Magpie (Sam Yates, 2024)

When their daughter gets cast in a movie opposite a major star Alicia (Matilda Lutz), couple Ben (Shazad Latif) and Anette (Daisy Ridley) find themselves drifting apart.

As Ben spends more time on set, and with Alicia, Anette is stuck at home, left to her own thoughts...

I love movies which let the audience fill in the blanks.

I left Magpie feeling like I had seen half a movie.

The final twist is great but I was wanting a little more runway.

It almost feels like the movie shows its hand too early: 

Ben is a selfish a-hole, while Anette is prone to fits of rage, while the tension between these people ratchets up quickly.

I was wanting a little more, or a little less.

The story is so small, I started wondering if the movie would work better as a short.

They are a toxic pair, bound together by kids they can barely pretend in front of. 

Their open plan home, seemingly presenting bliss to the outside world, feels more like a glass cage. Rather than offering a sense of space and connection with nature, it leaves the characters exposed and vulnerable.

It recreates their sense of paranoia.

The acting is terrific.

It became clearer on the second viewing, but Shazad Latif is pretty effective at underplaying Ben’s complete self-absorption. It would be easy to go bigger, and make him more of an overt prick, but Latif’s characterisation is more subtle and cutting.

 

Ridley - who came up with the idea - is also great.

Both terrifying and vulnerable, she seems to be both humiliated and excited by her husband’s deceit.

The most enduring image of the film is Ridley at the dining table, stone-faced with glistening eyes, as her husband finally unleashes all the venom he has been hiding.

A slight film, but occasionally unnerving.

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OUT NOW: Mickey 17 (Bong Joon Ho, 2025)

When his earth-side problems put his life in danger, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) finds an escape by enlisting as an 'expendable' on an off-world colony.

This job entails him being cloned over and over again - every time Mickey fails in his job, or takes part in a fatal experiment, or makes a mistake, he finds himself resurrected.

When Mickey's 17th version is left for dead among the native inhabitants of the alien planet, the loop of his existence is interrupted - and our hero has chance to rediscover his own sense of self-worth.

If he can live long enough...

Mickey 17 is an enjoyable movie.

It has problems. 

It is easily the sloppiest Bong Joon Ho movie I have seen.

The third act features some ham-fisted flashbacks to justify a character revelation that is not much of a revelation. And some of the performances veer into the wrong side of caricature.

But there is a lot to like here.

For one thing, it is nice to see a mainstream, big-budget movie featuring sex.

Movies have become perversely disinterested in any kind of heat. There is nothing particularly groundbreaking about what we see in the movie, but it is a testament to how barren the Hollywood landscape is that the pedestrian coupling we see here is surprising.

There is one scene where it feels like the film is going to push boundaries in its portrayal of the central relationship - but it veers away. 

The film constantly feels like it is about to build on its ideas, but it feels a tad muted in places.

The strongest element of the film is the the portrayal of the natives, derisively labeled 'creepers'.

Resembling hairy pill bugs, they are designed to appear both cute and un-humanlike. 

The reveal that the native inhabitants have more empathy than the human colonists is given more weight by the fact that the film does not attempt to anthropomorphise or 'humanise' this species.

They are not given any familiar features - they are alien.

The film's point is not subtle, but in the current climate, it is positively radical: just because these creatures may offend our aesthetics for feeling empathy, they are deserving of it.

 

Some of the other satire feels too broad: the conman politician/religious leader, the importance of optics.

What does not help is that the locus of this satire, Mark Ruffalo, feels miscast, at sea as the clueless cult leader.

These points are hit with a hammer and lack a sense of specificity.

The use of different Mickeys to reflect the different versions of the self feels like an untested catalyst - more potential than actualised in the film.

The rest of the cast are solid.

Pattinson is having a good time as the diametrically opposed Mickey's.

The eternally underrated Steven Yuen is hilariously self-involved as Mickey’s best friend/antagonist.

