Howlin Wolf Reviews

The Rite of Spring (2022)

Rite of passage, or fixation?

[7/10 · 16 December 2022]

It doesn't matter how much you care; a transactional arrangement is always going to feel more hollow than just showing up without money involved, because you want to be there ...

A friend sent this to me because he wanted to know my thoughts on it... I can see why; it was a difficult watch for me at times... It's not an especially good OR a bad film ... but it almost made me cry hot, salty tears at some points (if you've seen the film, you'll get the reference) just because it made me think of my own life, and the way some people might - or might NOT - see me...

Believe me, I get that some able-bodied folk don't see the disabled as having needs and desires of their own... but, being disabled also doesn't give you an excuse to be a perv!

I think about sex all the time, so as soon as I became an adult and lived independently, I got a poster of a topless woman from a men's (non-porn) magazine for my room... I had the courtesy to be discreet and stick it to the inside of my wardrobe door though, because you never know who's going to walk in, and I didn't want anybody to feel uncomfortable... It's no longer there any more; it became ripped and was falling to pieces, so I took it down...

Pictures of topless women ALL over his walls, though?! Just because sex is a void in a person's life, that doesn't make it perfectly legitimate to overcompensate and make a shrine to it? For any woman entering that room, it would be like walking into a garage with nude calendars hanging up, in the late 80's ... That made certain people feel unwelcome in particular spaces, so they were taken down... I know it's his own personal environment - but it still felt awkwardly sleazy.

I guess what I'm saying is; sex is important... but it still felt suspect, somehow, that it was the primary focus of David (also my name!) ... When finding a woman I was comfortable with, I'd happily accept a hug and going to the cinema once a week!

Just because sex is important to me, I don't want certain people looking at me and making the judgement that this is all my soul has the capacity for (and I'm frightened that they do, or did... )

My friend hated the ending, and I can see why... The plot synopsis on Letterbox'd frames it as another case of a person using someone else's disability as the catalyst to make improvements in their own lives...

That didn't bother me so much; I was just troubled by the representation of a disabled person so obsessed with sex, that they think it gives them license to behave in ways that no sensitive person ever would.

Nos corps sont vos champs de bataille (2021)

Individual freedom to make choices ...

[7/10 · 26 June 2022]

Let people advocate for themselves, if they're capable of it... and stay out of issues that don't involve you.

(not just a message for conservative Argentina... but some conservative states in the U. S. A it seems, as well!)

The Quiet Girl (2022)

Being withdrawn is all very well, but sometimes, for the benefit of those listening... you need to SPEAK UP!

[7/10 · 12 February 2022]

It's alright once it stops switching from subtitled Gaelic to UNSUBTITLED Irish-accented English... Things are always much easier once you have the chance to get used to the tenor of how characters speak; spare a thought for the hard of hearing!

Otherwise, it's a gentle, lilting paean to those in society who see much, but say little.

Girl Picture (2022)

Window on their world ...

[10/10 · 10 February 2022]

It doesn't do anything radically different; it's pretty much your standard coming of age movie... but by the end, I'd bought into, believed and come to love these characters - just as much as they loved each other, when all was said and done... Girl power.

Milk (1998)

Needing to be needed ...

[8/10 · 23 January 2022]

Neither of them care about anything when they meet, and they find solace in one another... She needs somebody who won't judge or be keeping tabs on her ("she hasn't cried yet") ...

Needing to be needed.

Bye Bye Africa (1999)

Document of a land half-remembered.

[6/10 · 6 January 2022]

Cinema is a powerful force, that must be handled carefully ... It can be used to educate, but is also culpable for misinformation, too. One must not get swept away by sentimentality or nostalgia.

Ali au pays des merveilles (1975)

How much has really changed?

[7/10 · 17 December 2021]

Aside from the misogynistic attitude towards sex workers, I feel like, 46 years on, you could release this tomorrow in any 'first world' country, and its message would still be relevant... That's depressing!

Birds of Paradise (2021)

Hothouse Flowers ...

[5/10 · 24 September 2021]

Competition brings out the best in some people... but it can destroy others.

'Black Cygnet'.

Body of Water (2020)

Control ...

[10/10 · 26 July 2021]

"There's no greater high than when you feel like you're getting away with something... When you're empty".

Searching for something you can control, when you're lacking support and stability from your loved ones.

Wasteland (2018)

Inferior version of a better film...

[5/10 · 22 June 2021]

"Dead Man's Shoes" but not as good; that's as simple as I can put it!

Angel: Eternity (2000) Season 1, Episode 17

Temporary illusion ...

[7/10 · 14 October 2020]

I loved the idea of the episode; playing on the vanity of Hollywood, and the idea that getting what you want can sometimes be a curse...

... but, true happiness should not/is not/CAN not be the same as 'chemical inducement'!

Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue (2020)

There is no substitute for learned experience ...

