Point Blank

 Year of Release:  1967

Director:  John Boorman

Screenplay:  Alexander Jacobs, David Newhouse and Rafe Newhouse, based on the novel The Hunter by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)

Starring:  Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn,   

Running Time:  92 minutes

Genre:  Crime, action, thriller

On Alcatraz Island, three criminals: Walker (Marvin), his best friend Mal Reese (John Vernon) and Walker's wife, Lynne (Sharon Acker) pull off a robbery.  However Walker is shot by Reese and left for dead in a cell, as Reese and Lynne make off with the stolen money.  A year later Walker is back in San Francisco and sets off on a violent quest for revenge and to collect the money that he is owed, pitting him against a powerful criminals syndicate known as "The Organisation".

 

Judged by the basic plot, this film, adapted from the pulp thriller The Hunter by Richard Stark (a pseudonym for author Donald Westlake) may appear to be little more than an average revenge thriller, of the type that we have all seen umpteen times before, but, in the hands of British director John Boorman, it's elevated to a strange type of art.  It makes use of distorted camera angles, strange ellipses and incongruities, an almost steam of consciousness editing style, and even the stripped down, bare bones plot, to make a strangely disorientating experience.  The film opens with Walker (whose first name is never revealed) being shot several time in a prison cell in Alcatraz.  The gunman, Walker's supposed friend Mal Reese runs off with Walker's wife, Lynne, and the loot.  Clues as to what brought them there are revealed in fragmentary flashbacks.  Then the scene shifts to the outside as a badly injured Walker prepares to plunge into the waters of San Francisco Bay, while a voice over (explained to be an announcer on a tourist boat) explains that escape from Alcatraz is impossible.  We next see Walker on said boat, some time later, apparently none the worse for his experience.  I have explained the opening in some detail because there is a theory about the film that Walker died in the opening scene on Alcatraz, and the rest of the film is his dying revenge fantasy.  This is a reasonable reading, as the film follows the inexorable flow of dream logic.  There are odd discrepancies and omissions, characters appear and disappear with no explanation, and the jarringly sudden changes in location, as well as the frequent sudden flashback scenes.  In one scene, Angie Dickinson who plays Chris, Walker's sister in law who helps him in his quest, says "you really did die on Alcatraz", and later she asks him "why don't you just lay down and die?" There is also the sinister Yost (Keenan Wynn) who seems to guide Walker on his quest for his own purposes.  Walker is a man out of time and place.  He doesn't understand the workings of The Organisation, which is now a seemingly respectable corporation doing unexplained criminal activities and work out of a slick, expensive office block (floor eleven for mergers and acquisitions, floor twelve for murders and executions).  The killers work out of the corner office with secretaries.  Walker comes up time and again against the corporate structure.  All he wants is the money that he was owed from the job.  The granite-faced Lee Marvin plays Walker as something like the Terminator in a suit.  Throughout he barely registers any emotion.  He's a man without a past or a future.  There is no sense of satisfaction when he exacts his revenge.  He exists for nothing more than his quest for the money.  This can be enjoyed as a simple straight forward action thriller, and it is full of great action sequences, but it is much more than that.  It's one of the best action films of the 1960s.

Lee Marvin fires Point Blank

Jackie Brown

Year of Release:  1997

Director:  Quentin Tarantino

Screenplay:  Quentin Tarantino, based on the novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard

Starring:  Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton, Robert De Niro

Running Time:  154 minutes

Genre:  Crime drama

Flight attendant Jackie Brown (Grier) supplements her income by acting as courier for gun runner Ordell Robbie (Jackson).  Returning from one of her trips she is arrested by the police and ATF who are trying to find some evidence against Ordell.  Under pressure from the authorities, Jackie realises that not only her freedom but her life is in danger from Ordell.  However, with the aid of of world-weary bail bondsman Max Cherry (Forster), Jackie decides to play them off against each other in a very dangerous game.

A homage to the "Blaxploitation" films of the 1970s, and adapted from the 1992 novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard (to date the only Tarantino film to be adapted from another medium), this surprised many audiences and critics on it's first release.  It lacks the innovation of Pulp Fiction (1994) as well as the stylised carnage that had become the Tarantino trademark in many people's eyes.  Instead it has a level of tenderness and humanity that hadn't really appeared in Tarantino films before.  At it's core is the romance that develops between Jackie and Max, which is rare enough in Hollywood films, a romance between two older people.  While Tarantino does display his trademark stylistic flourishes in places, by and large the film takes it's time, the main pleasure here is less the complex narrative and more the characters who are allowed to develop.  Blaxploitation icon Pam Grier is perfect as the cool but vulnerable Jackie Brown and there is real chemistry between her and the rumpled Robert Forster, who gives Max real emotional weight.  Both Grier and Forster were big stars in the 1970s but hadn't headlined films in years before this revitalised their careers.  Samuel L. Jackson gives one of his best performances as the charming but terrifying gun runner.  In supporting roles are Bridget Fonda as Ordell's stoner girlfriend, Melanie; Michael Keaton as the ATF agent investigating Jackie; and Robert De Niro as Ordell's taciturn friend, all of whom are very good.  Cult actor Sid Haig, who appeared alongside Pam Grier in several Blaxploitation films, has a small role as a judge.  The script is full of Tarantino's typically profane and witty dialogue, it also proved very controversial due to the amount of racial epithets.  I can't comment on the adaptation, having not read the book, but this is definitely a Tarantino film, with many of his trademarks being present and correct, such as the cool soundtrack, references to '70s pop culture, and bare feet.  However Tarantino was frequently criticised for the level of violence, but it is quite restrained here, there are several on screen murders, but they are not particularly nor are they really dwelt upon.  It also has real heart, and is often surprisingly moving.  For a long time it seemed to be overlooked in Tarantino's oeuvre, but it has had something of a reassessment in recent years.  It may not be a perfect film, it is definitely too long, but it is very good, and worth investing the time in, even if you're not a Tarantino fan.

