Film review – Stigmata (1999)

United States, 1999
UK Release Date: 21 January 2000
Running Length: 1:42
BBFC Classification: 18 (Blood, mature themes, swearing, blink-and-you’ll-miss it sex & nudity, annoying editing)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Cast: Patricia Arquette, Gabriel Byrne, Jonathan Pryce, Nia Long, Dick Latessa, Portia de Rossi, Patrick Muldoon, Rade Sherbedgia (bless you!)
Director: Rupert Wainwright
Producer: Frank Mancuso Jr.
Screenplay: Tom Lazarus
Cinematography: Jeffrey L Kimball
Music: Billy Corgan and Elia Cmiral
UK Distributor: MGM

Warning: This review contains spoilers.

Stanley Kubrick once said that all you need to make good movie are six non-submersible units. In a nutshell, six scenes that stick in the mind long after the closing credits have rolled and can stand up to the most severe criticism.

Stigmata has trouble in achieving one NSU. The reasons for this seem to be down to a number of factors.

British director Rupert Wainwright, the man behind laugh-free comedy Blank Cheque and The Sadness of Sex, seems to be suffering a few personal demons of his own.

They may be talking in corporate tongues which say: “We want to appeal to the video generation but at the same time keeping the older set happy with a conventional religious-based mystery”.

So what we have is the camera staying still for very little time, irrelevant close ups of dictaphones being placed on the table, ashtrays and the like, none of which furthers the drama and after a while, becomes downright irritating. But that’s small beer compared to the other over-the-top references to birds, dripping water, bleeding statues and the wounds of Christ which are inflicted on Philadelphia hairdresser Patricia Arquette.

When Pat starts bleeding from the eyes you get an obvious flash of the statue we have seen through the rest of the movie experiencing the same thing.

Apparently, the editor thinks he’s dealing with an audience so stupid they’re not going to understand what happened a few minutes earlier.

Subtlety doesn’t seem to be a word in our film-maker’s dictionary.

There’s also very little suspense here – one of the cheapest commodities to attain in a movie and easily one of the most effective in such a thriller. Instead we have some over the top scenes where people don’t just fall over. They take huge amounts of household items with them: Lights, crockery that sort of thing. Anything that makes a loud noise and looks catastrophic.

As with Gabriel Byrne who played the devil in Peter Hyams’ decidedly average End of Days (1999), Pat Arquette seems to be flavour of the month at the moment playing the equally troubled New Yorker in Martin Scorsese’s far superior Bringing Out The Dead (1999).

She’s a likeable enough actress of limited range and works well with charming co-star Byrne. However, both actors are limited by Tom Lazarus’ script.

There’s clearly been a fair amount of research done into stigmatics, all of which grounds the movie in its much-needed reality.

The drama opens in Brazil where priest and scientist Gabriel Byrne investigates a bleeding statue in a church where an old preist has been laid to rest. A crucifix from the deceased has been stolen by a young boy and sold to a tourist – our heroine’s mother.
As we can tell by the opening titles, Arquette is not the sort of character to live her life according to good Christian values. She loves casual sex and a good time while downing a few beers on a Friday night.

She is an atheist which causes something of a problem for priest Byrne when he is sent to investigate as stigmatics are usually deeply religious.

Blood soon starts pouring from the puncture marks in her wrists and after an incident on a underground train, it becomes apparent that more than just hospital treatment is needed to tend to her wounds.

Having being whipped across the back by an invisible assailant, her plight is witnessed by both a priest and a handy security camera, the footage of which ends up at the Vatican where shifty head honcho Jonathan Pryce is keen to investigate.

Pryce, as he proved with Tomorrow Never Dies, is just far too nice to play a villain, so it seems a shame that casting agents keep using him as such.

Back to the plot and Byrne becomes personally involved with the photogenic snipper. He’s more than a little intrigued when she starts speaking in tongues, levitating and carving ancient text onto the bonnets of cars with a broken bottle.

