No.348 : Who You Think I Am (2019)

Who You Think I Am at the IMDb

Juliette Binoche plays Claire in this French drama, a lady who is as nutty as squirrel shit.

We meet Claire as she is engaging with her new therapist. She’s frustrated that her former analyst has suffered a stroke meaning that she has to recap her story, the one that brought her under psychiatric care. This helps us as the story mostly unfolds in flashback, with it beginning as the 50 year old lecturer is having quite the jolly time with her younger boyfriend. He’s not too keen however and the relationship is clearly floundering. Claire lives alone, sharing custody of her two boys with her ex-husband who left her for a younger woman.

Claire starts to nosey through her boyfriend’s Facebook on the sly, having gained backdoor access by befriending some of his friends. She casually likes a few photos taken by one such friend and the two start to chat when he thanks her for her approval. Claire enjoys the flirty chat and starts to pose as ‘Clara’, using photos she finds on the net to promote her younger alter ego.

The online relationship starts to blossom and Claire barely notices when her boyfriend leaves her. She starts a Facebook page for Clara and uses her son’s old mobile for contact. Her new beau, Alex, is keen for a meet up but for obvious reasons Claire has to keep him at arms length. At one point the two almost meet when their GPS signals match up but Alex looks straight through Claire as he forlornly seeks out Clara.

Things start to get messy when Claire neglects her kids and starts to act out at work and in her car, egged on by her would be lover’s dirty talk. Eventually she runs out of excuses and tells Alex of her fictitious lover and their plans to move to Brazil. It looks like an innocent flirtation has resolved without issue - apart from her being a total timewaster - but why is she seeing a psychologist?

Things take a darker turn when her ex-boyfriend later tells her that Alex has killed himself over some woman he never met on Facebook. Claire is devastated but presents her doctor with a new book she has written that charts how the relationship could have worked out. We see this enacted in full as the pair enjoy a whirlwind romance - can we know what is real, what is imagined and what is the state of Claire’s mind?

I really enjoyed this film with its attractive cast, excellent direction and clever narrative. It could have been boring with a lot of the story relayed by phone calls and texts but it zipped along and kept me guessing. I enjoyed the French dialogue and feel that subtitles help you stay immersed in a film as you aren’t distracted by your phone and the like, as you need to keep reading what is on the screen.

Binoche is excellent as Claire - she is super sexy and a lot like Elaine out of ‘Seinfeld’. In some ways she was too pretty, as it would be a different film if she was a fatty with a bad complexion. As it was, Alex would have jumped at the chance of a date with Claire, had she come clean.

My guesses at the outcome were all undone by a few neat twists and, although we never doubted that Claire had issues, it was interesting to see her fantasy played out and her reactions to the twists she experienced herself.

Things like online romances and age gap relationships were explored in intimate detail and there was plenty of food for thought. The cast were all excellent and I think the story suited the Parisian location were romance and flirting seemed natural and cool - set this in Glasgow and it’s just a crazed stalker with a SIM card.

Overall an excellent and moving piece of work that has a lot to say about our society, addiction to mobile devices and the age old quest to be loved.

Get it on Netflix right now.

Best Bit : Who’s Phone is That Ringing? ‘W’ Rating : 20/23

No.308 : Wolf Totem (2015)

Wolf Totem at the IMDb

Who’s up for some Chinese language period cinema? Just me then!

Made in 2015, ‘Wolf Totem’ is set in 1967, two years after the cultural revolution in China. Two students are sent from Peking to teach the Mongolian natives Mandarin for two years. Could have been worse, they might have gotten Port Glasgow.

A guy from the Ministry of Production dumps our lads with an old guy from a nomadic tribe. He tells him to put them to work and he’ll be back in a couple of years. And he doesn’t even leave the wi-fi password.

We flash-forward six months with our guys settling in and becoming able horsemen. One gets a bit cocky and goes off the path only to be confronted by a pack of wolves. He gets away by clanging his stirrups, but we’re pretty sure that lead wolf gave him a pass.

Our man develops a fascination for wolves and resolves to find a cub that he can rear and study. The locals are not so keen, what with the wolves eating all their sheep. The fine balance between people and wolves is disturbed when the tribesmen steal all of the wolves’ food. I don’t know if this is true, but it was a good scene where the wolves stash all their dead gazelles in a snowdrift to eat later in the winter. This has happened from generations and the humans have always left enough for the wolves. This doesn’t suit the man from the ministry however, and he orders the people to grab the lot, despite warnings from the wise old man in charge.

Of course the old man is right and the wolves get their own back by driving a herd of prize horses into a freezing lake where they all drown. Despite it being tit for tat the ministry sets out to kill all wolves by hunting down and killing the cubs. Our hero manages to save one and starts to bring it up, despite local hostility.

The nomadic tribe are ordered to work with another more settled group and things start to go badly wrong. The old man is injured by a bomb set to kill wolves and a child is hurt when he gets a bit too close to the slowly growing cub. With the wolves now starving all out war is declared (not literally) and when the wolves have a sheep eating party , the ministry resolves to kill off the wolves for good.

Can any survive and can the symbiotic relationship between man and wolf be restored?

This was an excellent film with cracking cinematography and animal action. It was almost like a Disney film, but with more killing and death. It is subtitled but you’d probably manage without them as the plot is a pretty simple progress v nature narrative. The wolves were shown sympathetically and they are wonderful creatures. That said, I could see why the villagers thought them to be a pain in the arse.

There was a tacked on romance story that I didn’t buy into but the Mongolian grass people getting royally shafted at every turn was an interesting watch. Real wolves were used in the production but they did look a bit stage school in some scenes. You could tell they slowed the film down and adjusted the lighting to show them at their best. And why not? It was their show and they provided great entertainment and a bit of learning too.

I wasn’t keen on the cub killing, which involved them being chucked them in the air, and the cornered wolf committing suicide rather than being caught seemed a bit daft.

There was a lot of focus on the spiritual, with the God Tennger getting most of the credit, with some fancy cloud work letting us know that everything will be all right.

