Underwater

Underwater has all the trademarks of a film that was completed and then everyone sat around wondering "What now? Who did we market this to? How do we market this? Does anyone have any idea what's happening in it?" Released in the post award ceremony dumping ground that is late winter it's a film that will have you leaving the cinema with more questions than you had when you went in.

Deep, deep underwater Kepler 822 Station is a drilling platform perched over the Mariana trench in the Pacific ocean. It's owners Tian Industries are on the search for previously undiscovered resources and they get a lot more than they bargained for when their main drill is destroyed and the living quarters of the platform implode under the atmospheric pressures bearing down on it. Among the survivors are engineers Norah (Kristen Stewart) & Paul (T.J. Miller), biologist Emily (Jessica Henwick) and their captain Lucien (Vincent Cassel) who gave up a chance at evacuation to ensure his crew wasn't left alone. Their only way home is to go deep into the trench where additional rescue pods lay but in the depths strange things are lurking.

Director William Eubank drops us in at the deep end as soon as the opening credits finish in an attempt to disorientate us as much as the crew of the Kepler 822. We get introduced to a brace of characters with little or no defining characteristics and watch them struggle to survive. You sit there thinking "Hmm, I'm sure we'll find something about about these folks soon" but it never happens. Groundwork is laid for a couple of them that goes literally nowhere, others are killed off before we get a chance to know anything about them and the rest are....well one has a teddy bear and one is a woman....and the other has nothing going for him at all. When you don't give a shit about anyone on screen a film never has a chance. Horror and comedy films live or die depending on audience empathy for the characters and there's nothing here. Nothing.

At barely 90 minutes long it feels like a film that has had everything non essential to the plot snipped out. Character building and proper introduction? Gone. Room to breathe and understand the story? So long. A single answer to what's going on? Ya right, good luck. There could have been something here but we'll never know. Lead Kristen Stewart is too good to be wasted like this and it makes for frustrating viewing. This was filmed back in 2017 and was in fact the last film made by 20th century fox before Disney devoured the corporation and so has the smell of a film re-edited and thrown out in an attempt to recoup a bit of cash. 

A barebones and plot hole riddled story aside it's full of the same hoary old tropes horror films have been throwing at us forever. People heading off by themselves, don't go down there, LOUD NOISES, all the old trash that should have died years ago. Even the black dude gets killed first. He appears onscreen and you just know he's a goner. In fairness his death is one of the only effective moments but...like.....c'mon, it's 2020, stop killing off the token minorities for shock value. Anyway, shocks only work if we at least know a character's name. Norah and Lucien are the only people onscreen with any bit of depth (depth, hehe, get it?? *tumbleweed*). Both get a hinted at backstory and Lucien's especially seems to be building to something that annoyingly never comes. Like Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel is too talented for shite like this. Hopefully both of them are using this payday to finance something more interesting than this. Referenced intimacy between other less characters never comes to anything and T.J. Miller as a very odd engineer exists to annoy us so much want him dead as soon as possible. At least that part satisfies when it comes. Yeah yeah spoilers.

Imagine The Abyss crossed with The Meg and with a splash of H.P. Lovecraft creepiness mixed in. You're imagining it right? Now subtract all the fun and wonder from it and don't forget to remove anything that gives you a clue as to what's going on. There you have it. Underwater. An absolutely pointless movie.

In cinemas now. Don't bother.

Birds Of Prey: And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn

Harley Quinn's life is moments from ending. Bullets are flying and the men she's fighting want her dead. She ducks down behind a pallet of wrapped parcels as subsonic projectiles rip into them. The contents of the parcels waft all over her. It's class A content. She realises what she's being sprinkled with and with a wicked gleam in her eye inhales like she's never inhaled before. Then she unleashes hell with a baseball bat. It's a highly entertaining moment and one you'll never ever see in a Marvel movie. Between this and Joker it look's like DC is the place to be.

