that it’s something that you’ve seen in this past year and there’s something you want to say about it. 

2. Name the film in bold at the start of what you write
That way if someone wants to see it and they don’t wanna get spoiled then they can just skip over it with no harm done. (Also if you can find some images from the film and include them – then that would be cool too).

3. Please don’t just recount the plot instead: tell us what you think
Instead of just writing a synopsis (yawn) try this – Talk about what you liked (or didn’t like) about it. But grabbed you / what left you cold. What it did well / what it could have done better. How it made you feel. What kind of things it made you think about. All that good stuff.

4. If someone else has already mentioned a film then don’t worry – that’s ok
This isn’t a first come / first served thing. If someone else has mentioned a film then it’s not off the table – you can still write about it all you want. Ideally we don’t just want lots of solipsistic thoughts floating separately from each other so yeah – if someone mentions a film and you have a differing view please feel free to share (just you know obviously – try to play nice).

5. If you want to talk about a film that the LGNN Film Club has already done then that’s cool too
So if we talked about a particular film at some point in the past and you felt like there was stuff you wanted to say about it that you didn’t get a chance to say – then now’s the time… Go crazy.

If you’re still a little unsure how it works please feel free to look at how we’ve done it in the past: 

2018 in Review / 2019 in Review / 2020 in Review / 2021 in Review / 2022 in Review / 2023 in Review 

So. I think that’s it. Hopefully should be fun and interesting and a cool time for everyone (that’s the idea anyway).

Make it epic.

Twisters (2024)

I recently started playing Disco Elysium, a game I had been putting off for a couple of years because it had the reputation of being one of the best games ever, as well as being original and having vaguely left wing sensibilities, or at least being “cleverer” than many other games, so of course I avoided it’s pretensions as long possible. For example the very first part of the game you just see a black screen and your task is argue with your subconscious about whether it’s worth waking up compared to just staying in a drunken stupor. Your character is not a hero but a classic Chandleresque gumshoe detective: a loser amnesiac catastrophe who gets experience points for finding his own shoes. It’s is undeniably wonderful, with a distinctive art style and plot and very dark knowing humour. 

Of course the story of the company who made the game is also interesting, and horribly predictable. Having been an unexpectedly huge success the creative team behind it were of course expected to do a sequel, with fans exclaiming. “Aah this thing is so different and original, can you make it again?” Smelling the potential for cash various people more interested in the profits than the game itself seem to have gotten involved and the suffice to say if there ever is a sequel, then almost none of the original creators will be involved. 

Video games usually lack that auteur figure for people to rally around and it’s an interesting discussion about whether that is a good thing or not. I can recommend a book called Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow which covers a similar story of video game makers becoming victims of their own success, and ultimately being crushed by the pressures of business needs and fandom versus their original artistic sensibilities. 

Now we might balk at the tragedy of what could have been, but we might also ask “so what?” “Why can’t the original core creators come together and make a brand new highly original game?” Limbo, which you can play now on your phone is an excellent game, and then when you have finished that you can discover there is no Limbo  2 but instead a higher similar but different game called Inside also on your phone, which is also excellent. Like really really creepy and good and everything that modern games should be but aren’t. It can be done. 

But here’s the thing. Why it’s easy to bemoan sequels, we also know we love them, and they have a number of legitimate purposes. Yes many of them are lazy cash-ins, but some of them are a chance to build on a world hinted at in the original. Lord of the Rings takes the Hobbit to new heights. Aliens is a sequel and also one of the best things ever. Godfather Part 2 continue Michael Corleone’s descent into hell, Before Sunset gives a new maturity to the characters, Toy Story 3 provides a fitting sign off, and the Seventh Seal builds on the groundwork of that long running franchise. All have different purposes but all are needed, and sometimes building a world is a lifetime of effort and hard to redo, so why throw away what you already have?

Which finally brings me to Twisters, the unawaited sequel to a film which is claimed by no one. Those classic sequels I listed before were follow ups to undeniable belters powered by visionary creators (you may not have seen the Seventh Seal but I bet you know who directed it – not to mention the 32 Happy Meals you had to buy to get the full tie-in chess set!). So while I am sure there are many people who enjoyed the original movie – which was part of the post-Jurassic Park (Michael Chrichton, Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy were all involved), and thankfully short lived “look what you can do with computers now” 90s trend, was anyone really crying out for a sequel? Was someone was thinking “man I enjoyed that so much I would just love to see some more Americans driving quickly towards and then rapidly away from some natural phenomena”? Well I’ll tell you who: the person from Universal who was scrolling through Box Office Mojo one day and noticed it was somehow the second highest grossing movie of 1996, raking in half a billion dollars! To be fair it was a lean year. 

