Déjà vu (2006)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Déjà vu (2006) – T. Scott

A Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Tony Scott film.  Is there anything more to say than that?  Maybe. I usually avoid these noisy expensive blockbusters, finding them all spectacle and little plot or character development.  Of course, if you get a star with a known personality, such as Denzel Washington, they can add their usual traits and style to the proceedings, as happens here.  But what really drew me to the film (which I had never heard of before) was that it was grouped together with other films about time and memory by the Criterion Channel (sadly available only in the US), including such amazing films as Vertigo, Twelve Monkeys, Memento, and Mullholand Dr. So, I took the risk and, yes, like those other films, it turned out to be rather mind-bending (although as most reviewers suggested at the time, also preposterous).  This film, shot in 2005, also focuses on terrorism (a bomb is planted on a ferry carrying US servicepeople and civilians) and takes place in an immediately post-Katrina New Orleans.  Thinking about how the US felt this close to 9-11 and this terrible disaster adds another odd resonance to the film – but is it terrorism-porn?).  Washington plays an ATF agent called in to investigate the bombing and help track down the culprit.  This far in, the film is a by-the-numbers disaster film with fast cutting and death/destruction.  But then FBI agent Val Kilmer invites Washington to join an elite team with access to a very high-tech surveillance system that allows them to view actions in the past from any conceivable angle in any location (within a set radius that can be extended by using a portable headset) – the kicker is that they can only observe things 4 days in the past, because the system takes a long time to render the data from all available camera sources.  Washington asks the right questions (how do they get the audio?) but receives no answers.  This is very high concept stuff and to the extent that you can hold onto the thread, you’ll enjoy the movie.  It is part action thriller and part (creepy) romance, not to mention sci-fi.  But just don’t try to apply logic to the ending because it just might not make sense (although it might bust your brain to figure that out).   

 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

 

☆ ☆ ☆

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) – N. A. Oplev

A bit too sadistic for my liking but I guess there is no denying that the film succeeds in creating well-rounded characters, particularly that of Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), whose backstory may be fleshed out further in subsequent films, I gather. The plot is a rather conventional whodunnit, with journalist Mikael Blomkvist hired by Henrik Vanger (of the wealthy Vanger Corporation) to solve the 40-year old murder of his niece.  There’s a family full of suspects to investigate, all living nearby on a secluded island off the coast of Sweden. But what makes things different this time is the use of technology (primarily by hacker Lisbeth) to track down and analyse clues.  One wonders how a supercomputer (or future A. I. program) would perform at this same task.  I guess it wouldn’t end up risking its own life in a confrontation with the villain of the piece.  As could be expected, the mise-en-scene here is all wintry grey which sets the mood but feels cliché at this point (or perhaps all of those Scandinavian Noir tv series came after this?).  David Fincher remade this film for Hollywood but I’m not sure whether it is worth taking a look (at some distant point in the future) or even whether I should check out the subsequent two installments.  From the books by Stieg Larsson.

  

Karami-Ai (The Inheritance) (1962)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Karami-Ai (The Inheritance) (1962) – M. Kobayashi

Kobayashi’s darkly comic and noirish tale of the quest of a dying executive (Sô Yamamura) to find his three illegitimate children and determine whether to include them in his will pulls no punches in its examination of human greed.  Perhaps his capricious act, which deliberately disadvantages his younger wife (Misako Watanabe; with whom his relationship is cold and distant), inspires her to plot with her ex-lover (Minoru Chiaki; also in her husband’s firm) to steal more of the inheritance (a sizeable sum). But this doesn’t explain why the dying man’s lawyer (Seiji Miyaguchi) and his assistant (Tatsuya Nakadai) also plot to gain some (or all) of the money, after being charged with finding one of the children (all of whom turn out to be less than virtuous themselves). Seemingly, he isn’t a very nice man. Only the executive’s loyal secretary (Keiko Kishi, first billed) stays pure-of-intention even as her boss takes advantage of her and treats her selfishly. With numerous surprising plot twists and a shifting set of alliances, the finale still comes mostly as a shock, even though director Masaki Kobayashi’s decision to frame the bulk of the story as a flashback gives something away (the surprise is in how she did it rather than that she did it).  Gorgeous in its black and white cinematography and nicely directed in that slightly ostentatious early 60s manner, this fills the gap between the director’s masterpieces: The Human Condition trilogy and Hara-Kiri.   

