Movie review - "Wrong is Right" (1982) **1/2

 Charles McGarry was a spy novelist in the 1970s - this is one of his books which got a satirical treatment from Richard Brooks, not known as king of comedy but full of outrage and spirit.

Connery is a swashbuckling journalist who  gets involved in some terrorists who steal nukes. The guts of the story is a procedural - who killed Katherine Ross - but the movie is mostly done in a Strangelove style that doesn't quite work. Brooks displayed little flair for comedy in his career. 

Connery commits - it's the sort of movie you can imagine he enjoyed making because it's so random. George Grizzard is the president, Leslie Nielsen a nutbag politician, Robert Conrad a nutbag general, John Saxon a nutbag CIA op, Hardy Kruger an arms seller, Rosalind Cash the vice president, Jennifer Jason Leigh as a girl in a reality TV show who wants to kill her parents.

The movie takes a big swing though. Not dumb. Would've been better played straight I think though.

Movie review - "Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle" (1994) **1/2

 Another Alan Rudolph film that doesn't quite get there. It looks nice, has fun moments and it's entertaining to see all these figures. But the central relationship doesn't land - Jennifer Jason Leigh's Parker and Campbell Scott's Robert Benchley. For whatever reason in these scenes both feel like actors rather than real people. The relationship between Parker and Charles MacArthur (Matthew Broderick) seems more real. Maybe because Broderick has more energy. Or because something happens - they shag, she gets pregnant - as opposed to just pining.

Leigh is at times affective, but at other times the drawl overpowers the movie and drags it down. Gwyneth Paltrow is fun as a shallow starlet.  Nice to see Jennifer Beal, Andrew McCarthy, Stanley Tucci, etc. 

I wish Woody Allen did a version of this story. 

Book review - "Kubrick: An Odyssey" by Robert P. Kolker and Nathan Abrams (2024)

 Fantastic book. Big subject but superbly done, great research (access to archives) very thorough and fair. Deep dives on unmade films such as Napoleon and AI. Discusses Kubrick's interest in sex, often ignored by critics. Covers his arseholeness and eccentricities. The book is really fair.

Full of interesting stuff - his battles to make things, a daughter turning into anti-Semitic neo con, his dreams of moving to Australia, James Brolin was considered for The Shining.

Splendid.  

Movie review - "Flesh and Blood" (1985) **1/2

 The original idea was meant to be about two old comrades, Rutger Hauer and Jack Thompson, clashing. Orion pushed for more of a lovestory. Because it's Paul Verhoeven that means rape. 

Hauer is ideally cast although he and Verhoeven clashed on the film. Jennifer Jason Leigh has a perm, a sexual curiosity, gets gang raped, then is into Hauer.

The other casting is a real grab bag. Hauer's team include Bruno Kirby (!), Susan Tyrell (terrific), Brion James. Tom Burlinson is fresh faced as the prince betrothed to Leigh. Jack Thompson is a mercenary. 

The baddies are diverse - include several women, a kid, a gay couple.

Solid story. But no emotional links between characters. We forget Thompson and Hauer fought together. Burlinson is a stranger basically to Leigh and Hauer. Leigh and Hauer knew her.

Better if Leigh was Thompson's daughter and knew Hauer/Burlinson a long time.

Leigh goes naked a lot.  To a point where it's like "is this really necessary for the script?"

Movie review - "Annihilation" (2017) **1/2

Stylish handsome looking gals-on-a-mission sci fi film from Alex Garland which gives another choice support role to Jennifer Jason Leigh, having a bit of a career renaissance at the moment.

It's smart, but the most effective bits for me were good old fashioned scares - an attack on a hut at night being particularly effective. The acting is strong and Natalie Portman very good.

It's arty and I respect it for that but I do admit to being confused and not liking it that much.

Movie review - "The Hateful Eight" (2016) *** (warning: spoilers)

Tarantino has called this a "northern" because it's a Western set in the snow. I'd argue that really it's a Western set in the snow - Northerns being a specific sub genre of the Western set in Alaska (The Spoilers, North to Alaska, The Far Country, Call of the Wild) or Canada (mountie movies).

