Inbetween Girl (2021)

That’s where we’re at, Future Angie! After her parents, Chinese father Fai (KaiChow Lau) and American mother Veronica (Liz Waters), suddenly get divorced, high school student and teen artist Angie Chen (Emma Galbraith) records her thoughts for a video diary and turns to secret hookups with her private school’s most popular jock Liam (William Magnuson). They keep the relationship secret from their friends and Liam is already dating the whitest person Angie could ever imagine, popular blonde influencer Sheryl White (Emily Garrett). Angie and Liam hook up after school in her bedroom and Angie thinks he feels about her how she does about him but at the same time gains empowerment from a gradual mastery of sex, which briefly engenders fantasies about other boys in school. Then she discovers her father has moved on from his family with a new woman in his life, another Chinese, Min (ShanShan Jin) whose daughter Fang (Thanh Phuong Bui) is Angie’s age. When Angie has to contend with being paired in class with Sheryl for a literature project she discovers appearances can be deceptive because Sheryl’s life is far from perfect. The girls have a lot in common. Angie realises that Liam is playing them both when he refuses to split with Sheryl and Angie confesses to Sheryl about their relationship. Then Min teases Angie about her inability to speak Mandarin and Angie causes a quarrel at her father’s house. Her life seems to be falling apart then her mother realises Angie has been having sex … I really like driving you home and sometimes it’s the best part of my day. A portrait of the artist as a girl, Mei Makino’s funny and affecting debut feature as writer and director debut is complex, smart and true. It’s like real life but you get to control everything. That’s what Angie tells Liam about playing Sims but it’s how she’d like her home existence after her father leaves and her hard-working lawyer mom leaves bagel bites for dinner. I know Liam is sort of an asshole but he’s MY asshole. The best looking guy in the school also appears to have it all but when he and Angie get together he tells her things she thinks are real revelations. When he’s with me in my room he’s not just the hot guy at school. When he seems to regret telling her about his life and bolts early one morning, she figures it’s just reluctance to be open but he still has Sheryl and keeps Angie his secret. But she too is complicit in this hidden relationship. Can we just have a Coke and a smile? he pleads when Angie wants to learn more about him. They are vulnerable to each other but it remains within the four walls of her bedroom. Is that love? Angie ponders. Don’t you want to soak up all life has to offer? he asks, offering her a spliff. This is a hedonist in the making. Maybe Min and Fong give him something that Mom and I never could. The issue of Angie’s biracial identity is horrifically exposed when Sheryl’s mom (Jane Schwartz) compliments her on her Asian-ness – Sheryl’s humiliation is beautifully expressed. The hit is twofold when Min shames Angie over her inability to speak her father’s language. The cultural gap is now a gaping chasm. The maturity that Angie experiences is achieved through empathy – with Sheryl and with her father. She recognises that other people have different outlooks and lives. Of Liam she concludes, It’s funny how he was this mythical presence in my life. When I look at him now he’s just a boy. That’s quite the take home lesson from teenage love: guys will be guys, no matter how they’re dressed up. Wonderfully performed, this is simultaneously obvious and subtle, just like teen life. Angie’s artwork is by Texan illustrator Larissa Akhmetova, as playful and delightful as the film’s protagonist. Okay Future Angie, I can feel your judgment!

Jeune et Jolie (2013)

You have an adventure but ultimately you’re alone. Seventeen-year old Isabelle (Marine Vacth) decides to lose her virginity to Felix (Lucas Prisor) while on summer holiday. But she wants more sex and takes up a secret life as a prostitute, having encounters in hotels with older men, some more sordid and cruel than others. She meets elderly Georges (Johan Leysen) regularly but he dies during one bout and the police inform her mother (Géraldine Pailhas) about her underage daughter’s dangerous lifestyle …  She’s bad to the bone. This frank exploration of female sexuality by auteur François Ozon pulls its punches somewhat – being on the one hand an erotic drama; the other, a piquant coming of age story with an especially feminine twist albeit through the male gaze, until the tables turn. It lacks the acerbic wit of the mordant thrillers Ozon makes but there is a marvellous change in the bourgeois family dynamic when this beautiful girl asserts her female power. Who knows why a lovely girl would do this? Does she know herself? We are left with no clear idea but this boasts a kindness towards the protagonist, emblemised by the use of the poem No One’s Serious at Seventeen by Rimbaud and a soundtrack dominated by the songs of Françoise Hardy. The film ends on a mysterious smile worthy of the Mona Lisa herself. You know what they say – once a whore, always a whore

