Christopher Nolan’s DC Comic's superhero trilogy kicks off with this underwhelming enterprise that is generally accepted as the first film to coin the descriptive term ‘reboot’ as opposed to ‘remake’. Warner Brothers had binned their successful Batman franchise after the disastrous showing of Batman and Robin (1997) and this film doesn’t exactly reinvent the format, just remakes the expected story with enough brooding dark menace to make everyone think they are watching something different. ‘Reboot’ was rather new and refreshing in 2005. James Bond followed suite the next year in Craig’s debut Casino Royale and now we have reboots of reboots, usually to try to make a success of something that wasn’t, as here. Thing is, despite its terrible campiness and awful performances, I quite enjoy Batman and Robin, which didn’t take itself seriously, completely forgot to explain itself and saw everyone titting about something rotten. Good fun, I thought.
So, what do I think of Mr Nolan’s grim Gotham hero? By golly, he’s a grim reaper of a superhero. As the titular hero and his alter-ego Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale at least acts dead straight, which counteracts the basic tosh that’s circulating around him, including a chummy Micheal Caine as the moral compass of a butler, Alfred, and Gary Oldman as a weary looking Jim Gordon [years before he made Commissioner, obviously]. I also spotted a white haired Shane Rimmer in a tiny role, so there’s a minute OO7 connection for us to be proud of. Can’t say much else raised my interest. Katie Holmes’s struggling attorney has the hots for Bruce Wayne, but he seems curiously ambivalent despite her obvious soft-focussed gorgeousness. Their romance is a wet fish of an affair, exemplified by her admonishment of his slanted attitudes towards justice and revenge. I liked Miss Holmes in Dawson’s Creek; playing an adult didn’t seem to suit her in the first tentative roles post-Dawson, but she’s okay here, engaging, intelligent and sprightly, until forced to be knocked out and endure a car chase of interminable length while strapped unconscious in the bucket seat of a tank-like Batmobile. Cillian Murphy’s scary Scarecrow is a more successful villain than Liam Neeson’s Henri Ducard / Ra’s Al Ghul [Head of the Ghoul]. Henri Ducard is the leader of the League of Shadows, an ancient assassin society that punishes corrupt civilisations, like Rome, Byzantium and Venice.
This bunch of martial arts kicking ninjas hide out in an enormous monastery somewhere in Bhutan. Bruce Wayne, on a sabbatical from being rich and powerful has been trying to live like a vagrant, but stumbles onto this nest of vipers, learns all the secrets of their society and then backs off when he’s asked to prove his loyalty. These origin story early scenes drag on like a bullet shot through wet cement. The film brightens up considerably when Bruce returns to Gotham City, starts investigating all that is wrong with this once great city and begins to become The Batman. We get humour instead of psychology-speak gobbledygook – oh, good golly – humour! As the climax approaches and everything gets fraught, the action becomes less interesting again and all the fun dissipates to nil.
Batman Begins has a rubbish title that tells you everything you need to know about the film before you see it, a dull narrative and a preponderance towards pointless action that signals its intent to pursue the Xbox generation. It’s alright, I guess, just about, and thank goodness for Katie Holmes.
I think I made a mistake and used the wrong words.
You are very correct, as the OSS was disbanded shortly after WW2.
The organization that hires Lt.Cdr Rone is basically an old boys network run by 'The highwayman'. The other members of the group, the 'erector set', the 'whore' and the 'warlock' were OSS operatives during WW2 and are all experienced spies with deep knowledge of the Soviet intelligence apparatus.
Excellent film and novel.
The director of the film, Mr. John Huston, even has a cameo in the film and plays a naval Admiral at the start of the film.
Yes, I'd had a drink or two but something like this crossed my mind - at one point something like, well, why not Lenin take over Russia and withdraw from the war, sort of MRGA I suppose, though that's what Putin has been trying to do lately.
Art the Clown is the psycho killer in the latest slasher franchise to hit the cinemas. This ultra cheap entry (the autopsy room is hilariously bad) harks back to those video nasties that caused such a furore back in the 80’s. There is no back story, just the clown going around killing people. Director Damien Leone sets up some decent angles, and the gory special effects are gross enough to satisfy slasher fans. Jenna Kanell and Samantha Scaffidi put in decent performances as sisters hunted down by the clown.
If you like slasher movies this one fits the bill, but there should have been more substance to the narrative.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I hated this... not just gory and disgusting, but EVERYONE is killed off--you don't get anyone to root for. Probably one of the most nihilistic horror movies ever made.
James Garner plays US Army Major Jeff Pike, a military intelligence officer with advanced knowledge of the Normandy landings, who is kidnapped in Lisbon, Portugal by the Gestapo.
