Viewing Log: 2017
An on-going list of films I watched for the first time in 2017, arranged in the order in which I saw them.
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- DirectorFederico FelliniLouis MalleRoger VadimStarsJane FondaBrigitte BardotAlain DelonA trio of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations about a cruel countess haunted by her cousin's stallion, a sadistic soldier haunted by his doppelgänger, and an alcoholic actor haunted by the Devil.The first two films are better than their reputations suggest; they just can't compete with Fellini's frenzied phantasmagorical Toby Dammit. An absolute tour de force of technical filmmaking anchored by a performance from Stamp that seems straight out of the silent cinema. Decadence, both thematic & stylistic, assault the senses as the character's burnt-out fatalism collides with a vision of supernatural retribution.
- 8/10
- DirectorEli RothStarsLorenza IzzoAriel LevyAaron BurnsA group of student activists travels to the Amazon to save the rain forest and soon discover that they are not alone, and that no good deed goes unpunished.I thought the Hostel films reached for something interesting, even if they failed to achieve it. This doesn't even reach. It's the same formula repeated; a band of entitled & unlikable outsiders encounter a potentially dangerous foreign territory that they're too ignorant to understand. Roth aims to satirise the behaviour of the protagonists but instead demonises the indigenous "oddities." The filmmaking is terrible.
- 4/10
- DirectorM. Night ShyamalanStarsJames McAvoyAnya Taylor-JoyHaley Lu RichardsonThree girls are kidnapped by a man with a diagnosed 23 distinct personalities. They must try to escape before the apparent emergence of a frightful new 24th.Almost two decades after Unbreakable, Shyamalan is still making the best comic book movies. That he instills them with genuine themes & rich psychological subtext, for instance the ramifications of child abuse, & isn't simply content with men in rubber costumes firing blue beams of light into the sky, speaks to his individuality. What he's done with the genre on a cinematic level is beyond the reach of his imitators.
- 9/10
- DirectorDanny BoyleStarsAlex EtelJames NesbittDaisy DonovanEthics, being human and the soul come to the fore when a 7-year old finds a bag of Pounds just days before the currency is switched to Euros and learns what we are really made of.The screenplay by Frank Cottrell-Boyce is unfocused but occasionally brilliant, creating a child's eye perspective on the issues of poverty & distribution of wealth, while also telling an engaging story about a family rebuilding itself after experiencing grief. Flights of magical realism are imaginative & moving, but too often the subtleties are bludgeoned by Boyle's characteristically flashy & sensationalist direction.
- 7/10
- DirectorDon SiegelStarsLee MarvinAngie DickinsonJohn CassavetesSurprised that their contract victim didn't try to run away from them, two professional hit men try to find out who hired them and why.A made for TV retread of a film noir classic is given a greater creative heft thanks to the modernist stylisations of director Don Siegel & an amazing performance from the incomparable Lee Marvin. Siegel brings to the film an uncompromising brutality that doesn't always sit comfortably alongside the more generic elements, whilst the flashback structure, which frames the revenge plot as a mystery, remains compelling.
- 7/10
- DirectorChad StahelskiStarsKeanu ReevesMichael NyqvistAlfie AllenAn ex-hitman comes out of retirement to track down the gangsters who killed his dog and stole his car.Essentially a post-'Drive' aesthetic; neon-drenched, detached & sombre; emphasising mood, style, clean lines & clear action. It's a refreshing approach for this kind of DTV material & manages to go some lengths towards elevating a paper-thin plot that offers no credible or satisfying resolution; the whole thing just descending into mindless revenge-porn where the original point of the story gets lost in the carnage.
- 6/10
- DirectorJohn WooStarsLung TiLeslie CheungChow Yun-FatA reforming ex-gangster tries to reconcile with his estranged policeman brother, but the ties to his former gang are difficult to break.A film about betrayals, brotherhood, missed opportunities & the corruption of the modern world. While Woo's film is celebrated for redefining the style & even the language of the "modern" action cinema, it's also a work of great sadness & pathos. The sensitivity shown to its central characters & the calibre of its performances both enriching & deepening our emotional connection to those scenes of balletic gunplay.
- 8/10
- DirectorStephen QuayTimothy QuayAn enigmatic story told in seven chapters, each introduced by an elliptical sentence on a title card. A man is in an apartment. He goes outside where a red tram runs beside a cathedral. He can see religious art. In his apartment and workshop, his nearly colorless life does include a cloth of rich, red brocade. He works amid constructs of straight lines, planks, wires, and scaffolding. He falls from a chair in his flat. He's not dead.This dreamlike journey through an imagined city of cobblestones & gothic dread, establishes many of the obsessions & eccentricities that permeate the later films of the brothers Quay. The story, effectively a nightmare of nocturnal existence, its character drifting as if through sleep, is negligible, but like Eraserhead in miniature, it's the world of the film, its textures & its rhythms, that draws the audience in.