Mr J has broken Harley Quinn's (Margot Robbie) heart and it's time for her to let off some steam. The hair gets a chop, she finds a new place to live and she blows up the chemical factory where her failed romance began. But because she's not protected anymore all the people she's wronged in the past are out to get her. These people include Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor), a crime boss and his henchman, a psychopath called Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina, very effective) who's partial to peeling people's faces off. Meanwhile, a crossbow wielding vigilante (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is working her way through Gotham city's underworld and it's only a matter of time before she crosses paths with Harley.

The film may be called Birds Of Prey after the all woman vigilante gang created by DC comics but Harley is the main attraction and Margot Robbie has a whale of a time as the multi coloured loon who may deal with her issues using a bat and by feeding them to a man eating hyena but underneath it all she's not a bad sort, she just needs a nudge in the right direction. Everytime she gets that glint in her eye and that knowing smile on her face you know things are about to get crunchy and director Cathy Yan does her justice with some brilliantly realised action beats and fight scenes. It's a joy to watch an onscreen fight and not be on the verge of a fit from all the choppy editing and flashy cuts. The R rating helps here, there's no need to cut away and use quick edits to tone down the violence. Scraps play out in all their brutal femur snapping, limb severing glory. The R rating helps create a couple of genuinely unsettling bad guys too. When you see what Zsasz gets up to you'll never be scared by Thanos again and a scene of humiliation in a nightclub instigated by Sionis is a moment of extreme toxic masculinity that feels more real world than comic book that will trouble many in the audience. It's always better when a comic book villain feels like a proper threat instead of a CGI cloud because it adds an ummph and gives our lead something to batter in a satisfying manner.

The downside of Robbie playing Quinn so well is the fact that the film does suffer at times when she's not the centre of attention. One big subplot about a crooked cop by the name of Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) is a big dull dud that ties into the ending in a way that just does not feel earned at all. Other supporting characters fare better though. Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) brings a crunching physicality to her part and Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco) as a young pickpocket taken under Harley's wing gives the film a little touch of humanity that helps leaven the comic book excesses. Unlike DC's last adult outing Joker this one is all the way comic book. If you aren't a fan of these type of movies this one isn't going to change your mind. It's all about surface pleasures and depth is not a word in it's vocabulary. But no one comes to a film like this for substance tbh, we come for fun and this delivers in spades. A glitter strewn cop shop shootout. A bone breaking blitzkrieg in an evidence locker. That final funfair scrap where everyone comes together and share hair bobbins while decimating faces with huge weapons. The nicely economical opening scenes where we get an animated background to Harley's story. The latter is especially welcome in a time where comic book adaptions are legion.

Birds Of Prey is a fun watch and is so much better than Suicide Squad, the putrid mess that spawned this spin off, ever was. One teensy little call back aside this stands on its own two feet and is all the better for it. It's Robbie's show and she's wicked fun in command of a rare comic book tale that passes the Bechdel test with ease.

In cinemas now.

A film with me ma

So i introduced me Ma to the world of Quentin Tarantino tonight.

It went better than expected.

It's Oscar weekend and the news of full of nominee lists. When I come home to visit my parents we usually watch a film or two and tonight Ma wanted to watch a best picture nominee. Her first choice was Little Women but that's unavailable so we had to go for something a little different.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

Years ago my father brought me and friends to see Reservoir Dogs. He was appalled by it. 25 years later he still won't watch a Tarantino and that hate rubbed off on me ma. I offered the film up as a suggestion.

"OUATIH?"

"Who made that?"

"Quenti..."

"NOPE"

"It's about Sharon Tate."

"Hmmm. She died horribly iirc."

"Bruce Lee is in it."

"...........i dunno."

"Brad Pitt is i...

"Ok sure I'll give it a go."

"Hmmmmm..."



161 minutes later.

"Ronan I loved it."

I love when that happens. It's a nice feeling when you introduce someone to a film and they aren't buried in their phone 5 minutes later. Ya the violence at the end got to her but she loved the rest. The recreation of the era. That Pitt/DiCaprio pairing. The music. Margot Robbie as an ethereal Sharon Tate. The reappearance of two old faves in the shape of Lee and Steve McQueen. The alternate take on history and a happy ending she was not expecting.