Pike awakens in an Allied military hospital and is told that he had sustained a severe head injury in Lisbon and now suffers from retrograde amnesia. He is also told that six years have passed since his injury and that the war is over.
Now start a series of deep psychological manipulations aimed at the Major which are designed to extract a very specific piece of information.
A fortuitous paper cut on his finger makes Major Pike suddenly realize the unthinkable.
The whole thing is a ruse.
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A unique WW2 spy film that reminds me of 'The Prisoner' and that very special episode from Secret Agent / Danger Man...Colony Three.
Not literally the last film I saw but I made the journey to London's Prince Charles cinema to see this Japanese women in prison exploitation flick starring Meiko Kaji as the woman wronged by her corrupt cop lover, who has her thrown in jail after she is raped by the local Mafia and he realises he can use this to somehow get in with the gang and make a load of cash.
It's a woman out for revenge movie, out to escape also - it opens with her attempt at a jailbreak that doesn't come off. This is a largely comic movie where you will the protagonist on - she doesn't have much to say and uses her silence to goad the guards while she is subject to solitary isolation and torture - I should say you can't really take it seriously, it's a romp, it's cartoonish and the inspiration, or one of them, for Tarantino's Kil Bill movies. There's a lot of naked flesh as the women are made to parade naked on a walkway not unlike a scene in one of the Bond continuation novels, the guards looking upwards to salivate at the close-ups, obviously wholly unlike any of the cinema audience members. It's a good guilty pleasure movie - all the sequels - mostly with diminishing returns according to the reviews - were on this week but even as with a Bond film you don't necessarily want to be watching all of them, or at least not concurrently, so this was the only one I caught. This film's finale was perhaps a little rushed and the final scene made no logical sense except to set it up for a sequel - it isn't made clear how the lead can be something of a genius in her mode of attack and escape but at other times makes elementary mistakes to help shape the plot, but that's movies for ya.
Nicholas Cage plays Nick Cage in not very snappily titled The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
This is a meta comedy in which a down on his luck Cage, playing himself, finds himself out of pocket and having to make money so he accepts his agent's advice to attend a rich fan's birthday party on an exotic island, however things start to go wrong.
It's a chance for Cage to send himself up and own some of the problems of recent years which has seen him take all manner of rubbish films to pay off his debt, that said I don't think he references some of his stinkers and while Cage is a good sport he doesn't quite throw himself under a bus, there isn't the much-needed sado-masochistic enjoyment of his character's - or his - plight to make it enjoyable. Some of the situations regarding his supposed family, including his daughter, lacked nuance, they were all a bit obvious (thought it was a nice surprise to see Irish actor and Catastrophe star Sharon Horgan as his ex-wife).. I've not seen Being John Malkovich but it would be better than this.
The trailer looked awful at the cinema and I didn't go - it really did seem to be one of those movies made in lockdown that seemed to be concocted in a test tube or using AI, Sandra Bullock did a similar vehicle around the same time, in which she played an author on a book tour thrown into a Romancing the Stone type adventure. This was amiable enough on the small screen - his male co-star who has been in Game of Thrones I had never seen before and didn't make an impression on me quite; it is odd how some stars are reliant on your knowing their main breakout role, and if you don't know that, their other stuff might fall a bit flat for you.
Was The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent on last night ? I wanted to see that. damn. I was busy. That Jap flick sounds well, exploitative @Napoleon Plural probably good fun in a Japanese way
I watched Play Dirty on Friday night: it was an unexpected nice surprise to find a brand new Shane Black gangster action comedy I didn't even know was coming, and more than that it's a new Parker adaptation too. While it's not quite up to the standard of his previous top entries into this sort of thing like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or The Nice Guys, it's a cut above the usual straight-to-streaming movies and even features Alan Silvestri giving one his career best scores. A fun diversion with some good gags and moments of flair.
I was going to post the trailer from imdb here CHB, but a) It's quite rude, lots of female nakedness b) The subtitles aren't provided and c) It's one of those trailers that give too much away, it pretty much tells the story of the film.
This sort of film might be better at the cinema than on the small screen; particularly the upstairs of the Prince Charles which for some reason evokes the feeling of seeing a movie in the 1970s very well, better than the downstairs imo.
I don’t think I’ve been to the Prince Charles since the 70’s when I saw Emmanuelle 😁 if it’s still the same, then it would certainly evoke those long ago memories @Napoleon Plural
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Oh, it's not the same @CoolHandBond , ironically the upstairs of the Prince Charles is a relatively new addition.
