The Equalizer 3 (2023)

They should have let me in. Sicily. At a remote winery Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) kills gangster Lorenzo Vitale (Bruno Bilotta) and his henchmen to obtain a key to the winery’s vault and recoup money stolen in a cyber-heist. While leaving the winery, Robert is shot in the back by Vitale’s young grandson (Adriano Sabrie). Robert attempts suicide due to his injury but finds his gun out of bullets and then takes the ferry back to the mainland. While driving on the Amalfi Coast, Robert pulls over and slips into unconsciousness from shock. He is found and rescued by local carabiniere Gio Bonucci (Eugenio Mastrandrea) who brings Robert to a small coastal Italian town called Altamonte where he is treated by a doctor, Enzo Arisio (Remo Girone). As he recovers and regains his mobility Robert becomes acquainted with the locals and becomes fond of the town and its people. He makes an anonymous phone call to CIA officer Emma Collins (Dakota Fanning) to tip her off about the winery’s role in the drug trade, disguised as normal business transactions in Sicily. Collins and other CIA operatives arrive at the winery and find millions in cash along with bags of synthetic amphetamines used by ISIS terrorists hidden in a storeroom, confirming Robert’s suspicions. Meanwhile, members of the Camorra harass and kill villagers in an attempt to coerce them out of their housing and take over Altamonte for property development. Robert overhears Marco Quaranta (Andrea Dodero) a high-ranking Camorra member, pressuring local shop owner Angelo (Daniele Perrone) for protection payments. To make an example of him, the Camorra firebombs Angelo’s fish store as the entire town watches. Gio reviews video of the firebombing and calls the Italian central police for an inquiry. Along with his wife Chiara (Sonia Ben Ammar) and daughter Gabriella (Dea Lanzaro), Gio is attacked by the Camorra and beaten for interfering in their operations. Thereafter, Marco demands that Gio set up a boat for him. Overhearing the conversation, Robert asks Marco to move his operations to a different location. When Marco refuses, Robert kills him and his henchmen. The Naples head of police Chief Barella (Adolfo Margiotta) is threatened and tortured by Marco’s brother Vincent (Andrea Scarduzio) the head of the Camorra and is ordered to find the person responsible for Marco’s death … Those people don’t know where to go. Our favourite vigilante returns to equalize everything in sight, starting with the mysterious catalyst whose payoff takes the entire film to establish. Transported to Sicily and the Italian mainland, the violence returns with verve in Robert Wenk’s screenplay, the scribe of the others in the series, in the finale adapted from the TV show that starred Edward Woodward and was created by Michael Sloan and Richard Lindheim. What do you see when you look at me? McCall is ageing now and even he must be tired of all the killing. Lord knows I’m allergic to bad things. Availing of R&R in a pretty village with a pleasant woman restaurateur Aminah (Gaia Scodellaro) which introduces the hint if not the actuality of romance and a civilised doctor to oversee his recuperation he’s glad of it. Do I look like a guy who kills people? That’s an existential question that’s really kinda silly at this point in the trilogy: this film commences with a horrifying sequence of murders – yes, we know it’s McCall doing in some of the Camorra but it’s extremely shocking. Giving the CIA a tip-off is just the start of an elaborate denouement which unearths a terror cell and reveals the extent of the Mafia’s viciousness. The phone relationship with Emma is a preview of coming attractions: You don’t look like you sound/You do! That’s the opening gambit when they finally come face to face 48 minutes in. In these films Denzel is paired with younger women in a non-romantic way – they get the opportunity to do stuff and he returns to pleasantly predictable vengeful type. It’s his question to her that makes her think of the situation from a different angle: Why smuggle drugs into the most secure port in the entire region? That sets her off doing what he knows she will – directing the CIA action where it needs to go and hopefully keeping her out of the line of fire. While the women in this series are given an opportunity for some action it’s curtailed as here, where a well-timed call saves her but effectively puts her out of action – allowing him to rescue her and save the day because he’s the hero and that’s his job. That’s appropriate considering their previous pairing two decades ago in Man On Fire. Washington is an incredibly charismatic movie star and it’s a relief to have the first 45 minutes dedicated to rebuilding his constitution which allows him to cultivate relationships while the gangsters have their way with the locals, setting up an awesome revenge. His medical treatment and slow recovery gives the audience a chance to recover too before the inevitable kicks in. His visceral method leads him to explain his MO to a victim: It’s called pain compliance. It’s like he’s a doctor too! Shot in a palette verging on monochrome with chiaroscuro features by the brilliant Robert Richardson, the scheme complements the black and white morality, with the amorphous evil villainy of the Mafia rather less attractive than the mesmerising Marton Csokas in the first outing. It’s a stylish way for the series to take a bow – a kind of revenge Western with some spaghetti thrown in for good measure and a coda that explains why McCall fetched up there in the first place, a one-man reenacting of The Magnificent Seven against the mafia on their own turf. Directed as ever by Antoine Fuqua. I’m where I’m supposed to be

Challengers (2024)

