Review #1,002: 'The Body Snatcher' (1945)

Producer Val Newton's output while working in the horror unit of RKO studios produced some of the finest American B-movies made between 1942 and 1946, delivering creepy tales that not only had the ability to frighten, but also explored the darkest regions of the human psyche, backed by gothic sets and brooding cinematography. Newton's work with Jacques Tourneur undoubtedly produced the studios best work, but even slighter films such as The Body Snatcher yearned to break out from its low-budget trappings. Reuniting horror icons Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi for the final time, The Body Snatcher is a work of surprising complexity and sly wit.

Edinburgh, 1831, and surgeon Dr. MacFarlane (Henry Daniell) finds his work hampered by a lack of cadavers to experiment on and to use to teach his students. He is visited by Mrs. Marsh (Rita Corday), who hopes that MacFarlane's skills can help cure her paraplegic daughter and allow her to walk again. He refuses, citing the surgery as too dangerous. His young student Donald Fettes (Russell Wade) urges him to do it, but learns that the bodies required for experimentation are in short supply and the fresh cadavers brought into the school do not always come from the morgue, but instead are bought for a small price from the shady John Gray (Karloff).

With the disturbing story of Burke and Hare lurking very much in the characters minds, The Body Snatcher focuses less on the grisly work of grave-robbing and murder, and more on the destructive relationship between MacFarlane and Gray, two old acquaintances who loathe each other but have become co-dependent. MacFarlane longs to be rid of the old brute, but Gray's sadistic hold over his respected colleague means that he won't give up that easily, and soon Gray's midnight antics digging up the dead turns to murder as the city catches wind of his heinous deeds. This may be Karloff's finest performance, adding a smirk and a wicked sense of humour to his evildoer, with Daniell more than holding his own as the conflicted doctor.

Directed by Robert Wise, whose career covered almost everything from low-budget horror (The Curse of the Cat People (1944)), to hugely successful musicals (West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965)), to sci-fi of varying quality (The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)), he employs RKO's terrific sets to their maximum potential, bringing 19th century Scotland to life in all its murky glory. Lugosi always appears as one of MacFarlane's assistants, but his billing on the poster is slightly misleading given his slender screen-time. Karloff states that Newton helped resurrect his career and move him away from Universal type-casting, and, although it is still within the same genre, The Body Snatcher allows him to shake off the make-up and allow his natural screen presence to shine through.


Directed by: Robert Wise
Starring: Boris Karloff, Henry Daniell, Russell Wade, Edith Atwater, Bela Lugosi
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,001: 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' (1939)

Undoubtedly one of the most beloved American films of all time, Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is one of the great directors most cynical portraits of the U.S., revealing an infestation of corruption all the way to the top of the Senate in the city where the Capitol Dome and the Lincoln Memorial sit uneasily as symbols of idealism. The film is also one of his most optimistic, and this blend of attitudes have led to many other Hollywood movies being labelled in his honour as 'Capraesque', one of the most misunderstood and overused labels in cinema.

'Capraesque' is commonly lumped upon movies with an overbearing sense of positivity, with the little man, or woman, ultimately overcoming overwhelming odds to triumph over whatever conglomerate or institution trying to stamp all over them. But what the labellers forget is the skill required to convincingly build up the struggle of the hero, making the climax all the more poignant and satisfying in the process. When Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), the small-town head of the Boy Rangers, is invited to join the U.S. Senate, he accepts the role with humility and a determination to prove himself worthy. What he doesn't know is that fellow senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains) intends for Smith to be a stooge while he and his boss Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold) go about their dodgy business.

Initially, his "aw, shucks!" persona is met with ridicule by the press, and is seen as a naive idiot by his secretary Clarissa Saunders (Jean Arthur). However, his patriotism soon endears him to Saunders, who witnesses his peers and superiors begin to tear him to shreds as he uncovers a scheme to buy up land. As Smith, Stewart is perfect, embodying the kind of American ideals that the country prides itself upon but rarely follows, stubbornly holding court while he fights for his reputation in a riveting climax. It's a Wonderful Life (1946) is commonly labelled as Capra's finest moment but, in my humble opinion, Mr. Smith is his crowning achievement, a movie of such substance and social insight that it more than transcends its now-routine formula and reaffirms a belief in good overcoming evil.


Directed by: Frank Capra
Starring: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Guy Kibbee
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,000: 'The Big Short' (2015)

With a career built around Will Ferrell vehicles such as Anchorman (2004), Step Brothers (2008) and The Other Guys (2010), writer/director Adam McKay has made an astonishing leap into the big-leagues with The Big Short, clearly a passion project that discusses the inner workings of the housing market and subprime loans and manages to make it entertaining, funny and infuriating all at the same time. It tells the story of the financial crisis that hit the U.S. and eventually the rest of the world in 2007, and the men who foresaw it and profited hugely from the disaster while nobody paid attention.