I've never seen Emmanuelle, it's the sort of the film that might get a showing on UK telly late at night now, some dodgy channels show things like Au Pair Girls and similar British 1970s soft porn stuff, even the tea and biscuits Talking Pictures TV gets in on the act after the watershed sometimes; it showed Angel this week, a 1984 movie I recall only from the poster; schoolgirl by day, LA hooker by night. It's a serial killer movie but some of the deaths were horrible and exploitative so even with my dodgy hat on it it wasn't my cup of tea, it does make you think some of the moral majority back then had a point.
Almost 90 years old and it has lost none of its charm. Will Hay, as the incompetent railway station master of Buggleskelly, is probably his greatest performance, ably backed by Graham Moffat and Moore Marriott as the station staff. Gags, verbal and visual, run riot as the station master gets involved in trying to stop a gun running scheme across the Irish border.
An utter delight from start to finish.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Kathryn 'Hurt Locker' Bigelow directs this fast-paced thriller but I didn't know much about it save it got top marks in a Times review - really I should have, because it starts in conventional US thriller mode - a missile detection base in the US, young recruits reacting to something and you think, ha! we recognise this, get her in to direct the next Bond mov...oh.
However, while it begins like the first scene of a pre-credits such as TSWLM or TLD, what I didn't realise is that this is the whole movie, there is no Bond to step in, no Maverick or Marvel superhero - what we get is how the control base in the US react to a missile that seems to be heading their way, and the confusion and ****-ups that emerge, the weak decision-making process given the lack of information and race against time.
It's Dr Strangelove without the jokes, basically.
It's good stuff, well directed, it grips. What I also didn't know was that the structure of the film is to tell the same story via different povs, Now, I can be a bit thick, so I didn't grasp this and thought, okay, am I getting the countdown wrong, because it seems to be they now have more time on the clock than before, it's that old cliffhanger trick... In fact, they're pretty much starting from near the beginning each time.
The film Dunkirk had a similar story-telling devise, which I didn't catch on to.
The actors are all top notch but I didn't recognise Jared Harris as the Sec of State for Defence. Rebecca Ferguson excels as one of the key players in the first part of the movie trying to assess whether this is a real nuclear missile strike.
In common with some Bond films such as Die Another Day and CR, I struggled to hear the dialogue in the first part of the movie, maybe my ears adjusted or maybe it's a trick to get the audience leaning in edgily from the outset.
Some of the trailers were a bit bonkers, like the new Emma Stone one (WTF?) and the new Frankenstein looks good, though the Kenneth Branagh one wasn't bad, was it?
One Battle After Another (2025) Paul Thomas Anderson
Spectacular film which defies pigeon-holing. Anderson makes the almost 3 hour running time glide past as he tells his convoluted story, which I won't attempt to summarise here.
Leonardo DiCaprio and our own Benicio del Toro do well but actingwise the entire movie belongs to Sean Penn who must deserve some sort of award, possibly even his 3rd Oscar.
The score is by Jonny Greenwood of Radio head and is one of the highlights.
American film noir thriller directed by John Farrow and starring Ray Milland and Charles Laughton.
George Stroud (Milland), editor of Crimeways magazine, is fired for insubordination by his tyrannical boss Earl Janoth (Laughton), who forbids him from going on his long awaited honeymoon.
Later that evening he meets with Janoth's mistress, Pauline York, who wants to blackmail the tycoon.
As Stroud leaves her apartment later that night, he sees Janoth enter it.
The next day all hell breaks loose and I am not going to spoil the plot any further, because it gets very complicated from here onwards.
But rest assured, this is a very entertaining film.
A true hidden masterpiece and a near perfect movie.
Indeed. I just checked on wikipedia that Police Python 357 and No Way Out were based on the original story by Kenneth Fearing. I have seen No Way Out, which is a very well made film. I will have to check the other one out as well.
Heath Ledger’s repulsively watchable Joker is the main reason to watch The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan’s morally challenging sequel to Batman Begins, a film where nobody has control of their ethical compass and the heroes are as two-faced and villainous as poor Aaron Eckhart’s mentally and physically scarred District Attorney Harvey Dent, who carries a two-headed coin, a visual analogy which ultimately reveals there is no black and white in Gotham City. Certainly seems that way from the gloomy cinematography which only brightens when the action moves inside the cavernous make-do Batcave beneath Wayne Tower. I hate films that take place entirely in the dark; I can’t pick the landscapes and everything becomes oppressive and depressing. Hardly surprising then that while I was aware I had seen The Dark Knight on the big screen, I didn’t remember a single thing about it, other than Ledger’s supervillain blowing up a hospital with Nicholson-esque faux delight.