The production was lavish with some cracking set pieces including a lake of frozen horses which was fantastically realised.

Overall, not one for the squeamish but an interesting parable on the age old ‘man v beast’ issue with plenty of scenes that will stick with you.

Best Bit : Horse Lake 20/23

No.302 : Win Win (2011)

Win Win at the IMDb

Paul Giamatti plays Mike in this family/sports drama, a struggling lawyer with few clients and no money for a boiler repair. He has an evening job where he teaches high school students wrestling but his team has never won a match. He hides his financial woes from his lovely wife Amy Ryan, who appears to have dumped Michael Scott, and their young children.

He has friends in Hank Kingsley and Bobby Cannavale, who spends his time stalking his ex-wife and hanging about the locker room. No, not like that. Opportunity knocks for Mike when one of his few clients, Paulie out of ‘Rocky’ is declared incompetent and made a ward of the state. Mike moves in to offer to take over the old man’s care when his secretary mentions the fee for doing so is $1508 a month. Mike’s gesture isn’t magnanimous - he just wants the cash and immediately sticks the old man into a care home.

His plan looks good for about five minutes before Paulie’s grandson Kyle shows up, having run away from his deadbeat mother. This complicates things for Mike who has to house the youth in his basement whilst the boy’s mother goes through rehab. Things liven up when Mike learns that Kyle is a talented wrestler and soon the whole team is being dragged up due to his superior technique and winning performances.

It looks like Kyle may get a wrestling scholarship, but then his Mom appears with lawyer. The court transcript exposes Mike’s scheme and the mother wants Dad back - along with the keep money. Kyle doesn’t want to go back and Paulie wants to go back to his home. Who will get a happy ending out of this soap opera’s worth of dilemmas?

I’ve seen this film twice now having failed to review it the first time around - a shocking ‘W’ related crime that will not be repeated. It worked out well though, as I enjoyed it the second time too!

Paul Giamatti was good as always - he never stretches himself too far, but as a rotund every-man he’s hard to beat. He was punching above his weight with Amy Ryan but good luck to him. Hank was a bit wasted and didn’t really have too much to do in his assistant coach role. Cannavale was better, and as a threesome they were good value as middle aged men trying to live out their dreams through their young charges.

Mike’s first action was to con the court and the old man and despite that you never really took against him. He was in dire financial straights with his wonky boiler, but his early actions didn’t ring true with the rest of the film. Good people make mistakes but this just looked reckless and mean.

The wrestling scenes were well done and, although there were no suplexes or jumps from the top turnbuckle,  former wrestler Alex Shaffer did well as Kyle, despite his ‘Eminem’ haircut. Down the cast list I didn’t buy Melanie Lynskey as the scummy mum as she looks too darn nice. I  liked Nina Arianda  as Mike’s savvy secretary and it took me a while to place her as Axe's girl in the last series of ‘Billions’

Overall this was an excellent character study with plenty of laughs and rye ‘life’s like that’ moments. I’m glad a kind of happy ending was found, but it wasn’t one that wasn’t without cost and it was hard won.

Pick it off the mat and give it a go!

'W' Rating 20/23

No.290 : Where to Invade Next (2015)

Where to Invade Next at the IMDb

In part two of our documentary double bill we take a look at this offering from Michael Moore. I wasn’t looking forward to it much as he has gotten a bit preachy of late, but it was good fun and interesting, albeit lacking some balance.

Moore opens the film by claiming he’d been summoned to the Pentagon by the joint chiefs of staff so he could advise them. From this point you realise that we are in the realms of fantasy and you may need to order in a truckload of salt to accept what follows. The military ask for Moore’s advice as they haven’t won a war since WW2. Where are they going wrong and what can they do to improve matters?

Moore agrees to ‘invade’ various countries and to take bits from them to improve America. This is clearly a flimsy premise, but it does help Moore showcase some good socio-economic policies that could benefit the United States.

He starts in Italy and is agog at the holiday entitlement of the workers. One couple share their holiday snaps which includes the knockout wife in a variety of skimpy bikinis. Italians get 35 days of paid holidays a year whereas Americans are guaranteed zero. Moore, who presumably had done his research before he set off, stands open mouthed at the revelation. He’s also amazed by the two hour lunches and numerous other worker benefits. He says Italians are as productive as Americans but doesn’t show his working. He also skips over the fact that the Italians are an economic basket case who are constantly needing bailouts. He qualifies this by saying he’s there to pick the flowers and not the weeds. This, to me, is a bit of a cop out. It’s like saying Auschwitz has excellent parking facilities and forgetting everything else that went on there.

Each segment ends with Moore planting an American flag and saying he’s claiming whatever good stuff he finds for America.

I enjoyed the fun and breezy outlook and, if you can overlook the agenda, there was a lot to like and to learn. The French, for example, have four course, free school meals including a cheese offering. It was fun seeing the French kids laugh at the sloppy Joes and fish sticks consumed by their American cousins. Again Moore came up with slightly questionable data when he said the French meal cost the same as the American. I’m guessing that’s because the American has a corporate mark up, but no details were given.

The tour included German health care - with a rather gratuitous nude couple in a spa - Finnish education and liberal Portuguese drug laws. In isolation each of these policies were a good idea, but they were all shown out of context. Free college education for all is great but what is the health service like? Are they kind to wildlife? Are they mortgaging their children’s futures for benefits now?

This was of course an entertainment and not designed as official economic policy. It was a shame the UK didn’t rate a visit and to be honest we’re probably more aligned with the Americans than the Europeans these days. Of course he did praise the NHS in ‘Sicko’ so maybe we had our turn then.

Moore looked a lot older than his 60 odd years and was pretty infirm on his feet at times. He did however retain his sharp wit and talent for showing the absurd. I could see Americans reacting badly to this, as he basically says that every aspect of their society and culture is done better elsewhere. A lot of the points would be hard to argue, although I think I’d have the fish sticks ahead of that fennel and aubergine number any day!