Serenity (2019)

Reel him in.  Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) is a fishing boat captain who leads tours off the tranquil enclave of Plymouth Island in the Florida Keys with assistant Duke (Djimon Hounsou) motivated by eventually catching a big tuna he calls Justice. He enjoys sex for money with Constance (Diane Lane) but his life is disturbed by inexplicable visions that seem to connect him with the son he hasn’t seen since his time in Iraq. His routine is soon shattered when his ex-wife Karen (Anne Hathaway) tracks him down. Desperate for help, Karen begs Baker to save her and their son Patrick (Rafael Sayegh) from her abusive husband, criminal Frank Zariakas (Jason Clarke). She wants Baker to take the violent brute out for a fishing excursion – then throw him overboard to the sharks. But a late night visit from a mysterious company representative Reid Miller (Jeremy Strong) throws a spanner into the works … A hooker that can’t afford hooks. I like a boat thriller. Something about the infinite dramatic possibilities played out on the finite dimensions of a floating vehicle, all at sea. Like Knife in the Water. Masquerade. Dead Calm. There are enough clues in this gorgeous looking melodrama that things are off – the World’s Greatest Dad mug; the seemingly telepathic connection with Patrick; the inter-cutting with Patrick creating a world in which he is catching fish on his computer; and the frankly hysterical sex scene with McConaughey and Hathaway, a ludicrous interplanetary femme fatale, on a boat lurching in a rainstorm:  she promptly gets up and puts on her trenchcoat and hat and trots off up the pier. Bonkers. McConaughey strips off regularly evoking quite a different take on the inspirational Moby Dick: Mobile Dick, perhaps. Sex with your ex, indeed. Lane out-acts everyone by being discreet; Hounsou mutters incomprehensibly bizarre aphorisms like he’s read them off a matchbook, everyone else speaks in similarly random non sequiturs. I would have laughed out loud but I struggled to hear much of the unintentionally hilarious dialogue.  I get the meta stuff and video games but like I said, I also like a boat thriller. This ain’t it. Bad and utterly irrational, like you would not believe. Written and directed by Steven Knight. If someone invented me, how come I know who I am?

Rampage (2018)

What are you, some kind of international man of mystery? Primatologist Davis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson) a man who keeps people at a distance but shares an unshakable bond with George, the extraordinarily intelligent, incredibly rare albino silverback gorilla who has been in his care since he rescued the young orphan from poachers in Africa. They joke in sign language. A rogue genetic experiment gone awry in outer space with the deadly pathogen falling into wildlife parks in California and Florida and mutate this gentle ape into a raging creature of enormous size. There are other similarly altered animals – starting with a grey wolf who takes out the soldiers sent to kill him. As these newly created alpha predators tear across North America, communicating via sonar and destroying everything in their path, Okoye teams with discredited geneticist Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris) to secure an antidote, fighting his way through an ever-changing battlefield to halt imminent catastrophe commencing among the skyscrapers of Chicago.  Luckily his training in Special Forces gives him the ability to confront the dangers they face but he must also save the now fearsome creature that was once his friend….. Of course – a wolf that can fly!  Or, gorilla goes ape, in this interspecies mutant/hybrid cross between King Kong and Godzilla only it’s neither as serious nor as silly as those classics. The third collaboration between Johnson and director Brad Peyton (which presumably qualifies as a kind of auteurist effort) this starts in a space station with a giant rat, an explosive scene sequence which used up a lot of the FX budget and shards of an exploded rocket with this dangerous pathogen wind up all over the shop, as you do. Hence the shonky CGI mayhem. Jeffrey Dean Morgan turns up as a good ol’ boy Other Government Agent (I always knew they existed) and after their plane is wrecked by a growing George, he and the big friendly giant (The Rock) and Harris go after the brother and sister gene manipulator team (Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy) responsible for this lunatic experiment. Adapted from an Eighties video game, by Ryan Engle and Carlton Cuse & Ryan J. Condal and Adam Sztykiel, this is never quite as fun as it should be but you might just shed a tear from that rheumy worldweary eye at the fight to the death. If animals hate you they eat you. You always know where you stand