Ledger is far more entertaining, on a sickening level, than Christian Bale’s super-suited vigilante Batman, a man unfazed by anything life throws at him; as a multibillionaire, he can afford not to be. Unfortunately, his Batman’s idea of heroism is brutal interrogation techniques, omnipotent cyber surveillance and lusting after a woman he can’t have. She’s still Rachel Dawes but sadly is no longer Katie Holmes. Maggie Gyllenhall is no great looker [sorry, my opinion, take it or leave it] so she has to work hard to gain our sympathy and doesn’t. In fact, nobody in the film gets any sympathy from this sofa, such a deceitful and self-serving bunch they are. It isn’t until the very end that some semblance of man’s humanity toward his fellow man finally appears, and then it comes through the actions of the endangered passengers on a ferry boat doomed to destruction.
As with all superhero films, you have to appreciate the premise is silly, so anything goes, and the anything’s here are more palatable and organic than the huffing and puffing and sword fighting of Nolan’s first Batman epic. Nothing much makes any sense, of course, in particular how Joker’s assertion that he is an instinctive personality completely belies the fact he manipulates the whole iniquitous narrative from the start, rather like our friend Silva in Skyfall, a film whose writers must have taken note of the dark tone, cranky villains and ambivalent heroes on display here. The Dark Knight is a wordy enterprise that wants to be something it shouldn’t be, hence if you want action and action only, the film is only just about okay, if heavy handed, confused and long winded. Tension mounts appropriately, but there’s no real sense of fear as it is all too outlandish to be taken seriously.
If you have been reading my reviews a long time, you will know I don’t like the superhero subgenre of fantasy films very much and however many awards and ‘best-this-or-that’ The Dark Knight has, is and will be showered with, you’ll be hard pressed to get me to like it. I sense it’s quality, but I wasn’t exactly entertained, and I would have liked some light on the matter, darkness being a visual tonal trick then vaunted and now much imitated by every filmmaker who wants to inject brooding menace into their narrative. To be fair, it is more accomplished than Nolan’s previous effort
I guess I could sum this up in four words: ‘Better than Batman Begins.’
No Way Out! Yes, that's the one, I remember looking it up on wiki when I rewatched it last year or so and was surprised to see that it was a remake- thank you, I was wondering why I recognised Big Clock.
It's a good thriller, No Way Out: you can never go wrong with a bit of Hackman.
I remember it being so excessively long that my backside was hurting in the cinema. I was also mentally editing the film as I watching it: I'd have cut out that subplot about the Wayne employee figuring out who Batman is, which seemed to be there just to give Morgan Freeman something to do. I don't think I've watched it again since.
Did you phrase the Gyllenhall bit as you wanted? It reads like female characters are only sympathetic if they're attractive, which I wouldn't really agree with.
Yeah it took me a very long while to see the third one, I only caught it for the first time a couple of years ago. To be fair, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, although I'm not sure I'd watch it again.
I did rewatch Batman Begins not that long ago, and I used to enjoy it back in the day, but I was a bit shocked just how dated it all felt; it actually feels like quite an old film now, the set pieces are all a bit pedestrian. I finished it really unimpressed. I also noticed Nolan's weird treatment of women: for some reason Bruce doesn't seem to be that bothered that his mother was killed- the film is only concerned with his dad. Feels really off.
Laura is a very good movie - thank for reminding me of it @Sonero
Meanwhile back at Chateau Chris...
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012)
Long, ponderous epic superhero sequel from director Christopher Nolan. Low on action until a confused ending. Long on exposition. The hero, heroine and villain [Batman, Catwoman, Bane] all wear masks. The latter sounds like Patrick Stewart in his American Dad pose of CIA chief Avery Bullock. Everyone talks as if they escaped from The Bible. Preposterous and dull in the extreme.
Comments
BATMAN BEGINS (2005)
Christopher Nolan’s DC Comic's superhero trilogy kicks off with this underwhelming enterprise that is generally accepted as the first film to coin the descriptive term ‘reboot’ as opposed to ‘remake’. Warner Brothers had binned their successful Batman franchise after the disastrous showing of Batman and Robin (1997) and this film doesn’t exactly reinvent the format, just remakes the expected story with enough brooding dark menace to make everyone think they are watching something different. ‘Reboot’ was rather new and refreshing in 2005. James Bond followed suite the next year in Craig’s debut Casino Royale and now we have reboots of reboots, usually to try to make a success of something that wasn’t, as here. Thing is, despite its terrible campiness and awful performances, I quite enjoy Batman and Robin, which didn’t take itself seriously, completely forgot to explain itself and saw everyone titting about something rotten. Good fun, I thought.
