You didn't prepare me for this.

Hanna

(2011)

I thought Joe Wright's Atonement was half of a decent film (the first half) and The Soloist was star-powered with little else to recommend it. This, however, suggests he's not all about assembling casts and cynically chasing prestige projects.

For a start, he shows he has far better chops as an action director that many who have made it their profession. He shoots his scenes clearly and comprehensibly so that, for all the Bourne-ness of the film's premise (CIA tracks down kid/dad super agents who have a murky history that the agency doesn't want revealed), it bears little resemblance to shakycam thrills. The plot may be so-so, and hyper-violent minors suddenly seem like an overburdened sub-genre (see also Kick-Ass), but Wright infuses it with a clear Grimm's fairy tale signature (maybe he saw the underrated Paul Walker thriller Running Scared, which overlayed a similar vibe on an ultra-violent urban thriller) and an ability to render note perfect performances from his cast.

Saoirse Ronan is compelling in the lead role, completely unfamiliar with the populated world and social niceties. Either side of her are Eric Bana as the father figure (his best performance in a good while) and Cate Blanchett as the wicked witch (dependable, but nothing she hasn't done before). A word too for Tom Hollander's grotesque track-suited blonde henchman (whistling one of The Chemical Brothers' compositions) and the over-pronounced but resonant surrogate family that Hanna meets on her travels (Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng and Jessica Barden); Wright's composition of a scene of open separate shipping crates is as off-kilter and surreal as Hanna's visit to Grimm's theme park.

****

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She was addicted to Tums for a while.

Marriage Story (2019)
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Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
I’ve seen comments suggesting that John Sturges’ thriller hasn’t aged well, which I find rather mystifying. Sure, some of the characterisations border on the cardboard, but the director imbues the story with a taut, economical backbone.

Poor Easy Breezy.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
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Batman (1989)
(SPOILERS) There’s Jaws, there’s Star Wars, and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy, to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “mainly boring”.

Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the system when Burton did it (even…

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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
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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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The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)
Easily the best of the Narnia films, which is maybe damning it with faint praise.

Michael Apted does a competent job directing (certainly compared to his Bond film - maybe he talked to his second unit this time), Dante Spinotti's cinematography is stunning and the CGI mostly well-integrated with the action.

Performance-wise, Will Poulter is a stand-out as a tremendously obnoxious little toff, so charismatic you're almost rooting for him. Simon Pegg replaces Eddie Izzard as the voice of Reepicheep and delivers a touching performance.
***

Once that first bullet goes past your head, politics and all that shit just goes right out the window.

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(SPOILERS) Black Hawk Down completed a trilogy of hits for Ridley Scott, a run of consistency he’d not seen even a glimmer of hitherto. He was now a brazenly commercial filmmaker, one who could boast big box office under his belt where previously such overt forays had seen mixed results (Black Rain, G.I. Jane). It also saw him strip away the last vestiges of artistic leanings from his persona, leaving behind, it seemed, only technical virtuosity. Scott was now given to the increasingly thick-headed soundbite (“every war movie is an anti-war movie”) in justification for whatever his latest carry-on carried in terms of controversial elements, and more than happy to bed down with the Pentagon (long-standing collaborators with producer Jerry Bruckheimer) to make a movie that, while depictinga less than auspicious intervention by the US military (“Based on an Actual Event” is a marvellous catch-all for wanton fabrication), managed to turn it into a parade of heroes pe…

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(SPOILERS) Hitchcock’s first credit as director, and his account of the production difficulties, as related to Francois Truffaut, is by and large more pleasurable than The Pleasure Garden itself. The Italian location shoot in involved the confiscation of undeclared film stock, having to recast a key role and borrowing money from the star when Hitch ran out of the stuff.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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