"Digger" - Mapother Brick in the Wall

Digger Rockwell (Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, cousin to the superior William) is a loug, brash, obnoxious, ignorant, brutish and rude oil magnate who is told, repeatedly, that his rig is going to cause a natural disaster. Lumbering in to action, alongside his scientist adviser Ganesh (Riz Ahmed) and boorish President Compson of the United States (John Goodman) he attempts to save the world. Sandra Huller is also here.

(Credit: IMDB)
For the first 30 minutes, it is a repellently unamusing comedy in the vein of sub-par Ray Cooney: opening and closing of doors, an interminable gag with a shovel which not even actors as talented as Riz Ahmed and Sandra Huller (who is given less than nothing to do, a love interest part would be more for her) can make amusing, hampered with a plodding and pedestrian direction which believes grotesquerie and volume are equivalent to humour; gross and big and bombastically empty wihtout anything of note or worth.
Then after an interminable, brutal 30 minutes of local theatre, there is a "big reveal" which director of the overrated horseshit "The Revenant" Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu clearly believes is shocking and daring and justification for the misery which has preceded it. Instead, he keeps the same dour, miserable, shit performances from otherwise good actors and Tom Cruise, elevates nothing, and expects us to revel in the genius of sub-"Birdman" revelations to prop up his limp-dick satire. Cruise has a subplot about a daughter so half-baked as to injest a moderate case of food poisoning amongst the viewer, which may explain the vulgarity shown by the cast and why everybody else seemed to think it was funny, and it's expected to be our emotional anchor and coil during the film's full-throated cock-sucking of Digger in the plot (an attempt at discussing the satirisation and hagiography of monsters rightfully condemmned by history), which is then undercut thrice: first by being shit, second by having the strength of an anemic gnat with leukemia boxing Randy Couture (and in a world where the festering corpses of the worst excesses of humanity drape themselves in the trappings of a pervert's church, recite the scripture of degeneracy and are enthralled by the stupidest yet somehow richest motherfuckers on the planet, your satire needs to be better than having John Goodman screaming about cancer of the asshole three times and plotting to nuke China), and then once more by sucking off Tom Cruise anyway where the scene from "Team America" when Gary idolises Alec Baldwin happens, only this time it's played in live action by Jesse Plemons (who, to be fair, could pull off a convincing Gary from "Team America"), rendering the whole charade they had draped across their shit writing and slapshod performances moot. I know that these people can act: Michael Stuhlbarg ran circles around every single character in "Boardwalk Empire" and made it look effortless, but here is relegated to playing a snivelling, drooling sycophantic weakling of a Vice President, for whom even the movie cannot be bothered to add any depth: it stops the plot halfway through to have Cruise (in this film's bible the greatest actor, genius and visionary of all time, but in practice channelling a character who works in "Tropic Thunder" for 20 minutes but cannot carry an entire film, he's no Benoit Blanc) decry that it's overdone and cliche.
IF.
YOU.
KNOW.
IT.
IS.
BAD.
WHY.
ARE.
YOU.
DOING.
IT?

Characters stop proceedings again halfway through to discuss their themes, to rant about what they are trying to say, and the already charmless staging becomes tedious. It threatens to get good when Riz Ahmed (he's an Indian and he's called Ganesh, truly we are dealing with the Oscar Wilde of cinema here, Gonzalez Inarritu is playing 8-D chess with us, you just don't understand it) vents at our titular prick on a plane, who proceeds to tell him a tale about where some tuna came from, lets him enjoy it, and cackles that he had no clue where it came from and the story is what matters. Man, they almost said something there, good job!
That's tossed aside when they subsequently have multiple characters declare "It's not the truth which matters, but the story you tell."

