Category: Movies


The elevated horror of Robert Eggers

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January 5, 2025

Nosferatu directed by Robert Eggers (USA, 2024)

‘Elevated horror’ is a term used to distinguish artier cinema from the cruder slash and gore brand of bloody horror mayhem. It’s a pompous label which suggests that an arthouse aesthetic raises films above the baser (and more mainstream) characteristics of the genre. This is akin to those snobbish readers who make a point of distinguishing between old school Sci-Fi novels and the weightier sounding ‘speculative fiction’.
Essentially, ‘elevated’ films are those that pay tribute to their sources but add a knowing modernist slant – The Bababook, Get Out and any recent folk horror would fit this bill. Robert Eggers’ homage to FW Murnau’s 1922 silent classic can confidently included in a list of ‘horror with something to say’ movies.
But what can be added that is truly fresh or original to a story that has been told so many times? Not much, seems to be the answer since although the bloodthirsty undead anti-hero goes by the title of Conte Orlok he is still Dracula by another name and the story faithfully follows the central plot of Bram Stoker’s classic Gothic novel published in 1897.

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No buzz for Blitz

Filed under: British identity, Movies, Politics — Leave a comment
January 2, 2025

One notable omission from almost all of ubiquitous ‘best films of the year’ lists is Steve McQueen’s Blitz. This film certainly has not generated the kind of the buzz one might have expected from such a high profile director dealing with such a timeless (at least to we Brits) subject matter.

When it comes to the cinematic treatment of race and identity in the UK, all paths sooner or later lead back to Empire. Although much is made of the cultural ‘revolution’ of Beatlemania and the sixties, the collective trauma of the second world war remains a watershed event for the nation’s self-image. There is an abiding myth that Britain alone defeated the Nazis; that the triumph over fascism came about because of the oratory of Winston Churchill and the songs of Vera Lynn. This is why, almost three quarters of a century after the end of empire, wartime events remain a potent reference point on the question what it means to be British

Despite this, McQueen’s tortuous Occupied City about the aftermath of wartime trauma in Amsterdam in the Netherlands gained more plaudits than the story of a bombed out London, England. Perhaps it was an the error for Blitz to go to streaming (on Apple TV) rather than trying to built momentum in cinemas. Is this the modern equivalent of straight to video releases? Ironically, McQueen was on record as aiming to reach as wide an audience as possible. For the moment at least he seems to have failed.

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Best movies of 2024 you can’t even watch

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December 10, 2024
All We Imagine As Light – Number One

The cover of the December issue of Sight & Sound – the publishing arm of the British Film Institute (BFI)- proudly announces a listing of the 50 best films of 2024 and an accompanying e-mail to subscribers (of whom I am one) asks conversationally “How many have you seen?”

This question is, as it turns out, a disengenious one. Unless you have attended all the major film festivals of the year or live in the USA with ready access to an arts cinema there is no hope in hell that even the most avid movie buff will have watched all fifty.

In this way, critics maintain their fragile status as arbitors of good taste in all things cinematic.

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The Substance – a brainless body horror

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October 18, 2024

THE SUBSTANCE directed by Coralie Fargeat ( USA, 2024)

I suppose the premise of this film is that women are pressurised into preserving a body shape and tone to the point that they are seen as worthless when deemed to be beyond their prime. Demi Moore is Elizabeth Sparkle, the presenter a morning TV exercise show – Pump It Up . A ruthless producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) decides she is past it and is looking for someone younger.
Since all the male characters are either guileless nerds or manipulative lechers it begs the question as to why a woman as intelligent as Sparkle should feel pressurised into pleasing them.
After narrowly escaping serious injury in a car crash Sparkle is advised to take a supposedly miraculous product (‘Substance’) by a medic who looks so plastic that he hardly seems a good advertisement for this product. Without doing any further research she signs up for the treatment and is undeterred by having to collect the drugs in person from a shady back street address. Personally, I would at least have Googled it!
Ironically, Moore looks so well preserved and in such good shape that she seems to already have discovered her own personal wonder drug to stem the ravages of age. Nevertheless, she injects the liquid which results in a more youthful body double literally emerging from within.
The graphic birth scene is straight out of the Cronenberg playbook and the surreal atmosphere of the film owes a lot to David Lynch. However, French director Coralie Fargeat lacks the craft and vision of these mentors so the film merely descends into absurdist depths. The result is that any serious messages are lost. If there’s a feminist intent it drowns in a sea of blood and gore.
Out of Sparkle Margaret Qualley appears as Sue, a Barbie-like creation whose ‘perfect’ body compensates for her air-brain. For a film that assumes to criticise the patriarchal obsession with shape, tone and youthfulness, it crudely gratifies the male gaze by zooming in on her twerking ass in tight-fitting bikini. There’s a fine line between parodying body obsession and pandering to it which the film oversteps every time. Demi Moore’s committed performance is a small saving grace. A scene of her preparing to go out on a date and desperately applying make-up is brilliantly done. Her transformation from mature beauty into hideous hag is effectively rendered yet the story is ultimately a sensationalised parable with nothing substantial to say. With no moral code to steer it the director is reduced to a gross-out splatter-driven finale that emphasises its vacuous content.
Whatever happened to the idea of ageing gracefully?

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What is wigging?

Filed under: Movies — 2 Comments
September 27, 2024

singles imagesAmerican English often seems like a foreign language to an English man of a certain age  such as your truly. 

I recall, for example, struggling to get to grips with this  dialogue exchange from the Rom-Com  ‘Singles’ (Cameron Crowe, 1992):

STEVE – Do you realize, Janet, that in modern society there is almost no need to leave the house?

JANET -At all. Steve, you’re wigging.

STEVE – I’m not wigging. What, you think I’m wigging?     

JANET  This is hang time. I’m just… I’m just regrouping.

What is wigging?

Here’s a definition I found online:

“Wigging or The Wig is simply the state of an individual who is uncertain on ‘what’ is happening to them during the transition of apparent reality to the realm or identity of another reality. In short, it is You, the spirit getting back in communication with the Higher Self, all along protesting the Connection because You are trying to ‘hold on’ to your human valence. Just relax, breathe deep and focus on positive thoughts; love, peace, harmony, joy and serenity. When You connect the wigging will stop”. (Source : Urban Dictionary)

I’m still not sure I fully understand!

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