You’ve never seen her, man. She’s in another league. 2019: married tennis power couple former player Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) and currently injured star Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) have a young daughter Lily (AJ Lister) who likes to stay in hotels. Under Tashi’s coaching, Art has become a top pro. He is one US Open title away from a Career Grand Slam but he is struggling to regain his form after an injury. Hoping to return him to form, Tashi enters Art as a wild card in a Challenger event in New Rochelle, New York to boost his confidence by beating lower-level opponents. His former best friend Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Tashi’s ex-boyfriend is now an unknown player living out of his car, scraping by on the winnings from the lower circuit and also enters the New Rochelle event. 2006: high schoolers and childhood best friends Patrick and Art win the junior doubles title at the US Open. Afterwards, they watch Tashi a highly lauded young tennis prospect make mince meat of the opposition on court. Then they meet her at a party later that night. Usually their attractions are separate but Tashi is the first person to whom Patrick and Art are both attracted. The three make out in a motel room but stop short of having sex. With the two boys playing each other the next day, Tashi says she will give her phone number to whichever of them wins. Patrick wins the match and later signals to Art that he had sex with Tashi by placing the ball in the neck of the racket prior to serving – a tic of Art’s. Tashi and Art go on to play college tennis at Stanford University, while Patrick turns professional and begins a long distance relationship with Tashi. A jealous Art questions Tashi about whether Patrick loves her, and Patrick, recognising Art’s jealously, playfully reassures him of his and Tashi’s connection. Patrick and Tashi fight when she gives him unsolicited tennis advice and he says he views her as a peer, not his coach. In the next match which Art watches without Patrick, Tashi suffers a severe knee injury. Patrick returns to comfort Tashi but she demands he leave, with Art taking her side. Art aids Tashi in her recovery but she is unsuccessful in resuming her tennis career. I want you to join my team because I want to win. A few years later Tashi reconnects with Art and becomes his coach and the two begin a romantic relationship. He reveals that he and Patrick have not talked since Tashi’s injury. In 2011, Tashi and Art are now engaged and Art’s career is on the up. Tashi and Patrick run into each other at the Atlanta Open and have a one night stand, which Art secretly notices. 2019: Starting at opposite ends of the seeding, Art and Patrick advance through the brackets at New Rochelle until they find themselves facing each other in the tournament’s final match. In a sauna the day before the match, Patrick attempts to reconnect with Art but Art rejects Patrick by saying his career is over and he, Art, will be remembered. Patrick secretly asks Tashi to be his coach and lead him to one last winning season, sensing she is unhappy with Art and that Art is tired of playing but she rejects him … Which one is which? Take three highly charismatic young actors, place them in competition with each other sexually and professionally, complicate things with a love triangle and the monotony and sacrifice of life as sportsmen and women and you have the ingredients for a cracking drama. Director Luca Guadagnino returns with a tennis story – a surprising fact particularly given that there haven’t been any good ones but the screenplay from Justin Kuritzkes is multi-faceted. Not just a sports film but a romance, a thriller and a portrait of generalised anxiety erupting from having to sustain a career, creating monetising opportunities from every win, enduring pain, dealing with catastrophic injury, burnout, a friendship contained within the rise and fall narrative that all sportspeople experience over time and driven characters playing at marriage. Using the New Rochelle Challenger event as a framing device intensifies the pressures of the relationship past and present – we see where they are now and how they got there with the catalysing event an almost-threesome that prefigures everything else in their destiny. And as Tashi explains, Tennis is a relationship. What an impressive cast. Faist is the dazzling actor who was by far the best thing about Spielberg’s West Side Story remake – awards should have come his way but the film fell foul of COVID lockdown release schedules just as this one was delayed from Fall 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Here he’s the walking wounded and he plays tender and vulnerable so well. O’Connor is the talented Brit who has created so many great performances and powers his way through this with a life in freefall and a smirking swagger, never fully out of love with Tashi. Zendaya is finally being allowed to act nearer her age (27 at time of release) and is so famous she’s currently on the covers of both UK and US Vogue, such is her pull for advertisers and the youth audience, a combination of Euphoria and Spider-Man fans with a monster sci-fi epic under her belt following Dune 2. Watching the guys watch her on court at the 2006 US Open and later at a party, open-mouthed and lustful like heat-seeking missiles, is highly amusing and sets up the relationship’s eventual complexities with her at the fulcrum, literally calling the shots. Aren’t you everybody’s type? It also sets in motion the director’s familiar focus – young people and their romantic travails – although we know the starting point is the end point, or thereabouts, which is a little like watching Titanic and knowing the outcome but now we get to invest in the characters as they encounter each other 13 years later with everything that has gone on since that first fateful encounter. You typically fall apart in the second round. As the guys get reacquainted with their game and Tashi is turned off Art because his game is off and she lives through him, Patrick sees his chance to upset the applecart, pointing up the performative aspect of all their public lives. Thus the scene is set for Round Two in their lives, rivalries intact. It’s about winning. And I do. A lot. For a sports movie love triangle this fun and sexy we have to go back in time to 1977 and Semi-Tough with Burt and Kris and Jill. That was smart and screwball-y too but set in the world of football. How are you going to look at me if I still can’t beat Patrick Zweig? This is tense and exhilarating and wonderfully played by a cast that is exceptionally well matched and hot for each other. Love all? Not quite. But this is a smash, with a zippy score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Who wouldn’t love you? MM#4545