It's a movie which believes itself to be saying something profound, about the nature of art and how we use it to varnish history, how we should seek humanity in villainy but also remember the consequences of actions and the ever-present need for truth.
But the truth is it says nothing, it bloviates and belches and bellows (more jokes end with flatulence, bodily functions and repetitions of "ass cancer" than a Dane Cook routine) and presents us this "fearless" Cruise performance, when it in fact has no humanity. Much like the trees in the "twist" shot, these are not people, they are artificial toys and props for an empty director to proclaim are important. Benoit Blanc was a fun change of pace, a script and performance for an actor to delve one's teeth into: "Digger" is Gonzalez Inarritu leaping up and down on a sofa proclaiming he is in love with "Dr Strangelove" as if he'd just discovered it and wondered why nobody else has tried to redo that piece of shit because holy shit guy's it's so fucking easy!
He can do "Big Short!" He's got Oscars!
John Goodman almost works, having a background in comedy, but is given no humanity outside of witnessing him vape, much like the aforementioned Stuhlbarg. They want us to see duality, but have no contrast or depth to give these people. Burn Gorman got a snicker out of me I guess (you go man! You and your weird fucking career) and between them Goodman and Robert John Burke got the sole laugh out of me early on from the well-trodden gag of "bomb hungry general" (side note: I like Robert John Burke). By the time of the Kuleshov effect rising curtain and cheering, I was about ready to beat this smug, self-satisfied, pretentious crime against my face-eyes with a copy of "Mortal Kombat 2" for it had more depth than this fucking puddle of piss.
It's a comedy which isn't funny, a "devoted" (I will not say good) performance from Tom Cruise which never rises to anything resembling a character, it's a satire which doesn't land, and it's a movie which is destined for obscurity and curiosity status and made me go a lot easier on Winding Refn's last effort: at least he made movies for himself and his audience. Gonzalez Inarritu has made an ode to an idea he had, and I have to respect that.
It's still a festering piece of shit which was about as pleasant and deep as the ass cancer which ravaged the bowels of one of America's best actors in this film, as they were so quick to remind us.
Fuck this.

"Her Private Hell" - Thatcher in the Sky

A tower spirals through the mists of the city below. Within it is Elle (Sophie Thatcher), an actor taking on the lead in a retro science fiction film, alongside her young wide-eyed co-star Hunter (Kristine Froseth), and her fellow co-star, friend and now step mother Dominique (Havana Rose Liu). Within the walls of the building, amidst much quasi-philosophising and naval gazing, Elle crosses paths with an American soldier (Charles Melton), a pair of mischievous kitsune (Shioli Kutsuna and Aoi Yamada) and a diamond encrusted serial killer known as "The Leather Man"...

(Credit: The San Francisco Chronicle)
I like Nicolas winding Refn, I like his style and that he just sort of goes nuts.
This one is dreadful, but I can see it making for a goldmine of gif sets and Tumblr afficionados, and obtaining something of a cult following.
Gorgeously framed and designed, with an (as usual) mesmerising score and set design, all neons and blues and pinks and reds, it has the obtuse and unusual quirks the director wishes to be known for: Aoi Yamada and Shioli Kutsuna are my favourite parts, as these enigmatic kitsune who wouldn't be amiss in a David Lynch film, and there is enough ambiguity to interest somebody.
Unfortunately it's all naval gazing piss.
Lynch is at his best because he is evocative of dreams, and does not wish to explain himself as the art speaks for itself. Winding Refn is simply spewing nonsense and, more importantly, is boring here.
Despite step-mother incest, dancing kitsune, a fairly fun mini-"Drive" partway through, and exploding hearts from chests, I was looking at my watch. It didn't wish to be a moment in time, it wished to waste mine.
It's not particularly engaging, despite some commitment from Thatcher and an extremely game Liu, and suffers as a result.
I find it piss, but that being said: I admire the confidence in making a movie for 8 people, all of them Hideo Kojima. Honestly I respect that.

"Babystar" - Panopticon Artists

Ever since she was born, Luca (Maja Bons, looking like Bella Heathcote playing Christina Ricci) was on camera: a prop and child for two populer "influencers" Stella (Bea Brocks, looking like Tandi Wright from "Pearl") and Lars (Christian Koch), whose frequent vlogs and podcasts have become a media empire sensation and made them a lot of money. When she finds out that they desire a second child, Luca must confront why she loathes such an idea...