Best Bit : Spa Day! 'W' Rating 20/23

No.289 : Which Way Home (2009)

Which Way Home at the IMDb

It’s time for a documentary double bill here at the ‘W’ Movie Blog. Our regular reader will attest that we cover all genres here, except perhaps porno, with the odd documentary feature a nice change of pace from the usual westerns and people being hit in the balls in frat movies.

‘Which Way Home’ (No question mark) is an Oscar Nominated documentary from 2009 which follows several children as they try to illegally enter the United States. I thought most illegals were Mexicans, but most of the people we follow are from further afield in Central America - Honduras, El Salvador and the like. These people are dirt poor and the idealised images of the US they see on TV are a persuading force in making them take the perilous journey of hundreds of miles on the back of freight trains.

The main children we follow are Kevin and Fito who are both barely teenagers. We get a bit of background of their plight as well, with cutaways back to the family home where their families are interviewed. The first stage is to get into Mexico and that seems relatively easy. The Mexicans seem nice with locals offering the kids food and a government body helping with advice and medical aid.

The train companies don’t want them however, but are unable to do much as the freight wagons are festooned with dozens of riders. We meet several other travellers and hear horrific tales of rape and murder. The kids are pretty streetwise but clearly vulnerable and prone to tears.

We also follows some migrants who end up in detention or even dead. People smugglers are happy to abandon their charges and there is one terrible sequence where a poor family have to go bureaucratic hoops to get their son’s body back from the Arizona desert where he perished.

The film was pretty unflinching, but the spirit of the children and their desire to pursue a desperate dream was enough to make it a positive experience rather than a depressing one. The filmmaker did well to keep track of her subjects over a 2000 mile journey that must have taken weeks. The camera work was excellent too, with a lot of shots taken from between and on top of the freight cars.

They didn’t follow the ‘show don’t tell’ rule  as there were regular captions giving additional information about what we were seeing - usually horrific statistics. I liked  this and felt that I came out of the film having learned something rather than having just watched some poverty porn.

Captions at the end let us know how most of those followed fared and it largely wasn’t as how they would have wanted. No doubt things will be worse now, a decade later, and it would be interesting to see the same documentary today.

The film didn’t attempt to offer solutions, merely presenting a snapshot of a humanitarian crisis that has to be addressed. Clearly if their home lives were better there wouldn’t be any reason to leave but I doubt economics would ever allow that to happen.

This was an excellent documentary that offered a lot of food for thought. Next time you moan about your train being five minutes late, spare a thought for these guys.

Best Bit : The 9 year old girl was adorable, hope she made it.  20/23

No.288 : Wind River (2017)

Wind River at the IMDb

Hawkeye out of the Avengers and the non-twin Olsen sister star in this mystery thriller set in the Wind River native American reservation in Wyoming.

Hawkeye is out tracking a mountain lion as part of his role as a wildlife and fisheries officer. He stretches his range by showing he is good with a gun as well as a bow when he shoots a coyote in a scene a bit too real for my liking. Hope they at least ate the body afterwards. Instead of his quarry he finds the body of a young woman, six miles from anywhere, in her bare feet.

The local tribal police call in the FBI and get Olsen for their troubles. She was the nearest officer and has to be kitted out in some 80’s ski wear that once belonged to Hawkeye’s daughter before she can visit the murder scene. We learn that he married a native American woman and had a son and daughter, but the marriage fell apart when the daughter died in unsolved circumstances three years earlier,

What follows is a bit of ‘Witness’ style ‘fish out of water’ detective work as Olsen, with Haweye’s help, tries to solve the crime whilst avoiding putting her foot in a big cultural pat. They run down some junkies and, after shooting one, get a clue. Ultimately all the clues are tracks in the snow, so just keep looking down and you’ll do fine.

Issues with the death certificate mean that Olsen can’t call in all the Feds she’d like, so she has to make do with the tribal police and her own instincts. All trails point to the local oil drilling settlement and with a gruesome flashback and plenty of gun play the truth will out. Can we have some healing too please?

This was a superior offering that was well worth it’s high IMDb rating of 7.8. To be honest it had passed me by on release as it does look a bit bleak from the outset. It is ‘inspired by true events’ and the closing caption says loads of native American girls are raped and murdered but no totals are kept. You can see that the film was therefore motivated by an agenda, but it was a worthy one and it was wrapped in an exciting and thoughtful blanket of thrills.

The detection was OK, but when the body was found two options were given for the victim’s starting point and it turned out it was one of them. The oil drillers were a mental bunch and their behaviour did seem a bit ridiculous both in the flashback and in the showdown scenes. One says the snow and silence drove him mad but that didn’t explain their collective mentalness and a shootout that made the OK Corral look like water pistols at dawn.

Hawkeye was a familiar character as the broken man looking for redemption, but he gave good value. Olsen was a poor version of Jodie Foster as seen in ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ as the rookie FBI officer, but she was prepared to get down and dirty with no make up and a series of unflattering outfits and I was grateful to her for that.

The massive body count and brutal fights mean this isn’t one for the squeamish but it was fast paced and exciting and the locations were fantastic. It did seem unsatisfying that Hawkeye’s daughter’s death wasn’t explored in more detail but I guess a resolution to that may have seemed a bit too neat to be believable. Maybe for the sequel.

Best Bit : Wyoming Standoff  ‘W’ Rating  : 20/23

No.209 : Wild Tales (2014)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3011894/

Sometimes in life one’s pointless endeavours collide, as has happened here when my desire, nay need, to keep up to date with all the films on the IMDb Top 250 list produced an unseen ‘W’ film. To be honest it’s actually a ‘R’ film  as the title is ‘Relatos Salvages’ but given my meagre readership can barely understand English, never mind Spanish, I’ll go with the translation ‘Wild Tales’ as that’s what’s on the poster.

The film is from Argentina, a country you may feel is better suited to steaks and invading, but to be fair this is pretty good and was that country’s Foreign Film entry to the 2015 Oscars - didn’t win though!