All in all a good viewing experience.

10 films on TV this week for you

Free State Of Jones   Sat   8/2   BBC2 @ 23.05

Alienated by the confederation, a soldier deserts his post during the American civil war and together with farmers and freed slaves creates a new state. Things do not go smoothly. Gary Ross's 2016 film is a fine recreation of a piece of American history that rarely gets mentioned. It's as brutal and ugly as you'd expect but superb acting from Matthew McConnaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw & Mahershala Ali eases the pain.

The Other Side Of Hope   Sat   8/2   BBC4 @ 23.40

In the basement of a restaurant in Helsinki an unlikely friendship forms between the owner Waldimir and a homeless Syrian refugee called Khaled. A lovely film, one that would likely travel under your radar if not for BBC4. A warm, humorous watch but a realistic one too, a story that acknowledges refugee life has more valleys than peaks. Sherwan Haji & Sakari Kuosmanen both do impressive work as the leads.

The Dead   Sun   9/2   RTE1 @ 00.35

Conversations about long lost love during a dinner party in early 20th century Ireland unearth memories and emotions. Sounds like a snoozefest yes? No, its not, it's so far from it. It's a sumptuously acted story that will hit you right in the gut and stir up thoughts and memories of your own. It's brilliant. From a story by James Joyce and with 2 stunning lead turns from Angelica Huston & Donal McCann, this one will stay with you for a long time.

To Catch A Thief   Sun   9/2   BBC2 @ 15.30

A retired cat burglar living a quiet life on the French Riviera is being framed for crimes he didn't commit and wants to find out who is doing and why. Alfred Hitchcock's 1955 comedy thriller is a perfect Sunday afternoon watch for all the family. A funny, playful, tense and beautiful looking film. The French scenery is almost as pretty as star Grace Kelly and the chemistry between her and Cary Grant is spot on.

Nightcrawler   Sun   9/2   BBC2 @ 23.15

Jake Gyllenhall gives a career best performance in this dark and intense tale of a desperate crime journalist willing to go outside the law to further his career prospects. This is gripping and compulsive viewing but Gyllenhall's character is so seedy and creepy that you'll need a shower afterwards. Strong back up from Rene Russo and Riz Ahmed too. This film will put you off ever going to Los Angeles.

Dallas Buyers Club   Mon   10/2   TG4 @ 21.30

After taking a few too many risks in his personal life Ron finds out he's HIV positive and death is most likely soon. He sets out to do something about it. Then realises he can help others too. Matthew McConaughey is in fantastic form as a prick who sees the error of his ways when it's just too late. A moving watch but one that finds time for a bit of fun too. Jennifer Garner and Steve Zahn do good things in support.

84 Charing Cross Road   Tues   RTE1 @ 08.10

Helene lives in New York. Frank lives in North London. Helene loves old books. Old books are Frank's business. A letter from her about them sparks a life long friendship played out through the post. A perfect Sunday afternoon watch. A story about the ties that bind and taking a chance. Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins are both marvellous in their parts and get mighty back up from Judi Dench and Mercedes Ruehl.

Turbo Kid   Wed   12/2   The Horror Channel @ 22.50

It's 10.50 on a Wenesday night so it's post apocalyptic thriller time! The Kid is a comic book obsessed scavenger in a desolate wasteland who must step up and fight evil when the time comes. A hilariously gory homage to the sci-fi flicks of the 1980's and one that's bursting with spirit and invention. If you can get past the blood and guts you'll really enjoy yourself. Munro Chambers as the kid does well & Michael Ironside as always is an excellent baddie.

Mistress America   Thur   13/2   Film4 @ 01.00

Tracy, a student new to the New York city way of life is feeling the misery of loneliness but a new family member rapidly makes her existence into a very exciting one. A film about the problems of the middle class written and directed by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach might be an anathema to some but some stick with it and it's joie de vivre will get under your skin. Lola Kirke is a pleasure to watch.