Adapted from Michael Lewis's novel of the same name, The Big Short tells three non-intertwining stories. One-eyed hedge-fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale) suffers from Asperger's, but what he lacks in social skills he makes up for in sheer ability to read numbers. He is the only person to take a look at the housing market in detail and sees its collapse as a certainty. Visiting several banks, he bets against the market while the staff laugh behind his back. Spray-tanned trader Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), who also serves as our fourth-wall-breaking narrator, catches wind of this and, realising that Burry's predictions are likely correct, decides to bring his credit-swap dealings to the attention of other potential investors.

One person who is convinced by Vennett's proposal is Mark Baum (Steve Carell), a hedge fund manager with anger issues and a hatred of The Man, who, along with his team, starts to investigate these distressing claims for himself and learns that the banks have been selling collateralised debt obligations - loans made up of worthless bonds given fraudulent AAA ratings. Small-time investors Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock) also want their piece of the action but are below the capital threshold to make a worthwhile profit and so employ Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt), a former Wall Street trader turned reclusive organic-obsessive, to assist them with their trades.

If it all sounds a touch confusing, it's because it is. The entire housing market was wrapped up in so many layers of bull-shit that it took a weird genius such as Burry to actually see it for what it was. McKay is aware of this too, and to ensure that attention doesn't wander during those important moments of exposition, he employs celebrities such as Margot Robbie, Anthony Bourdain and Selena Gomez to explain it to the audience in simple terms. The film doesn't think that the audience is stupid, but simply acknowledges just how dull the subject matter is. The fact that the banks ultimately escaped punishment and were bailed out by the government reinforces the importance of the general public's understanding of how they operated to ensure it doesn't happen again (although the sobering revelations at the climax reveal that they're at it again already).

The cast is uniformly flawless. Carell is the stand-out. with his Baum serves as the film's simmering champion of the little people. While he works in stocks, he holds nothing but disdain for the way his country operates. Bale is terrific too, careful not to paint Burry as a cartoon character as he slumps around his office in shorts and bare feet and pounds air-drums to heavy metal (Bale also has the uncanny ability to move each of his eyes independently, removing the need for a fake glass eye). While Gosling's Vennett is your typical grease-ball suit, he revels in the characters arrogance and projects enough charisma to even convince Baum to trust him. Despite the ensemble, the real hero is McKay who resists laying on the style too thickly and delivers a film bursting with energy, maturity and humour. Of the Academy's 2015 Best Picture line-up, The Big Short is my pick for film of the year.


Directed by: Adam McKay
Starring: Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Jeremy Strong, Rafe Spall, John Magaro, Finn Wittrock, Brad Pitt, Marisa Tomei
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #999: 'Kill Bill: Vol. 2' (2004)

While the decision to split Kill Bill, originally intended as a three-hour epic tale of revenge, into two separate movies was greeted by fans with accusations of greed. Whether this is true or whether the full version of Quentin Tarantino's homage to 70's exploitation was simply too much to consume in one sitting, it actually turns out to be a masterstroke. Volumes 1 and 2 incorporate two vastly different styles, both of which allow Tarantino to fully indulge his love for kung-fu movies and spaghetti westerns with ample time and care. These are two different movies, never forgetting that the character linking them together is Uma Thurman's determined The Bride.

Having dispatched O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) and Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) in the first film, we first meet The Bride as she drives to her final target - Bill (David Carradine). To even consider this a spoiler would be failing to grasp the movies Tarantino is tipping his hat to, and the director makes a point of this by constantly shifting around the time-line. It's not so much about if she'll achieve her goal, but just how cool it will be when she does. Bill remained off screen for the bulk of Volume 1, seen either stroking his samurai sword and talking menacingly off-camera, but we meet him in his full glory almost instantly in Volume 2, as we are shown an extended version of the events that left The Bride shot in the head and left for dead.

First though, she must face Budd (Michael Madsen) and the one-eyed Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah). Budd is a tough, hard-drinking redneck working as a bouncer when he's not clumsily making margaritas in his trailer, and he is given a generous amount of screen-time and isn't let down by Madsen's gravelly performance. Similar to Tarantino's early films Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994), Budd's story is given a patient build-up before the burst of inevitable violence, portraying him as a beaten man awaiting his death at the hands of the woman he knows is coming for him. Just when his fate seems sealed, Tarantino slaps us in the face and turns his protagonists fortunes on their head, allowing for some down-time as we flash-back to The Bride's training with the formidable Pai Mei (Gordon Liu).