If you are already trained to think of sequels as cynical cash ins or, at best, a writer out of ideas raiding the piggy bank of their drafts one more time in the hope there is still some lightning in the bottle, this will seem tiresomely familiar, but perhaps it makes good sense creatively to raid an underexploited IP like Twister to give it more heart and more heft. Much like Michael Mann persisted with Heat after LA Takedown or Sam Raimi took another shot with Evil Dead II, what if the Twister has an internal life that needs exploring?

Having had all the build up, I would love to say that Twisters, took the concept of Twister, and either ramped up the body count like Aliens, expanded the Twister-verse, perhaps including other weather events, or simply put in some amazing actors to elevate the material. Sadly not. It would also be just as fun to mock the film as a disastrous hack job. Instead however it feels exactly like the Studio tricked the writers and directors into being hibernated in frozen carbonite for 25 years before cracking them over into a modern production studio. This is Twister Hi-Res with slightly deeper characters, slightly nicer graphics, slightly prettier actors (man are they ridiculously good looking, and I am aware the original had Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt), and just a general glossiness, with even the barest murmur of a climate message. This is not a sequel like Jaws the Revenge or even the Aliens. It’s more like Super Mario 3: basically the same as Super Mario 1 but a little more colourful and accessible.

Now that may seem like damning with feint praise until you recall that no one in history thinks Super Mario 3 is a bad game. Rather it sets a standard. I’m not saying Twisters set the standard, but it is standard, it is what all summer blockbuster movies should be at the very least. It has Glen Powell as the star with supernova level charisma, who was also in Top Gun:Maverick which also does a similar job of taking a high concept movie and just upgrading all the departments so that everything is just slightly better, and I think this, while not the ideal situation for the film writing industry, is quite a good thing on balance. 

A point I have made before is that I recall watching Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, ET, and Indiana Jones as a child and just assuming they were median level films. It took years for me to realise they were not only stone cold classics but rare in the amount of quality and originality they contained, whilst also being kind of pulpy. They had their peers like The Goonies and Clash of the Titans and Big Trouble in Little China which were fun but not necessarily “good” but had a feeling of craft about them. Twisters has that craft but whereas Goonies, Titans and Big Trouble in Little China have a weird indie feel about their scripts (as if they were written by a man who had to argue with his subconscious before waking up in the morning) Twisters is written by formula, and relies on it’s beautiful cast to imbue some sort of meeting. Regardless of how you feel about that it marks a dramatic improvement on the Fast and Furious movies for example.  

If you are reading this and thinking “Jonathan, when are you gonna start talking about the actual film” the fact is it’s not worth either of our time because you have already seen it. Just sit back and think what a movie about hurricanes in America would likely consist of. There’s a female scientist who has a dark past and is a pioneer in meteorological sciences but also somehow only in her mid twenties. She works reluctantly for a corporation (but don’t let that fool you, they are really OK guys) and then there is a handsome hurricanes cowboy who is a reckless loose cannon who plays by his own rules. He’s not worried about Twisters until one day there is a really big one, and then another. Will the unstoppable force of the mega-twisters shift the immovable object of plot convention? Will the pretty girl smile coyly at the handsome guy against her better judgement, as she starts to wonder if under than brash exterior there isn’t a sensitive and vulnerable person underneath? It’s immaterial to your enjoyment of the film. 

Leon (the Director’s Cut)
Directed by Luc Besson

“Bring me everyone.” 

“What do you mean “everyone”?” 

“EVVVVERYOOOONE!”

Boo to films that coddle their audience. That make the people who watch them feel nice and safe and secure. We need films that aren’t just comfort food. That are willing to make people feel uncertain. That put the viewer into uncomfortable positions where they don’t know how to react. That’s what art is all about… 

(Watches Leon). 

Oh. Ok. Actually. 

…maybe that’s too much?

Don’t get me wrong. There’s many things about this movie that are absolutely fantastic. The way it looks. The way it’s shot. All of these beautiful tactile close-ups. Locations that feel real and lived in. Proper “oh. This is what films are supposed to look like” feelings. Plus the performances. Natalie Portman is completely fantastic in this in a way that feels uncanny. She sells the fuck out of every single emotion in this movie with complete pinpoint accuracy. It’s like watching someone lift up a car with one hand. How is she doing this? I’m getting chills every time she says anything. That moment when she’s standing outside Leno’s door and quietly begging for him to save her (“please open the door”) before he does and the light pours all over her face? I honestly think that might just be one of the very best movie moments of all time. 

