In fact, they are the oldest paintings ever discovered. More than twice as old as any other.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

(2010)

Werner Herzog has, of late, lost all his funding. Hence his reinvention as a documentary film maker. Actually, that’s not really true. He’s always mixed fiction and documentaries, but the latter seems to have become predominant over the last two decades (his last feature, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is splendidly lunatic, and well worth seeing). Cave might not be among his best work, but the subject matter is fascinating enough to hold the attention through a sometimes rambling and over-extended running time.

Herzog is a welcoming narrator, and his disposition to frame his appreciation of a subject in artistic terms is an attractive one. It doesn’t always pay off but, when the material is the oldest known example of art, the reasoning seems perfectly logical. Certainly much more pertinent than a starchy examination of the science of preservation (although this is touched upon).

The Chauvet caves in Southern France were discovered in 1994, having been preserved across the millennia after their entrance was sealed by a rock fall. Public access was promptly prevented by the imposition of a steel door at the new opening, in order to preserve the delicate environment within. As Herzog relates, the paintings are the oldest ever discovered, “more than twice as old as any other”. There were even initial doubts as to their authenticity, because they looked as fresh as if they had recently been painted (abundant stalagmites formed following the first sealing of the caves).

The creatures depicted on the walls include horses, rhinos, bison and lions. And a bear apparently possibly having sex with a woman (dirty bears!) Werner gets quite excited about this, and promptly drops in a Baywatch reference (although made for the History Channel, this isn’t your usual po-faced anthropology and at times it maybe should have been a bit more disciplined). Fascinating information is littered throughout, including the revelation that a span of 5,000 years occurs between some of the paintings and that the cave was not lived in buy humans but used ceremonially.

Herzog is at his best as he warms to a theme on how shadows cast on cave walls were akin to a Stone Age version of cinema. He also embraces the spiritual implications of the site, seizing on how some of the assembled group felt compelled to leave after a few hours there because they felt that there were “eyes upon us”. He identifies the failings of a purely scientific examination of the caves, and is particularly attached to the open-mindedness of a scientist and former circus performer who readily admits that a 21^st century take is limited by a lack of understanding of how people then interacted with their world. This includes ideas of fluidity and spirit (“I am not painting, the hand is painting”) and appreciation of time (“We’re locked in history and they are not”).

He’s on less solid ground when he gets distracted by a scientist/amateur musician keen on playing primitive pipes and a perfumer who attempts to sniff out caves; this just seems like filler. And while the news that a replica theme park is planned in the region seems like an inevitable capitalisation of this discovery, Herzog’s attempt to draw a parallel between mutant albino crocodiles living in a nearby hothouse (heated by water from a nuclear power station on the doorstep of the caves) with humans (at least, that’s what I think he was doing) comes across as muddled. It also detracts from the documentary as a whole; he really should have left us thinking about the paintings rather than little Mr. Snappy.

***

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She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

Prepare the Heathen’s Stand! By order of purification!

Apostle (2018)
(SPOILERS) Another week, another undercooked Netflix flick from an undeniably talented director. What’s up with their quality control? Do they have any? Are they so set on attracting an embarrassment of creatives, they give them carte blanche, to hell with whether the results are any good or not? Apostle's an ungainly folk-horror mashup of The Wicker Man (most obviously, but without the remotest trace of that screenplay's finesse) and any cult-centric Brit horror movie you’d care to think of (including Ben Wheatley's, himself an exponent of similar influences-on-sleeve filmmaking with Kill List), taking in tropes from Hammer, torture porn, and pagan lore but revealing nothing much that's different or original beyond them.

You can’t just outsource your entire life.

Tully (2018)
(SPOILERS) A major twist is revealed in the last fifteen minutes of Tully, one I'll happily admit not to have seen coming, but it says something about the movie that it failed to affect my misgivings over the picture up to that point either way. About the worst thing you can say about a twist is that it leaves you shrugging.

There's something wrong with the sky.

Hold the Dark (2018)
(SPOILERS) Hold the Dark, an adaptation of William Giraldi's 2014 novel, is big on atmosphere, as you'd expect from director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin, Green Room) and actor-now-director (I Don’t Want to Live in This World Anymore) pal Macon Blair (furnishing the screenplay and appearing in one scene), but contrastingly low on satisfying resolutions. Being wilfully oblique can be a winner if you’re entirely sure what you're trying to achieve, but the effect here is rather that it’s "for the sake of it" than purposeful.

