I'm not sure we should emphasise the rebel in you, Jimmy.

Life

(2015)

(SPOILERS) Generally speaking, the biopic tends to be on firmer ground when it opts for a sliver of a life, rather than attempting to cram in the full selection of signposts in scrupulously episodic fashion. So it is with Anton Corbijn’s latest, which, being about a photographer’s relationship with a movie star, is right up his street (with no name). Following Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson) and his attempts to secure a Life magazine photoshoot with next-big-thing James Dean (Dane DeHaan), Corbijn is confidently low key facing the legacy of one of the screen’s most iconic presences, and fashions a picture at least as interesting as his debut, Control.

I’ve only been lukewarm on A Most Wanted Man, the previous of his four features, which didn’t quite come together based on less-than-stellar Le Carré source material. Corbijn had wanted his star of that film, Philip Seymour Hoffman, for the role of Stock’s agency editor John G Morris, but Joel Edgerton’s supremely confident performance, slipping into the mantle of business veteran, is a reminder of just how good he can be when avoiding terrible period epics (Ridley Scott will do that to you).

Pattinson is also very good, to be commended for the latest in a string of roles attempting to banish the spectre of Edward Cullen. Stock’s a self-absorbed, highly-strung, unsympathetic fellow, such a bad dad he manages to puke on his son on that one occasion he spends any time with him. But his desperate awkwardness is nevertheless palpable, seeing something in Dean he has to capture, such that he elicits empathy in spite of himself. As Dean observes “He’s one of those guys who can’t seem to get out of his own way”.

DeHaan’s the real reason to see Life, though. I’ve never been remotely fascinated with Dean and, if I’m quite honest, don’t much care for the trio of pictures he completed before his untimely death. This may even help the viewing experience, though, as I didn’t watch expecting a note-perfect rendition of the actor. And because DeHaan makes Dean interesting; he doesn’t have the same pretty boy looks, so you can’t quite see the swoon-factor Dean exuded (in the same way, Pattinson retreats into his own face and pulls out a kind of pug, thick-lidded grimness), but he captures the voice and, most importantly, the flirtatious, effortlessly manipulative caprice of the star. This is someone who will lead the head of a major studio up the garden path (Ben Kingsley, doing what comes easy and being aggressive), so it’s no wonder he takes advantage of his curmudgeonly hanger-on.

The contrast between the two is at its most effective when Stock, after many attempts to secure Dean’s time (he finally gets the famous Time Square shot) while the latter plays hard to get, heads off to Ohio with him, where the photographer is even more of a fish-out-of-water than on his home turf. Dean is ever-quick to take the rise out of him, and at every turn (almost, he’s hesitant speaking at a school dance) displays an air of effortlessly hip, relaxed confidence that bewilders Stock. “How do you make this so easy?” the snapper asks, after blowing up at him. “What do you think is so easy, exactly?” Dean replies, cryptic to the last, but effectively capturing the gulf in perception between the two of them.

While Corbijn is wholly successful in capturing a vision of the ‘50s that isn’t remotely nostalgic, with freezing cold, bad drugs, crap movies (Dean’s amusement when asked if he likes The Boy from Oklahoma is infectious) and tyrannical Tinseltown chores to fulfil, he’s less sure how to imbue the picture with portents of its star’s imminent demise. We see the side of Dean that fills with uncomprehending emotion over the unknown to come, but it’s a little too neat, as if Corbijn feels compelled to find a send-off point he it isn’t wholly convinced by. When the picture sticks to Dean’s wilfully wayward, poetic nature, contrasted with Stock’s rigid permanence (when Dean cries, Stock can only stonily continue clicking away), it tells us enough right there about one person living every moment of life and another resistant to its embrace.

The reaction to Life seems to have been generally less than enthusiastic, and it’s certainly unlikely to reward anyone expecting an eventful or showy rummage through Dean’s personal life (although we do see his dalliance with Pier Angeli, a rather wonderful Allessandra Mastronardi), but Corbyn’s meditation on the actor’s last days is commendably un-awestruck, even to the extent that those iconic photos aren’t made out to be the result of some kind of magic or alchemy, and rewards perseverance.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

You were this amazing occidental samurai.

Ricochet (1991) (SPOILERS) You have to wonder at Denzel Washington’s agent at this point in the actor’s career. He’d recently won his first Oscar for Glory , yet followed it with less-than-glorious heart-transplant ghost comedy Heart Condition (Bob Hoskins’ racist cop receives Washington’s dead lawyer’s ticker; a recipe for hijinks!) Not long after, he dipped his tentative toe in the action arena with this Joel Silver production; Denzel has made his share of action fare since, of course, most of it serviceable if unremarkable, but none of it comes near to delivering the schlocky excesses of Ricochet , a movie at once ingenious and risible in its plot permutations, performances and production profligacy.

The Krishna died of a broken finger? I mean, is that a homicide?