Civil War (2024)

We are now closer than we have ever been to victory. The near future. A civil war has broken out between an authoritarian US Government and various regional factions. The dictatorial President (Nick Offerman) who is serving a third term, claims that victory is close at hand. Renowned war photojournalist, Colorado-born Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) saves aspiring photojournalist Jessie Cullen (Cailee Spaeny) from a suicide bombing in Brooklyn. Lee and her colleague, Florida-born Reuters journalist Joel (Wagner Moura) intend travelling to Washington DC to interview and photograph the president before the city falls. Lee’s mentor New York Times veteran journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson)asks to accompany them as far as Charlottesville where the Western Forces (‘WF’) of Texas and California are presently assembling. Despite Lee’s hesitance she and Joel agree. Unbeknownst to Lee, Jessie persuades Joel to take her with them as well. After leaving NYC, the group stops at a rural gas station protected by armed men where Lee negotiates the purchase of fuel in Canadian dollars. Jessie wanders off to a nearby car wash, which she saw from the road. There, she finds two men being tortured by the owners, who claim that the men are looters. One owner follows Jessie but Lee defuses the situation by taking a photo of the man posing with his victims. After leaving, Jessie berates herself for being too scared to take photos. Following an overnight stop close to ongoing fighting, the group documents the combat the next day as militiamen assault a building held by loyalists. Lee sees Jessie’s potential as a war photographer, while Jessie photographs the militia executing captured loyalist soldiers. Continuing on, the group spends the night at a refugee camp  before passing through a small town where, under watchful guard, residents attempt to live in blissful ignorance. Look at the tops of the buildings. Be subtle. Lee and Jessie grow closer, trying on clothes at a local shop. Later, they are pinned down in a sniper battle amid the remains of a Winter Wonderland theme park. No one’s giving us orders, man. Someone’s trying to kill us and we’re trying to kill them. The snipers they are with mock Joel’s attempts to ascertain which party they are fighting for or against, telling Joel that they and the sniper in a nearby house are simply engaged in a struggle for survival. Jessie’s nerve builds and her photography skills improve as she witnesses several deaths and she develops a mentorship under Lee … They shoot journalists on sight in the capital. Writer/director Alex Garland’s latest film plugs into the inflammatory State of the Union as it currently pertains, figuring a fissure that is as much physical as ideological with the Western secessionist states of California and Texas pitched against the federal forces that protect a President hiding out in the White House. Garland’s work from The Beach onwards has focused on trouble in paradise and lately on dystopia. Lee and Joel are both camouflaging psychological disturbance from previous war zones – she has PTSD, he has modern-day shellshock and Lee especially exhibits something world weary cynicism to control symptoms that threaten to erupt into something worse. It’s gonna make a good image. How that dissonance within Lee translates into a kind of mentoring relationship with Jessie reflecting Sammy’s relationship with her provides much of the tension as the action and violence spiral the further into the US they travel. I remember you at her age. The juxtaposing of beautiful landscapes with jarring imagery of shock and awe combat provides much of the troubling visual texture. The sense of reality, the minutiae of a road trip under fire and the urgency of the storytelling has the quality of reportage from the front line. The fact that Lee wants to photograph the President to prove he is still alive speaks volumes. What happens ultimately is straight out of the Romanian playbook. The ones who get taken are always lesser men than you think. With no enemies identified, the viewer is asked to come to their own conclusions, a motley crew of varying protagonist-journalists providing a kind of collegiate and immersive focus group of the population, a prism for coming to terms with radical change and war as Americans fight Americans. Every instinct in me tells me this is death. Whether the presence and role of good old-fashioned photojournalists recording events makes a difference is not really questioned here – it’s presumed necessary for history: proof that things are happening because seeing is believing. Hence the acknowledged reference to Lee Miller in Dunst’s character’s name. What kind of American are you? A powerful state of the nation portrait that feels immediate and true. What happened back there is nothing in comparison with what we’re heading into

Everything Went Fine (2021)

