Film Culture - History (Three Ways) and Futures

If you like having films spoiled for you keep on going... 

A Bone Apart

Well, that was two and a half hours of my life I'm not getting back. Let's be honest about this, Napoleon is really quite boring. The scenes of war are impressive, actually they're very impressive and quite brutal, but the rest of the film is an absolute snorefest.

Joachim Phoenix brings about as much energy to the role of Napoleon Bonaparte as a corpse does to a funeral. I mean, I don't know what the bloke was like - the historical one not Phoenix - but he was as miserable as a wet weekend in Frinton and really needed to lighten up a bit. There was one scene, early on, where someone who was talking to him thought he'd fallen asleep but he was just being moody and mysterious. Plus, his love for Josephine had all the impact of trying to get one of those polystyrene mannequin heads to give you a blow job. It was a bit like a dramatised history lesson with the most boring history teacher.

Vanessa Kirby as the love of his life who shagged around behind his back and only loved him when he threatened to take everything away was not really convincing either; she seemed like a 21st century woman acting in a drama about people from past. There was a stream of people appearing in it who didn't appear again; Mark Bonner was the most consistent as Napoleon's number two, but he was gone before the hour mark, then it was literally someone new every scene - Julian Rhind-Tutt popped up to get Napoleon to rule France with him and then we never saw him again and this seemed to go on for ever. Some people were given little subtitles under them to let us know who they were and others did not and it was all wrapped up quicker than Napoleon having a go on his philandering missus. It was interminably dull and apparently it's been nominated for several Oscars, but then again so have a number of films we've seen over the last few weeks which bored the tits off of us. It wasn't a load of shit but it wasn't riveting entertainment either.

Theatrical

If ever there was a science fiction film that felt so unlike a science fiction film it's The Man From Earth, a very strange movie that could almost have been a one act play given that virtually all the 'action' takes place in the living room of the main character John Oldman's cabin.

He invites his friends from the college he works at for a fond farewell as he moves to pastures new, but they're intrigued as to why he's leaving them, then one of his friends mentions that in the 10 years they've known him he hasn't aged a day and this leads to the unveiling of a fantastic story that causes all kinds of consternation and arguments among the group of friends gathered. John announces he is about 14,000 years old and he has been travelling the world avoiding being discovered since he realised that he was never getting any older. He'd been sick and he'd been injured but he doesn't scar and he always recovers from even the deadliest of diseases and he decides, just this once, to tell his friends his story. What follows is lots and lots of talking, supposition and disbelief; there's anger, interest and interventions, but gradually some of the people in the room start to believe him while others simply think he's either mad or playing some monstrous practical joke on them.

It's not action packed - in fact the most energetic thing that happens is removal men taking his furniture away - it's very wordy and I expect it is quite boring (I had to stop the wife from falling asleep and she actually thought it was a clever idea) for some people who expected more. Yet it is intriguing; it leaves you wondering all the way until the end whether it's truth or bullshit and it has a twist in the tail that turns out to be pivotal to the entire 90 minutes. It touches very much on theology and the origins of deities and doesn't try to be clever or anything other than a story that might be true and if it is true then its simplicity makes it all the more difficult to disbelieve. It's got a high rating for such a stylised and speciality type of film and there was a sequel to it that is apparently an absolute heap of steaming shit, which, rest assured, we won't be watching. As a curiosity though it is really worth 90 minutes of your time, especially the twist.

Modern Family?

There was a reasonably good sci-fi film hiding inside the 2018 movie Kin; the problem was that whoever made it didn't really realise this, instead gluing together lots of stuff that seemed to mimic other sci-fi films from the past mixed with gritty crime dramas.

Kin is about Eli, a 14 year old boy who finds a piece of very dangerous alien tech that only he can operate. The tech, which is a mighty weapon has a number of settings, all of which cause a shit load of damage.