Pam Grier is Jackie Brown 

 

A Fish Called Wanda

Year of Release:  1988

Director:  Charles Crichton

Screenplay:  John Cleese, from a story by John Cleese and Charles Crichton

Starring:  John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, Tom Georgeson, Maria Aitken

Running Time:  108 minutes

Genre:  Comedy

In London, a gang of thieves led by George (Georgeson), with his American lover Wanda (Curtis), her mercurial "brother" Otto (Kline) and stuttering animal lover Ken (Palin), successfully steal a fortune in diamonds.  However Wanda and Otto, who are actually lovers, betray George to the police, in order to take the diamonds for themselves.  However George has played his own trick and the diamonds have been hidden.  With the loyal Ken intent on assassinating the only witness who can identify George: a dotty old lady (Patricia Hayes) with three little dogs, Wanda and Otto set their sights on George's barrister: the straight laced Archie Leach (Cleese), who Wanda plans to seduce and persuade to reveal the location of the diamonds.  What follows is a hilarious string of doubles-crosses, slapstick and seduction.

Directed by Ealing Comedy veteran Charles Crichton, this is a delightful crime comedy in which the laughs come thick and fast throughout.  The script, by John Cleese from a story by him and Crichton allows Cleese plenty of scope for his manic comic energy, and he is always best at those roles in which he has to go from uptight authority figure to raving maniac.  Kevin Kline is very funny as the brutal thug who is both pretentious and pretty thick.  Cleese's fellow Monty Python alumni Michael Palin as the eccentric animal lover Ken (who owns the fish of the title) has the most Pythonesque story line as his repeated attempts to assassinate this one old woman go constantly awry (fair warning for dog lovers, her three prize pooches do come to pretty bad ends).  Jamie Lee Curtis anchors the film as the seductive femme fatale who sets the happily married Cleese's stiff upper lip quivering.  This is one of those constantly entertaining films, the convoluted plot really being an excuse to string a succession of gags and slapstick set pieces together, and for the most part it works really well.  Fans of British comedy will recognise a few familiar faces in small roles, such as Geoffrey Palmer as a judge, and Stephen Fry as an unlucky man in an airport.  The main cast reunited for a follow up film, Fierce Creatures, which was released in 1997.

Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Palin, Kevin Kline and Tom Georgeson in A Fish Called Wanda

A Quiet Place Part II

 Year of Release:  2021

Director:  John Krasinski

Screenplay:  John Krasinski, based on characters created by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck

Starring:  Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Djimon Hounsou, John Krasinski

Running Time:  97 minutes

Genre:  horror

The world has been decimated by a race of savage, predatory monsters which hunt by their acute sense of hearing.  Evelyn Abbott (Blunt), her deaf daughter Regan (Simmonds), son Marcus (Jupe) and newborn baby ferried in a soundproof cooler to muffle his cries, search for survivors and stumble upon a deserted factory, occupied by the bitter Emmett (Murphy) who doesn't trust others.  When Regan sneaks out to discover the source of a mysterious radio broadcast, Emmett reluctantly agrees to find her and bring her back, while Evelyn remains to take care of Marcus and the baby.

The original A Quiet Place was a sleeper hit 2018.  Aside from a lengthy prologue depicting the start of the invasion, the film picks up straight from the end of the first one.  Once again, the film makes use of a brilliantly simple premise, a world where any noise above the faintest whisper could mean death.  It was originally intended to be released in March 2020 but, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was delayed, and the film belongs in a cinema rather than on Blu-ray, DVD or a streaming service, because you get the big image and sound design.  It is full of tension and suspense.  It does deliver more of the same thrills from the first film, but it does expand the world more.  It's well paced, and writer, director, actor John Krasinski (best known as prankster Jim Halpert in the US series of The Office (2005-2013)) keeps things moving at a good place and wrings all the suspense out of each scene.  The performances are good with Millicent Simmonds and Cillian Murphy being particular standouts.  

      Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe and Emily Blunt in A Quiet Place Part II

 

Nomadland

Year of Release:  2020

Director:  Chloé Zhao

Screenplay:  Chloé Zhao, based on the book Nomadland:  Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder

Starring:  Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Linda May, Charlene Swankie

Running Time:  107 minutes

Genre:  Drama

In 2011, recently widowed Fern (McDormand) loses her job when the US Gypsum plant she has worked for for year shuts down.  This devastates her hometown of Empire, Nevada, for which the plant was the principal employer.  Fern hits the road, living out of her van, travelling the highways and byways of the United States, taking casual work to make ends meet and becoming part of an extensive, supportive community of fellow nomads.

Written, produced, edited and directed by Chloé Zhao, and based on a non-fiction book by journalist Jessica Bruder, this is a powerful, beautiful and meditative film.  It captures the beauty, camaraderie and freedom of Fern's lifestyle while not ignoring the rootlessness, loneliness and hardship of her way of life.  Many of the cast are real nomads playing fictionalised versions of themselves.  It has a real documentary feel, even with established actors such as Frances McDormand and David Strathairn, you forget that they are actors and see them as real travellers.  It has a slow, languid place, and doesn't really have a story to speak of, it follows a year in Fern's life as she travels around and takes various jobs, such as packing boxes for Amazon, working in a fast food restaurant, and doing odd jobs at a campsite among other things.  The film is full of beautiful images and bleak images, sometimes both beautiful and bleak at the same time.  It's a vision of America that you don't really see often, particularly not in Hollywood films.  Frances McDormand has given many great performances throughout her career, but she has never been better than here.  The film could be accused of not going into some of the darker aspects of the nomad lifestyle, but this is a minor issue.  This is one of the best new films that I have seen in a long time, and it is definitely worth seeing at the cinema, if at all possible.

 Frances McDormand in Nomadland 

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Year of Release:  1994

Director:  Mike Newell

Screenplay:  Richard Curtis

Starring:  Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Kristin Scott Thomas, Simon Callow, James Fleet, John Hannah, Charlotte Coleman, Corin Redgrave, Rowan Atkinson

Running Time:  117 minutes

Genre:  Romantic comedy

Londoner Charles (Grant) is invited to several weddings without getting married himself, until at one wedding he meets and falls for fellow guest, American Carrie (MacDowell).  Over a number of weddings and a funeral, the couple bond but constantly seem to be kept apart.

Four Weddings and a Funeral was released to comparatively little fanfare in the summer of 1994 and became a global smash hit, ending up as the most successful British film ever made up to that point. It made a star of Hugh Grant, and crowned writer Richard Curtis (at the time best known for TV comedies such as Mr. Bean (1990-1995) and Blackadder (1983-1989)) as Britain's romcom king.  The film is set almost entirely at the weddings and the funeral of the title (presented as chapters divided by title cards designed as wedding invitations).  This gives the film an episodic feel and means that we never get to know much about Charles and his friends.  Andie MacDowell as Carrie, in particular suffers from this approach.  We only ever see her through Charles' eyes, drifting in and out of the proceedings, and she doesn't really make much of an impact, and while we are constantly told that he is in love with her, it never really feels that way.  However this is a film that is full of small, incidental pleasures.  Hugh Grant gives his definitive performance as the quintessential bumbling, polite Englishman, and John Hannah gives a powerful performance, with his moving reading of W. H. Auden's "Funeral Blues" a highlight.    This is one of the classic comedies, and while it is far from perfect, it is consistently funny with moments of real emotion.  

 Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant attend Four Weddings and a Funeral

2 Days in Paris

 Year of Release:  2007

Director:  Julie Delpy

Screenplay:  Julie Delpy

Starring:  Julie Delpy, Adam Goldberg, Daniel Brühl

Running Time:  101 minutes

Genre:  Romance, comedy, drama

French photographer Marion (Delpy) and her American boyfriend Jack (Goldberg) are on a holiday in Europe.  Following a less than romantic trip to Venice, they go to Marion's native city of Paris.  Jack is immediately uncomfortable by the cultural differences between France and America and his own ignorance of French, as well as by Marion's bohemian parents (Marie Pillet and Albert Delpy) and most specifically by the fact that they keep running into Marion's ex-boyfriends, all of whom she still seems to be friends with.  

Julie Delpy is probably best known for starring in Richard Linklater's Before trilogy along side Ethan Hawke, and 2 Days in Paris is definitely from the same stable, once more about being a French woman and an American man wandering around a glamorous European city while discussing life, love, art and various things in between.  With this film Delpy not only writes, directs and stars, she composed the score and edited the film, and cast her real life parents, Marie Pillet and Albert Delpy, as her character's parents.  This has few surprises, and sometimes feels like a quirkier version of one of Woody Allen's later travelogue films but it is consistently funny, and the cast have real charm, despite the fact that their characters are intensely annoying, being judgemental, sanctimonious and often surprisingly cruel.  The film is certainly no love letter to Paris, showing the City of Lights and it's inhabitants, in a pretty unpleasant light.  Delpy directs the film with real style, although it always feels like a pretty good, but not stand-out quirky indie film, complete with voice-over and animated diagrams.  It is a good film and pretty enjoyable.  Followed by 2 Days in New York (2012).

   

Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg spend 2 Days in Paris