Aka Tout s’est bien passé. This is our story. Novelist Emmanuèle Bernheim aka Manue (Sophie Marceau) receives a call from her sister Pascale (Géraldine Pailhas) informing her that their retired businessman and art collector father André (André Dussollier) has suffered a stroke. She rushes to the hospital in Paris where she sees the ill effects of this cardiac event: his face is horribly stricken, falling to one side, his speech is affected. She looks at the catscan of his brain on her computer at home. Manue is a devoted visitor despite the cruelties inflicted upon her in her childhood when he called her ugly, constantly berating her for her huge appetite (she is patently beautiful and thin). She used to fantasise about killing him. She is stunned when he asks her to help him die. It’s still illegal so Manue debates the situation with Pascale and then pays a discreet visit to a lawyer for advice and contacts a Swiss clinic run by a woman doctor (Hanna Schygulla). Their mother, his ex-wife (Charlotte Rampling) is a sculptress in the throes of arthritis, Parkinson’s and depression who doesn’t care a fig for him. She is already devastated by her own loss. She reminds her daughters that her parents didn’t attend their wedding because they warned her she was marrying a homosexual. His lover Gérard (Grégory Gadebois) creates a row in the hospital and the women have to stop him visiting. He says he’s getting the great watch he was promised by their father. As Andre gets better Manue is convinced he has forgotten about the whole idea but he tells several people including a cousin and regularly reminds her to make the arrangements. Then someone rats the women out to the police ... I want you to help me end it. Adapted from the titular autobiographical novel by Emmanuèle Bernheim by writer/director François Ozon, who regularly collaborated with the late novelist (she died in 2017), this difficult and highly emotive subject is treated in such a matter of fact realistic way and yet with a sure lightness of touch it becomes a remarkable viewing experience, decorated with stunning acting that nonetheless doesn’t feel like competitive performance. The unsentimental approach to a fraught scenario, dripfeeding backstory into the well managed narrative, subverts any potential for melodrama. Don’t tell your sister, but this story would be great for one of her novels! By turns desperate, petulant, pleading, sorrowful, distressed, enthusiastic, Dussollier is majestic as the playful monster, the gay dad whose bonkers lover has to be banned from visiting – until Manue sees them in a tender moment and eventually Gérard gets the Patek Philippe watch and it is clear the end is nigh. Manue is the daughter whom he treated disgracefully but whom he secretly adores as her sister clearly realises. Everything’s coming together. He wonders randomly when informed of the cost of the Swiss solution how poor people do it. They wait to die, shrugs Manue. This wealthy industrialist reminds her to get his Legion of Honour ribbon. We are in the world of the superannuated bourgeoisie for whom money is no issue but ill-health is the great leveller and financial comfort cannot stop the indignities of the loss of bowel control and the need for 24/7 care. As the moment nears and subterfuge is required the only person keeping a truly clear head is the man who sees only one option rather than succumb to the dreadful infirmities that will encroach upon him as further incidents will surely occur given his prognosis. He recognises his great life, his entitlement, his privilege and now his destruction. Amid all the superbly constructed tension there is great humour, telling detail, laughter, tears. A rich and timely drama, fair in every possible way. Mesmerising. You know, he’s a bad father. But I love him

Weird Science (1985)

Why can’t we simulate a girl? Nerdy social outcast Shermer High School students Gary Wallace (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt Donnelly (Ilan Mitchell Smith) are humiliated by senior jocks Ian (Robert Downey Jr.) and Max (Robert Rusler) for swooning over their cheerleader girlfriends Deb (Suzanne Snyder) and Hilly (Judie Aronson). Humiliated and disappointed at their direction in life and wanting more than being shamed in the school gymnasium, Gary convinces the uptight Wyatt that they need a boost of popularity in order to get their crushes away from Ian and Max. Alone for the weekend with Wyatt’s parents gone for a couple of days, Gary is inspired by watching the 1931 classic Frankenstein on TV to create a virtual woman using Wyatt’s computer, infusing her with everything they can conceive to make the perfect dream woman. After hooking electrodes to a doll and hacking into a Government computer system for more power, a power surge creates Lisa (Kelly LeBrock) an astonishingly beautiful and intelligent woman with the power to transmogrify. She quickly procures a pink 1959 Cadillac Eldorado convertible to take the boys to a Blues bar in Chicago where she uses her powers to get fake IDs for Gary and Wyatt. They return home drunk where Chet (Bill Paxton) Wyatt’s mean older brother, extorts $175 for his silence. Lisa agrees to keep herself hidden away from him but realises that Gary and Wyatt are very uptight and need to seriously unwind. After another humiliating experience at the mall where Ian and Max pour a cherry Icee on Gary and Wyatt in front of a crowd, Lisa tells the bullies about a party at Wyatt’s house, before driving off in a Porsche 928 she conjured for Gary. Despite Wyatt’s protests, Lisa insists that the party happens in order to loosen the boys up. She meet Gary’s parents, Al (Britt Leach) and Lucy (Barbara Lang) are shocked and dismayed at the things she says and her frank manner. Gary explains her away as an exchange student. After she pulls a gun on Al and Lucy (which is later revealed to be a water pistol) she alters their memories so Lucy forgets about the conflict but Al forgets that they had a son altogether. At the Donnelly house, the party has spun out of control while Gary and Wyatt take refuge in the bathroom, where they resolve to have a good time, despite having embarrassed themselves in front of Deb and Hilly. Then the house is invaded … We can deal with shame. Death is a much deeper issue. Bizarre even in the annals of Eighties comedy, this outlier in the John Hughes universe is remarkably charmless, tasteless and crude. What begins as a teen high school comedy descends quickly into a sex fantasy that is an equal opportunities offender despite the sweetness of the woman of many a man’s dreams driving the story. Adapted from a Fifties magazine story Made of the Future by Al Feldstein, Hughes’ screenplay makes these boys grow up way too fast and Hall’s take on black language proves embarrassing forty years on (and even back then). This battle of the sexes is really just a trawl through sexist tropes which makes watching these kids grow up overnight a lot harder to tolerate. Hughes was so good at the proclivities and sensitivities of teens – clearly the boys have lousy parents and Smith even has Paxton as a vicious older brother so friendship and mutual victimhood unites them. How can two people have the same dream? However none of the ideas clicks. Even the minor presence of Robert Downey (as he’s billed) in the ensemble doesn’t assist the plot or tone. The film’s final half hour effectively renders the entire premise redundant and the Risky Business conclusion is the closest this gets to decency. So inexplicable they even use a colorised clip of Frankenstein and the jukebox soundtrack is hardly up to Hughes’ usual standards. Horror fans will get a kick out of Michael Berryman as a mutant biker though and the clothes are great! Lisa is everything I wanted in a girl before I knew what I wanted