Pai Mei's chapter is the entire saga's crowning achievement, full of ridiculous crash-zooms and beard stroking that manages to poke fun at the genre, while at the same time warmly embracing and even transcending it. This leads The Bride to her face-off with Elle, which is a scene of such ferocity, humour and sheer bad-assery that it more than makes up for the creeping pace. As Bill, Carradine is a revelation, with Tarantino once again pulling an iconic actor out of obscurity to riff on the type of role they became famous for in the first place to deliver the performance of their career. An early version of the script had The Bride and Bill duelling to a sunset backdrop, but the low-key scrap opted for instead seems more fitting. Towards the climax, it seems that Tarantino is struggling with how to end his epic tale of revenge, but some minor bumps don't derail what is undoubtedly the most Tarantino-y of his catalogue, and certainly his most all-out fun.


Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Gordon Liu, Michael Parks, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #998: 'Critters 4' (1992)

It seems that there is an unwritten rule when it comes to horror franchises that are teetering dangerously on the edge of bargain-bin hell. When the basic premise has been stretched so far that it is well past the line of self-parody, just transport the action to space. The Hellraiser franchise did it, the Friday the 13th films came to an embarrassing end with Jason X (2001), and even the Leprechaun series tried it, all to no avail. With the charm of the crites, or 'critters', all but disappearing by the time Critters 2 (1988) came around, it was never going to be long until the red-eyed killer pillows found themselves drifting through the cosmos.

We were given a brief glimpse at the next instalment at the end of Critters 3 (1991), which was shot back-to-back with number 4, as the recurring, hapless bounty hunter Charlie (Don Keith Opper) found himself face-to-face with the last remaining crite eggs but halted from exterminating them by his alien friend Ug (Terrence Mann). It is against intergalactic law to cause a species' extinction and so Charlie is ordered to place the eggs in a preservation capsule but manages to stumble into it himself, and they are blasted off into space where they float around for 50 years. Luckily, or unluckily, for Charlie, he is found by a junk ship who are ordered by the Intergalactic Council to take their prize load to a nearby station to await further instruction.

It is here that the crew of archetypes spend the bulk of the film bickering amongst themselves, and the film takes its sweet time for douchebag captain Rick (Anders Hove) to finally lose the plot and open their cargo, unleashing the crites on the unsuspecting bunch. Wasting an impressive cast that includes Angela Bassett, Brad Dourif and Twin Peaks' Eric DaRe, Critters 4 is just plain boring for the most part. With the crites themselves barely registering until the climax, the film stumbles around looking for interesting sub-plots to distinguish its characters but ultimately, like most movies of its ilk, ends up just ripping-off Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). A whimpering end to the Critters franchise that arguably should have ended two movies ago, although I'm sure a Hollywood remake is inevitable.


Directed by: Rupert Harvey
Starring: Don Keith Opper, Terrence Mann, Paul Whitthorne, Angela Bassett, Brad Dourif, Anders Hove, Eric DaRe
Country: USA

Rating: *

Tom Gillespie

Review #997: 'The Night Before' (2015)

The premise of Seth Rogen's latest man-child comedy The Night Before, along with the casting of three of mainstream cinemas most likeable actors, may seem like catnip to fans of Rogen's previous hits Knocked Up, Superbad (both 2007) and 50/50 (2011). Yet while his best films cleverly and carefully toe the line between dick-jokes and genuine sweetness, The Night Before contains plenty of the former but previous little of the latter. It also falls at the first comedy hurdle by simply not being very funny despite some chemistry between its leads.

Best friends Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Isaac (Rogen) and Chris (Anthony Mackie) have got together every Christmas Eve to follow a ritual and party hard, initially started as a way to help Ethan get over the death of his parents. Only now, with Isaac expecting his first child with wife Betsy (Jillian Bell) and Chris enjoying late superstardom in the NFL, they decide that this Christmas will be their last. While his friends seem to be happy and maturing, Ethan seems to sleep-walking through life, earning money from a degrading job and heartbroken following his recent split with long-term girlfriend Diana (Lizzy Caplan).

The most frustrating aspect of The Night Before are the frequent hints at the much better movie this could have been. The tender relationship between Chris and his mother, along with an expletive-laden selfie rant by a drug-addled Isaac freaking out at the imminent arrival of his child, prove only fleeting moments of sentiment and laugh-out-loud hilarity. Isaac and Chris both have potentially complex obstacles to overcome, but the movie deals with them routinely and thoughtlessly. And Ethan, admittedly played with an earnestness by Gordon-Levitt, makes for drippy company. Only the scenes between him and Diana provide any hint of spark to his character as the naturalistic back-and-forth between the pair make for a believable and likeable recently-broken-up-couple-who-still-love-each-other.

