Uncut Gems / The Lighthouse / Birds of Prey / Parasite

PROLOGUE

This blog post may, at some points, come off like the right-wing reactionary ramblings of a Dominic Cummings / Steve Bannon type. I have posited similar thoughts in previous film reviews, but my arguments are – by my own admittance – all over the fucking shop. At the very least, I hope some of what I have to say is food for thought. Even if you wish to throw that food straight in the fucking bin.

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Film critics are the fucking worst. And yes, I appreciate the irony in that statement. But seriously, there's a particular brand of cine-elitism that rears its ugly head around awards season – specifically in those writing for The Guardian and The Observer – that leaves a very sour taste in the mouth (I quite like Peter Bradshaw, but by Christ his Incredible Hulk review is obnoxious). The unfortunate thing is, film – like any media – is entirely subjective. No audience member should be made to feel 'wrong' for liking a film, or even worse, wrong for hating a film they have been told is objectively good. Especially by sneering pricks (they’re always men) who – even if they don't intend to – come off as if they know better. It's a demeaning and unsettling trait that makes even a seasoned film enthusiast feel devalued in the opinions they might have on the latest so-called 'good' film ('good' = cool, hip, clever, woke).

Take Uncut Gems, for instance. This film set me off thinking about how audiences and critics often work in symbiosis to foist an opinion on the world (i.e. social media) that a film is amazing by virtue of its indie credentials, when actually it's not a million miles away from the latest Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich blockbuster (which of course is objectively 'bad' cinema according to the critics, therefore said 'hip' audience won't watch it, therefore they have no yardstick of comparison to other films that are relentless, stressful experiences that can leave an audience gasping for breath by design). Adam Sandler's standout against-type performance aside, this film about a jeweller making horrifically bad life choices at breakneck pace for two hours solid is, at its core, a middling action film minus the action. It employs lightning-fast editing, a truly awful synth score, toilet humour and a palpable tension that permeates every inch of the frame. It could essentially be Bad Boys For Life, if there were more guns involved.

It's as if directors Josh and Benny Safdie have stumbled upon a formula whereby they can make films not entirely dissimilar to The Boondock Saints - a film widely regarded at the time as a college-boy Tarantino knock-off (which it absolutely is), a straight-to-video quickie that paled in comparison to the films that clearly influenced writer/director Troy Duffy. Uncut Gems plays out like a Poundland Goodfellas (Scorsese exec-produced, wouldn't you know) - all of the energy with none of the sophistication. It blinds you with its hyper-kineticism, but take a peek under the surface and it's just as silly as, say, Pain & Gain. And there really is nothing wrong with that; just don't paint it out to be something groundbreaking, when it absolutely fucking isn't.

Don't even get me started on the aforementioned appalling synth score; not just the score itself, but where and when it's deployed (I really am turning into my dad when even the composer's alias - Oneohtrix Point Never - gets my blood boiling for being so excruciatingly, ball-breakingly millennial). However, in a Nathan Barley-esque twist, the art house audience takeaway on the sub-Vangelis, acceptable-in-the-80s wankery seems to be 'it is knowingly contrary, therefore it must be genius'. Self-consciously hip to an almost aggressive extent, the Safdies know the flat whiters will lap it up and declare such bleeding-edge choices as masterful.

There was even an article written recently about the tech involved to keep the camera focused on Sandler, without the need for him to hit marks – as if this was somehow unique to this film, the Safdie Brothers breaking new ground for other directors to build upon. Turns out the Light Ranger 2 has been around since 2014 and was used on The Greatest Showman, without anyone batting a fucking eyelid. But wow, the Safdies used it?! Better tell those hipster cinéastes on #filmtwitter! Who cares if Zendaya’s trapeze work was impeccably shot with it; come back to me when Robert Eggers whips it out for his next uncomfortable viewing experience. THEN I'll be interested.

Which brings me on to The Lighthouse. And hey, credit where credit is due; it's a singular film of visual and sonic magnitude. Overwhelmingly so, if seen on a big screen. That said, it's so ruthlessly bleak and void of redemption or catharsis, you'll probably never want to see it again. Now is the ‘repeat viewing factor’ a mark of quality in a film? I honestly don't know. I remember thinking Irréversible was excellent, but I wouldn't throw it on as a Sunday afternoon time-killer. On the other hand, American Psycho is a film littered with irredeemable wankers, though it's arguably a modern classic that rewards repeat viewings (and the soundtrack is *chef's kiss*).

However, as with Uncut Gems, The Lighthouse is a film that's been garlanded with effusive praise. If you don't see it, god help the FOMO you'll feel; if you don't like it, well... there's only one philistine in this independent cinema, and it ain't your friends chattering about which Willem Dafoe fart was the best. The plot is wafer-thin; a tale of two lighthouse keepers, going slowly mad on an isolated island, in black and white, in 1.33:1 aspect ratio (because of course, a mad unnecessary aspect ratio is cool as fuck in this day and age, especially if the uber-hip Little White Lies can crowbar in some justification for it). And… that's kind of it.

Okay, maybe I'm trying desperately to rationalise an argument by picking on a film that is, by my own acknowledgement, utterly beautiful to look at with sound design to die for. But beyond a few chin-stroking "what does it all mean" signs and signifiers, it's a theatrical two-hander picture book of a film; plenty of bone, but no real meat. Yet the critics, the taste makers, the chosen few who go to Cannes to decide what the clique are to deem 'good' for the next twelve months... our fate is in their hands. "Have you seen The Lighthouse?" - a question I've been asked half a dozen times in the last week. "Yes I have, but on a fundamental level I enjoyed Richard Jewell more, a solid film even most multiplexes have forgotten to show."

I mean, is it now a crime to be entertained by nuts and bolts cinema? Are you an idiot if you think Le Mans ’66 is great fun? So often it feels like those 'in the know' are speaking down to people who just want to enjoy a movie for a couple of hours. And I say this as a fan of Festen (incestuous child sexual abuse), Funny Games (a horrifically violent home invasion) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (an existential sci-fi about god knows fucking what). I think what I'm getting at is something that could well be a symptom of the times we live in, and how divided we've become as a species. Political issues are more partisan than ever, more often than not splitting us into (perceived) camps of educated and uneducated. It seems that cinema is not immune to the same problems when it comes to the kind of films that the intelligentsia wish to champion.

Which makes Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn a bit of an anomaly. (That fucking title alone... I mean FFS, please don't try any harder, for all our sakes.) Since the review embargo was lifted, all that's been seen on social media (or within my woke liberal bubble, at least) is praise for a film made by a woman, about women, that to my eyes is objectively shit. Now I know I've set my stall out to diss supposed ‘art’, but ‘art’ this film is not. It's not even approaching passable. It's bargain-basement wacky, barrel-scraping zany, routinely unfunny, dramatic tension-lacking bullshit (with a rather worrying approach to cocaine glorification). A colleague who’d also seen it (and liked it) asked me "What did you expect?' – as if the bar is now so low for comic book cinema, the desire to consume it overriding all barriers of quality control, that literally anything will fucking do. But hey, all credit to director Cathy Yan and writer Christina Hodson for making a film that social media feels it’s vital to support, purely by the virtue of them being female – it's quite an achievement to get a career-worst performance out of Ewan McGregor, a man who looks perpetually confused as to what accent he’s supposed to be doing, let alone what his villain’s piss-poor motivation is... bravo, ladies. Bravo.

