Nobody understands the Cloud.

Sex Tape

(2014)

(SPOILERS) As Michael Mann recently discovered with Blackhat, tapping into the zeitgeist is no guarantee of success. Even if Sex Tape had been released in conjunction with Jennifer Lawrence’s Cloud-snatched nudie pics, it’s highly unlikely it would have mustered any more interest than it received last summer. It doesn’t help that the movie is crummy, of course. Yet that hasn’t prevented any countless of clueless comedies from reigning supreme at the US box office (Neighbors, for example). It also didn’t stop the picture doing reasonable business internationally.

One might hope even great unwashed viewers know desperation when they smell it. An in-your-face title like Sex Tape is begging to be shunned. Perhaps the lure of seeing Cameron Diaz’s arse held sway. It might not be as momentous as it was in its prime, but Diaz is holding up well. She has retained a quality of Goldie Hawn goofiness into her fifth decade, just as Hawn did. She’s very nearly the only saving grace of this tiresome affair.

Very nearly, because, for a brief section, this tale of a couple who make the titular “tape” on an iPad in a bid to rekindle their dwindling marital mojo threatens to actually be, you know, funny. It’s probably not coincidental that this passage of the picture has precious little to do with said home movie, other than it where a potential viewer of their indiscreet escapade lives. They visit the home of Diaz’ prospective boss (hubby Jason Segel’s a radio DJ, she’s a professional blogger; tat’s the only-in-Hollywood level of the movie), who is played by none other than Rob Lowe. He of the infamous ‘80s sex tape the vast majority of viewers will either know nothing of or have long since forgotten (so not a great in-joke, then).

Lowe’s been honing his comic chops of late, particularly with his insanely OTT turn in Californication. He’s good here too, but the main chuckles come from Diaz doing coke (Lowe: Where is your husband, Diaz: I don’t know. Where is that fucker?) and hubby Jason Segel fending off a German Shepherd through extreme violence. Yes, it’s the comedy of excess so beloved of Segel patron Judd Apatow, but for a few minutes the picture musters some smiles.

Jake Kasdan, son of Lawrence, is trying to replicate the success of his earlier Diaz hit Bad Teacher. But that movie’s title spoke to its content in a good way. There was much potential there. Here, it’s a case of “So they make the video. What happens next?” 90-minute comedies should be embraced for cutting the fat, but only if they’re half decent. Kasdan’s writers (Kate Angelo of The Back-Up Plan, Segel and Stoller, who, with Gulliver’s Travels and Muppets Most Wanted are going all out for supreme stinkers lately) have no idea what they’re doing or where they’re going with the plot, which is why the interlude with the coke and the dog occurs.

Then they have Rob Corddry’s kid (Corddry seems to be in everything at the moment; I’m not quite sure why) blackmail Segel, having run out of steam with the “hunt the iPads” thread. It isn’t remotely convincing, as developments go, And then they are manoeuvred into visiting Jack Black’s pornlord. Who offers them sincere marital advice. It’s that bad.

The weirdest thing is, this is a Sony movie that’s one long advert for Apple. From its amazinfg camera quality to its durability (“Man, the construction of these things is just unbelievable”), this is clearly a device no one can do without, even a rival electronics company.

The only well-observed moment in the movie comes very early, when Segel’s daughter asks why they keep having all these days, then going to bed at night, then repeating it over and over again. And on and on. Pointless, continuous, like Hollywood comedies. Moments later we learn she has put her finger in her butt. Which is Kasdan and Segel’s preferred level. Sex Tape’s marginal merit is that it its superior to Zach and Miri Make a Porno, with boorish oaf Seth Rogen. Segel looks awful, by the way. Like he’s about to peg out. Diaz dazzles in roller-skates and is in Hawn’s position of convincingly co-starring with a guy nearly a decade her junior. As with Hawn, though, she needs to martial her career more wisely.

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Poor Easy Breezy.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
(SPOILERS) My initial reaction to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was mild disbelief that Tarantino managed to hoodwink studios into coming begging to make it, so wilfully perverse is it in disregarding any standard expectations of narrative or plotting. Then I remembered that studios, or studios that aren’t Disney, are desperate for product, and more especially, product that might guarantee them a hit. Quentin’s latest appears to be that, but whether it’s a sufficient one to justify the expense of his absurd vanity project remains to be seen.

I just hope my death makes more cents than my life.

Joker (2019)
(SPOILERS) So the murder sprees didn’t happen, and a thousand puff pieces desperate to fan the flames of such events and then told-ya-so have fallen flat on their faces. The biggest takeaway from Joker is not that the movie is an event, when once that seemed plausible but not a given, but that any mainstream press perspective on the picture appears unable to divorce its quality from its alleged or actual politics. Joker may be zeitgeisty, but isn’t another Taxi Driver in terms of cultural import, in the sense that Taxi Driver didn’t have a Taxi Driver in mind when Paul Schrader wrote it. It is, if you like, faux-incendiary, and can only ever play out on that level. It might be more accurately described as a grubbier, grimier (but still polished and glossy) The Talented Ripley, the tale of developing psychopathy, only tailored for a cinemagoing audience with few options left outside of comic book fare.

So you want me to be half-monk, half-hitman.

Casino Royale (2006)
(SPOILERS) Despite the doubts and trepidation from devotees (too blonde, uncouth etc.) that greeted Daniel Craig’s casting as Bond, and the highly cynical and low-inspiration route taken by Eon in looking to Jason Bourne's example to reboot a series that had reached a nadir with Die Another Day, Casino Royale ends up getting an enormous amount right. If anything, its failure is that it doesn’t push far enough, so successful is it in disarming itself of the overblown set pieces and perfunctory plotting that characterise the series (even at its best), elements that would resurge with unabated gusto in subsequent Craig excursions.

