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Relay – David Mackenzie (2024)

  • thriller

Sarah (Lilly James) took files from her former employer which prove a massive cover up. Seeing her life in danger she changes her mind and finds the help of Ash (Riz Ahmed) to return the documents with the assurance of being left alone.

“Relay” opens right in the middle of the tension. A very interesting cat and mouse game unfolds in which Ash is trying to turn things for the better for his client. Resourceful as he is, he keeps Sarah’s followers at bay.

“Relay” could have been an entertaining film, had Mackenzie not thought it a good idea to make an awful plot twist towards the end.

Old Guy – Simon West (2024)

Quite like Pierce Brosnan in “Fast Charlie“, a very amusing Christoph Waltz gets to play an over aged contract killer who wants to show that he still has it.

Danny Dolinsky (Waltz) works for “London”, some crime syndicate, to do the dirty work. He is forced to train a young and upcoming prodigy, which of course means replacement. After a few mistakes, Dolinsky steals the show.

A fairly amusing action comedy.

The Amateur – James Hawes (2025)

  • thriller

I must say that the cast gave me higher expectations…

Rami Malek plays Heller, a data security nerd working for the CIA. His wife gets killed while on a business trip, he uses his permissions to investigate the matter quicker than his boss. Then he finds out that his boss is involved in unauthorised activities. He decides to blackmail his boss in order to get after the killers of his wife.

Trained by Henderson (Laurence Fishburne), he escapes and proves to be more inventive than expected. A fairly predictive and not too interesting thriller unfolds.

Lucky Logan – Steven Soderbergh (2017)

Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) is in need of money and comes up with a plan to rob the local race track. He consults his brother (an amusing Adam Driver) and recruits Joe Bang (an even more amusing Daniel Graig) to pull off their elaborate plan.

The plan is to use the mine where Jimmy used to work to access the safe of the race track. Together with a few extras, the three set out to complete this massive heist.

The film has a bit of a Red Neck Wester Virginia humour with funny dialogues. The robery is planned and executed with a few problems. Too bad that all the way at the end Soderbergh felt the need to explain why things were even more complex as it already seemed.

Caught Stealing – Darren Aronofsky (2025)

  • action

With Aronofsky you never know what you will get. A weird film like “Pi” or “Mother“, a drama like “The Wrestler” or “Black Swan” or perhaps a Hollywood spectacle like “Noah“? The only thing that I knew when I went to see “Caught Stealing” was that it was an Aronofsky. And he tried something else this time, an action thriller.

Hank (Austin Butler) is an ex baseball player working in a bar. He has a nice girlfriend, but not such a nice neighbour. This punker amusingly played by Matt “Dr. Who” Smith asks Hank to take care of his cat when he goes visiting his dying father. From then on, everything goes wrong.

Hank runs into two violent men who kick him into the hospital. On getting out, it becomes clear that these two are not done with Hank. Worse even, they are not the only two interested in him. Things go from bad to worse, to much worse.

“Caught Stealing” is perhaps a fairly ‘normal’ action thriller, but it is a descent one. What is quite amusing is that there are themes reappearing from “Pi”. Detective Roman is quite like Marcy Dawson and we again run into a couple of Hasids.

Crooked House – Gilles Paquet-Brenner (2018)

  • drama

Remembering Terence Stamp (1938-2025) we watched this Agatha Christie ‘whodunnit’.

The young private detective Charles is hired by an extremely rich family that lost its ‘pater familias’. Even though the whole family lives in one big house, there is a lot of tension between the members.

Needless to say that the suspect for the murder keeps shifting until the end. “Crooked House” is a descent old style crime film.

The Ballad Of Genesis and Lady Jay – Marie Losier (2011)

Losier is a French film curator and she makes documentaries about underground artists. For seven years she followed Genesis P-Orridge (1950-2020).

“The Ballad” starts just before P-Orridge met Lady Jaye. We get a few flashbacks to COUM, the early days of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, a peak into Genesis’ troubled youth and the fact that they did not want anybody to say what they are supposed to look like. Genesis refers to themselves as “we”, because of multiple personalities.

Experimenting with crossdressing and multiple identities, things really set off when Genesis meets Jay, a performance artist half their age. They fall madly in love and in stead of making ‘a combination of themselves’ (a baby), they decide to make themselves look like each other. Plastic surgery, breast implants, the same hair, the same make-up, the same cloths. Lady Jay is incorporated in the band, we get some live footage of concerts and then the tragic death of Lady J. The documentary ends soon after.

I have never been much of a follower of T.G., Psychic TV, etc., but this tragic love story gives an interesting peek into early industrial music and some of the people involved.

Certain Women – Kelly Reichardt (2016)

  • drama

Three different films about three different women with only here and there overlap. All parts play in some remote and cold part of the USA.

Gina is building her own house in the wilderness while she lives in a tent with her family. Jamie has a winter job at a horse farm and one night she just joins a course for school teachers given by Beth who lives four hours away. Then we have Laura (Laura Dern), a lawyer with a client who does not take no for an answer.

A calm and alright drama.

Climax – Gaspar Noë (2018)

For some reason I thought this was a film of Julia Ducournau. Now I see that is is a Noë. Maybe that explains why I felt like watching “Enter The Void” afterwards.

“Climax” is by and far not was good as “Enter The Void”. We follow a French group of dancers. You get scenes in which the group wildly dances (is this the style they call “Vogue”?) The style of dancing is intense en erotic and the next scenes are nothing but dancers talking about sex. This goes on for about an hour.

Then after one show, the usual Sangria is served at the afterparty and apparently the Sangria has been mixed with some sort of zombie drug. Some people get sick, other get horny, but generally the atmosphere becomes a whild nightmare with turning and twisting cameras, close ups, screaming people and all that jazz. This long last scene is indeed not your usual kind of film, but even for Noë it is too much.

The first part is boring, the second half quite uninteresting.

Jurassic World: Rebirth – Gareth Edwards (2025)

Scarlett Johansson is not only beautiful, she is also a great actress. She can play anything, from Marvel action, an unearthly “female”, a 1950’ies reporter, name it. This is also a bit of my problem with the newest Jurassic franchise. Edwards had Johansson add some extra and unnecessary drama.

Anyway, in the previous Jurassic movies, mankind had brought dinosaurs back on earth. In “Rebirth” they are again about to die out, except for a few regions where they live in ‘no go areas’ for humans.

A team is set up to get blood samples from three types of living dinosaurs. Needless to say that this is not exactly easy, but in the end the task is pulled off.

Perhaps amusing to watch on TV or streaming some time, but even Johansson could not make the film all that interesting.