Bohemian Rhapsody

This is enjoyable nonsense, in many ways. As a biopic, it’s got flaws running through it – history is rearranged, facts are left out, and at least one dead person is given a portrait that is borderline defamatory – but it has two key strengths. One is that the unlikely story of the rise of Freddie Mercury and Queen is material that is just too fascinating to resist, even when told with some tone-deaf dialogue and clunky situations, and Rami Malek gives the role everything he has and everything the part can take, giving both the wild charisma bomb of a front man and the slightly insecure, isolated boy stuck in the middle of an international phenomenon. And the music is given its appropriate place in the forefront of the story – the plot of the movie basically ends fifteen minutes before the credits and we get a pitch perfect presentation of Queen’s Live Aid set (minus one song that’s been cut for time). It somehow doesn’t matter that none of the other members of Queen get to display much of a discernible personality, that its presentation of the gay scene seems drawn almost entirely from the seedy world of “Cruising”, and that it’s very definitely built as a mainstream audience pleasure machine rather than a deeper analysis of the group (if you were hoping to hear why Queen thought touring South Africa during the apartheid bans was a good idea, you’re outta luck). But as that mainstream audience pleasure machine, it works gangbusters.

The House with a clock in its walls

This is in many ways a throwback to the 80s Amblin era entertainments, with an orphaned child taken in by his uncle who lives in a house full of magic and strangeness. And as he settles into his new home, he discovers a threat lurks within the house, a threat that could endanger everything he knows…

This has charismatic adults (Jack Black and Cate Blanchett most prominently, but also Kyle McLachlan and Renee Elise Goldsberry) and none-too-bad work from the kids either, yet it fumbles into being mostly fairly mediocre. Nothing really builds up a head of steam – this tends to be a series of incidents, rather than necessarily a well rounded plot (even when the backstory is revealed and turns out to have interesting details, it still feels kinda flat) – this just doesn’t have the verve that a good kids fantasy movie should have, as the adventure becomes overwhelming and you’re caught up in the wonder – instead, it just sorta sits there flatly. Black still has the twinkle in his eye, and Blanchett shows a nice sense of wit, but there just isn’t quite enough for them to do, so it all feels like so much sludge.

Rampant

Somewhere roughly between the 1600s and 1800s, a small Korean kingdom is under threat from demons (who behave remarkably like western Zombies - for Korean purposes, they’re demons, but I’ll refer to them as zombies to stop cognitive dissonance). The crown prince, who has been living in idleness in another kingdom, returns to carry out his brother’s last request, bringing his wife and unborn child away from the turbulent court, only to find out the petty politics of succession are the least of his worries, as unrelenting hordes of zombies begin attacking first an outlying village, and then the imperial palace…

My knowledge of Korean history before the Korean war is pretty sketchy, so I spent way longer at the beginning of this film than I should have wondering “when does this take place? Where are all these other cities? What nationality are the westerners who sold the rival warlord guns – they sound Dutch but that could be anything, really”. And then I realised this was not something I should be thinking about, I should be thinking about how well this carries out its goals – yes, this is your standard zombiethon, but it’s got enough oddities of design and presentation to make it a bit more interesting. The arc of our hero being initially a careless playboy who’s pretty much dragged into involvement with the people who he should, by rights, be ruling over, gives us some reasonable character work, and even the annoying-comedy-relief gets noticeably less so as the story goes on. This isn’t by any means even the best zombie movie of the year, but it still functions pretty well as a good meat-and-potatoes version of Korean action with a twist.