Miami Blues (1990) (SPOILERS) If the ‘90s crime movie formally set out its stall in 1992 with Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs , another movie very quietly got in there first at the beginning of the decade. Miami Blues picked up admiring reviews but went otherwise unnoticed on release, and even now remains under-recognised. The tale of “blithe psychopath” Federick J. Frenger, Jr., the girl whose heart he breaks and the detetive sergeant on his trail, director George Armitage’s adaptation of Charles Willeford’s novel wears a pitch black sense of humour and manages the difficult juggling act of being genuinely touching with it. It’s a little gem of a movie, perfectly formed and concisely told, one that more than deserves to rub shoulders with the better-known entries in its genre. One of the defining characteristics of Willeford’s work, it has been suggested , is that it doesn’t really fit into the crime genre; he comes from an angle of character rather than plot or h

Well, something’s broke on your daddy’s spaceship.

Apollo 13 (1995) (SPOILERS) The NASA propaganda movie to end all NASA propaganda movies. Their original conception of the perilous Apollo 13 mission deserves due credit in itself; what better way to bolster waning interest in slightly naff perambulations around a TV studio than to manufacture a crisis event, one emphasising the absurd fragility of the alleged non-terrestrial excursions and the indomitable force that is “science” in achieving them? Apollo 13 the lunar mission was tailor made for Apollo 13 the movie version – make believe the make-believe – and who could have been better to lead this fantasy ride than Guantanamo Hanks at his all-American popularity peak?

The Illumi-what-i?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (SPOILERS) In which Sam Raimi proves that he can stand proudly with the best – or worst – of them as a good little foot soldier of the woke apocalypse. You’d expect the wilfully anarchic – and Republican – Raimi to choke on the woke, but instead, he’s sucked it up, grinned and bore it. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so slavishly a production-line Marvel movie, both in plotting and character, and in nu-Feige progressive sensibilities, there was no chance of Sam staggering out from beneath its suffocating demands with anything more than a few scraps of stylistic flourish intact.

People still talk about Pandapocalypse 2002.

Turning Red (2022) (SPOILERS) Those wags at Pixar, eh? Yes, the most – actually, the only – impressive thing about Turning Red is the four-tiered wordplay of its title. Thirteen-year-old Mei (Rosalie Chiang) finds herself turning into a large red panda at emotive moments. She is also, simultaneously, riding the crimson wave for the first time. Further, as a teenager, she characteristically suffers from acute embarrassment (mostly due to the actions of her domineering mother Ming Lee, voiced by Sandra Oh). And finally, of course, Turning Red can be seen diligently spreading communist doctrine left, right and centre. To any political sensibility tuning in to Disney+, basically (so ones with either considerable or zero resistance to woke). Take a guess which of these isn’t getting press in reference to the movie? And by a process of elimination is probably what it it’s really about (you know in the same way most Pixars, as far back as Toy Story and Monsters, Inc . can be given an insi

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

You tampered with the universe, my friend.

The Music of Chance (1993) (SPOILERS) You won’t find many adaptations of Paul Auster’s novels. Original screenplays, yes, a couple of which he has directed himself. Terry Gilliam has occasionally mentioned Mr. Vertigo as in development. It was in development in 1995 too, when Philip Haas and Auster intended to bring it to the screen. Which means Auster presumably approved of Haas’ work on The Music of Chance (he also cameos). That would be understandable, as it makes for a fine, ambiguous movie, pregnant with meaning yet offering no unequivocal answers, and one that makes several key departures from the book yet crucially maintains a mesmerising, slow-burn lure.

I only know what I’ve been programmed to believe. But, of course, the same goes for you.

Raised by Wolves Season One (SPOILERS) Ridley Scott’s latest transhumanist tract is so stuffed with required lore, markers and programming, it’s a miracle it manages to tell a half-engaging story along the way. Aaron Guzikowski ( Prisoners ) is the credited creator, but it has the Ridders stamp of dour dystopia all over it, complete with Darius Wolski ( Prometheus ) cinematography setting the tone. Which means bleak grey skies, augmented by South Africa this time, rather than Iceland. Raised by Wolves is a reliable mix of wacko twist plotting and clumsy, slack-jawed messaging; like the Alien prequels, it will surely never be seen through to a conclusion, but as an agenda platform it’s never less than engaging (and also frequently, for the same reasons, exasperating).

You’re like a human mummy!

The Lost City (2022) (SPOILERS) Perhaps the most distressing part of The Lost City , a Romancing the Stone riff that appears to have been packaged by the Hollywood equivalent of a processed cheese plant lacking its primary ingredient (that would be additives), is the possibility that Daniel Radcliffe is the only viable actor left standing in Tinseltown. That’s if the suggestions at least two of the performers here – Sandra Bullock and Brad Pitt – are deep faked in some way, shape or form, and the other name – Channing Tatum – is serving hard atonement time. If the latter’s choices generally weren’t so abysmal and his talent in arears, I’d assume that was the only explanation for him showing up in this dreck.

Okay, just jump right into my nightmare, the water is warm.

Jerry Maguire (1996) (SPOILERS) I didn’t much like Jerry Maguire at the time, which I suspect is intrinsically linked to the fact that I didn’t much like Tom Cruise at the time. I’m still not really a massive fan of either, but the latter at least made an effort to rein in his most irksome traits subsequently. Jerry Maguire , however, finds him drawing on the same “bag of tricks” that mystifyingly transfixed his fan base a decade before in Top Gun . Bonnie Hunt suggested the toughest part of the role was “ playing a character that doesn’t like Tom Cruise ”. I wouldn’t have had that problem. I do not like Tom and Jerry.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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