Undertow

 

Undertow 2004

• Director: David Gordon Green
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Jamie Bell, Josh Lucas, Dermot Mulroney, Devon Alan, Kristen Stewart,  Eddie Rouse, Patrice Johnson, Shirley Appleby
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Jamie Bell –  Rocketman, Skin, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Fantastic Four, Filth, Snowpiercer, Jane Eyre, The Eagle, Defiance, Jumper, Hallam Foe, King Kong, The Chumscrubber, Dear Wendy, Billy Elliot
• Josh Lucas – The Lincoln Lawyer, A Beautiful Mind, American Psycho
• Dermot Mulroney – The Mountain Between Us, Burn After Reading, Jolene, I Still See You, About Schmidt
• Kristen Stewart – Clouds over Sils Maria, The Runaways, Welcome to the Rileys, Twilight, Jumper, Into the Wild
• Why? Jamie Bell
• Seen: Once before. Now 8 August 2023      

       Chris (Bell) lives with his widowed father John (Muloney) and little brother Tim (Alan) on a small isolated pig farm in the American South. John is fed up with Chris, who’s always in trouble with the police or the neighbours. Tim suffers an anxiety disorder.

       John’s brother Deel (Lucas) shows up having been released from prison. The brothers have old festering conflicts and things go badly.

       It’s a grim and violent psychological family drama that has me hooked from the beginning. Made four years after Billy Elliot, it’s proof of what a versatile and skilled actor young Jamie Bell already is. 

4* of 5  

 

 

Eight Days a Week

 

Eight Days a Week - The Beatles Touring Years 2016

• Director: Ron Howard
• Seen by the director: Frost/Nixon, A Beautiful Mind, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, EDtv
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Documentary
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• The Beatles
• Why? Need you ask?
• Seen: 8 August 2023      

       Ah, nostalgia.

       A lot of this we’ve seen before, but put together like this? No.

       The touring years, 1963-1966.

       I was there, you know. Saw the first Ed Sullivan Shows. Saw A Hard Day’s Night when it came to the cinema in our little town (and about 25 times since then). I was at the St Paul-Minneapolis Airport to see them disembark and walk across the field.

       And I was at the Met Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota, in August 1965.

       Thank you, Ron Howard. What can it be but 

5* of 5  

 

 

I Still See You

 

I Still See You 2018

• Director: Scott Speer
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Bella Thorne, Richard Harmon, Dermot Mulroney, Thomas Elms
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Dermot Mulroney – The Mountain Between Us, Burn After Reading, Jolene, Undertow, About Schmidt
• Why? Curious
• Seen: 7 August 2023      

       After an energy catastrophe something something, all the casualties remain as ghosts, at least in Illinois where high school student Veronica (Thorne) lives. The rest of the world isn’t mentioned.

       It can be disconcerting, especially when one of the ghosts, Brian (Elms) breaks the ghost rules and makes contact with her. It seems that Brian was a murderer, so it’s kind of a murder mystery too.

       I have nothing against ghosts, although there aren’t many ghost films I like. Exceptions are, for example, The Woman in Black, 1408, The Others, Beetlejuice, The Sixth Sense.

       This isn’t one of them. I’m having trouble suspending disbelief and it’s just not very interesting. Essentially it’s just a small US town everybody-is-white high school film with ghosts.

       It’s not a bad film, but it’s not good either, though are some decent visuals. 

2* of 5  

 

Proof

 

Proof 2005

• Director:  John Madden
• Seen by this director: Hotel Marigold 1&2, Shakespeare in Love, Mrs Brown
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anthony Hopkins, Hope Davis
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Gwyneth Paltrow – Mortdecai, Thanks for Sharing, Avengers, Contagion, Two Lovers, Iron Man, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Shakespeare in Love, Sliding Doors
• Jake Gyllenhaal - Life, Everest, Prisoners, Source Code, Zodiac, Day After Tomorrow, Moonlight Mile, The Good Girl, Donnie Darko
• Anthony Hopkins – Thor, The Wolfman, Bobby, The Human Stain, Titus, Meet Joe Black, Amistad, Surviving Picasso, Remains of the Day, Dracula, Howards End, Silence of the Lambs, 84 Charing Cross Road, Othello, The Elephant Man
• Hope Davis -  Genova, The Weather Man, About Schmidt
• Why? I remember it as being good.
• Seen: Once before. Now 6 August 2023      

       Catherine (Paltrow), aged 27, is going a little crazy after her father (Hopkins), a genius mathematician, who really was crazy, dies at the age of 63.