Ghost Stories

The multi-story anthology has a pedigree – in the horror genre, “Dead of Night”, “Trilogy of Terror” and “Creepshow” stand out particularly as compilations of short stories with startling twists and turns, some more or less held together by a linking device. This film by Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson (Dyson being the writing partner of the League of Gentlemen, Nyman being an occasional actor, along with co-writer and co-director of a number of illusionist Derren Brown’s shows), combines a trio of stories being told to Nyman (playing a skeptical investigator of the paranormal) – though of course it turns out he has more at stake in these stories than we initially know. Unfortunately most anthologies suffer from uneven-ness, and this is no exception. The first story, starring Paul Whitehouse as a night watchmen exposed to startling phenomena, probably works best – the second feels like it wraps up too quickly, and the third really never gets off the ground. And the wraparound, when it reveals its secrets, feels tricksy for the sake of being tricksy. There’s a couple of interesting moments of style (in the shooting style, this sometimes feels a bit like a Ken Loach horror movie – very entrenched in the working class in the north of England, with worn and weary houses and emotional malaise), but this never really got me particularly engrossed.

Halloween

40 years ago, John Carpenter and Deborah Hill, for most practical purposes, invented the modern slasher film. Yes, there’d certainly been films about teens being killed by a silent menace with a kitchen knife or other sharp implements before, but “Halloween” made a lot of the clichés of the genre both effective and extremely profitable, leading to an explosion of imitators and sequels that continues up til today. It also had one of the best “final girls” in the business with Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, a relatable, strong, intelligent and capable woman who successfully fought back to survive the slash-a-thon. After seven direct sequels, a remake and a sequel to that remake, this one follows up by … ignoring pretty much everything in the sequels and getting back to basics. After surviving that night, Laurie’s been living in preparation for it to all happen again – a cagey withdrawn figure determined not to be a victim, in ways that have pushed away her daughter and pretty much everyone else around her. But the combination of two crime podcasters who want to interview the still-institutionalised Michael Myers and a transfer to a new prison means Michael is suddenly loose and has access to that white mask and a set of overalls, and he’s coming back to Haddonfield to continue where he left off.

David Gordon Green’s film stripmines the original while adding a modern feel. Michael Myers is a genuinely offputting figure even in repose – practical, lethal and very very dangerous. Curtis matches him in effect – we’re never in any doubt of her determination to protect herself and everyone around her, nor that (despite her age), she’ll do whatever is necessary to get resolution. This is formula done right – running like a freight train where you know the tracks, you know the destination but damned if it isn’t effective at hitting every one of the points along the way

Westwood: Icon, Rebel, Activist

Vivienne Westwood is undoubtedly a major figure in the fashion world, while remaining controversial, contrarian and with a distinctly personal vision. She’s also, in this documentary, not a very co-operative interview, and the film that results tends to lack particular depth or analysis or deeper understanding of the subject. Her activism, when it’s presented, tends to come across more as dilettantism, her rebellion feels minor and inconsequential, and she comes across (inadvertently or not) as someone no longer in control of her own iconography, lost in the middle of the giant corporate machine that trades on her brand name. This was, to put it shortly, not a documentary I warmed to particularly – while it puts its subject at the forefront, her reticence to tell her own story means that by the end of it I didn’t really feel I knew or understood much more about her than I did at the beginning. Which to my mind makes it a bit of a flop.

A Star is Born

It’s a story often told, but rarely as well as this. It’s not a complicated story – man meets woman – he’s successful, she’s not, but as they fall in love she rises in their industry while he falls victim to his own demons, and it ends with his death and her survival. This version strips a lot of the accumulated layers away – it’s highly complicated on him and her and their bond of both music and love –but this only serves to make it all the more powerful. Bradley Cooper as the star-who-falls (and as writer-director) has a great ability to show how besotted he is by Lady Gaga as the star-who-rises – his devoted expression shows his complete admiration for her both as a person and as a talent (it even slightly weakens the film in the second half as his increasingly erratic behaviour technically should manifest as cruelty to her but he’s never quite willing to let the undercurrent of romantic devotion go). This one doesn’t go for the big notes of melodrama – the finest moments are small glances and shared intimacies, whether in a bedroom or in front of a Cochella Crowd. And it’s all the finer for feeling real and heartfelt – it’s weird that a big budget remake of an iconic Hollywood classic should feel so very personal and soulful, but it’s incredibly pleasing that it is. This is a sweet little heartbreaker.