(Credit: Variety)
It's a simple idea, a long time coming.
A family drama addressing the unchained, unexplainable disgust which should niggle at the back of the mind like a cancerous spider whenever we see children and lives in general paraded as "content" to be sold and consumed, and what happens when you get off that carousel of nightmares for just a moment, what you do when you're alone with your thoughts and no "content" to shoot.
Shot like a horror film, or a Thomas Vinterberg film, the tight 3 handed drama shoots the house of the family as a prison, the cameras within more like security footage keeping Luca in, rather than intruders outside. Other details pile on (Luca keeps talking to an A.I of herself, she can only react when there are cameras on her, she dresses identically to her glossy mother, Lars can only speak in outdated slang and upbeat "quotes", and I particularly liked the censorship of brands both in dialogue and on screen: they intrude enough in our world, cut them out like rot, but also they make it feel like the leads' world of content mills) to create a sense of dread and unease in this uncanny valley, even though not much is actually happening: lingering shots of face masks left me clawing at my own flesh, and it's all anchored by phenomenally underplayed performances across the board, particularly Maja Bons who plays Luca as a woman unable to interact with the world, unable to be human, more brand than flesh. A scene in a restaurant where, after performative acts from her parents in place of simple moments, Stella acts out in order to obtain some sort of reaction or semblence of control is darkly funny, then followed by a chilling period of silence as they sit in a car consuming fast food: unable to communicate, unable to be people, having just had an expensive meal at an extravagent restaurant, but still their bellies lie empty, they can only consume...
In those quiet, dark moments, it crawls and slithers into your mind, with a remarkable grasp on atmosphere (disturbingly it reminded me of "Michael" in many ways...) and tone.
I gaze into an abyss, a pryzm of shiny plastic filters my gaze, refracts it and sells echoes of a lifetime. There is no hatred, there is no joy, there are no imperfections. There is not even anger directed at the plastic and glass. The ripples and echoes of a moment are caught, flash frozen, consumed by the abyss, the void. The shine dims. I am left my my own thoughts and the soul once reflected in that simulacrum. They are silent. They are haunting. I seek the pryzm and its ever diminishing sheen once again, the company of socket ghosts.
A haunting, skin crawling time.

"Hope" - Na-hong Jinvasion

A mauled cow, torn to ribbons, is discovered on the road at the outskirts of sleepy Korean farming village "Hope". Police chief Ko Bum-seok (Hawng Jun-min), shotgun in hand, goes to do his duty and investigate what may have done this, suspecting a tiger: the reality is far stranger, and he and the people of Hope are in for the worst day of their lives...