       His doctoral student Hal (Gyllenhaal) tries to help her in her grief. Her sister Claire (Davis), a successful NY currency analyst, comes to Chicago for the funeral and worries that Catherine has not only inherited the father’s genius for mathematics, but his insanity as well, which she probably has.

       Who would have guessed that a film (originally a play) about an extremely complex and revolutionary mathematical proof could be so enthralling? Paltrow gives her strongest performance. 

4 ½ * of 5  

 

 

Iron Man

 

Iron Man 2008

• Director: Jon Favreau
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Lelsie Bibb, Shaun Taub, Faran Tahir, Clark Gregg, Sayed Badreya
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Robert Downey Jr – Avengers, Sherlock Holmes, The Soloist, Zodiac, Fur, A Scanner Darkly, Good Night and Good Luck, Richard III
• Gwyneth Paltrow – Mortdecai, Thanks for Sharing, Avengers, Contagion, Two Lovers, Proof, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Shakespeare in Love, Sliding Doors
• Terrence Howard – The Ledge, The Butler, Ray, Crash, Dead Presidents
• Jeff Bridges – True Grit, The Men Who Stare at Goats, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Sea Biscuit, The Big Lebowski, The Fabulous Baker Boys
• Clark Gregg-  Much Ado about Nothing, Avengers, Thor, 500 Days of Summer, The Human Stain, AI,
• Why? My addiction to superheroes
• Seen: 4 August 2023      

       Tony Stark (Downey Jr) is a smug sexist playboy who inherited his father’s weapon industry. He’s a great patriot and airily pleased with creating, manufacturing and selling murder machines, and with being a zillionaire.

       They have to make him this awful to show the contrast when, after a visit to Afghanistan and realising that his weapons actually kill people, he has a change of heart. He himself is injured and… insert desired details here… he becomes Iron Man, fighting evil, saving Afghan children from being killed by his weapons.

       Far too many details and silly story (ahem, this is about a superhero…) but Downey Jr pulls it off with aplomb. 

3* of 5  

 

 

Tigers Are Not Afraid

 

Tigers Are Not Afraid 2017

• Director: Issa López
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Paola Lara, Juan Ramón López, Nery Arredondo,
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Sadly, none of them.
• Why? Possibly interesting.
• Seen: 3 August 2023      

       Part fairy tale, part grim realism, this film follows five kids in a Mexican city who escape reality and try to survive in the violent world of drug lords, where even the schools are closed because of the gun battles in the streets, through fantasy.

       Estrella’s (Lara) mother has disappeared, probably murdered by a gang, and comes back as a ghost, terrifying Estrella, who joins with four younger boys. Despite the dangers and their grief over murdered families, the children find friendship, solidarity, tenderness. They play, and dance, and have fun, and help each other.

       But I don’t expect a happy ending. 

4* of 5  

 

How to Kill Your Neighbour's Dog

How to Kill Your Neighbour’s Dog 2000

• Director: Michael Kalesniko
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Robin Wright, Suzi Hofrichter, Lynn Redgrave, Peter Riegert, Jonathon Schaech, Lucinda Jenny
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Kenneth Branagh – Death on the Nile, Tenet, All Is True, Murder on the Orient Express, Dunkirk, Wallander, My Week with Marilyn, The Boat that Rocked, Valkyria, Sleuth, Warm Springs, Harry Potter, Rabit-Proof Fence, Shackleton, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Wild Wild West, Hamlet, Othello, Frankenstein, Much Ado about Nothing, Swing Kids, Peter’s Friends, Dead Again, Hamlet, Henry V, The Fortunes of War
• Robin Wright – Blade Runner 2049, Wonder Woman, Everest, The Congress, The Conspirator, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Breaking and Entering, White Oleander, The Pledge, Forrest Gump
• Lynn Redgrave – Jane Austen Book Club, Shine, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Georgy Girl, The Girl with Green Eyes, Tom Jones
• Peter Riegert  - American Pastoral, The Sopranos, Local Hero, M*A*S*H
• Why? Branagh
• Seen: Seen once before. Now 2 August 2023      

       Peter (Branagh) is a renowned playwright. His wife Melanie (Wright), a dancer, desperately wants children. He doesn’t. He smokes too much, drinks too much, has insomnia and writer’s block. He’s also a curmudgeon.

       The neighbour’s daughter (Hofrichter) is annoyingly precocious and the other neighbour’s dog barks all night. Peter hates both of them.

       Of course Peter and the neighbour girl become friends. He has midnight discussions with his half-mad stalker fan (Harris) and he suffers through the rehearsals of his latest failure of a play.

       It all adds up to a terrific tragi-comedy with Branagh brilliant as always.

 4* of 5