VOD: The Holdovers (dir: Alexander Payne, 2024)

"That boy is too dumb to pour piss out of a boot!"

Alexander Payne's awards-baiting drama firmly places us right from the start back in the early 1970s (with its opening credits/classification screens) and Christmas (choir carol rehearsal), as disliked and aloof private school teacher Mr Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is tasked with supervising five holiday 'orphans' with recently bereaved cook Mary (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), eventually reduced to a single embittered student Angus (Dominic Sessa), and we follow them as their pasts are unfurled and tentative bonds are made.  The film has a very strong (and occasionally wryly amusing) script, buoyed up by a top-quality character performance from Giamatti, the consistently magnificent presence of Da'Vine Joy Randolph and a solid debut from Sessa.  Shots are beautifully composed and the pacing is careful (with steady cross-fades aplenty), making it all come across as very genteel, restrained and well-meaning, and the 70s aesthetic (both filmic and mise-en-scene) is well presented.  It is shot through with a chilly wintry feel and a bleak melancholy that undercuts the festive season, notably from the child abandoned by his parents and the grief of a mother, which make the occasional moments of warmth and connection extremely effective, all leading to an interesting ending for the characters.    
 

VOD: Cold Meat (dir: Sebastien Drouin, 2024)

"In the right circumstances we can all be cruel."

A week before Christmas in a very cold and snowy Colorado and with an approaching storm, Downton's Allen Leech dons an American accent, saves a waitress from her brutal partner at a diner, and gets stuck in the middle of nowhere when his car goes off the road.  With a strong surprise twist early on and an unfortunate accident, for most of the running time this is very much a bottle show based inside the stricken car, but with effective thriller direction and a nicely-controlled performance by Leech in particular, it makes the most of its limited scenario.  There is also an odd plot thread about a local forest spirit alluded to early on that pops up occasionally but relevantly.  Overall, Cold Meat makes for a low-key but atmospheric piece that does maintain interest to find out what will be the (somewhat abrupt) resolution.
 

VOD: Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom (dir: James Wan, 2023)

"You celebrate the wins, you mourn the losses."

At the start of this slightly belated sequel to the surprisingly successful 2018 original, Aquaman is juggling his life as a family man (cute baby alert) and as a somewhat disgruntled and disillusioned King of Atlantis, but with the swift reintroduction of Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as scowling single-minded nemesis Black Manta, Aquaman finds himself having to break out his imprisoned brother and form an uneasy alliance with seemingly everything at stake.  The strengths here remain the same, namely the strong performers, including a well-cast (if slightly ageing) Jason Mamoa, along with Nicole Kidman, Temuera Morrison and Patrick Wilson.  It is noticeable that the female  characters are clearly sidelined, and there is also again a constant distracting tension between the sheer scale and ambition of the visuals and the cartoonish quality of the finish.  The fact that everything seems to be designed to emphasise the overscaled size makes the virtual and physical sets look somewhat empty.  With so many styles being juggled - including domestic comedy, mismatched buddy movie, sci-fi action epic, environmental treatise, etc. - the film never nails a consistent tone, from which it might have benefitted.  The action sequences, however, are lively enough as expected from James Wan, but as a standalone from the rest of the DCU it feels more like wrapping up a bit of unfinished business than a glorious conclusion to Zack Snyder's run of overseeing the DCU.

 

VOD: Unfrosted (dir: Jerry Seinfeld, 2024)

"Transportable.  Possibly heatable.  It might even be nutritious!"

Jerry Seinfeld's directorial debut has proved to be extremely divisive in its reactions, and it certainly does not come more madcap than this comedically-fictionalised tale of American cereal rivals (Kellogg's and Post) in their battle over the creation and launch of Pop Tarts in the 1960s.   The humour is gloriously broad, deadpan, relentless and utterly silly, treating the battle to be first to the marketplace as if it were the Space Race.  With a host of recognisable actors clearly having fun, notably Hugh Grant being wonderful as the frustrated thespian beneath the Tony The Tiger suit, Amy Schumer as Post's scheming boss, James Marsden as a preening fitness guru and Peter Dinklage as the chief of the under-threat Milkmen Gang.  The hyper-stylised retro look is lovingly deployed with great attention to details, the pacing is light and breathlessly zippy, and the whole enterprise recalls the zaniness of the Zucker/Abrahams movies.  You definitely have to be in the right (forgiving) mood for the level of extreme daftness on offer here, but Unfrosted is a fun movie that is grin-inducing.

 

VOD: Drifter (dir: Hannes Hirsch, 2024)

"We all have our abysses."

