Satan is simply the warden of a very large prison. Quiet man actually, thoughtful and he's well read.

Review

Drive Angry

(2011)

This wallows in B-movie sensibilities (and a 3D movie that frequently looks silly in 2D) but without the wit or smarts to make it really work. Lashings of gore, OTT stunts and ludicrous staging, but lacking enough plot to carry its running time.

That said, it deserves a look for the masterful William Fichtner, who revels in his role as Satan's emissary the Accountant. He's in it far too little, and makes up for Nic Cage going through the motions with his bag of hard guy tricks.

Billy Burke looks the part of a psycho Satanist but is strictly one note. As for Amber Heard, she won't be troubling the Oscars any time soon.

**1/2

Comments

We live in a twilight world.

Tenet (2020)
(SPOILERS) I’ve endured a fair few confusingly-executed action sequences in movies – more than enough, actually – but I don’t think I’ve previously had the odd experience of being on the edge of my seat during one while simultaneously failing to understand its objectives and how those objectives are being attempted. Which happened a few times during Tenet. If I stroll over to the Wiki page and read the plot synopsis, it is fairly explicable (fairly) but as a first dive into this Christopher Nolan film, I frequently found it, if not impenetrable, then most definitely opaque.

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Marriage Story (2019)
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Juno and the Paycock (1930)
(SPOILERS) Hitchcock’s second sound feature. Such was the lustre of this technological advance that a wordy play was picked. By Sean O’Casey, upon whom Hitchcock based the prophet of doom at the end of The Birds. Juno and the Paycock, set in 1922 during the Irish Civil War, begins as a broad comedy of domestic manners, but by the end has descended into full-blown Greek (or Catholic) tragedy. As such, it’s an uneven but still watchable affair, even if Hitch does nothing to disguise its stage origins.

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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
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My dear, sweet brother Numsie!

The Golden Child (1986)
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Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

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