Six standalone vignettes, or stories to you, make up the film and each focuses on an element of extreme behaviour, with things normally starting out in a sedate manner, before flying wildly off the tracks. You sometimes see films like ‘Happiness’ use the multiple strand format and then intertwine the stories so that the man in story one is a patient of the doctor in story three and the plumber in story two cleans the septic tank of the woman in story four, but not here. Each story stands alone with a separate cast and is about twenty minutes long, which is helpful if you need to frequently visit the toilet or fridge.

The first story concerns two passengers on a flight who, after a brief conversation, discover they have a person in common. Another passenger pitches in that she knows him too before it is quickly established that everyone on the flight has crossed paths with this one mysterious figure. Is it a cosmic coincidence or are more sinister forces in play? It’s the second one! This story only lasts a few minutes and is played out before the titles, ably setting the tone for what is to follow.

Next up a waitress encounters a rude customer whom she recognises as the man who drove her father to suicide. The female chef encourages her to lace his dinner with rat poison arguing that his death will be attributed to the food rather than poison - clearly  not a restaurant to seek out! Things are complicated when the man’s son appears and starts helping himself to the chips - is the food poisoned? and can this end well?

A familiar opening next as a driver is held up on the road by a slow moving banger. Given it's the middle of nowhere the driver giving the finger on passing can’t be a good idea and so it proves when he gets a flat and his tormentor pulls up behind. An escalating game then plays out with a nice line in being dumped upon taking centre stage. Once again things start to spiral towards an inevitable but satisfying conclusion.

By now you have an idea where the film’s mindset is and when the next character is introduced carrying out his day job as a demolition expert you know the parking attendants who blight his life would do well to leave him alone. Of course they don’t and although the pay off is the most predictable of the stories, it was well handled as was the fall out of his actions.

The penultimate story opens with a spoiled rich boy arriving home in Daddy’s bashed up car. We learn that he has hit and killed a pregnant woman and rather than leave him to take his medicine his father and his lawyer try to buy his way out of the crime by bribing the local prosecutor and by paying his handyman to take the rap. The seedy plan starts to unravel when everyone gets greedy and the wages of sin hold their usual pitfalls.

The last story is the longest and perhaps the weakest. At her wedding reception a bride discovers her husband’s infidelity and sets about evening the score by copping off with a chef and smashing up her rival. As the cake hits the deck can the marriage be pulled back from the brink?

As with any anthology some stories are stronger than others but this film does well to maintain a consistently high standard. The acting was excellent and I was willing on the often reprehensible characters. There were plenty of surprises and a few laugh out loud moments as well as plenty to ponder.

If foreign language films aren't usually your thing, give this a go. The stories are brief and demonstrate that the human foibles we possess are universal and if you don’t take to a set up or the characters there’s another story and cast just a few minutes away.

Best Bit - Incoming! 20/23

No.198 : Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)

Where the Sidewalk Ends at the IMDb

Some gritty film noir cop drama from 1950 now as some heads get cracked and some dames get kissed. We know this is going to be gritty from the off when the film’s title is chalked onto a pavement - none of your sissy titles here!

Our hard bitten hero is New York police detective Mark Dixon who, as the son of a now dead criminal, is trying a bit too hard to show what side of the law he’s on. He’s just been demoted for smacking up the suspects by his by the book commander, Karl Malden. Meanwhile a card game is going wrong. Some gangsters have a sucker in tow, but the mark turns the tables and tries to make off with twenty large. Huge mistake. The mobsters rub him out, but one of their molls fails to play along and gets a smack for her trouble.

The cops show up after everyone has split and Mark is soon on the trail of the main suspect. The suspect, who’s had a few, takes a swing and gets slapped on the chops for his troubles. Alas he’s a war hero with a plate in his head and promptly drops dead. Mark has a problem - call it in or hide the body? With his roughhouse reputation likely to give him bother, he decides to hide the stiff.

His elaborate plan to dress up as the dead man and buy a train ticket wearing his hat goes well at first but soon circumstance and some solid police work start to unravel his scheme. Unfortunately the gangster’s moll, to whom Mark has taken a shine, gets involved when her taxi driver father starts to get the police’s attention. Mark tries to fit up a local mobster for the crime but soon his own lies come back to haunt him.

Will he do the right thing and come clean or can the frame hold? Is sending a bad man down OK even if it’s for a crime he didn’t commit? and will anyone get some sleep?

Set over one long night this is a superior police procedural with all the grime and backstabbing of an Ed McBain novel. The hero played by Dana Andrews (that’s a man’s name BTW!) is excellent as the driven and ruthless detective. I wasn’t convinced by his motivations especially when these changed after one small peck with the taxi driver’s daughter - still it was in black and white times.

There were plenty of fist fights with the violence realistic and bone crunching. The bad guys were suitably evil and the thin line between them and the cops was expertly drawn by director Otto Preminger. I liked how the perfect alibi was slowly unwound with Malden great in the scene where the eye witness went from convinced to sceptical in five minutes.

It was clear from the off that the bad boy detective would need some redemption but it was hard won and mostly convincing as his hard held beliefs were brought into sharp focus when the innocents started to suffer.

With no top stars, a limited budget and bleak plot this may not be the sort of film you’d look out for but it’s expertly made and has some stand out performances. Well worth looking up!

Best Bit : Punchbag at the Gym ‘W’ Rating 20/23

No.159 : Walk Hard : The Dewey Cox Story (2007)

Walk Hard at the IMDb

Well we’re back after a long pause while we fought for our entitlement of Arts Council funding. It not what you know it’s who you blow in this game! We can’t guarantee the same level of ‘W’ movie immersion as you’re used to but the occasional ‘W’ will certainly keep the wwwolf from the door.

First up in this tranche of ‘W’ wonderment is a real treat that is certainly at the pinnacle of the spoof genre, one that is often disparaged by this forum and several lesser ones too.

As you could probably guess from the title this is a comedy retread of the Johnny Cash bio-pic ‘Walk the Line’ but don’t confuse it with the likes of ‘Teen Movie’ and shite like that, this is a fully rounded picture that walks a similar line but picks off plenty of laughs along the way.