And so it goes. The Vatican get wind of a yawnsome plot involving an alternate version of the Bible and Pryce arrives in Philadelphia to kill Arquette.

Can Byrne get there in time?
Will this end in time for you to make it down the pub for last orders?

Thankfully yes to both of those counts as this is just the right length for what slender material there is.

At the end of the day, it’s just raking over the same territory as The Exorcist: Innocent heroine is possessed by ancient forces; medical science is hopeless in finding a cure; the church steps in; demon is exorcised; cue happy ending.

If you can stand that irritating editing and the gaping plot holes then Stigmata is not bad entertainment however there are many nagging things which stick in the mind such as: How can a hairdresser afford such an opulent apartment? Did her mum pay for it? Did she win the lottery?

Why doesn’t the kid who stole the crucifix in the first place become possessed by the soul of the dead priest or does the dead preiest’s spirit have a think for phillies from Philly?

And what happens to Jonathan Pryce’s character after he’s caught trying to strangle our posessed heroine?

You’re not going to wake up in the middle of the night pondering such questions but it would have been nice to see such little irritants explained. That and a little more tension would have made this a worthwhile experience instead of just eye candy with some good actors going through the motions.

Film review – Dune (2021)

Starring Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Stellan Skarsgard

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

How much you get out of the latest big screen conversion of Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi novel probably depends on how much groundwork you’ve done beforehand. 

If that’s zero, then chances are you’ll be impressed by the imagery, the sounds, and the overall feel of the piece, while not having much of a clue about anything else. 

I did all my research back in 1984 when I was given a copy of the novel for my birthday in anticipation of the David Lynch movie. As a Star Wars fan, the idea of this multi-million dollar film version was tantalising, and as I had five months to wait, the best thing was to read the book. 

I’m glad I did because the film was a glorious mess. Lynch seemed like a great choice for some elements, but he’s not a tentpole movie director. Had Ridley Scott crafted the version he was approached to do years earlier it might have been a different story. I doubt Alejandro Jodorowsky’s version would have made much sense, but the work that went into it at least paved the way for Alien, and gave us one of the best film docs of the last decade in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune. 

Dune centres on spice, the most lucrative commodity in the universe. The intergalactic struggle for its ownership leads to the Atreides clan being pawns in a chess game between the evil Harkonnens, the indigenous Fremen of the planet Arrakis, where spice is mined, and the mystical Bene Gesserit, who have special powers, can persuade people to do things against their will and are obsessed with Paul Atreides. He could be the chosen one, the young man who may or may not be a messianic ruler. 

If that’s a lot to take in, then don’t worry. Denis Villeneuve does a fine job of spinning the assorted plates, while foreshadowing what’s to come. The all-important desert-dwelling Fremen may not appear until later in the movie, but there are so many dream sequences and flash frames of them, newcomers will at least be ready by the time they arrive. 

Hans Zimmer’s score is a glorious cacophony of sounds, which feel germane to the story. And the scale of the movie is suitably impressive. Huge spaceships, vast amounts of troops, and the Harkonnens are as terrifying as bad guys should be. 

But everything seems to take place in half light, or fog, dust, layers of gloom. This is not some pristine movie, but like watching through a smoke-filled lens half the time. 

The casting is as sharp as a sand worm’s tooth. There’s not a weak link in the chain on that front. Rebecca Ferguson was born to play Lady Jessica, the Bene Gesserit mother of Paul, and Timothee Chalamet is spot on as the young hero. Stellan Skarsgard shines as the evil Baron Harkonnen, far more imposing than Kenneth Macmillan’s cackling panto villain in the Lynch version. Oscar Isaac is an excellent Duke Leto, and Jason Momoa is superb as the charismatic House Atreides warrior Duncan Idaho. (Yes, that film logo does look more like Dunc than Dune). 

There are so many key moments from the book that work well in Dune 2021. The Gom Jabbar scene, when Paul is tested by placing his hand in a mystical box which seems to burn his flesh away; the training sequence, which gives audiences an idea of how personal defence shields work (valuable exposition), and the poison tooth, which becomes clear if you’re a newcomer. 