Happy 87th Birthday Warren Beatty 30th March 2024!

Many happy returns to a true Hollywood star – actor, producer, screenwriter, auteur – whose constant tease of a comeback makes his enigmatic persona even more mysterious.

Dune: Part Two (2024)

I’m here to learn your ways. Following the destruction of the House of Atreides by the House of Harkonnen, Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh) daughter of Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken) the head of House Corrino secretly journals that Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) may be alive. On Arrakis, Stilgar’s Fremen troops including Paul and his pregnant mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) overcome a Harkonnen patrol. When they arrive at Sietch Tabr some Fremen suspect they are spies, while Stilgar and others see signs of the prophecy that a mother and son from the so-called ‘Outer World will bring prosperity to Arrakis. Stilgar tells Jessica that Sietch Tabr’s Reverend Mother Ramallo (Giusi Merli) is dying and that she must replace her by drinking the Water of Life, a fatal poison for males and the untrained. Jessica’s body transmutes the poison, surviving and inheriting the memories of every female ancestor in her lineage. The liquid also accelerates the cognitive development of her unborn daughter Alia (Anya Taylor-Joy) allowing Jessica to communicate with her telepathically. Jessica and Alia agree to focus on convincing the skeptical northern Fremen of the prophecy. Jessica urges Paul also to drink the Water of Life and become the Kwisatz Haderach [‘the shortening of the way’ in the Kabbalah]. The young and rebellious Fremen warrior Chani (Zendaya) and her friend Shishakli (Souhelia Yacoub) believe that the prophecy was fabricated to manipulate and subjugate the Fremen but she begins to respect Paul after he declares that he only intends to fight alongside the Fremen not to rule them. Paul and Chani fall in love as Paul embraces the Fremen ways: learning their language, participating in rites such as riding a sandworm, becoming a Fedaykin fighter and helping raid Harkonnen spice operations. Paul adopts the Fremen names Usul and Muad’Dib as he his likened to a kangaroo mouse. Due to the devastating spice raids, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Starsgard) head of House of Harkonnen and former stewart of Arrakis and enemy to the House of Atreides replaces his nephew Glossu Rabban Harkonnen aka Rabban (Dave Bautista) as Arrakis’s ruler with his psychotic younger nephew and heir apparent Rabban’s younger brother Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler). Lady Margot Fenring (Lea Seydoux), a Bene Gesserit is sent to evaluate Feyd-Rautha as a prospective Kwisatz Haderach and to seduce him to secure his genetic lineage: she is duly impregnated. Jessica travels south to unite with Fremen fundamentalists who believe in the prophecy of the Mahdi. Paul stays north, fearful that his visions of a holy war will come to pass if he travels south as a messiah. He reunites with Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) the former military leader of House Atreides and Paul’s mentor who leads him to the hidden atomic stockpile of House Atreides. Paul was not able to foresee Feyd-Rautha’s attack on the northern Fremen, including Sietch Tabr, forcing Paul and the survivors to head south. Shishakli remains behind and is killed by Feyd-Rautha. Arriving south, Paul drinks the Water of Life and falls into a coma. Chani is angered by this but is forced by Jessica to revive him by mixing her tears with the liquid. Paul attains a clearer vision of the past, present, and future, seeing an adult Alia on a water-filled Arrakis and that Jessica is the Baron’s daughter, making Paul both an Atreides and a Harkonnen. Chani attempts to warn the southern Fremen that the prophecy will be used to enslave them, but Gurney quiets her down. Paul galvanizes the fundamentalists by showing that he can read their innermost thoughts. He declares himself the Lisan al Gaib and sends a challenge to Emperor Shaddam. Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother and the Emperor’s Truthsayer Gaius Helen Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling) tells Irulan that she advised the Emperor to annihilate House Atreides because they had grown too defiant. Shaddam arrives on Arrakis with Irulan, Mohiam, and his Sarduakar troops. As he meets the Harkonnens, the Fremen launch a massive military strike using atomics and sandworms … He’s a sociopath, highly intelligent, in love with pain but sexually vulnerable. And so the behemoth that is the second half of director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci fi Dune carves its path into global consciousness with a positively Shakespearean scenario unfolding. Viewed through the prism of one of Herbert’s great influences, Lawrence of Arabia, the fey, androgynous and rather reluctant protagonist who rallies the rebels against the powerful desert overlords makes more sense of Chalamet’s casting, a callow youth not quite ready for his hero’s journey who says to Zendaya’s Chani, I want to be your equal. In the 1960s the interest in ecology and the world’s resources together with a question about the future of Islam can clearly be mapped onto today’s geopolitical catastrophes with Paul’s Messianic position as Mahdi key to the resumption of the Fremen fundamentalism and the miracles of Christianity given a wholesale workout. Essentially the Abrahamic religions intersect in battle and beliefs, the role of the desert prophet a common trope. The visual debt to Lawrence is clear in certain visual quotes but it’s mitigated by the murky palette of greige created by cinematographer Greig Fraser and the tendency to blur Chalamet’s slight figure against the rippling sands: not a visual choice Lean would ever have made when clarity and precision were key to the earlier film’s expressive beauty. Sometimes this looks like it’s shot through Paul’s dusty goggles and his lusciously long lashes. The extraordinary Colosseum/Nazi-styled gladiatorial fight in an infrared rendition of Harkonnen is a glorious and daring exception, a clear statement about a world drained of colour. And, not to put too fine a point on the general tendency of the film, when we step away from the major world building sequences, there are too many close ups – a problem afflicting many films at the present time. This can’t be a budgetary choice so must be an aesthetic one. The storytelling in the streamlined screenplay by Villeneuve & Jon Spaihts (with early work by Eric Roth) is much more efficient here than in the first part: that film’s setting up of the spice-mining story and the different planets’ ecological concerns permits a slicker narrative to unfold here, the 2 hour 46 minutes running time notwithstanding with a religious and familial fight resulting in war. Every beat is hit at the right time. Happily there are a couple of clunky moments which might make you giggle at presumably unintentional reminders of Life of Brian (sometimes this prophet doth protesteth too much) while the ladies say twice (repetition being a screenwriting trick) that the religious prophecy is designed to distract, a common Marxian precept (something about the spice of the people, natch). The major jaw-dropping story twist at 120 minutes is of the Star Wars variety and very pleasurable it is too, turning the last 45 minutes into an astonishing conflict of character, wits and strength. Every hero requires a vicious enemy and Butler makes for a mesmerisingly sadistic villain. Caveats aside, this is mostly masterful filmmaking with engaging characters, terrific timing and excellent structure, which creates a narrative matrix of totally absorbing events and developments with an open-ended conclusion in which we can see Paul evolving into an anti-hero while the women take charge. This psychedelic sci fi encompassing faith, friendship, fascism, imperialism, breeding programmes and destiny, is hitting theatres when the concerns of the recent past are replaying out in real time. Part three (Dune Messiah, which is set 12 years following the aftermath of the war) is in the works but according to Villeneuve, he is not rushing it. More’s the pity! I am not the messiah

