One Guy Rambling

It must be hard to make a ‘life story’ film for someone who dies so very young. While Valens crammed much into his 17 years as the film opens he is already nearing his rise to short lived stardom.

In fact most of the film shows his family’s move from a fruit picking camp to urban Los Angeles, where in his pre-fame era, Valens lives with his mother, his unpredictable and potentially alcoholic and drug using half brother Bob, and Bob’s tormented girlfriend Rosie (Elizabeth Pena).

The rise to fame is rapid and really glossed over here. It doesn’t take long for Valens to be discovered, not long again before he is recording, then on the radio, then on the TV, then touring with superstars of the era including the Big Bopper and Buddy Holly, both of whom accompanied him on the doomed flight that ended all of their lives, with Valens passing at the age of 17.

Ritchie Valens (Lou Diamond Phillips) was a gifted young man arriving in the early years of rock n roll with a beaming smile, boundless energy and catchy tunes. La Bamba tells his story, the story of a charismatic and potentially remarkable young singer who tragically does not have the opportunity to do anything truly remarkable.

Final Rating – 7 / 10. La Bamba clearly shows the light of a precocious young man but cannot overcome the limitations of making a novel from an all too short story.

A curvy naked blonde sits atop a horizontal man. She thrashes, first sexually, then with great violence. The once beneficiary turns victim.

The tone is set.

Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) is the cop with the temper and a checkered past.
Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) is the ‘did she or didn’t she?’ suspect. A sexy thriller writer who writes sexy thrillers about sexy events in her sexy life and the sexy lives of others. Sexy…

There’s a male ex-lover. There’s a female lover. For both. There are dark pasts that come up in untimely moments. Rumours that add intrigue and new clues that accuse as much as the confuse.

All the while Catherine looks at Nick from beneath her blonde hair and brunette eyebrows, daring her to arrest or bed her, before about facing and leaving, designer clothes fluttering in the non existent breeze.

The fun in Basic Instinct isn’t the intrigue or the plot twists which are frequent and often ridiculous. It isn’t in the subtlety at all, because there isn’t any. It is in the most boorish and unsubtle moments, the frequent nudity, the lurid violence, the unintentionally hilarious moments involving Nick’s partner Gus and Catherine’s lover Roxy.

Try as I might, I couldn’t stop admiring the limited efficiency of this film.

Undeniably a confluence of events. Basic Instinct was released in a year I turned 18, when I was young, dumb and full of… salt and vinegar chips. It was the rebirth of commercial R rated films, sexy, violent and to an 18 year old, compelling for reasons even beyond that.

The quarter century that has elapsed since has not been kind to my view of the film. I can now see the ridiculous contrivances, can hear the inane dialogue, can chuckle at the over-the-toppery. But I cannot deny that the film still hits a lot of buttons and works as a mindless piece of adult(ish) drama.

Final Rating 7 / 10. Unbelievably convoluted. Undeniably schlocky. Unexpectedly still entertaining.

Here is a film that is not as powerful as the emotions it elicits – though it is actually quite well made and effective in its own way – and unfortunately a film becoming more relevant by the day.

Nate Foster (Daniel Radcliffe) is an eager though wet behind the ears FBI agent who ‘wants to make a difference’. The problem is that while Nate exhibits strong powers of deduction and reasoning, his diminutive stature and baby face suggest that field work isn’t in his future.

A chance arrives when fellow agent Angela Zamparo (Toni Collette) convinces Nate (and his superiors, albeit with a little more difficulty) that his Difference Making Moment wears Doc Martens boots, short haircuts and a reprehensible belief system.

With rumours that white supremacist organisations are planning a terrorist attack in the inland United States, Nate is tabbed to go undercover within their ranks to sort out the genuinely dangerous from the merely deplorable and deranged.

Once behind the skinhead curtain, Nate’s suitability no longer matters, if he is found out the consequences for him become swiftly dire, what with an already dangerous and volatile group motivated by hate and a deadly secret.

Nate ingratiates himself across a few fronts, the dim witted and easily influenced who just want to stomp *insert epithet here* – of which there are many – the more dedicated and serious, and the even more dangerous and more subtle groups with less obvious intent but potentially larger plans.

Moving higher up the ranks, deeper into the troubled skinhead world, and simultaneously further away from FBI assistance, Nate reaches a point of no return, even as it looks like he might be on a wild goose chase.

Imperium is (I think) an uncomfortably easy film to make, given the extremely (pardon the pun) black and white subject matter. A quick glance at the synopsis will quickly decide your allegiance, and if – like hopefully 99.99999% of the globe – you find the skinhead mindset disgusting, you will immediately side with Nate. Plus, he’s Harry fucking Potter for Christ’s sake.

While Radcliffe is indeed the closest thing to star power the film has, ultimately he may have been slightly miscast as Nate. For mine the film could have used someone slightly older and perhaps less likeable, but even with the ever expanding Radcliffe, it works as a film that will stir the emotions and ideally, give more credence to the fact that these inflammatory issues must be addressed by society even more forcefully.

Final Rating – 7.5 / 10. Imperium works, but only on one depressing level.

Look I’ve tried. I have watched The Shining probably five times in twenty years. I have never gotten it.

Even before The Simpsons and Family Guy lampooned it 137 times it didn’t wow me. Even before ‘redruM’, the gushing elevator, the twin girls, the trike, the typewriter and ‘heeeeere’s Johnny’ became pop culture staples, even though many who spout the lines don’t know the source. Even though The Shining tops countless Best of Horror lists the Internet over. I don’t get it.

Sure the premise is solid – a young family takes a caretaker job at an isolated snowbound hotel for the winter – beware the quiet, even if as an author you need it to make a living. The acting is also good, Jack Nicholson’s evil eyebrows and Shelley Duvall’s petrified facial features anchor the film.

But is this really that incredible?

So there may really be a sentient being in young child Danny’s index finger. He may really be able to contact the elderly man across thousands of miles telepathically. Jack really might hear voices, see things that don’t exist and have conversations with ghosts, but all of that?

Again I don’t want to go against the consensus but I don’t see it. Stanley Kubrick really might be the best director ever and a genius and a creator of some of the greatest films of all time, but this is heavy handed and over preparing stuff trying to cover over a plot that is trying to push too much blood out of the elevator at the same time.

Is it well made? Yes. Is it compelling and occasionally excellent? Yes. Is it horror? I… Guess. Is it scary? No. Is it the greatest horror film of all time? Hell no.

Final Rating – 8 / 10. I keep thinking I need another viewing to highlight to me what I have missed so far. After half a dozen viewings, I give up.