 

Longlegs (2024)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Longlegs (2024) – O. Perkins

Director Osgood Perkins (son of Psycho’s Anthony Perkins) knew exactly what he needed to steal to make this serial killer horror film a success. But it isn’t quite stealing if it adds up to something new, is it? Let’s just call it another entry in the evergreen genre that includes The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Se7en (1995), and dozens of lesser entries. But Longlegs also takes some cues from horror films that include subliminal images, such as the Exorcist (1974) with which it also shares a demonic theme; keep an eye out. (Can it simultaneously be in the serial killer genre and the Satanic Panic genre?).  Maika Monroe plays the Clarice Starling role as a young FBI agent who discovers that tracking a serial killer unexpectedly reveals things about her own past (she’s also psychic, which adds an extra spooky dimension to proceedings).  Teamed with Blair Underwood’s Agent Carter, she draws clues together from the letters (in code) that Longlegs leaves behind (a la Zodiac, 2007) and the not-quite-coincidental details that link the cases (all of which involve a father killing his entire family, including a daughter born on the 14^th day of the month, and then himself). Eventually this leads to the killer who turns out to be a T.Rex-loving Nicolas Cage, unrecognisable in Buffalo Bill drag.  He’s weird, even weirder than usual.  The plot then moves slowly and inexorably to its conclusion.  Is it crammed too full with disparate elements? Maybe. Things mostly make sense if you are willing to accept a certain supernatural logic. Ultimately, it’s a solid entry to the genre but perhaps one step down(stairs). Worth seeing.

 

Foxy Brown (1974)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Foxy Brown (1974) – J. Hill

Earlier this year, I read Quentin Tarantino’s book about his favourite movies when growing up (Cinema Speculation, 2022) and while Foxy Brown wasn’t explicitly mentioned, parts of the book read like an ode to blaxploitation.  It isn’t coincidental that he later chose to revive Pam Grier’s flagging career by casting her as the lead in Jackie Brown (1997), one of his best movies (thanks to Grier and the late Robert Forster).  Surprisingly, blaxploitation is one of my blind spots, so I decided to check out this classic – and for all its obvious datedness, it holds up.  Grier plays Foxy whose brother (Antonio Fargas) is a drug dealer but whose boyfriend (Terry Carter) is an undercover narcotics agent. After the latter is gunned down, she plots her revenge by going undercover in the “modelling agency” run by drug ring kingpins Miss Katherine (Kathryn Loder) and (chief baddie) Steve Elias (Peter Brown). When her cover is blown and she’s shot up with heroin and subjected to unwanted attention by henchmen out at the ranch, she escapes and enlists the local neighborhood action committee (also focused on wiping out the scourge of drug dealers) to help her get her revenge.  Expect sex and violence and a superbad Pam Grier.

 

Ghost Stories (2017)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Ghost Stories (2017) – J. Dyson & A. Nyman

I’m always searching for a supernatural chiller that lives up to my expectations, but, alas, Ghost Stories did not. Co-director (with Jeremy Dyson) Andy Nyman stars as Prof. Philip Goodman, a psychic debunker who is provided with a series of three cases that an earlier debunker could not prove false. The three stories are then re-enacted as Goodman interviews each participant (providing a framing device much like those used in the horror anthologies from Amicus Productions in the ‘60s and ‘70s).  Although the re-enactments do offer some spooky moments – they tend to fizzle out, leaving viewers wondering why they were so likely to be truly supernatural.  Worse, Goodman ends up inserted into some of the stories and then the framing device concludes with what is meant to be a clever twist.  I’ll keep searching.