Deep Impact (1998)

This is not a videogame, son. One year after teenage astronomer Leo Biederman (Elijah Wood) spots a comet the size of Mount Everest heading for Earth, journalist Jenny Lerner (Téa Leoni) mistakes the scoop of a lifetime for a story about the mistress of the US President Beck (Morgan Freeman). Once she’s allowed into the loop of the Extinction Level Event with the rest of the press pack she finds that with one year to go before it could hit the planet there’s a plan to build a system of caves while a joint US/Russian spacecraft nicknamed Messiah being led by veteran astronaut Captain Sturgeon Tanner (Robert Duvall) is going to try to intercept its path with nuclear weapons … People know you. They trust you. A disaster movie par excellence, this mixes up men on a mission and race against time tropes with ideas about God, friendship, family and the all-pervasive sense of doom that settles upon people learning of an entire planet’s imminent destruction and how they deal with it. Leoni doesn’t quite have the expressivity to offer a mature performance although her particular role is buttressed by the subplot of her unhappiness at her father Jason’s (Maximilian Schell) new marriage while her beloved mother Robin (Vanessa Redgrave) suffers. However the entire drama is well structured and tautly managed. Written by Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin (as a vague remake of When Worlds Collide, 1951) and expertly handled by Mimi Leder, better known for TV’s ER, some of whose alumni feature here. Let’s go home

The Dead Don’t Die (2019)

The world is perfect. Appreciate the details. In the sleepy small town of Centerville, Pennsylvania something is not quite right. News reports are scary with the earth tilting on its axis and scientists are concerned, but no one foresees the dead rising from their graves and feasting on the living, and the citizens must battle to survive. Chief  Robertson (Bill Murray) and his officer sidekick (Adam Driver) get to work dealing with the undead while Mindy Morrison (Chloe Sevigny) reluctantly accompanies them, terrified and Hermit Bob (Tom Waits) observes hostilities … The only way to kill the dead is to kill the head. Well I didn’t see that coming. Jim Jarmusch making a zombie comedy? Things are getting exceedingly strange in the world of the cool Eighties auteur when he’s making a film that serves at least partly as an homage to George Romero with a side salad of Assault on Precinct 13 and a reference to Samuel Fuller. The title comes from a short story turned TVM written by Robert Psycho Bloch and it’s somewhat honoured here with a subplot about juvenile delinquents and the revenge they take. It’s something of a shaggy dog story with slow-running gags and the Murray/Driver double act offers deadpan self-conscious commentary on filmmaking indicating the lack of genre commitment, which may or may not irritate and take you out of the action the wrong way. In fact it makes it a bit of a zombie zombie film, if you think about it. There is a huge head count and most of the fun is in watching the different tools used to decapitate – guns, garden shears and, with her fierce Scottish accent and a samurai sword, funeral home proprietor Zelda Winston (Tilda Swinton). Even sweet Selena Gomez is separated from her torso. Did I mention the UFO?! Thought not. A nicely made oddity shot with typical aplomb by Frederick Elmes. This is definitely going to end badly

Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

 These are you final steps, Rey. Rise and take them. The surviving Resistance faces the First Order once more as Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron’s (Oscar Isaac) journey continues led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher). They discover that the Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is alive and unwell and living on Exegol where he’s been discovered by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). With the power and knowledge of generations behind them, the final battle commences between good and evil and Rey makes a surprising discovery about her origins that leads to a confrontation that could have devastating consequences for future generations …  Every Jedi who ever lived, lives in you. How to finish a beloved trilogy? Perhaps it’s fitting that the concluding days of a decade that ends a 42-year long saga is one that commenced with James Cameron’s Avatar a film that was purportedly about to change cinema; that film’s impact then became dissipated with the sheer proliferating superheroism of Marvel Comics; so now we have something that seems somehow less tainted than either of those (non-) series. J.J. Abrams may not be the ideal filmmaker to bring things to a conclusion, ending things not being his forte (I give you Lost). The first trilogy is so beloved;  the second so critically reviled (albeit kids love it); so how would it tie up so many apparently disparate loose ends? Well, it does, if rather haphazardly. It brings together the Sith story with the Jedi story and allows the characters of both Rey and Ben/Kylo Ren to assert their position in the pantheon. The original characters play an active role, albeit in unexpected fashion;  a favourite returns;  and there is more than one kind of rebirth. In other words all the Jungian and mythical tropes that inspired George Lucas via Joseph Campbell are invoked. Even the Ewoks (the honours appropriately taken by Warwick Davis and his son) make a very brief appearance, in case anyone would think they’d been overlooked. There is some dreadfully portentous dialogue; there is some bad acting (I’m sorry to say I mean you, Richard E. Grant); there is a brief Lesbian kiss (the Force definitely woke up); there are some deaths and sacrifices. The film that made my entire generation go to the movies ends the 2010s and it’s not a cliffhanger, it’s a proper ending. What else do you want? It all sits, more or less, on the elegant shoulders of Ridley and she’s very good as the feistiest woman since, well, Princess Leia. Happy New Year. Screenplay by Chris Terrio and J.J. Abrams from a story by Derek Connolly & Colin Treverrow and Terrio & Abrams. We are not alone