And then there’s Gary Oldman who’s eats up every single line of dialogue he gets like he hasn’t been fed in a month. Man is ravenous. It’s not acting it’s more just watching someone having the absolute time of his life. He’s so electric that I was scared he was going to shock me through the screen. When he does his drugs and twists his neck to the side? Guy’s a genius. 

Oh and then there’s Jean Reno who’s erm… very French. 

And yeah: the script is so perfect that it almost feels like a Disney movie. Dead parents! A young kid learning their way in the world! Getting to grips with the adult world in their own charming way! A grumpy mentor who eventually softens as their tough exterior gives way to show their soft underbelly! Evil villains who may as well be played by wolves and vultures! 

Except you know it’s about being a hitman. Sorry. Cleaner. Whatever. 

Except but also to get back to the too much thing – it’s about a 12 year old girl falling in love with a fully grown adult male and yeah at the risk of being too woke and politically correct etc I’ve gotta admit that that’s just too much for me to really enjoy the film. And in fact watching it there were parts that just creeped me out too much. Because here’s the thing – I don’t think I would have minded so much if Leon (the character) was being a pervert / having pedophilic tendencies. I mean – obviously gross of course but that’s still something you can watch and have some distance from and it be ok. But I think the thing that makes it actually bad is that it feels like Leon (the film) is the thing that’s being a pervert / having pedophilic tendencies. Which is so much worse. Because there’s no distance. And so you get all of these – to say the least – incredibly problematic scenes (“come and sleep in the bed Leon”) that it feels like the film is presenting as actually cute and romantic and desirable which just makes it all feel too yuck to deal with. 

So yeah – it’s not a film I can recommend. Even if it is very cool in parts. 

 

This year I read all of Shakespeare’s plays partly so I can brag about it (this is me here bragging about it). To complement the read-along I watched a few film adaptations, which only reinforced my sense that the 90s truly was the greatest decade in cinema. Below are some of the most interesting I saw this year, ranked roughly in order of preference (I’m building a Letterboxd list here).

Titus (directed by Julie Taymor, 1999)

A suitably outrageous adaptation of Shakespeare’s most outrageous play. Wonderfully, wonderfully mad, but also quite faithful to the central contrast of an honourable patriarch far too eager to sacrifice his children, and a pack of villains who do everything in their power to protect theirs. These ironies culminate in a beautiful final shot, where a bloody sunrise evokes a mingled sense of hope and dread for the next generation. Chef’s kiss.

Richard III (directed by Richard Loncraine, 1995)

Ian McKellen adapted the screenplay and basically tried to make the connection with the Godfather movies – kings as gangsters killing off their relatives to get the top spot. Works very well, not least because McKellen in the lead role has the charisma to pull off a character who gets away with some truly outrageous escapades. Extra points for the comedy way Robert Downey Jr is dispatched.

Much Ado About Nothing (directed by Kenneth Branagh, 1993)

Emma Thomson is luminous as Beatrice hanging out in the Italian countryside and laughing at men. Keanu Reeves is unfairly maligned as the bad guy, the real egregious performance is Michael Keaton doing his Beetlejuice thing and desperately failing to be funny as Dogberry. 

Othello (directed by Trevor Nunn, 1990)

Ian McKellen plays Iago as a friendly Yorkshireman who says all the right things to all the right people so that no one suspects what an absolute bastard he is being. Just as good is Zoe Wanamaker as Emilia – the real hero of the play – and her righteous fury at her husband and Othello’s idiocy at the end. This is mostly a filmed version of what was an acclaimed live production, but Nunn still does some clever things with framing and camera movement.

King Lear (directed by Richard Eyre, 2018)

Impeccably cast adaptation. Anthony Hopkins does ok but really the film belongs to Emma Thompson, Emily Watson and Florence Pugh who very clearly portray the different ways having Lear as a father can drive you crazy. I had high hopes for Andrew Scott’s Edgar after what he did with Hamlet. The two characters are more similar than they seem, but there’s just too little time for Scott to show how his mad ministrations redeem the two abused fathers in the story. Extra shout out to Jim Broadbent who can switch perfectly from doddering to dignified.

Prospero’s Books (directed by Peter Greenaway, 1991)

A real Dave McKean Sandman cover of a film. This is experimental in so much as it has veteran Shakespeare actor John Gielgud read all the lines of the play as we watch the inside of his mind unfold the glories of human artistic endeavour down the centuries. Once you get used to it the adaptation actually works quite well. Fascinatingly mad if not ultimately a cohesive film.

Hamlet (directed by Gregory Doran, 2009)

David Tenant is good at the histrionics but I’m in the minority that prefers the Andrew Scott take (sadly no longer on YouTube – it is incredible). This production is valuable for Patrick Stewart turning on the Picard charm as Claudius and Oliver Ford Davies making Polonius a kindly bumbler. The bad guys here are more insidious for looking less like baddies.

