Category: Letterboxd Reviews

Drive Angry, 2011 – ★★★★

Every so often, I decide to check out a Nick Cage movie purely because, I dont think I have a proper measure of the guy yet. and no matter how many movies I see with him in, I never quite feel any closer to figuring out if he’s some kind of cult cinema genius, or someone who just knows a good grift when he’s onto one.

His turn in ‘The Wicker Man’ makes me queasy. His turn in ‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’ showed me that he at least has SOME degree of self awareness. and ‘Drive Angry’ (A film I took a chance on a few years ago on a whim) is one of those films that I feel really played into his strengths as a performer.

I’ve seen this one best described as a ‘direct to video’ action flick. But with a budget. and thats pretty much what this is, the plot has Cage playing a demon on the hunt for a baby believed to be his long lost relative, while another shady demon going only by ‘The Accountant’ hunts him down to return him to hell. With a down on their luck Floridian woman in on the ride after Cage’s character saves her from an abusive boyfriend.

I dont know how much nuance I can deep dive into really with this one if im being honest. Its a big dumb action movie where something is either being exploded, shot or shagged every 7-10 minutes or so. Cage plays a wonderfully cool and distant character with some AMAZING line deliveries on the cards. This is a film that knows pretty much immediately what its supposed to be, and for better or worse plows STRAIGHT into that genre violently.

The plotlines ludicrous, the pacing is breakneck, the tone is messy, but fun. The ending kind of fizzles a little bit and the characters are all paper thin. but this really isnt trying to win you over with story. its trying to win you over with scenes like Nick Cage fighting 10-12 armed men in a motel room while he has sex with a woman AT THE SAME TIME. AND drinks bourbon…AT THE SAME TIME.

The directions fine enough, I have no complaints other than the breakneck pacing does kind of make it feel like your being thrown around a fair bit, which if your not in the headspace for that, can be problematic.

Theres also several VERY ropey CG pieces here which have not aged well and take you out of the action. This film also came out around the time stereoscopic 3D was becoming a thing, so we have plenty of gratuitous ‘depth’ play, that…on a 2D tv looks weird and feels forced.

The cine is fine enough, though a little over simplistic (it feels like someone REALLY wanted to be Edgar Wright here) and the grungey colour scheme doesnt exactly lift it up…Im actually quite dissapointed about that, with a more vivid and colour led palette, this could have really gone against the grain of the time and been quite interesting.

The editing is seizure inducing in places and feels a little thrown together which is a shame. I feel like it could have maybe done with one more pass through on cuts, and some of the effect plugins used are generic built into the software ones that stand out like a sore thumb.

Performances are fine, Im going to celebrate any film that has Nick Cage playing an aloof demon alongside Tom Atkins as a sheriff trying to take him in (some of the best lines and physical acting come from this pairing) the rest of the cast are a little generic, but fine enough.

Honestly? I dont really know WHY this film bombed, other than I think it may have been targeting the wrong audience. this is 90 minutes of sex, stunts and explosions with enough of a plot to just about hold it together, I think it does what its trying to do better than most coherently plotted action films. and the casting really is the cherry on the cake for this one in my opinion.

I’ll happily watch ‘Drive Angry’ again, almost certainly so…It may not be for a little while as I need to calm down after so many gunfights…but I absolutely will!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/drive-angry/1/

by tytdreviews

It’s Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown, 1984 – ★★★★½

Simply put, my favourite Peanuts short. Is it coherent? No. Is it well animated? not particularly. But the music, tone and humour in this thing trumps pretty much every other special i’ve seen to date. I am absolutely biased about this one because I grew up with it on video tape (and now DVD) I own the soundtrack on vinyl for gods sake.

But the charm, weirdness and bewilderment this special gives off (not to mention the pure clean cut 80s ness of the whole thing) I just find utterly irrisistable. Its really something unique for the time, and I always try to find time for it whenever I can squeeze it in!

FLASHBEAGLE!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/its-flashbeagle-charlie-brown/

by tytdreviews

Magic Christmas Tree, 1964 – ★★½

A surreal 58 minute short film, i’d seen clips from ‘The Magic Christmas Tree’ for years, but never actually had the chance to sit down and watch the thing.

Welp! Sincere thanks to the ‘Oddity Archive’ youtube channel who screened it tonight as part of their ‘Archiveland Public Domain Theater’ show. Because…well…this one is absolutely an ‘oddity’ in every sense of the word.

The film features an entirely no name cast, and follows the ‘Zots’ like misadventures of a young boy who saves a cat that transpires belongs to a witch…with it being Halloween, she feels generous and gifts the lad a magic ring with Santa clause on it, telling the boy that if he plants a wishbone in the back yard and recites the magic incantation she’ll summon a being able to grant him 3 wishes. On thanksgiving he does just that, and by christmas a magical christmas tree appears in the back yard willing to grant the lad anything he wants…shenanigans ensue.

Im going to be honest, this isnt a particularly well made film, I reference ‘Zots’ but it is essentially just that…Festive Zots, someone gets a magic ring and chaos ensues…the only difference is its the tree that grants the wishes/powers not the ring itself…the ring seemingly just acts as a kind of authenticator…

The script for this thing is a bit of a mess truthfully, opening and staying in Halloween for a significant chunk of the runtime, then jumping to thanksgiving without much rhyme or reason (its literally only done to get the wishbone from the turkey) and then suddenly its christmas eve… The kids wishes are seemingly only given to set up pre filmed segments…The host of ‘oddity archive’ described it as a ‘Home movie’ film, and thats probably the best way it *can* be described. It feels like someone shot a load of random scenes on a budget without a script, then they just…wrote a script to utilize the B-roll.

