The Man Who Fell To Earth: https://boxd.it/1xJBQD ⭐ The Invisible Guest: https://boxd.it/1xTQI5 ⭐⭐ Die Hard 2: https://boxd.it/1yfn0R ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Revolution of the Daleks: https://boxd.it/1yo4uL ⭐ Whiplash: https://boxd.it/1yDf87 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Happy New Year fellow film lovers! This week we had a very volatile movie-going experience, beginning with a film we wanted to love but were bored out of our minds. The Man Who Fell To Earth (Roeg, 1976) is an arduous exploration of a stranger in a strange land, given a special spark by David Bowie, who is the only saving grace of this straining, overly avant-garde project. The plot seemingly goes nowhere, made frustrating to watch by Clark’s constant screeching. At the very least, we found some solace in chess, which we begun playing to save us from what felt like a waste of time, the otherwise incongrous music lending itself to an admitedly nice background atmosphere.
The Man Who Fell To Earth: https://boxd.it/1xJBQD ⭐
Next is a slightly better film, though not by much. The Invisible Guest (Paulo, 2016) – though it’s funny they should change the name, as it’s actually called Against Time – is a Spanish production that thinks is cleverer than it actually is. With an attempt to straddle the line between a whodunit and police interrogation – in a similar vein to the Criminal series on Netflix – it fails utterly to establish who the characters are, why we should care, and what their thought processes could possibly be to make such stupid decisions. The many ‘twists’ that it boasts are visible from such a distance that it can become a very confusing experience when they are treated as twists to begin with. We’d previously watched another film by Paulo earlier in the year, Mirage (2018) – which we again find amusing that the title should be changed from During The Storm – a film that at least understood what it was and how to maximise enjoyment from a silly concept, as opposed to pretending it’s anywhere close to being cerebral.
The Invisible Guest: https://boxd.it/1xTQI5 ⭐⭐
But finally, Die Hard 2 (Harlin, 1990) gave us the respite we soarly needed. This is a film that is lower rated than the two above, yet we nevertheless found it refreshingly fun to watch. Perhaps it’s not as good as the first – as the plot is very similar while featuring a villain who is nowhere near as memorable as Rickman’s immortal performance – but every second continues to deliver thrills and laughter through a Willis who actually enjoys his job, spouting fantastic dialogue amidst awesome action set-pieces and two of the most beautiful explosions ever put to film. This was definitely a worthy film to celebrate the start of a new year to.
Die Hard 2: https://boxd.it/1yfn0R ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Nevertheless, we must now return to the heights of abysmal with the newest episode of Doctor Who. We count this as a film as a) it’s annoyingly feature length and b) it’s on Letterboxd. Revolution of the Daleks (Jones, 2021) is by no means the worst episode of the Chibnall era, though that isn’t exactly saying much considering the laughably consistent quality of Series 11 and 12. Doubling down on atrocious dialogue, grating performances, depressing production design and amateurish cinematography, this New Year special sucks all the life out of the fun we felt with Die Hard and spits it back into our face to make us worried about whether this will be an omen for the rest of the year.
Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks: https://boxd.it/1yo4uL ⭐
But fear not, as we couldn’t possibly end the week on such a dissonant note. Coming in the nick of time to save our souls is Whiplash (Chazelle, 2014), which we were absolutely blown away by. Strange, considering how much we hated La La Land (2016), but we are certainly glad to have given Chazelle a second chance with such a masterpiece. Simmons may be the highlight of this film – his bipolar character lending to the most horrifying moments while paradoxically making us laugh with how endearingly detestable he could be – but every element of film is brought together beautifully to create a story of how an undying ambition to become the best can utterly break a person and cause the value of greatness to diminish. And, of course, the sheer power of the music featured in this film can be felt right down to the core. Beginning as the pounding of drums, the natural grace of jazz fuses into Teller’s performance, turning the blood and sweat that drip onto his instrument into tears of joy as the film – and, subsequently, our uneven week – ends on an unbreakably high note.
Whiplash: https://boxd.it/1yDf87 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