For the majority of its first two hours, Casino Royale is top-flight entertainment, with returning director Martin Campbell managing to exceed his excellent work reformatting Bond for the ‘90s. That the weakest sequence (still good, mind) prior to the finale is a traditional “big” (but not too big) action set piece involving an attempt to…

They literally call themselves “Decepticons”. That doesn’t set off any red flags?

Bumblebee (2018)
(SPOILERS) Bumblebee is by some distance the best Transformers movie, simply by dint of having a smattering of heart (one might argue the first Shia LaBeouf one also does, and it’s certainly significantly better than the others, but it’s still a soulless Michael Bay “machine”). Laika VP and director Travis Knight brings personality to a series that has traditionally consisted of shamelessly selling product, by way of a nostalgia piece that nods to the likes of Herbie (the original), The Iron Giant and even Robocop.

This is one act in a vast cosmic drama. That’s all.

Audrey Rose (1977)
(SPOILERS) Robert Wise was no stranger to high-minded horror fare when he came to Audrey Rose. He was no stranger to adding a distinctly classy flavour to any genre he tackled, in fact, particularly in the tricky terrain of the musical (West Side Story, The Sound of Music) and science fiction (The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Andromeda Strain). He hadn’t had much luck since the latter, however, with neither Two People nor The Hindenburg garnering good notices or box office. In addition to which, Audrey Rose saw him returning to a genre that had been fundamentally impacted by The Exorcist four years before. One might have expected the realist principals he observed with The Andromeda Strain to be applied to this tale of reincarnation, and to an extent they are, certainly in terms of the performances of the adults, but Wise can never quite get past a hacky screenplay that wants to impart all the educational content of a serious study of continued existence in tandem w…

I'm reliable, I'm a very good listener, and I'm extremely funny.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
(SPOILERS) When I wrote my 23 to see in 2019, I speculated that James Cameron might be purposefully giving his hand-me-downs to lesser talents because he hubristically didn’t want anyone making a movie that was within a spit of the proficiency we’ve come to expect from him. Certainly, Robert Rodriguez and Tim Miller are leagues beneath Kathryn Bigelow, Jimbo’s former spouse and director of his Strange Days screenplay. Miller’s no slouch when it comes to action – which is what these movies are all about, let’s face it – but neither is he a craftsman, so all those reviews attesting that Terminator: Dark Fate is the best in the franchise since Terminator 2: Judgment Day may be right, but there’s a considerable gulf between the first sequel (which I’m not that big a fan of) and this retcon sequel to that sequel.

Welcome to the future. Life is good. But it can be better.

20 to See in 2020
Not all of these movies may find a release date in 2020, given Hollywood’s propensity for shunting around in the schedules along with the vagaries of post-production. Of my 21 to See in 2019, there’s still Fonzo, Benedetta, You Should Have Left, Boss Level and the scared-from-its-alloted-date The Hunt yet to see the light of day. I’ve re-included The French Dispatch here, however. I've yet to see Serenity and The Dead Don’t Die. Of the rest, none were wholly rewarding. Netflix gave us some disappointments, both low profile (Velvet Buzzsaw, In the Shadow of the Moon) and high (The Irishman), and a number of blockbusters underwhelmed to a greater or lesser extent (Captain Marvel, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Terminator: Dark Fate, Gemini Man, Star Wars: The Rise of the Skywalker). Others (Knives Out, Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum) were interesting but flawed. Even the more potentially out there (Joker, Us, Glass, Rocketman) couldn…

It’s like an angry white man’s basement in here.

Bad Boys for Life (2020)
(SPOILERS) The reviews for Bad Boys for Life have, perhaps surprisingly, skewed positive, given that it seemed exactly the kind of beleaguered sequel to get slaughtered by critics. Particularly so since, while it’s a pleasure to see Will Smith and Martin Lawrence back together as Mike and Marcus, the attempts to validate this third outing as a more mature, reflective take on their buddy cops is somewhat overstated. Indeed, those moments of reflection or taking stock arguably tend to make the movie as a whole that much glibber, swiftly succeeded as they are by lashings of gleeful ultra-violence or humorous shtick. Under Michael Bay, who didn’t know the definition of a lull, these pictures scorned any opportunity to pause long enough to assess the damage, and were healthier, so to speak, for that. Without him, Bad Boys for Life’s beats often skew closer to standard 90s action fare.

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…

Look, the last time I was told the Germans had gone, it didn't end well.

1917 (2019)
(SPOILERS) When I first heard the premise of Sam Mendes’ Oscar-bait World War I movie – co-produced by Amblin Partners, as Spielberg just loves his sentimental war carnage – my first response was that it sounded highly contrived, and that I’d like to know how, precisely, the story Mendes’ granddad told him would bear any relation to the events he’d be depicting. And just why he felt it would be appropriate to honour his relative’s memory via a one-shot gimmick. None of that has gone away on seeing the film. It’s a technical marvel, and Roger Deakins’ cinematography is, as you’d expect, superlative, but that mastery rather underlines that 1917 is all technique, that when it’s over and you get a chance to draw your breath, the experience feels a little hollow, a little cynical and highly calculated, and leaves you wondering what, if anything, Mendes was really trying to achieve, beyond an edge-of-the-seat (near enough) first-person actioner.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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