The Handmaiden   Fri   14/2   Film4 @ 23.00

Japan. The 1930's. Sookee is hired to be the handmaiden for heiress Hideo. Sookee has an agenda but she hasn't counted on the bond that forms between her and her lady. Chan-wook Park's romantic thriller is an erotically charged and utterly absorbing watch. It's a long, demanding watch but it's one that will keep you glued to the screen throughout. Tae-ri Kim & Min-hee Kim as the leads do splendid work.

Parasite

Parasite

Noun.

An organism that lives in or on an organism of another species (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other's expense.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

The Kim's are in a bad way. Starved of food and wifi in their basement Seoul apartment, life is getting desperate and when they can't even keep a job folding pizza boxes something has to give. Their son Ki-Woo (Choi Woo-shik) is offered employment as a substitute English teacher for the daughter of a rich family called the Park's. The Park's opulent existence is in stark contrast to the Kim's and Ki Woo is enchanted. The Kim's luckily are a snakey bunch and soon enough the entire family is employed but none of the Park's knows they are related to each other. It's a secret that can only be upheld for so long.

Very late in Parasite a man is laughing when he knows he shouldn't be. This is exactly how you'll feel throughout this movie. It's dark, cunning, violent, embarrassing, stressful and you'll have a whale of a time despite all that. There's something so entertaining about the gleefully scummy way the Kim's ingratiate their way into the Park's life that you almost admire them. Almost. You'll definitely empathise with them. Poverty has a way of making people inventive and the lengths Ki-Woo and his family go to just to get a menial job tell you a lot about desperation. It's a film about the have's and the have not's but it's not a rich versus poor story because you'll feel sorry for the Park's too. A distant father, Dong-ik (Lee Sun-kyun) and a mother, Yeon-gyo (Cho Yeo-jeong), with tunnel vision regarding her kids make things all to easy for the Kim's. Wealth has turned them into a family of helpless marks, just waiting to be preyed on. And the way they are preyed on. Oh man it's a jet black joy. It's a film you know Alfred Hitchcock would have enjoyed had he still been around.

Underwear, chats, fruit fuzz, furtive kisses, selfies and careful listening. All play their part in the Kim's plan. Father Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) and his solemn but friendly face, the cutting matriarch Chung-sook (Chang Hyae Jin) who can turn on a penny, daughter Ki-jung (So-dam Park) who's pretty exterior hides a very cunning interior and Ki-Woo, the instigator who's too clever for his own good. Their plans work until they realise they aren't the only parasites around. Then all hell breaks loose. Black comedy becomes black. Carefully laid plans smash, things that threw you as odd earlier in the film suddenly make sense. Director Bong Joon Ho's house of cards comes crashing down and you know he's having a ball orchestrating it. You will too. You'll be very surprised what you'll laugh at when the aul adrenaline is pumping.

It's a hard movie to talk about without giving up spoilers but let me tell you there's stuff in here that you'll be thinking about for weeks. A wild grin at a garden party. A conversation about smell heard by the wrong person. The sound of stone against bone. That lovely looking ram-don dinner. The ending and it's horrible implications. It all makes for compulsive viewing and the acting is second to none across the board keeping it all feeling grounded even when things go haywire. Everything about it is impeccable tbh. It's a brilliantly conceived and written film. One that really lives up to the hype. I wish more Korean films got shown over here. There's always a level of ingenuity and playfulness about them even at their darkest moments.

Parasite is in cinemas from today. It's horribly enjoyable. Watch it with a peach.

Noooooooooooo

The withdrawal symptoms have started already.

 Although.....missing the election fall out probably isn't the thing.

Ze Oscars

I think I'll watch the Oscars this year. Haven't watched it since 2007 and only then did I watch it because I was actually in California and so could watch it at 7pm instead of 2am. This year I've managed to see 8 of the 9 best pic nominees so have a bit of an interest. Parasite is released in Irish cinemas this friday so by sunday night it will be all 9. I genuinely like 4 of them but there's one I'd love to see win. It won't though.