So without the charm of Knocked Up, the awkward brotherly bonding of Superbad or the heart of 50/50, The Night Before is reduced to little more than dirty jokes, drug-taking and celebrity cameos. The final destination for the trio is the illusive Nutcracker Ball, for which Ethan has snagged tickets. When they get there, its hard to see what the fuss is all about, and appearances from James Franco and Miley Cyrus - appearing as themselves and mocking their own tabloid personas - feel unnecessary and forced. An extended role for Michael Shannon, popping up every now and then as pot dealer Mr Green, is easily the best character in the film, but even his impact is reduced when director Jonathan Levine tries to over-explain him and introduce a fantastical element into the story. You can pull it completely apart, but the films main crime is that is simply isn't funny enough.


Directed by: Jonathan Levine
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anthony Mackie, Jillian Bell, Lizzy Caplan, Michael Shannon, Mindy Kaling
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #996: 'Kill Bill: Vol. 1' (2003)

Fans of Quentin Tarantino's unique brand of exploitation-cinema-worship were forced to wait six long years for his next movie after his underrated love-letter to blaxploitation, Jackie Brown (1997). The result was intended to be a 3 hour 'roaring rampage of revenge' but instead, thanks to the unenlightened head honchos at Miramax, Kill Bill became Kill Bill: Volume 1, a 110-minute half-movie that forced cinemagoers to pay again to see the following instalment four months later. Despite this money-making scheme that I'm sure Tarantino wanted no part of (he still refers to Kill Bill as one movie), Volume 1 is still quite brilliant.

Taking inspiration from the kung-fu and spaghetti western genre movies Tarantino no doubt indulged in during his time as a video store clerk (although Vol. 1 focuses mainly on the former), Kill Bill is, at times, a montage of shots, scenes and music from other movies from the 1970's. Yet Tarantino doesn't so much simply copy these films but play on our genre expectations while making it fun to test your own knowledge as a cinephile in the process. The tale is one of revenge, and a simple one at that. Tarantino has no qualms in staging Kill Bill as a one-by-one ticking-off of the bastards who wrongs our heroine, known simply as The Bride (Uma Thurman), who even carries a list of her targets and boldly strikes out their names as they fall.

A massacre at a wedding chapel instigated by Bill (David Carradine) and his Deadly Viper Assassination Squad sees everyone inside murdered apart from The Bride, who is shot in the head and put into a coma. Waking up four years later, she quickly sets about gaining her revenge on Bill and his four cronies - Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox), O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), Budd (Michael Madsen), and the one-eyed Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah). Travelling to Okinawa in Japan, she approaches legendary samurai sword-maker Hattori Hanzo (genre legend Sonny Chiba) and talks him out of her retirement to forge her weapon of death.

Told in chapter form, scenes are either extremely talky or outlandishly action-packed. The quieter moments bristle with Tarantino's now-iconic dialogue, while the extended climax, taking place in a two-floor restaurant that is quickly turned into a blood bath, displays the directors then-unseen eye for action. As The Bride takes on O-Ren's gang (dubbed the Crazy 88) and her Meteor hammer-wielding bodyguard Gogo (Chiaki Kuriyama) she hacks and slices her way through them all in a moment that evokes The Matrix Revolutions of the same year, only with real people and an eye for action cinema. Its all backed by another terrific Tarantino soundtrack that is routinely pillaged by TV shows too lazy to find their own music. The ending leaves you hanging without feeling ripped off, and eager to see the final three names crossed off the list.


Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Daryl Hannah, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Sonny Chiba, Julie Dreyfus, Chiaki Kuriyama
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #995: 'Beasts of No Nation' (2015)

Since its release consecutively in cinemas and on Netflix - who hold the distribution rights - Cary Joji Fukunaga's Beasts of No Nation has been caught up in controversy. Feeling the traditional 90-day exclusivity to cinemas was being breached with Netflix subscribers also able to stream online, many cinema chains boycotted the film and reduced its circulation to selected independent theatres. This non-traditional form of release could also be blamed for its omission from the Academy Awards, with Idris Elba's Best Actor snub the most glaring eyebrow-raiser in the #OscarSoWhite debate.

Of the film itself, Beasts of No Nation is an intermittently excellent portrayal of child soldiers in an unnamed African country that works best when focusing on innocence lost and the relationship between narrator Agu (Abraham Attah) and his Commandant (Elba), yet hampered by pacing issues and an exhausting running time. Fukunaga has proven himself to be a skilled director already with Sin Nombre (2009) and the first season of HBO's True Detective, with the latter's awkward second season certainly feeling his absence, but while Beasts can be commended for ambition, he is perhaps not ready to join the big boys just yet.