The movie does start to flag when Paul and Jessica finally meet the Fremen, so it’s not a bad thing that shortly after, Dune builds to a climax and then ends. 

This is not a film to watch if easily bored, like one punter in front of me who spent most of the film on her phone. (I would have said something, but Glasgow on a Saturday night is not the place to make polite requests). 

As he proved with Prisoners, Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049, Denis Villeneuve is one of the most interesting and bold directors of his generation. This version has been in the pipeline for years, and when Covid postponed it from Autumn 2020, I wondered if we would ever see the result. 

Yes it’s flawed, but this is so much more on the money than the predecessors. (A TV version from 2000 isn’t bad, though it still lacks a certain something). 

There’s far too much for one movie in the source text. In the hands of Peter Jackson it would have been three films easily, and he’s probably the only other person who could have pulled it off. 

Dune 2021 is an arthouse film with a tentpole budget, and it does a pretty fine job of peeling back the layers of the enormous cinematic onion (that may also bring tears to some eyes). See it on the biggest screen possible with the best sound system. The thrum of the ornithopters is a dream come true, as is the thump of the gadget which summons those enormous sandworms. There’s so much texture here, you can almost smell the spice. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for the UHD version when I can savour the whole thing again, preferably with director’s commentary. And then fingers crossed for part two, but who knows when and if that will see the light of day?

For now, people of the world, spice up your life. 

Cast 9

Script 8

Editing 9

Effects 8

Score 8

Rewatchability 9

Film review – Bull (2021)

Starring Neil Maskell, David Hayman, Tamzin Outhwaite

Directed by Paul Andrew Williams

Certificate 18

By @RogerCrow

Whether by accident or design, there are shades of a certain Clint Eastwood classic about this brutal urban Western. 

A hugely accomplished revenge thriller written and directed by Bafta-winner Paul Andrew Williams, it stars Neil Maskell as the eponymous protagonist. 

David Hayman, essentially playing a more ruthless version of the character from recent thriller The Ballad of Billy McRae, is the gangland boss who uses Bull as his muscle. If a deal needs signing, Bull helps speed up the process. 

The movie wastes little time setting out its stall. There are stabbings, shootings, knifings, hacking, slashings, and some other shocking images. And yet despite all the violence, the whole thing keeps you hooked from the first few minutes until the end. 

The timeline jumps between a decade ago and Bull’s apparent demise in a burning caravan, and present day. We see the wronged anti hero wreaking his vengeance while an array of gangsters, molls, associates and relatives react with genuine shock at Bull’s reign of terror. How did he survive a fate we’re not clear of until the end of the third act?

And what happened to Bull’s son, the only innocent party in the movie?

Well, the answer, when it comes, feels like the pay-off of one of my favourite thrillers of the late 1980s. And like a key name in that movie, a moniker in this film gives the game away. It’s not obvious until you know the context. 

Yes, the finale involves a leap of faith, but it’s also a hugely satisfying answer to the atrocities that fill the lean running time. 

There’s very little wasted footage here. No pretentious elements; no sense of a film-maker filling frames with good looking imagery while they try and find the story. 

Just a blistering turn from Neil Maskell, who stole the show in Ben Wheatley’s chilling masterpiece Kill List, and does an equally compelling job here. 

Bull is the sort of role Ray Winstone might have played 20 years ago, and I have a feeling Hollywood will finally snap Maskell up as the generic bad guy in their next potential blockbuster. 

I also suspect Bull will be one of the most talked about British thrillers of the year following its debut at the London Film Festival. It’s one of those movies that once it’s over, you want to watch the whole thing again from a fresh perspective. 

An instant classic. 

Cast 8

Script 8

Direction 8

Editing 9

Cinematography 8

Rewatchability 9

An Interview with Matt Forde

Comedian and former political adviser Matt Forde talks to @RogerCrow about the latest British Scandal podcast, Canoe Con, the story of one of Britain’s most famous insurance scams. He also discusses his work on the new Spitting Image, and the art of sending up politicians. 

