Quicksand (2003)

When writing these movie blog posts, I sometimes have to take a stab in the dark at a movie's year of release until I have a chance to look it up later and after finishing "Quicksand" - a title that lured me in with the promise of Hitchcockian thrills and a synopsis that did the same (a guy falsely accused of murder goes on the run in Monte Carlo) - I took a punt that it was from 1983 and still find it hard to believe what I watched - straight-to-video nonsense with 80s tv-series production values, ludicrous plotting, and surely Michael Keaton and Michael Caine's career-worst performances - was actually released twenty years later than I'd assumed, in 2003.

★★☆☆☆

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A Quiet Place II (2020)

The start takes audiences back to "Day One" when the extremely sound-sensitive creatures first land on Earth, an arresting sequence that has debut director John Krasinski demonstrating Shyamalan-at-his-best flourishes, but long before the audience is satisfied with this backstory and before any point to it is established, the movie abruptly gives way to three concurrent story threads in the present, post-the original movie, in which three different characters simply walk heel-to-toe on three different sand tracks to three different destinations, hardly enthralling and full of directorial looseness, with the alien threat along these boring paths not much more worrying than if, say, you were hiking in an area inhabited by wild dogs (but wild dogs that, although certain to appear at each significant landmark, only turn up in ones or twos, never more, irrespective of how much noise you make).

★★☆☆☆

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Queen Of The Damned (2002)

The last embarrassment - the last nail in the coffin, so to speak - is the sight of Matthew Newton in a Paddlepop Lion wig trying to explain, in his only line right near the end, why one of the other vampires has turned to stone; I didn't hear what he said (the audio throughout is terrible) and, like me, you won't care anyway after this dreary adaptation of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles book has everyone (notably Aaliyah and Keira Knightley -- oops I mean Stuart Townsend) trying so hard to be slinky, sexy vampires that watching it is like being the fully-clothed party guest at an orgy suddenly underway - you're not sure what you are still doing there, and everyone is so intent on what they are doing no one seems very interested that you're watching; filmed in part at an impressive-looking Mont Salvat in Melbourne, the Australian production forgets you are there and, worse, forgets to tell you what or who you should be rooting for: Lestat, the vampire who has woken himself up in the Noughties to become a nu metal rockstar, or humankind represented briefly by a beach violinist, a redheaded vampire researcher, and enthusiastic throngs at a metal concert - and no-one else - or perhaps we are supposed to care about some of the vampires and not others - Matthew Newton's, maybe, or the jazz-ballet-miming ones throughout?

★☆☆☆☆

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The Quiet American (2002)

The Quiet American

"They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived," says the central character of Graham Greene's book, played here by Michael Caine, Thomas Fowler, an English reporter in Vietnam whom it is very hard not to think of as Graham Greene himself because like Fowler, Graham Greene sat at The Continental Hotel in Saigon overlooking Lam Son Square writing articles for The Times about the breakdown of French colonialism in the north of Vietnam, and the fact this adaptation, one more loyal to the book's political angle than the 1959 original adaptation, is able to seamlessly blend Greene's fiction (a love story and political thriller) into actual world history shows just how acute an eye for human nature and world politics Greene developed as he lived his Vietnam experience.

★★★★☆

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A Quiet Place (2018)

Some unlikely physics involving one-and-a-half year old corn and a handful of other daft moments aside, this 90-minute horror exercise, thematically similar to but more sensible than It Comes At Night, and thematically similar to but less distasteful than Don't Breathe, is fun and should please silent birthers, librarians and creature-feature fans who will revel in scenes that reveal the gnashing, ravenous monsters with no eyes but supersonic hearing.

★★★☆☆

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Frog Dreaming (aka The Go-Kids/The Quest/Fighting Spirits/The Mystery of the Dark Lake) (1986)

Struth, this 1986 family adventure with a zillion different titles must be 'Stralya's answer to 1985s The Goonies cos it has a gang of loopy ankle-biters (one is Henry Thomas, the kid from E.T., fair dinkum) going bush, braving scary stuff like skeletons and crabby adults to cop a gander at what they reckon is Donkegin, a frog monster from Aboriginal mythology that lurks in a billabong up the back paddock, and the bloody flick is such an oddity and pretty good mystery, it is definitely worth a Butcher's Hook.

★★★☆☆

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Quick Change (1990)

A trio of friends nonchalantly carries off a bank robbery in the opening scenes of this hilarious Bill Murray comedy only to encounter trouble afterwards when an uncooperative New York City throws its criminals, mafiosi, an early career Stanley Tucci, inept taxi drivers, and stubborn bus drivers in the way of their easy getaway!

★★★★☆

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A Quiet Passion (2016)

IBS sufferers, heavy breathers, and fans of the Fast and Furious franchise be warned: Quiet is the operative word in the title of this biopic which unfolds with the urgency of a poetry recital, with not a word wasted as Emily Dickinson, the posthumously celebrated American poet, grows up in the 19th century, distinguishes herself as unique in early adulthood, and then grows steadily more insular and cantankerous as she gets older and loses, one by one, those she loves to death or, equally devastating, marriage.

★★★★☆

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Quantum of Solace (2008)

At the time of its release, Casino Royale starring Daniel Craig was the best Bond movie ever made and the ridiculously named Quantum of Solace which picks up the story immediately where Casino Royale left off somehow manages to be one of the worst with absolutely nothing happening in it of interest.

★☆☆☆☆

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