Just going to post this...

After watching the first presidential debate, this was all I could think about.

Here is the full quote:

"Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

The JAMES BOND COCKTAIL HOUR is back!

If you were wonder ing where the podcast went... TA DA!

This season we decided to switch things up a bit and - following the strategy of the last season of the SugaBros - we released the first THREE episodes.

In our season premier, we check in on the marketing campaign for Bond 25 AKA No Time To Die, and review the new trailer which dropped earlier this month.

You can check this episode at this link or wherever you get your podcasts. 

In our second episode, we dive back into the John Gardner era of literary Bond with a look at 1986's Nobody Lives For Ever.

In the third episode, we analyse how each new actor was introduced as Bond and set up the next batch of episodes!

The next episodes will drop on 14 October (NZ time). 

BITE-SIZED REVIEW: The Debt Collector 2 (Jesse V. Johnson, 2020)

After surviving their last job, French (Scott Adkins) and Sue (Louis Mandylor) are back again. This time they have to claim three debts for a new client, someone who wants to make sure that the gruesome twosome are beaten and bloodied by the time they complete the assignment.

After the surprise of the original, I was looking forward to another day in the lives of the professional leg-breakers.

I liked Debt Collectors - particularly the rapport between the title characters. Adkins and Mandylor have a solid chemistry and the script finds ways to add more nuance and shading to them. 

Mandylor in particular gets more depth, as their latest job turns out to be far more personal than he initially lets on. 

The movie continues its prequel's emphasis on the pain and brutality our heroes have to endure. In a neat story development, French's unwillingness to get hurt puts the friends at odds just before the final showdown. While the story-telling is not that original, the script has a solid grasp of the character development.

Without the freshness of the original, this movie does feel a little bit short - I could have used some more scenes with French and Sue hanging out in Vegas, interacting with various weirdos. The ending also feels a tad neat, tying up the story far too cleanly.

If we can get a couple more movies out of the premise, I might feel more charitable about the movie. But as is, while the story is interesting and the actors are more secure in their roles, I could have used more time with them.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Libsyn, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Bait (Antoine Fuqua, 2000)

After getting arrested for a heist involving shrimp/prawns, Alvin (Jamie Foxx) ends up in a cell with a man who is implicated in a massive bullion heist. He is the focus of an investigation to learn the identity of the robber and the location of the missing bullion.

After he dies, the authorities shift their focus to the only other person in the cell: Alvin.

After implanting a microphone in his back molar, they release Alvin back into society.

While he tries to sort out his life, the authorities wait to see if the mastermind behind the heist will take the...

Antoine Fuqua has had a really interesting career - he has been mostly aligned with the action genre, and has attained a certain cache for directing the Oscar-winning Training Day. Most of his work has attempted to balance R-rated thrills with earnest drama.

For me the earnestness usually comes off a little silly, particularly juxtaposed with how ridiculously violent his movies are - not that I am complaining. Fuqua makes fun action movies, and in the 2010s he seems to have recognised this, particularly with Olympus Has Fallen and The Equalizers. 

Before Training Day, Fuqua made Bait, an action comedy thriller starring Jamie Foxx. Now I have not seen every Fuqua movie, but I do not think he has made any other comedies. As such, Bait is an interesting outlier from the action movies and dramas that make up the rest of Fuqua's filmography.

From the beginning the movie is odd. Tonally it feels very similar to later Fuqua movies - and then we meet Foxx's Alvin, trying to steal prawns.

I get the impression that this movie is intended to work in a similar way to Eddie Murphy's 48 Hours and Beverly Hills Cop - a familiar thriller/action scenario, with a comedian at the centre of it. Bait never quite manages that balancing act between comedy and the drama of the situation.

While Alvin botches his robbery, the film interrupts with the more sophisticated heist taking place in a federal vault. In contrast to Alvin's introduction, this heist is very dark and serious, with a brutal edge - it ends with the movie's villain coldly executing security men tied up on the floor. 