The King (directed by David Michod, 2019)

A travesty of Shakespeare, history and the viewer’s sense of their own intelligence, but it confidently sets a mood and sustains it for a whole hour before unleashing one of the hammiest evil French villains to ever grace the screen. Robert Pattison is mesmerising in this, and an excellent foil to the taciturn Timothée Chalamet, reminding him and us of Henry V’s riotous youth and indicating a deeper equivalence that is only fully revealed at the very end. The film states its themes rather boldly (the familial concerns that shape dynastic politics, how imperialist adventures prevent domestic strife) but they reverberate nonetheless. It was a good warm up to seeing Dune Part Two.

I’m not in the best of condition this year, so I thought screw structured writing screw audiovisual language, I’ll just express purely personal preference. There’s no more cult films this year, and this year’s films I think are for all ages, so let’s start with the comedies.️

Bad Words
Funny and touching, so gave it a 

A good script, at first it seems to be just autopilot kind of funny film but in fact there is a strong motivation for the main character to do these actions, the whole story is reasonable, and there are touching points when the main character and the little boy spend time together (which can also be matched with the motivation explained later) After explaining the motivation, it also automatically recalls the unjust treatment of the main character, and the viewer’s emotion changes from laughing to empathising. (The key is that I wasn’t forced to move a little, is the kind of comedy film end suddenly to pull up the central idea of the kind of, it is not) it is difficult to imagine that this is the actor’s own script really admired!

Game Night
️️️️

(I think) comedies featuring board game-themed script kills are still a rare thing.The reverse of the player tying up the real criminals is pretty funny still, love this form of humour, accompanied by a sort of Scary Movie kind of humour at the same time.I thought it was going to be reversed at the end into the main character’s brother being the real Bulgarian or the cop being a dirty cop kind of thing. All in all it was funny, that’s what comedy needs.

Then two films with a cyclical theme.

Looper
️️️️

A loop story but not too many characters intertwined in it, good news for viewers who can’t remember much of the characters own stories, for me my memory is as fuzzy as the main characters.This creates a hard to explain point here in characterisation, even though it’s the same person just one is still young and the other has been through 30 more years orchestrated into one scene it still seems like two people, it’s a bit cut and dried.How can I not understand why the main character in the end to commit suicide, after all, rainmaker later to meet people and things who can not be controlled, he killed himself or not and rainmaker later will not become a bad person does not have much to do with it.(Maybe the young man is more self-
obsessed and thinks that this outcome is of his own causing?)The key point is that his part at the end doesn’t form a circle anymore. It’s no different than telling a ghost story halfway through and realising the storyteller is mentally ill.

Interstellar
️️️️

It’s also a bit suspenseful, and I was a bit touched and cursed at the end. I watched a large part of it and wanted to curse, thought it was the end of the world turned out to be decades later, his family are still alive. Hard to separate the father and daughter. Waiting to see the fifth dimension of higher beings turned out to be the main character and his portable hard drive robot mate. A very long film but since every part fully engaged me emotionally I wasn’t tired of watching it at all so it deserves 5 stars. Tenet is too much of a struggle for me to watch or this was better to understand. And finally the hard to leave out suspense film, which may contain creepy elements but is still a must-see.(I think) there wasn’t much scariness in these two films.

The Lady Vanishes
️️️️

️I’m going to break it up into three parts: the background – the suspense – and the aftermath of the train carriages being cut off.

Good old suspense, but the first 30 minutes of background and main characters dragged a bit. For example, I didn’t know why the maid character was included at all, and I thought the maid was going in and out of the room to kidnap someone or to be kidnapped, but I found out after half a day’s serious watching that it had nothing to do with the main plot.Luckily, there are no more irrelevant redundancies later on. For example, none of the details of the scene where the main female character has tea with the old lady are superfluous, they are all used as ambushes and become proof when the main female character is mistakenly thought to have a confused memory after the old lady’s disappearance.

If I had to think in the way of that suspense button, the film could have contained: 

1. Which lady went missing 

2. Whether there was any confusion in the female character’s memory 

3. Whether the missing old lady was killed 

4. Where the old lady was kidnapped from on a moving train 

5. The reason for the old lady’s kidnapping.

The second half is still very exciting, because the mind will keep thinking on these suspense points, and no one knows whether these inferences are not
blind guesses until the old lady is found alive.

