Die Another Day (2002)

 "What are you? CIA?

"NSA..."

I was spoilt for choice for quotes. This may not be the best Bond film ever, but it's one of the very best for double entendres.

Yes, I know, it's reputation isn't great. And yes, it's flawed. I sisliked it back in 2002. And yet, on today's second viewing... is it really that bad?

Yes, we have the invisible car and really quite out there sci-fi elements. But I wasn't as bothered about that this time for some reason. And yes, the plot doesn't quite make sense. And it's a bit harsh for Bond to be in the doghouse for supposedly cracking under torture!!!

But I was entertained. Even the universally panned theme song... well, the production is truly horrible, and it's a waste of Madonna to use her in a song like this, but if you look past the horrible autotune and production issues, the song itself is fundamentally good.

Yet we have a good villain, however preposterous his backstory. Halle Berry is... well, adequate as a Bond girl, and gets a nice little scene involving a laser beam that's a nice little homage to Goldfinger. There are some nice locations in Cuba, although by the time we get to Iceland there's far too much CGI. That becomes a problem during the car chase action sequences, too.

And it's all very, very early 2000s, all waterboarding torture and conflict diamonds and smoking at work.

But fundamentally, this film is far from terrible. Perhaps the bad reception was because of everyone now having seen Austin Powers, meaning the format needed to become more serious to survive, and this film is gloriously silly?

The Doors (1991)

"Does death turn you on?"

This is, I believe, the first film helmed by Oliver Stone that I've ever blogged, and I believe it's my 758th film. Most odd. 

This is, I think its fair to say, a brave and triumphant rock biopic that dares to be art. The real Jim Morrison was both a genius and a twat, and the film illustrates this perfectly. He would not have enjoyed surviving to the #MeToo movement, which would have dealt a just comeuppance; he was a hopeless addict; he was a two timing bastard with double standards who didn't like it when Pam slept with others; worst of all, he reacted with cowardly denial to the babies he fathered, roving himself less than a man. If you father a child, you love that child with all your heart, or you fail to be a man. As a father who dotes on the wonderful Little Miss Llamastrangler, despite her trying to "teach" me ballet, I have to despise the coward. He was not a mn.

Yet he had a magnificent singing voice, his lyrics were extraordinary and he was (despite contemporary criticism that supposed a long-haired man who fronted a rock an roll band could not be cultured, well-read or talented) a poet of real genius and significance. Morrison was not Bob Dylan: he had a good grasp of poetic structure and rhythm.

He was a genius. He was a wanker. He was probably a rapist. Val Kilmer, in an extraordinary feat of acting, IS him. His performance is magnificent.

The film is at once a linear biopic, with extended footage of gigs, an art flick, with multiple rather successful attempts to simulate a drug-induced haze. There is plenty of selective use of the Doors' transcendent music, which seems to be considered unfashionable by various young fools with no understanding of what makes good art. Kyle Machlachlan is superb as the genius Ray Manzarek, yet Meg Ryan as Pam and Kathleen Quonlan as Patricia are transcendent as his "muses" who were fascinating women in their own right.

I hope, one day, to find a rock biopic as good as this. I shall try more Oliver Stone films, amd try not to be put off by the stupid conspiracy theories of JFK.

The Hateful Eight (2015)

"They shot my nuts off!"

Wow. I know I tend to like Quentin Tarantino's films a lot. \but this, of the ones I've seen, which are most, this is his masterpiece.

Superficially, perhaps, it has many of Tarantino's tropes- his usual cast members; his signature sudden acts of graphic violence punctuating the narrative as if to shift the narrative from slow ad dialogue driven to fast and action-driven; the way he somehow makes everything seem, somehow, both natural and curated.

And yet... fundamentally, this is very different. For a start, the direction, while masterful, is restrained stylistically in a deliberate move to foreground the script an actors. His disinclination to do this in the past has never, of course, been a problem- there's a reason he's a famous director- but here he chooses to foreground the script and the performers.

 This feels, incredibly for a Tarantino film, not so much like the Western that it undoubtedly is but a serious stage play that evokes no less a writer than Arthur Miller. The characters- acted superbly, with Samuel L. Jackson and Jennifer Jason Leigh (weirdly, I'm familiar with her from Atypical) standing out, are well fleshed out, and there's a very prominent theme of race of the original American (and British, and French, and Dutch, and Spanish, and Portuguese) sin of slavery. This film has a lot to say of the difficulties involved in being black and American, in still living in the country in which you (or in the Major's case, you) were enslaved.#

The narrative- in chapters, framed by the music of Ennio Morricone, is masterful, mostly observing the Aristotelian unities but with necessary but restrained flashbacks, is both gripping and beautiful. One of the last films I see during the '10s may well be the best of the decade.

