Shameless Self Expression

Set in Canada, Erica Gavin is the bitchy title character who screws around on her bush pilot husband with almost every man and woman around…including her own brother (Jon Evans). Harrison Page plays Evans’ fellow biker buddy, whom Vixen engages in bitchy, racial banter with throughout. Vincence Wallace plays a rich and bored housewife whom engages in drunken Sapphic action with Vixen at one point. I was spoiled early with the films of Russ Meyer, with the fantastic camp classic “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” . It has since become one of my all-time favourite films after first discovering it on Aussie cable in my early 20s. Subsequent trips to Meyerland have not been quite as enjoyable. “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” was fairly tame, if pretty well-made for its type I guess, but “Supervixens” spoiled the softcore fun by having Charles Napier (in a terrific performance) violently attack a woman in a very uncomfortable scene that just rubbed me the wrong way. Now here I am ...

Set in Depression era Texas, Sally Field plays a mother who is widowed when her lawman husband is accidentally killed by a young drunken black man (De’voreaux White). Struggling to keep a roof over her two kids heads, she ends up taking a couple of boarders; African-American jack-of-all-trades Moses (Danny Glover), and a quiet, blind loner named Mr. Will (John Malkovich). They are faced with tornadoes, financial hardship, and for Moses the added issue of racial hatred from the local Klan. In a subplot we have Field’s sister (Lindsay Crouse), her cheating husband (Ed Harris), and another married couple (Amy Madigan and Terry O’Quinn). Most people have their favourite Sally Field film or TV show, and for me it’s this 1984 drama from writer-director Robert Benton ( “Kramer vs. Kramer” , the underrated Paul Newman movie “Twilight” ). I really, really like it. Yeah, had to. It’s a simple story well-told with a terrific cast from top to bottom, including some actors doing their bes...

The story of Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) and rock band Queen, whose other members include Brian May (Gwilym Lee), Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy), and bassist John Deacon (Joe Mazzello). Lucy Boynton plays Freddie’s female companion Mary, though he is quite clearly more sexually drawn towards men. Allen Leech plays the treacherously depicted Paul Prenter, whilst Aiden Gillen plays manager John Reid. If you’re a Queen fan like I am, it’s unlikely I think that you’ll enjoy this 2018 film from director Bryan Singer (who still hasn’t bested his debut “The Usual Suspects” ), with an uncredited assist by Dexter Fletcher (who will forever be Spike on “Press Gang” to me. Loved that show as a kid) after Singer’s dismissal. If you’re a movie fan with even the slightest critical eye, you’ll also be unlikely to enjoy the film. This is a wildly unconvincing biopic of Freddie Mercury, and an extremely shoddy piece of filmmaking to boot. How it has received any critical and commercial success, l...