Review #61 THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN (1982, Boaz Davidson)

 

* * * * 

Three horny teenage boys pursue girls in suburban Los Angeles.

Starring  Lawrence Monoson, Diane Franklin, Steve Antin, Joe Rubbo, Louisa Moritz

Written by  Boaz Davidson   

Produced by  Yoram Globus, Menahem Golan, David Womark   

Duration  92 minutes   

 

PORKY'S. REVENGE OF THE NERDS. SCREWBALLS. LOSIN’ IT. HARDBODIES. SPRING BREAK. THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN.

One of these 1980s teen sex romps is not like the others.

Despite coming from the less-than-reputable Canon Films – known for such dubious output as SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE and MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, as well as for igniting/prolonging the careers of Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, and Charles Bronson – THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN turns out to be a pleasant surprise. It’s not what I expected at all; well, it does have everything I expected in it, but also a lot more besides, making it unique among its peers.

It doesn't stand out just because its director, Boaz Davidson, took the uncommon step of remaking his own film: AMERICAN VIRGIN is a US-based version the Israeli LEMON POPSICLE. Other members of this exclusive self-remaking club include Alfred Hitchcock (THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, 1934/1956), Michael Haneke (FUNNY GAMES, 1997/2007), John Woo (THE KILLER, 1989/2024) and Michael Mann (kind of – he expanded his 1989 TV movie LA TAKEDOWN into HEAT in 1995).

AMERICAN VIRGIN isn't notable for having a cast who went onto bigger things, either. There's only Kimmy Robertson, years before portraying dim-witted secretary Lucy Moran on Twin Peaks, and Diane Franklin who would go on to feature in BETTER OFF DEAD and BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE. Probably the biggest up-and-comer is found on the other side of the camera. The film looks unexpectedly great, due to being lensed by Adam Greenberg, the cinematographer who had ALIEN NATION, GHOST, NEAR DARK and both of James Cameron’s TERMINATOR movies in his future.

It also doesn't stand out in terms of plot. It's a pretty loose affair, mostly tying together a series of misadventures – at first comical, then more serious. The sensitive nice guy from three best buddies is infatuated with a new girl at school, but his more studly and less ethical mate gets in with her first. Meanwhile, their other, chubbier pal wears sunglasses indoors, talks about ‘partying’ a lot and provides frequent plus-sized comic relief.

So, while it may not be distinctive for any of those reasons, let me give you a flavour of what the cinematic artifact named THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN is.

It’s luring some girls you just met in a diner back to your parent-free house with the promise of Class-A drugs, then surreptitiously racking up lines of Sweet N Low on a mirror – which they gleefully snort, declaring "This is the best Columbian we’ve ever had!"

It’s strutting into a pool party with your collar up and your hair slicked back, tearing open a pack of Marlboro Reds and swigging Jack Daniels straight from the bottle. Then when you return home and drunkenly burst through the front door and interrupt your parents' sophisticated dinner party, you try to seduce the most stern-looking matriarch in attendance before collapsing into the table, sending the plates flying.

It’s delivering a pizza to a nymphomaniac cougar, and then returning to her apartment again with your two mates in tow so you can take turns having sex with her, peeking in on each other through the keyhole. And when her husband comes home, he totally buys her explanation that there are half-naked teenagers in the house because she was "giving them Spanish lessons."

It’s parking on the beach so you can furiously make out in the back seat of a convertible and kicking the handbrake off in the throes of passion, and then being so preoccupied that you don't even notice that you’re drenched with sea water because the car's rolled into the surf.

It’s catching the nerdiest guy in gym class spying on the girls’ showers through a peephole (a la PORKY’S), and when he then claims to possess the largest penis in school deciding to line up all your schoolmates and measure their erections one by one with a ruler. And it turns out the nerd was right.

It’s hiring LA’s least sympathetic prostitute so you can lose your virginity, and then feeling worse after the deed is done than you did before – and not just because of the resultant STD.

It’s also practically a music video montage with a movie in between, years before MTV. And the early ’80s soundtrack is stellar, not to be beaten until the video game GTA: Vice City, with which it shares some songs. 

Among others, the track list includes:

‘De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da’ – The Police

‘Whip It’ – Devo

‘Better Luck Next Time’ – Oingo Boingo

‘In the Flesh’ – Blondie

‘Oh No’ – The Commodores

‘Open Arms’ – Journey

‘Keep on Loving You’ – REO Speedwagon

‘Love Action’ – The Human League

‘Shake It Up’ – The Cars

‘I Will Follow’ – U2

 

But also, and ultimately, it turns out to be a lot more soulful and earnest than the raunchy tone, bawdy dialogue and excessive nudity of its early stretch suggests. Two thirds through there's a plot development similar to that in 1982’s FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, another movie that rises above this genre’s trappings: sensitively handled unwanted teenage pregnancy.

So, yeah. We like these kids. We don’t judge them for being young and led by their impulses. We end up invested in their dodgy decisions and flawed but ultimately well-meaning pursuits. 

And the movie has one of the all-time gut-punch endings of the ’80s, maybe even up there with the decade’s ultimate downer denouement from David Cronenberg’s THE FLY.

