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The Gentlemen 2019 ★★★˝
This one had been spending some time in my watchlist. But it was not until it was recommended to me by a guy I had not seen in ages that I really decided to give it a go. Especially after it popped up on a TV channel's streaming platform. That's the upside to them airing a lot of films and putting all of them on their platform.
Guy Ritchie delivers a solid bit of gangster drama in the style that we're used to. At least this is about weed rather than coke or smack and the tone makes you hope for a forshadowing nature. It also has a good lead in Matthew McCougnahey with bits of both his usual charm and of his Killer Joe-callousness.
Now the first half of this movie mostly is not about him, but about a weazle-ish, slimy PI (Hugh Grant as a dirtbag tabloid version of his romcom parts) and Charlie Hunnam (here the classy version of Connor McGregor in a suit) who tell the story of the rise of Mickey Pearson and his position going in. Sort of similar to Layer Cake, save Daniel Craig is a different kind of cool.
Suffice it to say it involves Russians, Chinese mobsters, one villain with terrible Cantonese and a bit of a Jeff Goldblum-vibe and some twists and turns. Nothing mindboggling, but the former mister Madonna knows what he is good at and thus does so.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
No! Of course not!
For the people who liked Lock, Stock and so on or Snatch. Or fans of Brit crime in general.
The First Omen 2024 ★★★★
This is a worthy prequel to the classic The Omen. You can watch the two back to back and it does not lag all that much.
The cinematography is really well done: the introduction of the main characters, the set up, the building up of the tension, the setting the mood,... Even when they are trying to reassure Margaret, director Arkasha Stevenson manages to set up this subtle atmosphere where you can tell that there is more lurking underneath the surface.
Also, and this is a real plus these days: the callbacks to the original never come across as overly forced or in your face or what not. Father Brennan is in here for logical reasons – he has to be in here because of the connection with the 1976 movie – and Ralph Ineson not only portrays him well, but the make up department even managed to give him a bit of a resemblance to the original Brennan. Same goes with the suicide scene. It never felt like “oh, they're doing the thing because the other people did the thing”. It all flowed naturally.
Speaking of which... when called for, the gore did not hold back. Where the nanny just killed herself in The Omen, this one sets herself on fire as well. And this movie sees the decapitation scene from the original and says “hold my beer”. Not going to spoil it, but it has an equally high wow-factor. Holy crap.
It's not all great. There are always things to nitpick.
Finding the mark on Carlita (excellently played by Nicole Sorace) could not help but look a bit silly. Really, nowhere else to go? Then again, the second whammy reveal is done much better.
Bill Nighy does a good job and I know this is mostly on me. I'm so used to seeing him in comedy roles that I half expect him to crack a joke any minute. But he did win me over over the course of the movie. Good job, there.
Also, the final scene felt a bit tacked on. The scene in the car with the picture and the exposition was a perfect place to stop and that last scene, apart from offering a moment of respite and cosiness, did not really have that much to offer.
As you can (hopefully) tell from my phrasing, these are nitpicks. This is a geat horror movie and I could be mistaking, but I'm starting to believe that we might be in the middle of a new golden age (with Hereditary, Get Out, A quiet place and a handful of others) and I hope that time and future releases will prove me right.
Ride Baby Ride 2023 ★★★˝
The car salesman look a bit cartoony, but the clash with the car makes for a very entertaining, more body horror focused version of Christine. Yeah, obvious comparison. What of it?
Still fun, though.
Pruning 2023 ★★★ Watched 09 Apr 2024
An interesting "humans are the real monsters" short on the rise of a pundit (probably inspired by Ann Coulter, Tommi Lahren and the likes). The horror is in the hallucinations - again, probably meant to go with her ideas spinning out of control.
The "vomit" scene makes for a disturbing visual that earns this short its third star.
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