In this German indie drama, mild-mannered 22-year-old Moritz goes to Berlin to be with his boyfriend, but before long they break up, and the film shows slices from his life - from the mundane details of everyday life to a couple of enthusiastic hook-ups - as he explores the drug-fuelled Berlin scene, new relationships and his identity.  This is a straightforward tale of a young man searching for his identity and for excitement in the big city, told in a simple, unfussy manner.  As a movie experience it does not amount to much - he shaves his head, gets tattoos and does drugs - but as a reflection on the experiences of youth it does convey some of the hedonism, listlessness and ultimately loneliness and insecurity effectively enough. 
 

VOD: The Idea Of You (dir: Michael Showalter, 2024)

"You embarrassed to be jetsetting around the world with a twenty-four-year-old pop star?"

Like many art forms, if movies centre on the willing suspension of disbelief, along comes The Idea Of You, for which the viewer is expected to buy into a forty-year-old 'ordinary' divorced art-gallery-owning mother (Anne Hathaway) having a wild romance with a twenty-four-year-old goofy lead singer of a global hit boyband (rising star Nicholas Galitzine), a scenario which would test even the most die-hard rom-com fan - they even get to kiss, in the rain, in Paris.  An actress of Hathaway's calibre elevates the generally limp material (her reaction to a horde of screaming fans is spot-on), Galatzine throws his industrial-strength charm and sensitivity at the screen and sings quite well in the bland concert/recording sequences, and the pair work well together.   Filmed in a slightly less-glossy style than its counterparts and with some longer scenes, the age-gap adds a different dimension than most examples of the genre, but mostly, this is pleasantly-delivered if utterly silly romantic-fantasy fare.

 

VOD: The Greatest Hits (dir: Ned Benson, 2024)

"What in the name of Luther Vandross just happened?"

On paper, The Greatest Hits sounds like a Richard Curtis-styled romantic drama in which a grieving young woman, Harriet, finds that certain songs can quite literally take her back in time, using her gift to try to find the precise song that can help her to prevent the death of her boyfriend in this surprisingly sweet and appealing movie.  All five key players here give strong and very likeable performances, and the indie styling and exploration of grief undercut the idyllic past romance and the fragile new budding one nicely. The film is more sombre and reflective than many of its genre with its excellent plaintive melancholic score and carefully-placed flashback sequences, and whilst it feels like the film strains a little too hard at times to be cool and laid-back, it boasts good storytelling, engaging performances and gently respectful feel for its subject matter.

 

VOD: The Wandering Earth II (dir: Frant Gwo, 2023)

"Being alive is pretty great."

Clocking in at nearly three hours, this prequel/alt-story to the 2019 blockbuster Chinese sci-fi actioner from the same director delivers similar ambition in terms of ideas and screen spectacle yet feels a little more restrained and emotional.  Here, Planet Earth is under threat from an expanding Sun, the film following the plan to move the planet to break away from the Moon and travel far out of danger's reach and also exploring opposition faction Digital Life (preserving human consciousness in digital form) from the early spectacular hijacked drones attack on a military base and the Space Elevator to the final desperate attempts to survive.  It is again visually mind-boggling, with its enormous-scale megastructures, devastated cities and disaster scenarios, but the mid-section is notably more restrained, contained and talky, as the AI/consciousness sub-plot is brought to the fore and a new planetary threat emerges, but once the action mayhem returns it is frenetic and spectacular.  Although slightly less frantic overall and  certainly more sombre than the original, the film is packed with characters and plot strands that miraculously are brought together for the ending's crisis to be averted.  Like most big-spectacle blockbusters, the plot and central concepts do not bear any scrutiny, and Hollywood would never commit to something as colossally insane as The Wandering Earth movies, but the sheer ambition and scale of these films, with an attempt to balance with some emotional beats, make them hugely entertaining, if exhausting.
 

VOD: Land Of Bad (dir: William Eubank, 2024)

"Just takes one s**t day to change your whole perspective."

Dreadful title aside, this war/action potboiler sees a rather relaxed elite squad off to Southern Asia to rescue a captured CIA agent, but they find themselves attacked disastrously behind enemy lines, leaving a rookie (Liam Hemsworth) and a drone to save the day, get to an evac site and rescue the captive, guided by a veteran operator (Russell Crowe) back at base, making the second and third act mostly The Liam And Russell Show.  A recognisable if somewhat low-rent lead cast - two Hemsworths, Ricky Whittle, Daniel MacPherson, Milo Ventimiglia -  trade military acronyms and low-grade banter, Liam Hemsworth as ever a professional and committed if unremarkable lead, and Russell Crowe brings some much-needed gravitas as he sits in an office and visits a supermarket.  The film's saving grace is the scenic location shooting, and it does make a salient point about what happens when the military hi-tech gear fails, otherwise this is a very anonymous (if bang up-to-date) example of the genre.  (A thought: if it does well enough to warrant two sequels, will they be called Land Of Badder / Land Of Badderer?!)  