It's also a siege movie, in a way - a bunch of desperadoes holed up in a haberdashery during a blizzard - which could easily be adapted into a play. It reminded me of Reservoir Dogs (this too has Michael Madsen and Tim Roth in the cast).

Maybe it should have been a play - though it is cinematically interesting with its 70 mm cinematography and lush production design and movie stars. What it doesn't need to be is three hours long. Scenes drag on; dialogue is repeated by characters several times; exposition is repeated. The script needed a good edit. But I guess who was going to convince Tarantino of that.

He's given the Sergio Leone treatment to what is in its heart of hearts a good taunt Raoul Walsh B movie. There's a great cast of B movie stars - I don't use "B movie stars" in a derogatory sense... I mean the modern day equivalent of say Howard Duff and Edmund O'Brien: Samuel L Jackson and Kurt Russell as rival bounty hunters, Jennifer Jason Leigh as a femme fetale, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen as mysterious gun men, Walton Goggins as a redneck, Demian Bichir as a handyman, Bruce Dern as a Southern general.

The acting is very strong as usual in a Tarantino picture and all the leads get a chance to shine. Roth's humour was particularly enjoyable. Jackson gets perhaps the most shocking moment - describing to Dern what he made Dern's son do.

The most depressing sequence is the flashback where a gang wipe out a bunch of innocent people. We see one big for mercy before being shot; another bleeding to death pleading with their eyes before being shot. They are nice people too - it's not like seeing the leads be killed (they all play ruthless people who live life according to tough rules); they are just people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Good on Tarantino for conveying the horror but it also makes it really depressing. 

And he seems to really enjoy putting in scenes where people punch and abuse Jennifer Jason Leigh - I mean there's a LOT of moments where that happens. (While Tarantino is down with the hard luck black men had during this time in history he seems to have nil sympathy/empathy for what women had to put up with during this time.)

Movie review - "The Spectacular Now" (2013) ***

A different sort of teen film - it takes teenagers more as they are (i.e. interested in sex, smoking, romance, worried about family and jobs and the future), presenting them in a non-judgemental way. It's beautifully shot and has a really unique feel, with long takes, quasi-rural setting, and scenes which (mostly) don't take the easy way out.

Miles Teller is an engaging lead and Shailene Woodley is sweet as the ugly duckling who falls for him. Actually all the actors are good: Brie Larson as Teller's ex, Kyle Chandler as his dad, the weedy guy who plays his best mate. The one exception was Jennifer Jason Leigh as his mother who has had so much botox or whatever done to her face she was barely recognisable - it's extremely distracting (even if the director doesn't give her a close up).

The other thing that got on my nerves was all the drinking. I don't mind films that show teenagers drink but Teller's character is a functioning alcoholic - he's constantly sipping on booze throughout the film (even at school and work), and does lots of drink driving. I know that's the point of the character but it was hard to watch again and again and again and I wish they'd conveyed it in a different way as it was uncomfortable (in a bad way) to watch.

It ambles a bit, lacks the focus of 500 Days of Summer (by the same screenwriters) and could have done with some more laughs but I liked it.

Movie review – “Anniversary Party” (2001) **

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cummings are friends who decided to make a film so they got together a bunch of their actor friends and made a movie based on their own experiences. Which sounds like a wank, and it is, but at least they have very talented friends (Kevin Kline, Phoebe Cates, John C Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Beals, etc) and the look at the showbusiness world is interesting: living in the hills, disputes with neighbours over dogs, precocious children who perform at parties, ecstasy tablets delivered as a gift, parties to celebrate being together for five years. There’s a couple of stock standard impro film scenes – eg “I had an abortion!” -, Michael Panes is irritating as a Peter Sellers look alike and I didn’t buy Alan Cummings as a writer – he simply behaves too much like an actor, all flamboyance and self-centeredness. Jason Leigh gives a strong performance, Jane Adams is hilarious and Paltrow good in a sort of send-up of herself.

Movie review – “Pallindromes” (2007) ***1/2

Todd Solodz in freaky mode again, with another affectionate, loving look at the, er, slightly less conventional area of society. This is the tale of a young girl who wants to get pregnant and gets hooked up with abortionists. Very well made with some excellent acting – loved the “freedom toast” and the Jesus songs, the abortionist shooting sequence literally makes you gasp.