Below's a list of what I think should win and what I think will win

Best Picture

Ford v Ferrari
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
Marriage Story
1917
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite

Best Director

Todd Phillips - Joker
Sam Mendes -1917
Quentin Tarantino - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Bong Joon Ho - Parasite
Martin Scorsese - The Irishman

Best Actor

Antonio Banderas - Pain and Glory
Leonardo DiCaprio - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Adam Driver - Marriage Story
Joaquin Phoenix - Joker
Jonathan Pryce - The Two Popes

Best Actress

Cynthia Erivo - Harriet
Scarlett Johansson - Marriage Story
Saoirse Ronan - Little Women
Charlize Theron - Bombshell
Renée Zellweger - Judy

Best Supporting Actor

Anthony Hopkins - The Two Popes
Al Pacino - The Irishman
Joe Pesci - The Irishman
Tom Hanks - A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Brad Pitt - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Best Supporting Actress

Kathy Bates - Richard Jewell
Laura Dern - Marriage Story               The 1st category where should and will cross over for me
Scarlett Johansson - Jojo Rabbit
Florence Pugh - Little Women
Margot Robbie - Bombshell

Best Original Screenplay

Knives Out
Marriage Story
1917
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
The Two Popes

Best Costume Design

The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Best Original Score

Joker
Little Women
Marriage Story
1917
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Best Original Song

“I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away,” Toy Story 4
“(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again,” Rocketman
“I’m Standing With You,” Breakthrough
“Into the Unknown,” Frozen II
“Stand Up,” Harriet

Sound Editing

Ford v Ferrari
Joker
1917
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Sound Mixing

Ad Astra
Ford v. Ferrari
Joker
1917
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Best Animated Feature

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
I Lost My Body
Klaus
Missing Link
Toy Story 4

Best International Feature Film

Corpus Christi
Honeyland
Les Misérables
Pain and Glory
Parasite

Best Production Design

The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
1917
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite

Best Film Editing

Ford v Ferrari
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Parasite

Best Cinematography

The Irishman
Joker
The Lighthouse
1917
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Best Visual Effects

Avengers: Endgame
The Irishman                                       The 2nd category where should and will cross over for me
The Lion King
1917
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Bombshell
Joker
Judy
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
1917

The Lighthouse

You'll leave The Lighthouse with a fair few thoughts rattling around your head but I'm pretty certain the main one will be "Huh, I never thought I'd see a close up of a mermaid's vagina on a cinema screen." That's not a spoiler by the way.

Off the coast of New England lay a bare island and on that island was a lighthouse. In that lighthouse were 2 men working as hard as can be. One old, bearded, full of suspicion, stuck in his ways and prone to nudity (Willem Dafoe) and one younger, quieter, shrouded in mystery and partial to onanism (Robert Pattinson). Trapped together for a 4 week shift they're initially wary of each other but loneliness and alcohol have a way of bonding men and soon a combination of both sees them starting to crack.

The teenager in front of me was distressed. You could tell by the way she was squirming as the blood and meat splattered the rocks and the beating kept going on and on and on and on. Her and her fella had definitely picked the wrong film to celebrate a day off because of the teacher's strike. The rest of us were squirming too. Not because of the brutality on display. No, because of the sheer uncertainty about what was going to happen next. The Lighthouse is an absolutely demented watch. It starts off slowly, 2 men doing their work and easing us into the rhythms of life as a wickie, a 19th century term for a lighthouse keeper. Conversation is kept to a minimum with the silence only broken by the lighthouse siren and the unashamed breaking of wind. Things tick over and slowly they start to drink and drink and drink. And then everything falls off a cliff when the younger man, Ephraim, chooses to ignore a solid piece of advice. Traumatic visions. Montages of aquatic horror and masturbation. Images that wouldn't look out of place in a hentai movie. What's real? What's not? Who knows. Our leads don't. Ephraim, constantly on the verge of losing it, the older Thomas, well in the depths of madness. His candle lit sea shanty rants become the stuff of fever dreams, Dafoe's face morphing into something you've only seen in your worst nightmares. It's fucking terrifying. Yet strangely exhilarating.