(Photograph: South China Morning Post)
Outrageous.
From Na Hong-jin, director of the phenomenal horror film "The Wailing" 10 years ago, the filmmaker has spent that interveneing time honing and concocting a unique cocktail of lunacy we don't see anymore, and which is a self-indulgent, sumptuous riot of a good time.
Beginning as a 45 minute chase sequence following the aftermath of a monster attack, building and crafting dread in a bombed out, ruined town reeling from the still current attack by an unknown entity, the film is breathless and tense and exciting and ever-escalating. When we finally see the monster, and rookie grenade-launcher sporting local cop Im Sung-ae (Jung Ho-yeon) arrives on scene, it becomes a glorious spectacle.
Then the movie has the audacity to keep going.
It takes a break from proceedings to have a genuinely tense monster autopsy interspersed with pitch black humour (I love the vet and would die for her), expands its scope to be something of an ensemble piece as locals reel from this madness and figure out what is going on, then puts pedal to the metal for an outstanding final act of impeccably white-knuckle chase sequences, bombastic lunacy and a woodland horseback gunfight with AK-47s, whilst still remembering to be funny and unpredictable and exciting. It never dragged for me even in its more self-indulgent moments of exposition (a story about a hunter is gleefully gross), and when the seemingly suicical and overconfident hunter Ko Sung-ki (Zo In-sung) takes centre stage, the film flips genres again to become a buddy cop madcap Looney Tunes adventure.
I miss when movies weren't afraid to be fun, to juggle genres and be about different things (I appreciate the recurring joke of asking where all of the guns came from and simply being given the answer: "I don't think that matters right now!").
Not since "The Host" have we had a daylight monster movie so good, and arguably not since that movie have we had a monster movie so enjoyable period.
The characters and performers are excellent (every monster is gangsta until Im Sung-ae shows up with a grenade launcher), the humour worked for me, and the monster design is uniformly creative and excellent, morphing between different forms and ideas with the same fluidity of the script. Its chases are truly outstanding pieces of cinema, and the bombed out town looks and feels excellent and pulsating, even in the midst of anarchy and chaos, idyllic peace shattered by this arrival. That the film still has the audacity to pepper in some neat social commentary (being close to the border of North Korea, some dissatisfaction with local civil servants, and more) is mere icing on the cake.
A wild time and well worth the wait.
Imagine you're at Cannes, expecting a drama in the vein of "Sentimental Value" and this menacing beast roars from the shadows, rears its head and pummels your expectations.
Hell yeah.

"Resident Evil" - Bryan Damage

Medical courier Bryan (Austin Abrams) is given a delivery of a valuable biological substance, likely an organ, with an urgent time frame, double pay and a snowy mountain road, heading for "Racoon City". His journey takes a rapid downturn...

(People)
Three for Three from horror maestro and "You done fucked up now!" Abraham Lincoln impersonator Zach Cregger!
After the incredible debut "Barbarian" and wild sophomore spookfest "Weapons", it was kind of disappointing to hear news that he would be tackling the horror video game with the shittiest writing of the industry, and as a videogame movie to boot! Look, we've had a relatively good hit rate this year for videogame movies ("Exit 8", "Mortal Kombat 2" which might be the best thing since sliced bread, and "Iron Lung") but this is still a game based on "Resident Evil"...
He nailed it.
It's a fun, very funny, movie akin to a point and click adventure game where our hapless put upon protagonist (a rather excellent Austin Abrams) stumbles through different environments simply attempting to survive with whatever objects he can scramble and assemble there, as ever-increasingly bizarre monsters threaten his face; all the while he gives us some actually pretty funny narration and quippy riffing on it all. He's a wiley and lovable, scrappy scamp just trying to get by, and we end up rooting for this poor bastard as things begin to spiral. The movie seems aware that "Resident Evil" is goofy and dumb, and plays with the tongue-in-cheek sensibilities of the one good game ("Resident Evil 4"), especially when Paul Walter Hauser (always a delight) shows up to steal the show for 10 minutes. There's a clever, wry recurring gag about indestructible padlocks (and the arbitrary, confined tunnel vision of door "puzzles" in these sorts of games) which pays off excellently, and it feels like a light-hearted love affair with the genre. It remembers never to be an outright comedy, keeping disgusting and unpredictable monsters thick and fast (sewer man and the one in the hospital are the best, you'll know when you see it, as it also got the biggest laugh from me when killed) whilst stretching its 15 rating for all it's worth. The film's monster design is excellent.
It's a riotous good time, and kind of what you expect from a blockbuster done by an excellent horror director. I was never bored.

The Van Dammeathon - "Kickboxer"

A cult classic, arguaby his best known film, and the time people started to celebrate Jean Claude Van Damme as a pop cultural icon and cult movie star in the making: "Kickboxer" is next on our JCVD movie star marathon! I remember having mixed thoughts about this one when I watched it on my second hand videotape years ago in a Swansea squat...
We're off to a good start, as this was another Canon joint! A vehicle for Van Damme as a leading man, with music by Stan Bush, here to capitalise and knock off "The Karate Kid" of all things, let's go!