So, what do I think of Mr Nolan’s grim Gotham hero? By golly, he’s a grim reaper of a superhero. As the titular hero and his alter-ego Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale at least acts dead straight, which counteracts the basic tosh that’s circulating around him, including a chummy Micheal Caine as the moral compass of a butler, Alfred, and Gary Oldman as a weary looking Jim Gordon [years before he made Commissioner, obviously]. I also spotted a white haired Shane Rimmer in a tiny role, so there’s a minute OO7 connection for us to be proud of. Can’t say much else raised my interest. Katie Holmes’s struggling attorney has the hots for Bruce Wayne, but he seems curiously ambivalent despite her obvious soft-focussed gorgeousness. Their romance is a wet fish of an affair, exemplified by her admonishment of his slanted attitudes towards justice and revenge. I liked Miss Holmes in Dawson’s Creek; playing an adult didn’t seem to suit her in the first tentative roles post-Dawson, but she’s okay here, engaging, intelligent and sprightly, until forced to be knocked out and endure a car chase of interminable length while strapped unconscious in the bucket seat of a tank-like Batmobile. Cillian Murphy’s scary Scarecrow is a more successful villain than Liam Neeson’s Henri Ducard / Ra’s Al Ghul [Head of the Ghoul]. Henri Ducard is the leader of the League of Shadows, an ancient assassin society that punishes corrupt civilisations, like Rome, Byzantium and Venice.
This bunch of martial arts kicking ninjas hide out in an enormous monastery somewhere in Bhutan. Bruce Wayne, on a sabbatical from being rich and powerful has been trying to live like a vagrant, but stumbles onto this nest of vipers, learns all the secrets of their society and then backs off when he’s asked to prove his loyalty. These origin story early scenes drag on like a bullet shot through wet cement. The film brightens up considerably when Bruce returns to Gotham City, starts investigating all that is wrong with this once great city and begins to become The Batman. We get humour instead of psychology-speak gobbledygook – oh, good golly – humour! As the climax approaches and everything gets fraught, the action becomes less interesting again and all the fun dissipates to nil.
Batman Begins has a rubbish title that tells you everything you need to know about the film before you see it, a dull narrative and a preponderance towards pointless action that signals its intent to pursue the Xbox generation. It’s alright, I guess, just about, and thank goodness for Katie Holmes.
When did you start being so wrong about movies, chrisno1? 😊
@Number24
I think I made a mistake and used the wrong words.
You are very correct, as the OSS was disbanded shortly after WW2.
The organization that hires Lt.Cdr Rone is basically an old boys network run by 'The highwayman'. The other members of the group, the 'erector set', the 'whore' and the 'warlock' were OSS operatives during WW2 and are all experienced spies with deep knowledge of the Soviet intelligence apparatus.
Excellent film and novel.
The director of the film, Mr. John Huston, even has a cameo in the film and plays a naval Admiral at the start of the film.
Thanks for the clarification, Sonero. Everyone, "even" I, make mistakes now and then.
Yes, I'd had a drink or two but something like this crossed my mind - at one point something like, well, why not Lenin take over Russia and withdraw from the war, sort of MRGA I suppose, though that's what Putin has been trying to do lately.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
TERRIFIER (2016)
Art the Clown is the psycho killer in the latest slasher franchise to hit the cinemas. This ultra cheap entry (the autopsy room is hilariously bad) harks back to those video nasties that caused such a furore back in the 80’s. There is no back story, just the clown going around killing people. Director Damien Leone sets up some decent angles, and the gory special effects are gross enough to satisfy slasher fans. Jenna Kanell and Samantha Scaffidi put in decent performances as sisters hunted down by the clown.
If you like slasher movies this one fits the bill, but there should have been more substance to the narrative.
I hated this... not just gory and disgusting, but EVERYONE is killed off--you don't get anyone to root for. Probably one of the most nihilistic horror movies ever made.
36 HOURS (1964)
James Garner plays US Army Major Jeff Pike, a military intelligence officer with advanced knowledge of the Normandy landings, who is kidnapped in Lisbon, Portugal by the Gestapo.
Pike awakens in an Allied military hospital and is told that he had sustained a severe head injury in Lisbon and now suffers from retrograde amnesia. He is also told that six years have passed since his injury and that the war is over.
Now start a series of deep psychological manipulations aimed at the Major which are designed to extract a very specific piece of information.
A fortuitous paper cut on his finger makes Major Pike suddenly realize the unthinkable.
The whole thing is a ruse.