We open with the child Dewey who is growing up on a mid-western farm with his prodigy brother. After an ill advised, but surprisingly deadly, machete fight his brother is killed leaving his Dad stating ‘the wrong boy died’ throughout the film, even after Dewey has made his name.

The child actor is quickly replaced by John C McGinley who takes over the role when Dewey is just 14 and towers over the teens of his high school band. His career quickly blossoms and soon he’s on the road with Elvis and being introduced to ever more potent drugs by his long term band mates.

Like Cash, Dewey has his ups and downs and after a few falls secures his own cheesy 1970’s TV series and a succession of trophy wives. He also emulates Johnny by having one woman colouring his life and Dewey is lucky enough to have Jenna Fischer on his arm, presumably when ‘The Office’ was shut.

As the film nears it’s climax we are returned to the opening frames where a contemplative Cox was silently recounting his life before going on stage for one last time. Can Dewey still put on a great show after endless nights of booze, drugs and women?

I have been accused in the past of liking spoof musicals a bit too much, and in truth I’ll take ‘The Rutles’ over ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ anytime, but this film is far more enjoyable than Joaquin Phoenix wrestling with his emotions and acting ability any day.

The songs like ‘Walk Hard’ and ‘Guilty As Charged’ are excellent and Reilly does a great job as the hapless lead. The laughs are frequent and layered throughout the film and at no point does it sag. There is plenty of swearing and nudity to keep the interest levels high and the cast, including plenty of well known cameos, is universally great.

As you will probably have gathered this film is a true return to form for the ‘W’ quest and has certainly got the juices flowing again. Give it a look - run, don’t walk to the video shop. Or download it, I don’t care.

Best Bit : Lyall Lovett has it large
‘W’ Rating : 20/23

No. 156 : Willard (2003)

Willard (2003) at the IMDb

For a special treat, seeing as you’ve been good, the ‘W’ Movie Reviews will feature the same title for two days running. Aren’t you glad you weren’t bad now? I’d seen ‘Willard’ around the time of it’s release in 2003 but had no idea it was a remake. But it is following from the original which came out in 1971, a bit like myself. The two reviews will show the differences between the two films and declare the winner in the all comers Willard championship.

This film (and possibly the other I haven’t watched it yet) concerns the lonely Willard Stiles who lives alone with his elderly mother following the death of his father (in a nice touch all the pictures of the dead Dad show the actor Bruce Davison who played Willard in the original). He works for his father’s former business partner Mr Martin (played by the great R Lee Emery - the drill sergeant out of ‘Full Metal Jacket’) and doesn’t get along well with his boss who’d have him out if it weren’t for an agreement with his dead dad.

One night Willard’s mother hears scurrying in the basement and dispatches her boy to buy traps. The rats are too smart for the traps but the following night one gets stuck on a glue patch. As he’s about to kill it Willard feels an attachment to the rat and names it ‘Socrates’. Word gets around the rat community and pretty soon Willard’s basement is knee deep in rodents, including the massive Ben. The rats are more obedient than you’d expect and soon Willard has them trained to do his bidding. An early attack on his bosses car gives him a new will to live but that’s short-lived when his mother dies and he starts getting hassle from Ben who challenges his authority.

Added to his woes is the loss of his job and after contemplating suicide he decides he’s be better off paying his boss a visit with a few thousands of his pals. With the boss suitably chewed Willard panics and tries to kill off his former friends but the rats are legion and won’t go quietly. Willard has a small chance at a normal life with his one female friend from the office but it may be that he’s already gone too far down the road of madness.

I really like this film, with it’s creepy overtones and malevolent rats. Crispin Glover (George McFly in ‘Back To the Future’) give a cracking performance in the lead role and I doubt anyone else could have pulled it off as well. A lot of his screen time is spent talking to rats and he does it so well that you start to buy into the different personalities that he confers upon the rodents. His interaction with people is like his wimpy McFly role and it’s only towards the end that he really lets rip.

The boss played by R lee Emery is a great character although his demise was poorly timed - let the man look at his smutty web sites in peace. The rats themselves do wonders with them seeming really friendly and appealing one miniute and the next they’re a peeling the skin off someone’s face!

The general mood of the film is dark and gothic and if it weren’t for the absence of an annoying Danny Elfman score you’d swear it was a Tim Burton film. That said it’s hard to see how you can do a film about a loner who trains killer rats to be anything other than dark.

There are plenty of light moments however and there is enough to keep your interest throughout. I wasn’t really convinced by Willard’s change of heart that saw him gassing a lot of his pals but I guess if you buy an unhinged character you’ve got to go with it.

All in all this is a real gem of a movie that the original will have to do well to match. It does have Ernest Borgnine as the boss so that’s a good start. See you next time for more ratty fun.

Best Bit : Boss reaches For Mouse
‘W’ : Rating 20/23

No. 110 : Welcome to the Sticks (2008)

Welcome to the Sticks at the IMDb

With stamps going up a massive three pence recently the postal service needs a public relations makeover and it arrives quicker than Parcel Force in the shape of this French comedy.

At first glace the film is a bit of a hard sell dealing as it does with the differing perceptions of southern French people of their northern cousins. Many of the jokes are based on the nuances of language and behaviour and for an outsider looking in it could be seen as an unappealing prospect. The ‘W’ quest however comes up trumps again and a film I wouldn’t normally have sought out turned out to be a real gem.

The film opens with a hen pecked French postal manager being bullied into applying for a plum position at a sea side post office. Although he has a nice life in the south his pushy wife insists that the new job should be won by fair means or foul. After jumping the queue by faking a disability our man is found out and to his horror he is punished with a transfer to the north.

His wife refuses to join him on the two year assignment and everyone is sympathetic as they all know that the northern French are a bunch of drunken barbarians. He is even let off for driving too slowly on the motorway when he tells the policeman of his destination. His worst fears are soon realised when he gets to his empty apartment and the few locals he meets are drunk or unintelligible.