I can’t believe I’m going to give THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN this rating, but ... yep, there you go.

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  The original LEMON POPSICLE spawned eight sequels in its native land, so although this movie had no follow-ups (and yet we got four installments of both PORKY’S and REVENGE OF THE NERDS!), there were plenty more virgins left out there.

What would a movie called THE FIRST AMERICAN VIRGIN be about?  Maybe a teen sex romp mashed-up with 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE?

Previously:  LAST TANGO IN PARIS

Next time:  TOXIC AVENGER PART III: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #60 LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1972, Bernardo Bertolucci)

 

* * 

When two strangers meet in Paris and become lovers, they try to keep things purely impersonal.

Starring  Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Giovanna Galletti, Jean-Pierre Léaud

Written by  Bernardo Bertolucci, Franco Arcalli

Produced by  Alberto Grimaldi

Duration  129 minutes  

   

For Christmas when I was 12, I was given my own television, which I proudly set up on a shelf at the end of my bed. Oh, the late-night hours I was to spend glued to that little black 14-inch Panasonic, scouring the paltry four UK terrestrial channels.

I remember the first film I watched. As I lay in bed with Christmas Day about to turn into Boxing Day, PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM came on. Woody Allen portraying his usual nebbish unlucky-in-love intellectual, this time taking dating advice from a beyond-the-grave Humphrey Bogart.

I used to discover loads of films in this way. My love of David Cronenberg started by catching BBC 2 screenings of THE FLY and VIDEODROME. There I was, awake past midnight with school the next day, trying to wrap my head around James Woods misplacing a handgun inside his own abdomen.

And I can remember coming into class one morning and seeking out my best friend to confirm that – yes! He did also stumble last night upon a bizarre film where a guy puts on a pair of sunglasses that reveal the truths hitherto concealed by an invasion of capitalist aliens. It’s likely that we both missed the credits, so didn’t even yet know that film was called THEY LIVE or that it was directed by THE THING and HALLOWEEN’s John Carpenter.

These days, discovering random movies on late-night TV is next to impossible. It’s partly because although the number of channels has increased, the range is much narrower. If ITV4 decides to put something like HOT FUZZ on, then the channel will do so 10 times in the course of a fortnight. It’s partly because instead of filling the twilight hours with obscure filmic treats, often they put infomercials on repeat. And it’s partly because, in the streaming age, people just don’t tend to consume their media at home in the same channel-hopping way.

It’s also rare to stumble upon any surprise delights on streaming, due to poor navigation and a generally pretty vanilla line-up. Although Amazon Prime actually has some pretty great genre stuff, if you can find it.

All of which brings me to LAST TANGO IN PARIS. This feels like the kind of sordid, boundries-pushing thing that I used to come across and keep watching into the wee hours, not knowing how far it was going to go. Although, as it turns out, on that occasion it wouldn't have been worth staying awake for.

I had never seen the film until now, and by now of course I knew plenty about it. Its explicit content caused controversy when it was released in 1972, but the other reason I had no chance of watching LAST TANGO baggage-free was the same thing that delivers our Netflix, Prime, Paramount Plus, et al: the internet. Tales of what went on during filming are rife online – especially in recent years, with lead actress Maria Schneider revealing that the infamous rape scene ("Get the butter!") was improvised on set and left her feeling violated for real.

So was with a feeling of distaste that I fired up the movie. But wait. It starts with smooth jazz over shots of Francis Bacon paintings. The lush cinematography is by Vittorio Storaro (APOCALYPSE NOW, other Bertolucci joints like 1900 and THE LAST EMPEROR). It’s set in Goddamn Paris. Gosh, this is clearly going to be a real classy experience. Isn’t it?

Not really.

Marlon Brando is introduced, stumbling about in anguish by himself on the streets of the French capital. Disheveled, long coat flapping about, hair a mess. He spies a young woman (Schneider) and follows her. Turns out she is on her way to view a flat, so he gives it his appraisal at the same time.

Then, instead of going home to weigh up the location and per-calendar-month rent, old Marlon (and we are talking old: this is far from the hunk of THE WILD ONE or A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE) pounces on Maria and they roll around on the carpet having impromptu sex.

He rents the place and the two strangers embark upon a no-strings, no-names affair, never meeting outside the confines of the apartment.

Well, it’s an affair for her, at least – she has a fiancé, some kind of pretentious filmmaker (irony from Bertolucci?) who has cast her in his latest masterpiece. As for Brando, one of the few things we learn about him is that his wife has just committed suicide, so he’s definitely has his status set to available.

In between their romps, Marlon recounts long stories about his childhood, like an incident where he saw some sheep and milked a cow. He shouts at her sometimes during sudden bursts of anger. They make animal noises at each other. They spend a lot of time on the floor – there is a mattress, but it lacks a bedframe. Brando finds a dead rat and jokes about making Maria eat it. For some reason, this beautiful and intelligent young woman (Schneider looks a bit like Linda Blair, circa EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC) keeps coming back to one of the most unpleasant characters in the history of cinema.