One of the movies biggest strong points is the cinematography, done by Fukunaga himself. With a bleached colour palette that evokes old war photography, Fukunaga finds a way to keep the film grounded in reality while delivering delirious set-pieces. In one particularly memorable sequence, Agu and his comrades, all hallucinating from drugs, raid a village as the visuals turn a trippy purple, heightening the insanity and horror of the senseless brutality on show. Elba really is terrific too, careful to keep his monstrous character toned-down and believable. He is fair and unforgiving, tender and brutal, and his boys worship him. Attah as Agu is equally impressive, and the moments in which the Commandant's veil begins to break is when the film is at its most dramatically powerful.

The main question I had with the movie is why make this movie now? For the most part, Beasts is a series of war atrocities in which only Agu, the Commandant and Agu's mute friend Strika (Emmanuel Nii Adom Quaye) are distinguishable in the crowd, so if the point is that various countries within Africa are routinely devastated by revolutions and government overhauls driven by personal greed or ambition, then I would point you in the direction of Johnny Mad Dog (2008), Jean Stephane Sauvaire's powerful piece tackling the exact same themes. The funny beginning and the gut-churning middle is where the film is most effective, but Beasts drags in its final third, struggling to round up Agu's story in a digestible running-time.


Directed by: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Starring: Abraham Attah, Idris Elba, Kurt Egyiawan, Emmanuel Nii Adom Quaye
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #994: 'Track of the Vampire' (1966)

Like many Roger Corman productions, the creation of Track of the Vampire, or Blood Bath, has a hell of a story behind it. Starting out life as an Americanised Yugoslavian espionage thriller called Operation: Titian starring William Campbell and Patrick Magee and with a script overlooked by Francis Ford Coppola, the film was quickly re-edited into Portrait in Terror. Corman was unhappy with both versions and hired Jack Hill to salvage the film. Hill shot extra footage and renamed it Blood Bath, turning it into a horror movie. Corman still deemed it unworthy of release and hired Stephanie Rothman to again film extra footage.

The final products were a vampire movie based around a deranged artist retaining the title Blood Bath, which ran at just over an hour in length, and a longer feature-length version under the title Track of the Vampire. The resulting experience is confusing and clunkily-edited, yet bolstered by a goofy sense of humour during the scenes Jack Hill shot of a group of idiotic beatniks (including Sid Haig). Campbell plays Antonio Sordi, a painter of gory grotesques that sell at a high price who also happens to be a vampire capable of stalking people during the day. He is in love with Dorean (Lori Saunders), a ballerina who is a dead ringer for Sordi's former mistress, a witch named Melizza who denounced him centuries ago.

Occasionally Track of the Vampire possesses that Ed Wood-esque charm of being so badly done you cannot help but laugh. Rothman added an eight-minute dance sequence on the beach in order to add bulk to the running time, and since Campbell refused to return for re-shoots, Sordi's vampire form is played by a different actor. Yet it's also occasionally terrific, namely whenever Hill is in charge. A haunted shot of the lovelorn Sordi standing on a deserted beach is just about as impressive as anything I've seen in low-budget cinema, and the aforementioned scenes involving the beatniks antics as they try to come up with a new style of art are witty and well-performed. This clash of qualities make for a strange 90 minutes, but it somehow works.


Directed by: Jack Hill, Stephanie Rothman
Starring: William Campbell, Lori Saunders, Marissa Mathes, Karl Schanzer, Sid Haig
Country: USA/Yugoslavia

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #993: 'Creed' (2015)

Following the better-than-expected intended closure to the Rocky franchise, Rocky Balboa (2006). series star, writer and occasional director Sylvester Stallone was talked into moving the story forward. Stallone clearly has a lot of love for his characters - his revisiting of John Rambo in 2008 and his homage to the genre that made him a star, The Expendables, clearly confirm this - so whether it was this or the energy and potential of Fruitvale Station (2013) director Ryan Coogler that persuaded him to don the trilby and rubber ball once again is a mystery. Thankfully he did though, as Stallone gives a career best performance as the ageing, sickly icon, despite being relegated to a supporting character.

Creed instead focuses on, as the title obviously suggests, the son of former world champion and Rocky Balboa's arch-nemesis-turned-best-friend Apollo Creed. Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) was illegitimate; the product of Apollo's wandering eye, and when we first meet him he's causing a ruckus at an orphanage. Boxing is in his blood, and he's taken in by Apollo's sympathetic widow, who doesn't want to see Adonis suffer the same fate as her ex-husband. Unsatisfied with taking trips to Mexico to fight illegal bouts when he's not working his dull day job, Adonis decides to relocate to Philadelphia, where he plans to convince the one man who rose from nothing to become world champion to train him, Rocky Balboa.

