OUT NOW: Bones and All

Abandoned by her father (André Holland), teenage cannibal Maren (Taylor Russell) goes on the road to find her mother.

On her journey, Maren meets Sully (Mark Rylance), a fellow ‘eater’ who identifies her as kin.

Maren keeps moving and meets another eater, Lee (Timothée Chalamet).

The pair continue their trek to find Maren’s family.

 
On the way, Maren and Lee begin to fall in love.

Can they make a life together? 

I need to watch more of Luca Guadagnino’s movies. I’ve only seen this one and his reimagining of Suspiria, and I am missing something. Maybe he's just not a good fit for horror?

There is something off about Bones and All at a fundamental level, and I cannot put my finger on it.

For the first 15ish minutes, as we are slowly introduced to Maren, her cannibalism and her abandonment, it is an involving experience.

And then Mark Rylance shows up.

I had seen some chatter online which should have been a warning, but nothing prepared me for the screeching brake that this actor puts on the movie.

When Rylance makes his entrance, the movie goes off its rhythm - it feels like he wandered over from a Ronald Dahl novel, with his accent, his physicality and the literal feather in his cap.

He never quite syncs with the movie - in his first scene, that lends his interactions with Taylor Russell a certain tension, but the longer he is on-screen, it just feels like a collection of performance tics.

His performance is so broad and specific that it feels like a con, but while he does prove to be malevolent, his performance stays the same.

Whenever he shows up, the movie grinds to a halt. And that’s a problem because he is the antagonist.

He is so discordant to the movie that I started to focus on the performances of everyone else. 
Is Taylor Russell convincing as a teenager? Is Chalamet emotionally connected to any scene he is in? Do I know what acting is?

Russell is a solid centre of the movie but it feels like the movie needs more fire at certain points - her reunion with her grandmother is awkward but there is a moment where the character explodes but it does not feel real.

Fundamentally, Russell conveys intelligence and maturity - and that butts up against the character every time the film reminds you that she is meant to be a teenager. Russell seems too together and knowing to really convince. 

I was a little flippant earlier about Chalamet - he has a gangly, off-kilter physicality which works for the character, but he is kinda just a black hole.

As an outsider/drifter he works, but when the movie tries to humanise him, it never registers.
Chalamet and Russell are not terrible together but the chemistry never comes together.

I can buy them as travelling companions, but I felt no sense of deeper connection, or even lust.
Because the love story is not working, it ends up feeling empty and listless. It all amounts to a big heap of nothing.

I do not know what to focus on in terms of other aspects of the film, because what it is lacking is so fundamental to the movie’s success.

OUT NOW: The Menu

 On the island of Hawthorne, a group of high-rolling guests have arrived to taste the menu of renowned chef Slowick (Ralph Fiennes).

As the courses are brought out, the guests, particularly outsider Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), begin to realise that the Chef’s plans for the evening are more sinister than breadless bread.

On an embarrassing note, I had to take a phone call midway through the film and had to step out for about a minute - thankfully nothing happened while I was outside the theatre (it was during one of Fiennes’s monologues, which I could hear through the door.

This is a movie of micro dark giggles - Tyler’s (Nicholas Hoult) sociopathic focus on each course, washed-up actor George Díaz (John Leguizamo)  and his assistant  Felicity’s (Aimee Carrero) conflict; the three entitled Wall Street bros (Arturo Castro, Rob Yang and Mark St. Cyr); the food critic Lillian Bloom (Janet McTeer) and her endlessly sycophantic editor Ted (Paul Adelstein).

While pitched as a comedy, The Menu was not laugh-out-loud funny.

There is a point midway through when the women are eating while the men are being chased down and try to ingratiate themselves with one of the chefs, which produced some chuckles.

 

It might also be because it is the one time where the film feels like it is escalating - when the male guests are returned to the dinner, the air gets let out of the movie.

In the main role, Anya Taylor-Joy is fine but a little anonymous  - I am starting to wonder if she works better in supporting roles. 

Fiennes is good as the Chef, but I was a little confused about the character’s motives.

There is something in the way the film wants to be a story about the artistry of cooking, it’s disposability as a marker of the upper classes, that feels contrived and overreaching. 

To paraphrase from the text, it feels more conceptual than functional as a film.

The movie wants to be a satire but it’s not pointed enough; it wants to be a thriller but it is not that tense.

Margot’s final action is interesting but there is no sense of catharsis - and the fact that it hangs on making a hamburger feels confused. It is ironic that the Chef saves his passion by making the most commercialised food item, but I was a little lost.

Maybe it rewards a rewatch, but I was finding it hard to remember what happened in the movie minutes after it ended.

  

As is, The Menu is mildly enjoyable but forgettable.

Connery comes in from the cold: The Russia House (Fred Schepisi, 1990)

In this season of The James Bond Cocktail Hour podcast, we are covering the six year gap between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye.

On the latest episode, we review Sean Connery's return to espionage with 1990's The Russia House, based on the book by John le Carré, and co-starring Michelle Pfeiffer!

