Cloud Atlas

Oddly intriguing, and sometimes fascinating, but, ultimately, quite frustrating, CLOUD ATLAS was directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), with Lana - formerly Larry - and Andy Wachowski forming a separate crew. Based upon the novel (that I still have not read) by David Mitchell, it reaches from the hidden mind to the outré limits, while it explores the chronoplex destinies of individuals - all bearing the same comet-shaped birthmark - via six stories set in different eras. Revealed in fragments, these include a comedic 1970s conspiracy with Tarantinoesque blaxploitation gags, a post-holocaust island of tribal cannibalism and technocratic survivalists, a farce about escapees from a British old folks’ home, and the fate of a 22nd century Korean ‘disposable’ waitress rescued from enslavement.

Cloud Atlas cobbles together vanilla sci-fi thrills with philosophical banalities about how an invisible touch of crimes and kindness lingers, to gain weight affecting unpredictably dark futures, where obedience to corporate emblems on bright soaring towers, has entirely replaced nationalistic enthusiasm for multi-coloured rags up the flagpole of patriotism. Under the dogmatic rules of social Darwinism, cannibalism is the last taboo; and Cloud Atlas deploys, quite repetitively, the dilemma of unethical recycling, as if copied from the infamous final revelations of Soylent Green, and A Boy And His Dog, with a grisly sincerity about that amoral mentality. 

Yet it gathers portentous blathering: on spontaneous creative sparks, finding a reliable muse, some bleak introspection or nostalgic reverie, inspiration derived from limitless hope, and quaint little fables about how truth can wreck beliefs. There’s a lot going on here, but the glass is not half full, or half empty; it is cracked and leaking. At its heart is a musical composition, a ‘Cloud Atlas’ symphony, that somehow resonates across/ transcends time periods - from historical to futuristic - that provide multiple/ po-mo roles for the main cast (Jim Broadbent is the best of them in repertory theatre mode), in a quirkily novelistic quantum reality concocted by trippy grey convolutions of imaginative thinking round narrative corners. Can you cog the true-true of it now? 

It’s an epic but rambling effort and, this being a Wachowskis opus, the makers cannot resist inserting some gratuitous cyberpunk action scenes (very much like Casshern or Natural City), with a rebel hero on the loose in the spectacular Asian megalopolis. You might love bits of it, but I doubt many viewers will agree on exactly which bits are great and which are not. Perhaps, as befitting its myth of irregularities, Cloud Atlas is most genuinely ‘entertaining’ (in anticipation) before seeing it, then again (overall, in contemplation) after viewing. Such is the indie blockbuster conceit of this ambitiously cross-genre TykWacho formulation that its trick also works a second time round, and will possibly repeat its engrossing, curiously adultescent ADHD, appeal for a third, or fourth play, too. It does not offer enlightenment, but it is an uplifting movie.

 

The most profound influence upon Cloud Atlas is Terry Gilliam. Although rejecting his oeuvre’s delightful flights of whimsy, a greater sense of realism in Cloud Atlas is woven tightly around a core of urgent romanticism that’s very Gilliamesque in tone. Think of his Time Bandits, Brazil, and especially The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, in particular (but also 12 Monkeys, and The Fisher King), and the cumulative impact of Gilliam’s story-teller idiom and ironic humour, on this paradigm of acutely cinematic expression, becomes clear. Whatever positive/ negative comments you may have read/ heard about Cloud Atlas, I strongly suggest that you give it a try. You have nothing to lose... except three precious hours of your life.

AAA

The most notable thing about Marvel’s latest TV show is that it’s first on their A-Z list of productions... before AGENT CARTER. A spin-off series from WANDAVISION that I’d argue nobody expected or even wanted, AGATHA... is consistently witless, with far too many obviously witchy traits (they ride ‘broomsticks’, too!), blithely gay stereotypes, and a quest-for-power plot-line with dismal ballad interludes. 