This is a movie that is about a young black boy who has been adopted by a white family. His 'father' played by Dennis Quaid (looking very old) is a straight forward hardworking man whose natural son has just been released from prison after serving six years for an unspecified theft/robbery. Quaid has concentrated on bringing Eli up properly, especially since his wife died and doesn't need his real son screwing up things, especially as he's come out of jail with a $60,000 bill to a local crime family. Things go a little wonky, Quaid gets killed in botched robbery, as does crime boss James Franco's brother and what follows is a road movie of sorts as the two brothers cross country trying to escape the shit show they have inadvertently left behind and then the alien tech comes into play and it all goes a bit... well, I was going to say cliched and shit, but not shit as in a bad way - in fact some of the action sequences are highly entertaining, especially when Eli fires the gun at things and people - more like shit in a 'oh for heaven's sake who made this shit' kind of way. 

This is a poorly plotted, quite dreadfully paced film with some really well known actors totally wasted - including Carrie Coon, the aforementioned Franco, Zoë Kravitz and Michael B Jordan - in what is essentially a wanker dragging his kid brother into all kinds of fucking stupid situations, because the elder brother doesn't have two brain cells to rub together. You start to wonder why he was only in prison for six years, when he should have been thrown in a pit and had the ladder burned. Jack Reynor as Jimmy was probably supposed to be an incompetent moron, while young Eli seemed to have a brain - proven in the final scenes - and all the things that happened really made little or no sense; just a lot of things sown together to make something that resembled a coherent sci-fi film. I'd avoid this if it ever appears near a streaming service or DVD near you. Oh and Kin is the theme to it, especially when you discover just what kin really means, but that message is also poorly executed. The wife, I think, found it a fun and entertaining film; I couldn't wait for it to end.

Bang Bang, You're Dead

I know people who rate Ben Wheatley as a filmmaker, but almost all of his films have below average ratings on most film sites; Sightseers, Kill List and the film we watched tonight Free Fire are the highest rated films on the two major films sites - IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes; everything else doesn't come out with many plaudits. We have seen most of his films and I've never been quite sure why; probably because people we like rank him as a good filmmaker so we wanted to see if we were wrong about him. I don't think we were...

However, Free Fire is head and shoulders the best thing I've ever seen with Wheatley's name attached. It's a riotous violent comedy with so many excellent moments that I'm amazed that the 51 year old director actually made it. I mean, his films are usually vaguely erudite, strange and oddly paced; sometimes just weird and difficult to follow and, to be fair, this wasn't what we expected at all, this was bonkers almost from the word go; a colourful, 1970s set action comedy about an arms deal that goes spectacularly wrong because of two people - one on either side of the deal - who both wanted the blood of the other.

There's a lot of famous names in this film; Cillian Murphy, Brie Larson, Sharlto Copley, Jack Reynor (who plays the idiot brother in Kin), Armie Hammer, Michael Smiley and Sam Riley and there's a lot of guns, loads of gun fights, wounds, blood, swearing, drugs and double crosses galore and it's a 90 minute riot - a thoroughly bonkers film which doesn't really take itself seriously and you have to ask why Wheatley can make a film like this and then something like A Field in England, which was just a load of shite. [For Wheatley, also see Robert Eggers]. 

Run Run Run

Part of me thinks of Forrest Gump as a comedy, because it has so many funny moments in it, but after watching it for the first time in probably 25+ years, the overreaching impression is it's possibly one of the most tragic and sad movies I've ever seen. It is a work of utter genius, but it's also so heartbreakingly sad that it's difficult to watch it without wanting to burst into tears.

For those of you who have never seen it - not that many I'd hazard a guess - Tom Hanks plays a man with an IQ of 75 who despite being mentally challenged is fortunate enough to succeed in life where many others haven't. His propensity for running fast saved his hide and got him into college because he was a fantastic American football player; his speed and strength gets him through Vietnam along with the Medal of Honour for bravery - saving his CO and many men - and his tenacity makes him rich, he wanted to be a shrimp fisherman because of his friend Bubba and good fortune meant he became the biggest in the USA, making millions of dollars for him and his former CO. However, all the time Forrest was having an adventure of a lifetime and inadvertently living the American Dream all he could think of was his best friend in the world, the girl who gave him a seat on his first school bus journey, Jenny.

When you look at the film through the success it sounds like a heart-warming tale of achievement against adversity, but in reality it is a catalogue of tragedy from Forrest being bullied for being stupid, his mother having to give sexual favours to enable him to go to a proper school, to being rejected by the love of his life on countless occasions, the death of Bubba, the ruination of his CO's life because of the horrors of war; the death of his mother and finally the death of his beloved Jenny, in the 1980s, from AIDS - contracted during her drug usage and promiscuity period. Forrest Gump is just one of the saddest film you will ever see. The penultimate scene where he is talking to Jenny's grave is probably Tom Hanks's finest scene in a long and illustrious career. 