Hi Matt. I enjoyed the first episode of the new British Scandal podcast. I was gutted when I realised Canoe Con wasn’t the whole story in one sitting.

Well that’s a great compliment. Thanks very much. 

How much did you know about the story of John and Anne Darwin beforehand?

Well, I remember it at the time. I’m 38, so it was a massive story. As with every story we feature on British Scandal, you remember the broad headlines. You remember John and Anne. I remember the thing about the photo when they were abroad, and I knew they had lied to their sons. And he was basically living next door via the cupboard. But the detail in there that I didn’t know is incredible. 

It’s an extraordinary story

Yes, John and Anne are absolutely fascinating people, and obviously you’re kind of transfixed by their dynamic, by what’s driving him. A desire not to be seen to be diminished in the eyes of colleagues or neighbours. 

It’s very easy to look at this stuff and say, ‘What a crazy, hare-brained scheme’, but for a while it kind of works. Obviously it worked until it catastrophically didn’t work. And in a way they were kind of really successful at it. They did convince their sons… I can’t imagine what that was like. For a while his whole property empire was kind of working. For a while they were getting away with it, and I guess that’s what makes it so satisfying.

It’s just so comical, but you can’t lose sight of the fact that the two sons really were put through Hell by their parents. I can’t imagine what that’s like. But there are elements of it that are so comical it’s unbelievable.

There is a rumour that Eddie Marsan is going to pay John Darwin in an upcoming film. Have you heard about that?

Oh wow! That’s so good. I’m a big Eddie Marsan fan. I think he’d be great in it.

There must be so much freedom to work on a podcast compared to TV

I do a couple of other podcasts… I do a political one where I interview politicians and that’s more straightforward. These ones, British Scandal, which involve this level of production… and the sounds! They’re like Hollywood thrillers. They’re incredibly well produced. It’s not just two mates chatting over a microphone. 

It’s just fantastic that people can listen to this stuff for free. It does what all great entertainment should do, like a trip to the cinema or a good book. It just completely takes you away. It’s phenomenal escapism.

It’s great to hear you on the new Spitting Image, because that was always a favourite growing up. Were you too young when the original came out?

I vaguely remember it. I missed it first time round really. I guess in a way it was the South Park of its day. Kids in the playground would talk about the rude stuff. It was only when I grew up that I realised it was the pinnacle of satire. It has a very special place in people’s hearts. 

Have the last few years been a dream as a satirist in terms of Trump and Boris?

I always feel quite conflicted about it because I’m a real politics nerd and I used to work in it. I probably worry too much about the state of politics and worry about the state of the country. But for somebody doing comedy, it really was an incredible gift because it made people really sit up and want to laugh at these people. 

Actually it’s not really about saying whether you disagree with them or not. Obviously with a more lampoonable figure, there is more fun to be had really than some of the dryer characters. Particularly impersonating them both, it’s just been so much fun. I think the danger sometimes is that people get too tribal, but you can still laugh at the people that you vote for. 

What can we look forward to next?

Well, there’s another series of British Scandal after this one, and I do my political party podcast as a residency in the West End at the Duchess Theatre; I do a stand-up in the first half, and interview a politician in the second half. 

Then my tour starts in February. I usually do a few dates in Yorkshire, so that will be between February and June next year.

We look forward to seeing you. Thanks for your time.

Thank you. 

British Scandal from Wondery is available on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and the Wondery app.

Film review – Romantic Road

Directed by Oliver McGarvey

Certificate 12A

By @RogerCrow

“One classic Rolls Royce, one vintage British couple, 5000 miles across modern day India”. That’s the pitch for this compelling documentary which grabs viewers from the first few minutes and carries you along for the journey. 

It centres partly on Rupert Grey, one of Blighty’s great eccentrics. 