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

“Somebody's shoved a red hot poker up our ass, and I want to know whose name is on the handle."

 This is where it all began for Quentin Tarantino, and the first of his films I watched, rented from a video store in Barwell, Leicestershire in about '94ish. I enjoyed it just as much now, but the passing of a couple of decades has added quite a bit of context.

What makes this film stand out from all of Tarantino's other films is the fact that he made it before he had a reputation; it's much cheaper, with an obviously limited number of sets and locations, shorter (definitely a big difference!) and Tarantino himself, while his direction is superb, is not able to show his flashier directorial side with such a low budget film. He excels, much more obviously, with the phenomenal script, filled with all the joyously cool pop culture-related dialogue of his early period, yes, but also masterfully plotted and structured. Famously a heist movie that doesn't show the actual heist, it actually feels an awful lot like a stage play, not something you could often say for a Tarantino film. But there are masterful directorial touches in that we are shown the plot with the minimum of exposition.

The plot is simple, elegant and, while non-linear, has a clarity that belies its complexity- a sign of very good writing. We're left guessing as to the identity of the traitor right up to the unexpected reveal, the violence is cool and stylish, and the cast is perfect. Not even that annoying song from Stealer's Wheel (featuring the late Gerry Rafferty, who would later inflict on us the AOR awfulness of "Baker Street") can spoil it. The first of many Tarantino classics.

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

"You're my favourite person. But every so often you can be a real c***."

And so we come to the second part, with Elle unexpectedly killing Budd with a hidden black mamba while the Bride plucks out Elle's remaining eye, leaving her blind and thrashing around.

Only Bill is left. But the story is fleshed out, with a monochrome flashback to the wedding and an extended heart to heat between our two protagonists at the end, with Bill's monologue about Superman finally giving us some proper Tarantino dialogue but also allowing the film to end with fully explored characterisation. There's plenty of aestheticised violence in this second part but this time around we get the characterisation and backstory. We also have a name: er, Beatrix Kiddo.

We also get a proper visual tribute to Chinese martial arts and, it seems, to Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the very silly character of "Gordon" Liu's Pai Mei, the bushy eyebrowed and delightfully rude ancient martial arts master with a beard to marvel at. All scenes featuring him are comedy gold. He's rude, sadistic, bigoted and easily the most likeable character in the film. Oh, and on the subject of cameos we also get Sid Haig as a barman and Samuel L. Jackson as... could it be an older, wiser Jules?

It's a satisfying ending, perhaps more so than expected, and the two parts together make a more balanced and fleshed-out film than the pure fetishised violence of the first half. And the direction, of course, is equally magnificent. I'm so glad I've finally seen this. More Tarantino before too long, methinks.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

"Your instrument is quite impressive..."

I saw this film at the pictures back in 2003, when I was still in my twenties. I enjoyed myself, but never somehow got round to seeing part 2, something which will, I assure you, be remedied within the week. I liked the film then; I like it just as much now, having seen it for a second time.

It's often said of Quentin Tarantino that his main distinguishing feature is the aestheticisation of violence. This film could be said to be the purest expression of that, jettisoning Tarantino's trademark dialogue for an entire film's worth of beautifully shot ultraviolence. The film takes its time in showing us what is really a very simple plot: the Bride, in revenge for the deaths of her new husband, the baby in her belly and everyone present, sets out to kill the first two of five people responsible for her wedding day massacre.But this film is all about form- aesthetics- over content in the best possible way.

Forget realism. This film takes place in a universe where, even post-9/11, planes carry holders for passengers' samurai swords and there exists no pesky law enforcement institutions to rudely interfere with one's mission of revenge, Thgis is Tarantino's tribute to both Japan and to the Hong Kongmartial arts films from the '70s, beginning the film with an explicit tribute to Shaw Brothers and casting Chia-Hui "Gordon" Liu. Most of the film consists of the Bride's meticulous yet fantastical assassination of O-Ren Ishii, a delightfully entertaining baddie who, in a film chock full of superb female roles, assumes the role of main baddie with aplomb, vying well with the Bride in who can generate the biggest jets of CGI blood via the severing of various major body parts.

The direction is superb, with cam era angles to dies for and flashbacks marked out both by use of monochrome and animation. The multinational cast hints heavily at the film's Eastern origins and, while the lack of flashy dialogue or, indeed, of flashy narrative, makes this no Pulp Fiction, I look forward to the second part...