- 9/10
- DirectorKeith GriffithsStephen QuayTimothy QuayIn Prague, a professorial puppet, with metal pincers for hands and an open book for a hat, takes a boy as a pupil. First, the professor empties fluff and toys from the child's head, leaving him without the top of his head for most of the film. The professor then teaches the lad about illusions and perspectives, the pursuit of an object through exploring a bank of drawers, divining an object, and the migration of forms. The child then brings out a box with a tarantula in it: the professor puts his "hands" into the box and describes what he feels. The boy receives a final lesson about animation and film making; then the professor gives him a brain and his own open-book hat.
- 10/10
- DirectorStephen QuayTimothy QuayStarsFeliks StawinskiInside a box full of curio, a puppet who is recently freed from his strings explores a dusty and forlorn commercial area. The explorer becomes ensnared into miniature tailor shop by baby-faced dolls.
- 10/10
- DirectorJohn WooStarsChow Yun-FatTony Leung Chiu-waiTeresa MoA tough-as-nails cop teams up with an undercover agent to shut down a sinister mobster and his crew.Continuing Woo's examination into the workings of the Hong Kong criminal underworld, the divide between the lawful & the lawless, the bond between brothers in arms & the psyche of the anti-hero. While less cohesive & less satisfying than its predecessors, A Better Tomorrow & The Killer, Hard Boiled pushes the Woo aesthetic to breaking point; creating a film that redefines the possibilities of the modern action movie.
- 7/10
- DirectorSergio MartinoStarsGeorge HiltonEdwige FenechIvan RassimovA woman recovering from a car accident in which she lost her unborn child finds herself pursued by a coven of devil worshipers.A murky witches' brew of second-hand giallo iconography & the plot machinations of Rosemary's Baby. Martino gets some good mileage from his atmospheric locations, sense of cold urban detachment & the visual presence of Edwige Fenech, but the story is muddled, & the psychedelic imagery that many claim as the films greatest asset is often just silly. Fulci's somewhat analogous A Lizard in a Woman's Skin feels superior.
- 5/10
- DirectorJackie ChanChi-Hwa ChenStarsJackie ChanMaggie CheungBrigitte LinA virtuous Hong Kong Police Officer must clear his good name when the drug lord he is after frames him for the murder of a dirty cop.With Police Story, Chan proves himself not just a fearless & charismatic screen presence, but a genuine master of cinema. While it doesn't reinvent the wheel as far as basic storytelling is concerned the film does redefine the possibilities of contemporary action cinema; with Chan's experiments with camera speeds, static framing & complex editing of shots to create rhythm showing a true innovation within the form.
- 8/10
- DirectorSammo Kam-Bo HungCorey YuenStarsJackie ChanSammo Kam-Bo HungBiao YuenThree successful Hong Kong lawyers are hired by a chemical company of questionable ethics and must eventually make a difficult decision when their employer's motives become clear.A bona fide action masterpiece & one of the great films of the 1980s. Taking an influence from everything from Buster Keaton & Gene Kelly, to comic books & police procedurals, Dragons Forever finds its stars Chan, Sammo & Biao delivering some of the most astounding, jaw-dropping action choreography ever captured on film. In the process it pushes the conception of a "physical cinema" far beyond its limited capacities
- 10/10
- DirectorSammo Kam-Bo HungStarsSammo Kam-Bo HungCharlie ChinStanley Sui-Fan FungMuscles, cop from Hong Kong, is in Japan chasing a bad HK cop. His cop partner gets taken by the ninja gang. Muscles gets his 5 old no-good friends from the orphanage to help find the bad cop. Lots of comedy and kung-fu fighting follows.Like Joe Dante directing a kung-fu caper, this gonzo, comic-book style blend of frenetic action, pop art visuals & scenes of Three Stooges slapstick hits the ground running with a lengthy chase across several locations & ends with a relentless third act that takes full advantage of its amusement park setting. Mondrian inspired compositions & bright pastels anticipate the filmmaking style of the great Dragons Forever.
- 9/10
- DirectorSammo Kam-Bo HungStarsSammo Kam-Bo HungRichard NgEric Tsang5 HK cops (4 horny males) on vacation in Pattaya, Thailand, are told to contact an informant there but he gets murdered. They return to Hong Kong to contact his girlfriend and protect her. 3 other colleagues are busy fighting criminals.A disappointing outing for the Lucky Stars. There's a smattering of great fight scenes & the same use of bright colors & bold shot composition that made the previous My Lucky Stars such a cinematic delight, but the overt sexism crosses into the realms of the unpleasant & there's an even greater reliance on slapstick comedy, much of which seems lost in translation. Still worth it to see Sammo, Jackie & Yuen in action.
