Rise Of The Footsoldier: Part II (2015).

This has a very liberal use of the F-word. It’s the director’s way of making his protagonist (also the director) appear to be an ‘ard cunt, but then as every sub-soap opera actor in this torporific wreck is constantly swearing for no apparent reason, and they all look and act the same, it’s impossible to distinguish one non-talented sub-soap opera ‘actor’ from the other. I was reminded of Alien 3 (1992) with its prison of shaven-headed felons and how they all may as well have been played by the same actor; this movie is just like that, but sadly an alien doesn’t arrive and casually murder everyone.

We also have loadsamoney and loadsacoke and lads constantly smoking, and cups of tea and scenes propelled with mundane chat around whether someone wants a cup of tea in this cruddy, turgid mess of a turd that has no reason to exist and essentially consists of non-characters sat in a room brooding when they aren’t leathering someone. I don’t even know what this film was meant to be about.

The worst example of British cinema.

A strong 0/5.

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The Aviator (2004).

A bad Scorsese movie is a depressing experience, and this was soaringly bad.

And then Danny Huston turned up and it just descended into beyond bad. This bloke sinks, or further buries, so many motion pictures you begin to wonder what goods he has on directors.

Pointless pish that must have cost a fucking fortune, it feels like a movie that Scorsese was contractually obligated to make, because I see no other reason for this lightweight embarrassment to exist.

I’ve had more interesting adventures in a B&M than this biopic of Howard Hughes.

The worst actor of all time.

This bloke, Hank Worden, is the worst actor that has ever ‘graced’ the silver screen, and his Mose Harper in The Searchers (1956) is what prevents that movie from being a masterpiece.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004).

For a topic seemingly so universal, this movie is trivial overkill to the max. Schematic, derivative, dire in its desperation to be something elevated beyond your standard Woody-Allen-with-an-edge (the edge is memory wiping in this one) snapshot of relationships, it stinks of needy filmmaking, and I’d lump it down there with Garden State (2004) as one of the worst of that era.

The boredom levels were high. I was mostly just … bored, even if everyone in it aside from Tom Wilkinson is a vexing hysteric. In this way, the film is insightful. People who dye their hair don’t have an actual personality. In general.

The lad who just wishes to make his birdhouse, though. He was funny:

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Trainspotting (1996).

The overriding cliché peddled about this masterly, dazzling cinema experience is that it was the mid-’90s version of A Clockwork Orange (1971). I don’t get that, but lazy film criticism like this permeates popular culture.

However, what defines this luxury work is how free of restraint and convention it is, that anything can happen in this magical realist slice of junkie hell.

Anyway, I saw the 30-year anniversary showing today and I am happy to report that everything in it works to peak levels.

A rare flawless movie, a 6/5.

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Tango & Cash (1989).

A first viewing here for this shitter featuring an odd couple in Sly and Kurt, odd in that they’re both disturbingly similar in delivery and demeanour, though Kurt Russell can emote with less awkwardness and the writers try to make him seem wild by having a mullet. Great screenwriting ….

My only prior knowledge of the flick stems from a lad I used to work with who expressed perpetual regret for choosing this over Goodfellas (1990) at a cinema showing. That’s profound.

And Tango & Cash (1989)?

It isn’t even a curiosity. It’s not even memorably rubbish, just pointless. And boring. A great nothing, it should be wiped from the historical record.

Bye for now.

The Jackal (1997). Madness.

The highlight of The Jackal (1997) is seeing Bruce Willis’ inscrutable assassin inhabit a range of progressively goofy disguises and get away with it. In a rare villainous role, you never know what elaborate wig he’s going to don from one scene to the next.

One wishes it would just focus on this promising procedural stuff, as did its progenitor, instead of the needless Richard Gere IRA backstory. And his entire character arc. And his ‘accent’. Our funny intro to him is of the lad shadow boxing in his cell. How original! What writing! This movie also pushes the absurd fallacy that the Russian police – in the epoch of peak Yeltsin state gangsterism – were trying to smash the mafia. Give this motion picture points for trying too hard.

Sidney Poitier adds the expected gravitas in a role that would have worked better with him as the deuteragonist.

It’s entertaining trash and I recommend it. But I don’t think Roger Ebert liked it much:

‘There was never a moment in “The Jackal” where I had the slightest confidence in the expertise of the characters. The Jackal strikes me as the kind of overachiever who, assigned to kill a mosquito, would purchase contraband insecticides from Iraq and bring them into the United States by hot air balloon, distilling his drinking water from clouds and shooting birds for food.’

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The Enemy Below (1957).

However you fully define the dimensions of screen presence, Robert Mitchum had it. Few other actors – and this lad has variously been described as languid to lazy – have injected so much of his own personality into characters. This in a way contradicts the nature of acting, but if he were merely being himself, then Cape Fear (1962), The Night of the Hunter (1955), and Out of the Past (1947), must have all been different personas of an overall self.

His laid back, sleepy eyed intensity, has hypnotized audiences for decades.‘ – Halliwell’s Film Guide.

That’s The Enemy Below (1957).

Intense.

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The Fighter (2010).

This is a great movie because it achieves a rarity in cinema today.

You get sick to death of the characters and their antics but end up quite liking them because of the sincere, absolutely believable changes they make to stop being annoying.

Incredible scenes.

Catch Me If You Can (2002).

An inconsequential bore, pointless in its totality, and I didn’t buy a word of it. It smelled of a fake movie about a fake man with fake stories, and the stories have been proven to be just that. This is riddled with unfunny jokes, facile attempts at characterisation, and it’s way too long.

A surfeit of irritating bimbos permeate this pathetic farce, and it’s embarrassing to see them swoon over Leo’s facepalm-inducing pick-up lines straight out of the depths of cringe.

What annoyed me the most was Spielberg’s attempts to inject a fake story with a fake father-and-son melodrama, with surrogate dad Hanks and real dad Walken. The latter is fine, the former is not as nauseating as usual but he is still a pain.

The movie was there so I watched it. I won’t be doing so again.

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