Rocky is naturally apprehensive at first, but Adonis' determination and charm eventually convince him, but you get the sense that he secretly longs to be back in the action once again. Rocky essentially takes over Mickey's role, played by Burgess Meredith in previous instalments, as he tries to mould Adonis into a worthy successor to his father. The overbearing similarities to the first Rocky film from 1979 is Creed's major negative - it is essentially the same film only with dirt bikes and better camerawork - but Coogler stamps his own style onto the film too, putting his own spin on familiar scenes. It also treads dangerously close to cliche, as Adonis is offered a title fight after one professional match and courts the lovely R & B singer in the apartment below (Tessa Thompson).

Yet Creed is sufficiently stirring enough to mute the flaws, with the boxing scenes captured with style and electricity (one long-take is particularly impressive), and enough genuine emotion on show to engage you with the characters. The relationship between Rocky and the brash Adonis is extremely well-written, with Stallone performing with a subtlety seen in his best work (the original Rocky and Cop Land (1997)), and he was truly robbed of an Oscar here. Only the stoniest of hearts could fail to be moved by the scenes of Rocky at his most physically and emotionally vulnerable, even if you didn't grow up with the original films. While its far from perfect, Creed is a worthy addition to the Rocky universe, with Coogler again demonstrating why he's a director to watch and Jordan proving that even Fantastic Four will not damage his rise to stardom.


Directed by: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #992: 'How the West Was Won' (1962)

Very much like IMAX's grandiose stand against the emergence of internet streaming, Blu-Ray and the 'Golden Age of Television', the 1950's saw studios battling against the arrival of a television in every home, and used the likes of 3D and 'Spook Show Spectaculars' to draw the public in. Another short-lived fad was Cinerama, a process of shooting with three synchronised cameras and creating an ultra widescreen effect in the process. It was a headache for film-makers, notably John Ford, and special cinemas had to be built to house the format that required three projectors and a deeply curved screen.

Also like IMAX, Cinerama was intended mainly for documentaries, but its immediate success meant that it wouldn't be too long before studios started to turn to features. The first was The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm in 1962, and How the West Was Won came later the same year. The latter is the most ambitious, telling a story stretching 50 years across three generations and boasting a cast of '24 great stars' (as the poster informs us), taking us through the major events of America's expansion further west and employing four first-rate directors - John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall and the uncredited Richard Thorpe - to bring it to life.

Whilst the ambition can only be admired, How the West Was Won is a mixed bag. In part a rough-and-tumble, old-fashioned western that offers differing perspectives of America's venture out west, as Henry Fonda's grizzled buffalo hunter Jethro Stuart laments the bloody consequences of the railroad's arrival under the command of Richard Widmark's ruthless and treaty-dismissing overseer, the film also cannot resist the lure of grand song-and-dance numbers, with Debbie Reynolds husky voice and knee-slapping becoming tiresome very quickly. It also keeps the audience at a huge distance, both emotionally and literally. With so much picture being captured, actors are routinely squeezed into the centre of the frame with their facial expressions too far away to see.

Broken up into 5 segments - The Rivers, The Plains, The Civil War, The Railroad and The Outlaws - we follow the Prescott family, led at first by Zebulon (Karl Malden), as they head for the frontier and encounter mountain man Linus Rawlings (a woefully miscast James Stewart). Rawlings falls for eldest daughter Eve (Carroll Baker), and the family spread out from there. Hathaway directs three of the five, with the best being the Outlaws section, which pits George Peppard's Zeb Rawlings. a marshal, against bandit Charlie Gant (Eli Wallach), and delivers a set-piece on top of moving train which is as technically impressive as anything made today (a stunt-man almost died during the filming).

Ford's Civil War segment is the slightest but offers an interesting insight into the war. In one fantastic scene, General Ulysses S. Grant (Harry Morgan) drunkly ponders his effectiveness to General William Sherman (John Wayne) as the young Zeb Rawlings listens, demonstrating Ford's lack of fear in showing a brittler side to a man considered an unshakeable American hero. But Ford and the film in general never really commits to the themes it hints at, and this is ultimately what makes How the West Was Won such a frustrating experience. As the camera sails across modern America before the closing credits, I felt slightly appalled at what had been done to this once-beautiful country but couldn't really figure out if this was how the film intended I feel. As a visual experience, it is truly like no other, but it remains oddly hollow emotionally and thematically.


Directed by: John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall
Starring: Carroll Baker, Debbie Reynolds, George Peppard, James Stewart, Gregory Peck, Carolyn Jones, Karl Malden, Henry Fonda, Robert Preston, Lee J. Cobb
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #991: 'The Hangover Part III' (2013)

Some film-makers form a trilogy to tell a tale, finding it a unique way to fashion a story and give the beginning, middle and end enough time and breathing space to flesh out on their own, forming stand-alone pieces that work just as well on their own in the process. Others, like The Hangover helmer Todd Phillips, use it to squeeze every drop of money out of a proven formula and fool an audience into thinking that, given the success of a previous instalment, they're in for a guaranteed good time. Only The Hangover Part II was terrible, and Part III is even worse, to the point where the franchise is barely recognisable from the hilarious and charming surprise it was back in 2009.