[8/10 · 1 May 2020]

The fact that writing is so important in charting the evolution of a society, makes choosing to undertake it, a revolutionary act.

Import-eksport (2005)

First one way, then the other...

[5/10 · 14 January 2020]

I WANTED to believe in the feelgood Utopia that we're left with... but the way it transpires is very inconsistent; one minute, the idea of violence is played for laughs, the next, it's treated like something that could have serious consequences.

It's also convenient that the character who essentially resolves everything only appears for two scenes, and is dropped as soon as her narrative function has been executed.

Angel (1982)

"You know men... Start out Angels, end up Brutes... "

[6/10 · 3 September 2019]

Bizarre. A philosophical gangster film in the same vein as Stephen Frears' "The Hit"... and if you loved the aesthetic displayed in Jordan's own "Mona Lisa", then you're laughing!

The Crying Game (1992)

No tears please - it's a waste of good suffering...

[5/10 · 3 September 2019]

I first attempted to watch this when I was around 15, or so... It was on Channel Four, in the early hours of the morning, and I had school the next day...

Even at that age, I was smart enough not to be transphobic, but I still turned it off after the big 'reveal'. Despite my tired state, it still felt really out of context, and as though it had been placed there to shock, rather than to be explored properly, within the terms of the story...

I always told myself that eventually I'd come back and rewatch it in full though, when I was less tired and hopefully more mature, to see if I still felt the same way. Well, last night was that night. Although I was still tired, I watched it all the way through this time... and unfortunately, the impression I got halfway through the film remains pretty much unaltered.

It still feels like a stunt put there to exploit a transgender person's pain, in order to aid a cis guy's 'redemption' (remember that I felt this way when I was 15, and SJW's weren't a 'thing', then - so I don't think I'm being overly sensitive!). Dil is just a cipher, employed to reinforce stereotypical notions of masculinity.

It also doesn't help that in the first half of the film, Forest Whitaker's performance is uncharacteristically awful. A more obvious example of miscasting, it would be hard to find - and it's incredibly jarring to the aura of grit and realism that the film otherwise works so hard to establish.

Just Charlie (2017)

Still the same person - the only change is making the outside match the inside.

[8/10 · 8 July 2018]

Harry Gilby is a revelation!

There's a meme going around on the Internet (I know, I know, I'm down with the kids!) ... "If someone shows you who they are, believe them". It's usually used in a negative sense; i.e: 'if someone displays negative traits, then don't doubt your instinct' ... but I say that this maxim can also be turned into a positive - if somebody TELLS you who they are, believe them. It doesn't cost the individual anything to accept people as they describe themselves, even when that means disregarding how society thinks they ought to be.

I felt a little bit queasy about the film seeming to use violence as some kind of 'twist' - and even somewhat angry that I as a viewer had been manipulated into feeling emotion, only to have the rug yanked out from underneath me... It seemed cheap, in a way that the rest of the film wasn't, and to my mind, represented a late miscalculation in what is otherwise a fantastic film

Professor Marston & the Wonder Women (2017)

Behind every successful man...

[7/10 · 8 July 2018]

I like this kind of stuff... Very often, I find the inspiration behind a work to be more interesting than the work, itself.

I'm not completely sold on the notion that discussion of hemlines, or the domestic status quo, can be waved away as being 'unimportant', though...

Their relationship with each other may have been unusual - and perhaps even trailblazing, for its time - but that shouldn't cloud the fact that, because the creator is male, Wonder Woman still remains at least in part an outlet for MALE desires... Feminists championing a character doesn't automatically make the character herself feminist... and if one professes to believe in 'truth', then it is important that this idea is discussed and debated perhaps more robustly than it is examined by the film!

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

All the fun and games that are promised by the subtitle

[10/10 · 27 May 2018]

Tremendous fun.

Who would have thought that I'd find Kevin Hart to be the most amusing, of the troupe?!

I see Jack Black getting all the praise, and whilst he is hilarious, taking on the mind of a teenage girl is an immediately funny conceit; Kevin Hart really sells the lines and makes them funnier then they might be with somebody else's reading, so I'm going to give him some credit, too.

Dwayne Johnson also demonstrates once again how effective he is, when it comes to playing brawny guys who conceal a sensitive side.

I feel like this is a genuine, crowdpleasing entertainment, of the kind that Hollywood has been unable to deliver properly, in some years (somewhere around 1996, as it happens... What are the odds? :-) )

Ingrid Goes West (2017)

Go West, Young Girl...

[8/10 · 29 March 2018]

"The King of Comedy", for the digital age.

In a social media world where the currency of cool lies not just in dreaming it, but in BEING it... we can all front like we're Batman.

I have serious issues with both the beginning, and the end, though... Cutting out the pre-credits sequence would not only allow us to feel more sympathy for Ingrid, given that it's the only directly violent act we see her perpetrate in the whole film - but it would also keep us more off balance as to how far she's willing to go, once events begin to spiral...

As for the ending - isn't that just giving her everything she wants?! Perhaps the point it was making was that nothing can completely disbar somebody from becoming 'famous'... but the optimist in me was hoping for a mini-redemptive arc for Ingrid, and a glimpse that she was on the path toward learning to like herself... Oh, well.

Bleed for This (2016)

Not worth the claret!

[5/10 · 1 January 2018]

I never imagined that Aaron Eckhart would make a good Kevin Rooney... but he really does - so well done to him and the casting department for absolutely nailing the part.

Everything else is one step above your typical Lifetime movie, and not worth the investment. It seems to have only been made because it has an ostensibly 'feelgood' ending, and a traditional three act structure of establishment, setback, and triumphant return.

It's blindingly obvious even before watching that he's a competitive person - all successful sports people are. Here, though, competitiveness is turned into a fetish; something to be reveled in, at any cost. It's the straight laced and serious version of the Monty Python "it's just a flesh wound!" gag. Weaker moments of doubt are treated as just minor bumps on the inevitable road to victory.

Personally, I would've rooted harder for the guy if he was ever made EMOTIONALLY vulnerable at any point - not just physically frail, through injury.

REAL bravery would be exploring different parts of your life and blossoming as a person - not staying stuck on the same track and ignoring the advice of others, because your conception of life is the only one that you know how to make work... If fighting is 'all you know how to do', then you're one dimensional, and uninteresting... Sadly, this means that, so is the movie.

Right down to the title, this is macho horse manure... Bleed for WHAT, exactly? Because you're used to it?! Nuts to that. Expand your horizons!

The Allnighter (1987)

This 'AllNighter' makes it hard to keep your eyes open...

[4/10 · 17 December 2017]

80's higher education ennui... Like a strange cross between "Reality Bites" and "Adventures in Babysitting" (yet nowhere near as good as either).

Aside from Susanna Hoffs in her underwear, Pam Grier's late single scene cameo is pretty much the only entertaining or amusing thing about it... Otherwise, it's thoroughly mediocre!

Step Up (2006)

Misses the Plate...

[4/10 · 16 December 2017]

Only notable for the chemistry between its two leads... In terms of theme, "Dirty Dancing" or even "Save the Last Dance" is much better.

Any attempt at dramatic tension makes itself known far too late to save the film, and just feels like a cheap afterthought, because it's an expected part of 'the formula'.

How such laziness made enough money to spawn a franchise is beyond me.

Boy am I glad that Channing graduated to working with Soderbergh, Tarantino and the Coens... because he looks uncomfortable with the false earnestness asked of him here - probably because it's so inauthentic.

Free Fire (2016)

Free-for-all ...

[7/10 · 14 December 2017]

The arms deal version of a fight at a wedding...

Fights at a wedding are usually fun to watch if you're an unconnected bystander... however, after a while they start getting repetitive. The same applies with this.

I watched the film, and then went back and watched the first 15 minutes all over again... It's one of those films where so many characters are introduced in a short space of time, that it works better when you've got it all straightened out in your head who everybody is (at least for me).

Once the first shot is fired in anger, the character beats kind of get lost in a hail of bullets, which I thought was a shame, as I was enjoying the crackling dialogue... It all depends on whether you want one particular type of film, instead of a messy blend of two styles - both are done well, they just don't really work, together!

Elle (I) (2016)

Stepping Outside of Oneself.

[7/10 · 24 October 2017]

Sex as power. Sex as revenge. Sex as... rehabilitation?

If you turn the effects of an ordeal back on your tormentor, then you diminish the hold that they have over you.

Verhoeven has always wielded his themes like blunt instruments, and the same is true here... That doesn't make this a bad film, but it's definitely not sensitive, or subtle!

House of Manson (2014)

Backing the wrong horse.

[1/10 · 15 October 2017]

WHY would you want to tell this story from Manson's perspective?! He is a notorious conman who will lie, distort and manipulate events for his own uses...

Yet there's soaring strings as 'Charlie' doesn't get to see his little boy because he's in prison, and shots of a misunderstood and disconsolate man, wandering the desert because he's been cast out by society...

'Rebel', my foot!

I've never understood those who seek to glorify Manson, and this movie is only another work that tries to do that, in the guise of 'understanding' him.

Don't get me wrong; I support people getting to make the movies they want to make... So if somebody wants to make a film where Manson is 'not such a bad guy after all', then at least be inventive enough to obfuscate matters; don't just have him NARRATE HIS OWN STORY and act like that's redemption secured. If you're going to be inaccurate, then you might as well go hell for leather about it, and claim he rode a magic carpet and urinated glitter... You know, be creative!

There's nothing to understand; he's a scumbag... and this movie only seeks to make a statement by taking a deservedly reviled individual, and attempting to mitigate on his behalf... It's deplorable.