"Your solitude weighs on me," she tells him at one point. And Brando does kill it in the role: crying a lot, wailing in agony, standing over his wife’s corpse and referring to her as a "pig-fucker" ... Come to think of it, there are a lot of references to animals in this movie. Is this because their purely sexual relationship has reduced our protagonists to the level of beasts? There’s probably a dissertation about that on a website somewhere, among the rest of the LAST TANGO discourse.

One thing I hadn’t read about it online was how terrible the sound mixing is. You know those films where you have to turn the volume down for the action scenes, then back up again when you can’t hear the conversational parts? This one does that with its music, an unsubtle score, presumably supposed to be stirring, that swells up seemingly at random to jolt you right out of the moment.

Overall, LAST TANGO IN PARIS is an historical curio rather than a film worth watching today. See it if you want to find out what controversy looked like 50 years ago. You’ll have to actively seek it out, of course, as well as dealing with all its baggage. But I wouldn’t go to the trouble.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Spoiler alert: Marlon dies at the end. Double spoiler: it’s from a gunshot wound administered by Maria. Talk about getting a good banging ( … sorry.)

What would a movie called FIRST TANGO IN PARIS be about?  The ‘happy’ couple do actually dance a tango towards the end, but it’s as ill-conceived and haphazard as the rest of their ‘relationship’.

Previously:  TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT

Next time:  THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #59 TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (2017, Michael Bay)

 

* * 

Fifth go around for the oft-disguised robots, this time with something about Arthurian legend mixed into the usual MacGuffin hunt.

Starring  Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, Laura Haddock, Stanley Tucci, John Turturro, Anthony Hopkins  

Written by  Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, Ken Nolan   

Produced by  Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Tom DeSanto, Don Murphy, Ian Bryce   

Duration  153 minutes   

   

INT. BAY RESIDENCE, LOS ANGELES, CA. - DAY (CIRCA 2013)

A beautiful beachside Malibu property.

In the centre of the vast OPEN-PLAN LIVING ROOM sits 51-year-old MICHAEL BAY. He is surrounded by PILES OF TOYS: cars, robots, robots that can turn into cars.

Michael, wearing official TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION PYJAMAS, is engrossed in his play: BASHING TWO TOYS TOGETHER repeatedly.

MICHAEL

Pow! Smash! Take that!

As Michael carries on with his bashing, a FEMALE VOICE CALLS OUT to him from another room.

MRS. BAY (O/S)

Michael?

Michael DOESN'T LOOK UP from his game.

MRS. BAY (O/S)

Michael!

MICHEAL

Yeah?

He still doesn’t let himself be interrupted. We hear FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING.

MRS. BAY, Michael’s mother, enters the room. She is A VERY ELDERLY LADY, wearing an APRON.

MRS. BAY

Michael, guess who I just got off the phone with?

Michael just SHRUGS and continues BASHING AWAY.

MRS. BAY

Your friend Mark’s mother.

Michael BRIGHTENS UP, although he still DOESN'T STOP PLAYING.

MICHAEL

Marky Mark!

MRS. BAY

Yes, and can you guess what Mrs. Wahlberg told me?

Michael HESITATES, then resumes BASHING WITH ADDED VENOM.

MRS. BAY

Can you, Michael?

MICHAEL

No...

MRS. BAY

Mrs. Wahlberg told me that you’ve signed up for yet another TRANSFORMERS movie.

Michael ignores her, but his game INCREASES IN INTENSITY.

MRS. BAY (CONT'D)

And I told Mrs. Wahlberg that she must be mistaken, because my son, my Michael, he promised me that he was done with those awful films. That after I allowed him to make a fourth, he would never go back on his word and make a fifth!

SMASH! Michael's BROKEN A PIECE off of one of his toys.

MICHAEL

Aw, Mom! That was Starscream! Limited edition!

MRS. BAY

Micheal! Look at me when I'm talking to you.

Reluctantly, Michael puts down his toys and TURNS AROUND.

MRS. BAY (CONT'D)

I know you like to play with your toys. I know you like to play with Marky. But this has gone on far too long.

MICHAEL

But Mom ...

MRS. BAY

But what?

MICHAEL

But Mom!

MRS. BAY

Just give me one good reason I shouldn’t call up Paramount Pictures right now and tell them that you’re not doing the movie.

Michael SCOWLS at his mother. Then a SLY SMILE spreads across his face.

MICHAEL

One point one zero four billion dollars.

MRS. BAY

Excuse me?

MICHAEL

One point one zero four billion. Transformers: Age of Extinction's worldwide gross.

Mrs. Bay THINKS for a beat.

MRS. BAY

Fine. But this is the last time.

She storms out the room and Michael returns to his toys, SMILING ONCE AGAIN.

FADE OUT

Alright, look. I’m not going to bother being all snidey and supercilious here. These are movies about giant robot aliens that turn into vehicles clobbering the shit (oil?) out of each other. If that's what you want to watch, then fine – that’s what you get.

And when I saw the first TRANSFORMERS movie in the cinema during the summer of 2007, I enjoyed it! It was fast, it was entertaining, it was fine. I didn’t walk out eager to see more, but it had done its job. I haven’t been compelled to watch another one since, until now.

But whilst complaining about these stupid movies being stupid seems churlish, I do have a bone to pick with their excess. No, not the amount of CGI spectacle, or the noise, or the childish humour. And not the argument that Michael Bay should have quit long before he got as far as helming a quintology.