Ditching the formula that saw our three bumbling heroes wake up from a particularly heavy night in a variety of terrible states to find that one of their part is missing and no memory of what went down, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) are instead roped into a plot involving an escaped-from-prison Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) and the gangster looking for him, Marshall (John Goodman). But also ditched is any sense of humour or even any actual jokes, and in its place comes cruelty and distastefulness. Opening with Alan towing a giraffe home on the back of a trailer, events take an expected unfunny turn as the animal is decapitated and Alan is convinced that he needs help. It's on their way to rehab that they find themselves confronted by Marshall and Black Doug (Mike Epps), the latter returning from the first film.

Conveniently brushing Doug (Justin Bartha) out of the way again as Marshall holds him captive so the threesome can try and generate some laughs, The Hangover Part III becomes a pedestrian bore; a series of set-pieces that quickly run out of steam. In an attempt to make up for the clear lack of inspiration, Chow's role has been beefed up even more, but Jeong's hyperactive and excruciatingly annoying shtick gets old very quickly. A scene near the end sees Chow parachuting through Las Vegas screaming obscenities, and I was left scratching my head at just how the sleeper-hit of 2009 ended up at this point. When there's a rare chuckle to be had, it comes from Galifianakis and franchise-newcomer Melissa McCarthy, who at least manage to lend a little heart to what is quite frankly an unpleasant 100 minutes.


Directed by: Todd Phillips
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, John Goodman, Melissa McCarthy
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #990: 'Bone Tomahawk' (2015)

Although a few recent attempts to re-energise the genre for a modern audience have failed both critically and commercially (Wild Wild West (1999) and The Lone Ranger (2013) come immediately to mind), film-makers still find themselves irresistibly drawn to the western genre, which is so steeped in Hollywood history yet ripe for re-visioning. This year alone has seen Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's The Revenant tell a tale of America's rough fur-trapping forefathers, John Maclean spin a violent love story involving a cigar-chomping outlaw in Slow West, and Tarantino lock eight genre archetypes together in a room for The Hateful Eight.

The most original, engaging and surely destined for cult success is Bone Tomahawk, a western told with a tip of the hat to the John Ford and Howard Hawks classics of the 1950's and 60's, yet with a heavy dose of horror inspired by the grimy inbred/cannibal films of the 70's brought to terrifying life by Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven. It doesn't sound like a harmonious mix, but it certainly is (as long as you have the stomach for it). Opening with a particularly gruesome throat-slicing, author and first-time director S. Craig Zahler makes his love for the grotesque clear from the outset, but then settles down to set in motion a classical men-on-a-mission yarn, only with the knowledge that cave-dwelling monstrosities are the destination.

After butchering and robbing a group of travellers, low-lives Buddy (Sig Haig) and Purvis (David Arquette) stumble upon some kind of sacred burial ground. The tribe responsible make their displeasure at the thieves' arrival immediately known, and only Purvis escapes with his life. Arriving in the town of Bright Hope, Purvis is quickly rumbled as a thief and shot in the leg by sheriff Hunt (Kurt Russell) who, assisted by his back-up deputy Chicory (Richard Jenkins) and the town doctor Samantha (Lili Simmons), imprison him for the night. However, the next morning Purvis, Samantha and Deputy Nick (Evan Jonigkeit) have vanished, with a local stable boy disembowelled and some horses stolen.

In The Seachers (1956) fashion, Hunt and Chicory set out to confront the cave-dwellers (dubbed 'troglodytes') along with Samantha's cowboy husband Arthur (Patrick Wilson), heavily injured with a broken leg, and the bigoted yet brutally efficient gunslinger Brooder (Matthew Fox). At 132 minutes, Bone Tomahawk is mainly about the journey which will take days even if things go to plan, never mind the threat of bandits and whatever the creatures are awaiting them. Zahler's witty script and some great casting choices ensure that their odyssey is never slow. Russell is Russell but he is still great, while Wilson has by now perfected wounded masculinity. However, it's Jenkins and Fox who stand out. Jenkins is a great actor so it is to be expected, but Seth Rogen's sly dig at Fox in Knocked Up (2007) always rang true with me. Here, he carefully treads the line between despicable and cool, making us hate him yet still root for him. Despite being the most disposable of the leads, he is the most interesting character of the group.