Half Magic (2018)

Why are we sitting around talking about how sad our lives are? Three women utilise their newly formed sisterhood to battle sexism, bad relationships and low self-esteem. Honey (Heather Graham) works for a self-absorbed actor (Chris D’Elia) who treats her terribly and she splits with him in a script meeting and gets her feminist idea past s producer Linda (Rhea Perlman). I’m sick of watching women get stabbed in movies, she declares. Eva (Angela Kinsey) is a successful fashion designer who can’t get over her divorce from artist husband Darren (Thomas Lennon) who claims that her financing of his education emasculated him so now he’s with a twenty-year old. Lick it Candy (Stephanie Beatriz) works in a candle store and she believes the wax objects have magical powers so they wish for what they desire after attending a crazy vagina-worshipping workshop led by Valesca (Molly Shannon). They soon find the secret to ultimate fulfillment by embracing their wild sexual adventures… I want to have hot sex with someone who’s nice to me. Frank and funny, this explicit take on the female experience aims low (literally, at clitoral orgasms) and high (at drug users, natch!) and at narcissistic men including actors who get their rocks off at making sexually active women suffer in their movies and video games. Heather Graham is making her writing/directing debut and we can infer that she knows whereof she speaks:  she’s playing an aspiring screenwriter who’s assisting Peter the actor and we first meet them having uncomfortable sex (for her, not him). He’s so vile that he takes credit for breaking up with her retrospectively – and immediately – despite the fact that she’s breaking up with him at a production meeting in front of other people. When she’s finally having a proper orgasm with a wild drug-taking artist Freedom (Luke Arnold from TV’s Black Sails) she met at a club she experiences religious guilt (Johnny Knoxville cameos as Father Gary declaiming from the pulpit). She wants to communicate her joy by making her female characters empowered on the screen but meets with the old argument:  Sex and violence is a proven formula that makes a profit  Nonetheless her co-writer John (Michael Aronov) endorses everything she says and even loves her other screenplays.  Eva makes horrible drunken phonecalls to her ex but a chance encounter with an old friend Mark (Jason Lewis) gives her a sexual experience she’d never had with her husband.  And Candy needs to get her boyfriend to commit but she keeps doing her laundry and he’s with other women. They all have to give themselves a break, stop being masochistic and learn to love themselves – first. If they resort to a little magic to make it through the day and create sisterly solidarity, well, why not. A game cast makes this very watchable and Graham’s sweet wide-eyed act is still going strong – she looks at least twenty years younger than she should!  There are some good jibes at Hollywood films and sycophancy which everyone of the female persuasion will appreciate. Note to self:  when making a film in which I’m starring remember to include a sex scene with a hot guy from Black Sails. What a way to debut. Yes to orgasm!

