Oliver Battershall

Tron (1982) 4/5
Visually electrifying and unique. I love the infectious sense of wonderment and spectacle towards computers and the digital world shown in so many movies from this era. The soundtrack, religious symbolism and Jeff Bridges’ performance are also great.

Miracle Mile (1988) 4.5/5
So many kinds of movie in one. A rom-com becomes a real-time suspense mystery, which becomes a Michael Mann/After Hours piece on the eccentricity of a city after dark, which becomes an apocalyptic thriller. It’s tied together with brilliant character actors, a soundtrack which accompanies the tone of the first two acts perfectly, and pacing that leaves you having to remind yourself to take a breath.

Flash Gordon (1980) 4/5
An uplifting, perfectly pulpy gem that scans like a sci-fi porn parody with the sex scenes cut out. Also one of the best comic adaptations I’ve seen, with appropriately hokey special effects and gloriously colourful sets and clothing. Those Queen needledrops never ever got old. FLASH! AHHH!

A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) 3/5
Deliberately disorientating movies are brilliant when you get them, and even when you don’t get them you can maybe *feel* them and imagine how much more you’ll like it on a rewatch. But this just didn’t ever click for me. It felt like at its core it was, or should’ve been, a more conventional narrative but every now and then it was like they suddenly remembered they had to put something misleading or confusing in. I thought the performances were good, as was some of the editing and music, but I didn’t really feel much over the course of two hours.

The Cable Guy (1996) 3.5/5
As with pretty much any Jim Carrey movie, he’s the main attraction, this is a vehicle for him, so your opinion of the movie as a whole hinges mostly on your enjoyment of his performance. Here I feel like his character shouldn’t have worked for me as much as it did. A conniving villain who’s also the wacky comic relief feels impossible to pull off, but he kind of manages it? Obviously those two aspects naturally downplay eachother but I always found him compelling in the same kind of way you’d pity Pagliacci the clown. Overall pretty fun and charming, helped in no small part by Ben Stiller’s directing.

Bokeh (2017) 2.5/5
A frustrating one. Almost an enjoyably subdued and understated elegy but gets a bit lost in its desperation to be philosophically profound. I liked how it tries to examine differing responses to a catastrophe as a metaphor for mental illness like Von Trier’s Melancholia, but this could’ve been done better with more compelling or developed characters and more natural dialogue. I never tired of the Icelandic scenery and the philosophical aspect definitely has its moments, but the end product is a bit muddled.

PCU (1994) 2/5
Most fans of this movie seem to revel in proclaiming it to be ahead of its time in its critique of modern identity politics among the young left-wing. I’d say it is indeed ahead of its time, but completely by accident. Instead, predicting the massive wave of online alt-right nonsense that emerged around a decade ago in the ultimate overcompensation for the, at worst, slightly annoying tumblr feminist era. This starts off fairly conventionally and despite what I just said I didn’t hate the core premise, but before long the comedy is fuelled purely by lazy cynicism rather than light-hearted poking. It kills me to give a rating this low to a movie where Parliament-Funkadelic inexplicably show up to play a few tunes, but them’s the breaks.