gareth's movie diary

Operation Mincemeat

2026-01-18T22:38:00.010-05:00

2021, UK, directed by John Madden

A terrific (real-life) story that is rather let down by its treatment: there's an entirely unnecessary romantic subplot that detracts from the core tale, while there are at times overbearing music/montage sequences that seem to have come from a different film entirely. Stick to the book, or the 1956 film that covers the same ground.

Darkest Hour

2026-01-12T22:43:00.031-05:00

2017, UK, directed by Joe Wright

The Gary Oldman/Winston Churchill show, and not a bad thing: Oldman catches the cadences of Churchill very effectively, but also finds a balance between public bombast and quieter domestic moments. While I'm not wedded to actors having to mimic their real-life inspiration, in Churchill's case it feels like a necessity to create at least a sense that this is a story that is taken from an actual historical period, and Oldman certainly embodies the PM, even if he perhaps softens some of the edges. At times, Wright opens things out and includes scenes of battle elsewhere, which don't really add a great deal -- it almost feels as though he doesn't have full confidence in the central drama, which is more than rich enough, though it does of course remind the viewer of the real impact of political decisions.

Astérix et Obélix : Mission Cléopâtre

2026-01-09T22:03:00.028-05:00

2002, France, directed by Alain Chabat

An enormous hit in France on its release -- even more so than the first live action Asterix film, released in 1999 -- and a point of reference for many French people, with many snippets of dialogue finding their way into the wider cultural lexicon (some of the wordplay is brilliant, and the jokes do come thick and fast, though as ). That said, Asterix and Obelix often feel entirely peripheral to their own film, which takes the film far from the spirit of the original books -- and neither Clavier and Depardieu seems especially invested as a consequence.

The Dig

2026-01-06T13:44:00.001-05:00

2021, UK, directed by Simon Stone

A very enjoyable, if historically questionable, account of the Sutton Hoo dig in the late 1930s, as the war approached. The film looks absolutely lovely -- no accident, I think, that it's something of a celebration of the green and pleasant land as darker shadows gather -- though occasionally the framing suggests director Simon Stone is reaching for a more artistic statement than his material allows. There's melodrama to spare; it feels as though writer Moira Buffini and Stone didn't have full confidence in their central, fascinating, story. As a result, unfortunately, some parts of the script badly misconstrue the historical record (especially ironic in that part of the point is to correct the fact that excavator Basil Brown, nicely played by a weatherbeaten Ralph Fiennes, didn't receive his due when the treasures from Sutton Hoo were first put on display).

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

2026-01-03T22:32:00.001-05:00

2011, US, directed by Rob Marshall

I've often tried to start the new year out with a "good" film, but sometimes one that's enjoyable will do: despite their flaws, I've generally enjoyed the movies in this series, and while Johnny Depp's off-screen life is deeply problematic, to say the least, he continues to bring the main character energy here, especially following the departure of key personnel from films 1-3. Rob Marshall is a definite downgrade as director, mainly because he's much less crisp as an action director (a problem for the swashbuckling scenes), but as before the whole affair moves along pretty briskly. Undemanding entertainment, in other words.

Films Seen in 2020 (52)

2020-12-31T16:29:00.217-05:00

BlackKklansman (2018, US, Spike Lee) January 6, 2020

Run Silent Run Deep (1958, US, Robert Wise) January 7, 2020

Les Petits mouchoirs (2010, France, Guillaume Canet) January 14, 2020

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019, Canada/Norway, Elle-Májía Tailfeathers & Kathleen Hepburn) January 12, 2020

Transit (2018, Germany, Christian Petzold) January 25, 2020

Street Scene (1931, US, King Vidor) January 28, 2020

The Pirate (1948, US, Vincente Minnelli) February 8, 2020

Fear (1946, Alfred Zeisler) February 8, 2020

Midnight Mystery (1930, US, George B. Seitz) February 11, 2020

Mulan (1998, US, Tony Bancroft & Barry Cook) February 17, 2020

The Sound of Music (1965, US, Robert Wise) February 22, 2020

La Guerre des tuques (2015, Canada, Jean-François Pouliot) March 7, 2020

Wendy and Lucy (2008, US, Kelly Reichardt) March 7, 2020

They Shall Not Grow Old (2018, New Zealand/UK, Peter Jackson) March 24, 2020

Early Man (2018, UK, Nick Park) March 28, 2020

Top Hat (1935, Mark Sandrich) March 28, 2020

La Course des tuques (2018, Canada, Benoît Godbout) April 1, 2020

Hangover Square (1945, US, John Brahm) April 4, 2020

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965, UK, Martin Ritt) April 13, 2020

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946, US, Lewis Milestone) May 2, 2020

Occupe-toi d'Amélie (1949, France/Italy, Claude Autant-Lara) May 11, 2020

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002, US/UK, Chris Columbus) May 11, 2020