The tonal shift is jarring, and remains fairly consistent throughout the film.

Part of the issue is that the story is very dark - the premise of a government agency using an unknowing black man as a patsy is very Orwellian. I am sure there is some very in-depth analysis that has been written about this element of the film's story.  The filmmakers try to make the surveillance component part of the comedy but it just comes off as creepy.

It also feels like Foxx is on his own - if you took out his asides, there is not a lot of humour in the story. Foxx is really good when he is just part of the scenes, particularly when Alvin finds out he has a kid. Foxx is a really talented guy, but there is too many moments where it feels like ad-libbing has been wedged into the movie.

Fuqua also shoots it with a lot of harsh blues and greys. For an action comedy the movie's overall tone is too oppressive to allow the humour to breathe. It is hard to have jokes in a movie featuring multiple deaths, a torture scene and a baby in peril.

While this tonal inconsistency throws the movie off where it wants to be, it also makes it weirdly compelling. Watching Foxx trying to work comedic moments in the middle of the film's grim diegesis is fascinating - it is like watching someone wear a suit that is two sizes too big. 

It also filters into the casting: The most comedic actor in the movie is Mike Epps, as Alvin's brother. He and Foxx have a good rapport, but it feels like a completely different movie.

The rest of the casting feels like the kind of heavy duty ensemble you would get in any 90s thriller: David Morse, David Paymer and Kimberly Elise are wildly over-qualified for this movie, and their presence adds to the tonal disconnect. 

Kimberly Elise in particular feels wasted. She is stuck playing a girlfriend role, and is unconscious for most of the third act. Since Alvin has left her in the lurch repeatedly, her disenchantment and impatience make sense - and also undermine Foxx's wordplay. Alvin comes off as callous rather than quick-witted. 

Bait is a movie made for mixed reactions, and that includes the villain: Doug Hutchinson is a real life creep. He is also good in this movie. He underplays the role, with a simmering rage that only bubbles to the surface in his final confrontation with Foxx. If this movie were a straight thriller, he might be more effective and memorable.

Bait is made by talented people. It does not work in the way that it wants to, but that makes it more interesting to watch. 

Alligator (Lewis Teague, 1980)

What do you get when you put a pet baby alligator and a bunch of genetically-engineered rats in a sewer? 

Alligator!!!

Body parts keep showing up and it falls to policeman David Madison (Robert Forster) and gator expert Marisa Kendall (Robin Riker) to find the culprit (Alligator!!!).

I have a bad habit of looking at the least celebrated corners of pop culture, and that includes filmographies

I have not seen any of John Sayles’ films but I have read multiple books and interviews with him. He has a career path that I envy. 

Since his early days he has jumped between his own projects and writing genre pictures. His better known credits in this capacity are Joe Dante’s Piranha and Ron Howard’s Apollo13.

1980’s Alligator is pretty significant - it was an early directorial credit for genre helmer Lewis Teague (Cujo), inspired Quentin Tarantino to cast leading man Robert Forster in JACKIE BROWN (earning him an Oscar nomination) and helped pay for John Sayles’ directorial debut Return of the Secaucus Seven.

As a monster movie, Alligator is pretty fun.

While the movie had a modest budget, it has pretty solid sense of scope, and the effects are serviceable. 

Accomplished by a real gator on miniature sets, an animatronic and POV shots, they may not always work but there is something weirdly entertaining to watching a real alligator interacting with toy cars on a model street. It also helps that the creature - in its various forms - is a physical entity, rather than a mass of pixels.

While the effects are fine, there are a lot of moments of confused editing which detract from the suspense. The animatronic cannot do much so there is a lot of cutting around it. The tail seems to swing into frame out of the wrong direction multiple times.

The two elements that I really liked were Robert Forster’s performance and the third act.

While the cast are fine, they all feel of a piece with the movie’s tone - they feel like characters in a monster movie. Forster feels like an ordinary guy.