All along (ack, see what I did there?), the Witches’ Road, this means it’s quite impossible to avoid pantomime clichés, especially as Kathryn Hahn plays the lead with a typically amateurish, hackneyed OTT style. In marked contrast, the usually wonderful Aubrey Plaza does what she can to save this disappointing fantasy, but her ‘evil’ character doesn’t get enough screen-time to make a difference. Don’t imagine AAA is anything like the two Dr Strange movies, or any genre-themed show like CHARMED, WITCHES OF EAST END, or movies like THE CRAFT, etc. What could have been an American response to great British series JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL, or Guadagnino’s Euro-styled SUSPIRIA remake, always feels very much closer to Disney’s HOCUS POCUS than anything linked to familiar MCU superheroes.

UK General Election 2024

I know my views on British politics are quite naive, but our FPTP voting system now seems childishly simple-minded, anyway. 

GB parliament desperately needs PR, and compulsory voting, to ensure that democracy in government is fit-for-purpose in the 21st century.

This list is not a prediction of any sort, it's just a few things that I really want to see happen, next week. Like lights turned on at the end of the dystopian tunnel...      

7 Signs of Hope:

• Labour gets super-majority with 400+ MPs in Parliament
• Tories crushed to less than 100 seats
• Liberals win more seats (150+?) than Tories to become official Opposition party
• Greens win 4 or 5+ seats (including IOW East, if that’s not too much to ask?)  
• Corbyn wins against Labour (Starmer is proved wrong) for Islington North   
• Richy Sunk losing his MP seat, so he can't remain Tory leader 
• No seats won by Reform party, not even Clacton

Moon

Korean drama THE MOON (2023) presents a rescue mission that blends Apollo 13 realism with Ridley Scott’s imaginative The Martian. Crazily exciting action scenes (such as Lunar-rover stunt- driving), are heightened by quite hysterical acting. But, honestly, this is no more outrageously cranked-up to subgenre max than Hoffman’s entertaining Red Planet (2000). It shares that space adventure’s enthusiastic pulp sci-fi thrills about heroic problem-solving, and survival because of sheer hopeful determination after all conventional solutions fail. If you liked director Kim’s two fantasy pictures, Along With The Gods, this is certainly a better effort with great production values.

  

Blu-ray, 24 June.

Nell TV

I find British genre-TV is often dismal stuff, that’s pathetic at best, but RENEGADE NELL is good fun. Its confident scenario offers a quirky blend of superhero-mystery and comedy-adventure, where a failed soldier gets dangerous pixie powers to avenge a murder, commit Robin Hood robbery, and fight against landowners’ corruption. A scheming Earl (Adrian Lester) conjures up a version of devilish ‘Herne the Hunter’, for a spectacular mythic action sequence, while the heroine’s own family struggle to survive pursuit by mercenary types. 

Despite a climactic Jacobite plot to oust Queen Anne (Jodhi May), jokey anachronisms are all part of this drama’s witty appeal, so forget about historical or cultural accuracy, also happily opposed by top news-maker Lady Moggerhanger (a splendid Joely Richardson). Louisa Harland carries the show as the feminist vigilante, but it’s rather a shame that the creators supply a supporting cast with campy characters (especially a boringly pantomime highwayman), on both sides of the law, too. I think this could have been even better, as home-grown fantasy, with only Nell as a source of amusement. 

Nick Cave's theme song -

Watching the detectives 4

After Southern Comfort, The Right Stuff, Remo Williams, and Tremors, Fred Ward was the blokeyest of bloke actors. His various bids for Hollywood actioner stardom didn't really work out (as they did for Bruce Willis), but he made some very cult-worthy attempts. Martin Campbell’s neglected classic, CAST A DEADLY SPELL (1991), sees Fred portray H.P. Lovecraft as a private eye in a post-noir fantasy L.A. Tough, savvy ex-cop Phil Lovecraft firmly rejects all magic, but the city witches teach dancing, a blonde heiress hunts a unicorn, there’s blood rain at sunset, and the Dunwich club singer is played by Julianne Moore. Lovecraft is hired by a wealthy widower (David Warner) to find a rare book. His sleuthing search for the Necronomicon finds slapstick zombies everywhere. Giving ‘runes’ conjures up a monster from a cooking pot. Our heroic shamus is attacked by a stony gargoyle but saved by the femme fatale. Clancy Brown plays a slickly nasty gangster intending human sacrifice: “Any idea how hard it is to find a virgin in Hollywood?” Great slimy Old Ones return with a genre-breaking burst of midnight earthquakes. An enjoyable TV-movie that's great to see again, CADS creates a solidly witty blend of Chinatown and Ghostbusters that pre-dates popular Buffy spin-off Angel, and might have influenced The Dresden Files (2007). The Spanish DVD has English sound.