Le Retour du héros (2018, France/Belgium, Laurent Tirard) May 25, 2020

Les Misérables (2019, France, Ladj Ly) May 25, 2020

Mr Right (2015, US, Paco Cabezas) May 27, 2020

The Invention of Lying (2009, US, Ricky Gervais & Matthew Robinson) May 27, 2020

The Lovebirds (2020, US, Michael Showalter) June 1, 2020

The Black Power Mixtape, 1967-1975 (2011, Sweden, Göran Olsson) June 13, 2020

10 Rillington Place (1971, UK, Richard Fleischer) June 20, 2020

I Will Follow (2011, US, Ava DuVernay) July 8, 2020

La Guerre des boutons (2011, France, Yann Samuell) July 27, 2020

Le Petit Nicolas (2009, France/Belgium, Laurent Tirard) August 3, 2020

Le Juge Fayard dit "Le Shériff" (1977, France, Yves Boisset) August 26, 2020

Cold War (2012, Hong Kong, Sunny Luk & Longman Leung) September 21, 2020

La Vie scolaire (2019, France, Grand Corps Malade & Mehdi Idir) September 21, 2020

Une Fille facile (2019, France, Rebecca Zlotowski) September 26, 2020

Balle perdue (2020, France, Guillaume Pierret) September 27, 2020

The Willoughbys (2020, US, Kris Pearn) October 16, 2020

Les Choses de la vie (1970, France, Claude Sautet) October 24, 2020

The Secret Garden (1993, US/UK/Poland, Agniezska Holland) October 31, 2020

Rien à declarer (2010, France/Belgium, Dany Boon) November 7, 2020

Rosie (2018, Ireland, Paddy Breathnach) November 7, 2020

Peter Pan (1953, US, Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, & Wilfred Jackson) November 26, 2020

Pinocchio (1940, US, Ben Sharpsteen & Hamilton Luske) November 27, 2020

The Muppet Movie (1979, US, James Frawley) November 29, 2020

M (1931, Germany, Fritz Lang) December 2, 2020

Mangrove (2020, UK, Steve McQueen) December 19, 2020

Home Alone (1990, US, Chris Columbus) December 26, 2020

Brave (2012, US, Mark Andrews & Brenda Chapman) December 27, 2020

Onward (2020, US, Dan Scanlon) December 28, 2020

Elf (2003, US, Jon Favreau) December 31, 2020

Star Wars (1977, US, George Lucas) December 31, 2020

Other Films Seen in 2019 (36)

2019-12-31T20:39:00.040-05:00

Le Grand blond avec une chaussure noire (1972, France, Yves Robert) January 11, 2019

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942, US, Michael Curtiz) January 11, 2019

Destry Rides Again (1939, US, George Marshall) February 1, 2019

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019, US, Dean DeBlois) March 10, 2019

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018, US, Peyton Reed) March 30, 2019

The Jane Austen Book Club (2007, US, Robin Swicord) April 5, 2019

Crazy Rich Asians (2018, US, Jon M. Chu) May 17, 2019

Wonder Woman (2017, US, Patty Jenkins) May 31, 2019

Braqueurs (2015, France, Julien Leclercq) June 11, 2019

Always Be My Maybe (2019, US, Nahnatchka Khan) June 19, 2019

Snowpiercer (2013, South Korea, Bong Joon-ho) June 21, 2019

Arrival (2016, US, Denis Villeneuve) June 23, 2019

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016, US, Bryan Singer) July 1, 2019

My Cousin Rachel (2017, UK/US, Roger Michell) July 29, 2019

Runaway Jury (2003, US, Gary Fleder) July 29, 2019

Step (2017, US, Amanda Lipitz) July 30, 2019

Booksmart (2019, US, Olivia Wilde) August 2, 2019

Widows (2018, US, Steve McQueen) August 3, 2019

X-Men: First Class (2011, US, Matthew Vaughn) August 11, 2019

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019, US, Quentin Tarantino) August 15, 2019

The Mule (2018, US, Clint Eastwood) September 9, 2019

Paris is Burning (1990, US, Jennie Livingston) September 23, 2019

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018, US, Desiree Akhavan) September 25, 2019

La Beauté du diable (1952, France/Italy, René Clair) September 26, 2019

Smallfoot (2018, US, Karey Kirkpatrick) October 11, 2019

Downton Abbey (2019, UK, Michael Engler) October 13, 2019

Mississippi Grind (2015, US, Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck) November 9, 2019

The Killer is Loose (1956, US, Budd Boetticher) December 5, 2019

Klaus (2019, Spain, Sergio Pablos) December 8, 2019

Love in a Fallen City (1984, Hong Kong, Ann Hui) December 17, 2019

Knives Out (2019, US, Rian Johnson) December 22, 2019

Parasite (2019, South Korean, Bong Joon-ho) December 23, 2019

The Irishman (2019, US, Martin Scorsese) December 23, 2019

Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936, US, H. Bruce Humberstone) December 24, 2019