The character is based on a familiar cliche - the veteran cop struggling with a past failure - but Forster natural understatement shaves off any potential cheese. I used to find him a little one-note, but in the last couple of years I have really come around to his performance style.

There is something so grounded, and un-affected about his performance that really connects with me. He underplays the character’s trauma, makes fun of his baldness and comes across as a professional trying to deal with a ridiculous situation. It is a cliche, but he feels like a guy you could meet on the street. 

John Sayles' script is really good at finding ways to give this monster story some more meat (no pun intended), particularly in terms of how it manages to work in a subplot about corrupt city politics and corporate greed without feeling contrived.

Early on, it turns out that the city's milquetoast mayor is in bed with the corporation responsible for super-sizing the gator. This puts the brakes on Madison's investigation, forcing him to go it alone in hunting down the deadly animal. It is not as vicious as RoboCop (and feels like a polish of the Mayor from Jaws), but it adds to the world-building, and another layer of jeopardy to the film.

The highlight of the movie is the ending - the gator attacks a wedding at Slade’s mansion. If you are angry at the 1%, this scene is very therapeutic. It is also a blackly comic punchline to the movie's takedown of the mega-rich.

This sequence is followed by Madison's final showdown with the Gator. While he tries to escape, an unknowing driver stops her car on top of the manhole cover he is planning to escape through. 

Overall, Alligator is a really enjoyable creature feature, with a strong script and a great lead performance. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Eagle Has Landed (John Sturges, 1976)

Following the rescue of Mussolini, an official in the Third Reich develops a similar scheme to kidnap British prime minister Winston Churchill during a trip to the southern coast, and spirit him to Germany.

A group of German paratroopers led by Colonel Kurt Steiner (Michael Caine) are charged with accomplishing the mission. 

Will they succeed?

After making my way through the desert of the G.I. Joe franchise (RIP), I felt an itch to watch some old-school war movies. The Eagle Has Landed popped up online, so I checked it out.

I watched this one about 15 years ago. A late entry in the men-on-a-mission strain of WW2 movies, The Eagle Has Landed takes the usual template and flips it, splitting the narrative perspective between the German invaders, their unknowing hosts in the small English village, and the bored American soldiers stationed down the road.

In terms of its point-of-view, it is closer to a film like Day of the Jackal, in which the audience is expected to empathise with the enemy. Unlike the banal sociopath of that movie, Steiner and his men are presented as 'good soldiers', professionals disgusted and disillusioned by the crimes of the Third Reich. 

The film makes it clear that their ultimate loyalty is to each other, a bond forged by years of difficult missions. In terms of archetypes, they are closer to the battle-scarred veterans of a thousand action movies - their cynicism about higher authority (officers, the Reich). 

It is a dark spin on the anti-authoritarianism running through the action movies of the decade, and is probably an offshoot of the myth of the 'clean' Wehrmacht that was popular after WW2. While I questioned the film's portrayal of Steiner and his men, the complicated approach to audience sympathies does make the movie a more interesting watch. 

There is an air of fatalism through the picture that waters down any sugarcoating of the paratroopers  - Steiner and his men are condemned to die for betraying orders. Whether it is by suicide missions on human torpedo boats or as participants in this ridiculous scheme is irrelevant.

While the movie is unique for its splitting of perspectives, if you are familiar with pre-Vietnam Hollywood war movies, it does feel rather familiar in its presentation - Lalo Schifrin's score is light years away from his most familiar work, recalling the scores of Elmer Bernstein. The final credits also feel weirdly out of step with the subject - each player's credit plays over footage of the character from the movie. It might be an intentional playing on conventions. It might be the times in which we live, but I left the movie vaguely disquieted.

The best performance in the film comes from Donald Sutherland (who would go on to play a very different foreign agent in 1981's Eye of the Needle). He plays an Irish republican who is determined to assist any action that will help to liberate his country.

His accent might wander, but Sutherland brings a charm and swagger to the role that makes him the most arresting of the film's anti-villains.