Links to all of this season's episodes are below:

No Time To Die (review)

No Time To Die (commentary)

Pierce Brosnan - The Bond In Waiting 

GoldenEye & Spymaker - The Secret Lives of Ian Fleming

Nikita

Total Recall

Fire, Ice and Dynamite & Bullseye!

The Russia House

BITE-SIZED: Prime of My Life (Phyllis Hyman, 1991)

Phyllis Hyman is one of the great underrated talents of American music. Blessed with terrific pipes, her career spanned over twenty years during which she released eight albums and won numerous awards (including a Tony for her work on the Broadway show Sophisticated Ladies). Despite a few hits, she never achieved real mainstream success. Sadly, Hyman suffered from depression and ended up taking her own life.

I first heard of her in 2008 by a circuitous route: a musical producer who had worked on an unreleased title song for the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again, decided to release the song on the internet. Hyman had been the vocalist on the track. The next time I heard of her was when one of my favourite singers Will Downing brought her up during an interview.

Time of My Life is the last album released during her lifetime. I found it in a bargain bin a few weeks ago, and decided to give it a (metaphoric) spin.

This disc proves just how timeless and adaptable Hyman's voice was -- whether essaying a ballad, a new jack swing stomper or jazzy tune, she could handle them all.

Smooth and jazzy, 'When You Get Right Down To It' is right in my wheelhouse. Will Downing has turned out similar tracks to this, and it was the perfect entry point for me.

'Don't Wanna Change the World' is the most contemporary track on the album, a new jack anthem that Hyman sells like a pro. Sadly, it harkens back to the banal dance tracks of her Arista period ('Ride the Tiger').

It become her one big hit, which is sad considering the rest of the album.

Hyman gained creative control on her last album, which had been released in 1986. Despite the extended gap, aesthetically and thematically, Prime Of My Life feels like a continuation.

The songs are about heartbreak, in which Hyman plays a woman strung along and betrayed by a lover, or trying to pick out the lessons for the future.

Even the slight tilts toward more upbeat-sounding tracks are ultimately melancholic, like 'I Can’t Take It Anymore' (the title should have been a clue).

Ending with one of the best songs Hyman ever recorded, 'Meet Me On The Moon', Prime Of My Life is one of Hyman's signature works. 

I cannot say I listen to it all the way through regularly. It is singularly downbeat, yet Hyman brings such a sense of hope and yearning that makes the songs uplifting. 

  

BITE-SIZED: It Was Good Until It Wasn't (Kehlani, 2020)

This review was sketched at the end of 2020, but I forgot about it. 

Coronavirus has basically ruined my concentration. I spend most of time watching/reading the news. 

Weirdly, quarantine has made me more patient with albums. There have been some really good releases from last and this year which I have been listening to end to end. Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia was a nice escape, Tinashe's Songs for You was a return to form that synced with the mood of this year, and I'm just getting into Victoria Monet's Jaguar.

In the time since Kehlani's last release, I shifted focus to a couple other musicians. While We Wait was okay, but none of the songs really stuck. I would be curious to check it out now.

It Was Good Until It Wasn't sounds better played as a piece. It is a concept album in the truest sense of the word - I have tried to listen to individual songs, but they do not really stick in the brain in the same way as their first album. 

That is not a criticism - in the cumulative effect of It Was Good Until It Wasn't, it feels closer to the moodiness of their mixtapes.

I do not hate their debut LP, but I still think my favourite song they have ever done is '1st Position'. 

Maybe it has something to do with lockdown, but there is a level of contemplation to the lyrics and the production here that I wanted to sit with for a while.

I cannot really point to a single track - they build upon each other in a way that feels cathartic. To what end, or whose end, I could not really say.

The year is barely in the rearview, but I think this might be one of the albums I associate with 2020.

BONDIFICATING: A few observations from a recent viewing of GoldenEye

Here are a few random observations from a recent viewing of GoldenEye.

I am currently making notes for an upcoming podcast, and I thought this might make a good teaser.

This is the first time I have noticed that the film version of Tina Turner’s theme song boasts some extra instrumentation which makes it feel more classically orchestral - it sounds far superior to the soundtrack version, which always sounds too synth-laden. I wonder if that is part of the reason why the song has such a mixed reputation amongst fans?

Pierce Brosnan seems shut off - a tight and efficient machine, but completely inscrutable.

Do not confuse this with a dismissal - it adds a certain ambiguity that later movies ignored.

Physically he is energetic and focused, but emotionally, it feels like there is nothing going on underneath.

Brosnan is perfect for the archetypal Bond: smooth, handsome, always on top of any situation. 

For an archetypal Bond, GoldenEye is the perfect fit because unlike previous recasts, it is about Bond’s relevance in a new age.

GoldenEye is Bond movie as question: What is Bond in 1995?

Every character, particularly the women, around Bond is designed to challenge the franchise’s viability.

Villain Alec Trevelyan provides the contrast to justify Bond’s continued existence. A villainous 00 is such an obvious idea I am amazed they never did it before. 

I am warming to Eric Serra’s score: the car chase cue is always trundled out when people criticise it, but there are chunks of it where specific themes and motifs really work.