No, it’s a different kind of excess that I must bemoan here: not of content or quantity, but of length.

Why do these films always have to be so damned long? Do fixed release dates mean that there’s not enough time to whittle down the assembly cut? Is so much money spent on effects that there is a contractual obligation to show it all on screen? Or is it just ego on our director’s part, connecting length with quality, a variant on ‘bigger is better’?

It certainly seems counter-intuitive when cinema chains go on about wanting films shorter so they can cram in more screenings.

And nearly as long as the TRANSFORMERS movies' running times is the list of supporting roles they've given to respectable actors, slumming it for a paycheque. By this fifth film, we've had: John Turturro, Jon Voight, Kevin Dunn, Rainn Wilson, Patrick Dempsey, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Alan Tudyk, Kelsey Grammer, Jack Reynor, Stanley Tucci, Sophia Myles, and Anthony Hopkins.

And that's only the ones who appear in person – there are plenty more who have just lent their voices to the big hulking machines.

So, putting a lens on this fifth instalment, can stretching all this onscreen talent out to a bladder-testing duration help deliver anything worth all that time, money and gravitas?

Two hours and 34 minutes later, let me report back on the highlights:

– Tony Hopkins plays a tweed-wearing aristocrat, introduced in some fuck-off stately home with the informative title card "England, UK". I like how they couldn’t be bothered to glance at a map and come up with a location any more specific than that. Meanwhile, when John Turturro is shown in Havana, having a conversation about goat scrotums (don't ask), we're informed that it is Havana – not "Cuba, South America".

– Upon meeting Mark Wahlberg, Oscar-winner Hopkins addresses him with a drawn out "duuuuude", as if trying to emulate a DAZED AND CONFUSED-era Matthew McConaughey. Of this I heartily approve.

– Jim Carter, most famous as one of the ‘downstairs’ people in Downton Abbey, here plays a C-3PO-type robot who attacks Wahlberg with kung-fu moves in a glass lift after taking offence at being compared to a leprechaun.

– In the midst of an action scene, someone breathlessly says the line "This shouldn’t happen to a tax-paying American!" and then follows it up immediately with "… Well, not that I pay any taxes." This film has four credited writers.

– Composer Steve Jablonsky joins the ranks of musicians to have emerged from Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions with the intention of sounding exactly like der Master. In doing so, Jablonsky contributes to the illusion that Zimmer  has scored every major motion picture from the past 30 years – when in reality, it’s only been about half of them. 

(See also: Harry Gregson-Williams [DOMINO, THE MARTIAN], Nick Glennie-Smith [THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK, WE WERE SOLDIERS], Brian Tyler [THE EXPENDABLES, FAST FIVE], Trevor Rabin [ARMAGEDDON, BAD BOYS II], John Powell [FACE/OFF, PAYCHECK], etc.)

– Out of the blue, there’s a flashback to some of the transformers kicking Nazi ass in 1940's Germany, which is kind of like INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS meets … um, TRANSFORMERS.

– During a car chase where our heroes are hurtling through London’s square mile, they manage to make the streets look at least somewhat populated, which is more than I can say for some movies from this era.

– When Wahlberg is called upon to do some serious acting during the film’s melodramatic climax, I couldn’t help recalling the more intense moments of BOOGIE NIGHTS, when his Eddie Adams/Dirk Diggler is ranting away in a strung-out, coked-up state after getting involved in some fucked up scrapes during the comedown ’80s. The crossover possibilities don’t really bear thinking about …

So then, was it all worth it? Only to the tune of two stars. That means, in theory, that if the movie had been three fifths shorter, it would have been an acceptable drain on my time.

Unfortunately, I don't think a 61-minute truncated director’s cut of TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT will be coming anytime soon ...

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Try asking ex-cricketer Sir Alastair Cook, Formula 1 driver Sir Lewis Hamilton and director Sir Sam Mendes – all of whom have been knighted since this film came out.

What would a movie called TRANSFORMERS: THE FIRST KNIGHT be about?  Maybe it would be a movie where all the actors who only supplied their voices to instalments of this saga instead had parts in front of the camera. Hugo Weaving, Tony Todd, Leonard Nimoy, James Remar, John Goodman, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Steve Buscemi ... I could go on. But I won't.

Previously:  THE LAST EXORCISM

Next time:  LAST TANGO IN PARIS

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #58 THE LAST EXORCISM (2010, Daniel Stamm)

 

* * *

A phoney exorcist is out of his depth when he takes on a case that may be the real deal.

Starring  Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr, Louis Herthum, Caleb Landry Jones

Written by  Huck Botko, Andrew Gurland   

Produced by  Eric Newman, Eli Roth, Marc Abraham, Thomas A Bliss   

Duration  87 minutes   

There are certain types of movie which have that one shining example that’s just so definitive, so representative, so brilliant, that filmmakers are on a hiding to nothing if they try to take a fresh stab at it.

Disaster movies, for instance. No one’s ever really topped THE POSIDON ADVENTURE (1972). THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974) came close, and from the ’90s resurgence, INDEPENDENCE DAY will always be up there. But you can’t beat the rugged reliability of ’70s Gene Hackman and the smirk of Ernest Borgnine, backed up by Shelley Winter’s hysteria and Roddy McDowall's preening.