Entire plot points are just never commented on, such as the dads fight with a seemingly indestructable christmas tree…how one of the wishes the kid makes is for it to be daytime during the middle of the night, so the tree grants that wish…and NOONE says ANYTHING about how its sunny at 10pm…OR how it becomes night time again at like…8am.

A giant randomly turns up in the 3rd act without any context or reason…he just says ‘you’ve been too greedy’ and thats apparently enough pull to have him turn up…

The pacings atrocious, the tones all over the place…its a mess of a script. Not helped by lacklustre cine and direction that look and feel cheap, badly planned out and badly executed. its shot in a mixture of black and white and colour for no reason other than I assume thats all the film the producer had lying around.

They didnt have on set audio so the entire film had to be redubbed from scratch in post, which is INCREDIBLY disorienting. The cast all look ill or strange. Santa here looks like hes got a bloating condition and spends most of the time he’s on screen looking like he’s about to pop.

the soundtracks irritating and scratchy. Look…this is EXACTLY the kind of movie you’d think it would be. and I imagine it would pair up WONDERFULLY as a good B-picture ahead of something like ‘Santa Clause vs The Devil’ or ‘Santa Clause Conqours the Martians’…But on its own? it feels like a cheap appitizer and not much else. like…you can ENJOY a cheap appitizer…but that doesnt necissarily mean you’ll be happy when you find the main and dessert arnt coming…

Fun enough, if you like your schlock I’d say definitely try and check it out at least once…but I dont know if it has the clout to survive more than a watch and maybe one more rewatch honestly…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/magic-christmas-tree/

by tytdreviews

The Muppet Christmas Carol, 1992 – ★★★★

My partner recently has been keen to try and get me to watch more movies that are classed as ‘common shared experiences’ that somehow passed me by, and with this being the festive season, that can only mean one thing…The Muppets Christmas Carol.

I had seen grabs of this film over the years, my cousins grabbed it when it first came out on VHS and I saw a chunk of it then, I saw clips of it over the years and thought it looked fine enough. But the fact I hadnt actually seen the whole thing from beginning to end before made my partner recoil in horror as it was pretty much an annual tradition in their household when it first came out (Though, she still maintains that ‘Muppets Treasure Island’ is in fact, the best Muppets movie…A fact I find hard to dispute.)

And so, ‘The Muppets Christmas Carol’! an adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel but slightly more sanitized for children and much MUCH more Muppity! and…its actually pretty good fun! I dont think its *quite* as good as the Alistair Simm version for my money, but I really enjoyed this retelling.

The muppets humour, I initially thought would be quite jarring, actually gels remarkably well here. With some great aside gags and subtle multi layer bits amid some surprisingly toned down chaos given the Muppets remit.

We watched the ‘Full’ cut of the film with a deleted song and scene or two readded in, and I think that really helps the flow of the production (clocking in at 89 minutes) Having not seen the more widely available cut, I cant comment comparitively. But having seen this, I feel like it hits most of the key points pretty spot on, and it flows between the acts effortlessly and enjoyably.

The direction work is rock solid, surprisingly probably one of the best looking adaptations of a christmas carol from a visual aspect, the cast/muppet direction is near perfect with some fantastic placements and some near perfect dialogue drops really pushing this thing up.

The cine too is a real step up too, with some striking and memorable compositional choices, strong colour use and incredible effects for the time (the fade up to white transition effect to allow for scene changes in the christmas past segment is a personal favourite) its incredible really how they were able to really bring the muppets (full body) to life in this one. Though, I do feel the ghost of christmas past puppet from this film will live on in my nightmares for the foreseeable.

The editing is rock solid, no complaints from me, it really seems to fully understand the assignment.

In fact, the only issue I have is with the performance of Scrooge himself. Not to diss Michael *one punch* Caine here…his performance as the Miser is superb…when he’s BEING miserly… during that time he comes across as wonderfully cold, and slowly warms emotion into his physical performance and delivery. I cant fault him there…no, I have a problem with his ‘good scrooge’ performance. Problem for me is, I just didnt fully go with him on how he chose to play it.

For me? I feel like the ‘revelation’ final act for scrooge should bring with it a layer of giddy mania, the idea that he’s just been struck by the bolt of lightning resolve that he’s going to be good, the possibilities that brings with it and the fact that the future is very much in his hands. I feel like a performance like that requires a ‘racing thoughts’ type play. i want my scrooge bouncing off the walls, dancing down the street and alive behind the eyes with the feeling that he still has time and world to make his own…

Caine…for me, doesnt deliver that. He still looks fairly dead eyed for most of the big closer and having a bit of a pep in his step and a slight smile isnt convincing me of anything, letalone the power of 3 hauntings and a dead child having hit him like a freight train. His performance in that finale screams ‘yay…christmas.’ and not ‘OH MY GOD! IM A CHANGED MAN! THE WORLD IS INCREDIBLE AND I LOVE EVERYTHING!!!’

And thats a shame, because it does rather leave a subdued ending on my plate, and not one that really won me over…Also; WHO in their right mind decided to give MICHAEL *Jellied Eeels/My old mans a dustman’ CAINE. a musical number?! jesus…

In either case, despite Caines final play and the fact the script does sand off some of the harsher edges of the christmas carol novel, I still had a really good time with this most muppity festive offering. I absolutely would watch it again, I think its very likely going to wind up in my ‘top 3’ adaptations of Dickens famous work. and god bless us everyone!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-muppet-christmas-carol/

by tytdreviews