Robin Wright, Gary Sinese, Sally Field, Mykelti Williamson and everyone else who made this film an Oscar-winning triumph are all fantastic; this is probably Robert Zemekis's best film and probably the last great film he made - he did make Contact and then Castaway a few years later, but I think his star was waning by then. If you're one of the few people who hasn't seen this, then you should track it down; it's quite a beautiful movie, but remember it is also desperately sad and will probably make you cry...  

Hive Story

What a way to finish off the week; A Jaysun Stayfum movie! You remember Jaysun Stayfum? He was last seen in that abysmal - Ben Wheatley - film The Meg 2 and here he is as someone in The Beekeeper, a film that plays fast and loose with facts to make a movie that defies logic.

We're talking super action bonkers feature with the relentless Stayfum as a super special agent who is so good, so frightening and so deadly that the former head of the CIA literally shits his pants every time the words 'Bee' and 'Keeper' are spoken [some details in this review are not strictly true]. This person is played by Jeremy Irons, who was obviously paid a lot of money to shit his pants a lot and sound terrified at the prospect of having his hand broken (which happens near the end as he gets away with only broken bones and shit-stained pants). The body count in this is so high they needed a super computer to keep up with it and it all leads back to the President of the United States (played by Jemma Redgrave being less convincing than when she plays Kate Lethbridge-Stewart in Doctor Who) whose son is essentially a massive cunt who steals money from poor innocent and lovely people to fund his mum's election campaign and keep her living in a style far better than POTUS would normally. Mum, of course, has no idea that her son is a monumental shit bag and therefore is spared by Jaysun Stayfum from an ignominious death.

This is a hoot. It's essentially a British film with some location work in Boston, but even if it's set in the States it looks a lot like Devon and with a couple of exceptions all the actors are Brits. It plays fast and loose with the facts because POTUS's defence is made up of people built out of string and a bunch of colourful vigilantes dressed like they're going to a rave. Stayfum infiltrates her big private party so easily, it was like he wanders into the middle of an FBI raid - aimed at catching him - and beats them all up using just a feather duster and his anus [this actually happens but not with the feather duster or his anus]. It is so fucking awful it's great fun. From the moment Stayfum literally blows a building up using just a can of petrol and his dynamic acting ability you know you're onto something as special as the most special thing ever, EVER. 

I could go on but I don't want to because it might spoil it for you and you deserve to have this spoiled for you by you alone. You need to watch this and wonder why you did and then go to bed wondering why you did and having a restless night as you work out how come Jaysun manages to kill over 30,000 [some 'facts' are wrong in this review] using just his hands and a cocktail stick and then swims off into the sunset with only a stab wound and a dodgy arm. The girl who was in The Umbrella Academy - the one who can whisper things and people do it - is also in this film; she's put on a fair bit of weight since that series and her acting skills are Olivier level [they really aren't] in a movie that makes about as much sense as why people find Michael McIntyre funny. Watch it, it's fucking awful and brilliant at the same time, simultaneously. 

Next Time...

On the horizon - the Aquaman follow-up has been on the Flash Drive of Doom for over a week now, the problem is I just can't bring myself to watch it because everyone who has seen it has killed themselves because of how brilliant it isn't... The next week sees Poor Things hit the streaming world, everyone and their living aunt is raving about this film, except some people who think it's exploitative horse shit. Having read about some of the scenes, I'm debating with my prudish self whether I want to go there; after all I decided not to watch Saltburn because of some of the sex scenes (you see, this is what happens when you get into your 60s, you want sex scenes to be under the covers, in darkened rooms. I do believe this is more to do with my feminism rather than embarrassment though).

I sometimes wonder if I'm running out of films to watch, but obviously I'm not as the FDoD currently has 37 films on it and the TV hard drive has about another 20 - the problem is I need to feel like watching something and hope that the wife is up for it as well, otherwise we end up watching something like Napoleon or The Beekeeper and I then have to use my imagination to describe them in as many humorous (or disappointed) ways as possible...