VOD: The Zone Of Interest (dir: Jonathan Grazer, 2023)

"The first thing we did was install central heating.  It gets so cold in winter."

With the intriguing premise of the commander at Auschwitz in World War II, Rudolf Hoss, living family life in their well-appointed house right next to the concentration camp, this awards-winning film is bold, sombre and elegant.  Running through the film is the bewildering juxtaposition of the privileged family's everyday life in their newly-created artificial-looking fantasy home of the time, separated from the atrocities by a simple garden wall.  The film is slow, deliberate and very artfully constructed, the viewer experience controlled very carefully; the horrors are not shown explicitly but conveyed in the coldly dispassionate discussions of gas chamber design and distant screams, gunfire and smoke.  The facade is increasingly stripped away as the film progresses, such as  Hoss being more concerned about lilac bushes than human lives, casual infidelity and the framing exposes more of the camp.  Christian Friedel and Sandra Huller are formidable talents as the lead couple and they dominate the film with their precise character work.  Presenting Hoss as a loving family man, taking his family to the river and reading bedtime stories, together with having the most terrible job and thought processes makes for sobering viewing. The ending of the film is simple but extraordinarily powerful.
 

VOD: Expen4bles, a.k.a. The Expendables 4 (dir: Scott Waugh, 2023)

"Yeah - where the hell is everybody?"

In this increasingly redundant and threadbare series, the fourth entry tries to cover both the legacy and younger fanbases with new and uninteresting mercenaries teaming up with the few remaining beleaguered oldies (with the reliably watchable Jason Statham rightly getting most of the screen action) to take on the coolly ruthless (but criminally underused here) Iko Uwais, who has been hired to obtain nuclear detonators for a major arms dealer.  With a couple of decent explosions, a lot of really dodgy CGI, lots of neon lighting and tired jokes about ageing, It does manage a surprise death at the end of the first act that puts - of all people - Megan Fox in the driving seat of the revenge mission.  With the feel of a franchise clinging on for life, everything seems somewhat underpowered and underwritten in this barely functional throwback actioner. 
 

VOD: BlackBerry (dir: Matt Johnson, 2023)

"So, OK, picture a pager, a cell phone and an e-mail machine all in one thing!"

This fictionalisation of the incredible true-life meteoric rise and spectacular fall of the BlackBerry (the forerunner of today's smartphones) follows the fortunes of the tiny chaotic company that created it and its growth into a major tech player as it joins forces with a steely-eyed opportunistic executive.  Filmed in an energetic, loose, lo-fi reality-TV style, with characters and dialogue delivered in a naturalistic manner, plus an irresistible indie-pop soundtrack of the period, the film captures the freewheeling abandon of the company's aggressive expansion and overreaching in the emerging market up to Apple's fatal blow with the iPhone.  The shift in tone from the early comedic nerdy inexperience to the later high-stakes gloom and fearful desperation is handled very well indeed.  It has a terrific ensemble cast, with standout performances from the great Michael Ironside and a hard-hitting COO and Jay Baruchel as the the brilliant mid-mannered tech creator behind it all.  In this fictionalised version of events, BlackBerry is poignant in that there are real lives behind the story, but it is also quite an  astonishing tale of ambition, greed and mistakes made that is well-made.
 

VOD: Luckiest Girl Alive (dir; Mike Barker, 2022)

"But my anger is like carbon monoxide..."

The underrated Mila Kunis plays a survivor of America's biggest public school shooting, who has reinvented herself into a top New York magazine writer with lofty ambitions and an impending marriage to a handsome and wealthy young man, but with the past coming back to haunt her in the form of a documentary being made, her facade slowly unravels as she finally faces - and finds - her truth.  Ani is a very well-written and interesting character from the start, with unsettling flashbacks, interior commentary and calculated behaviour that makes her very watchable, and Kunis excels in the lead role, with strong support from Finn Whitrock as her naive and well-heeled fiance, Connie Britton as her mother and Thomas Barbusca as her school best friend Arthur.  The film is uncompromising - the scenes of Ani's sexual assault and the actual school shooting are very strong indeed - with its well-considered examination of big issues such as gun control, sexual violence, privilege and trauma, and the film's artful construction and unflinching eye makes it a thoughtful, unsettling and provocative watch.