-----------
A unique WW2 spy film that reminds me of 'The Prisoner' and that very special episode from Secret Agent / Danger Man...Colony Three.
Recommended.
(Directed by George Seaton - 115 minutes)
Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion (1972)
Not literally the last film I saw but I made the journey to London's Prince Charles cinema to see this Japanese women in prison exploitation flick starring Meiko Kaji as the woman wronged by her corrupt cop lover, who has her thrown in jail after she is raped by the local Mafia and he realises he can use this to somehow get in with the gang and make a load of cash.
It's a woman out for revenge movie, out to escape also - it opens with her attempt at a jailbreak that doesn't come off. This is a largely comic movie where you will the protagonist on - she doesn't have much to say and uses her silence to goad the guards while she is subject to solitary isolation and torture - I should say you can't really take it seriously, it's a romp, it's cartoonish and the inspiration, or one of them, for Tarantino's Kil Bill movies. There's a lot of naked flesh as the women are made to parade naked on a walkway not unlike a scene in one of the Bond continuation novels, the guards looking upwards to salivate at the close-ups, obviously wholly unlike any of the cinema audience members. It's a good guilty pleasure movie - all the sequels - mostly with diminishing returns according to the reviews - were on this week but even as with a Bond film you don't necessarily want to be watching all of them, or at least not concurrently, so this was the only one I caught. This film's finale was perhaps a little rushed and the final scene made no logical sense except to set it up for a sequel - it isn't made clear how the lead can be something of a genius in her mode of attack and escape but at other times makes elementary mistakes to help shape the plot, but that's movies for ya.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Nicholas Cage plays Nick Cage in not very snappily titled The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
This is a meta comedy in which a down on his luck Cage, playing himself, finds himself out of pocket and having to make money so he accepts his agent's advice to attend a rich fan's birthday party on an exotic island, however things start to go wrong.
It's a chance for Cage to send himself up and own some of the problems of recent years which has seen him take all manner of rubbish films to pay off his debt, that said I don't think he references some of his stinkers and while Cage is a good sport he doesn't quite throw himself under a bus, there isn't the much-needed sado-masochistic enjoyment of his character's - or his - plight to make it enjoyable. Some of the situations regarding his supposed family, including his daughter, lacked nuance, they were all a bit obvious (thought it was a nice surprise to see Irish actor and Catastrophe star Sharon Horgan as his ex-wife).. I've not seen Being John Malkovich but it would be better than this.
The trailer looked awful at the cinema and I didn't go - it really did seem to be one of those movies made in lockdown that seemed to be concocted in a test tube or using AI, Sandra Bullock did a similar vehicle around the same time, in which she played an author on a book tour thrown into a Romancing the Stone type adventure. This was amiable enough on the small screen - his male co-star who has been in Game of Thrones I had never seen before and didn't make an impression on me quite; it is odd how some stars are reliant on your knowing their main breakout role, and if you don't know that, their other stuff might fall a bit flat for you.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Was The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent on last night ? I wanted to see that. damn. I was busy. That Jap flick sounds well, exploitative @Napoleon Plural probably good fun in a Japanese way
It's good fun, I enjoyed Unbearable Weight.
I watched Play Dirty on Friday night: it was an unexpected nice surprise to find a brand new Shane Black gangster action comedy I didn't even know was coming, and more than that it's a new Parker adaptation too. While it's not quite up to the standard of his previous top entries into this sort of thing like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or The Nice Guys, it's a cut above the usual straight-to-streaming movies and even features Alan Silvestri giving one his career best scores. A fun diversion with some good gags and moments of flair.
Sounds right up my street @Napoleon Plural I will look for that on my streaming service.
I was going to post the trailer from imdb here CHB, but a) It's quite rude, lots of female nakedness b) The subtitles aren't provided and c) It's one of those trailers that give too much away, it pretty much tells the story of the film.
This sort of film might be better at the cinema than on the small screen; particularly the upstairs of the Prince Charles which for some reason evokes the feeling of seeing a movie in the 1970s very well, better than the downstairs imo.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I don’t think I’ve been to the Prince Charles since the 70’s when I saw Emmanuelle 😁 if it’s still the same, then it would certainly evoke those long ago memories @Napoleon Plural
Oh, it's not the same @CoolHandBond , ironically the upstairs of the Prince Charles is a relatively new addition.