Dark Habits (1983)

Very soon, this place will be full of murderesses, drug addicts, prostitutes, just like before. Cabaret singer Yolanda (Cristina Sanchez Pascual) brings heroin to her lover who drops dead of an overdose. To escape from the police who arrive looking for her at the club where she works, the singer looks for refuge in a local convent where the Mother Superior (Julieta Serrano), a fan of Yolanda, rapturously greets her. The mission of the order, called the Humiliated Redeemers (Redentoras humilladas), is to offer shelter and redemption to fallen women. The convent once was a bustling haven for prostitutes, drug addicts and murderers, but it is now in disrepair. The order is facing serious financial hardships as their prime financial supporter, the vain and greedy Marchioness aka La Marquesa (Mary Carrillo), has decided to discontinue the convent’s annuity under the pretence of economising. The convent had taken in their wayward daughter Virginia who became a nun and ran off to Africa where she was eaten by cannibals. Six religious members of the community live at the convent: the mother Superior, four other nuns and the chaplain. To reinforce their vows of humility, the Mother Superior has given the other nuns repulsive new names: Sister Manure (Marisa Paredes), Sister Damned (Carmen Maura), Sister Snake (Lina Canalejas) and Sister Sewer Rat (Chus Lampreave). With few opportunities for spiritual ministry, the nuns have begun to indulge in their own idiosyncratic pursuits in order to pass the time. The nurturing Sister Damned compulsively cleans the convent and coddles all the animals under her care, including an overgrown pet tiger that she treats like a son, playing the bongos for him. Ascetic Sister Manure is consumed by thoughts of penitence and corporal self-sacrifice and cooks between LSD hallucinations. She murdered somebody and because the mother superior lied under oath to save her from jail she is devoted to her. The over-curious Sister Sewer Rat gardens and secretly under the pen name ‘Concha Torres’ writes lurid novels about the wayward souls who visit the convent. She smuggles the novels out of the convent through her sister’s regular visits. The unassuming Sister Snake, with the help of the priest (Manuel Zarzo) tailors seasonal fashion collections for dressing the statues of the Virgin Mary. Her piety is a cover for her romantic love for the chain-smoking chaplain. The mother Superior is a heavy drug user and a Lesbian, whose charitable work is a means of meeting needy young women of whom she says, From admiring them so much I have become one of them. At the convent, Yolanda mingles with the nuns and the Mother Superior soon falls passionately in love with her. Together, they consume coke and heroin until Yolanda decides both should come off the drugs. Withdrawal from the drug for Yolanda is like a painful catharsis but for the Mother Superior it confirms her very sinful nature. Yolanda keeps the Mother Superior at arm’s length and strikes a friendship with Sister Rat. The Mother Superior has to face both Yolanda’s rejection and the threats of closure … One of the bases of our community is self-mortification and humiliation. That’s why we have such bizarre-sounding names. Overdosing, Lesbian nuns, hard drugs, erotic novels. Not the best known of Pedro Almodovar’s films or even among his own favourites, principally because as critic Jose Arroyo points out, it was made more or less on commission, the first commercially produced among his body of work made by a multimillionaire for his actress girlfriend – this film’s leading lady. Notwithstanding that, this boasts a familiar cast that includes Eva Siva and Cecilia Roth in the ensemble with Maura making one of her five appearances for the director. Aren’t you a nun?/No, I’m a whore. The main storytelling issue is the passivity of the protagonist, something that led the writer/director to give the nuns more to do which is where the real fun happens. Nothing to do with the later Whoopi Goldberg movie Sister Act although there’s a certain broad familiarity, perhaps if this had gone the whole hog and been turned into a musical Almodovar might have achieved something closer to his ambitions. The uneven structure resulting from the unbalanced construction isn’t entirely satisfying and it leads to a bittersweet conclusion that feels rather abrupt. Never mind, we’ll never get over seeing these singularly human nuns with their loves and lusts and extremely bad habits! Eating this is like taking communion. Jesus appeared to me while I was making it. He offered me his wounds to suck, like a swallow

