Columbo: Last Salute To The Commodore
Road House (2024)
Columbo: The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case
Bitka Na Neretvi AKA The Battle Of Neretva
A Week In Film #803: Dog is as Dog does
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A Week In Film #802: One more thing, again
A Week In Film #801: ONE MORE THING
A Week In Film #800: Octocentenary
Tuntematon Sotilas (2017)
Interesting to compare with the two previous versions (1955 and 1985) of Väinö Linna’s novel about the Continuation War.
Definitely glossier, but decently done by director Aku Louhimies, whose only other work I’m familiar with is the Easter Rising miniseries Rebellion.
Secret Défense (2008) AKA Secrets Of State
Glossy French spy nonsense – more in the vein of Spy Game or The Double – from Philippe Haïm, which largely wastes an excellent cast.
However, there are sparks of interest in the script: the search for post-colonial importance for the Republic, the amorality of running agents, that sort of thing. With Vahina Giocante, Gérard Lanvin and Simon Abkarian, though Nicolas Duvauchelle as a troubled sort who gets dragged into it all without ever really having a clue is definitely the most impressive turn.
Le Roi Des Ombres AKA In His Shadow
First generation sons of a West African immigrant to France struggle to find their place. Per the rules of these things, one brother (Kaaris) has become a local gang boss, the other (Alassane Diong – nephew of Omar Sy) is [for reasons] a blind guy who makes music [and is also, err, a bit of an insufferable dick]. Some stuff happens. There is (of course) lots of banlieue-based gang conflict.
Competently-made, but really not great. From writer/director Marc Fouchard.
The Eiger Sanction
Early Clint Eastwood produced-directed-starred effort (his fourth), in which he plays – wait for it – a gruff-but-sexy academic, who is also a semi-retired hitman for a shadowy spy organisation. He’s persuaded/bribed/blackmailed into One Last Job, in which he has to join a mountaineering expedition in Switzerland in order to smoke out a traitor.
Nothing makes any sense, there’s lots of objectionable elements to it (racism, sexism, homophobia), and for a thriller it is, frankly, not very thrilling. Yet there are some commendable elements. Eastwood was finding his visual voice and his filmmaking rhythm, and so at times he makes some interesting choices. Some of the action set pieces are very well-done. But overall I would file under DO NOT BOTHER REWATCHING.
Spaceman
Off-kilter space blues shenanigans, with cosmonaut Adam Sandler (this being an adaptation of a novel by Czech writer Jaroslav Kalfař) losing his shit as his solo star mission nears culmination. Lots of pleasantly bonkers weird stuff, but a bit too constrained. Directed by Johan Renck, written by Colby Day.
A Week In Film #799: Ask me why they hated Alain Delon
A Week In Film #798: Crashing through
[M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television title screen]
M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television
A Week In Film #797: Jazzing it up
A Week In Film #796: Does anybody remember laughter?
A Week In Film #795: Soggy biscuits
Zulu
THOUSANDS OF ‘EM!
Old fashioned, bumps up against some awkward attitudes, definitely fucks around with history, but ultimately comes together as a fine piece of filmery.
The Human Factor
In my head I mixed this up with director Dror Moreh’s previous documentary, The Gatekeepers (the one with all the talking head interviews with a bunch of former Shin Bet chiefs), which was the one I actually wanted to watch.
No matter – this one’s still pretty damn fine, and definitely relevant today, focusing on repeated (and ultimately failed) American attempts to broker a Middle Eastern peace.
Ambulance
The most Michael Bayest film yet – glossy, stupid, overlong, and 100% the dumbest thing I’ve seen all year. Takes the Heat crew-does-heist-in-LA template, throws in some Crank-style race-against-time silliness, some odd couple shenanigans, some rookies-in-trouble, a few sprinklings of sick kid juju, a quirky police tech and… Well, churns out an expensively mediocre movie.
Good stuff: Jake Gyllenhaal as a sociopath-with-a-heart-of-gold; Eiza González as a feisty paramedic; that’s about it.
A Week In Film #794: Gliding through the air
The Good Liar
Ian McKellen as a wily old conman who specialises in fleecing solvent old ladies, Helen Mirren is his latest mark.
Some nice flourishes on the usual tropes, but it is never better than a pinball machine whizz through the greatest hits of con artist movies, and always inferior to its predecessors – The House Of Games, The Grifters, The Sting, even more minor efforts like Matchstick Men or The Spanish Prisoner.
What marks it out is how the con element (and the supposed twist, which is semaphored in the very first sequence running over the opening credits) is grafted onto a weird surplot about wartime and postwar Germany. It’s like Apt Pupil remade by Harlan Coben, and that is in no way a compliment. Reviews I’ve read of the source novel by Nicholas Searle suggest that in the book this is all managed much better, but in this film version by American journeyman Bill Condon, definitely not. And the whole chronology doesn’t properly align.
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