‘The GoldenEye Overture’ is almost perfect - it is a great listening experience, and adds a simmering menace to Bond’s infiltration of the Soviet base. Onscreen it falters when the action gets into gear - it feels like there is a ceiling that Serra cannot get over in the action sequences, and it is thrown into sharp relief by John Altman’s last-minute contribution to the tank chase.

I really wish/hope that Martin Campbell will work with Phil Meheux again as his cinematographer. There is something so grey and dull about the cinematography in his recent films, while GoldenEye is filled with colour and interesting lighting and compositions.

The latest season of the James Bond Cocktail Hour podcast is out now!

Links to all of this season's episodes are below:

No Time To Die (review)

No Time To Die (commentary)

Pierce Brosnan - The Bond In Waiting 

GoldenEye & Spymaker - The Secret Lives of Ian Fleming

Nikita

Total Recall

Fire, Ice and Dynamite & Bullseye!

The Russia House

Death Line AKA Raw Meat (Gary Sherman, 1972)

People are going missing from the Russell Square Station in the London Underground.

It falls to a young couple (David Ladd and Sharon Gurney) and a grizzled police inspector (Donald Pleasance) to solve the mystery, 

This leads them on a trail of clues with roots in the dark history of the Station’s construction - a history that is living, breathing and determined to endure…

I have been looking for this movie for years, and it was worth the delay.

Set in then-contemporary (1972) London, Death Line was ann early credit for writer-director Gary Sherman, who would go on to direct other well-regarded genre films Dead & Buried and VIce Squad. 

Death Line is so clean in terms of its story-telling - some of the characters could be critiqued as a little threadbare, but otherwise it is a tight, taut thriller with a great sense of place in terms of history and its themes. 

In its own way, Death Line is an update on the gothic genre, with the Man and Woman as the literal offspring of London’s industrial past - the last descendant of a tunnel crew buried when a tunnel collapsed early in the twentieth century.

 

It is also a movie about little people caught up in capitalism - the Man is a killer but he is also a victim. His ancestors were left to die after the company was unable to pay to rescue them from the collapsed tunnel.

And the only reason the Man ends up hunted down is because his latest meal is a ‘big shot’ (as Donald Pleasance calls him) with connections in high places.

Donald Pleasance has fun as a working class cop - he is dismissive of the young couple and offers his own closed view of the world. He ends up being a secondary antagonist - he distrusts the youngsters, equating them with lawlessness and hedonism. He is also ineffective.

Part of the horror and tragedy of Death Line is that the Man (Hugh Armstrong) is never treated as a monster. Unlike Alex and Patricia, he is deeply in love with his wife, the Woman (June Turner). 

When we meet the couple, the Woman is heavily pregnant, and immobile some kind of illness. When the Man kills the big wig, and uses his blood to try and feed the Woman, it is both horrifying and pitiable.

And when the Woman passes away in childbirth, the Man’s grief is palatable - and drives him to look for another mate.

It is a testament to the filmmakers and Hugh Armstrong’s performance (he only has one line, “Mind the doors!”) that the Man is portrayed with such empathy and dread.

That moral ambiguity increases the tension for the climax, as Alex descends into the tunnels after the Man kidnaps Patricia. 

Bleak yet empathetic, violent yet deeply intelligent, Death Line is worth a look.

BITE-SIZED: Sink the Bismarck! (Lewis Gilbert, 1960)

The story of the sinking of the Nazi battleship Bismarck.

Most of the story is based around Captain Shepard (Kenneth More), an officer who coordinates the hunt for the vessel from a London war room. 

Directed by future Bond helmer Lewis Gilbert, the film is also notable to fans of the franchise for the number of familiar faces in the cast and crew: Peter Hunt was the editor while cast members Geoffrey Keen (Freddie Grey) and Robert Brown (M) show up in minor roles. If you pay attention you can also catch voice actor Robert Reitti (the voice of Thunderball’s villain Largo) as the voice of Bismarck Captain Lindemann (Carl Möhner).

Despite the histrionics of the title, Bismarck is a movie obsessed with process and the people making decisions behind the scenes.

War is treated as dangerous and unglamorous, with the sea action presented in the style of a
docudrama, as nameless sailors go about the various processes of running the ship or firing weapons at each other.

The one element of the movie where the filmmakers go broad is on the characterisation and performance of Admiral Günther Lütjens (Karel Štěpánek).

He is presented as an ideologue who is increasingly divorced from reality, while Captain Lindemann is a reluctant military man more concerned with his men and ship.

By contrast, the British military brass are shown as empathetic, even towards their foes.

When the Bismarck is finally cornered, the British officers show pity towards their outnumbered foe.

Even Kenneth More’s character, established as a cold brain, is given humanity: 

When he receives word that his son has survived an encounter with the Bismarck, he is shown in a long shot, back to camera crying in a bathroom with his face shown by a mirror.

Maybe it is the effect of watching so many Hollywood war movies, but Sink the Bismarck's lack of pizzazz and focus on the unglamorous processes of war was refreshing.

Worth a look.