JOE: hell no I won't go! (for a ride on this particular bandwagon)

Seems Jesus Christ isn't the only one to have risen from the dead this month.
Nicholas Cage's career is also experiencing an equally miraculous resurrection if some of the hype surrounding the release of his latest film JOE is to be believed.
It's 'a re-birth', 'there's not an unfelt moment in Cage's performance' and 'Joe ... reminds us that Nicolas Cage can still be a great actor when he wants to be' is just a sampling of the

hysteria based solely, it seems to me, on the fact that Cage is doing something other than his standard bat-sh*t crazy ham-acting routine in one of those take-the-money-and-run pieces of junk that he's chosen to focus his talents on in recent years.
But just being not awful doesn't make it great or the dawning of a new, serious Nicholas Cage as actor.
Cut through the frenzied hyperbole and what we've got with JOE is a non-shouting or screaming Nicholas Cage with a beard playing a guy called Joe but not for a moment making us forget it's actually Nicholas Cage - even with the beard. I suppose one could argue that by not going way over the top Cage is stretching himself but that in itself is a stretch and still doesn't add up to a great performance.
I mean it's not even like Joe is a particularly interesting or original character. An ex-con whose tough, gruff exterior hides an inner loneliness and a soft spot in his heart, Joe is a type we've seen many times before in the cinema as is his story with its way too predictable ending.
The film's only real revelations are the two main supporting actors. Newcomer Tye Sheridan is superb as Gary, the 15 year old who adopts Joe as an unlikely role model and uncovers the chink in Joe's armour, while first-time actor Gary Poulter is a revelation as Gary's vicious, violent waster of a father, a broken-down alcoholic with no compunction about beating up his son and stealing from him. Poulter plays him as irredeemably mean, making no effort to win our sympathy or understanding, and succeeds without ever resorting to any of the cliches and stereotypes often associated with this type of role. Sadly we'll never get to find out whether Poulter had the talent to build on this initial success as he died a couple of months after filming was completed.
Whether JOE marks a turning point for Nicholas Cage remains to be seen. In terms of a career revival it's more akin to Burt Reynold's in 'Boogie Nights' than Matthew McConaughey's in 'Dallas Buyer's Club' despite those what many of those same critics I referred to earlier might insist.   

IMPACT: bowled over by Ella Raines

I came for the story and stayed for the star.
There's the makings of a tight little murder thriller in 1949's IMPACT but unfortunately it's overlong and let down by plot holes so large you could drive a fully-laden furniture truck through them with tailgate down, and the terrible miscasting of one of Hollywood's finest

character actors of the 1940s.
Charles Coburn was undeniably versatile but even his talents don't stretch to playing a plausible Irish-American police detective. Quite why this role wasn't given to one of the hundreds of supporting actors who earned their living playing this stock type is a mystery, but Coburn's obvious discomfort and inability to maintain a consistent accent are a definite hindrance to the willing suspension of disbelief.
This piece of miscasting, however, is but a minor footnote when placed in the context of the bigger story which even the the most willing of disbelief suspenders will find mighty hard to swallow.
Brian Donlevy plays tough-talking businessman Walter Williams who narrowly escapes with his life when his wife's boyfriend tries to murder him on a lonely mountain road somewhere between San Francisco and Denver. Moments later the boyfriend's killed in a firey crash and his body burnt beyond all recognition. The cops think the ashes are Williams' and put his wife on trial for murder, while Williams assumes a new identity and finds work as a garage mechanic in an idyllic Idaho town. He's so eaten up with bitterness at his wife's betrayal that he's prepared to see her jailed for a crime she didn't commit, until the burgeoning love of the garage owner (yes, she's a woman!) persuades him to go to the police and tell them the real story - at which point he finds himself on trial for the boyfriend's murder, and there's still 30 minutes of plot to go.
All these convolutions are fine as long as you don't think too deeply about them. Even shallow thoughts will root out the inconsistencies and implausibilities that'll have you shouting at Coburn and his fellow detectives "Why don't you ask the 2 guys driving the furniture truck what they saw?!"
Having established that the film's too long, the plot doesn't make sense and they've got the only actor who couldn't do a credible Irish accent playing an Irish-American cop, you making be wondering what exactly is the motivation for investing precious time in this movie?
Two words - Ella Raines.
My god this woman is beautiful!

From the first seconds of her first appearance, dressed in mechanic's overalls, her hair tucked under a hat and her face smudged with oil as she works on a car engine, I was smitten. Not only is she the sexiest car mechanic you are ever likely to encounter, but she's adorable too. She's so adorable she even manages to convince us she finds short, stocky Brian Donlevy desirable and, heck, if a man who's as wide as he is tall can set Miss Raines' heart a-flutter then surely there's hope for the rest of us guys!
It doesn't hurt either that she can act. Her belief in the plot remains total, even as it descends into the realm of nonsense, cliches and borderline racism in it's demeaning depiction of the character played by veteran Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong.
Whatever else IMPACT is, it's not film noir, despite what some other film review websites would have you believe. It's not just that there's way too much daylight and sunshine, but Walter Williams is no existential anti-hero battling vain against a pre-ordained fate. He's a stock Hollywood crime drama/thriller character grappling with an increasingly unlikely set of circumstances of the kind unfortunately found in way too many B-movie dramas of the period. IMPACT would like to be a film noir but it doesn't meet the requirements.
It does, though, have the wonderful Miss Raines, and that'll do for me.

THE ASSASSINATION OF TROTSKY: Just kill me

Leon Trotsky was lucky.
He got an icepick to the head and was gone a few hours later.

Contrast that with Joseph Losey's 1972 dramatisation of the assassination which inflicts a cinematic slow painful death on every single person in the audience. Rarely has such a famous and dramatic moment in history been reduced to such mind-numbing, turgid and lethargic boredom.
The story's ending is pre-ordained. Heck, the title even gives away the big finish, so all that's left is the build-up, the story behind the murder and a chance to shed a little light on Trotsky and the motives of his killer. We already know the what, but surely there's still some interesting angles to be explored with the who and why.
"Don't call me Shirley" is director Losey's curt response to that proposition.
His preference is to fill the screen with one hundred minutes of Alain Delon alternately running around various crumbling stone edifices in Mexico City, looking moody/blank in a cool pair of sunglasses, and wrestling girlfriend Romy Schneider on a bed whenever she asks awkward questions about his identity. Intersperse that with scenes of Richard Burton as Trotsky dictating his political thoughts to a secretary and then listening back to them on a primitive dictaphone (because hearing dense political theory once just isn't enough); mix in a jarring, screeching soundtrack and numerous pointless panning shots, and the result is an empty, bloated hulk of nothingness.
A complete and utter waste of time, money and talent.
Losey had almost a quarter century of film-making experience under his belt by the time he called action on this project (perhaps 'Inaction' would have been more apt) yet he gives the impression of having absolutely no idea what he's doing. Visually the film is bereft of vision, the story barely holds together, and the cast can hardly summon the energy to simply go through the motions. Delon is a cypher while Burton phones in his performance, presenting the great Russian revolutionary as a windbag with the charisma of a potted plant.
Whatever your personal opinion of Trotsky's politics he deserves better than this.