A well-off lawyer, with an idyllic home, charming family and a vintage car from the 1930s. But he’s also got an incredible sense of adventure and is a keen photographer. Intent on making it to a human rights photography festival in Bangladesh, he and his devoted wife Jan decide to drive there in their battered 1930’s Rolls Royce across India. 

They get to retrace their original visit as hippies in the late 1960s, and have the adventure of a lifetime. 

Now getting from region to region without the right documents in advance can be a nightmare, but Rupert is the sort of guy who will cross those bridges when he comes to them. As a lawyer, he knows all about the problems with the UK legal system, so how hard can it be? A bigger hurdle might be the impoverished masses and their response to such wealth flaunted in front of them. 

Well, what unfolds makes one of those Top Gear or Grand Tour challenges look lightweight by comparison. 

The car itself is an extraordinary thing. It reminds me of one of the best scenes in Quantum of Solace, when a vintage Rolls appears from the desert and collects Bond and his glamorous ally. 

And driving in India proves to be a breathtaking experience, especially as motorists seem more like they’re on the Nurburgring. 

I’d have liked more of a sense of transition as the Greys made the journey from the UK to India rather than just arriving one day. However, that’s a tiny issue. 

It’s Rupert and Jan’s relationship that proves the backbone of the story, as well as some superb talking heads from friends and family that flesh out their lives and relationship. And it’s the locals’ reaction to the Rolls which proves fascinating as folks with next to nothing revel in this vintage icon from a bygone age. Their assistance proves invaluable, and the country itself should make many yearn to pack their bags and head off on a similar trip, albeit one a lot safer. 

It’s an obvious reminder to folks of a certain age not to give up on their dreams, and not let petty bureaucrats get in the way of achieving them. 

In the hands of a good screenwriter, this has all the makings of a great feature film, preferably with Roger Allam and Joanna Lumley as the Greys. 

It may already be on the cards, but for now it’s 80 minutes of your time we’ll spent. Just a shame we don’t get to spend a few hours with the Greys afterwards as they tell us more tales of their extraordinary lives. 

As Clarkson himself might say, “Probably the best documentary about a romance and a Rolls Royce… in the world.”  

Direction 8

Cinematography 8

Editing 8

Rewatchability 9

Film review-The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968)

Starring Yūko Hamada, Sachiko Meguro, Yachie Matsui

Directed by Noriaki Yuasa

Certificate 12

By @RogerCrow

Noriaki Yuasa, director of the beloved Gamera series, took a sharp left-hand turn in 1968. Using the work of horror manga pioneer Kazuo Umezu as inspiration, it led to The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch, which is something of a rarity. 

This bizarre chiller centres on Sayuri, a girl reunited with her estranged family after years in an orphanage. However, trouble lurks within the large family home. 

Her mother is an amnesiac after a car accident six months earlier; Sayuri’s sullen sister is confined to the attic, and a young housemaid dies inexplicably of a heart attack just before Sayuri arrives. Is it all connected to her father’s work studying venomous snakes? And is the fanged, serpentine figure that haunts Sayuri’s dreams the same one spying on her through holes in the wall?

Well, all is eventually revealed. 

Thanks to an exhaustive commentary by film historian David Kalat, we discover every element of the movie’s production, inspiration and more. 

At first look it might seem bonkers, even by genre standards, but this “fantastically phantasmagorical slice of twisted tokusatsu terror” certainly lingers in the mind, not least because of its dream sequences. Making its worldwide Blu-ray debut and its home video premiere outside Japan, this rarely screened offering looks terrific, especially on HD TVs. The depth of detail on buildings alone is phenomenal. 

And for this Blade Runner fan, there’s a moment which mirrors the scene when Harrison Ford’s Deckard mistakes a fish scale for a snake’s, and has the detail examined under a microscope. Same thing here, which makes me wonder whether it formed an inspiration for that moment or whether it was a coincidence. 

The effect of Hammer films on the J-horror genre is also assessed during the commentary, so whether you’re an academic or film fan, there’s a feast of details which shed light on a truly extraordinary slice of film making. 