Now forgive me for going full MAGA, but if a film has numerous elements that are quantifiably bad (or at the very least, not great - I'll be fair, this is but my opinion after all), why does it appear that much of the praise it's been getting is down to the gender of both those in front and behind the camera? If I've misinterpreted genuine love for the film, hey, I hold my hands up - I'm not a confident straight white male authority on these matters (okay I am, but I'm trying to add some levity here). However it feels like the rules have been rewritten in order to accommodate a film that's been anticipated for some time, and frankly isn't much cop.

It deliberately bounces around time in a way that feels laboured and contrived, as if they made the script up as they went along. It's so poorly written that a genuine, bona-fide superpower comes out of nowhere in the third act, purely to flatten some bad guys. In a world that is largely grounded in reality, the fact this happens is so tonally jarring it disengages you from the film entirely. Harley Quinn herself – despite a committed performance from Margot Robbie – is such a colossal alcohol-soaked socially reprehensible dick, it's all but impossible to empathise with her. And the titular 'Birds of Prey' - the secondary characters who make up the female do-gooder gathering - are so spectacularly underwritten you find yourself wondering if you even care if they succeed or not (oh yeah, the film is largely about the recovery of a stolen diamond - other shit happens, but it's all of such little dramatic consequence it doesn't bear repeating).

When it comes to delivering characters who are memorable, there's plenty of films that deliver the odd one, here and there (Alan Rickman made an entire career out of chewing the scenery of any film he got cast in), but with an ensemble cast it's vital you invest in all of them (John Carpenter’s The Thing is a great example of a film where every single character is rounded and three-dimensional, memorable beyond the end credits… and don't give me the whole "that's an all-male cast, how typical" spiel – some of my best friends are women). I couldn't give two fucks about any of the characters in Birds of Prey, yet it feels like I'm alone in my criticism; go take a look at the aggregate scores on Letterboxd and Rotten Tomatoes. Have I suddenly become Mr. Unwoke? Maybe not suddenly, but slowly, over time, so I didn't notice the effects...

...effects so strong, that I'm even going to rail on Parasite. OMFG NO HE DIDN'T OMG I AM #SHOOK. Yes, you heard. The 2020 Academy Award winner for Best Picture. The first foreign language film to ever take home the statue. The social satire that everyone has to give five stars to, no matter what their closely-guarded personal opinion on it is (remember – never disagree out loud in the company of elitist film fans who know better than you). Maybe I’m so deep in my blog-based contrivances to further an argument I'm now struggling to remember the point of, I need to bring out the big guns just for the #LOLs. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say Parasite is bad. Of course it's not. It's clever, scathing, funny, twisted and incredibly well-structured. But best film of the year? Of the fucking year? Diet woke break, girls. The spirit of Piers Morgan just won't leave me alone, will it...

The Academy, in all their recent years of desperately trying to appease those who haven't the good grace to be white (Get Out) or speak English as a first language (Roma); of making catastrophic errors of judgement when it comes to thinking "this will make us look like we care about black people" (Green Book); well, they finally realised they just couldn't get away with it any longer. So they went for broke and gave Parasite fucking everything they could (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Screenplay). But it's so transparent. No surprise that there were no nominations for it in the Best Actor/Actress categories… I mean it’d be hard for the more elderly Academy members to choose, when those goddamn Koreans all look the same #AMIRITE??!!!!? And please, while I can appreciate the optics, I'm not taking anything away from director Bong Joon-ho's victory; this is a beef with the Academy and Hollywood in general.

People have commented Parasite winning Best Picture will open people's eyes to global cinema, to films with subtitles. Will it though…? Or will multiplexes panic, play it for a week, realise a mainstream audience isn't fucking interested, then wait until the inevitable Hollywood remake gets green-lit and put that on for a month instead? (I'm aware Joon-ho has said he won't allow a theatrical remake, but The Stone Roses said they'd never reform, didn't they.) The American film industry is currently monopolised by Disney – original filmmaking is thin on the ground, not when remakes (Disney's entire animated back catalogue) and proven franchises (Marvel) can be churned out on a production line every few months. Parasite is a good film, but it's lavish awards praise at the Oscars stinks of an industry panicking at the climate they have found themselves in, that they have perpetuated (not just Weinstein, but decades' worth of casting couch predecessors), hoping this will make amends. I guess time will tell, but the cynic in me sees an industry purely concerned with the bottom line; and hey, films cost a ton of money these days, I get it. But best film of the year? Of the fucking year? Hobbs & Shaw woz robbed.

But it's not about what we're allowed to enjoy these days; it's what we're MEANT to enjoy. "Parasite was better than 1917 and JoJo Rabbit" I was told by someone recently – an industry tastemaker, you might say – after proffering my opinion that Parasite was good, though hardly film of the year. I didn't even bother following up with the fact that I thought both of those films were more fundamentally enjoyable experiences than Parasite, because oh no, your opinion is of little value if you don't think Parasite is the best. Or maybe you're the hip fucker who thinks Uncut Gems should have been nominated. Go on, enjoy those cool points you just earned. You deserve them.

EPILOGUE

It was brought to my attention a while back that comedian Stewart Lee only listens to 'intellectual music'. His favourite band is Manchester post-punkers The Fall. I know a musician who played drums for The Fall, not too long before Mark E. Smith passed away. The band once got a drunken voicemail from him:

"I've got this song I want you to do. RAAH-RA-RAAAAH-RAA-RAAAH-RA-RAAAH - right, see you later."

They met up at rehearsal that evening, and Mark shut himself in a cupboard with a microphone, a pint and a bag of whizz. The band improvised what they felt was an approximation of what they'd heard on the voicemail, while Mark ranted inane warblings down the mic. Out of view, from inside a cupboard.

In case it needed pointing out, this was not an intellectual band (cue protestations of ageing musos across the fucking country). This was a band fronted by an aggressive drunk you'd avoid in a pub, off his tits on whizz, sat in a fucking cupboard. And have no doubt, Stewart Lee would absolutely justify this behaviour as testament to Mark E. Smith's genius. Now I love Stewart Lee. But don't ever let intellectuals tell you what to like or not like. What's good and what's not good. As screenwriter William Goldman once said, "Nobody knows anything". The same goes for anyone like me who ever told you ‘these films are good, and these films are bad’. They're the same idiots who think a whizz-addled cupboard-singing uber-jerk who sacked over 40 members of his own band is a genius.

Don't believe a word they say.

They’re the fucking worst.