Watching the detectives 3

TRUE DETECTIVE series 4 has a few great weird-crime scenes, but it remains a disappointment, overall. What was all the fuss about? OK, so NIGHT COUNTRY marks Jodie Foster’s TV-star debut, but very late to a subgenre party, after the likes of Holly Hunter (who made her Saving Grace cop-show 15+ years ago). Owing a substantial debt for its eerie atmosphere to weird-SF masterpiece, John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), the main problem with TD 4, as a crime drama, is that far too much basic TV soap-opera is thinly disguised as standard character-study (see Hilary Swank’s Alaska Daily, about a NYC journalist in Anchorage, for a rather better example). Perhaps, the final crushing blow to NIGHT COUNTRY, as a mystery horror-show entertainment, is that it never quite manages to match, or avoid comparisons with, David Slade’s vampire thriller 30 Days Of Night (2007), which made witty use of its menacing darkness scenario. Good to see Christopher Eccleston has finally escaped from any lingering side-effects from his Doctor Who stint, but, honestly, Fiona Shaw, as loonily eccentric Rose, so easily out-shines everybody here, that she’s the scariest - and the funniest - part of this series. 

Too much of a soap-opera for my taste, MARE OF EASTTOWN stars Kate Winslet for six episodes about a detective-sergeant in Pennsylvania, tackling a local serial-killer case. There are hopelessly broken homes, grimly dysfunctional families, and it’s all, so often (intentionally!) bleakly melodramatic, with sit-com TV humour, it’s a wonder that nobody dies laughing. Whodunit plotting usually feels like crudely unsavoury back-drop material, that is intrusive, yet lacking much authentic cop-show appeal, beyond some blithely stupid behaviours by cruel kids, and various parents - who, of course, should know better. Churchy folks have no answers for the community's failures that are predictable, not simply unfortunate, like any neighbourhood tragedy. “Doing something great is over-rated” sounds like a TV signature line but, despite narrative possibilities for redemption through accepting personal challenges, the hard truth is that most do-gooders don’t get a second chance to do the right thing. Potential love-interests for nominal-heroine Mare (nicknamed: ‘Lady Hawk’), are teacher Richard (Guy Pearce), and sympathetic but doomed detective Colin (Evan Peters, Quicksilver in X-Men prequels). Mare’s grouchy mother Helen (Jean Smart), sometimes making an effective comic-relief granny, is good fun. Super-freckly Lori (Julianne Nicholson) is routinely excellent, deserving her Emmy more than Winslet did. Sadly, a climactic shoot-out for the kidnappings does not 'finalise' the chaotic crime traumas here. Obviously, this extended tangle of revelations about unplanned parenting and unsolvable family problems will end in tears. The closing twist is unconvincing, but... “After a while, you learn to live with the unacceptable.” 

Watching the detectives 2

ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING is a comedy TV show with Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez, doing a New York crime podcast... where Sting is the first suspect. It's a highly amusing parody of amateur sleuths, who are neighbours, investigating a (suspicious?) death of an odd resident in their block. There’s brisk character development, so very little soap-opera present. Happily, it's more than just a sit-com, and almost a compelling satire on post-fame celeb-culture (for two older guys), one from 1990s' TV, the other from theatre, while Gomez is a great young foil for the American comedy stars. The most notable episodes are Boy From 6B, where actors have no audible dialogue or they're using sign-language because the podcast sponsor’s son is deaf, so it’s nearly a ‘silent-movie’ story. Fan Fiction has the podcast ‘stars’ meeting their crazily avid followers. Best guest-star is undoubtedly Tina Fey as Cinda, the celeb maven of the podcasting scene. Of course, there’s a twist-ending. Two further seasons are available now, and a fourth is in the works.