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

We just have to stick together. We do that, we can win. Four high school kids discover an old video game console in detention in their high school basement. Spencer is a nerd beset with allergies, Fridge is a footballer who needs help with his homework, Bethany is a narcissistic beauty addicted to her iPhone and Martha is a friendless brainiac who has no fun. They are sucked into the game’s jungle setting, literally becoming the adult avatars they chose:  Spencer is now explorer and archaeologist Dr Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson) who has no weakness (except he’s still shy),  Fridge is zoologist Moose Finbar (Kevin Hart) who can’t eat cake,  Martha is curvy martial arts expert Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) who can be killed by venom and Bethany is an overweight male middle-aged cartographer Prof. Shelly Oberon (Jack Black). What they discover is that you don’t just play Jumanji – you must survive it. To beat the game and return to the real world, they’ll have to go on the most dangerous adventure of their lives by returning a jewel to a Jaguar mountain shrine, discover what Alan Parrish left 20 years ago, and change the way they think about themselves – or they’ll be stuck in the game forever.  They have to dodge treasure hunter Van Pelt (Bobby Cannavale), a corrupt archaeologist, and his henchmen, a crew of evil bikers plus a herd of rampaging rhinoceros, They enlist the help of Alex (Nick Jonas) who has one life left and is afraid to lose it and get stuck in here forever:  he thinks he’s been here a few months but he’s the kid from the Freak (Vreeke) House who disappeared in 1996 after getting lost in the original video game. They have to face up to their fears and join together to get out or it will be Game Over ... How can my strength be my weakness? A sequel and a reboot, this followup to the beloved adaptation of Chris van Allsburg’s book is PC, clever and fun, catering for nostalgia freaks harking back to 1930s jungle films, the 90s obsession with video games, and placating the millennial generation that thinks they can change their race and gender because, you know, it’s their human right and they can choose who they want to be and before they grow up and get real! (It’s not just a game… it’s a life lesson).  We no longer have the Jumanji board game that trapped Alan Parrish (Robin Williams, who’s mentioned here in tribute) but we do have all the ins and outs of a protagonist-led adventure where the rules always apply – until they need to be changed. There are a lot of bright moments – Jack Black the former mean girl coaching school swot Karen Gillan to flirt; tiny Kevin Hart realising he’s not the huge killer ball player any more; Johnson morphing into an unbelievably strong 6’5″ hulk from the puny geek with allergies:  his smoldering voice is hilarious and he just cannot get over the size of his arms. There are some fun penis jokes and a lot of throwaway lines that are laugh out loud good. Exceptionally well cast and performed, this is a very pleasant and funny entertainment that moves like the clappers. Written by Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers, Scott Rosenberg & Jeff Pinkner, from a story by Chris McKenna. Directed by Jake Kasdan.  Zoology, bitch!

Ready Player One (2018)

People come to the Oasis for all the things they can do, but they stay for all the things they can be.  In 2045, with the world on the brink of chaos and collapse the people have found salvation in the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance). When Halliday dies, he leaves a video in which he promises that his immense fortune will go to the first person to find a digital Easter egg he has hidden somewhere in the OASIS, sparking a contest that grips the entire world. When an unlikely young hero named Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) decides to join the contest as his avatar Parzival, he is hurled into a breakneck, reality-bending treasure hunt through a fantastical universe of mystery, discovery and danger. He finds romance and a fellow rebel in Art3mis aka Samantha (Olivia Cooke) and they enter a business war led by tyrannical Nolan Sorrentino (Ben Mendelson) who used to make Halliday’s coffee and is now prepared to do anything to protect the company … Adapted by Zak Penn and Ernest Cline from Cline’s cult novel, this blend of fanboy nostalgia with VR and gaming works on a lot of levels – and I say that as a non-gamer. There are a lot of things to like once you get accustomed to the fact that the vast majority of the narrative takes place in the virtual ie animated world yet it is embedded in an Eighties vista with some awesome art production and references that will give you a real thrill:  Zemeckis and Kubrick are just two of the cinematic gods that director Steven Spielberg pays homage in a junkyard future that will remind any Three Investigators reader of Jupiter Jones, only this time the kid’s got a screen.  This being a PC-VR production it’s multi-ethnic, multi-referential and cleverer-than-thou yet somehow there’s a warmth at its kinetically-jolting artificial centre that holds it together, beyond any movie or song or toy you might happen to have foist upon you. There are some of the director’s clear favourites in the cast – the inexplicable preference for Rylance and Simon Pegg (sheesh…) but, that apart, and delicious as some of this is – it looks like it really was made 30 years ago – you do have to wonder (and I say this as a mega fan), Will the real Steven Spielberg please stand up?! This is the real Easter Egg hunt.