Friday, 25 April 2025

Gloria (John Cassavetes, 1980)

When her neighbours are murdered by the mob, veteran gunmole Gloria (Gena Rowland) finds herself the reluctant custodian of their young son (John Adames).


I have never seen a John Cassavetes movie. I am aware of his work, but I always put it off. 

Gloria always sounded the most appealing due to the genre hook. I was hoping this could serve as a bridge into the rest of the auteur’s work.

And I think it worked.

While the genre element is compelling, Gloria has so much to recommend it.

For one, it is a great New York movie. Shot on the streets and subways, the film gains a unique vitality and dynamism.

Rowlands is pure dynamite. Brusque, tough, clumsily trying to build a rapport with an innocent.

Abrasive and unaffected, child performer John Adames works as another layer of verisimilitude to the movie. Rowlands and Adames have a rapport that feels completely in the moment, leaning into the clash of age, experience and the sheer suddenness of their forced bond. 

There are moments which feel found. Rather than presenting her charge as a pure object to be protect, the film just treats Phil as a kid - burdened with the sudden loss of his family, and stuck beside a stranger. He does not fall in line with Gloria - he actively rebels, and tries to run away.

The movie never stops moving - it is so good at building suspense, and most of that tension comes from the uneasy relationship between the veteran gun mole and her unwilling companion.

While the film is trying to avoid resembling a traditional thriller, Gloria's scrappy, hand-held, character-based narrative has a purity and sense of focus that most thrillers can only dream of - while it is built on characterisation, Gloria is also movie about character - how does life experience, how do events and new relationships affect it? What is revealed about a person when the chips are down? What are you willing to sacrifice? What are you willing to fight for?

This tension is not just the basis of thrillers but all drama. And that is why, despite its lack of gloss and set-pieces, Gloria is a great thriller.

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.


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Saturday, 12 April 2025

OUT NOW: Novocaine (Dan Berk & Robert Olsen, 2025)

Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) is a man who feels no pain. Raised with a fear of his enhanced vulnerability, Nathan is drawn out of his shell by Sherry (Amber Midthunder), a new colleague at his work.

After spending night together, Nathan is in bliss.

This bliss is shattered when Sherry is kidnapped by bank robbers - and our hero decides to go after them…


I tend not to write toward any overall theme or plan.

The last couple of years I have tried to focus on reviewing new releases that I want to see, rather than bigger movies that might get more readers.


I enjoy mid-budget genre films but over the last decade these kinds of films have mostly evacuated multiplexes for streaming.


Looking at the 2025 slate, it felt like studios were actually making an effort at producing a variety of films.


As we enter the second quarter of the year, it is starting to feel like these movies are all occupying the same space - rather than filling different ones.


Companion, Heart Eyes and now Novocaine are all smaller-budgeted genre movies with clear high concepts. They all feature a bit of action, horror and comedy.


They have all been varying levels of fine.


I cannot get excited about any of them.


A pretty simple action thriller, Novocaine features a pair of actors I like, Jack Quaid and Amber Midthunder (Prey).


Generally simplicity is a benefit for a movie like this - but I left underwhelmed.


This might be an effect of the trailers blowing the film’s best gags. There is one interesting reveal early on in the film, but it does not really shift the stakes - or add to Nathan’s character arc.


While I have bemoaned the loss of the mid budget genre feature, Novocaine and Heart Eyes have really hammered home the absence of another:


The romance/romantic comedy.


Where are they?


I was hoping the breakout success of the (incredibly flaccid) Anyone But You would spur a wave of similar films - but…


Studio comedies and romance movies have become such no-shows in theatres it feels like filmmakers are sneaking these genres into other genres’ clothes.


It is not earth-shattering, but the most engaging part of this movie is the romance between the leads.


Quaid, once again, makes for an affable, personable leading man. Midthunder is also good, but her role feels underwritten.


I almost wish they had gender-swapped their roles.


Jacob Batalon, the comic relief from Marvel’s Spider-Man movies, is great - but he is in way less of the movie than I hoped. 


This trio feel like the building blocks of a romantic comedy, but instead they are in this, a vaguely watchable programmer that I have been struggling to write about for over a week.


As a genre-blend, Novocaine is a couple degrees away from being great. And it is too polished to be awful. It just kind of sits there.


Another issue this film reminded me of was how small movies have gotten. This movie is just a collection of rooms.


At no point does it feel like we are living in a world that extends beyond the frame.


I cannot lose the feeling that if this movie was made 10-20 years ago it would have a bigger sense of scale.