 

A pun on ‘manhunt’, Joe Penhall’s MINDHUNTER begins when the rule “psychology is for backroom boys” is rudely challenged by ambitious agent Ford, an idealist with empathy in conflict with old-school, late 1970s' policing (Ford shows Dog Day Afternoon to FBI trainees). When Ford meets crusty veteran Bill Tench, the agency's road-school boss, their chalk ‘n’ cheese duo are quickly established. Ford interviews serial killer Ed Kemper who spurs the team’s behavioural science research. “How can we get ahead of crazy..?” Cue: Talking Heads’ song Psycho Killer, roll credits. David Fincher directs the first two episodes with a perfect pacing not maintained later with good guy/ nerdy cop routines. Third episode’s intro for Dr Wendy Carr (Anna Torv, Fringe) prompts development of this BSU project, so there’s steady progress on questioning convicts about their motives. Cue: Boomtown Rats’ I Don't Like Mondays. Complications emerge from criminal lies about Federal corruption, while they brag of their own extremely violent fantasy lives. Contrast this with investigating busybody concerns, focusing on how mildly inappropriate activities may become escalating compulsions, while big differences between serial and spree killers are hot-button profiling labels. Fincher directs season one’s finale, exploring how the abyss is for stares, and the void for screams.

Watching the detectives

Can a British comedy icon play serious crime-drama? Rowan Atkinson’s MAIGRET is four TV movies, complete with a French cop’s stern demeanour and signature pipe. Police on trail of a serial killer in Paris have to persuade female officers to volunteer as bait, to catch a painter-turned-psycho whose obsessive mother (Fiona Shaw) and his domineering wife always protect their pampered man-child at any cost. 

Second story Dead Man better showcases Parisian 1950s settings, complete with WW2-damaged buildings filmed on Hungarian locations for vicious murders. No jokes about bad Czechs, please. 

Night At The Crossroads begins with the shooting of a Belgian jeweller. A mysterious one-eyed Dane is the suspect, and his nervous ‘sister’ is haunted by family disgrace. Missing diamonds, an illegal boxing club, a car chase down country lanes, add layers to puzzler about underworld temptations leading to gangster mayhem. Engagingly insightful questions posed by Maigret reveal corruption by a police colleague. 

Creepy menace at strip-club kicks off the final film where a blonde, who reported a plot against a ‘Countess’, is found strangled at home. There’s a brief sit-com sketch about a cat but Atkinson does not seem to mind. Chief Inspector Maigret’s gifts of ‘reading’ people are supported by empathy for crime victims, and willingness to protect innocents. The depth of this humanity, and official duty of caring, often proves decisive in cracking the most tangled of cases. So, not surprisingly, the spectres of neither TV farce Mr Bean or spy-fi movie-parodies of Johnny English make even a fleeting appearance here at all. 

Atkinson’s characterisation of the sleuth is always seriously sympathetic and far too kind for any keen sense of humour. Jokes usually require cynicism and certain levels of cruelty to provoke laughter. Comedy would be a sharp curse on this measured investigation of weakness and failure. Farce is always mean, but hard truth is never funny after people die from abuse or lies. That’s the appeal of this possibly unique version of Maigret.

From a police chief in Montmartre, to American gumshoe Sam enjoying a quiet 1960s lifestyle in rural France, Clive Owen’s MONSIEUR SPADE tackles a violent case involving slaughtered nuns, an unlucky teen heiress, and links to Algerian espionage. Hammett with a twist, here’s six episodes with pickled noir dialogue where an  emphysema-suffering tough-guy drives a Citroen and wears glasses, but swims nude, to amuse his neighbours, whether they’re British spooks or not. 

Local jazz-club owner Marguerite (Louise Bourgoin, heroine of Luc Besson’s The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adèle Blanc-Sec) lurks on periphery of plot that swerves around crypto-gifted chosen-boy Mahdi, wanted by everybody from the Vatican to CIA. This show might be for cynics only, because optimism looks deadly, especially when guns wait on both sides of a door. Is the “15 going on 50” troublesome girl really Spade’s daughter? Secrets of prejudice and revenge creep from past confusions to present dilemmas. 

There's a hatred of cemeteries because such land is a waste of garden spaces. Can moral debts ever be paid? Effective as character-study, and intriguing period spy-fi. Clearly, this is not a crazy sci-fi like the comic-book TV of Pennyworth, but its escalating situation tilts closer towards fatal tragedy for an idyllic town where (almost?) nobody can be trusted. Except, perhaps, Alfre Woodard - arriving in a Mercedes from across a bridge (a hostage-exchange scene, of course), to explode all the murky goings-on here, just like a classic whodunit finale.