There are two distinct voices after the carriage is cut off, and all of them except the gentleman who believes that surrender will save him from death end up choosing to fight the bad guys to the end. Even though they each have their own reasons for not wanting to be involved in the
strange events at first, they all end up having to stand on the side of justice.

The Menu
️️️

A suspense film with an innovative theme. Halfway through the film I thought it was a murder thriller like the one where you get all your enemies on an island, but then the motives for the killings become confusing. The satirical part of the fine dining restaurant is indeed black humour, but it can’t be all about one subject for 90 minutes. For example, one of the group’s tax evasion and avoidance is mentioned so casually as if they had to find an excuse to kill the boss.(I also don’t understand why their boss was dressed up as an angel and landed?) Can’t understand why the chef’s men all willingly engage in this kind of collective suicidal behavioural art.

 

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

In Breaking Bad’s most famous scene Walter White explains to his wife Skyler and the audience how he has bad he has broken:

“Do you know how much I make a year? I mean, even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe it. Do you know what would happen if I suddenly decided to stop going into work? A business big enough that it could be listed on the NASDAQ goes belly up. Disappears! It ceases to exist without me. No, you clearly don’t know who you’re talking to, so let me clue you in. I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot, and you think that of me? No. I am the one who knocks!”

Making the well trodden point that a lot of jobs in the world depend on the predictable distribution of a highly addictive product which is complicated to manufacture but easy to distribute to a desperate audience, albeit with what is agreed to be largely negative social consequences. 

Needless to say Ryan Reynolds is a very wealthy man, who lots of people depend on for their livelihoods. It’s also undeniable that the Marvel movies generally make huge amounts of money, employ thousands of people, and have reshaped the film industry. So influential are they that the enduring story of the movies is no longer “what will happen to the Avengers?” But “will this be a hit?” “Will this appease the fan base and the shareholders, whilst still cowering in the shadow of the all conquering Infinity War/Endgame box office juggernaut?”

This is the not the subtext, but the main story of Deadpool & Wolverine. There is a scene in the movie of Deadpool begging to be an Avenger, only to be told to stay in his lane. Throughout the movie this “meta” conversation about expanded universes and forgotten characters drives events. With the whole movie only existing as a biproduct of something else: combining the necessary violent dispensation of blood for the blood god with an inside-baseball teasing of Marvel. 

I recall in a podcast where someone, in response to a question about when the last Bond Movie would be, said that was like asking when the last Mars Bar would be. Deadpool takes it one step further because it’s not like the movie isn’t event a Mars Bar from the endless Mars Bar production line, but a cheerfully self knowing parody of a Mars Bar. If this feels like a criticism of the increasingly cynical approach to movie development, I think, as I tried to articulate earlier on, we are just beyond that argument now. This sort of market share triangulating bullshit bingo wrapping itself in the trappings of a three act structure is its own $billion industry, and has to be taken or left on its own merits. It just doesn’t mean anything to compare this to something like Conclave any more than it would mean something to compare Goodfellas to the music video for Michael Jackson’s Bad. 

So how can we judge this movie? On one side you can just put it in the pointless satire bucket, as it disappears without trace. Of course Marvel has already hit a high point with a post modern satirical reference gag years earlier with Ben Kingsley playing Trevor Slattery in Hail to the King: a film about a documentary about an actor who is a villain playing a super villain being hunted by the super villain he was pretending to be. Certainly Deadpool arising from the Super Hero trash heap to save the MCU is amusingly on the nose. 

Alternatively you can see it as a symptom of the increasingly online tone with which discourse take place, and which will also disappear without trace since online discourse moves from edgy to cringe in a matter of days rather than weeks. 

Either way it reveals a challenge and opportunity for modern film makers to acknowledge that filming and photography are a much bigger part of everyday life and that beyond that people see their life through their phones and social media. That doesn’t mean wry references to Instagram, but actually thinking about what this means for how filming dialog and character interaction is approached (I guess Cloverfield made a good start at this), and how stories run and characters understand truth not just in linear events and events as reported through different channels. But that’s quite a lot of bother so until the next wave comes through and refines the  necessary shorthand we have a weird flipping of the relationship where instead of being special for being the guys in front of the camera, now the only people who generally aren’t constantly talking on video are characters in movies. Whether Deadpool’s cheerful fourth wall breaking cheeriness is the antidote, the symptom , or just a weird artefact of this discrepancy is currently unclear. 

The Last Castle 
Directed by Rod Lurie

Finally. A film about being a man. About men being men. About manning up and doing the man things. Oh man. It’s hard to be a man. All man all the time. Man man man man man. 