Forbidden love? It’s never been depicted more heartbreakingly than in BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945). Especially Celia Johnson's voiceover, where she confides to us that her husband would actually get along with the man who is tempting her – while knowing that the three of them all becoming friends is impossible.

Gangster rise and fall? The 1982 SCARFACE is the final word. How do you match the definitive over-the-top Pacino performance in a career defined by them? Or Oliver Stone’s highly quotable script, set to Georgio Moroder's moody synth-dread score?

And here’s one more for ya: THE EXORCIST.

There have already been various poor sequels to cinema’s seminal work about possession (although number three wasn’t bad) and, recently, David Gordon Green’s reboot (which I’m yet to see, but is supposed to be awful). The exorcism sub-genre has been dragged through the mud somewhat, the nadir being 1990 satire REPOSSESSED, which brought back original demon host Linda Blair and paired her with spoof king Leslie Nielsen.

Nonetheless, the makers of THE LAST EXORCISM decided to give it a go – possibly emboldened by a turn in the fortunes of exorcism movies in more recent years. THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE was a success five years before, and similar efforts like THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT (2009) had also done well.

But while I don't personally love the original EXORCIST as much as some people do (notably critic Mark Kermode), the cultural impact of that 1973 hit is such that no number of similarly-themed efforts will ever be able to swerve the comparison.

Nevertheless, I myself will conduct this review with complete objectivity and not mention THE EXORCIST again. So, alright then: is THE LAST EXORCISM any cop?

At first, when a pre-BETTER CALL SAUL Patrick Fabian (AKA Howard Hamlin) is being videotaped at home, the movie appears to be found footage. OK, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's definitely a choice that elicits caution in the viewer.

But wait! An establishing shot? Title cards? It’s not found footage at all, it’s a mockumentary! In the great tradition of THIS IS SPINAL TAP, the BORAT movies, and the first part of DISTRICT 9, before they gave up on the idea. Plus, in 2010 the US Office was still on and Parks and Recreation had just started, so I guess mockumentaries were currently in vogue.

This aesthetic decision is especially interesting when you consider that the director of THE EXORCIST himself, William Friedkin, started out making actual documentaries – including THE PEOPLE VS PAUL CRUMP (1962), about a death row convict who Friedkin believes is innocent. Obviously, THE EXORCIST is not a docu or a mocku, but nevertheless the clinical, unfussy style Friedkin developed from his days with non-fiction helped give that classic its raw power.

Shit. Three paragraphs later and already I'm back making comparisons to THE EXORCIST.

Well, anyway, in LAST EXORCISM, your man Fabian plays our documentary subject, a flamboyant preacher who comea from a long line of them. And it turns out his is also a family of exorcists, with demon-extraction being something else he has followed ‘Daddy’ (this is Louisiana) into, as he tells us while proudly showing off the clipping "Aged 10, local boy delivers first exorcism". And LAST EXORCISM not only uses the ‘E’ word in its title, but even positions itself in a world where that famous film exists. "It's not just the Catholics who perform them," Fabian explains, "but, you know, they got the movie, so ..."

And soon, we get the revelation that our so-called man of God doesn’t even believe in the spirit world; that he has gone through with however many so-called exorcisms without seeing any actual evidence. Thus, the point of him partaking in this documentary: he's heading out to families who've written to him about ghosts they need busted, the idea being he'll show the docu filmmakers how truly bollocks the whole thing is.

So on the road we go, to rural Texas, where a farmer claims that his daughter has been romping around at night and slaughtering the cattle, in a state of not being all herself. And would you believe it? Cocky old Fabian’s charlatan antics end up colliding with his first ever genuine paranormal incident!

(Beyond plot predictability, casting the creepy Caleb Landry Jones as the girl’s brother is an immediate red flag. See also ANTIVIRAL, HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT, GET OUT ...)

But flippancy aside, it’s not a criticism to call the direction the story takes unsurprising – that would be like chastising an action movie for having fights and car chases and explosions. The skill is in the execution.

And it’s pretty good! There are creepy performances and startling images; Fabian gets increasingly out of his depth as the family’s unseemly past comes to light; the documentary crew come out from behind the camera and get involved; and it all reaches a suitably bonkers climax, reminiscent of the brilliant KILL LIST, released the year after.

So, I ended up being glad that director Daniel Stamm refused to be over-awed by history and gave his own vision a go. Watch this space to see whether the confusingly titled sequel, THE LAST EXORCISM: PART II, warrants the same praise ...   

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  If anything, discovering a real case of possession will mean that the exorcisms are gonna just keep on coming.

What would a movie called THE FIRST EXORCISM be about?  Friedkin passed away in 2023, so that’s a good excuse to check out the original movie. And might I also suggest THE GUARDIAN (1990), his return to horror and a masterpiece of so-bad-it’s-goodness?  

Three stars out of five.

Previously:  LAST RIDE 

Next time:  TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #57 LAST RIDE (2009, Glendyn Ivin)

 

* * *

A young boy accompanies his fugitive father across Australia.