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

Camp seasonal classic for the ages featuring a very tiny Pia Zadora. Bliss, of sorts.

Captain Marvel (2019)

You call me ‘young lady’ again, I’ll shove my foot up somewhere it’s not supposed to be. Captain Marvel aka Carol Danvers or Vers (Brie Larson) is an extraterrestrial Kree warrior who finds herself caught in the middle of an intergalactic battle between her people and the Skrulls. After crashing an experimental aircraft, Air Force pilot Carol Danvers was discovered by the Kree and trained as a member of the elite Starforce Military under the command of her mentor Yon-Rogg. Back on Earth in 1995, she keeps having recurring memories of another life as U.S. Air Force pilot Carol Danvers. With help from S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) Captain Marvel tries to uncover the secrets of her past while harnessing her special superpowers to end the war with the evil Skrulls… We have no idea what other intergalactic threats are out there. And our one woman security force had a prior commitment on the other side of the universe. S.H.I.E.L.D. alone can’t protect us. We need to find more. The first twenty minutes are wildly confusing – flashbacks? dreams? reality? WTF? Etc. Then when Vers hits 1995 we’re back in familiar earthbound territory – Blockbuster Video, slow bandwidth, familiar clothes, Laser Tag references, and aliens arriving to sort stuff out under cover of human identities. And a killer soundtrack of songs by mostly girl bands(Garbage, Elastica, TLC et al). So far, so expected. Digital de-ageing assists the older crew including Annette Bening (she’s not just Dr Wendy Lawson! she’s Supreme Intelligence, natch) but the colourless Brie Larson (well, she is named after a cheese) doesn’t contribute a whole lot to the otherwise tolerable female-oriented end of the action adventure. There is however a rather marvellous ginger cat called Goose happily reminding us of both Alien and Top Gun. Written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. I have nothing to prove to you

Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)

Cosmologies. I love ’em. One of my favourite ologies. Bored businessman Nick Halloway (Chevy Chase) gets an unexpected jolt of excitement when, nursing a hangover, he’s the only one not to evacuate an office building that becomes a disaster area after a mishap involving nuclear testing equipment. An unexpected by-product of the accident is that it turns the molecules of the building, as well as Nick and the clothes he’s wearing, transparent. When a team of shady CIA agents, led by David Jenkins (Sam Neill), notices that a human has been turned invisible, they try to take him into custody, planning to use him as the most dangerous secret intelligence agent the world has ever known. Frantic and confused Nick escapes, and quickly begins learning new information about his unusual condition, such pragmatic details as trying to sleep when he can see through his eyelids and any unprocessed food he eats will give him away. Soon, however, he discovers that the scientist in charge of the experiments (Jim Norton) has no idea how to return him to normal, and begins plotting how best to live a semblance of a normal life while steering clear of his pursuers. Nick involves a beautiful documentary filmmaker Alice Monroe (Daryl Hannah) he met the night before the accident in his dilemma, and soon she too becomes a target … That’s what I love about Marin County – you get a much better class of burglar. Adapted by Robert Collector & Dana Olsen and William Goldman from H.F. Saint’s 1987 novel, this was originally slated to be directed by Ivan Reitman but following disagreements with star Chase the baton was taken up by John Carpenter (who plays a helicopter pilot). The film falls uneasily between fantasy drama and sci-fi comedy with uneven results. Never as surefooted with the material as you’d like, Carpenter mainly has fun with the special effects which don’t kick into the story proper until more than halfway;  the serious voiceover by Chase doesn’t help things. You expect his established screen persona to assert itself in its genial sardonic and witty fashion but it never does, a disappointment if you’re anticipating the equivalent of Fletch. As a result, the tone never feels right and there are scenes that feel downright mean, never a good look, even when you can see right through Chase. The good lines are left to Michael McKean as his friend George Talbot, who makes a meal of them. Mostly of course the flaws are down to the unfocused writing, the overall misconception and a downright ill-judged score by Shirley Walker which comes over all John Williams when it should be John Addison, nailing the film’s charmlessness with precision. Leave it alone – you didn’t see, you didn’t hear – any of this