I honestly don’t know why this movie doesn’t get more love. It’s like The Shawshank Redemption only more so. Instead of just a prison movie it’s a military prison movie. Instead of a scrawny little Tim Robbins it’s Robert Goddamn Redford walking around with his top off and doing what it takes to be a man. In fact I read a thing once that said that Robert Redford was supposed to pay Morgan Freeman’s part in The Shawshank Redemption but turned it down because it sounded kinda silly and so I feel like The Last Castle is him making right on that. Showing those scruffy little punks how to make a real movie about being a real man. Honour. Pride. Patriotism. Those things used to mean something damn it. etc

I don’t know how anyone could dislike this movie. It’s like the Ultimate Dad Movie. The movie designed for Dads and any man that knows how hard it is to be a man and to do all the man things and being a man. 

James Gandolfini plays Tony Soprano. If Tony Soprano woke up one day and he was running a prison. Actually no – that’s not quite fair. There are some differences. They’re not exactly the same character. In this film James Gandolfini wears glasses. 

It’s a film about men doing men stuff. To be the point where it becomes a parody of itself but then it just keeps on going and becomes itself again. Or maybe it flips around and becomes ridiculous again? Or maybe just both at the same time. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. Let me put it this way – this is a film that can be watched on two levels at exactly the same time. Like the greatest optical illusion ever constructed. The first level is the sincere level where you’ve got a beer in your hand and you’re nodding along and pumping your fist and cheering on the action and revelling in all the man stuff and nodding your head at the very unique manly weight that all men must carry (like moving heavy rocks from place to place) but also there’s the other level where it’s all just a gleeful mockery of masculinity and the cost that it takes, how men are so wrapped up in superficial bullshit like Honour. Pride. Patriotism and (most importantly) Winning No Matter What The Cost that they end up behaving in all sorts of self-defeating and really stupid ways. It’s like the Scary Movie version of being a man. 

It’s great. I love it. 

There is actually a scene where Robert Redford has to pick up some heavy rocks and move them from place to place. It’s awesome. He takes his shirt off. Everybody cheers him on. There’s a major subplot about them all building a wall and then Tony Soprano with glasses on comes and knocks it down. There’s another scene where Mark Ruffalo climbs up a rope onto a helicopter and then deliberately crashes the helicopter into a guard tower just to kill a guy. And then the whole film culminates on everyone looking at a flag for 5 minutes getting emotional. It’s amazing. It’s stupid. I love it. 

Best bit tho is when – after Robert Redford has talked all of this stuff about how he just wants to serve his time so he can get out so he can spend some quality time with his daughter and his grandkid – he actually meets his daughter and she’s like “I don’t even know who you are. You spent all your time in the army. You’re like a stranger to me.” Ouch. It’s brutal but it’s so good. A perfect illustration of a man who’s built up this entire world in his head but has no real relationship with the people that he thought he was closest to. 

This movie should get more love. 

 

Conclave (2024)

It’s hard to understand what everyone has been arguing about all these years when it’s clear Catholicism is the best religion. Not only do they really lean in to the actual magic of religion but they do lore really well. Even the word Conclave lends a mysterious occult feel to what is basically a meeting. And the stakes feel real because ultimately the Pope is in charge of the souls of over a billion people, both in this life and the next. He’s not just a leader but the general in the war between good and evil. The movie Constantine does a really good job of showing how holy scripture can be the basis for some cool dark magic with blood, fireballs and the best of the Satans. 

Weirdly both the movie Conclave and Catholicism undermine that important aspect, despite having Voldemort as the main character! Instead Conclave is a political thriller, and it frames the selection of the pope in political language. The “baddie” of the movie among other things wants to bring back latin to Church and liberal cardinals are outraged, they think it’s bad PR, alienating the public from the true word of god. Except that as anyone will tell you Latin is the language you use when doing magic, and I wonder if this arcane mystery the fans are showing up for. At one point the “baddie” character invokes the spector of a holy war, and my first thought was “now we’re talking” this is what religion is all about. None of this wishy washy third way West Wing bullshit, I wanted a Holy Empire Chosen One Lisan Al-Gaib crusade with my papal selection stakes. 

Alas this was not the case, and although the film wasn’t bad, it did make me feel like I only had a tiny glimpse at what a new pope might mean to a Catholic. I want to believe it’s at least on the level of finding out who was gonna play Dr Doom in the next Avengers movie – Because thinking of the pope as the guy who is gonna help us fight the devil, is just more boring then talking about helping people spend more time praying. 