Starring  Hugo Weaving, Tom Russell

Written by  Mac Gudgeon

Produced by  Antonia Barnard, Nicholas Cole, Anthony Maras   

Duration  101 minutes   

Sometimes a film comes along that you don’t like overall, and yet it possesses one element that really leaves an impression.

It could be memorable dialogue, that you find yourself repeating from time to time or which contains sage advice. There may be one classic scene, or breathtaking cinematography. Or it could be more to do with the story, that it poses some kind of poignant dilemma. It may be the score, a theme that you find yourself regularly humming, to the point that you simply have to buy the soundtrack – despite not actually owning the film itself.

Another of these standout elements may be the performances, or one performance in particular. This happened to me once regarding Hugo Weaving, star of LAST RIDE.

The film in question is THE MATRIX.

I used to consider THE MATRIX one of the most overrated movies of the ’90s. As the years have gone by, my opinion has changed. I've now come to think of it as one of the most overrated movies ever.

I don't think I've ever been so disappointed or so confused by the hype as I was when I left the Odeon cinema Bromley aged 16 in June 1999. I tried watching this supposed masterpiece again, first on VHS, then on TV, then on DVD. And each time my opinion of the movie only went further south.

The most frustrating thing about THE MATRIX is that not only is it one if those films that has infected popular culture to the degree that any criticism of it is considered blasphemy, but it has subsequently had sequels that it is OK to slag off. This has insulated the first film from criticism – despite the fact that all of the things people didn’t like in the follow-ups were already there from the very start.

So, whenever you suggest that maybe THE MATRIX is tediously self-serious and full of not very clever or original philosophising, that it's way overlong in the middle with too much time spent with annoying secondary characters, and that its action sequences contain all the thrills and peril of PlayStation 1 cut-scenes, the recipient of your views never engages with you.

Instead, they just automatically trot out a boilerplate reply: "Oh yeah, the sequels were bad. But the first one, that's a classic!" This answer is always the same, no matter who you ask, as if the person is actually an AI, programmed to only ever give that response. (Gasp – maybe we are living in the Matrix! Wouldn't that be ironic! Gosh, now I have something really deep and challenging to go away and think about.)

The original MATRIX is not only mediocre, it also had a negative effect on future films. Its success is directly responsible for all the tension-free, superhero or superhero-inspired, young-skewing garbage that passes for action movies these days. In some ways I actually prefer THE MATRIX RELOADED, which teased some interesting directions; but they definitely then went and lost all their good will with number three. And that recent legacy sequel – despite a strong start – brings new meaning to the word ‘smug’.

But there was one diamond in THE MATRIX: Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith. His mannered, memorable, stern to the point of near-camp performance was a joy. Some of his monologing will stay with me forever, like when he explains how humans rejected the first iteration of the Matrix for being implausibly perfect, or his delivery of the line "You're going to tell me, or you're going to die."

(It would be remiss of me to not add that Joe Pantoliano is equally great in THE MATRIX, but he always is. And also, I must state that I am a big fan of the Wachowski siblings’ debut, 1996's BOUND.)

Weaving hasn’t quite had the Hollywood career of his Aussie contemporaries, Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce – I wonder if he was the only one to turn down LA CONFIDENTIAL? I guess he was in LORD OF THE RINGS in some capacity, but that didn’t exactly see him ‘do a Viggo’ and get catapulted to leading man.

His movies tend to fly under the radar, apart from things like V FOR VENDETTA (where he’s hidden behind a mask) and villain duties in one of those Marvel movies, but it doesn’t mean he hasn't been doing good work. And that includes LAST RIDE, produced back on his native turf (Weaving was born outside of Australia but spent most of his childhood and early career there).

LAST RIDE sees our Hugo as a rougish ex-con, taking a no-budget, sleep in the car or outside in ‘the bush’ road trip with his pre-teen son, Chook (slang for chicken, as far as I remember from soap opera Neighbours). It's a journey that will have significant consequences for both of them. And let's just say that the trip is less about where they're going to and more what Dad is running away from.

The movie is slight: not bad, not amazing, watchable enough. I was irritated by the intrusion of the non-skippable ads on the ITVX ‘free’ streaming service, but not enough to turn off, so it passed that particular test. (My time is not free, and they’re wasting it with commercials.)

And ‘slight’ is still more than slightly better than THE bloody MATRIX. Then again, so would be sitting through a back-to-back stream of ITVX’s adverts, punctuated by clips from the film that only feature Weaving's Agent Smith.

Three stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Spoiler alert: for the father, yep.

What would a movie called FIRST RIDE be about?  For me, our first family car was a Saab 9000, if I remember correctly.

Previously:  THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH

Next time:  THE LAST EXORCISM

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #56 THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH (2017, Danny Huston)

 

* * * * 

When a treasured memento is stolen, a man has to once again face the pain of losing his son in tragic circumstances 15 years ago.  

Starring  Danny Huston, Sarita Choudhury, Stacy Martin, Jonah Hauer-King  

Written by  Simon Astaire

Produced by  Simon Astaire, Farah Abushwesha, Julia Rausing

Duration  86 minutes   

   

 

Nepotism. Is it bad? Of course it is. If the CEO of a major corporation gives his unqualified and inexperienced college-dropout son a plum six-figure salary, it’s going to ruffle some feathers.