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)

Aka Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios. Women aren’t dangerous if you know how to handle them. Television actress Pepa Marcos (Carmen Maura) is depressed because her boyfriend fellow actor Iván (Fernando Guillen) has left her. They dub foreign films, notably Johnny Guitar starring Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden and she has missed their morning recording because she took a sleeping pill. Iván’s sweet-talking voice is the same one he uses in his work. About to leave on a trip, he has asked Pepa to pack his things in a suitcase he will pick up later. Pepa returns home to her apartment to find her answering machine filled with frantic messages from her friend Candela (Maria Barranco) a model. She rips out the phone and throws it out the window onto the balcony of her penthouse where dozens of her animal friends live including a pair of ducks. Candela arrives but before she can explain her situation Carlos (Antonio Banderas) Iván’s son with his wife Lucía (Julieta Serrano) arrives with his snobbish fiancée Marisa (Rossy de Palma). They are apartment-hunting and have been sent by an agency to tour the apartment. Carlos and Pepa figure out each other’s relationship to Iván – they had already met at the phone booth outside Carlos’ home the previous evening. Pepa wants to know where Iván is, but Carlos does not know. Candela tries to kill herself by jumping off the balcony. A bored Marisa decides to drink gazpacho from the fridge, unaware that it has been spiked with sleeping pills. Candela explains that she had an affair with an Arab who later visited her with some friends. Unbeknownst to her, they are a Shi’ite terrorist cell. When the terrorists leave, Candela flees to Pepa’s place; she fears that the police are after her. Pepa goes to see a lawyer whom Carlos has recommended. The lawyer, Paulina Morales (Kiti Manver) behaves strangely and has tickets to travel to Stockholm. Candela tells Carlos that the terrorists plan to hijack a flight to Stockholm that evening and divert it to Beirut to demand the release of an incarcerated friend. Carlos fixes the phone, calls the police, hangs up before (he believes) they can trace the call and kisses Candela. Pepa returns; Lucía calls and says that she is coming over to confront her about Iván. Carlos says that Lucía has recently been released from a mental hospital. Pepa, tired of Iván, throws his suitcase out (barely missing him); he leaves Pepa a message. Pepa returns to her apartment and hears Carlos playing the Lola Beltran song Soy Infeliz. She throws the record out the window, and it hits Paulina. Pepa hears Iván’s message, rips out the phone and throws the answering machine out of the window. Lucía arrives with the telephone repairman and the police, who traced Carlos’ call. Candela panics, but Carlos serves the spiked gazpacho. The policemen and repairman are knocked out, and Carlos and Candela fall asleep on the sofa; Lucía aims a policeman’s gun at Pepa, who figures out that Iván is going to Stockholm with Paulina and their flight is the one the terrorists are planning to hijack … Weird things happen all of a sudden. Enfant terrible Pedro Almodovar’s international breakthrough, this was a smash hit from its initial release in Spain and became the biggest grossing foreign film in the US since Fellini’s 8 1/2 – which is just one of the many ironies proliferating in this story because it’s the first homage in a meta referential narrative centering on film, recording, dubbing and projection. Ludicrous coincidences, general hysteria, a suitcase that keeps changing hands, repeatedly pulling the phone and answering machine out of the wall, using prescription meds to control every situation, a mambo taxi stocked to the gills with every magazine, music genre and toiletry known to humanity that shows up every time Pepa needs a lift, all life is here in the most confident expression yet of Almodovar’s art. For once Maura is suited and booted in great tailoring in a setting that’s colour coded to the max with red the ultimate flashpoint for this sincerely crazy tribute to melodrama, with Joan Crawford providing the film within a film. I thought this sort of thing only happened in films! A vivid, nutty melodramatic farce, this is simply unforgettable. Released 25th March 1988, that means it’s time to wish Women a very happy birthday! What an insane story!