As all the Mickey's love interest, Naomi Ackie is good but her role feels a little underwritten.

The attempt at romance feels short-changed.

The flashbacks showing Nasha caring for Mikey’s previous selves feel unnecessary. I got their relationship form the scenes we had - the flashbacks feel like they are filling in inferences the movie already made. Mikey’s revelation does not carry the weight the film intends. 

A intermittently fun movie, but one hopes Bong Joon Ho uses it as a springboard to come back with a more unique and personal project.

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BITE-SIZED: Carry-On (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2024)

A TSA officer at Los Angeles International Airport, Ethan (Taron Edgerton) finds his job and life in jeopardy when a mysterious antagonist (Jason Bateman) blackmails him on order to let a specific piece of luggage through the baggage scanner.

With his family threatened, and unable to get help from his colleagues, Ethan is on his own against a ruthless team of high-tech terrorists who can watch his every move...

Jaume Collet-Serra is back!

Throughout the 2010s he was carrying out a niche making the kinds of thrillers that Hollywood used to pump out on the regular: Most of Liam Neeson’s best post-Taken action pictures, and Blake Lively’s The Shallows.

When he made the jump to Dwayne Johnson’s big plays, it felt like he would be gone, off making anonymous blockbusters.

Thank god (or Black Adam) that his last movie bombed, I guess.

A high concept thriller set in a single location, Carry-On feels tailor-made for Collet-Serra.

It is a testament to the filmmaker that he makes a movie set around an airport security barrier feel tense and dynamic.

Featuring a fine lead performance from Taron Edgerton and an effective heel turn from Jason Bateman, this movie goes down easy.

Aside from a cartoonish one-take fight inside a moving car, Carry-On’s action is pleasingly lo-fi, making good use of the airport’s various environments for the various set-pieces.

Nothing about it is particularly original but it works.

And it makes me excited for whatever Collet-Serra has next.

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BITE-SIZED: Layer Cake (Matthew Vaughn, 2004)

After years of hard work and relationship-building, London drug dealer XXXX (Daniel Craig) is looking to cash in and get out.

However, his retirement is postponed when mobster Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) demands XXXX’s services…

I have never seen this movie before.

Not as flashy as Matthew Vaughn’s later work, Layer Cake benefits from a real sense of consequence through the film’s action.

There is nothing teflon about this story - which differentiates this movie from Guy Ritchie’s work (Vaughn was Ritchie producer on his early films).

Twenty years (!) after his debut, it is easier to separate the work of the two filmmakers.

No one gets away with it.

What defines the villains - and makes them terrifying - is how selfish and stupid they are

XXXX is the smartest guy in the room but no one is listening.

In the lead, Craig shines - confident but not swaggering, cool yet emotionally exposed.

Vaughn recognises the power of Craig’s eyes.

At his point of ultimate success, XXXX turns and finally addresses the camera.

He is taking control of the movie.

Of course this turns out to be an illusion.

A great showcase for Vaughn and Craig, Layer Cake is terrific entertainment.

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Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)

A racist (Vic Morrow) quantum leaps into the bodies of people he hates…

A group of elderly rest home residents get to experience youth again…

A school teacher (Kathleen Quinlan) is lured into the orbit of a young boy (Jeremy Licht) with a terrifying talent…

A man (John Lithgow) on a commercial flight sees something out on the wing…

A film derailed by a horrific offscreen tragedy, Twilight Zone: The Movie has become a footnote, a cautionary tale for hubris and unscrupulous behaviour.

On July 23, 1982, actor Vic Morrow and two illegally-hired child actors, Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, were killed when a special effects explosion hit a helicopter which was flying too close to the ground. The helicopter crashed, killing Morrow and the children. 

That tragedy is this movie's legacy, no matter the qualities of the movie that was eventually released.

For years, it was the only thing I knew about it.

A few weeks ago it piqued my curiosity. I had heard a couple of podcasts review it, and wanted to check it out.

