John Huston completism (he directed), and for Albert Finney (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)) who plays a dipso erstwhile British Navy commander-turned-diplomat in Mexico on their Day of the Dead, 1938. Guy Gallo adapted Malcolm Lowry's novel.
The scene somewhat echoes, or perhaps brackets, Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (1957): the next war is in the pipe while the previous one, still fresh in the mind, is tamed with oceans of booze. Finney's brother Anthony Andrews was reporting on the Spanish Civil War, again echoing Hemingway. For reasons incompletely presented wife Jacqueline Bisset decides to undivorce Finney despite having dallied with the brother. There is a beautiful cat that is blamed for howling all night, and a bullfight.
The plot is barely there. The themes are mostly to do with making permanent what others may try to undo. Finney is quite fine in Richard Burton mode but to no ultimate end. The Night of the Iguana (1964) it is not.
Roger Ebert: four stars. Huston mostly omitted the politics ("the political disintegration of Mexico in the face of the rising tide of Nazism"). IMDB trivia: Burton declined to appear. Janet Maslin made it a Critic's Pick. Vincent Canby.
Prompted by Jason Di Rosso's interview with writer/director Charles Williams. As always Guy Pearce does a solid job in the lead, here adding his shoulder to Hugo Weaving's quixotic efforts to renew Australian cinema. He plays a sort of uncharismatic hustling prisoner who knows the score and what it takes to act normal but is incapable of regulating himself. Cosmo Jarvis (Lady Macbeth (2016)) is fresh in from supermax where he discovered (a Christian) God. Again his performance is solid but I wasn't sold on his charisma. I hadn't seen Leah Vandenberg since Erskineville Kings (1999), another sausage fest. She's tasked with getting the inmates to think about their (paroled) futures, something about as futile as Weaving's project.
It's well constructed for the most part but too often events are bent to fit the narrative; for instance it is implausible that fresh-from-juvie Vincent Miller would be put in with Jarvis. Miller's character is central but underdrawn; he's a blank canvas for the others to draw on which becomes problematic when he's tasked with making the big move. Toby Wallace (The Royal Hotel (2023), The Bikeriders (2023)) plays Pearce's son in a brief scene that didn't work. Sean Millis was more memorable in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024).
As far as prison dramas go this wasn't Ghosts... of the Civil Dead (1988) (it's not apocalyptic) or Chopper (2000) (it's humourless). There are mild redemptive themes maybe. Chiara Costanza's compositions are obtrusive.
Luke Buckmaster. Williams got the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival for All These Creatures (2018). It also has obtrusive compositions by Chiara Costanza.
An idle bit of David Gulpilil completism. Ozploitation! I haven't seen Jaws (1975) but by all accounts (including the IMDB trivia) this is it with a "dreaming" croc subbed in for the shark. Everything is poor: the acting, the cinematography, the beer (XXX Gold), the plot, the editing, the plausibility, the mythos, the continuity. Everything except some of the locations (who ever knew that Simpsons Gap was so close to, and connected with, the Mitchell River?) and Gulpilil's dancing and singing, which director Arch Nicholson (Fortress (1985)) often squandered by placing him just out of frame. Sonia Borg wrote the screenplay based on Grahame Webb's novel Numunwari.
All the details at Ozmovies. Lead John Jarratt reckoned it was not great!
Second time around with this pinnacle of Dogme 95.
Roger Ebert: three stars. "[The Dogme 95] style does work for this film. A similar style is at the heart of John Cassavetes' work." Janet Maslin: "A Family Making Orphanhood Look Good."
Aronofsky's latest. Not especially violent or graphic by his standards. Plugging the gap in the shaggy cat story market vacated by the Coen brothers, or was he trying to countervail Gunn's superdog? Drugs and dive bars, alcoholism and busted baseball dreams; has NYC (1998) ever looked so completely unappetising? — but what a cast! Austin Butler (The Bikeriders (2023)) did not lift his performance to match the Tonic-the-cat's (unlike Oscar Isaac). Zoë Kravitz as a paramedic girlfriend just looking for the right man to exploit her poor judgement after a long shift. Matt Smith with a mohawk! Regina King, police detective! Ethnic gangsters! — Vincent D'Onofrio (who I saw most recently in The Cell (2000)) and Liev Schreiber as Hasids. Stick around to see Laura Dern!
Charlie Huston adapted his own novel with pedestrian results. I think some of it was supposed to be comedic but everything falls on its face.
Manohla Dargis. Peter Sobczynski: a homage to After Hours (1985). Whatever attracted Aronofsky to this project? Peter Bradshaw.