- 6/10
- DirectorHark TsuiStarsTony Ka Fai LeungChao DengCarina LauAn exiled detective is recruited to solve a series of mysterious deaths that threaten to delay the inauguration of Empress Wu.Hark's dedication to (intentionally) bad CGI is kind of radical in a deconstructive sense, but also a problem, denying the brilliant martial arts choreography of Sammo Hung some of its natural, visceral energy. Nonetheless, it's a remarkable film, employing a genuinely interesting murder mystery narrative, with sidelines into political conspiracy & magical realism, with the bold & expressive stylisation of the Wuxia.
- 8/10
- DirectorToshiya FujitaStarsMeiko KajiToshio KurosawaMasaaki DaimonA strikingly beautiful young woman is trained from birth to be a deadly instrument of revenge against the swindlers who destroyed her family.
- 7/10
- DirectorJackie ChanEric TsangStarsJackie ChanAlan TamLola FornerAsian Hawk (Jackie Chan) and his bumbling sidekick are sent on a quest through Europe to find a mysterious treasure held by a shadowy organization of monks.Despite benefiting from some impressive action set-pieces & a great sense of camaraderie between the leads, this is a poor effort from Chan. A culturally insensitive prologue (supposedly set in Africa but featuring Eastern European extras in blackface) gets the film off to a bad start, while the writers eventually abandon the enticing Indiana Jones meets 007 set-up in favour of repetitive scenes of slapstick & farce.
- 6/10
- DirectorKiyoshi KurosawaStarsHidetoshi NishijimaYûko TakeuchiToru BabaTakakura is a former detective. He receives a request from his ex-colleague, Nogami, to examine a missing family case that occurred six years earlier. Takakura follows Saki's memory. She is the only surviving family member from the case. Meanwhile, Takakura and his wife Yasuko recently moved into a new home. Their neighbor, Nishino, has a sick wife and a young teen daughter. One day, the daughter, Mio, tells him that the man is not her father and she doesn't know him at all.In Shyamalan's Split we had a psychological thriller that became a supernatural one. This seems the opposite. Early scenes hint at something paranormal - the rustling wind, the isolation, the old dark house - before crossing back into the reality of the police procedural. Like Split it's also a film preoccupied with the Nietzschean concepts of power & destruction; with broken minds. A bizarre but unforgettable work.
- 9/10
- DirectorMilos FormanStarsJan VostrcilJosef SebánekJosef ValnohaA volunteer fire department throws a party for their former boss with the whole town invited, but nothing goes as planned.
- 10/10
- DirectorAndrzej ZulawskiStarsSabine AzémaJean-François BalmerJonathan GenetA young man, hoping to write a novel, visits a French guest-house with a friend, he but finds himself distracted by a strange mystery and the stranger inhabitants of the home.
- 10/10
- DirectorWes CravenStarsMaren JensenSharon StoneSusan BucknerAfter her husband dies under mysterious circumstances, a widow becomes increasingly paranoid of the neighboring religious community that may have diabolical plans for her.Compromised by studio interference; its heroines styled & posed like lingerie models; its ending, laden with special effects & supernatural threat, at odds with the film's sombre, more psychological tone. But it still works. The characters are appealing; the set-pieces tense & inventive. Craven makes good use of his isolated setting & there's a strong narrative through-line about outsiders; people shamed & displaced.
- 7/10
- DirectorMike LeighStarsTimothy SpallPaul JessonDorothy AtkinsonAn exploration of the last quarter century of the great, if eccentric, British painter J.M.W. Turner's life.Leigh gives us a portrait of Turner in miniature. A series of scenes, vignettes, fractured & fragmented; presented without context. These small close-up details of a life eventually collate; they create a broader picture when seen in totality. It works, at least intellectually; but the film doesn't live! Spall's grunting, snorting caricature of Turner is impenetrable; a blank canvas. More a sketch than a masterpiece.
- 5/10
- DirectorJennifer KentStarsEssie DavisNoah WisemanDaniel HenshallA single mother and her child fall into a deep well of paranoia when an eerie children's book titled "Mister Babadook" manifests in their home.Kent blends Shyamalanian domestic terror with something closer to Michael Haneke or Lars von Trier. The result is punishing; a brutal psychological drama disguised as supernatural mystery. Davis, so raw & compelling, holds the film together, but the stylisation is interesting as well, with the monochromatic colours & minimalist design suggesting a genre variant on Haneke's similarly suffocating The Seventh Continent.