Next week on WATCHING THE DETECTIVES
Only Murders In The Building - TV comedy with Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez, doing a New York crime podcast... where Sting is the first suspect.

Walter Hill: Peer of the USA

His movies about cowboys and gangs, music and mayhem, with sundry clever gimmicks that usually elevate subgenre clichés to pulp art-forms, make Walter Hill the best director of pictures about American cultures. Although the quality his work might vary quite a lot, his credits include several classics (48 Hrs, Streets Of Fire, Extreme Prejudice) as Hill practically perfects buddy-movies, timeless adventures, and modern westerns. Is he the greatest auteur of genuine Americana? Perhaps his success was partly because he was born, like Clint Eastwood, in California, not in New York like his rivals Martin Scorsese, the late Michael Cimino, and upstart Abel Ferrara. Usually, Hill’s own class of directors are less prolific, or their action movies are far too inconsistent in average quality. 

For last week’s re-watching survey, I picked a batch of 7 titles that (apart from Long Riders) I have not seen again since their VHS releases. Charles Bronson’s mysterious loner Chaney almost seems destined to save chronic gambler Speed (James Coburn), and junkie doctor Poe (Strother Martin) from their vices. After serving his time as screen-writer, Hill’s directing debut HARD TIMES (1975) looks well crafted, despite its low-budget. Sets and locations are carefully shot with painterly care to enhance social struggles of the Depression era. Bronson’s fisticuffs generate whatever mercenary thrills and amorality that western styled action themes promise to deliver, while sequences like cage fighting are sharply edited by Roger Spottiswoode (who, like Hill, also worked for Sam Peckinpah). Restored to 4K standard, Eureka’s MOC Blu-ray has a pictures booklet, with a contemporary review by Pauline Kael.

Renowned for its unique casting of actual brothers (Keach, Carradine, Quaid, Guest), playing outlaws from families, THE LONG RIDERS (1980), re-mints gunslinger lore with revisionism like meta-movie authenticity. Curiosity values aside, this version of the ‘James-Younger gang’ sees director Hill blasting his way into western mythology, tackling bank/ stagecoach/ train robbery, with ruthless guns and attempted chivalry.

Outsmarting Pinkerton agents, or getting brutal revenge after ‘Robin Hood’ failures, Jesse James and Cole Younger get increasingly violent when lawmen harass a widow and kill innocents. Previously filmed as Kaufman’s Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid (1972), the gang’s climactic job results in a bloody shoot-out of slow-mo stunts, a ride through shop-windows, and inventively stylised bullet-zinger effects. The appearance of a steam-tractor that spooks horses symbolises the cowboys’ finale while a time-lock defeats armed robbery. Here, musician Ry Cooder begins a career doing soundtracks for six Hill movies, while Pamela Reed and James Remar have Starr turns, providing witty characters for unhappy loner Cole to fight. Kino special edition R1 Blu-ray has a disc-load of extras, including retrospective cast interviews, plus 1 outstanding hour of German documentary, Outlaw Brothers (2013), made by Robert Fischer, for Fiction Factory.

An engagingly persistent comedy of American excess, filmed several times before this version, BREWSTER’S MILLIONS (1985) celebrates rags-to-riches fantasy with links to Twain’s story Million Pound Bank Note, and John Landis’ class-conscious money-bags bet in Trading Places (1983). Can a baseball pitcher spend-but-never-squander $1 million every day for a month, to inherit a mythically vast fortune? If any wealthy life-style is only a tawdry game, should the results be a win or a loss? Hill’s approach to farcical humour is fuelled by tragedies about frequently mercenary attitudes, and wholly tasteless extravagance, in the premier decade of yuppies. Its amoral schemes and thematically virulent greed gained even greater cultural resonance after Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987), but none of all that detracts from a sense of overindulgent fun, boosted by John Candy wittily playing sentimentalism for keeps. 