It does start off slowly and you will be tested by it. It's black and white photography and it's almost square aspect ratio seem like precious affectations on the part of director Robert Eggers but soon enough you'll be caught up in it all. The claustrophobia created by the small screen mirroring what our boys are feeling. The offscreen happenings hidden by the framing making us confused and putting us on edge. The hazy b&w leaving you wondering what's going to pop out of the shadows. It's unsettling and then almost instantly it's chaotic. The mayhem sneaks up on you and around 2/3s of the way through you won't know whether to laugh or recoil in horror. Pattinson and Dafoe sell it brilliantly and both hit such a warped fever pitch of insanity you wonder will you ever be able to look at both the same again. Dafoe does especially memorable work. The last of his big spiels delivered in a moment I don't recall ever having seen before. 

Is The Lighthouse a deceptively simple look at the descent into mental illness exacerbated by loneliness and alcohol or is there something more sinister happening on the island? Eggers never gives us answers, trusting us to take what we want from the story. There'll be a dozen different interpretations of this film but only yours is important. One thing you'll take from it is the understanding that an awful lot of men's problems could be solved if they laid off the drink and learned how to communicate properly. 

In cinemas now. It's truly something else. If you like to leave a film feeling like you've been kicked in the head then this is one for you.

The Shield rewatch

I started this back in around Halloween and it's finally coming to a close. 86 episodes down, 3 to go. I do not want it to end. It's phenomenal TV. A rare show that gets better as it goes on instead of ending up like a diluted version of itself like everything else. Since it finished 12 years ago (12!! how the fuck) nothing has bettered it in terms of tension and ferocity. Some have come close like Breaking Bad, Game Of Thrones (some of it), Banshee but it will never be matched for the sheer amount of nailbiting you'd go through watching it. Betrayal, scandal, death, death, death. It's not for the faint of heart.

The story of the Barn police station and the people within who police the area of Farmington, a region of downtown Los Angeles ruined by drugs, vice and murder. It's bad on the streets but the members of the Strike Team, a 4 strong gang of cops designed to tackle gang crime are just as nasty.

A lot of things seem different about it since I last saw it. I'm a lot different since I last saw it and that's one of the best things about it, in fact that's one of the best things about the best tv shows. You notice new things about it, looking at it from a different angle lets you appreciate it more. I'd go so far as to say it's the deepest, most complex cop show ever made. Before you say it, The Wire isn't a cop show.

A few things I've noticed.

Dutch and Claudette. The Barn's go to detectives. I hated the pair of them when I watched it last. They always seemed to get in Vic Mackey's way. They seemed like buzzkills. The story always seemed to cut them them just as the main story got interesting. This time around I love the bones of them. The interplay between them, how theirs feels like a genuine friendship. The slow, considered ways their plotlines play out, especially when juxtaposed against the manic main plot. Dutch, Mr Ego, thinking he's a god detective, Claudette playing it cool, hanging back, being the real god detective. Together they just sing.

David Acevada. The Captain. Another character I despised. A conniving bastard, only out for himself. Everytime he appeared I hoped he's get shot. This time around I feel sorry for him. Always out of his depth, having to work 10 times as hard as white cops because as a minority in a majority white force you'll always be under a microscope. Then later, after his rape he becomes one of the most layered victims ever portrayed on TV. Nothing about his portrayal is black and white, its all shades of gray and it's hard to watch, as it should be.

Shane Vendrell. Strike Team vice president. 15 years ago he was brilliant. A real wild card. The hillbilly shitkicker who's not afraid of anything. This time he's vile. Racist, two steps away from a rapist. He's always been a bad cop but this time around he's not enjoyable. His gradual turn into the villain of the piece is still amazing to watch. Writer's Shawn Ryan and Kurt Sutter have done, immense, labyrinthine work here with Shane's arc. He's an all time big bad.

