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The first couple I wondered if I'd seen already.
LXXIV: The Bourne Supremacy (Paul Greengrass, 2004)
Enjoyable hokum. Ex-CIA puppet Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) comes out of retirement when his girlfriend is killed and someone has framed him for a murder in Berlin. Within seconds the CIA are on his tail, but he's on theirs. Joan Allen is the CIA leader trying to make sense of it, Brian Cox is the one trying not to get caught out. Already it seems be developing sub-Bond setpiece kick-ass action cliches, but at least we are spared the witty one-liners.
Greengrass had been best known for his political faction dramas (and for writing Spycatcher) so it's hardly surprising you end up not trusting the CIA. Of course, it's only rogue elements and bad apples.
LXXV: Reign of Fire (Rob Bowman, 2002)
Passable post-disaster film which badly needed the Thomas M Disch ending. Whilst constructing the Jubilee line extension a dragon is disturbed and before you can say that's a a small gene pool the entire world is occupied by female dragons and one, presumably exhausted, male.
Quinn (Christian Bale) who was in at the beginning is just about holding together a group in Northumberland at subsistence level when the US army arrives in the shape of Mad Matthew McConaughey and Pouting Izabella Scorupco. Before you can say, where's the gasoline come from? he's killed one dragon and put together a posse to head for London.
Apparently you kill one male dragon and the females just drop down dead because they just need that dragon lovin'.
Big on atmosphere (it isn't sunny until the last dragon falls) and heart (a crucial scene from Empire Strikes Back becomes a sort of Mummer's Play.) Low on brains.
Hey, there's a twist! But I won't discuss it:
LXXVI: Hancock (Peter Berg, 2008)
The man from 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam is back...
And this time he's black. Drunken superheroes have been done before - The Return of Captain Invincible (1983) - and here Hancock (Will Smith) is held responsible for the damage he inadvertantly causes whilst saving Los Angeles. Dubious PR man (where's his money from?) Ray Embray (Jason Bateman), havinf been saved by Hancock, wants to promote the sorry superhero and make the people want him. Hancock is sent to jail for contempt and released to deal with a heist masterminded by Red (Eddie Marsan - from Happy-Go-Lucky> His popularity soars.
At this point there is a shift in gear of plot - and it might be worth remembering that director Peter Berg was the put upon hero of The Last Seduction and directed Very Bad Things as revenge on the female species. So to speak. But the film avoids the misogyny that that might be expected - such that it's probably the most woman-friendly blockbuster so far this summer. There are logic holes in the twist plot, but I think the film survives it. Better than I feared.
I feel like I've been watching this for months - and finally it is done...
LXXVII: Fanny och Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
Probably the longest film on the Top 100, this is a Swedish soap opera at 312 minutes - I haven't seen the 188 theatrical version. Fanny Ekdahl (Pernilla Allwin) and, indeed, Alexander Ekdahl (Bertil Guve) live in a big house with former actor and matriarch Helena Ekdahl (Gunn Wållgren) and their parents theatre manager and actor Oscar Ekdahl (Allan Edwall) and actor Emelie Ekdahl (Ewa Fröling). Much of the first episode is taken up with a traditional family Christmas, complete with speeches, turns, singing and farts, before later scenes reveal Gustav Adolf Ekdahl (Jarl Kulle)has taken Maj (Pernilla August), the children's nurse, as his mistress and that Carl Ekdahl (Börje Ahlstedt) is in debt and hates his wife Alma Ekdahl (Mona Malm).
Oscar is a great father but has been overdoing it, and collapses whilst playing the ghost of Hamlet's father. The widowed Emelie marries Bishop Edvard Vergerus (Jan Malmsjö), a villain of the blackest and most hissable kind. The children - even Emelie herself - need rescuing.
The sheer length of this drags, but it really picks up pace with the Victorian values bishop (although the date is about 1907). The narrative allows for atheism and agnosticism, and even a theism that demands god gets a kick upo the arse. Perhaps influenced by stories told by his father, Alexander can see ghosts, but it's never entirely clear whtehr these are real or not - on balance they seem real. The ending also manages to console and not console.
Sweet. But long.