I've never seen Emmanuelle, it's the sort of the film that might get a showing on UK telly late at night now, some dodgy channels show things like Au Pair Girls and similar British 1970s soft porn stuff, even the tea and biscuits Talking Pictures TV gets in on the act after the watershed sometimes; it showed Angel this week, a 1984 movie I recall only from the poster; schoolgirl by day, LA hooker by night. It's a serial killer movie but some of the deaths were horrible and exploitative so even with my dodgy hat on it it wasn't my cup of tea, it does make you think some of the moral majority back then had a point.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
OH, MR. PORTER! (1937)
Almost 90 years old and it has lost none of its charm. Will Hay, as the incompetent railway station master of Buggleskelly, is probably his greatest performance, ably backed by Graham Moffat and Moore Marriott as the station staff. Gags, verbal and visual, run riot as the station master gets involved in trying to stop a gun running scheme across the Irish border.
An utter delight from start to finish.
I'm a fan of the same trio's Ask A Policeman.
A House of Dynamite (2025)
Kathryn 'Hurt Locker' Bigelow directs this fast-paced thriller but I didn't know much about it save it got top marks in a Times review - really I should have, because it starts in conventional US thriller mode - a missile detection base in the US, young recruits reacting to something and you think, ha! we recognise this, get her in to direct the next Bond mov...oh.
However, while it begins like the first scene of a pre-credits such as TSWLM or TLD, what I didn't realise is that this is the whole movie, there is no Bond to step in, no Maverick or Marvel superhero - what we get is how the control base in the US react to a missile that seems to be heading their way, and the confusion and ****-ups that emerge, the weak decision-making process given the lack of information and race against time.
It's Dr Strangelove without the jokes, basically.
It's good stuff, well directed, it grips. What I also didn't know was that the structure of the film is to tell the same story via different povs, Now, I can be a bit thick, so I didn't grasp this and thought, okay, am I getting the countdown wrong, because it seems to be they now have more time on the clock than before, it's that old cliffhanger trick... In fact, they're pretty much starting from near the beginning each time.
The film Dunkirk had a similar story-telling devise, which I didn't catch on to.
The actors are all top notch but I didn't recognise Jared Harris as the Sec of State for Defence. Rebecca Ferguson excels as one of the key players in the first part of the movie trying to assess whether this is a real nuclear missile strike.
In common with some Bond films such as Die Another Day and CR, I struggled to hear the dialogue in the first part of the movie, maybe my ears adjusted or maybe it's a trick to get the audience leaning in edgily from the outset.
Some of the trailers were a bit bonkers, like the new Emma Stone one (WTF?) and the new Frankenstein looks good, though the Kenneth Branagh one wasn't bad, was it?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
One Battle After Another (2025) Paul Thomas Anderson
Spectacular film which defies pigeon-holing. Anderson makes the almost 3 hour running time glide past as he tells his convoluted story, which I won't attempt to summarise here.
Leonardo DiCaprio and our own Benicio del Toro do well but actingwise the entire movie belongs to Sean Penn who must deserve some sort of award, possibly even his 3rd Oscar.
The score is by Jonny Greenwood of Radio head and is one of the highlights.
PS @Napoleon Plural no, the Branagh "Frankenstein" wasn't bad at all.
THE BIG CLOCK (1948)
American film noir thriller directed by John Farrow and starring Ray Milland and Charles Laughton.
George Stroud (Milland), editor of Crimeways magazine, is fired for insubordination by his tyrannical boss Earl Janoth (Laughton), who forbids him from going on his long awaited honeymoon.
Later that evening he meets with Janoth's mistress, Pauline York, who wants to blackmail the tycoon.
As Stroud leaves her apartment later that night, he sees Janoth enter it.
The next day all hell breaks loose and I am not going to spoil the plot any further, because it gets very complicated from here onwards.
But rest assured, this is a very entertaining film.
A true hidden masterpiece and a near perfect movie.
Highly recommended.
(95 minutes)
That had some famous remakes, didn’t it?
Indeed. I just checked on wikipedia that Police Python 357 and No Way Out were based on the original story by Kenneth Fearing. I have seen No Way Out, which is a very well made film. I will have to check the other one out as well.
Thank you for the info @emtiem
THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)
Heath Ledger’s repulsively watchable Joker is the main reason to watch The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan’s morally challenging sequel to Batman Begins, a film where nobody has control of their ethical compass and the heroes are as two-faced and villainous as poor Aaron Eckhart’s mentally and physically scarred District Attorney Harvey Dent, who carries a two-headed coin, a visual analogy which ultimately reveals there is no black and white in Gotham City. Certainly seems that way from the gloomy cinematography which only brightens when the action moves inside the cavernous make-do Batcave beneath Wayne Tower. I hate films that take place entirely in the dark; I can’t pick the landscapes and everything becomes oppressive and depressing. Hardly surprising then that while I was aware I had seen The Dark Knight on the big screen, I didn’t remember a single thing about it, other than Ledger’s supervillain blowing up a hospital with Nicholson-esque faux delight.