Things quickly change however when our man embraces new things such as the Chip van and the football. His staff turn out to be a stand up bunch and after furnishing his flat they take him out drinking with the locals. So much fun is had that he’s reluctant to return to his wife and when the weekend is over he is stopped by the same motorcycle cop, only this time for speeding to his destination.

As he settles into the job he learns of the tangles love lives of his staff and resolves to help them as they have him. Trouble looms however when the wife decides to visit and the staff resolve to scare her off by acting to the stereotypes he perceives about them.

With the north declared not as bad as first thought our hero must decide whether he loves his new life or his wife more and can the two be rationalised?

This is a really enjoyable film that is funny and heart warming throughout. It is little surprise to learn that it enjoyed France’s biggest box office take ever as they must have lapped up the ridiculous notions they have about each other being exposed for the stereotypes they are. Many of the jokes went over my head with the subtitles sometimes reading ‘no translation possible’ when some regional dialect pun is made. It’s easy to overlook this however as the warm and joyous nature of the film would gladden the stoniest of hearts.

Best Bit : The boss shows how deliveries should be done

‘W’ Rating 20/23

No.92 : What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962)

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane at the IMDb

This 1962 black and white classic opens in 1917 where the hottest act in town is baby Jane Hudson singing with her Dad - well there was a war on. Everyone loves Baby Jane and her life sized dolls are a hot item among the crowds who flock to her show. Backstage we see that she is a spoiled brat whose doting father acts on her every wish and scolds her plainer sister Blanche while doing so.

A few years later the tables have turned with Blanche the big star and Baby Jane being a laughing stock living off small roles gifted by her sister. Things take a sinister turn when Blanche is run over and crippled by a car seemingly driven by her drunken sister.

We then move to the present day were we see the wheelchair and housebound Blanche, now played by Joan Crawford, being cared for by her nasty sister Jane, played by Bette Davis. Jane is slowly losing her marbles and things come to a head when she learns of Blanche’s plan to sell the house and put her in a care home. The trapped Blanche has to try and outsmart her evil captor and try to forge a plan of escape before she’s murdered or starved on her all budgie and rat diet.

As Baby Jane’s madness deepens she hires a pianist to help her ill advised comeback and nothing will stop her quest of recapturing her childhood glories, even murder.

This is a cracking film that has two powerhouse performances from Hollywood’s finest at its heart. Presumably the stars must have needed the cash because two less flattering roles you can’t imagine. Crawford does well as the feisty paraplegic who has a secret of her own but the main laurels must go to Davis who plays the nutty fantasist Baby Jane in chilling fashion. Clips of her own films are used to show Baby Jane’s poor acting skills and it’s a testament to how she improved to see her as a batty old woman.


Although claustrophobic and tense the film does have some lighter moments especially when Jane manages to finagle some more booze out of the off licence by pretending to be her sister. For the most part it is a grim tale with all of Blanche’s schemes coming so tantalisingly close to success before she’s outwitted by her senile sibling.

The early scenes were well done and it was easy to see how the madness developed once Baby Jane’s star faded. There are able turns form the pianist, Dad and the Maid but for the most part this is an uneasy, tense thriller that never lets up despite a running time of over two hours. The reveal at the end was well handled and explains some of the behaviours at large while not quite excusing them.

The film, somewhat surprisingly, won only one Oscar in a minor category but given it was released in the same year as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ that’s no disgrace. Its poor return is probably more a symptom of the acting types who vote for the Oscars believing that no one in their profession could fall quite so far from grace but to my mind its gritty realistic look can’t be faulted.

A great film that has a close look at both the worlds of family and celebrity and doesn’t come out too favourable on either. Maybe not a feel good classic but one that shouldn't be missed if you like top notch acting and a thrilling, slow burning script.

Best Bit : “I’ll put my sister on”

‘W’ Rating : 20/23

No.89 : Waitress (2007)

Waitress at the IMDb


Waitress Jenna loves to bake pies. She bakes for her workplace, Old Joe’s, she bakes for her friends and she bakes at home to forget her miserable life. She is married to the boorish Earl who honks his horn a lot and keeps his wife under his thumb. As the film opens Jenna learns that she’s pregnant as the result of a night of lovin’ with Earl that came after he got her drunk. The news is a disaster as she’d been saving to get away from Earl and to compete in the National Pie Baking Championships.

She unhappily resolves to keep the baby and checks in to her doctor for the usual tests. She is surprised however to learn that her aged lady doctor has retired and been replaced by the nice Dr Jim who gladly accepts her offer of a pie. As the pregnancy progresses the two become lovers despite both having complex home lives. Romance is also blossoming at the diner where Jenna’s two waitress buddies both have relationship issues of their own.

Things come to a head when Earl finds Jenna’s stash of cash and starts to knock her about. She confides in Old Joe himself, but knows that if she’s ever going to be happy that she’ll have to make things happen for herself. As her waters break she has to sort out her relationships, have the baby and answer her fan mail from the now ailing Old Joe.

I really enjoyed this film which will forever be tinged by sadness, owing to the murder of writer/director Adrienne Shelly shortly after its completion. Kerri Russell is great in the lead as the downtrodden but spirited Jenna. We get a window into her thoughts through a narration device of her writing a diary for her baby to be and this helps fill out her conflicted character. Although she is hostile to the idea of becoming a mother we know it’s a front and that standing up to Earl is the only route to happiness. Earl is a horrible character, although maybe not as menacing as intended. He’s played by Jeremy Sisto, who played the mental one on ‘Six Feet Under’, and he does well to deviate between pathetic and bullying an a single stride.

The love lives of Jenna’s waitress buddies are really just footnotes but fun all the same. I just hope Larry David knows what his wife is getting up to! Andy Griffith shows up as the wise old restaurant owner and although seen as initially cantankerous we know he’s a good old guy. Filling the cast is Nathan Fillion out of ‘Firefly’ and he’s good value as the sexed up doc. He’s pretty unethical from the start and his motivations aren’t clear given his lovely wife at home, but I guess the point of the matter is that we can’t choose who we fall in love with and when.