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

We’re the Avengers not the Prevengers. Twenty-three days after Thanos (Josh Brolin) used the Infinity Gauntlet to disintegrate half of all life in the universe, Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) rescues Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) from deep space and returns them to Earth, where they reunite with the remaining Avengers – Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and James Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle) – and Rocket (Bradley Cooper). Locating Thanos on an otherwise uninhabited planet, they plan to retake and use the Infinity Stones to reverse ‘the Snap” but Thanos reveals he destroyed the Stones to prevent their further use. Enraged, Thor decapitates Thanos. Five years later: Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) escapes from the quantum realm and at the Avengers compound, he explains to Romanoff and Rogers that he experienced only five hours while trapped, instead of years. Theorising that the quantum realm could allow time travel the three ask Stark to help them retrieve the Stones from the past to reverse Thanos’s actions in the present… He did what he said he would. Thanos wiped out 50% of all living creatures.  After the devastating events of Infinity War the Avengers reassemble to reverse Thanos’ actions and restore balance to the universe. With Thor drunk and disorderly doing a Lebowski among refugees in New Asgard, Tony Stark happily married to Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and father to a daughter, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) has to deal with the loss of his own family, Nebula has seen the light and turned to the bright side, the Guardians of the Galaxy crew are incorporated into the vast narrative, etc etc, the gang has moved on and grown up in varying states of development. Along with every single character from every Marvel franchise movie making an appearance there’s the first gay man (played by co-director Joe Russo) and Stan Lee’s final (and digitally ‘de-aged’) appearance, in a scene from the 1970 time heist sequence, as a cab driver in New Jersey. Some of the films have been too long, some of them have been a real blast but it’s finally over in a seriocosmic epic that justifies the hype in a thrilling blend of action, comedy, tragedy, daddy (and mommy) issues and pathos with loves lost and regained and noble sacrifices and sad leavetakings. It’s satisfying enough to fill that space-time continuum hole in the comics universe. Not only is resistance futile, it’s no longer necessary, at least for this viewer. The screenplay is by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely who are indebted to the 14 others who preceded them. Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. I am inevitable

Mysterious Island (1961)

Why don’t we turn this island into a democracy and elect a leader? During the Civil War, a group of soldiers led by Captain Cyrus Harding (Michael Craig) escape a Confederate prison siege using an observation balloon, and due to a storm that lasts four days and pitches them off course, are forced to land on a strange island that is full of tropical jungles and volcanoes. They are confronted by giant mutated animals, find two Englishwomen, Lady Mary Fairchild (Joan Greenwood) and her niece Elena (Beth Rogan) washed up from a shipwreck, fight marauding pirates and are then confronted by the infamous Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom) whose submarine the Nautilus was feared lost off Mexico eight years previously. They need to escape and that volcano is rumbling but will Nemo assist them using his engineering genius? … We lived like primitive men using primitive implements. The followup to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea doesn’t start particularly promisingly – the escape from the Confederate prison isn’t very well handled by director Cy Endfield, not the first name you’d come up with for an effects-laden juvenile fantasy flick taken from Jules Verne’s two-part novel. However when the action kicks in on the island and the Ray Harryhausen effects interplay with the threat of a volcano about to blow and those sheer painted backdrops hint at disaster, well, it finally gets interesting. Everything is punctuated by regular run-ins with those giant creatures who are the result of Nemo’s horticultural physics experiments. The laughs come courtesy of war journo Gideon Spilitt (Gary Merrill) who has an ongoing run of food jokes: I wonder how long this will take to cook in a slow oven, he deadpans about the giant chicken they believe they’ve killed; turns out Nemo shot it. The cast is excellent although Craig doesn’t set the screen alight and it’s great to see Lom doing his Nemo:  he’s a misunderstood guy who just wants to stop the causes of war. Rogan and Michael Callan get to do a bit of romancing before being sealed into a giant honeycomb; while Percy Herbert and Dan Jackson bring up the rear. The whole shebang is carried by Bernard Herrmann’s sonorous score, booming from the screen as surely as those explosives. From a screenplay by Crane Wilbur, Daniel B. Ullman and John Prebble. Shot at Shepperton Studios and on location in Catalonia. A man could write an inspired novel in a place like this

