Catching up – February movies

Following the events of Avengers: Endgame (2019), Spider-Man must step up to take on new threats in a world that has changed forever.

I am very much a fan of and adherent to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which often pains me as before all of these movies hit the screen way back when I had been staunchly a DC girl. Of the Marvel heroes Spider-Man was probably the one I knew best, and I have watched most of the Toby Maguire, all of the Andrew Garfield and the first Tom Holland films. It’s taken me a while to get to this latest one but I’m pleased to say that it was great fun, especially for a London-based viewer who enjoys trying to work out how they think the city works. Elevated by the presence of Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio and featuring the best Tower Bridge action since Northing Important Happened Today by Will Carver. Good Saturday night movie.

Directed by Jon Watts, SM: FFH is 2h 9 and rated 12A.

News of the World [2020]

A Civil War veteran agrees to deliver a girl, taken by the Kiowa people years ago, to her aunt and uncle, against her will. They travel hundreds of miles and face grave dangers as they search for a place that either can call home.

I have a complicated relationship with Westerns because my late Dad was a huge fan and I was brought up on a diet of John Wayne, Audie Murphy, Randolph Scott et al and I was burned out at a relatively early age. But the Western has changed and I am back in the fold. Cue Tom Hanks as a veteran of the Civil War who has seen A Lot and travels the West bringing news to isolated communities. He comes across a young girl and agrees (well, is kind of forced) to reunite her with her family, but of course that isn’t easy and there are some nasty folks out there. Elegiac and more violent than I expected from a Tom Hanks movie, I thought this was very well done and the ending in particular worked well. I may have shouted “GO BACK” at one point, and he must have heard me because he did.

Directed by Paul Greengrass, News of the World is 1h 58 and rated 12A

Wind River [2017]

A veteran hunter helps an FBI agent investigate the murder of a young woman on a Wyoming Native American reservation.

I have reservations about Jeremy Renner; I just do not warm to him at all though I have enjoyed several of the films in which he has appeared. Having said that I thought he was really good in Wind River, a film I missed first time out and came to now because of my girl crush on Elizabeth Olsen.

I really admire Taylor Sheridan having loved both Sicario and Hell or High Water so this is a hidden gem as far as I’m concerned. Will watch again.

Directed by Taylor SheridanWind River is 1h 47 long and rated 15

The Mega Movie Round Up

I have decided that rather than ignore some of the things I’ve read or seen this year, I would do a couple of major catch-ups to get me back on track. Hence this movie round-up – ten films desribed in a slightly greater number of paragraphs. Let us begin!

Ocean’s Eight

An all-women gang of eight (duh) comes together to carry out an almost impossible robbery at the prestigious Met Gala in New York. Hijinks ensue. I loved this, not just because I follow all of the shenanigans around the real met Gala, or because the women involved include some of my favourite actresses, but because of the clothes and the jewellery and the lack of snarkiness between the gang members and the general all-round awesomeness. It’s not high art but it’s a lot of fun!

Hell or High Water

A divorced father and his ex-con older brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family’s ranch in West Texas.

Which translates into a very enjoyable modern western heist movie. All three main leads were excellent, and I always like an inconclusive ending. Hollywood Chris #3 does a great job in the lead role. I am happy to explain my Hollywood Chris ranking system on another occasion or in the comments if required.

The Meg

There was absolutely no way I was going to miss out on watching this film, in which The Stath is in exile following an encounter with Something in the Deep that no-one believes in until someone needs rescuing and our boy is the Only Man for the Job, whereupon said Something reappears.

Cue acts of derring-do, an unfeasibly enormous prehistoric sea creature and trademark grumpy Londoner faces as our hero punches the shark. Not a euphemism.

I LOVED THIS!

Vita & Virginia

I saw this biopic about the romance between Virginia Woolf (one of my literary heroines, please note) and Vita Sackfield West at the BFI Flare festival among a group of folks entirely pre-disposed to admiring the work. Elsewhere some have described it as dull but I really liked it and am of the view that the stateliness perfectly captures the whole buttoned-up but Bohemian vibe of the Bloomsbury Group, about which I have read far too much since first picking up Mrs Dalloway at Uni in (gulp) 1979.

Three Identical Strangers

This is an awful and tragic story about three young men who spent their whole childhoods not realising that they were not only adopted but part of a set of triplets who had been split up as part of what seems to have been a terribly misguided social experiment. I really felt for them as they talk about finding out what had happened to them and the impact it has had. A very strong and worthwhile documentary, definitely worth watching.