If it sounds like I am being disrespectful of religion I guess I am if your stand point is that of a religion fan, compared to my standpoint as fan of cool demons fighting immortal wizards. I don’t make a distinction between the two things, but then again what if you chose the wrong religion and every day you are making god madder and madder? Nevertheless the stories they are embedded in are incredibly powerful not least because everyone has heard them in one form or other. There is something about shared information is very important for movies in particular where you dont have time to hand over lots of new information to your audience. There is some weird thing which says that Shakespeare invented 1700 words, and hundreds of his turns of phrase such as rhyme nor reason, cruel to be kind, and eaten out of house and home for example are just random lines from his plays. Regardless of his genius, (and you have heard Shakespeare until you’ve heard it in the original Klingon) he has also been required reading for hundreds of years, which means of course his phrases have sunk in. I have the same problem where every third thing I say is vaguely referencing the Simpsons. And the bible has naturally had the same effect of dominating not just language but out approach to moral philosophy. 

As a result after a millennia of being taught it’s not that Catholic scripture sounds like magic so much that all your “world building” magic writing guys from Bram Stoker to Neil Gaiman have been copying the Vatican’s homework so much all these it’s become public property. If you can blame the Catholic Church for anything it’s allowing this sort of mythological burglary to happen. What they probably should have done is set up a group of guys to go around and violently enforce their dogmatic integrity. Not sure how they dropped the ball there.

Instead they have a film like Conclave which wears all the right wizard clothes, walks around the amazing buildings decorated with mythological imagery and steadfastly ignores it all. Ultimately they didn’t have it in them to be epic. 

Fall
Directed by Scott Mann

This feels like a perfect movie. 

Ok. So maybe it’s not actually perfect. Maybe the acting isn’t the best and a little overwrought. Maybe some of the dialogue is so on the nose that you’ll end up looking like Voldemort. Maybe some of the special effects look like they were done with Photoshop. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. To me – it’s a work of art. 

I remember being very tempted to go watch this film at the cinema when I first saw the trailer. I mean I’ve always had a pretty healthy fear of heights and the premise seemed pretty solid (two women climb up a very very very tall tower and get stuck. With hilarious horrific consequences). 

Except – I mean as cool and as scary and as cinematically vivid the whole thing seemed I admit that I couldn’t get around the idea that there just wasn’t enough there for there to make a whole movie out of. I mean yeah it’s definitely a whole thing to get stuck on the top of a very very very tall tower but then – what happens after that? There’s nowhere for them to go. There’s nothing for them to do. There’s not even that much that they can say (unless you wanna go all Waiting for Godot on it). 

And yet – goddamn – the movie keeps finding new twists and intricacies and stuff to happen which I think is a big part of the reason why it all rocks so hard. In fact I think the real glory of the thing isn’t the acting or the direction (which admittingly both feel pretty basic and by the numbers). Nah – the real draw here is the script. The script is a thing of beauty. 

For some reason I think I’ve always been drawn to clever scripts that take a basic idea and then keeps finding new juice to squeeze. It reminds me of Cube or Train to Busan. Like I mean – how much movie can you get out of a bunch of people trapped in a cube or having a bunch of zombies on a train? In all these cases it feels like you’d hit a natural limit really quickly as the dramatic potential swiftly dies up. And yet that’s actually the opposite of what happens. In fact in all these films it feels like the main character is actually the script writer and the thrill is watching them find a way out of a narrative deadend and instead discover a whole new avenue of conflict and excitement to keep things going. 

Or in other words – can they keep the movie going good? 

And yeah. This movie definitely has lots to make it go good. Namely – there’s something completely exhilarating and completely terrifying about being very very very high up. Like I feel that over the years I’ve managed to completely corrode all of the parts of my brain that feel fear and terror by watching lots of horrible horror movies. Big scary monster from beyond? Yeah. Yawn. I’ve seen all that before. 

And yet watching this deliciously evil bitch of a movie I was wrapping myself up in pretzels and begging the film to just put me out of misery already. It really is great how terrible it made me feel. 

So yes. Cool. Good movie. Much recommend. 

A movie to fall in love with and etc. 

 

I’d like to open my film 2024 by apologising to The Fall Guy: I’m sorry I didn’t turn up to see you in the cinema, you are a good movie and you deserved better. Yes, you run an act too long. But you’re a proper charmer. You’ve got Gosling being clever and silly. You’ve got rom-com sparks. You’ve got Hannah Waddingham obliterating the worlds supply of diet coke and you’ve got a lot of really fun lil action scenes wrapped up in a conspiracy story that would make Shane Black smile.

And to The Beach Bum – I’d extend the same. You are crazy and strange and charming and you have the McConaghey performance that should have won him the Oscar. A Harmony Korine film that revels in defying emotional and narrative gravity, full of kooky stoner interludes, genuine heart and at times scored as if in ode to John Williams.

