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I have not read the Thomas Pynchon 1990 novel on which the film is based (“Vineland”) but would assume it relates to late 60s/early 70s left wing revolutionary groups in the USA of that period such as the Weathermen and SDS. This movie smartly updates to events happening currently in the USA in being topical, so many people will inevitably relate to Trump’s America and what is happening there.A continual action film at over 2 ½ hours, the pace is kept up throughout its 15 years timespan with fervent leftwing revolutionary Leonardo Di Caprio transitioning from bomb expert to drug and booze addled single parent still in hiding from the government with feisty daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) after her tough activist mother (Teyanna Taylor) has been captured shortly after her birth. Interlocking into this is Sean Penn portraying a right-wing military commander (Captain Lockjaw,) in pursuit of first the mother and then the father/daughter, plus harbouring higher ambitions to being accepted into a shadowy neo-con Christian secret organisation that mirrors in aims pretty much what MAGA currently supports. Finally, add in Benicio Del Toro running an undercover El Paso operation to bring Mexican illegal immigrants into the USA who helps Di Caprio when he is uncovered by Penn’s pursuit operations.Despite its continual action sequences, there is a lot of dark humour peppering the story but apart from its topicality and excellent acting, I simply found it way too long to fully keep my interest.

Joe Conneely ● 13d

As this film started, I realised that COVID while being a global phenomenon in its impact has not featured in a lot of feature films to date. This film set in mid-2020 in the New Mexico town of Eddington, occurs several months into the Covid lockdown and at the time of the Black Lives Matter protests starting in the USA.New Mexico as a state mandated the compulsory wearing of face masks. The mayor (Pedro Pascal) wants the mandate enforced and with his re-election approaching, he is also trying to attract a new data centre to be located nearby to create more jobs, despite some locals having environmental concerns. Problem is the Sherrif (Joaquin Phoenix) does not wish to enforce the mandate being a strong believer in freedom of choice and himself ignores the wearing of a face mask.Add to the mix that the Sherrif married the mayor’s teenage girlfriend (Emma Stone) who has mental issues now and her mother a rabid conspiracy theorist, is stuck living with them till the epidemic finishes. His arguments with the mayor lead to him announcing he will run against him in the mayoral election.If the film had developed that storyline all might have turned out well. Instead, the script starts becoming incoherent with the addition of BLM protests in the town (there are hardly any black people living there); a cult leader arriving who is followed by others keen to exploit the situation, which is being shared with the world through online video postings; and the whole story finally, culminating in murders and more mayhem.At over two hours watching the film is a hard slog with a script that underuses actors of the calibre of Pascal and Stone. Given the director and writer Ari Aster previously made the well plotted high end horror films “Hereditary” and “Midsommar”, I must admit to being pretty disappointed.

Joe Conneely ● 51d

I must admit to being a bit of a luddite where this series is involved – I still find the original 1982 US TV show “Police Squad” on which the films are based much funnier than the first film with the title in 1988 and the two subsequent sequels made decreasingly funny.This latest release has Liam Neeson replacing the deceased Leslie Nielsen and Pamela Anderson replacing Priscilla Presley plus the team behind the original franchise is not involved. Any plot quickly becomes irrelevant as the main aim of this reboot is to pack in as many jokes (oral or visual and mostly gross) as possible, including repetitions of the same gag and to even continue them into the end titles. The delivery is so fast and continual that it is little surprise that post a set of visual sexual gags around the halfway stage, the pace seems to move down a gear. Endless spoofs of scenes from other films abound (my personal favourite being Anderson’s take on Michelle Pfeiffer’s jazz singer in “The Fabulous Baker Boys”) though I must admit that towards the end I was not getting all of the USA specific jokes.I couldn’t finally quite buy Neeson’s attempt to be comedic and his recycling of the original hilarious Nielsen character but at the same time this film is probably best seen as a timely spoof of the preceding films. It also reminds one that there are precious few real comedy films released in recent years which try to make you laugh continuously, which might explain the commercial success this release is enjoying.