Mandy

So I was at home by myself one day as the Book God was out gallivanting with his friends, and being at a loose end I decided (as you do) that what I needed was some psychedelic horror. Hence Mandy, in which Nicolas Cage goes spectacularly off the rails after personal tragedy meted out at the hands of a cult leader (the UK’s very own Linus Roache) and his deformed biker-gang sidekicks. You will believe that a man can overact. There is blood, there is gore, there is extreme trippiness and the best chainsaw fight ever. Bonkers.

Skyscraper

It should be noted that one of my favourite films of all time is The Towering Inferno, one of the greatest disaster movies ever made and seen by me countless times. “Built to code” has become a catch-phrase chez Bride, and I eye any astonishingly high building based action movies with some suspicion.

Having said that, Skyscaroper was great fun. The Rock is engaging, Neve Campbell as his wife gets more to do than just hanging about waiting to get rescued and the effects were cool. It could have done with more cowardly Richard Chamberlain types plunging to their deaths in true 1974 style, but that’s just a personal preference 😀

Hellboy

Oh dear. I really wanted to like this. I knew it was going to be a very different take than the beloved Guillermo del Toro movies but I thought David Harbour was really good casting, and the ubiquitous Ian McShane is always worth watching but this was disappointing. It was trying far too hard and though I’m not normally one to complain about noise, it was just too loud. Felt a bit let down, to be honest.

The Transporter

Many many moons ago I was challenged to watch a number of movies before I turned 50. One of these was The Transport and it reflects my commitment to this challenge that I only got around to watching this now that I am 57. It was enjoyably silly with a very young Stath in the early stages of perfecting his pissed off at the inconvenience expression alongside his admittedly impressive fighting skills.

Sorcerer

William Friedkin’s remake of The Wages of Fear is a very interesting and very 1970s film and proves once again that I’m right to consider Roy Scheider a great actor, sadly missed. It’s long but engrossing and worth checking out.

Bone Tomahawk

I’m not sure how Bone Tomahawk came to my attention, but once it was flagged I was really keen to see it. I missed it at the cinema so was very grateful to the Book God for getting it for me as a gift.

In the dying days of the old west, an elderly sheriff and his posse set out to rescue their town’s doctor from cannibalistic cave dwellers.

Not an entirely accurate synopsis but it will do to kick us off.

We start with a couple of outlaws who have robbed and killed some settlers and are therefore on the run. Unfortunately while running they stumble upon a sacred site which they desecrate by their mere presence; one is brutally killed and the other makes his way to Bright Hope. An altercation with the sheriff leads to him being shot, which results in the wife of a local rancher tending to his wounds because the town’s actual doctor is dead drunk, further leading them both to be kidnapped along with the deputy who is keeping an eye on things. None of this becomes clear until the next morning when the body of the young stable boy is found and the bad guys have already made their escape.

We then have the classic posse heading out to rescue the hostages. Sadly there are only four men in said posse, one of whom is injured but determined to take part in his wife’s rescue. They are made aware that what they are dealing with is a group of cannibals shunned by the various Native American tribes, but despite all of that they feel they have to make the attempt. And off we go.

I was interested to see that at the beginning the horror was fairly low key – yes there is a gruesome murder and we see the graphic results of that, but generally we don’t get a feel for what the troglodytes are capable of until our heroes get nearer to their base. That means that the film is for a large part a fairly traditional western with some very recognisable characters; the grizzled sheriff (Kurt Russell), his ageing deputy (Richard Jenkins), the decent rancher (Patrick Wilson) and the flashy gunslinger (Matthew Fox). The performances are restrained and the horror builds up slowly until we get to a scene of graphic violence and ritual killing which was quite astonishing, and had a major impact on the characters who witnessed it and the audience i.e. me.

I liked the fact that the kidnapped woman, played by Lili Simmons, was intelligent, capable and fully aware of her predicament, able to assess the strength of her captors and not faint away. This is always a good thing.

Other good things:

grizzled Kurt Russell is the very best Kurt Russell, especially when being stoic and brave;
Richard Jenkins is a fine actor and I have loved him in everything I’ve seen him in, and he is fabulous here;
although the violence is extreme and graphic it didn’t feel to me to be gratuitous, but YMMV.

I enjoyed this slice of Western horror, and because I had to watch it alone as the Book God does not like This Sort of Thing it has spawned a new hashtag – #HorrorByMyself 🙂 – you will be seeing that a lot in the next wee while as I seem to be on a horror kick.

Dazzling details: Bone Tomahawk was directed by S Craig Zahler, is 2 hours 12 minutes long and not at all surprisingly is rated 18 for strong violence.