The Crimes of Grindelwald

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

Christopher Nolan's films - Memento, the Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar - have often been charged with being 100% exposition. Characters both supporting and main, their singular function is to drive the plot forward. While I disagree with the sentiment, I get it - his films can often feel weighed down by the mechanics of getting from A to B; though arguably with such style, flair, tension and excitement that such a flaw is by the by. Which brings us to The Crimes of Grindelwald, where style, flair, tension and excitement appear to have been entirely forgotten. But hey, if it's exposition you're here for, boy are you in for a treat!

Let's back up a minute though. 2016's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them set out a fairly middling stall that - despite being born in the shadow of Potter - did a decent job of introducing new characters into an already character-rife universe. It was its own thing with some decent action beats, on the whole fairly inoffensive fare, even though you knew a whole slew of sequels would be waiting in the wings for better or worse. You'd like to think J.K. Rowling, being on sole screenwriting duties for this franchise, would have sat down and made sure everything hung together well (because, you know, she's an acclaimed best-selling author - surely half-decent at the storytelling game by now).

Well, you'd be wrong. Want to bring a character back (Jacob Kowalski) who had his memory erased in the last film? Turns out he only had the 'bad' memories erased, so now he remembers everything again! To say that particular convenience borders on the dreaded "it was all a dream" trope is an understatement. Want to have the nicest character in the entire film (Queenie Goldstein) toddle off with the baddie? No need for motivation! Just have her decide to do it right near the end, because sequels and all that. These are just two standout ball-drops in a film chock-full of them.

I really quite like the Potter films - they're stretched thin in places, but on the whole you give a shit about those crazy wizards and witches. Pretty much all of them, actually. But Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller)? In the first Beasts film, sure - depressed loner revealed to be the sympathetic bad guy all along. Interesting chap; would like to know more. Now? Couldn't give a fuck mate. He's got about half a dozen names and appears to be related to Dumbledore (though I'm still not entirely sure). But by the time that's revealed, I'd given up caring. I'm actually struggling to remember his journey in the film; I'm struggling to remember anyone's journey if I'm honest. It's about 60% plot, 38% magical bullshit (in a way that never ever feels fun or exciting - it just 'happens', all the sodding time, undermining any sense of jeopardy anyone could possibly ever be in), and 2% action.

Now I wouldn't ever want to label this an 'action' film. It's not. But for a film that cost $200 million, I don't think it's unfair to expect a few moments that make you go "ah, so that's where the money went". If anyone can point out those moments to me, please, be my guest. If anything even approaching exciting is about to happen, it is so undersold - CGI-laden, poorly shot and devoid of palpable tension - that I actually made several quizzical "WTF?" faces while watching it. I was tempted to turn round to the folks next to me and ask them if they were enjoying it, but I didn't want to come off as completely weird (I was there on my own - whispering to a stranger was way off the menu in a packed cinema). By the time the film's 'climax' is happening (it's hardly a climax, let's just call it the bit towards the end), I was genuinely baffled as to what anyone could be getting out of it - and that includes die-hard Potter fans.

I think a slightly left-field comparison would be Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier. Sort of a spin-off-but-not from the main trilogy of LxG graphic novels, which essentially requires Wikipedia open at all times when reading. The sheer onslaught of references to pop culture characters and mythological creatures is insane; imagine a writer bellowing "I'm cleverer than you" in your face for 200 pages. One thing you can't level at it mind, is the fact it's well-researched. Moore knows his onions, and he wants to make damn sure you know his onions too. Rowling however... it's like she vaguely knew what she was doing on the first film, but this time is making the whole thing up on the spot. If subsequent films are an improvement on this effort (and I would be shocked if they weren't), The Crimes of Grindelwald will absolutely go down as the one film in this saga prefaced with "well, you have to watch it to understand what happens in the other films". Like an instruction manual you don't want to read, but are forced to plough through in order to get the VideoPlus+ working.

To wrap things up, you may notice an absence of plot description. That's because, there really isn't any. Despite the film being almost entirely filled with plot, of a sort. Grindelwald is bad (we knew that), Credence is sort of bad (we knew that), and Newt Scamander & Co. are good (we knew that). If anyone was making notes, maybe they'll be useful for the next film. But as it stands I don't really care, and I'd be surprised if half the audience did either.

Mark Kermode once said "If blockbusters make money no matter how bad they are, then why not make a good one for a change?". I found this quite a sneery comment at the time, as if all blockbusters are inherently trash. But films like The Crimes of Grindelwald are exactly what he's talking about. An audience needs a reason to care about what's happening on screen, and by that I mean more than a few shots of Hogwarts (if anything, they only serve to remind everyone just what fun the Potter films were compared to this turgid effluence). The critically-lauded Mission: Impossible - Fallout - another of this year's $200 million tentpoles - shows that you don't need to have seen the other films in the franchise or be given a ton of detail for future sequels (which I'm certain there will be) in order to be gripped and involved. Just put on a great show, and ideally make sure the dots join up. I would say it's not hard. But The Crimes of Grindelwald proves that it really, really is.

The Predator

Simon Bland, erstwhile pop culture hoover and enthusiastic purveyor of big, silly blockbuster entertainment, said this to me about The Predator:

"When will filmmakers learn to make a film about an intergalactic alien hunter stalking quip-loving marines with the depth and gravitas it so richly deserves?"

My response?

"They did learn - in 1987."

In short, The Predator is absolutely fucking awful. Laughably so. Anyone who has seen the trailer may have been suspicious that the film wasn't quite going to live up to expectations. Well you can be safe in the knowledge that it really doesn't; in fact the trailer has tried its best to polish a certifiable turd, a film so bafflingly moronic it would have been a disappointment as straight-to-video sequel fodder in the early 90s. It makes 2010's Predators look like a borderline masterpiece in comparison. Hell, it makes Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem look mildly ambitious. I may be over-egging the pudding a bit. But probably not. This really is 100% shit sandwich territory.

Just what was writer/director Shane Black thinking? Was he *even* thinking? Who knows. The guy was IN Predator, FFS;  he's got critically-acclaimed writing credentials under his belt; he even made a decent fist of Iron Man 3. Yet somehow, in channelling his inner 80s action movie nerd, he's managed to concoct an unwieldy beast of a film that never seems to know what it's trying to achieve, with so many tonal misfires it comes off more like a really bad comedy (swapping Jesse Ventura's "slack-jawed faggots" line for jokes about a man called Gaylord).

Okay, so I did it. I dropped the f-bomb. No matter which way you slice it, Predator - unequivocally excellent though the rest of the film is - has that line which is no doubt destined to feature in an upcoming Honest Trailer. Oh wait, here it is! Though to be fair, this kind of throwaway homophobia was unfortunately the case for many an 80s genre flick; a rather sad by-product of its time. A Christmas staff screening of Trading Places where I work yielded not just the f-bomb, but Dan Aykroyd in blackface. The atmosphere was awkward, to say the least. Anyway, I digress. What I think Black has tried to do with the aforementioned Gaylord joke (along with plenty of other 'funny' character traits - an army vet with Tourette's, anyone?) is rekindle elements of what he liked from the first film. That being, the kind of #bants only him and Michael Bay would find funny.