As far as the other characters go, Donald Pleasance is quietly unsettling as the nervy, officious Himmler, and -  in a fun cameo - future Dallas star Larry Hagman plays an over-eager American officer who leads a failed counter-attack on the paratroopers.

If I have one overall complaint, it is pacing. The first hour is ridiculously slow, as we are introduced to the paratroopers, the townsfolk and the Americans. Once the paratroopers' cover is blown, the movie gains pace and suspense, and the film's duelling perspectives become more evident. A movie like this does require a good deal of set-up, but there is a strange lack of tension and energy to the film's first half that almost made me turn off.

If you can get through the opening, The Eagle Has Landed amounts to a unique spin on the 'men-on-mission' genre. I roll my eyes at the virtuousness of its soldier protagonists, but actual mission aspect is very compelling.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

BITE-SIZED REVIEW: Enola Holmes

 After her mother disappears, Enola (Millie Bobby Brown) is placed under the guardianship of her older brothers Mycroft (Sam Claflin) and Sherlock (Henry Cavill)

Most of the time, Netflix original movies are a cause for concern.

A vehicle for Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown, Enola Holmes is a fun little movie that promises a  new franchise and a young star on the rise. It is a cliche that I dislike, but this movie is feels like the beginning of something special.

As the title character, Brown is fantastic. Intelligent, witty and with strong sense of self, Enola is a winning heroine with a strong moral centre (refreshing in this age of grizzled anti-heroes). She even makes the device of speaking to camera feel totally natural, making the viewer feel like a co-conspirator in her schemes to escape her brothers and solve the mystery. It could have been annoying, but Brown is so earnest and charming, I never rolled my eyes. 

The mystery is not that complex, but that is not really important - this is a movie about Enola trying to make her way in a man's world. 

I enjoyed the recasting of the Holmes brothers as they re-enter Enola's life - Mycroft is a misogynistic prat who wants to stuff Enola away in a finishing school so he can carry on as before. From what I recall of Mycroft in the original stories, he is far brighter than Sherlock but infinitely more lazier, and makes a living working for the government. 

Sam Claflin is cursed to look like a leading man - he is a far better actor than he is given credit for, and he gives Mycroft a self-satisfaction that is extremely hate-able. 

Cavill is fine as a more sympathetic foil for Enola, but he never convinces as Sherlock. Juxtaposed with Claflin, he comes across as a well-meaning non-entity.

The movie is surprisingly dark, particularly in the way it manages to feed in some context of the age - Enola takes a nasty slap to the face, and the reveal of the final villain posits some incredibly disturbing family dynamics. 

I really enjoyed the fact that it never tries to build into a full-on action movie (ala the last Sherlock Holmes movies). The movie's budget is not huge, but that makes the world feel more intimate and lived in. It kind of reminded me of Birds of Prey in that respect - there is an economy of scale that I really enjoyed.

Thinking of this movie, BoF and Invisible Man, if female-led action movies have to operate on a smaller scale, it might be for the best. If filmmakers do not have all the money to throw at problems, it might lead to better constructed scripts, better character development, and unique innovations born of economic necessity. 

This is wild speculation on my part  but looking ahead to the post-COVID movie landscape, where theatre companies might have to close, and audience sizes might be limited, the strategy of big companies betting the farm on 200 million-plus blockbusters is probably over. Movies like Enola Holmes give me hope that mid-budget genre pictures might be on the way back.

If there is a flaw, I found there was some muddiness about the subplot involving Enola's mother - there is an implied connection between her disappearance and the central mystery, but it feels very tangential, and it did not feel like a satisfying resolution to Enola's story.

That aside, Enola Holmes is an enjoyable film boosted by Brown's terrific performance. I had no expectations going in, but this is one Netflix original that I wouldn't mind seeing get a sequel.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

GI Joe: Retaliation (John M. Chu, 2013)

After GI Joe is betrayed and branded a terrorist organisation, a group of surviving Joes led by Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson) go on the trail of their old enemy Cobra, and their ally the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce). 