The Old Man and the Gun (2018, US, David Lowery) December 25, 2019

Frozen II (2019, US, Jennifer Lee & Chris Buck) December 30, 2019

The Sleeping Tiger

2019-12-13T21:54:00.010-05:00

1954, UK, directed by Joseph Losey (under the pseudonym Victor Hanbury)

As so often, a viewing choice inspired by David Cairns, this is an enjoyably ripe melodrama, over-stuffed with plot and challenges to logic, but Dirk Bogarde does good sleaze, Losey directs with great energy, and the climax has a nice bit of visual poetry to it.

The Man Who Cheated Himself

2019-12-10T12:07:00.001-05:00

1950, US, directed by Felix E. Feist

A pretty classic, B-level noir, in which Lee J. Cobb's cop is bewitched and betrayed by a femme fatale, again a classically misogynistic trope of the genre. Cinematically, it's worth a look, with some striking shot choices, especially as the film reaches its climax, while there's surely a nod to Hitchcock's Suspicion in the prominent appearances of several glasses of milk. There's also a nice mix of San Francisco location work and back projection shots.

Tanzania Transit

2019-12-03T13:47:00.003-05:00

2018, Netherlands/Tanzania, directed by Jeroen van Velzen

I came across this when searching for the film Transit; it's a documentary filmed aboard long-distance trains in Tanzania, and the filmmakers manage to get exceptionally intimate access to the key players, ranging from a woman who's the definition of a survivor to a preacher/scammer preying on those a little further down the pecking order than himself. It's very engagingly filmed, with camerawork that gives a sense of an expansive rather than enclose world on board.

The Pretender

2019-11-23T23:23:00.004-05:00

1947, US, directed by W. Lee Wilder

Stronger on plot than on execution, with a nice, bitterly sardonic sting in the tail.

The Red House

2019-11-20T12:43:00.011-05:00

1947, US, directed by Delmer Daves

A sweaty, tense thriller, that picks away at the apparently benign exteriors of location and character to reveal the darkness beneath -- just as the quiet small town setting becomes less innocent, Edward G. Robinson's character starts to drift off the rails, and it's all set up for quite the fervid psycho-sexual climax. It's an interesting counterpoint to the more common urban settings of post-war noir, too.

Wives Under Suspicion

2019-11-09T22:49:00.005-05:00

1938, US, directed by James Whale

A rather precipitous fall from the standards that Whale set earlier in the decade, this is an efficient enough vehicle for Warren William, who is good value -- as ever -- in a role as a prosecutor who senses some overlap between his current case and his own wife's behavior. However, there's nothing of the distinctiveness of Whale's Universal horrors, even in the visuals.

Tomka and His Friends

2019-08-27T22:53:00.005-04:00

1977, Albania, directed by Xhanfise Keko (aka Tomka dhe shokët e tij)

An Albanian film that I became aware of through Mark Cousins' A Story of Children and Film, on one level a standard coming-of-age film, but of course also a film about oppression and survival on multiple levels, set against the backdrop of the German occupation of Albania, with charming, naturalistic performances from the kids, and a sometimes infectious insistence on living and thriving in adversity; there's also a terrific tracking shot to start the film.

Le Samouraï

2019-07-06T22:53:00.003-04:00

1967, France, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville

A rewatch, to see the restored version, which looks glorious from the wonderful first shot to the last. Pretty much the concentration of both Melville and Delon, even if not necessarily my favourite film by/with either.

La Poison

2019-07-05T14:01:00.005-04:00

1951, France, directed by Sacha Guitry

One of the most extraordinarily misogynistic films I've seen, as well as being very much of the postwar tradition of bitter, black, self-lacerating social examination in French film (the two may be linked, of course; several of those key French noirs are hardly kind to their central female characters, who are at times depicted as taking advantage of the men in their lives -- men rarely seem to have to take responsibility for themselves).

Ginette Vincendeau's Criterion piece that accompanies the DVD of the film is extremely useful in providing the context for Guitry's tone, without ever defending the writer/director.

Of note in the background: a rare non-comic role for Louis de Funès.

Persona

2019-06-24T21:43:00.000-04:00

1966, Sweden, directed by Ingmar Bergman

One of the Bergmans that really retains its power, a genuinely disconcerting film that must have been an especially strong jolt on its release, and which is both strange, not-quite-like-anything-else, and acutely perceptive of its particular psychological pathology. The sense of an enclosed world got under my skin in the same way as when I first saw the film as an undergrad -- there's a sense that both characters and audiences can't escape.