Not even the plot makes sense. Predators having some kind of interstellar battle end up crash-landing on earth (seems to be their favourite trick), with nearby military assassin (Boyd Holbrook) picking up some of the wreckage (a mask and wrist gauntlet) to send to his ex-wife's address as 'evidence'. He also swallows the predator's cloaking device, we assume in order for it not to be discovered on his way back across the border from Mexico. Which begs the question: why didn't he just cloak himself and go across the border undetected? This is the kind of film that ditches any potential logic in order for a man to chug a giant marble, just so he can 'comically' shit it out later. Absolute #bants.

Anyway, his (presumably) autistic son opens up said package and pisses about with the mask and gaultlet, triggering a further flotilla of predators back to earth. Turns out these crazy predators are using spinal fluid from 'the best' species across the galaxy in order to enhance themselves. In other words, they've made themselves taller. Oh, and they've bred predator dogs - let's call them 'Predadogs', like the rest of the internet is doing - for no particular reason. I'm also not sure why the Predadogs have dreadlocks like their predator kin. Makes you wonder what kind of distasteful gonzo science experiments they've been conducting in their forever-crashing spacecraft. It would be like us creating dogs with human faces. I've seen this before, and it's not pretty.

Throw a jerk-off military scientist, a weapons-handy biologist (!) and an Irish Theon Greyjoy into the mix, and you've got yourself a film where empathising with the characters is unequivocally impossible. Think of the taut simplicity of the first film - Schwarzenegger's band of ex-marines are macho as shit, but every single one of them you invest in and care about (also see John Carpenter's The Thing, where every character is vital as well as memorable). The utter absence of nuance or subtlety, in both plot and characterisation, is absurd - you give zero fucks what happens to anyone, or indeed what happens at all. Jokes are to be cringed at, not laughed at. The only laughing you will be doing is at how cack-handed the whole venture feels; no amount of money thrown at the screen could have resolved what is ultimately a sad, teenage wank fantasy from a writer/director who appears to have a) forgotten what constitutes a good film, and b) is completely hampered by his own misguided 80s nostalgia. I do wonder if he knows what a vapid monstrosity he's shat out into cinemas.

If nothing else, I would like to think The Predator shows studio executives it's not always a good idea to keep returning to a character just because they think an audience wants more of it. But I doubt they'll care. Sure, there's always going to a be a yearning for more of anything that was good, in and of its time. It's why a Back to the Future remake/reboot is never far away - studios can't keep their hands off something that will be a guaranteed moneymaker, no matter how shit or soul-destroying it might be. The RoboCop remake wasn't a total car crash, but was ultimately pointless, carrying none of the satiric weight or iconic production design of the original. But it made money, so fuck what the public thinks, so long as Hollywood be rollin' in that dollar.

But hey, at least the original is still great. No amount of crappy sequels or remakes or reboots or offshoots will change that. Turns out you really can have too much of a good thing... with The Predator, I think I've had my fill.

Ready Player One

Have any of you seen Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle? If not, no matter. But if you have, you'll already be familiar with the concept - kids go inside a video game to fight the baddie and save the world. Ready Player One isn't entirely dissimilar; however, Jumanji 2 is the superior film.

The sentence 'Jumanji 2 is the superior film' really isn't something I expected I'd write. Ever.

That's not to say Ready Player One is bad. It just took two viewings to work out exactly how I felt about it. It flies along at a rollicking pace, it's got action, humour and that indescribable Spielberg magic that is inherent in even his lesser work. Which begs the question: is this comparable to 1941? Always? Hook? Comparisons to the latter have already been made by critics with far more credibility than myself, Hook being a film beloved of those of a certain age but critically far less favoured. Ready Player One seems destined to leave a similar legacy, though admittedly for different reasons.

The plot itself is perfunctory: the year is 2045, and the world has gone to shit (hasn't it always?). Well, maybe not 'to shit' - more 'to Birmingham', though I can see how the two could be confused. To be fair, it's actually refreshing to see a future not quite as world-endingly bleak as we're used to - sure there's a divide between the slums ('stacks') and the glass office blocks filled with wretched hives of scum and villainy, but if the worst this particular future has to offer is a white, none-more-British sky the likes of which we've not seen since Kubrick used Beckton Gasworks to stage the Vietnam of Full Metal Jacket, I'm happy with that.

So it goes that most folk escape their grim reality in the Oasis, a massive worldwide virtual universe created by James Halliday (a beautifully nuanced turn from Mark Rylance) - a shy, nervous genius who, after his death, reveals he has hidden an easter egg (tech parlance for a hidden item or feature) that if found will bestow his entire accumulated wealth and control of the Oasis on whoever finds it. Cue Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), a quintessential everynerd who, along with a few friends he manages to pick up along the way, wins the first of three challenges opening up further clues that lead to the egg.

Obviously there's a villain on his tail in the shape of Ben Mendelsohn's Nolan Sorrento, CEO of IOI (Innovative Online Industries), a company desperate for control of the Oasis so they can monetize it beyond reason (his opening sales pitch that they can sell "up to 80% of a player's field of vision before inducing seizures" paints him as the Zuckerberg of the future). Wade and Sorrento cross paths, Sorrento makes a few moves to try and see him off, Wade evades them and yadda yadda lots of races and fights and explosions and Mechagodzilla and The Iron Giant and the chestburster from Alien and Clark Kent and Gundam and The Shining and Buckaroo Banzai and- wait, I didn't mention any of this yet, did I?

You see in the Oasis, anything can exist and you can be anything you want to be. Hence, Wade Watts' avatar (Parzival) drives a DeLorean / K.I.T.T. hybrid. Potential love interest Art3mis (Olivia Cooke) rides Tetsuo's bike from Akira. He dresses as Buckaroo Banzai to impress her one evening (honestly, I think I was the only one in the cinema who knew who Buckaroo Banzai was, but that's because I'm an arsehole who assumes a multiplex crowd surely won't have seen W. D. Richter's insane 80s no-budget sci-fi with Peter Weller's dimension-jumping, rock band-fronting neurosurgeon who has a cool line in 80s upturned-suit collar threads).

It's this kind of permanent pop culture referencing that will either a) give you a nostalgic sugar rush every time something pops up you recognise; b) not bother you at all, because it serves the story, or c) annoy the fuck out of you. I think I flitted between camp A and B, but I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking Ready Player One is either the best film ever or the death knell for cinema as we know it. I'd say it was Marmite, but I think that's doing it a disservice.

The fact is, Spielberg is just good at putting this kind of stuff together, no matter how questionable certain aspects of it are. Tye Sheridan paints a bland, charmless picture in the real world, and sure if you're going to compare him to Michael J. Fox's Marty (Art3mis even refers to him as McFly at one point), it's an impossibly high watermark to reach. It's Parzival who's on the charm offensive here, not his real life counterpoint. Nolan Sorrento is a cardboard cut-out bad guy, but Mendelsohn imbues him with enough quality acting chops that you can forgive his two-dimensionalism.