Any horror shot in monochrome has that extra degree of atmospheric creepiness, and this 12 certificate offering will certainly blow the minds of kids around that age and above. 

Cast 7

Script 7

Direction 8

Cinematography 8

An Interview with Britt Ekland

Showbiz legend Britt Ekland is touring the UK in classic stage play The Cat and the Canary. Ahead of the November leg in Leeds, she chats to @RogerCrow about that new production; classic films The Wicker Man, Get Carter, and The Man with the Golden Gun, and advice she would offer to her younger self.

Hi Britt. Tell us about your role, Mrs Pleasant, in The Cat and the Canary

Well, I play the old housekeeper. I’ve lived in this mansion on Bodmin Moor alone for the last 20 years, and probably before that with a master for maybe 30 years. And she’s just waiting for the heiress to arrive and the lawyer. They do… and then it starts to become a little complicated.

The play has been performed a few times on stage and screen…

Yes. It was written by John Willard in 1920, and it was a silent movie. It was a movie with Bob Hope in 1933, and then it was a movie with one of the Foxes (Edward Fox in 1978). 

The tour was on hold for a while, so it must be great to be back on stage

Well we started rehearsals in 2019, and then we started in 2020. We managed to do maybe half a dozen shows and then suddenly we were shut down. Lockdown. 

So now after 18 months we’re back. It’s a fabulous feeling and just amazing that people… they really want to go out.

It’s a fine cast, and great to see Coronation Street veteran Tracy Shaw in it as well

Yes, it’s an ensemble. We like each other so from that point of view it’s fantastic. 

The Man with the Golden Gun is one of my favourite Bond movies. Was it amazing to work on that classic?

Oh yes, it was such a privilege to be part of that kind of movie. I never truly understood at the time that it would have this kind of massive following still, and interest. It’s fantastic that it has this kind of following all over the world!

What is endearing about particularly the films that were done in my time is that we didn’t have access to all the virtual experiences…(CGI). Everything that happened was real. When the car flew over the river… They trained with an AMC car back in Detroit for months and months and months. If they were to do that today they would probably use a crane or something. That’s what I like. That they were so real. 

The Wicker Man is another favourite movie. What are your memories?

Well before you do anything like that, the team goes through it with you and points out every single case where there is an explosive. You rehearse and rehearse. But then it gets too real, and I just did what any normal person would do. Throw myself on the ground and put my hands on my head. But I never managed to do that because Roger (Moore) pulled me up and dragged me along.

Well it was a little problematic because halfway through I discovered I was pregnant, and they took in a double and shot the things I wouldn’t do.

It wasn’t my most joyous experience, let’s put it that way. Having looked at it now, and the new version that came out, what was it, five years ago? It was remastered, and I took my youngest son to see it – he was 26 or 27. He loved it. He thought it was great. 

Whenever there is a “Best Horror” or “Scariest Horror”, it always, always, always comes up. 

How was it working with Michael Caine on Get Carter?

I never did. I mean we knew each other since the 60s. But everything I did, I shot in another room. 

Of course, because it’s mostly a phone chat! The magic of editing

Yes, I saw it about six or seven years ago. You know when they took the garage down? (Trinity Square Car Park in Gateshead was demolished in 2010). And I thought it was brilliant. Apart from the sideburns, it could’ve been today.

Which has been your favourite project?

Oh it’s very hard. I’ve diversified so incredibly much. I’ve never really followed one path. I’ve gone from films to TV to reality and back to theatre and more reality. I just think it’s wonderful to be able to work. To be still here and still doing it. And people will still come and see me. Which is the greatest honour and reward anyone can ask. 

Finally, if you could offer yourself a piece of advice at 20, what would it be?

Not to be so hard on myself and not to always, always seek perfection.

Thanks for your time

Thank you.

The Cat and the Canary can be seen at The Grand Theatre and Opera House Leeds, from 23-27 Nov 2021