Brute Force

2019-06-20T14:11:00.000-04:00

1947, US, directed by Jules Dassin

A film that lives up to its title, depicting the constant, claustrophobic drumbeat of violence, both psychological and physical, in prison. The characters are never unaware of the restrictions under which they operate, whether it's the bars on their cells, or the (often arbitrary) rules with which they must comply. Dassin's framing, as in the picture above, is often very strong, quickly delineating the free and unfree zones. The film isn't as strong in its social analysis sections, inventing a somewhat unconvincing context in which several characters debate the meaning and utility of prison; it's much stronger down in the bowels with the men, and the tick-tock sense of a bomb about to explode. Burt Lancaster, in one of his earliest roles, is already every inch the star, commanding the screen. The decision to cast Hume Cronyn as the sadistic warder is a stroke of genius, though he's alarmingly into it at times.

The Million Pound Note

2019-06-01T23:43:00.000-04:00

1954, UK, directed by Ronald Neame

Something of an Ealing knockoff, this is a generally charming fable about the chaotic consequences of a bet/social experiment as to how a penniless American will handle the titular banknote (Trading Places followed a similar template, albeit with more 1980s grit and volume). The fun mostly comes from the reactions of other people to Gregory Peck's dilemma -- one sequence in a restaurant is especially good -- and the supporting cast is, predictably, very strong, with many familiar faces of the period given some work.

Les Invisibles

2019-05-21T21:58:00.000-04:00

2018, France, directed by Louis-Julien Petit

A picture that walks its walk, not only depicting the reaction of a group of women to the closure of their shelter, but actually casting women from homeless backgrounds in many of the key roles. While it certainly hits beats from the Full Monty school, sometimes pretty insistently, some of the spikier edges feel as though they've come from genuine collaboration between cast and director, and those fragments give the film its most significant charge.

If Beale Street Could Talk

2019-05-21T19:56:00.001-04:00

2018, US, directed by Barry Jenkins

Not, perhaps, as luminously successful as Jenkins' previous Moonlight, but this is still very strong, grounded in very engaging performances and complemented by gorgeous photography, with an exceptionally rich palette of colours, and a warmth of feeling toward its characters (James Baldwin's characters) that's very affecting, though perhaps more beautiful than real. As much as we want to root for the pair, at times it feels as though the film's hardest edges lie in the background, in the lives, and traumas, of the other characters.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

2019-05-17T21:53:00.000-04:00

2018, US, directed by Marielle Heller

Wonderfully absorbing, with two terrific performances: Melissa McCarthy gets to show more of her range, without having to bottle up her energy, and Richard E. Grant hasn't been as good for years. Heller has a great feel for the period and milieu of the film, or more accurately the multiple milieus, from grimy day-drinking bars to down-at-heel walk-ups to glimpses of the other side at swanky parties or warm academic havens. She also has a tenderness toward her characters, as weak and self-deluding as they can sometimes be, that's deeply affecting -- and gives lovely scenes to many of the supporting players.

Shame

2019-05-16T22:45:00.000-04:00

1988, Australia, directed by Steve Jodrell

A very strong 1980s film that sadly feels equally relevant today. It's grounded in a sharp analysis of toxic masculinity, grounded in a specific rural Australian reality but not in any way restricted to that environment, and features an excellent central performance by Deborra-Lee Furness, as an unapologetic, self-confident lawyer taking a solo trip through the outback. Her character draws on Western tropes, literally riding into the dusty small town and introducing a new vocabulary of justice. The film neither shies away from nor revels in its depiction of violence, and the conclusion comes as a genuine gut-punch.

Le Jeu

2019-05-11T23:16:00.000-04:00

2018, France, directed by Fred Cavayé

Although very competently made (or rather re-made), and visually slick, the picture has little meaningful to say about the consequences of our modern technological obsession -- centered on a game wherein the characters allow the contents of their phones to be shared, the picture is all plot mechanics, no commentary.

Bad Blood

2019-05-04T23:17:00.000-04:00

1981, New Zealand/United Kingdom, directed by Mike Newell

A fairly straightforward retelling of the mass murder perpetrated by Stanley Graham in 1941, a series of crimes that was the culmination of a lengthy standoff with police over the surrender of weapons in wartime. There's a broader resonance in the New Zealand context of the man asserting himself in relation to the authorities, as well as the relationship with the bush, both a source of refuge and a threat (already explored in films like Sleeping Dogs and, later, in more sophisticated pictures like Utu). While the film is centered on Jack Thompson's character, Carol Burns, as Graham's wife, matches him beat for beat as his mental state collapses. The sense of a tight-knit, yet poisonous, community is very well drawn, and was surely influenced also by the aftermath of the Crewe murders, which would have been in the news throughout the 1970s (and which formed the basis for the film Beyond Reasonable Doubt).