There's much however that's sadly reductive of gaming and an assumed 'gaming culture' - it tries its best to be all-inclusive (the 11yr old ass-kicking Asian kid, the black lesbian with a male avatar) but everyone still comes off as the kind of Robot Wars loners and oddballs the general public expects to be into video games, shacked up in scrap yards or squatting in hellishly untidy abandoned offices. It's not something I was particularly bogged down by when watching it, but people who play video games don't all wear logos and badges referencing every bit of pop culture they can think of (a Mortal Kombat sticker here, a Wonder Woman patch there). If you start to unpick the threads holding it together, it becomes very unstable very quickly.

But maybe this is missing the point. The book (and as such, the film) is essentially a love letter to 80s ephemera, from John Cusack's ghetto blaster in Say Anything... to Chucky going apeshit on a bunch of IOI stooges. The protagonists literally wear their hearts on their sleeves. Oh, and there's section in the middle - let's call it 'the haunted house' - that is arguably worth the price of admission alone. It's a scene that is testament to the craft and care that has gone into constructing not just the Oasis, but Ready Player One as a whole.

Alan Silvestri's score masterfully weaves in cues from his Back to the Future suite - not the main theme, but moments that are instantly recognisable to those who know it. And if you don't know it, no big deal - you're not missing out, because it fits the story perfectly. The fact the film is rammed to the gills with 'things' and 'stuff' that an audience may recognise isn't what it lives or dies by; you don't have to be in on it. It's just a bonus for anyone with a keen eye - a film about an easter egg littered with easter eggs. But if you're not on the hunt for them, you'll still have a blast (watching a T-Rex and King Kong take down a Bigfoot monster truck and the 60s Batmobile in a chaotic street race is fun for all the family).

It's already been said that Spielberg has phoned it in; I would say nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, so much has gone into this film that it was always going to come off as some sort of grand folly. I don't want to compare it to the likes of Coppola's One From the Heart or some other auteur passion project; I doubt Spielberg has had a burning desire to make something like this for decades. But it speaks volumes about his directing ability that a film so ripe for criticism from so many angles can, ultimately, be a massively fun experience irrespective of its flaws. Compare it to the recently-released Pacific Rim: Uprising, for instance - another big daft film full of big daft robots, but with less than a hundredth of the charm Ready Player One has (even John Boyega's boundless charisma wanes when he's sprinkling toppings on ice cream like Salt Bae - there's a very fine line between comic and cringe).

With a tentpole release such as this, one could say you shouldn't have to watch it twice to know if you liked it or not. And with films such as Raiders, Jurassic Park and Tin Tin in Spielberg's oeuvre (the latter his most recent comparable work, considering the amount of CGI involved), his work proves you don't need time to process what you've just seen. They're solid, complete works of entertainment; perfect examples of big budget, mainstream cinema. But maybe Ready Player One is the more interesting film precisely because it's not perfect.

Would it work without the sheer onslaught of pop culture touchstones, perfectly-placed to distract and deceive? Possibly not. It's a proper romp, with enough cleverly-deployed twists and turns that all have their respective pay-offs. But so many of the pop culture touchstones are key to the narrative; it simply wouldn't work without them (neither would the book, for that matter). Could the material have been handled better by another director? Honestly, I doubt it. Even if Ready Player One is far from his best work, it's a film surely destined to garner a cult following. It taps into a desire so many of us have to hold on to memories from our childhood, even at the expense of what is happening in the real world. But hey, the real world is a pretty shitty place; maybe Ready Player One's Oasis is the sugar rush we all need right now.

Unless Jumanji 2 is on the cards. There's simply no contest.

The Shape of Water

I'm vexed. Vexed because this year's crop of awards season films are all (with very little exception) leaving me with a distinct taste of average in my mouth. Like going out for a meal, the food being pleasantly passable, but knowing full well it wasn't worth the price you paid for it. I'm vexed at how almost all these films are receiving near-universal acclaim. Since when did the bar get lowered? Is it just me? I can already hear the cries of "yes" from those who feel they know better. But I'd also like to think some of you are maybe - just maybe - a little vexed too.

Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water is - alongside Martin McDonaugh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - leading the 2018 awards charge with a myriad nominations between them. And if you were to believe the critics, they're pretty much masterpieces already - the former being touted as del Toro's best ever film in some quarters.

I, for one, am simply not having it.

With a wafer-thin plot focusing on Sally Hawkins' mute cleaner Eliza, the film doesn't really do much other than apply superfluous window dressing to the central romance between her and 'the creature' - a humanoid aquatic man-thing (expertly played by prosthetic make-up go-to guy Doug Jones) hauled into a scientific research centre for all the inhumane testing its early-60s period setting affords it. Michael Shannon's Strickland is the one administering said inhumanity, his justification being it isn't human - and it bit a couple of his fingers off, therefore he has carte blanche to be a full-blown one-dimensional prick for two hours. But don't worry, there's more cardboard cut-outs in this film than just Shannon riffing on sheer arseholery.

Eliza's flatmate, the usually dependable Richard Jenkins, is a clichéd older gay man who's enamoured with a much younger straight waiter at a nearby diner. In these heated times, I was under the impression certain communities and demographics were after being represented in a less-stereotypical and jaw-droppingly ham-fisted way. Maybe if you're del Toro, you're allowed to get away with hackneyed representation because, you know, you're a real auteur. I won't do him the disservice of comparing him to certain peers who are also guilty of this, but it does often seem that if you are held in high regard in the cine-literate community, you are allowed to get away with any old tosh if you know how to make it look nice.

And to del Toro's credit, The Shape of Water does indeed look nice. Utterly stunning in places. It's got a fetish for the colour green (Strickland's boiled sweets, the uniforms worn at the research centre, the algae poured into the amphibian's tanks and baths) that also spells out the main characters' journeys - do you get it? They're GREEN. As in, innocent and wide-eyed and whatnot. I've not read any reviews of the film, but I can only imagine the words 'whimsical' and 'enchanting' and 'beguiling' and 'childlike wonder' are bandied about like nobody's business. The kind of nonsense Western critics write about Studio Ghibli films, chucking five stars at them when the culturally-specific whimsy factor is dialled up to eleven.

In fact, I'm reminded of the unfortunate addendum Terry Gilliam stuck on the beginning of Tideland, after preview audiences felt a relationship between two characters (a young girl and a mentally-challenged adult man) was paedophilic in nature. Gilliam filmed an address to-camera, telling the audience to watch the film "through the eyes of a child". When you have to instruct your audience to watch a film a certain way - lest they perceive something in a manner you hadn't intended - you know you've failed quite spectacularly at what you were ever hoping to achieve. The Shape of Water doesn't suffer that same fate, thankfully. But it does ask that you are indeed 'enchanted', the film existing in a bubble where characters are basically fine with an aquatic man-thing eating the head off a pet cat (such whimsy!).