- 9/10
- DirectorEmilio MiragliaStarsAnthony SteffenMarina MalfattiEnzo TarascioA rich, mentally-unstable man - with a penchant for playing deadly S&M games with women who resemble his dead wife - sparks off a chain of bizarre events after getting remarried.The final act elevates the overall experience, presenting something of a novel twist on the usual Giallo tropes. Miraglia, who later helmed the superior if derivative Red Queen Kills Seven Times, breaks many of the traditions established by masters Bava & Argento, but for the most part these digressions produce only tedium, at least until the end. There's a longing here for a certain energy, or stylistic excess.
- 4/10
- DirectorWes AndersonStarsGeorge ClooneyMeryl StreepBill MurrayAn urbane fox cannot resist returning to his farm raiding ways and then must help his community survive the farmers' retaliation.Like all Anderson's work, it's a bit too preoccupied with homage & pastiche to develop a life outside of its own catalog of cinematic influences; too arch & ironical in its delivery to really connect on a deeper level; the work of a "smarty-pants" rather than someone genuinely smart. However, it's a tremendous amount of fun, carried along by the strength of its varied characters & the brilliance of its craft. A joy.
- 9/10
- DirectorChih-Hung KueiStarsKuan Tai ChenFeng KuJason Piao PaiRighteous constable Leng Tian-Ying has a fearsome reputation of killing criminals without remorse. But after being assigned to track a gang that robbed the imperial treasury, he comes to find that his reputation is being used against him.Taking its lead from the nihilist westerns of Clint Eastwood, & the morality of his "Dirty Harry" Callahan character, director Chih-Hung Kuei & writer On Szeto turn in a thematically bleak & deliriously atmospheric morality story about violence & corruption. Seemingly reinforcing the old proverb "all who take up the sword will die by the sword", Killer Constable blends gritty action with a story rife with conspiracy.
- 9/10
- DirectorMarlon BrandoStarsMarlon BrandoKarl MaldenPina PellicerAfter robbing a bank in Mexico, Dad Longworth absconds with the loot leaving his partner Rio to be captured by the Rurales. Rio escapes prison but struggles with his conflicting desires to love Dad's stepdaughter Louise and to get revenge.Brando emphasises small poetic details; allowing his story to become lost, derail & grind to a thundering halt. Conflicts go unresolved, plot points occur at random & the whole things takes a variety of awkward tonal shifts. Instead the spaces are filled with breathtaking sandstorms, crashing waves & desolate landscapes; all of which add to & punctuate the film's sensitive melodrama & its bursts of pitiless violence.
- 8/10
- DirectorFritz LangStarsBrian DonlevyWalter BrennanAnna LeeAfter the German administrator of Czechoslovakia is shot, his assassin tries to elude the Gestapo and struggles with his impulse to give himself up as hostages are executed.Exactly what one might expect from a collaboration between Lang & Brecht; a didactic political story full of straight-to-camera sermonising, scathing anti-fascist rhetoric & a brazenly artificial approach. Lang's direction is impeccable; his use of deep focus imagery & expressionist shadowplay predict film noir; but it's the themes of scapegoats & persecution, of people turned against each other, that really lingers.
- 10/10
- DirectorYorgos LanthimosStarsChristos StergioglouMichele ValleyAngeliki PapouliaA controlling, manipulative father locks his three adult offsprings in a state of perpetual childhood by keeping them prisoner within the sprawling family compound.The aesthetic approach is faultless; the balance between deadpan farce & brutal perversion perfectly judged. The satire on domestic abuse as metaphor for some socio-political commentary seems only more relevant in our post-truth era of fear-mongering & alternative facts, & like the similar thematic concerns of Shyamalan's The Village, holds a black mirror to the face of the modern-world. A staggeringly original work.
- 10/10
- DirectorFrancesco BarilliStarsMimsy FarmerMaurizio BonugliaMario ScacciaSylvia, an industrial scientist, is troubled by strange hallucinations related to the tragic suicide of her mother.
- 8/10
- DirectorChih-Hung KueiStarsNi TienJung WangSzu-Chia ChenA man who believes that he has murdered his wife, sees her return as a vengeful ghost.A gonzo Shaw Bros. produced remake of Clouzot's Les diaboliques from the director of Killer Constable. Like that film, imagery & atmosphere are rich & unusual; blending a slow-burn domestic drama with ghosts, murder & a 'psychedelic' exorcism. The visual style, with its prowling camera & disarming tonal shifts between slapstick comedy, violent abuse & supernatural mystery predict the early films of Jackson & Raimi.