Ledger is far more entertaining, on a sickening level, than Christian Bale’s super-suited vigilante Batman, a man unfazed by anything life throws at him; as a multibillionaire, he can afford not to be. Unfortunately, his Batman’s idea of heroism is brutal interrogation techniques, omnipotent cyber surveillance and lusting after a woman he can’t have. She’s still Rachel Dawes but sadly is no longer Katie Holmes. Maggie Gyllenhall is no great looker [sorry, my opinion, take it or leave it] so she has to work hard to gain our sympathy and doesn’t. In fact, nobody in the film gets any sympathy from this sofa, such a deceitful and self-serving bunch they are. It isn’t until the very end that some semblance of man’s humanity toward his fellow man finally appears, and then it comes through the actions of the endangered passengers on a ferry boat doomed to destruction.
As with all superhero films, you have to appreciate the premise is silly, so anything goes, and the anything’s here are more palatable and organic than the huffing and puffing and sword fighting of Nolan’s first Batman epic. Nothing much makes any sense, of course, in particular how Joker’s assertion that he is an instinctive personality completely belies the fact he manipulates the whole iniquitous narrative from the start, rather like our friend Silva in Skyfall, a film whose writers must have taken note of the dark tone, cranky villains and ambivalent heroes on display here. The Dark Knight is a wordy enterprise that wants to be something it shouldn’t be, hence if you want action and action only, the film is only just about okay, if heavy handed, confused and long winded. Tension mounts appropriately, but there’s no real sense of fear as it is all too outlandish to be taken seriously.
If you have been reading my reviews a long time, you will know I don’t like the superhero subgenre of fantasy films very much and however many awards and ‘best-this-or-that’ The Dark Knight has, is and will be showered with, you’ll be hard pressed to get me to like it. I sense it’s quality, but I wasn’t exactly entertained, and I would have liked some light on the matter, darkness being a visual tonal trick then vaunted and now much imitated by every filmmaker who wants to inject brooding menace into their narrative. To be fair, it is more accomplished than Nolan’s previous effort
I guess I could sum this up in four words: ‘Better than Batman Begins.’
No Way Out! Yes, that's the one, I remember looking it up on wiki when I rewatched it last year or so and was surprised to see that it was a remake- thank you, I was wondering why I recognised Big Clock.
It's a good thriller, No Way Out: you can never go wrong with a bit of Hackman.
I remember it being so excessively long that my backside was hurting in the cinema. I was also mentally editing the film as I watching it: I'd have cut out that subplot about the Wayne employee figuring out who Batman is, which seemed to be there just to give Morgan Freeman something to do. I don't think I've watched it again since.
Did you phrase the Gyllenhall bit as you wanted? It reads like female characters are only sympathetic if they're attractive, which I wouldn't really agree with.
Yeah! I noticed that. Mind you, Bale is no oil painting. He's been quiet of late, hasn't he.
And it's spelt 'its' in that context.
I don't think I bothered with the third one after that, didn't it have Bane or something in it. I'm not sorry Nolan never did a Bond film.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Yeah it took me a very long while to see the third one, I only caught it for the first time a couple of years ago. To be fair, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, although I'm not sure I'd watch it again.
I did rewatch Batman Begins not that long ago, and I used to enjoy it back in the day, but I was a bit shocked just how dated it all felt; it actually feels like quite an old film now, the set pieces are all a bit pedestrian. I finished it really unimpressed. I also noticed Nolan's weird treatment of women: for some reason Bruce doesn't seem to be that bothered that his mother was killed- the film is only concerned with his dad. Feels really off.
And it's spelt 'its' in that context.
Do you mean the 'sense it's quality' sentence?
LAURA (1944)
A breezy film noire directed by Otto Preminger.
A well known marketing executive is shot dead.
Or so it seems.
The suspects...an old lover, a young lover, a jealous woman.
On the trail...an infatuated policeman.
Beautifully filmed and wonderfully acted, 'Laura' is a visual treat and a great film to watch on a rainy Saturday.
Recommended.
(88 minutes)
Laura is a very good movie - thank for reminding me of it @Sonero
Meanwhile back at Chateau Chris...
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012)
Long, ponderous epic superhero sequel from director Christopher Nolan. Low on action until a confused ending. Long on exposition. The hero, heroine and villain [Batman, Catwoman, Bane] all wear masks. The latter sounds like Patrick Stewart in his American Dad pose of CIA chief Avery Bullock. Everyone talks as if they escaped from The Bible. Preposterous and dull in the extreme.