Rate the last film with your terrible opinions

Speak No Evil - James McAvoy has hit the gym HARD and hangs around the West Country being intimidating and overbearing to Scoot McNairy and his very British-sounding American wife. It’s good stuff, a very solid suspense thriller which reminds me of Funny Games and, like Funny Games, the original is the weirder and more intense version. Well worth a watch if you fancy a stressful couple of hours.

Gladiator

First time seeing this in... about 20 years? Man, time flies.

It mostly holds up! The Commodus character really sucks all the energy out of the movie whenever he appears on screen, but aside from that the performances are solid, the action is good, and the CG bits don't stand out nearly as much as I thought they would.

It's pretty wild that it won Oscars; I don't think it's *that* good. But it's still a lot of fun, a good romp.

8/10

Wasn't Commodus a really good baddie? I remember him being deeply hateable in a good way.

I thought he was a sap back then so can't imagine that's improved since.

Deadpool & Wolverine (disney+)
More story and character content than I expected, some nice cameos but the action sequences were only so so. It was funnier than I expected too but then I did go in slightly worried it would be a Family Guy style pile-up of references and memes.

Down Terrace (all4)
Ben Wheatley’s zero budget (£30k!) debut feature. Mix of black comedy and kitchen sink drama about a crime family with a strong cast. Considering its limitations it manages to hint at things he’ll keep doing down the line.

I watched Kill List straight after finishing Gen Z which inspired me to go through his other indie films. I like that if I had done them all in order instead of Kill List first its a perfect bridge from the kitchen sink of Down Terrace to the trippier stuff that comes after.

Sightseers (all4)
It gets included in the “one for him”/auteur lists for Wheatley but its an Alice Lowe and Steve Oran script. Stylistically it plays to all of Wheatley’s strengths. The naturalistic shooting style for comedy and drama plays well and then the hints of horror and psychedelia bleed through the cracks to give it a lot of atmosphere. Cracking soundtrack too. Probably the most accessible film among these and the best British film of its type since Shaun of the Dead.

A Field In England (all4)
Probably the least accessible of his films but I think its astonishing. Obviously all the artwork has become iconic but rewatching again without distractions there are some stunning scenes. It feels like you could read the film a different time with every viewing and always be correct.

Happy New Year, Colin Burstead (iplayer)
Highly underrated and under seen film. Breaks away from the established ensemble he uses for most of his films and instead its an all star cast. Its also a return to very naturalistic drama, although now Wheatley is using skills learned doing horror to up the tension. Clint Mansell is on board doing the score now too which feels like an inevitable and entirely appropriate coming together.

I think because he’s so associated with horror/folk-horror Wheatley’s talent for shooting realism and drama goes hugely unremarked upon but even in films like Kill List it forms the bulk of screen time. This film feels very much like the kind of European independent production I used to go to see at the art house cinema in town before I had a kid and couldn’t go anymore. Its very very good.

In The Earth
Its the most conventional of these films promising a modern pandemic set folk-horror and then delivering exactly that. I can’t really criticise it much because every part of it seems to be doing just what it was meant to and every actor is doing there bit.

It does feel a but safe though. I assume that’s partly because as well as being set during covid, it was also made during covid. So it feels quite small in its execution and scope - even compared to above where two films are set in single buildings another in one field. It might just be a me thing but in the film they talk about being 30 miles from civilisation but it feels very much like they’re in a municipal woodland park and that there’s probably a visitor centre just out of shot.

So yeah, turns out I do still think all of Ben Wheatley’s films are very good. I mention SOTD above, I think I’ve argued in the past that Edgar Wright is the most important British director of the millennium so far because of the door he opened for things that weren’t sweet romcoms, cheap horror or Danny Boyle films to be made. I wonder if there might be a case for Wheatley being his heir in terms of creating extremely cine-literate but genre bending films (that are actually good).

TLDR watch Happy New Year Colin Burstead, I know you haven’t seen it yet.

I literally walked out the cinema in 2000 and said "well, it's not going to win any Oscars but it was really fun!"

I think the feeling was Crowe got one of those "probably should have won last year" awards after losing out for The Insider. Although Maximus is a great role in a very specific type of film, one the Academy don't award very often.

It did win Best Picture though.

Although it wasn't a stellar year, really. I think I'd rank Traffic above it, but it's not like it's an unworthy winner.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/73rd_Academy_Awards

Don't it's pretty bad. The first one had a campness i could kind of get aboard with the sequel is just straight up bad.

I’ve seen the first one and thought it was pretty bad so there’s no way I’m watching a sequel that’s even worse

Watched it the other week, it's still great. Perhaps not as great as when I first watched it perhaps but very decent.