After much character-building and obstacles to overcome, the film doesn't hold back when we finally arrive at the end. Without venturing into torture-porn territory, Zahler delivers a series of brutal scenes and delights in exploring new ways to make you wince in horror. At one point, I feared that one male character was about to be raped, but then something even worse and unexpected happens, which is made all the more effective by the absence of CGI. It's enough to delight fans of both genres, and the blend of old-fashioned derring-do and no-nonsense horror makes for the kind of experience genre fans long for. While it may be slightly self-indulgent given the heavy running time, this is only slight criticism of a film that feels like it ends at just the right moment. Injecting new life into both genres, it will be interesting to see where Zahler goes from here.


Directed by: S. Craig Zahler
Staring: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Richard Jenkins, Matthew Fox, Lili Simmons, David Arquette
Country: USA/UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #989: 'The Firm' (1989)

Long before Nick Love was helping stockpile DVD bargain bins with those terrible football hooligan movies (including a remake of this film), Alan Clarke - the highly underrated director responsible for such landmark British TV dramas Scum (1979) and Made in Britain (1982) - released The Firm, causing a moral public outcry that was the fashion of Thatcher-era Britain in the process. On the surface, it seems to glamorise these yobs and their violent tendencies, but viewing it in hindsight, it's actually about a Britain suddenly awash with money during the 'Lawson Boom', with the thugs caught up in it having grown bored and seeking out that extra buzz they receive from brutality.

Although they are essentially 'football' hooligans, Clarke makes a point of showing little of the game itself. Apart from the glimpse of Arsenal's old Highbury stadium and a Sunday-league kick-about at the start, the beautiful game is little more than an excuse for these idiots to go to town on each other. ICC ringleader Bex (Gary Oldman) hopes to unite rival firms in order to take on the Europeans in the upcoming Europeans Championships, but his opposite numbers, including the particularly loathsome Yeti (Philip Davis) of the Buccaneers, inform him that his firm must rumble with theirs first if he wants to be top dog. This however is only a loose plot that binds together what is ultimately a slice-of-life approach.

While the media portrayed these men as disaffected youth, a lot of them were in fact middle-class, able to afford fancy cars and suburban housing. Bex is happily married with a young son, making a comfortable living as an estate agent. When his son picks up his father's Stanley knife and starts to chew it, Bex's domestic life is thrown into disarray. It's in these quieter moments that the film is at its most disturbing, and in truth, there is less violence on show than the controversy drummed up on its release would have you believe. And when it does come - a young ICC member gets a particularly nasty face slashing - its all the more powerful. The open-ended final scene holds back from making any overt social or political statements but instead lingers with an observant fascination at these lager-swilling arseholes. Like with Scum and Made in Britain, The Firm defines the mentality of Britain at the time, and features what is undoubtedly Oldman's finest performance.


Directed by: Alan Clarke
Starring: Gary Oldman, Lesley Manville, Philip Davis, Charles Lawson
Country: UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #988: 'Entranced Earth' (1967)

Following his fascinating portrayal of outlaw Antonio das Mortes and the dying days of banditry, Black God, White Devil (1964), Brazilian director Glauber Rocha - only 28 at the time - made the dazzling, deliberately contradictory and admittedly plodding Entranced Earth, a kaleidoscopic satire of politics in Latin America and the mad dictators who seemed to delight their people only to oppress them once elected. Filmed with the free-styling vigour of the French New Wave, Entranced Earth is often exhausting but consistently breathtaking.

Told through the eyes of poet and journalist Paulo Martins (Jardel Filho), we first encounter him pleading angrily with governor Felipe Vieira (Jose Lewgoy) to fight back in the midst of a social uprising against his administration. We flash back to learn that they were once friends, with Paulo offering his support during the election process, only to see the the promises Vieira campaigned on go out the window as the people go hungry. Vieira's political opponent, conservative Porfirio Diaz (Paulo Autran), was also once Paulo's friend, and has spent his life in luxury away from public view until a chance to rule turns him into a raving, yet highly charismatic, lunatic.

Entranced Earth is quite a confusing film. It strides along shifting back-and-forth in time and between various characters, and the kinetic, in-your-face camerawork makes it difficult at times to decipher just what the hell is going on. As a time capsule and a piece of experimental film-making, it is fascinating and deserves to have each of its frames pulled apart and analysed. It's a leftist view that is without any overt political statements, and instead seems to set out to capture the political counter-culture of the 1960's (or the demise of it). By setting it in the fictional country of Eldorado, Glauber avoids commenting on any country in particular, but is clearly making a statement about Latin America. It may leave you confused and worn-out by the end, but it's political cinema with both an edge and a sense of humour, and takes its technical influences from the greats of world cinema.


Directed by: Glauber Rocha
Starring: Jardel Filho, Paulo Autran, José Lewgoy, Glauce Rocha
Country: Brazil

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie