Beyond the Sea (2004)

Intriguing but flawed biopic of Bobby Darin, written and directed by Kevin Spacey, who also stars as the singer. 

It’s a baffling film. The set pieces featuring the songs are expertly created and Spacey inhabits the role brilliantly. But things come slightly unstuck with the “magical realist” element of him talking to his younger self. There’s no attempt to describe his rise to fame, but there’s lots about his health problems and his ambiguous parentage. 

John Goodman and Bob Hoskins are on screen too much. Brenda Blenthyn is excellent as his mother. Kate Bosworth is underdeveloped as Darin’s wife. It’s suggested that she drinks too much but the question of alcoholism is never explored further. 

In terms of storytelling it’s disappointingly shallow and inconclusive, despite moments of brilliance.

Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009)

Flawed romantic comedy. 

Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) is a New York journalist who is addicted to buying fashionable clothes. She ends up working as a finance columnist for Successful Saving magazine in a role where her lack of knowledge or pretension is welcomed as a refreshing asset. Meanwhile, she also falls in love with her boss (Hugh Dancy, as a sort of fifth-rate Hugh Grant) and tries to avoid a debt collector. 

The film has many failings and it’s a bit of a muddled mess in terms of its views on consumerism. It can’t decide whether it’s a critique or a celebration. That said, it’s a little unfair that it was criticised for being tone deaf to the fall-out of the global financial crisis. Is it really the film’s job to reflect the changing economic and political landscape?

Pretty much everything about Confessions of a Shopaholic is clumsy and awkward, and in particular Rebecca’s parents – annoyingly and bizarrely portrayed by John Goodman and Joan Cusack. Kristin Scott Thomas seems out of place, too. The major plus is Isla Fisher, who has a real radiance. Each time she smiles, she lights up the whole film and transforms a mediocre scene into something full of charm and charisma.

Trouble with the Curve (2012)

Baseball-themed drama starring Clint Eastwood as Gus, an elderly talent scout with failing eyesight and a bad temper. Amy Adams plays Mickey, his daughter – a successful lawyer who puts her career on hold to accompany her dad on a scouting trip to North Carolina to look after him. She also tries to find out why he has always rejected her. Justin Timberlake is a younger scout who seeks Mickey’s affections. 

It’s quite unusual in tone and pace, being a slow-burner that’s gently funny. Eastwood looks incredibly old and his voice is sometimes a barely audible croak. That all works with his character, though, even if it can make for uncomfortable viewing. Adams steals the show by exuding charm. Timberlake is less convincing, and I found his performance a little generic. My heart sank when John Goodman walked on as Eastwood’s boss, but he exercises more restraint than usual. 

All in all it’s a pleasing film that won’t change the world but which achieves what it sets out to.

Flight (2012)

Brilliantly directed by Robert Zemeckis, this drama starts with the absolute terror of an aviation disaster and then gets even more harrowing. 

A drunk, coked-up pilot (Denzel Washington) crash-lands a jet in a miraculous style but struggles to control his addictions during the legal investigation that could clear his name. 

It’s moving, and doesn’t end how you might expect. Washington brings real depth to the part. I especially liked his recovering heroin addict girlfriend played by Kelly Reilly. 

Not even the presence of John Goodman as a clownish drug dealer can ruin the film, although Goodman still gives it his best shot. His appearance changes the tone and risks making the whole thing into a farce. But thankfully his scenes are brief. 

Raising Arizona (1987)

Unusual comedy drama about a couple who kidnap a quintuplet.

Beneath the slapstick humour there’s a real tragedy about a desperate, childless pair and the lengths they will go to to make a family.

Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter are superb in the key roles. You feel Hunter's longing and completely identify with her, despite the criminality of their actions. It’s just a shame that the usual Coen brothers grotesques appear (John Goodman features as an escaped convict), turning this into a sort of farcical black comedy and robbing it of poignancy.

The Monuments Men (2014)

A handful of military misfits go to Germany towards the end of World War II to locate and retrieve fine art stolen and hidden by the Nazis. (In reality, there were 300 such people working on this project, but the film doesn’t acknowledge that.)

George Clooney stars, writes and directs but unfortunately can’t decide if he’s making a comedy or a drama. It falls somewhere in the middle – neither very funny nor very exciting, with too much rather stilted sitting around. The all-star cast seems underused, with Matt Damon, Bill Murray and the dreaded John Goodman in underdeveloped roles and not really getting a chance to shine. Only Cate Blanchett (a sympathetic curator with an inconsistent French accent) comes out of it unscathed. 

The tone is all over the place. The film flits between trying to make serious points at certain times and seeming like Dad’s Army at others, with “jaunty” music that’s especially jarring. Even the central message – art is so important that it might be worth dying for – is watered down by the way it’s something we’re repeatedly told rather than meaningfully shown. 