Totals: 77 (Cinema: 28; DVD: 45; TV: 4)
LXXIV: The Bourne Supremacy (Paul Greengrass, 2004)
Enjoyable hokum. Ex-CIA puppet Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) comes out of retirement when his girlfriend is killed and someone has framed him for a murder in Berlin. Within seconds the CIA are on his tail, but he's on theirs. Joan Allen is the CIA leader trying to make sense of it, Brian Cox is the one trying not to get caught out. Already it seems be developing sub-Bond setpiece kick-ass action cliches, but at least we are spared the witty one-liners.
Greengrass had been best known for his political faction dramas (and for writing Spycatcher) so it's hardly surprising you end up not trusting the CIA. Of course, it's only rogue elements and bad apples.
LXXV: Reign of Fire (Rob Bowman, 2002)
Passable post-disaster film which badly needed the Thomas M Disch ending. Whilst constructing the Jubilee line extension a dragon is disturbed and before you can say that's a a small gene pool the entire world is occupied by female dragons and one, presumably exhausted, male.
Quinn (Christian Bale) who was in at the beginning is just about holding together a group in Northumberland at subsistence level when the US army arrives in the shape of Mad Matthew McConaughey and Pouting Izabella Scorupco. Before you can say, where's the gasoline come from? he's killed one dragon and put together a posse to head for London.
Apparently you kill one male dragon and the females just drop down dead because they just need that dragon lovin'.
Big on atmosphere (it isn't sunny until the last dragon falls) and heart (a crucial scene from Empire Strikes Back becomes a sort of Mummer's Play.) Low on brains.
Hey, there's a twist! But I won't discuss it:
LXXVI: Hancock (Peter Berg, 2008)
The man from 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam is back...
And this time he's black. Drunken superheroes have been done before - The Return of Captain Invincible (1983) - and here Hancock (Will Smith) is held responsible for the damage he inadvertantly causes whilst saving Los Angeles. Dubious PR man (where's his money from?) Ray Embray (Jason Bateman), havinf been saved by Hancock, wants to promote the sorry superhero and make the people want him. Hancock is sent to jail for contempt and released to deal with a heist masterminded by Red (Eddie Marsan - from Happy-Go-Lucky> His popularity soars.
At this point there is a shift in gear of plot - and it might be worth remembering that director Peter Berg was the put upon hero of The Last Seduction and directed Very Bad Things as revenge on the female species. So to speak. But the film avoids the misogyny that that might be expected - such that it's probably the most woman-friendly blockbuster so far this summer. There are logic holes in the twist plot, but I think the film survives it. Better than I feared.
I feel like I've been watching this for months - and finally it is done...
LXXVII: Fanny och Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
Probably the longest film on the Top 100, this is a Swedish soap opera at 312 minutes - I haven't seen the 188 theatrical version. Fanny Ekdahl (Pernilla Allwin) and, indeed, Alexander Ekdahl (Bertil Guve) live in a big house with former actor and matriarch Helena Ekdahl (Gunn Wållgren) and their parents theatre manager and actor Oscar Ekdahl (Allan Edwall) and actor Emelie Ekdahl (Ewa Fröling). Much of the first episode is taken up with a traditional family Christmas, complete with speeches, turns, singing and farts, before later scenes reveal Gustav Adolf Ekdahl (Jarl Kulle)has taken Maj (Pernilla August), the children's nurse, as his mistress and that Carl Ekdahl (Börje Ahlstedt) is in debt and hates his wife Alma Ekdahl (Mona Malm).
Oscar is a great father but has been overdoing it, and collapses whilst playing the ghost of Hamlet's father. The widowed Emelie marries Bishop Edvard Vergerus (Jan Malmsjö), a villain of the blackest and most hissable kind. The children - even Emelie herself - need rescuing.
The sheer length of this drags, but it really picks up pace with the Victorian values bishop (although the date is about 1907). The narrative allows for atheism and agnosticism, and even a theism that demands god gets a kick upo the arse. Perhaps influenced by stories told by his father, Alexander can see ghosts, but it's never entirely clear whtehr these are real or not - on balance they seem real. The ending also manages to console and not console.
Sweet. But long.
Totals: 77 (Cinema: 28; DVD: 45; TV: 4)
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