CinemaSerf

I think maybe son "Dylan" (a fleeting appearance from Julian Grady) might have had the right idea when he decides to opt out of his dad's camping trip with his best friend and his daughter. Seems that "Matt" (Danny McCarthy) is having father-son issues amidst a divorce after he strayed with someone quite a bit younger. His travelling companions are lifelong buddy (James Le Gros) and teenage "Sammy" (Lily Collias) who have a more typical relationship. She has known "Matt" for years and for a while their trip, trekking through the beautiful Catskill mountains, seems to pass off amiably enough. They even meet some fellow travellers for some who has been where grandstanding; the tents seems to go up without any slapstick and there's a little teasing about the nature of her relationship with "Jessie". "Matt" however, begins to feel a bit melancholy though as he gradually beings to appreciate that his family is disintegrating and after a revealing conversation with "Sammy" and an even more revealing and wholly inadequate one she has with her father afterwards, it becomes pretty clear that she is not without her own problems and her father has quite a bit of growing up of his own to do. It's a very slowly paced drama this, with most of the dialogue delivered as naturally occurring conversation. That works to an extent as sentences are left unfinished and inferences are made using facial expressions, but what is missing here is any sense of development of these people. We are left to make too many assumptions which rather lets the thing down as the story heads to it's crunch moment. That rather comes out of the blue and seems contrived to make the very point the auteur wants to make despite it not really fitting the profile or behaviour of the characters we had hitherto been walking through the wilderness with. I suppose, without giving the game away, I just don't agree with the fundamental message that the latter stages of the film seem to be trying to convey here and so was ultimately a bit disappointed that what started off as an light-hearted, quite wittily scripted, observation of family became something a little subliminally sinister for the sake of it. It's a gorgeous film to watch and Collias delivers engagingly, too, but films like this risk fuelling a growing misconception of an opportunistic or even predatory male stereotype that most men simply won't accept and isn't actually true.

And here was me thinking that "Gen. Klytus" has been impaled on some spikes back in 1980, but no. Here he returns singing some of the songs of "The Weeknd" (a.k.a Abel Tesfaye) in this confused and messy dawdle into the realms of pop star, drug/drink-induced delirium. He's clearly a man in distress as we discover his girlfriend has dumped him and his rather obsessive manager "Lee" (Barry Keoghan) is only bothered about him getting on that stage. To be fair, when he does the cinema sound of the man's array of hits does some justice to the impressive light shows but once we get off the stage, we find ourselves in a story that appears to be autobiographical, or semi, anyway. Anyway, one night it all gets too much for him and he determines to get the hell out of dodge - only to spot the young arsonist "Anima" (Jenny Ortega) amongst the crowd of thousands and they go off for a night from which both have differing expectations. With poor old "Lee" frazzling as he has no idea where his mealticket "bro" is and these two in a luxury hotel room dissecting and intellectualising the profundity of the lyrics to "Blinding Lights" the story assumes a degree of aggressive silliness that shows that whilst she can certainly dance, Ortega is nowhere near her best on the acting front and he, well I'm not sure he was ever at the races there at all. Keoghan might just steal this. His characterisation of the venal supporter who plays up, quite spectacularly, to the ego of his talent with some quite powerful superlatives and loads of cocaine and booze might actually inject a little more truth into the backstage power plays that go on when millions are at stake - even when medical advice is to take a break. (Sadly, we are not offered that advice in the cinema!). This is clearly a labour of love for Tesfaye and the director but for the rest of us, this just comes across as a vanity project designed to showcase the music of "The Weeknd" whilst padding out a series of catwalk-style performances with some psycho-babble that frequently looks as if it were filmed inside a lava lamp. Maybe just stream the music and leave this overlong piece of self-indulgence for a streamer somewhere?

Hmmm! I'm not sure why this is called "The Surfer" as there is precious little actual surfing, swimming - even paddling, in this rather far-fetched psychological thriller. It's all about Nicolas Cage whose un-named character arrives at an idyllic Australian cove with his son (Finn Little) so he can show him something special. Thing is, all rubbered-up and en route to the beach, they are stopped by some local thugs who claim the surfing is only for the locals. They ain't, so they have to get lost. The youngster has to get home and back to school, but dad has no intention of being brow-beaten by "Scally" (Julian McMahon) and his gang of hoodlums - you see, he grew up here and it's all a matter of pride. What now ensues, though, is more a matter of the ridiculous as the story lurches along making less and less sense as it tries to blur realities and characterisations before a conclusion that, for me anyway, just didn't make much sense. It's sort of cultish, I suppose, and to be fair Cage does well as his character enters what can only be described as a maelstrom of confusing scenarios that gradually drive him ever closer to desperate action. There are plot holes galore here and the first hour of the story is so dragged out that by the time we do head towards the plunge moment, I'd completely lost interest. It might have a double-meaning for those of us who are finding ourselves priced or just plain bullied out of our childhood communities, but sadly that message doesn't sell the silliness of this vehicle for a star who needed a stronger, more tangible, foil for his surf-free surfer. Sorry, this just sank for me.