The film is really well made with lots of shots of sumptuous pies to keep us fat guys interested. The characters are all well written and although the ending is a bit of the fairytale variety we don’t grudge any of them their happiness. A genuinely uplifting feel good movie that won me over despite its overwhelming theme of chick wish fulfilment. You go girl!

Best Bit : Pies!

‘W’ Rating 20/23

No.86 : Wind Chill (2007)

Wind Chill at the IMDb

It’s near Christmas and the college kids are heading home for the holidays. Emily Blunt plays a headstrong and opinionated character referred to in the credits as ‘Girl’ who in a text chat with a pal agrees to get a ride home from the shared drives board at the college. She’s lucky to find one going to her home of Delaware and even luckier when the driver referred to as ‘Guy’ waits two hours for her to show up.

His car is a bit bashed up with a wonky door and window and Emily starts to smell a rat when he fails to answer correctly questions about their supposed shared home town. After she gets locked in the bathroom during a rest stop things get a bit fractured, especially when Guy, who supposedly knows the way, is caught getting directions from the spooky gas station attendant. Things come to a head when he takes the car down a snow covered side route and the pair are run off the road into a snow bank by a mysterious car.

When confronted he admits to having set up the journey after overhearing her travel plans as he’s a bit shy and thought a few hours together would bring them closer together. His plan worked, but too well as the pair are now trapped on an isolated road. He doesn't have a cell phone and hers won’t work and to cap it all the food for the journey was left at the college.

Things take a sinister turn when ghostly figures start to appear. Guy finds a burnt out building full of bodies and rosaries after following some monks and she meets a couple of dead school kids and a drowned black man with a habit of vomiting eels. They think salvation is at hand when a policeman appears but he soon turns out to be a bastard and is only stopped when hit over the head. As he goes down, time ripples and our pair are back in the car.

They piece together their stories with the help of an old newspaper and guess that they are being haunted by all the people who’ve ever been killed on this stretch of road. Using movie logic they think that if they make it to sun up they’ll be OK, but Guy is bleeding internally and looking like the road’s next inhabitant. The truth of the road must be revealed if the girl is to survive and can the Guy help in his reduced capacity?

I really enjoyed this spooky ghost story. The device of not naming the characters was a fun nod to the traditional start to the camp fire ghost story “there was this guy and girl…” and the writing was strong enough that you never really noticed the omission of names.

The pacing was really good with it building up gradually before the revelation heavy third act. There were plenty of scares, and for once in a horror film, all were earned - no cats jumping out here! The various spooks were well realised with the ever watchful monks really unsettling. The trim run time of 85 minutes meant there weren't too many dull moments or repetitive appearances of the same ghouls and ghosts.

The conclusion of the film worked well for me and I liked that it was open to interpretation. Having read pages of theories I'm undecided about what happened, and who was a ghost and from when. That said it was effective and unsettling and like any good ghost story you could fill your night after watching it by exchanging your own thoughts and theories with similarly bewildered friends.

The two leads did a good job and their initial frosty match up morphed into a fledgling friendship somewhat seamlessly. The guy character played by Viggo’s son off ‘A History of Violence’, did well as the initially creepy but ultimately heroic stalker, and he left nary a dry eye in my house by the end.

A great little film that fell below my radar on its initial release but one I would heartily recommend the next dark, snowy winter’s night you have in alone. Chilling and thrilling - what more could you ask?

Best Bit : ‘Rockin’ around the Christmas tree..’

‘W’ Score : 20/23

No.68 : White Heat (1949)

White Heat at the IMDb

James Cagney stars in this 1949 gangster classic as psychotic con Cody Jarrett. The film opens with the Jarrett gang robbing a train and netting a cool $300,000. The blood thirsty raid leaves four dead and the treasury department has had enough. When a nicer member of the gang disobeys Cody’s order to kill an injured comrade the police find the man and a clue. With the net tightening and the gas chamber looming Cody decides to claim responsibility for a lesser robbery, knowing he’ll get two years maximum and beat the train robbery rap.

He thinks he’s smart when the plan works but unknown to him the treasury department agreed the deal with the judge so that they could plant a man in Cody’s cell to trace the stolen cash and other gang members. Things go well at first with the agent, Vic Pardo, winning the con’s trust by saving his neck when a hit from an ambitious member of the gang goes down.

Pardo convinces Cody to agree to his escape plan but things go wrong when Cody hears that his beloved mother has been killed and goes mental. When in the prison hospital Cody forges his own plan and breaks out a group of cons, including Pardo who no longer holds all the cards. Now on the outside Cody decides to settle some scores and arranges a big robbery at a petrol refinery. Can Pardo get a message out to his colleagues or will his cover be blown by a new gang member that the erstwhile cop put away 4 years before?

This is a cracker of a film that is held together by Cagney’s outstanding performance. He genuinely seems evil and unhinged and the scenes he shares with his overbearing mother are classic. Despite his small stature he is a real presence and you can tell the other actors aren’t feigning their fear when he kicks off.

The investigation side of things is well handled by the inside man and there are real scenes of tension as he infiltrates his way into Cagney’s affections. Less good are the treasury men who spend too long explaining their fancy triangulation device that helps track the felons down.

For its era the film is very violent, with gangsters and cops alike being killed by the cartload. There is also some fruity dialogue and wife slapping going on, as well as a few cold bloodied murders. Despite him being a classic screen bad guy Cagney does well to gain a bit of sympathy for his headaches and slutty wife. We’re not very sad when he gets his comeuppance (as he really had to) but we do mourn the passing of a great character.

If you’ve never seen ‘White Heat’ give it a look, it’s easily one of the best gangster/prison break movies ever. Top of the list Ma!

Best Bit : The train raid sets the brutal agenda



‘W’ Score 20/23

No.30 : White Hunter Black Heart (1990)

White Hunter Black Heart at the IMDb

In this thinly disguised account of the shooting of ‘The African Queen’ Clint Eastwood plays an indebted director on a quest to shoot an elephant whilst on location in Africa.