Joe Conneely ● 55d

I may have been expecting too much of this Irish financed and produced film given the acting talent involved (Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter and Gabriel Byrne). Beautifully filmed against the West of Ireland backdrop and capturing rural village life, it reminded me of my childhood holidays in the Connemara region, though the crashing waves on the rocks image finally seemed a bit overdone!I have not read the "international bestseller novel" on which the film is based, though given the writer also wrote the script, I assume it does not differ greatly. The interweaving of the stories of two families starts off with the fathers and husbands of each, who are both revealed as having ambitions above their talents. Brosnan is a civil servant in Dublin who after literally seeing the light, leaves his job and family to become a painter of scenes in Donegal. Byrne is a village school teacher on an island off the coast, who feels he is a great poet and doesn't consequently help his long suffering wife at home (Bonham Carter, easily the star of the film).Byrne's daughter is sent to a mainland convent boarding school but soon reveals her rebellious nature and Brosnan's son secretly follows his father to the West to try and understand what possessed him, in the process revealing he has true poetic talents. I simply found the story much too reliant on chances of fate and the odd miracle or magic to drive it along and the final ending too trite and tidy for my tastes.

Joe Conneely ● 72d

Final genre for this month’s films seen is a British documentary film about the life of the well-known lady from Neasden, who at the age of 16 bursts on the model scene in the mid-60s and then proves herself to be a very hard working and adept all round performer as she transitions with great success into singing, films and theatre.The film follows a straight line through her life story from her lucky breakthrough in being given an early iconic hairstyle and photo shoot followed by a spread in the Daily Express fashion pages. I am old enough to remember the breakthrough she achieved and all the criticism around her success, as reflected in the contemporary excruciating interview questions and interviews shown, the most memorable being her taking down of Woody Allen. There are some hilarious interviews with Joanna Lumley about what being a model at that time involved in showing how different Twiggy was in breaking that mould both in the UK and then the USA (her NY arrival seems in impact to mirror the Beatles first USA arrival). The film does include some strange interviewees (Brooke Shields and Sienna Miller) giving their thoughts on how Twiggy was treated but few later famous UK models (Kate Moss or Naomi Campbell for example). Underlying it all is the strong personality of Twiggy being very clear on what she wants and willing to take risks. With little scandal or bad media to divert interest you end up enjoying her common-sense approach to her life and career.Interesting that at the Thursday afternoon matinee with over a half full cinema, I was the only male in the audience!

Joe Conneely ● 195d

The new film from the Korean writer/director (Bong Joon Ho) of the breakthrough film "Parasite", including winning best film Oscar.I am not a great lover of sci-fi and fantasy films which genre this film is firmly based in but do enjoy Korean cinema with their different takes on events. Probably best described as a wacky satire, Robert Pattinson plays the luckless Mickey who signs on for a future space mission to a new planet four years travel away. The only problem is that he has volunteered as an "expendable" which means he is automatically used for anything risky or dangerous. Due to a new process of "reprinting", a new replacement copy of Mickey can be made every time he dies, hence his being No. 17 at the start of the film (his back story told in flashback over the first third of the film shows how he got to 17).A mistake in "reprinting" No. 18 ahead of schedule leads to the quandary of which copy should survive. Told against a backdrop of the spaceship being commanded by a failed US senator determined to establish a new world community with his messianic wife and himself ruling (truly manic performances from Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette) plus finding the target planet is an icy wasteland inhabited by "Creepers", I must admit by the final third I had given up and was just enjoying the whole farce of it all.Ironically the film’s release in 2025 against recent developments under Trump and Musk in the USA around Greenland and Canada and settlements on Mars, have probably made certain of the themes in the film more relevant than anybody can have realised when it was being made (a bit like “Casablanca” released in the 1940s when the Allies were invading North Africa)!

Joe Conneely ● 215d

Just saw this for the second time amid all the furore: the lead didn’t show up for Q&A, no audience questions and nervous looking security.Now it’s won so many nominations, there’s a serious campaign against it from Mexicans who say it’s not Mexican enough, trans lobby who say it’s not a good representation of trans issues and then there was digging into the (trans) star’s tweeting history which came up with a couple of dodgy, five- year old tweets.It may just be an anti Oscar campaign. I thought it still brilliant and original and honestly it’s a musical and a drama NOT a documentary….This is what I thought after first viewing:This is a most original movie. It’s a musical but the songs are very much incorporated into the plot and action.The central character is a badly-treated Mexican lawyer who is hired by a dangerous monster to take on a very unusual assignment. she manages and, some time later, they join forces again.I’m not going into the plot in any more detail because it is quite unusual.It’s all rather compelling and the four central actresses jointly won best actress at Cannes this year.I’d tip it to do well at BAFTA and Oscar: certainly a contender for film not in the English language.And I thought that before I sat there dutifully at the screening reading the credits (the price you pay for BAFTA screenings) and blow me, my nephew’s name came up as lead orchestra. I squeaked with astonishment. He says that just means more of his work was left on the cutting room floor than anyone else’s. But I’m a proud auntie…

Sara Nathan ● 250d