I guess I should have seen this coming. After all, del Toro has previous in the period-fantasy field with Pan's Labyrinth - a far superior film that in many ways The Shape of Water uses as a blueprint for its heightened fantasy-reality hotchpotch: instead of a razor to the face, this time we get a bullet going in one cheek and out the other; where Pan's Labyrinth was an allegorical sexual awakening, this time the main character is a grown woman who masturbates in the bath every morning (until she gets to play with aquaman's prawn cracker).

Now I know I might be coming off as flippant. I get why all these characters are drawn in the way they are. But del Toro wants to have his cake and eat it. The jarring clash of bedtime fairy tale with ostensibly adult overtones feels like Pan's Labyrinth minus the nuance. Several lines feel loaded with shock value; Strickland telling a colleague his "thumb, trigger and pussy finger still work" after having the other two fingers bitten off feels like a jolting reminder you're watching a film for grown-ups, rather than the line being essential to the story itself. It insists on these reminders every so often - like a particularly nasty episode of Boardwalk Empire crossed with Splash (no, seriously - it's outright plagiarism, cleverly disguised with beautiful cinematography and non-mainstream credentials beloved of cineastes who will leap to its defence).

You can see on one hand it's been a labour of love for del Toro, the whole venture basically a belated sequel to Creature from the Black Lagoon (del Toro has gone on record with this, the film playing out his fantasy of having Gill-man succeed in his romance with co-star Julie Adams). And for those who are able to overlook the film's numerous flaws in execution, there's much to enjoy - the use of sign language as both a plot device and conveyor of exposition is commendable, and from a purely visual standpoint you can't argue it's anything less than a stellar achievement. But I'm sick of saying "well, it looked good" after practically every duff film I watch these days. MOST new films look good. With a decent enough crew and a few quid chucked at it, it stands to reason. Darkest Hour looks bloody beautiful; it doesn't mean it's anything more than adequate entertainment (unless you're a Tory, in which case it's borderline pornography).

Which brings me back to my original point - the bar being lowered. Maybe it is me. Maybe I'm just getting old, and unable to enjoy new stuff the same way I used to. Then again I loved Blade Runner 2049, The Last Jedi and Downsizing. Plenty didn't. I sound like I'm just being contrary for the sake of it, like an average issue of Little White Lies. I'm really not. The Shape of Water is the Emperor's new clothes. Critics say its good, therefore it IS good. Without question. Oh look, now it's won some awards - it MUST be good! Well, it isn't. And I know I can't be alone in thinking this. If I get one person agreeing with me on Twitter, I'll be happy. Until then, I'm off to watch Splash.

Blade Runner 2049

WARNING: Around the halfway mark of this review, I compare Blade Runner 2049 to James Cameron's Avatar. Favourably, no less. You have been warned.

Immersion is something many filmmakers aim for when creating a movie, irrespective of budget or genre. To be sat with a captive audience in front of a huge screen is to be transported to where a filmmaker (director, writer, production designer) wants to take you - be that somewhere fantastical (let's say, Star Wars) or wholly real (anything from the Dogme 95 movement). David Lynch plunges his audiences headfirst into twisted Hollywood nightmares; Peter Jackson - for better or worse - boldly attempted to put the viewer literally inside the frame with his 48fps versions of the Hobbit trilogy.

Ridley Scott - having proved he could make a hit with Alien in 1979 - turned to author Philip K. Dick for his stab at the immersion game, turning a polluted and overcrowded Los Angeles circa 2019 into a world that is fizzing with tactile energy; a world that transports you somewhere you never really knew you wanted to go until you got there. That world formed part of Blade Runner, a critical and commercial flop on its initial release in 1982, though it inspired a cult following and has since become a high watermark by which other big, daring sci-fi thinkpieces are judged (along with Kubrick's 2001).

It's far from an action film; the glacial pace and questionable morals of Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a bounty hunter brought out of retirement to track down and kill a handful of replicants (synthetic humans) make it easy to see why it didn't exactly set the box office on fire. But while time was never on the side of the Nexus 6 replicants with their four-year lifespan, it was on the side of Blade Runner itself.

Having undergone two directorial revisions - with Scott's 2007 'Final Cut' his preferred version, omitting a studio-requested voiceover and cleaning up certain optical effects - it's a film that when viewed today looks like it could have been made yesterday. It has held up in a way few genre pieces do, a combination of prescient production design (gleaned from the sketches of visual futurist Syd Mead) and a lack of obvious fashion or cultural touchstones from any particular decade.

Whether you like the original Blade Runner or not (it has a cold air of detachment about it - arguably by design, but not to everyone's taste as Gareth Dimelow argues over at Sabotage Times), you cannot suggest it aims for nothing less than total immersion. It envelops the viewer in a thick smog of meticulous imagery - one could quite easily argue it's a triumph of style over content, but boy, what style.

You'd think Denis Villeneuve - director of Blade Runner 2049 - would have balked at the idea of making a sequel to a film so revered by its loyal fans. What he has come up with however, alongside screenwriters Hampton Fancher (scribe of the original 1982 film) and Michael Green, is nothing short of miraculous.

Let's be clear: this may not be a film for everyone. I disliked the original for years, arguing much like Gareth that it's a monumental achievement in totemic boredom (I have long since decided it's actually ace, though far from an easy film to love). But for a big, mega-budget studio film such as 2049 to have gotten made the way Villeneuve has made it; it is borderline astounding.

It flies in the face of what much of mainstream cinema has in many ways become - a limited-attention span marketing gimmick, designed to get people to part way with their hard-earned in order to invest in multiple-film franchises (yes, I'm back on that old horse again) that do nothing other than mildly entertain. I'm not entirely dismissing those films - well, at least not all of them - but they offer little in the way of genuine nourishment to chew on and ponder. You don't come out of Spider-Man: Homecoming thinking "gee-whizz, that film really had something profound to say about X, Y and Z - I'll be up all night thinking about it!" - it's undoubtedly a great piece of entertainment, but ultimately, disposable.

Blade Runner 2049 eschews the aforementioned filmic rulebook everyone seems to be playing by these days, making a sequel to a 35-year old film that feels just as timeless as the original. It retains the glacial pace and moral ambiguities, but adds something new to the table: an emotional core, something arguably lacking from Scott's film. It's by no means short, clocking in fifteen minutes shy of three hours, but if you have the patience you will be handsomely rewarded with a piece of cinematic art that ticks so many boxes it's a veritable embarrassment of riches for all concerned.

While there's ambiguity abound regarding Deckard's true identity in Blade Runner, there's none regarding Ryan Gosling's Agent K (no relation to Tommy Lee Jones), a replicant Blade Runner working for the LAPD, hunting down illegal older models in order to 'retire' them. Having taken care of a replicant farmer who teases him with the line "you've never seen a miracle" prior to his death, K discovers a box of bones buried underneath a long-dead tree on the land he was tending. Turns out the bones are those of another replicant who died almost thirty years ago, and who seemingly had a child. With the very notion of a replicant pregnancy impossible to believe - not to mention the undesirable headlines it would generate - K is ordered to find the now-adult child and retire it.