After his cross-genre “rock ‘n’ roll fantasy” Streets Of Fire, director Hill explored the roots of US music in CROSSROADS (1986). Wannabe guitar-star Eugene ‘Lightning Boy’ teams up with legendary bluesman ‘Blind Dog’ Fulton for this road-movie with a mojo bag, heading into southern gothic. Dangerous dreams on the Mississippi delta shape their quest for one ‘lost song’ by Robert Johnson (feature debut of TREK’s Tim Russ) whose mythic deal with Legba makes an eerie prologue. Hitchhikers on trail to celebrity, with decades of culture between them, the heroes windup in an electric duel against Steve Vai. Ralph Macchio and Joe Seneca are fun as the kid and Willie, while Jami Gertz’s runaway heart-breaker Frances provides the young man his final lesson in getting the blues. Pained silence... needs no explanation. Joe Morton almost steals the show as Scratch’s assistant.

Not to be confused with Joel Schumacher’s last movie, 2011’s home-invasion thriller, starring Cage and Kidman, actioner TRESPASS (1992) is Hill’s reworked updating of John Huston’s classic Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948). On an urban adventure, reckless fire-fighters, Don and Vince, stray into a conflict between black gangs led by King James (Ice-T). A disused factory becomes a death-trap for all concerned, when a lockdown siege seems influenced by John Carpenter’s Assault On Precinct 13 (1976). Sniper shots and hostage crisis ramps up tension, while suspense cranks higher from army weapons  in gunfights over turf. Philosophical angles ensure the hoods are more than just angry thugs, and it’s grimly amusing when they act like black yuppies. There are talky smarts against feral greed on both sides of racial issues, but adding maniacal impatience and junkie-level desperation to this wholly mixed-up situation generates a wealth of thieving violence for the long lost stash of churchy gold. William Sadler and Bill Paxton make for engaging leads, especially when their moral dilemmas become a nightmare of explosive demolition, where it’s always the savvy of survival that counts.

 “This dance is a demonstration hostile to the citizens of the United States.”

Yes, that’s how trouble starts in GERONIMO: An American Legend (1993). Blue-coats played by Jason Patric and Matt Damon escort Apache leader Geronimo (Wes Studi, deserving stardom here after his great performance in Last Of The Mohicans), to meet US army General ‘Nantan Lupan’ Crook, before his tribe are confined to Reservation land. Old hands Gene Hackman and Robert Duval express acting proficiency for their co-stars, and need only grins and nods to communicate effectively on-screen. Narration adds depth to a story observing that freedom (wild like the wind?) is never civilised, while USA’s cultural dilemma prompts the question: can ‘pacification’ ever be honourable? But for Geronimo’s visions, this movie is almost drama-doc in approach, and yet Hill just cannot resist doing splendidly arty compositions for locations. It’s also not a bio-pic, but a powerful character-study. Look out for Scott Wilson and Stephen McHattie in a fine supporting cast of 'White-Eyes'.   

Notably, except for Another 48 Hrs. (1990), director Hill does not create sequels, and rarely repeats his past work beyond signature in-jokes like a pub/club called Torchy’s. WILD BILL (1995) crams plenty into a brisk 90+ mins. As famous gunslinger, James Butler ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok, Jeff Bridges improves upon previous western performances, in Hearts Of The West and Heaven’s Gate, and seems to perfect grouchy mannerisms he later displayed for the Coens’ excellent True Grit remake, succeeding John Wayne.

Slowly going blind, Hickok faces down foes and outrages even friends, like ‘California’ Joe (James Gammon, never better), and Charley Prince (John Hurt). Hurt’s extra job as narrator sticks close to Hill’s formula by providing insights, not just details, to help viewers ‘see’ the unfolding narrative clearly. Wild Bill is roundly portrayed as walking nightmare, not a cowboy hero. “I don’t explain myself.” He’s a serial killer, sometimes wearing a badge. Just daring to touch Bill’s hat is annoyance enough for him to shoot anyone. Ellen Barkin’s Calamity Jane looks definitive, and is certainly far superior to Jane Alexander’s 1984 TV film, or Anjelica Huston’s series Buffalo Girls (also 1995). A fabulous supporting cast showcases Diane Lane, David Arquette, Bruce Dern, and James Remar, with Keith Carradine’s witty cameo as ‘Buffalo Bill’.