Vic Mackey. Strike team head honcho. When I was 25 Vic was cool as fuck. Ya, he shot a cop in the face in episode one but so what, that guy was a rat. At 40 it's easier to see Vic as he really is. A broken, venal, utterly corrupt, selfish piece of shit. Michael Chiklis is superb in the role, chucking out the one liners but dead behind the eyes. Every move made with precision, one eye on the road ahead and one what he can do for himself and the other always looking over his shoulder. Vic is a lead character for the ages. He seems himself as the hero but now we see nothing but scumbag.

3 episodes to go. I'm tempted to just stop now so it doesnt come to an end again. But at the same time I want to stay up until 2am and see it through.

I'm going to be tired tomorrow.

Farming

Been looking forward to this film for an age. The directorial debut of Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, the man who first came to our notice in HBO's magnificent prison drama Oz. His character Simon Adebisi was a force of nature. A one man army who'd pin you to your chair. Over the years he's been in numerous other tv shows and film, slowly building notice for himself until finally he's got his shot at making his own movie. Farming. The story of his life. The story of how he, as a young Nigerian child, was shipped off to England by his parents to live with a white family so he could have a shot at a better life. While there he faced awful racism and bigotry and it affected him so much he actually joined one of the racist skinhead gangs in his home town. A black man, joining a gang like that. This had the potential to be a scalding and incendiary look at self hate and cultural identity. But for one thing.

Sadly Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje hired Kate Beckinsdale to play the part of his foster mother and she's so blazingly awful I had to turn off the film after 30 minutes. There's bad and there's Bad but jesus christ she is just BAD. I'd be more believable as a working class mother than she is.

Bollix anyway.

Richard Jewell

Donovan Bailey. Gail Devers. Michael Johnson. Svetlana Masterkova.Wladimir Klitschko. Shannon Miller. Gwen Torrence. Fatuma Roba. Haile Gebrselassie (Legend). Richard Jewell. What did all these 10 people have in common? The 1996 summer Olympics made them famous. Well, 9 of them famous and 1 of them infamous. All 10 were great at their job but for 1 of them being good at his job ruined his life.

Richard Jewell always wanted to be in law enforcement but it just was not meant to be. To follow his dream he took a job as a security guard at the 1996 Olympic games opening ceremony in Atlanta, Georgia in the hopes it would be a stepping stone towards a real police job. Unfortunately for him, during a routine sweep of the music arena he found a pipe bomb, that ultimately exploded killing 1 person and injuring many others, but his actions in alerting the crowd to move saved 100's of lives. Why is that unfortunate you may ask? Because mere days after he found himself under investigation for the bombing, because he fit the lone wolf profile the FBI created. With no evidence other than that he found himself under the screws of 2 of the most powerful forces on Earth. The U.S. government and the U.S. media.

Paul Walter Hauser who plays the lead role is fantastic. Absolutely believable in the part. His large frame and his slow Georgia drawl will instantly lead you to believe one thing about Richard but you'll be wrong. There's far more to him than meets the eye and Hauser drags every inch of humanity out of the part. In a just world, it would be a star making turn, with Hauser having already put in mighty work in I,Tonya and Blackkklansman and his brilliant showing in MMA TV show, Kingdom but sadly the rest of the film just does not live up to the him. Richard Jewell did a heroic thing and he deserved a story with a bit more oomph than this.

In the last 10 years Clint Eastwood, has directed 8 films and 5 of them were about real life "heroes". Each of them has been dull as ditchwater and Richard Jewell is the latest. It's bland, simplistic, broad and boring. It even looks boring. Clint has never been a flashy auteur, preferring a toned down, muted look but at this stage he isn't even trying. 2019's The Mule shows there's plenty of fizz left in the tank but his real life stuff ironically drags the life out of you while you watch. There's no surprises here, there's nothing new on display, there's no dramatic tension whatsoever and in it's attempt to simplify the story it commits a huge sin. It's a film about a man trying to overcome the lies being told about him but with it's portrayal of reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) and her investigative methods it does the exact same thing to her. Slander driven by a need to tell a story. Open letter's printed in Atlanta's biggest newspaper have said as much. You'd think at some point someone reading the script would speak up but when you've someone as famous as Clint in charge it seems people keep schtum.