To Challengers – thank you for a soundtrack that helps me powerwalk my way to work, for that insane tennis ball POV coverage and for a love triangle about assholes driven by lust and competition that delivers empathy and insight without judgement. The only film I saw twice.

To Close Your Eyes – the 30 year late return of a legendary auteur that also didn’t get the hype it should have: I wish Sam Mendes had seen you before he made Empire of Mawk.

To The Iron Claw – I’d like my tears back.

And to Beautiful Days – thank you for a slow burn tale of poop in Tokyo that brightened up a miserable day.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Directed by George Miller

My poor sweet beautiful Furiosa. You deserved so much better than what we gave you. 

I knew this was going to be a great film as soon as I saw that guy’s legs poking up out of the sand like a cartoon character. 

Ok yes of course I’m no (biggest slur I know) neoliberal so really most of the time I don’t care at all how much money a film makes. All I care about is how good it is. Because that’s all that really matters right? We should all be watching films like diners eating a meal and enjoying all the flavours and tastes and sights and smells as opposed to sitting there with a calculator and trying to work out how much exactly the mashed potatoes cost and whether or not the whole thing is going to be profitable or not. 

And yet. And yet. And yet. 

I’ll admit that I shed a few tears when I saw how badly Furiosa bombed. When I saw how few people were going to go see it. When I realised that George had delivered a dud. 

In a just and better world than the one we’re all trapped in this would have been the blockbuster movie of the year. All the girls would be getting The Furiosa haircut. The kids would all be dressing up as Praetorian Jack for Halloween. Dementus Day would be a national holiday. We’d all be making it epic as much as we possibly could. 

Instead – what have we got? Seems like no more Mad Max films. So long Wasteland. I wish I could have seen your beauty. Gazed upon your magnificence. But. Alas. Dementus was right. There is no hope. 

I mean partly I do think George is partly to blame here because although I am ride and die for (pretty much) the whole Mad Mad Saga (simply put: Mad Max 2 is one of the greatest films of all time. Mad Max 1 is pretty cool but ends really weirdly lol. Fury Road is Fury Road and mostly glorious in all its gloriousness. And Beyond The Thunderdome is… sadly a big fat mess with some cool ideas) I did think the idea of doing a Fury Road prequel seemed like an incredibly dumb and stupid idea. I mean cars are made to go forward right? There’s no such thing as reverse. 

Like: to put it bluntly the annals of film history are not filled with examples of successful and popular prequels. Nearly all of the time they’re despised and hated. These are the things that ruin people’s childhoods. The blights upon the world. And when I first heard of the idea of going back into Furiosa’s backstory I did not get it. We already know how it starts (in The Green Place). We know how it ends (Platform Rising and Max nodding and walking away). I was in no way desperate to get the middle bit filled in. It just seemed kinda pointless and self indulgent and – again – I was way more interested in going forwards rather than backwards. 

And yet. And yet. And yet. 

Furiosa is a great fucking movie.  Even tho you know exactly how it’s going to end the whole thing is an exhilarating high explosive cocktail laced with madness, opulence and – yes of course – guzzoline. 

Anya Taylor-Joy and her beautiful insect eyes do good solid work here but as we all know Chris Hemsworth completely steals the show with his absolutely and gloriously demented Dementus. I mean fuck after this no more prequels ever yes? But honestly I would pay good money to watch a whole other trilogy with this guy. Everything he does is so delicious and entertaining. Like eating a hundred ice creams all at the same time. All this time I thought Hemsworth was just a pretty face and yet it seems that actually yeah – he does have what it takes to make it epic. Good job lad. 

(I especially love the theory that Dementus is Mad Max gone bad. Choosing hopeless over hope and that’s why he’s styled to look like Mel Gibson who yeah – definitely seems like someone pretty close to utterly demented. Even if he does make some of the best films ever). 

And then there’s Miller himself. I mean – what to say? Each Mad Max movie is its own beautiful thing and he doesn’t stop here. If Fury Road was the hit them hard rocketship going at a million miles per hour then Furiosa is the epic that’s going to take it’s own sweet time getting the job done. I don’t understand how everyone isn’t saying that this feels just like Sergio Leone making a post-apocalyptic film but damn it – this feels just like Sergio Leone making a post-apocalyptic film. All that widescreen. All those vistas. All those close-ups. All of those things expressed using only the movement of the camera. Nom nom nom. 

It’s good. It’s a good film. A magnificent illustration that cinema isn’t dead yet. And so yes of course no went to go and see it and instead went to see the utter crapness and utter and complete vacancy of Dune 2. 

We’re not going to make it. We were given the chance for gold and instead we chose sand. 

Oh well. 

…

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