But is nepotism always bad? No one criticises the vague concept of ‘going into the family business’, like when a teenager whose father owns a construction firm begins laying bricks on one of the old man’s sites, or if a greengrocer's kid comes to work in the shop.

The entertainment industry, on the other hand, regularly comes under scrutiny – the fashionable term being ‘nepo baby’. But no one goes to see a film because the relative of a popular actor is in it; the actor in question has to build their own reputation and following. 

Yet it’s inarguable that many have used their family to get a leg up with that crucial and elusive 'big break', and while they may then have then needed their own talent and hard work to keep their career going, would they have got their chance in the first place if not for a famous surname?

The Hustons – of which THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH’s Danny is one – have arguably the most prestigious lineage in all of Hollywood. Walter Huston was an actor, directed by his son John Huston to Oscar glory in THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948), with John also bagging statues for helming the film and for writing it.

John was a sometime actor himself, too, most notably playing the villain in CHINATOWN (1974); but he’s definitely better known for being on the other side of the camera. His work includes directing another family member to an Oscar: his daughter Anjelica Huston, in PRIZZI’S HONOR (1985). He never directed his son, Danny Huston, but Danny did embarks on his own directing career – as did sister Anjelica. Meanwhile, they have another sibling who is an actor, Tony Huston, whose son, Jack Huston, is (wait for it) ... also an actor.

Other notable acting/filmmaking dynasties include the Barrymores (Lionel, Ethel, John, John again, Drew); the Fondas (Henry, Peter, Jane, Bridget); and the Coppolas (in their case not all making use of the family name: Francis, Carmine, Sofia and Roman did, but you also have Talia Shire, Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman).

Sometimes these families play families onscreen. I’ve never seen the awful-sounding Kirk, Michael and Cameron Douglas movie IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY, from 2003. But I would like to see a hypothetical comedy starring the Baldwin brothers – Alec, Stephen, William and Daniel – where, let's say, they kidnap fellow actors but not-in-fact-actual-relations Adam Baldwin (FULL METAL JACKET) and A. Michael Baldwin (PHANTASM) and recruit them into a villainous scheme for world domination.

THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH only has Danny representing the Huston clan, albeit pulling double duty as both director and lead. And it may not star any other members of his family, but the story is certainly about family.

It’s 2003. Danny is Tom, an American living in the UK, running a bookshop in Chelsea, West London. One day, his bag is stolen by a cameoing Jaime (daughter of Ray) Winstone, sending his life into what the promotional materials (and, at one point, he himself) describe as ‘a tailspin’ when he realises he’s lost his most treasured possession: a photograph of he and his late son from the last time they were together, 15 years ago.

And ‘tailspin’ is the accurate word, being that in its literal definition it refers to a crashing aircraft. Because 15 years ago, Tom's son died on the real-life ‘Lockerbie bombing’ flight: the Boeing 747 from Heathrow Airport to JFK that crashed into the Scottish Town of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, after a bomb exploded on board.

So, what we have here is a rumination on grief. And a powerful one. Huston’s raw, genuine performance is a big factor: he legitimately earns the family name. The scene where he struggles to absorb being told "Sir, there were no survivors" is a masterclass in blind hope being dragged through stubborn denial into numb acceptance.

As director, Huston mixes in real-life news footage from the plane crash – featuring '80s big glasses (back in fashion today) and drab wallpaper (never to be popular again) – with two timelines: the then-present and flashbacks to father and son in 1988. A tragedy, Huston is demonstrating, doesn't just happen once; it hits us repeatedly, years later, unannounced and just as raw. His point is underlined by occasional (but never overdone) mentions of 9/11, the spectre of which was still fresh in our shared consciousness in 2003.

The only real criticism I have of THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH is that I wasn’t too keen on the actor playing the flashback-glimpsed son. We needed to miss the boy ourselves as Tom does, whereas I found his segments to be a bit too saccharine, especially while they explored his burgeoning relationship with soon-to-be-tragic first love, Stacy Martin (from Lars Von Trier’s NYMPHOMANIAC).

What we could have done with was some of that old nepotism coming into play: I wish Danny had rung up his nephew Jack Huston, who was so impressive as a disfigured WWI vet in TV show Boardwalk Empire, to play his character's son, instead of using this nondescript guy Jonah Hauer-King.

Wait, hold on. ‘Hauer’ ... let me just check something. Nope – his dad isn’t Rutgar Hauer, the actor from BLADE RUNNER. That extra bit of nepotism would have tied this review together far too neatly. Although Jonah’s mother was a theatre producer, apparently, so maybe ...

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  In a rare instance of total literal accuracy: yes.

What would a movie called THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH be about?  Art in Context informs us: "The world’s first permanent photograph was taken in 1827 and was titled 'View from the Window at Le Gras'. The first photo in the world was created by an inventor from France named Nicéphore Niépce."

 

Previously:  LAST SURVIVORS

Next time:  LAST RIDE 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #55 LAST SURVIVORS (2021, Drew Mylrea)

 

* * 

A man and his son's isolated existence deep in some snowy woods is threatened when the boy becomes curious about the outside world.   