(Thank you, Amazon)
Concept: Eric "The Eliminator" Sloane (Dennis Alexio) is a world champion boxer, seeking the latest challenge alongside his corner man, hype man, and brother Kurt Sloane (our boy Van Damme), the pair pictured here in the last image before they died in a tragic celluloid grain accident:

But when Eric is crippled in the ring by vicious Thai boxer Tong Po (Michel Qissi), a vengeful Kurt turns to an old Muay Thai master in the jungles, to better learn how to best this incredible foe...
It's every martial arts movie, and you knwo what? That simplicity works for Van Damme. If you're making a vehicle for a guy who kicks stuff: having it be a movie about a guy learning to kick stuff on a quest for vengeance is not a bad start, even if it is just "Bloodsport"... Concept: 4.
Execution!
Aha, but the devil is in the details!
These are the details:

It's a grainy, altogether rather duller affair, unfortunately. If you've seen a parody of a training montage for a sports movie, then you've seen this movie condensed. It's rather jarring getting Van Damme torture followed by an upbeat Stan Bush song.
CINEMATOGRAPHY!

I'll get to the largest tonal whiplash later on in another section.
Execution: 2
VILLAIN!
Here's the fun shit!

Michel Qissi plays Tong Po, the boxer whose job is to snarl, scream, kick stuff and cripple men with moustaches in the ring. As in, he cripples men who have moustaches, not with a moustache. That's the job of Julius Fuchs.
Tong Po does an excellent job in the martial arts and an admirable one in the feral ferocity of the part, the animalisticfury and crude brutality it requires. Unfortunately the makers decided that more than being an arrogant, brother crippling madman that in order for us to know that he was a villain, it was also required that he rape the token woman (and love interest of Van Damme, because of course she is) as well. No I am not going to show stills relating to it.
It's an otherwise really unpleasantly sour taste for what they're trying to go with for the villain, who is otherwise good. This may be controversial for such an iconic part in the Van Damme canon, but:
Villain: 2.
Sorry dude.
Charm!
Okay there is some otherwise goofy stuff we can enjoy, like that patented, non-trademarked Van Damme grin:

And then there is the best-known gif/moment of dancing and mayhem from the movie:

Hell yeah, that's the good shit.
Stan Bush also has a fun soundtrack, not on par with "Transformers" but still cheese-filled good times.
Charm: 3.
Score tally: 11 of 20
Bonus points:
1 for Grin.
1 for Michel Qissi, 1 for David Worth (co-director and cinematographer of "Bloodsport"), 1 for brotherhood (it's the plot) and then 1 for splits.
Final Score: 15.
A poor showing, unfortunately, despite its legendary status and cult following/credentials.

"Runner" - Kangaroo Jack Reacher

Burly large American man Hank Malone (Alan Ritchson) operates as a courier in Australia, getting the job done any way he can (usually by hugging door frames). His latest assignment is a simple one: escort a donor organ to its 7 year old recipient. Accompanying its chatty, gregarious and altogether too-friendly courier Bob Bishop (Owen Wilson), is the least of our stoic wall's problems, however, when armed attackers pull up and attempt to seize the liver for themselves...

(Angel.com)
Perfectly servicable fare for Ritchson, attempting to be "Midnight Run" or "The Rundown": giving the heavy lifting (hah) of the script to a motormouthed and likable enough Wilson, with a little more meat on the bones (hah) for Ritchson than he'd normally get. It's not as good as either of those movies, but trundles along well enough, though its tonal shifts are a tad jarring: in between its rather competent enough script (despite an underwritten twist villain in the final act) and a knock-down drag out Looney Tunes style final which makes the most of Ritchson being Big McLargehuge, there will be attempts at the witty rapport spliced with blood, guts and sudden deaths designed to tug at the hear strings. It feels like a Dolph Lundgren movie cosplaying as a late 2010s Statham movie, but it is solid enough as a rental.