The final scene – a modern-day glimpse of Clooney’s Lieutenant as an elderly man appreciating Michelangelo in a gallery with his grandson – is particularly awkward and naff.

Argo (2012)

Superb thriller regarding the real-life events of the so-called “Canadian Caper”. 

In November 1979, Iranian extremists stormed the US embassy in Tehran as a result of the USA (under Jimmy Carter) granting the Shah political asylum. A total of 66 staff were taken as hostages, but six diplomats escaped and were given shelter by the Canadian ambassador. Incredibly, CIA operative Tony Mendez (played here by Ben Affleck, who also directs) travels to Tehran in an attempt to rescue the six under the premise that they are making a science-fiction film, Argo, in the region. 

It’s tense and exciting stuff. The sense of threat is built up with real expertise. The storytelling is lucid. All of the characters are portrayed brilliantly, with no weak links. Even John Goodman, who plays a prosthetics expert (alongside Alan Arkin as a film producer), is reined in enough that he cannot mess it up.

Sea of Love (1989)

Brilliant, noirish thriller. Al Pacino is a New York cop investigating a series of murders. But unfortunately he’s falling in love with the main suspect. 

Pacino is effortlessly and endlessly charming in the main role. Ellen Barkin plays his girlfriend and handles the nuances well. Is she or isn’t she the killer? Even John Goodman, usually guaranteed to ruin a film, judges it about right as Detective Sherman Touhey.

A couple of plot holes keep it from being perfect. There’s something not quite tied up about the “Sea of Love” single that the killer plays – and Ellen Barkin’s relationship with the song. Also, the attempt on Pacino’s life comes too late in relation to the killer’s attacks on previous victims. Why does the killer wait so long to strike?

Those points aside, it’s hugely enjoyable.

Masked and Anonymous (2003)

An awkward, over-stylised mess. The “plot”, what there is of one, details a future North America in which society has partly broken down. An iconic rock star named Jack Fate (Bob Dylan) is released from prison to play a benefit concert. 

There are too many actors. None of them have much to do but they all look a little too pleased with themselves for being in a film with Bob Dylan. As usual, John Goodman plays an annoying fat crook. I find him unbearable – exactly the same persona in every role. Jeff Bridges plays a journalist and Penélope Cruz is his strange girlfriend. These characters have the annoying names Uncle Sweetheart, Tom Friend and Pagan Lace.

The all-star cast also includes Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Val Kilmer, Chris Penn, Mickey Rourke and Christian Slater. It’s remarkable that you end up not caring about a single character, as none of them are remotely developed. They are all merely mouthpieces for self-consciously cryptic speeches and pseudo-profound utterances that add up to very little. Even Bob Dylan gets annoying, and he was the only reason I watched the film. Yes, he’s enigmatic and charismatic – he can’t be anything else  – but nothing is ever done with those qualities. 

The music is the most interesting element: Dylan performs a few songs “live” within the film and every other song featured on the soundtrack was written by him but performed by another musician. 

The political angle is another missed opportunity. We learn that totalitarianism is bad. 

I found it difficult to get to the end, but I ploughed on out of misplaced loyalty to Bob.

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

I really disliked this Coen Brothers so-called “comedy drama” about a folk singer in New York in 1961.
1. It looks horrible: washed-out and grey – just not a visual treatment I can enjoy. I understand that this was meant to mirror a washed-out and grey existence, but it felt heavy-handed and self-conscious.
2. Everyone and everything was made as ugly as possible. Why?
3. With the exception of Oscar Isaac as the character in the film title, no one was likeable in any way.
4. There’s an entirely superfluous sub-plot about a road trip to Chicago that promises lots and goes absolutely nowhere.
5. I have an aversion to John Goodman. He’s always the same in everything he does and he’s never as funny as he’s meant to be. Just the same annoying tics. 
6. The comedy in general was extremely weak. No laughs, or even wry smiles, and opportunities to satirise were overlooked.
7. Unfortunately, the drama was weak also – mainly because of point 3, above.
8. Carey Mulligan’s character was so objectionable that you couldn’t care in the slightest about her problems.
9. There’s something deeply soporific about it – the long, ponderous performance scenes and the consistently unsparkling dialogue. Even the endless swearing lacked impact.
10. The directors take a fascinating time and place in American history and crush all the life out of it. Or as Suzanne Vega stated: “I feel they took a vibrant, crackling, competitive, romantic, communal, crazy, drunken, brawling scene and crumpled it into a slow brown sad movie.” The arrival of Bob Dylan at the end to usher in a new era was too little too late.