Clint’s character, John Wilson (nee Huston), is a single minded idealist who is happy to stand up for the natives and Jews while simultaneously living high on the hog off his producers. An initial interest in big game hunting becomes an obsession as a large tusked elephant keeps avoiding his sights. Elsewhere the production begins to flounder due to the weather and his indifference.

As the film draws to a close the stars are on set and ready to shoot, but an elephant has been spotted nearby and tragedy is sure to follow.

It’s unusual that you can summarise the plot of a two hour film in little over a paragraph, but the beauty of this production is that it is character and not plot lead. Clint goes against type as the bombastic Jones who talks ten to the dozen and picks the odd fight on the side of justice. To temper him we have Jeff Fahey’s screenwriter who sees the director as selfish and obsessive, but also his access to Hollywood.

The sweeping vistas and wild life are beautifully shot and the evocation of 1950’s colonial Africa is great. The secondary cast is mostly British and it was fun to see who was going to pop up next - I counted at least two from both ‘Auf Wiedersen Pet’ and ‘Our Friends in the North’ and one from ‘Taggart’.

It was strange, and possibly diverting, that everything was one step removed from what you would expect with ‘The African Queen’ becoming ‘The African Trader’ and Bogie and Hepburn dead ringers, in all but name. Whether this was due to copyright or artistic reasons I don’t know but it did reduce the effect somewhat.

It’s always tough to see Clint as anything but Blondie or Dirty Harry but he made a good attempt at his character’s affected English accent, and despite all his faults he succeeded making him a likable yet flawed person.

This is one of the few Clint Eastwood films I’d missed first time around possibly because I supposed it was about hunting, a subject I have no interest in. I’m glad this quest drew me too it, as although it is about hunting hardly a shot is fired and the recreation of the classic ‘African Queen‘ was first rate. Give it a go; it certainly hits the target. Oh dear.

Best Bit : The monkey stealing the script was a hoot.

‘W’ Score : 20/23

No.27 : Wall Street (1987)

Wall Street at the IMDb

Charlie Sheen stars as Bud Fox, an ambitious Wall Street broker, in this 1987 morality Tale.

Bud is struggling to make ends meet and spends his days cold calling punters to offload stocks. He dreams of working for major player Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) and after a lot of effort he gets his chance. Gekko plays hard and fast with scant regard for the rules and Bud has to put his own concerns aside as he chases the deal.

After a successful hustle at the expense of English corporate raider Sir Larry Wildman (Terence Stamp) Gekko entrusts his protégé with more responsibility. The cash starts flowing and Bud upgrades both his girlfriend and apartment and his moral concerns are put to one side. When some inside information put Blue star Airlines on Gekko’s radar Bud has to decide whether his loyalties lie with the slick braces wearer or with his union leader Dad who works at the airline.

This is a cracker of a film that must be regarded as one of the iconic movies of the 1980’s. The ‘greed is good’ philosophy is expertly assessed with Bud’s new line in materialism taking us in as well as him. The film is eminently quotable with the dialogue crackling along with memorable sound bites piling up like cabs at a rank.

Michael Douglas gives a career best, and Oscar winning, performance as the slick and sleazy Gekko and he is ably assisted by the Sheen family and a great Terence Stamp. You also get James Spader, Hal Holbrook and the always worthy John C. McGinlay for your money.




The best bits are the inside looks of how the market works with a single rumour being followed through the dealing rooms and trading floors as the stock prices yo-yo around. Director Oliver Stone uses, and appears, in some great montages with split screens used to convey the speed and multiple threads of the deals being done.



Gekko is a great character and despite being a total bastard you can’t help but like him. The scene where he tears up the board meeting of Teldar paper is cracking and he talks a lot of sense exposing the fat cats with their expense accounts and benefits.

The film does well not to paint capitalism as a bad thing, with only the excesses and criminal acts frowned upon. The checks and balances of the system are shown to be well placed as they close in on the bad guys in double quick time with all the right people held out to dry. The final sting is well executed but I don’t think Terence Stamp would have got involved so readily especially as the deal was based on blatant insider trading.

‘Wall Street’ is an excellent and informative film that is well acted and paced. Buds rise and fall is chronicled expertly by Stone and the moral message is in no way ambiguous - greed is good, but not that good.

Best Bit : Gordon enlivens the shareholders’ meeting.

‘W’ Score 20/23

No.14 : Welcome To Sarajevo (1997)

Welcome to Sarajevo at the IMDb

Welcome to Sarajevo is a drama documentary shot shortly after the end of the Bosnian/Serb war of the early 1990’s. The film poster I’ve used has the funny tag line “To get the story they’ll risk everything” which no doubt led to some disappointment in people expecting an action thriller.

The film follows a troupe of journalists who are following the war which is becoming more brutal by the day. After visiting an orphanage a British journalist risks everything by smuggling out a young Bosnian girl who otherwise would have died. Once he has her back in England the fight goes on to keep her there and to convince her mother that this is the best course for the girl.

I found the film very hard hitting and in many places it made for uncomfortable viewing. Scenes of actual news footage were used with reaction shots of the cast cut in. A cynic may say this is a cheap way to make a movie but the reality is all the more brutal when you know those are real dead bodies and starving people.

The sense of danger in the city was evident throughout and the total inhumanity on show was shocking. One scene showing the aftermath of a mortar attack was particularly horrible with missing limbs and faces the order of the day. It would be easy for a film of this to get preachy but instead it lets the viewer draw their own unmistakable conclusions.

Although it was based on ITN reporter Michael Nicholson’s own experiences the lead character had a different name, presumably so that other aspects could be brought in. I did think the focus on the orphanage and adoption elements drew us away from the bigger picture but a film encompassing all that was going on would last for many months. The cast was pretty good and there were plenty of recognizable faces. Woody Harrelson and Marisa Tomei had pretty small and forgettable parts, but no doubt their participation will draw a bigger audience.

The ending offered a ray of hope, but the general feeling was one of horror and desperation. Not entertainment as you know it but compelling and required viewing.

Best Bit : The tension packed scene when the Serbs board the rescue bus.

‘W’ Rating 20/23