Starring  Stephen Moyer, Drew Van Acker, Alicia Silverstone

Written by  Josh Janowicz   

Produced by  Shaun Sanghani, Sunil Perkash, Akaash Yadav, Michael Jefferson   

Duration  98 minutes   

You know when you see an actor who's new to you and they make such an impression that you always associate them with that performance? That’s how I feel about Stephen Moyer.

You see, back in 2001, I stumbled upon him in a two-part TV miniseries on Channel 4 called Men Only. The show caught my attention because the five friends at its centre all supported my beloved Crystal Palace Football Club. Moyer played a real sleazy bastard, who enjoyed taking clandestine photos of women during sex using an attachment on his Game Boy Color (!) And it’s been a struggle for me to picture Moyer as anything other than a misogynistic date-raper ever since.

I’m well aware that the vast majority of people have never even heard of this obscure acting credit, especially outside of the UK, even though it also starred Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins in THE HOBBIT) and Marc Warren (WANTED, GREEN STREET). But many more viewers will be familiar with him from another TV show, True Blood. I tried watching that one and couldn't get into it, but for a lot of people out there, they won’t be able to see Moyer pop up in something without picturing him in some kind of sexy vampire blood-letting scenario.

This must be why until recent years (like, before The Sopranos) movie stars shunned TV: you don’t want to get tied down to one character, to the point that no one can accept you playing anything else.

Alicia Silverstone has suffered a similar fate in her career – worse, in fact. And not from a TV role, but from a breakout movie: playing teen socialite Cher in CLUELESS (1995).

Back then, Silverstone probably thought her career was going well and that there was no way she would end up being known only for one role – and then she did BATMAN AND ROBIN, in 1997. A movie disaster-zone that derailed not only her career, but, to a higher or lesser degree, those of co-stars George Clooney, Chris O’Donnell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman and Elle Macpherson, as well as director Joel Schumacher and the character of Batman on the silver screen.

Anyway, LAST SURVIVORS sees Moyer and Silverstone in the same project and trying yet again to embed a different memory of themselves in the viewer’s mind. They're co-starring in a ... oh joy, it’s another post-apocalyptic movie.

You can see why this type of flick appeals to the budget filmmaker. You don’t need a big cast; in fact, you can get away with having just a handful of characters moping about the place (unless you’re trying to do something like the MAD MAX sequels). You can get away with being extremely vague about what happened pre-apocalypse, so you don’t even have to properly think your scenario through. And settings can be places that it’s easy to hire outside of business hours and which you can readily make look in a vague state of abandon: schools or offices or even private homes – they just need to be left a little untidy to give the impression of being neglected for however long you want to imply. The more isolated the locations are, the better.

LAST SURVIVORS ticks every one of those boxes. It also demonstrates another tired trope with its opening music: a dreary, almost nursery rhyme-style ballad, like when they take a well-known song and slow it down and draw out its familiar melody for a trailer; or, if it’s a legacy sequel or new adaptation of ages-old IP, doing the same to that franchise’s well-known theme song (see: INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY, JURASSIC WORLD, SUPER MARIO BROS. THE MOVIE, etc).

And I wish LAST SURVIVORS got better from that first impression, but, alas ...

We open on a young man, outside in a snowy wilderness gathering animals from traps. He lives with his old man (Moyer) and it’s just the two of them in a rundown cabin, lighting fires, hunting, surviving. Bantering competitively about who can cut down the most trees in one day – hey, with no internet or PlayStation 5, you've gotta amuse yourself somehow.

They got guns. Don’t you worry about that – and not just for huntin’, neither. A few shots from afar while they’re bringing home the wood send Dad hurtling out to investigate, with an order for sonny to "shoot in the face" anyone who approaches their home.

Dad pops a wannabe intruder out in their yard, with son expressing his frustration about getting sentry duty rather than being allowed to pump a few rounds into something bigger than the usual rabbits and pheasants.

But uncertainty has started to curdle in the youngster’s mind. The man his dad shot grabs him and splutters, "Tell my daughter I love her." Yet his old man told him that all those ‘outsiders’ were nothing but callous murderers who need to be killed before they get their chance to do the same. And then, when sonny is forced to venture further afield to get some antibiotics for his sick pa, he encounters the matronly Silverstone – whose kindliness puts into doubt everything that he had been led to believe, and sets him on a path to realising that maybe his dad ain't been totally truthful about what’s really beyond the woods.

So basically, what we have here is that someone saw M Night Shyamalan’s THE VILLAGE and said, "Let’s do that again, but on a smaller scale and with colder weather!"

Moyer and Silverstone are both fine. He certainly isn’t any kind of sexual predator this time (possibly owing to a lack of opportunities and a diminished libido from near-starvation); she doesn't wear any designer gear or ever say "Like, totally, whatever."

But sadly, this forgettable film is unlikely to change how people perceive either actor. Or, to be honest, have any kind impact at all.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Not to spoil the twist for anyone who hasn’t seen THE VILLAGE, but … no.

What would a movie called THE FIRST SURVIVORS be about?  Once you know that twist, that opposite title would work for this film equally well.

Previously:  LAST FLAG FLYING

Next time:  THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com