G.I. Joe: Retaliation really should have been called G.I. Joe: Reaction. This is one of the most obvious examples of a half-reboot I have seen in recent years. The Bond franchise is famous for being reactionary, and this is somewhat similar - although that franchise has gone for 20-something instalments and this ran for 2.

Purge: Anarchy managed to bring that franchise to life, but even that instalment feels more consistent to the tone and style of its predecessor than this movie. Maybe this shift would be less obvious had there been a G.I. Joe 3, 4 and 5. These kinds of shifts are not uncommon (Rambo and Fast and Furious are obvious examples), but since there are only two movies, the change really stands out.

Straight off the bat, there are a few elements in this movie's favour - in contrast to the CG-heavy original, the filmmakers spend more time focusing on real stunts and explosions. There is a vague theme of back-to-basics action filmmaking.

There is also an attempt to give the core crew more personality - there is a silly little scene showing the bond between Duke (Tatum) and Roadblock (Johnson) that is far looser and more alive than any of the "character" beats in the previous movie. It is not great, but Tatum especially is far more at ease as one half of a double act with Johnson.

The other thing I vaguely liked about it was that, despite the change in production team, the story still tries to follow and pay off the plot threads from the original movie: Snakes Eyes learns the truth about Storm Shadow; and Zartan's (Arnold Vosloo) plot of impersonating the president (Jonathan Pryce) is pushed to the foreground. 

The key problem with this movie is that it is just kinda rote. Despite the aesthetic changes, this movie  feels a bit shallow, and visibly cheaper than the original. Even the inclusion of Bruce Willis is a wash - mainly because it is Bruce Willis circa-2010s rather than Willis circa-giving a crap.

Despite this movie's financial success - it grossed a good deal more than the first one - Paramount decided to scrap the franchise and start from scratch.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Stephen Sommers, 2009)

Following an encounter with hi-tech terrorists, soldiers Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) are rescued by a secret organisation known as G.I. Joe.

Made up of recruits from around the world, G.I. Joe are dedicated to fighting global threats. Determined to get vengeance on the group that killed their comrades, Duke and Ripcord throw their lot in with the Joes to fight their unknown enemy.

Jesus Christ, I need someone else to pick my reviews. 

I have no attachment to G.I. Joe. I never had the toys, I never watched the show and I have only heard of the comic books. For some reason I watched this movie when it came out, and for some reason I did not hate it.

After ten years away, this movie is even worse. The filmmakers are WAY too enamoured of CGI, and while I credit Stephen Sommers for having comprehensible action sequences, I did not care about anyone in them.

This movie was one of the big casualties of the 2007-08 Writers Strike. They should have shut down and given the movie a re-write, because there are so many scenes in between the set pieces where it feels like the actors are trying to work with notes on post-its: the initial flirtation between Ripcord and Scarlett (Rachel Nichols) is a standout example, as she talks about how inconvenient emotions are. The dialogue is just subtext made text, and it is not helped by the actors' lack of chemistry. 

While I did not expect great character development, the big thing that the movie lacks is the spark from Sommers' previous movies. Sommers is not a great filmmaker - his characters are stereotypes, his plots ridiculous and there is too much bad comedy. But watching G.I. Joe,  I was yearning for all these things. When Kevin J O'Connor pops up as Dr Mindbender it was like finding an oasis in the desert. And I do not even like O'Connor that much.

The one breath of fresh air in the movie is Marlon Wayans as Ripcord. He has all the jokes, but he knows how to sell them. The character is a pile of garbage, but Wayans manages to bring something the rest of the movie needed more of: personality.

Even with all its failings, this movie could have at least be entertaining if it had more imagination and sheer weirdness. But the movie is so pre-programmed as a franchise-starter, and the look is so clean, it just comes off as a show reel.

Going back to the CGI, the movie is so weightless it drove home why I enjoyed Condorman and the old Bond movies so much. Technically they might be a bit ropey, but they were made with tangible elements. That is really Michael Crawford driving a truck that turns into a car; that is really 25 divers swimming clumsily toward each other in Thunderball.