Night of the Big Heat (1967)

Aka Island of the Burning Damned/Island of the Burning Doomed. We must avoid injecting fear into an already dangerous situation. Novelist Jeff Callum (Patrick Allen) and his wife Frankie (Sarah Lawson) run a pub called The Swan on the island of Fara, on the English coast.  Jeff hires former lover Angela Roberts (Jane Merrow) as his secretary and she arrives in the middle of an unseasonal and stifling heatwave – it’s winter, yet unusual things are occurring with cars stalling and TVs blowing up and sheep are dying inexplicably. Scientist Godfrey Hanson (Christopher Lee) arrives and rents a room at The Swan, setting up motion sensor cameras and taking soil samples and Jeff confronts him about what might really be happening and discovers that extra-terrestrials are in their midst so it’s time to get local doctor Vernon Stone (Peter Cushing to lend assistance as the temperatures rise and everyone seems to be losing their mind and what on earth is down in the gravel pit? … If the heat goes on like this it could very likely drive us insane!  Adapted by Ronald Liles from John Lymington’s novel, this had previously been adapted for broadcast by ITV in their Play of the Week slot in 1960 and Doctor Who husband and wife screenwriting team Pip and Jane Baker were hired to do this rewrite. This Hammer Films iteration has the key players in the studio and is all the better for it: that alien protoplasm ain’t got nothing on these guys, living in a pressure cooker of sex and fear. It’s nice to see Patrick Allen – that terrifying voice that so dominates my childhood memories is actually quite the thesp:  hark at him explain to his wife what the deal is with the smouldering minx Angela:  I wanted her! I wanted her body! It was completely physical, I promise you! while Lee is his usual earnest self as the de rigeur scientist, completely rational for a change, with Cushing, as ever, battling evil.  Merrow is marvellous as the vamp, going crazy, like everyone, in the sweltering heat. Satisfying sci fi very well handled by Terence Fisher. He’s a peculiar chap – but he’s got guts

 

The Thing From Another World (1951)

Do you suppose the Pentagon could send us a revolving door?  Scientist Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite) reports a UFO near his North Pole research base, the US Air Force sends in a team under Capt. Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) to investigate. They uncover a wrecked spaceship and a humanoid creature (James Arness) frozen in the ice. They bring their discovery back to the base, but Carrington and Hendry disagree over what to do with it. Meanwhile, the creature is accidentally thawed and begins wreaking havoc... That’s what I like about the Army – smart all the way to the top! Produced and closely supervised by Howard Hawks, although this is credited to editor Christian Nyby as director, it is usually categorised as a Hawks film (Tobey said Hawks directed all but one scene) and it has his usual tropes – a community of professional men on a mission, quick wit and a feisty woman (and Margaret Sheridan gets most of the best lines as Tobey’s useful love interest). I’m not your enemy – I’m a scientist! Add to this an alien accidentally defrosted and a journalist desperate to share a scoop, together with a philosophical difference between soldiers and scientists raging as a blizzard whirls outside and you have a thriller perfectly modulated in tense phases culminating in a dynamic fight that emblemises the Cold War (that setting’s no accident). Part of the narrative’s psychology derives from the horrors of Hiroshima and contemporary public scepticism about the supposed advances of science. This is a fun, smart, well-written and staged entertainment – it could only be Hawks, not that it really matters. Adapted from John W. Campbell Jr’s 1938 novella Who Goes There? by Charles Lederer with uncredited work by Ben Hecht and Hawks. Watch the skies!