Well, you did take advantage of a drunken sailor.

Tomb Raider (2018)
(SPOILERS) There's evidently an appetite out there for a decent Tomb Raider movie, given that the lousy 2001 incarnation was successful enough to spawn a (lousy) sequel, and that this lousier reboot, scarcely conceivably, may have attracted enough bums on seats to do likewise. If we're going to distinguish between order of demerits, we could characterise the Angelina Jolie movies as both pretty bad; Tomb Raider, in contrast, is unforgivably tedious.

If you want to have a staring contest with me, you will lose.

Phantom Thread (2017)
(SPOILERS) Perhaps surprisingly not the lowest grossing of last year's Best Picture Oscar nominees (that was Call Me by Your Name) but certainly the one with the least buzz as a genuine contender, subjected as Phantom Thread was to a range of views from masterpiece (the critics) to drudge (a fair selection of general viewers). The mixed reaction wasn’t so very far from Paul Thomas Anderson's earlier The Master, and one suspects the nomination was more to do with the golden glow of Daniel Day-Lewis in his first role in half a decade (and last ever, if he's to be believed) than mass Academy rapture with the picture. Which is ironic, as the relatively unknown Vicky Krieps steals the film from under him.

No one understands the lonely perfection of my dreams.

Ridley Scott Ridders Ranked
During the '80s, I anticipated few filmmakers' movies more than Ridley Scott's; those of his fellow xenomorph wrangler James Cameron, perhaps. In both cases, that eagerness for something equalling their early efforts receded as they studiously managed to avoid the heights they had once reached. Cameron's output dropped off a cliff after he won an Oscar. Contrastingly, Scott's surged like never before when his film took home gold. Which at least meant he occasionally delivered something interesting, but sadly, it was mostly quantity over quality. Here are the movies Scott has directed in his career thus far - and with his rate of productivity, another 25 by the time he's 100 may well be feasible – ranked from worst to best.

This is it. This is the moment of my death.

Fearless (1993)
Hollywood tends to make a hash of any exploration of existential or spiritual themes. The urge towards the simplistic, the treacly or the mawkishly uplifting, without appropriate filtering or insight, usually overpowers even the best intentions. Rarely, a movie comes along that makes good on its potential and then, more than likely, it gets completely ignored. Such a fate befell Fearless, Peter Weir’s plane crash survivor-angst film, despite roundly positive critical notices. For some reason audiences were willing to see a rubgy team turn cannibal in Alive, but this was a turn-off? Yet invariably anyone who has seen Fearless speaks of it in glowing terms, and rightly so.

Weir’s pictures are often thematically rich, more anchored by narrative than those of, say, Terrence Malick but similarly preoccupied with big ideas and their expression. He has a rare grasp of poetry, symbolism and the mythic. Weir also displays an acute grasp of the subjective mind-set, and possesses …

Outstanding. Now, let’s bite off all the heads and pile them up in the corner.

Venom (2018)
(SPOILERS) A 29% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes can't be wrong, can it? To go by the number of one-star reviews Sony’s attempt to kick-start their own shred of the Marvel-verse has received, you’d think it was the new Battlefield Earth, or Highlander II: The Quickening. Fortunately, it's far from that level of ignominy. And while it’s also a considerable distance from showing the polish and assuredness of the official Disney movies, it nevertheless manages to establish its own crudely winning sense of identity.

The whole thing should just be your fucking nose!

A Star is Born (2018)
(SPOILERS) A shoe-in for Best Picture Oscar? Perhaps not, since it will have to beat at very least Roma and First Man to claim the prize, but this latest version of A Star is Born still comes laden with more acclaim than the previous three versions put together (and that's with a Best Picture nod for the 1937 original). While the film doesn't quite reach the consistent heights suggested by the majority of critics, who have evacuated their adjectival bowels lavishing it with superlatives, it's undoubtedly a remarkably well-made, stunningly acted piece, and perhaps even more notably, only rarely feels like its succumbing to just how familiar this tale of rise to, and parallel fall from, stardom has become.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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