Pepi, Luci and Bom (1980)

Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón/Pepi, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom/Pepi, Bom and Other Girls on the Heap. Give him a good kicking, but don’t go too far. We don’t want anyone to die. Now is not the time. Pepi (Carmen Maura) a young independent woman living in Madrid, is filling up her Superman sticker album when she receives an unexpected visit from a neighbour policeman (Felix Rotaeta) who has spotted her marijuana plants whilst spying on her via binoculars from his house across the street. Pepi tries to buy his silence with an offer of anal sex, but instead the policeman rapes her. Thirsty for revenge, Pepi arranges for her friend Bom, a teenage punk singer, and her band, Bomitoni (Bom and Toni and also a pun of vomitoni or big puke), to beat up the policeman. Wearing Madrilenian costumes and singing a zarzuela Pepi’s friends give the man a merciless beating one night. However, the next day Pepi realises that they had attacked the policeman’s innocent twin brother by mistake. Undaunted, Pepi decides on a more complex form of revenge. She befriends the policeman’s docile fortysomething wife, Luci (Eva Siva) from Murcia with the excuse of receiving knitting lessons. Pepi’s idea is to corrupt Luci and take her away from the wife-beating policeman. During the first knitting class, Pepi’s teenage punk friend, Bom (Alaska) arrives at the apartment heading for the restroom in order to pee. This leads to the suggestion that, since Luci feels hot, Bom should stand on a chair and urinate over Luci’s face. Bom’s aggressive behaviour satisfies Luci’s masochism and the two women become lovers. Back home, Luci has an argument with her husband in which she complains about what he had done to Pepi. When he threatens to whip and kick her out, with a renewed sense of liberation Luci leaves her husband and her home, moving in with Bom. The three friends, Pepi, Luci and Bom are immersed in Madrid’s youth scene, attending parties, clubs, concerts and meeting outrageous characters. In one of the concerts, Bom sings with her band The Bomitonis a song called Murciana marrana (The slut from Murcia): Luci becomes a proud groupie. The highlight at one of the parties is a penis size contest called Erecciones Generales (General Erections), a competition looking for the biggest, most svelte, most inordinate penis. The winner receives the opportunity to do what he wants, how he wants, with whomever he wants. He selects Luci to give him oral sex, which makes her the most envied woman at the party. Pepi is forced to find work as her father decides to stop her income. She becomes a creative writer for advertising spots designing ads for sweating, menstruating dolls and multipurpose panties that absorb urine and can double as a dildo. Pepi also begins to write a script which will be the story of lesbian lovers Luci and Bom … With so much democracy in this country, where will it end? Those Communists need to be taught a lesson. Leave it to me. The debut of renowned filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, this document of Spain’s punk era, a transitional stage in the wider post-Franco culture known as La Movida Madrilena, is a wild movie about feminism, friendship, machoism, comic books and music. Its disarmingly straightforward presentation, sexual language and overt display of vulgarity verging on offensiveness marked it out. I love you because you’re dirty, Filthy, slutty, and servile, You’re Murcia’s most obscene, And you’re all mine. It can be read as a cry of freedom following decades of political suppression with each woman representing a different aspect of identity – its limitations and possibilities. There is no judgement here, not even with a teenage punk having a sexual relationship with a woman twice her age: their meet cute has to be seen to be believed. I believe that women have to find fulfillment. Lacking in the later sophistication and colour-coded mise en scene that has so defined Almodovar’s signature, the low budget determines the more realistic and tableau presentation of the comic interactions with Maura in a star making role: she make another five films with the director. Almost literally a laugh riot, this outrageous comedy shot in 1978 quickly became a midnight movie on its 1980 release in Spain where many of the figures became mainstream in the Eighties. It remains a cult item to this day. Cinema is not real life. Cinema is falsehood