I hope Clint keeps directing. I truly believe he has one great film left in him, hopefully a western, but this film is one that will be forgotten rapidly. It just feels sluggish and lazy, a paint by numbers. One for the money. Nice turns from the always reliable Kathy Bates (as Mama Jewell)  and Sam Rockwell (as Richard's lawyer) prop up Paul Walter Hauser nicely but this is as humdrum as award season movie making gets.

In cinemas now. Wait for Netflix.

A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood

Most of us have grown up on American TV, films and music but every now and then you come across something that never really made the leap over the Atlantic. The Madea series of movies for example in recent times or Hootie and the Blowfish, The Jeffersons, The Dave Matthews band, Mister Rogers and so on. The last one was the host of a TV show called Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, an educational show for kids that ran on American TV for years. It was wildly popular, a charming and innocent 30 mins beloved by millions. Mister Rogers, first name Fred, passed away in 2003 and his death was mourned all across America. 2020 sees the release of A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood and us folk across the pond get to see why so many were enchanted by this gentle man.

1998. Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) is hurting. He's an investigative reporter for Esquire magazine and he's been asked to write a puff piece on Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks) for an issue about American heroes. He's baffled by the choice, being more used to writing coruscating & in-depth articles on unwilling subjects. He's also struggling with life and this job couldn't be coming at a worse time. His wife Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson) has just given birth to a son and to complicate things further, his estranged father (Chris Cooper) is back on the scene and he has an agenda. Interviewing Mister Rogers is the last thing he wants to do, until he meets Mister Rogers......

You may struggle with the first 5-10 minutes of this, a pitch perfect recreation of Mister Roger's Neighbourhood with all the sincere cheesiness you'd expect. It feels weird, mawkish and cloying but slowly and then surely two fantastic performances from Matthew Rhys and Tom Hanks suck you into the narrative and 110 minutes later you'll be sitting in the cinema lamenting on the fact that Mister Rogers was never part of your childhood viewing. It's a film that cynical viewers (who'll definitely identify with Lloyd) will scoff at but for every one else it's a charming paean to the simple wonder of kindness and conversation. A lot of our issues can be solved with kindness and conversation tbh. If only we had the patience to give it a go.

Lloyd lacks this patience, in every facet of his life. A wedding confrontation leaves him bruised and battered and these bruises intrigue Mister Rogers. In Lloyd he sees a man needing to be saved and so he sets out to do so, in his own gentle unassuming way and we get to see how he was so successful at what he did. Hanks sells it brilliantly, the modern day Jimmy Stewart, the nicest man in Hollywood becoming the nicest man on TV. And yet, underneath the niceties we get a glimpse or two of the flint beneath, the pounding of piano keys, a stony look, and it's here that Hanks turns Rogers from a caricature into a fully realised human being. It's not flashy work but it's a great reminder of why Hanks has been so omnipresent for the last 30 years.

Rhys does equally excellent work, those sad eyes that worked so well in his TV show The Americans, doing all the talking. Broken by events in his youth and traumatised by the reappearance of his Da (the always deadly Chris Cooper), Lloyd needs a lifeline and little does he realise how important his latest job is. Rhys' best work here happens in two moments of silence, one with his father and one with his new surrogate father Fred. We all need a little more silence in our lives, it does wonders. Lloyd's relationship with his wife Andrea is full of a different kind of silence, one where words are spoken but there's little behind them. Susan Kelechi Watson's does well as a woman struggling to hold on, torn between a new baby and a husk of a husband. She's very much a supporting role but she adds a lot here, in a part many will resonate with.

A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood is well worth watching even if, like me, you've no real knowledge of Mister Rogers. When it's over the first thing you'll do is run home to youtube and lose yourself in a world of re-runs. And you'll smile.

In cinemas now.