Now the plot basics could very well be deemed perfunctory - you could set them in any time within any genre and spin a similar yarn. But Villeneuve raises the stakes by creating a world that made me recall the punters who went back to see James Cameron's Avatar multiple times.

Far from Cameron's finest hour, but a box office smash nonetheless - a chunk of that generated from repeat ticket sales to people wanting to return to the world he had created: to be back in the lush, verdant jungles of Pandora; to be flying on the backs of direhorses and mountain banshees (I admit I had to google those); to feel part of a film that ticked the immersion box gratuitously. I never quite understood it at the time. Watching Blade Runner 2049, I know how they felt. It's a world I want to go back to ASAP.

My colleague Ally Davies said she's "never seen anyone make grey rain look so stunning and poetic". When you first see K making his way through the L.A. cityscape, a solitary flying car in a bewildering metropolis that dwarfs the original's opening scenes by comparison, you'll know why (you can make out the former Tyrell Corporation HQ through the polluted haze, a once-towering steel pyramid now shrunken in the shadow of the Wallace Corp which has assumed control of it's replicant-manufacturing empire).

There's a brightly-lit aesthetic to many scenes that is the complete antithesis of the first film (K's apartment is practically floodlit compared to Deckard's Egyptian-themed whiskey den), yet it feels entirely appropriate and seamless - as if the film was always there, waiting to be made, and this is how it was always going to look no matter what.

It's hard to sound anything less than gushing but it's testament to everyone involved that a film with such anticipation surrounding it gets so much right. I fear if Scott would have directed it, it would have been a completely different beast altogether (just watch Prometheus to see how a wrecking ball can be taken to a beloved universe he himself helped to create). Villeneuve is a self-confessed uber-fan of the original, but has made something that doesn't in any way feel fanboy-ish.

It has similar beats and cues in the same way The Force Awakens and Jurassic World took a known template and reworked it to suit a new audience (Carla Juri's Dr. Ana Stelline, a memory designer with a defective immune system, feels like a direct descendant of William Sanderson's J.F. Sebastian), however it's not at all as slavish or simplistic as either of them. 2049 delves into entirely new territory, laying the groundwork for a final shot that nearly brought me to tears. If the first film asks what it means to be human, 2049 asks what it means to be a replicant; it's a film about memory, how our memories shape and define us, and how we might feel if we were pushed to question all what we know to be real.

But this is by the by. Just what will a so-called regular punter make of this slow-paced, introspective arty sci-fi bullshit when they've been weaned on insta-gratification cinema that wastes no time in getting to where it's going, for fear that everyone's attention will be lost if there's not an explosion of some sort every five minutes? Having not stood outside a multiplex with a clipboard and pen I've no actual idea, but Simon Bland's latest Culture Dump blog post delves into a worrying trend that ties in with what I'm getting at - the noisy cinemagoer.

Mark Kermode has been banging on about this for years, but yet again he's not a normal member of the public - he's a film nerd, a movie geek, someone who wouldn't be seen dead at the concession stand when everyone else is stocking up on popcorn and chip'n'dips (whatever happened to them, eh? I used to serve them at UCI Trafford Centre, back in sepia-hued 1999... halcyon days). When a proportion of the general public are unable to sit in a cinema they've paid money to be at without talking or dicking about on their phone - and this is during mainstream releases, mind - how are they supposed to sit through and enjoy a three-hour art film that's being sold as an action-packed thrill ride they dare not miss?

Seeing as this review is cribbing views and opinions aplenty, let's go back to Gareth Dimelow who brought up on Twitter the fact that 2049's box office returns haven't been great in the US so far (the UK looks to be bucking that trend), along with the distasteful notion being bandied about that audiences aren't intelligent enough to know a good thing when they see it. It's a knee-jerk elitist reaction when supposed 'good' cinema is avoided or unappreciated by a wider audience. He's right that we (as fans of the first film) should be lucky it got made at all - a sequel to a commercial failure that gained appreciation slowly over 30-odd years. It's far from the speed at which endless Marvel films are churned out.

But is it what a wider audience actually wants? You could argue the sheer volume of generic action pictures that use the same template have lowered the bar for what audiences are prepared to sit through. Sony (the film's distributor) would have you believe it's one type of film with their trailers, god forbid it breaks the mould and is actually a bit more nuanced than your usual multiplex fare. Some viewers may feel they've been misled. But others may feel they've been taken on a journey they never expected, and come away wishing more films would aim for more than the cut-and-paste thrills they're becoming numb to.

As for the lack of plot/narrative/emotional hook that is often levied at the first film, 2049 delivers these on a glistening neon-trimmed platter. It takes its time with the characters inhabiting its world, allowing you to genuinely feel the conflict at the heart of K as he approaches the film's climax, meeting Deckard (a stunningly grizzled Ford, eating up the screen in a way he hasn't done since his Indiana Jones days) which sets up an electrifying showdown with the God-like Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) and his latest replicant creation.

Christopher Nolan has arguably laid the groundwork for this type of bold studio ambition to flourish when it comes to costly tentpole releases, but it's up to audiences to keep the momentum going. Sadly, box office takings remain king - films can live or die by the amount of bums on seats it brings in for the studio that's taken a chance on something different.

If no-one took any risks, you'd never get La La Land ("What's that kid, a musical you say? How much?! Get outta town!"). You'd never get Arrival (Villeneuve's previous effort, arguably an even better genre piece than 2049 but I don't want to go down any more rabbit holes here). Hell, you wouldn't even get Baby Driver. But those films made money. 2049 needs to show it can do well and hold the attention of the most distracted cinemagoer if Hollywood are to continue to invest in such passion projects; in 2049's case, something most of us never thought we'd see.

So yeah, I liked it. I liked it a lot. I'd go so far as to say it surpasses the first one (heresy they'll cry, but balls to them). The cast are excellent. The script is superb. The visuals are like nothing you've ever seen before. Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch's score is literally out of this world (you'll know what I mean if you go see it - it's not 'music', it's something else that truly defies description).

If you didn't like the first one, give 2049 a chance. It's got a beating heart and soul that the 1982 film is curiously devoid of, no matter how much meaningful poetry Rutger Hauer might spout on that rain-soaked rooftop. Yes it's long. Yes it's a slow-burner. But it's one of the most mind-blowingly beautiful films you will ever see in a cinema, period. It should resonate with anyone who's lost a loved one, made a life-changing decision for the benefit of someone else, or found a box of 30-year old synthetic human bones under a dead tree on a protein farm in California, circa 2049.

Come on. We've all been there.

IT (and other recent disappointments)

Myself and my partner @_ClaireyPops recently bought monthly passes to The Light in Bolton. I feel like I've extolled the virtues of this - both the venue and the value of said 'Infinity' card - on a weekly basis in work. It's a bloody lovely cinema and I wholeheartedly recommend it. However, it's also made me realise that too many films this year appear to be giving off a 'the same as X, but shitter' vibe.