I had seen a smattering of random Twilight Zone episodes when I was younger (including the original episode of “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"), but I have never done the whole series.

I had actually read Richard Matheson’s original short story in an omnibus of air-related suspense stories. My familiarity with the story - and knowing George Miller directed the cinematic version - were an additional hook.

For a few minutes at the beginning, Twilight Zone: The Movie feels like it is going to be great.

The prologue - a casual conversation between two friends (Dan Akroyd and Albert Brooks) driving on a dark road - is fantastic as a piece of scene-setting.

The empty road, the way the conversation segues from music to old theme songs, the misdirect of Brooks’ rather bullying gag (switching off the headlights) which then sets up Akroyd’s final reveal (“Wanna see something really scary?”) 

"Time Out", the only original segment, is built on such a simple premise (see my logline above), it feels like a bad joke that goes on for twenty minutes.

One can almost imagine the two friends making it up as a riff during their talk about the original show.

All the other segments were apparently made after the accident on “Time Out”, and the rest of the film feels like a reaction.

Spielberg’s segment "Kick the Can", which follows, feels like a blatant apologia to the cynicism of the first segment. It was also an attempt at psychological repair - the original plan was for Spielberg to remake “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” but after the accident, the director lost interest in the project and wanted to film something more hopeful.

"Kick the Can" is a great example of a filmmaker trying to force a Spielbergian sense of childlike wonder - the short is filled with so many close ups of smiling old people it feels like it is trying to prompt the same reaction from the audience.

It is awful.

It does succeed in one function - in its own over-sentimentality, it completely negates the aftertaste of the Landis segment. 

And now the movie starts to cook.

Directed by Joe Dante, "It's a Good Life" is delightfully macabre.

I had no knowledge of this segment so it was a complete surprise. Of all the segments, this is the one that I would not mind watching more of.

A unique take on the idea of the ‘evil child’, "It's a Good Life" takes its time to slowly show its hand. 

When Anthony’s (Jeremy Licht) ‘family’ are introduced, they are presented as archetypes of a close family.

As soon as Anthony is out of sight, they grab his new friend’s bag and coat and start to search through them like they are looking for something.

The primary set of the home is brilliant, slowly revealing a more uncanny and cartoonish aesthetic as our heroine gets deeper into Anthony’s world.

The home is revealed as a childish caricature of domestic bliss, with a cast of unwilling performers as Anthony’s family.

The portrayal of the child at the centre is unique - Anthony never comes across as overtly diabolical. Licht’s performance is perfectly judged - he seems more distressed than enraged when his new friend wants to leave, and Dante lets the ‘family’s’ increasingly frenzied reactions speak for themselves. 

Anthony is not scary because he is evil - he is terrifying because he is just a child, with all the impulses and self-absorption of the same.

If "It's a Good Life" feels like the promise of a great feature, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is a pitch-perfect short.

It is the high-point of the film.

George Miller’s approach is the most full-realised of any of the segments:  

Starting with a fish-eye lens of our protagonist in the airplane bathroom, the filmmaker puts us in the character’s headspace - he is already losing it and he has not even seen the gremlin yet!

Even as it ratchets up the tension, the segment features a great dash of dark humour (the little girl with the puppet, yelling at our hero to stop smoking) that punctuates the gremlin’s increasingly disturbing appearances. 

The portrayal of the central menace could have only come from the Eighties - a combination of a performer in makeup and puppetry, the gremlin’s disconcerting speed and agility are almost as disturbing as its distorted visage.

What a barn-burner.

If you are curious, watch those final two segments. They work on their own, and act as fine showcases for the unique talents of their filmmakers.

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OUT NOW: The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, 2024)

László Tóth (Adrien Brody) an architect and Holocaust survivor comes to America seeking a new life.

Scraping by with menial jobs, Tóth has put his vocation aside.

Tóth is given a chance to create his own American dream when a wealthy benefactor Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) presents him with an opportunity…

It is incredible how one creative choice can influence the entire effect of a movie - even a near-four hour epic.