GI Joe is completely weightless by comparison. Watching the underwater battle at the climax felt like I was sitting in on someone else playing a video game.

The only thing I remember really liking in the movie was the final twist, which should be obvious if you have watched the sequel, and will not mean anything if you have not: During the chaos of the finale, face-changing assassin Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) swaps places with the US president (Jonathan Pryce). 

It is not much, but it offers a promise of a far more entertaining movie. While it was made by a completely different creative team, I was excited to learn that the 2013 sequel Retaliation would pick up this plot line and run with it.

Check back in tomorrow to see if it led to a better movie...

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Condorman (Charles Jarrott, 1981)

Comic book creator Woody Wilkins (Michael Crawford) is most famous for creating Condorman, a character with a host of gadgets that aid his war against crime. 

When Woody is enlisted by his CIA friend Harry (James Hampton) to make a delivery to a beautiful Soviet agent (Barbara Carrera), he uses 'Condorman' as his codename. After the mission goes well, he is drawn back in when the Soviet agent wants Condorman to aid in her defection to the West.

Will Condorman rise from the printed page?     

This movie is incredible.

An artefact from a time before the Mouse's entertainment dominance, Condorman is one of the stranger offerings Disney produced under the stewardship of CEO Ron Miller. Alongside other more adult-skewing fare like 1979's The Black Hole and 1982's Tron, it is a strange amalgamation of different genres that is trying to bridge both Disney's familiar audience, with a more adult tone and subject matter.

In other words, it is the polar opposite of the corporation's product in the 2010s.

There is something distinctly contemporary about Woody's approach to his art - he will only include elements in his comics that he has tested out himself. In this respect, he is feels like a forerunner/unintentional parody of modern-day fans who are obsessed with making their particular pop culture obsession appear as mature and 'realistic' as possible. 

So much about this movie feels like kids trying to play adults - you can feel the filmmakers trying to find their way out of Disney's G-rated space, which results in some bizarre incongruities. The movie is even lit like a Disney comedy from the Seventies, which make scenes like the film's car chase come off more along the lines of the long-running Lovebug movies than even Moore-era Bond.

While the aesthetics are bright and bland, the political dimension is pretty dark, even for a Bond-esque movie - Oliver Reed's villain feels like something out of Le Carre, and his relationship with Barbara Carrera's double agent Natalia carries a sense of menace and danger that is way more adult than the movie perhaps intended. 

There is something very watchable about this confection - the movie is not short of ideas, and while the pacing sags at points, there is plenty of weirdness and flat-out bad notions (such as Woody's disguise as a Sheik) that keep the attention. Compared with the cookie-cutter aesthetics and dramatic conservatism of the Marvel films, Condorman is fascinating.  

There is something appealing about the movie's earnest investment in its lumpy premise, and the practical -if ridiculous - effects, that brought me some of the rush I used to get from reading Tintin or watching cartoons. There is a sugar-rush quality to the endless parade of gadgets, disguises and subterfuge catches some of the feeling of being a bored kid trying to imagine something more exciting than the mundanity of everyday life.

This is a movie of contradictions, and so are my feelings toward it. While I love everything about this movie, there is one element that I despise as much as I enjoy the rest of the movie. That thing is Michael Crawford's performance as Woody. In his defence, he is hamstrung by an appalling American accent, and a character defined solely by his Walter Mitty-esque fantasies. But Woody is the one element that required a naïveté and childlike optimism that Crawford struggles to find. I kept thinking of Gene Wilder whenever he was onscreen (based on Crawford's hairstyle, maybe the filmmakers were thinking the same thing?).

One of the reasons for the movie's success is that despite its disparate parts, the score by Henry Mancini plays a big role in holding it all together - the title theme reminded me of his epic title track from Lifeforce, except with added choir, and perfectly captures the OTT tone that the other elements of the movie do not always reach.

As of this writing, Condorman is currently unavailable on Disney+. A shame. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.