While Nathan’s escapes have a certain slapstick quality, the film’s sense of humour also feels undernourished.  


We get a few improvised asides that do not feel organic to the characters but are just something that is expected.


Hopefully the rest of the cast get more chances - this vehicle just cannot run above the speed limit. 

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.


If you enjoy something I wrote, and want to support my writing, here’s a link for tips!
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Saturday, 5 April 2025

The James Bond Cocktail Hour: BOND 26 & Martin Campbell's CLEANER

In this season of The James Bond Cocktail Hour podcast, we are covering the six year gap between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye, covering everything James Bond-related, from books to comics to video games, to non-Bond properties which tried to fill the gap.


We check in on Bond 26 and review Martin Campbell's latest directorial effort, Cleaner starring Daisy Ridley.

Plus reviews of Netflix's Black Doves and Steven Soderbergh's Black Bag!

Check out the episode at the link below:



























Edge of Darkness: Compassionate Leave

Edge of Darkness: Into the Shadows

Edge of Darkness: Burden of Proof

Edge of Darkness: Breakthrough

Edge of Darkness: Northmoor 

Edge of Darkness: Fusion














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Tuesday, 1 April 2025

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves, 2014)

While human civilisation collapses, Caesar (Andy Serkis) keeps his community safe.


Following a chance encounter with a local enclave of humans, Caesar takes a hesitant step toward accomodation with them.


This act is a step too far for the tortured radical Koba (Toby Kebbell), who believes there is no such thing as peaceful co-existence with humans.


With his leadership and worldview challenged, the question becomes not whether Caesar can save his people, but what is he willing to lose in order to protect them?



What strikes me the most about the Matt Reeves Apes movies is the way in which they deal with the passage of time, and the way actions have rippling effects which carry through time - both at the level of character, and broader impacts on the world at large.

 

That theme is present from the beginning - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes opens with a reprise of the previous film’s closing graphic of the plague’s spread.


Where Rise ended as an exhilarating prison break movie, Dawn lands us in a world where hope is - if not lost - significantly on the wane.


A tense thriller about trust and what lengths you will go to protect what you believe in, Dawn forces its central character to show his true mettle.


Leadership is about choices, but as the movie goes into, it is also about how you react to events.


When we meet him, Caesar is battle-hardened - but pragmatic enough to avoid conflict.


While distrustful of humans, he is unwilling to endanger his community, which puts him on a collision course with Koba (Toby Kebell, fantastic).


Koba is Caesar’s dark twin - a physically and psychologically scarred ape who is obsessed with destroying the human race. In an ironic twist, he is a Bonabo, a species known to be more mellow than chimpanzees - an unstated reflection of how horrific he has been treated by humans.


While there was a clearer moral division in the previous film, Dawn shakes this sense of certainty.


This film shows a measure of empathy for everyone, even Gary Oldman’s Dreyfus, who is not portrayed as a one-note villain. There is a lovely low key moment when power is restored to the city, before Koba’s attack, Dreyfus uses power to see images of his family on a tablet and cries.


Indeed, while his responses to Koba’s attack are extreme, they are totally understandable under the circumstances.


In contrast to the righteous fury of the finale of Rise, there is no thrill to the final battle. Filmed with red and yellow, this is hell. Koba’s attack is a slaughter - fuelled by genocidal rage rather than strategy.


The film is filled with some great tension, and it is based not just on immediate stakes, but a broader sense of fatalism.


Every time Caesar finds potential trust with the humans, some obstacle - either human or ape - screws it up. The prime example is Caesar’s showdown with Koba, which is intercut with Dreyfus’s plan to blow up the tower they are on.


Koba’s death is a bitter irony - he falls into a makeshift cage of girders before falling to his death. He is back in a cage, only this one is of his own creation.


The film ends with Caesar learning to trust a human again, but it is against a backdrop of inter-species war.


Jason Clarke and Gary Oldman are good, but from this film onwards, the human casts take a backseat.


While Kebbell’s performance is the standout, Andy Serkis continues to ground the franchise - the look of sorrow at seeing his son with a gun is quietly devastating.


While Caesar’s personal growth is a flicker of hope, the final shot throws that into doubt:

We end where we began, on Caesar’s face. It is a mirror of the opening - except Caesar looks weary and uncertain.


Related

Planet of the Apes 

Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Escape from the Planet of the Apes 

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes 

Battle for the Planet of the Apes 

Planet of the Apes (2001)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

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.


If you enjoy something I wrote, and want to support my writing, here’s a link for tips!
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