It is hard to write about movies in the heat surrounding their release.

I sometimes find it hard to write something about a new movie when I see a critical consensus forming. Am I just regurgitating what other people are thinking? Am I reacting to said critique rather than the movie itself?

It is something I wrestle with all the time, and I keep coming back to the same conclusion.

We do not exist in a vacuum, and it is pointless to write like there is no context around whatever I am writing about. We are not just engaging with the text, but with the world around it - not just the criticism around the movie, the movie’s publicity or even the viewing experience.

I took a while to put this review out because I was waiting for all the opinions I had heard and read to settle, and for my own thoughts to coalesce. 

In the end, I decided to just write it up and put it out. 

I treat any review as a single impression caught in time. As soon as I put out a review, I do not treat that opinion as sacrosanct. 

The Brutalist is a movie about creative expression. It would be easy to say it feels like a metaphor for working as an artist within capitalism, but that is literally what it is about. 

As a movie about America and the immigrant experience, it is basically a nightmare.

Almost as soon as László is on his own, he is surrounded by people who are trying to use him, like he is a tool that can be picked up and discarded.

He is also treated like a transitory being, like a visitor who will not be staying.

His status and background are constantly questioned. There are a lot of scenes where László is the subject of an audience - almost like he is one of his buildings.

Lazlo only becomes vaguely accepted when he shows a talent that can be commercialised.

His patron Van Buren only becomes interested in Lazlo when the library adds to his own reputation.

Even his cousin Attila (Alesandro Nivola), who he comes to live with, sees him in terms of his ability to generate profit.

He is jealous of Lazlo, an unstated tension that runs through their scenes together.

The only reason he seems to tolerate Lazlo is because of his talent - like Van Buren, he sees a use for Lazlo, and only tosses him out when their project backfires. 

Attila has completely assimilated, changing his name,marrying a gentile, and even fabricating his business (Miller & Sons) to create a sense of long-term history. He wants to be seen as not just belonging in America, but as having always belonged here.

His attempt at a community centre is the site of struggle, between Lazlo’s own desires, Van Buren’s, and the community this place is ostensibly meant to serve.

Like a lot of artistic people in his position, Lazlo’s artistry is figuring out a way to make that work.  

For most of its runtime, I was totally onboard with The Brutalist. 

Despite its size, I appreciated how the film managed to develop its themes with relative subtlety and respect for the viewer’s intelligence.

Van Buren’s sexual assault on Lazlo is the moment in the movie that I trip over. It feels like the filmmaker has lost faith in the rest of the film for conveying the idea of Lazlo’s exploitation. It felt melodramatic in a way that was different from other parts of the movie. 

That choice is so explicit in its meaning that it retroactively made me question the movie leading up to it.

For me, it overwhelmed the rest of the movie.

I want to watch the movie again because that chunk of the movie following Van Buren’s assault on Lazlo felt off on my viewing.

We learn of Lazlo’s intention behind his vision but whatever impact that was supposed to have was completely robbed by what came before.

The standout of the cast is Guy Pearce - he is fire contained. Despite manners and placid exterior, there is a tension to the character, an internal rage that is hypnotising.

Van Buren presents himself as a blue blood, but he is new money. He was able to bring himself to fortune, and shows no willingness to help anyone else.

He is the movie at its best - representing a venomous version of American capitalism and masculinity that will sadly endure.

I want to give the film another watch, because I am still not sure I got what the film was aiming for. There is something missing and it only becomes clear during the final scene when we are finally given a reason for the character’s obsessive perfectionism on this project.

There is no sense of catharsis or revelation. It almost feels like an add on - although that might just be the stylistic changes.  Maybe that is the point.

It is magnificent to watch. The Vistavision photography is eye-catching at times - the shots of the quarry, the long, extended of the train accident - when the movie is at a remove it is almost more effective.

I was not as enraptured as other people, and maybe the hype got in the way, but The Brutalist is definitely worth a look.

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