You see when you've a monthly pass, you feel inclined to go and see pretty much any old tripe while still maintaining an air of respectability (I struggled to do this watching Cars 3 on my own). This means watching stuff you might not normally be arsed hauling yourself to a multiplex for, with filmmaking credentials (i.e. a decent director) or a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes ample reason to give it a try. However having just come back from IT, I'm starting to wonder how easily pleased both audiences and critics have started to become.

IT

Riding a wave of 80s nostalgia prompted almost entirely by the success of Stranger Things is the game here, even going so far as to cast one of the lead actors from the Netflix series.

The plot? Bunch of kids scared shitless by a demonic killer clown, preying on their worst fears in order to lure them down to his floaty, sewage-laden lair. The reality? A film that feels like a lot of other, better films (Stand By Me, Poltergeist, The Goonies, The Conjuring, Sinister, hell I'd even put Super 8 ahead of this) plus a load of ridiculous twitching clown-based scares that genuinely made me laugh out loud rather than soil myself.

As for having an 'emotional core'? Give me a break. Yes the young leads are pretty decent, and one backstory in particular is more than unsettling, but by the time they're slicing hands and becoming blood brothers I really had stopped giving a toss about every single one of them. It's as if slightly worse copies of superior films now pass muster as 'good' cinema. Are other films really that bad...? I guess the answer to that must be yes. It's a sorry state of affairs.

(Oh, and if you think the fat one is going to subvert genre clichés and get the girl - and the film most certainly suggests so - forget it. Hollywood daren't cross that line yet. And another thing - the closing credits denote this is but 'Chapter One'. Franchise-building at its opportunistic best, people.)

Logan Lucky

I don't read reviews before watching a film, but sometimes tidbits will pop up on my Twitter feed - five stars here, a drubbing there. Honestly, the next time Little White Lies give ANYTHING a glowing review, remind me to steer clear at all costs.

In this case, it was hipster-baiting cineaste circle-jerker Logan Lucky, in which director Steven Soderbergh courts film critics worldwide and leads them a merry dance, making them believe a mediocre retread of - yes, you guessed it - other, better films is worthy of serious praise. If this is all it takes to get critics salivating, Soderbergh could film Don Cheadle pissing in a grid and it would get them excited. Talk about setting the bar low.

It's not that it's badly made - it's fine. But if 'fine' is what passes for... oh, you get the idea by now. It's supposed to be a heist film set on a Nascar racetrack, but with 'funny' (i.e. not very funny) characters who don't know their arse from their elbow (Daniel Craig as prison inmate Joe Bang is a madcap casting decision that never pays off), plus zero tension wrung from not one single scene, it amounts to a whole load of nothing. It's two hours of your time you will forever wonder could have been better spent. Say, if you'd watched Ocean's Eleven again, which is pretty much the same film. Only better. With bonus cockney Don Cheadle.

American Made

I will give Tom Cruise a free pass with pretty much anything. Seriously, I love the guy. He's a mental Scientologist but that's by the by; when it comes to world-class action blockbusters, he (generally) knows how to pick 'em.

2017 really hasn't been Tommy's year though. First came The Mummy, a film that has 'franchise' etched so deep into its focus-grouped script that it ends up a shapeless, directionless pile of money that happens to have become a film (I use the word 'film' in its loosest sense). Then came American Made, another 'Fresh' entry in the Rotten Tomatoes canon that, while perfectly serviceable as a piece of entertainment, can't help but live in the shadow of - yes, once more with feeling - other, better films.

Think Goodfellas, without the classy yet frenzied direction of Martin Scorsese. Think The Wolf of Wall Street, without the classy yet frenzied direction of... oh. Now I see. Doug Liman, much as he might try, really isn't Martin Scorsese. And I honestly don't think he's trying to be, but American Made is permanently reminding you that Barry Seal (Tom Cruise)'s dare-you-believe-it's true story of drug trafficking for the CIA in the late-70's / early 80s has - for all intents and purposes - been done better in not one but two Scorsese pictures. If it wasn't for some quite ludicrous (in fact, frankly distracting) cinematography choices, along with The Cruiser's almost limitless on-screen charm, it's a film I would scarcely remember. Like Knight and Day. Precisely; me neither.

Atomic Blonde

"Nice coats" was the review from @_ClaireyPops. Oh, and a good soundtrack. But that was sort of about it. Save for a nifty one-take extended fight scene (clearly several takes strung together, but nicely done nonetheless), Atomic Blonde is basically The Long Kiss Goodnight, minus any sense of logic, fun or actual jokes. James McAvoy waving a Louboutin through a car window while saying "I've got your shoe" does not constitute a joke, people. Why are you laughing? Please, laugh at something actually funny. Laugh when it's appropriate, or get out. Honestly, you disgust me. This country.

There seemed to be a gigantic press build-up to this film, based purely on the fact it was a female lead (the always enjoyable Charlize Theron) being incredibly kick-ass. You know, just like the boys do. Like Wonder Woman, in fact! Yes, it's what people want these days. So sell it, you sons of bitches; sell it like fucking hot cakes. Cue a social media bombardment of promoted tweets, pop-ups and video clips - look, she does her own stunts! - in order to sell a film that has the most godawful spraypaint-style titling throughout, and a plot that swerves any kind of common sense in its last third (by the time you've counted the amount of double, triple and quadruple crosses, you'll be pining for the straightforward simplicity of Brian de Palma's Mission: Impossible).

She really does have some nice coats, though.

In summary...

Some of the films above ain't too bad. American Made is worth a watch, and if you like clever-clever genre-subverting shite that fails to be anything it purports to be - and you're arrogant enough to assume that means it's good, because it's what Soderbergh obviously intended - then Logan Lucky will be right up your street.

What vexes me is the fact that these are supposed to be the decent blockbusters; the ones critics have praised, or audiences given two thumbs up. Have we entered an age where literally anything that isn't Michael Bay will do?

I apologise for using Bay as an almost constant reference; I will always have time for The Island and Pain & Gain. But by and large his films are bloody awful, irrespective of the franchise-flavoured dollar they invariably pull in (notice how his non-franchise output - Beasts of Benghazi or whatever the hell it was called - comes and goes without a trace). The films above are supposed to be 'better', the discerning mainstream choice you make when faced with one or the other. But they're not. They're okay. They're serviceable. They're neither here nor fucking there.

I'm serious here. I want more for my monthly pass monies. Hollywood owes it to me! I admittedly have the luxury of being able to watch all the chin-stroking independent guff I could ever want, for free, at the arts centre I work at; but I will always have a predilection for the Jurassic World's and Interstellar's that Hollywood provides. Gigantic popcorn genre pieces that shock and awe, that push a nostalgia button without being slavish or explore uncharted filmmaking territory whilst also entertaining the masses.

That's not too much to ask for on a regular basis, is it? Ah well, at least the new Star Wars film is nearly here. But mark my words, if it ends up being 'just okay', I'm going to sue Disney. The Last Jedi? The last straw more like.