- 8/10
- DirectorMike FiggisStarsMelanie GriffithTommy Lee JonesStingA crooked American businessman tries to push the shady influential owner of a nightclub in Newcastle, England to sell him the club. The club's new employee and the American's ex lover fall in love and inadvertently stir the pot.The imagery is incredible. Stark, stylish, often-dreamlike; soaked in neon colours or shot through smoky venetian blinds. It's probably among Deakins' greatest work as cinematographer. The conventional noir narrative feels secondary, while the satirical reflections on American cultural imperialism are oddly inert. More interesting is Figgis's absolute love of jazz music, which he uses to develop character & setting.
- 8/10
- DirectorTerrence MalickStarsChristian BaleCate BlanchettNatalie PortmanA writer indulging in all that Los Angeles and Las Vegas have to offer, undertakes a search for love and self via a series of adventures with six different women.Malick reaches for the reflective poetry of Tarkovsky, the gnomic philosophy of association of late-Godard & the dream-play of Angelopoulos, but is hampered by the attention span of Michael Bay. Imagery is constant & unrelenting; too brief & vague to make an impression or to crystallise into something more profound. The portrait of decadence & the ennui of excess is derivative of earlier masters, Fellini & Antonioni.
- 6/10
- DirectorMike FiggisStarsJulian SandsSaffron BurrowsStefano DionisiNic's life in glimpses at ages 5, 12, 16 and later film director and husband/dad.The first half of the film, scenes triggered like memories conjured by associations; fragmented like dreams, fantasies, nightmares, etc, is remarkable stuff. Figgis's imagination runs wild as he tells his own story contrasted against a provocative & moving recreation of that of Adam & Eve. The second half settles into something more conventional & as such seems less interesting. Although the ending is still profound.
- 7/10
- DirectorTerry GilliamStarsChristoph WaltzLucas HedgesMélanie ThierryA hugely talented but socially isolated computer operator is tasked by Management to prove the Zero Theorem: that the universe ends as nothing, rendering life meaningless. But meaning is what he already craves.Perhaps the most fragile of Gilliam's dystopian triptych. The familiar them of escape from the overload of technology & information, & the attempt to find a peace with yourself, is beautifully realized & often moving. The shallow depiction of women as vague sex objects is disappointing & there doesn't seem to be much organization in terms of narrative, but as a work of visual, creative cinema, the film is astounding.
- 7/10
- DirectorTim BurtonStarsAmy AdamsChristoph WaltzDanny HustonA drama about the awakening of painter Margaret Keane, her phenomenal success in the 1950s, and the subsequent legal difficulties she had with her husband, who claimed credit for her works in the 1960s.This is Burton operating at his most subtle & affecting. The commentary on artistic integrity, complete with digs against the way art is broadly marketed & critiqued, is deeply felt. As is the thematic & stylistic emphasis on the world of 60s kitsch, reminiscent of earlier works by the same director. It loses momentum in the third act, but remains a sensitive look into an abusive relationship, brilliantly performed.
- 8/10
- DirectorTerrence MalickStarsBrad PittSean PennJessica ChastainThe story of a family in Waco, Texas in 1956. The eldest son witnesses the loss of innocence and struggles with his parents' conflicting teachings.I don't think it's striving to make a profound statement, just a personal one. What we have is Malick wandering through scenes of his own childhood. A first person reflection, like Tarkovsky's Mirror , where the loss of his two brothers & his own physical & spiritual disconnection from past & present propels the whole thing. Malick finds a new cinematic language in the combination of sound & image. A miraculous work.
- 10/10
- DirectorBrian G. HuttonStarsClint EastwoodTelly SavalasDon RicklesA group of U.S. soldiers sneaks across enemy lines in WWII France to get their hands on a secret stash of Nazi treasure.The writer of The Italian Job delivers another hugely enjoyable caper about a rag-tag group of characters trying to make off with a stash of gold. The juxtaposition between Hollywood battle footage & the film's very 60 theme song sets an immediately ironic tone; tempering studio era spectacle with anarchic anti-war commentary; finding something of a middle-ground between old-time sincerity & counter-culture satire.
- 9/10
- DirectorRainer Werner FassbinderStarsVitus ZeplichalElke AberleAlexander AllersonA man is interviewed by a sympathetic woman. His tale unfolds, of hard work that never pleases his parents, of a father who denigrates his efforts, of an indifferent mother. He builds them a house. Instead of offering their flat to him and his bride, they give the flat up, so he goes to Munich to work in construction, bringing his wife who is soon pregnant. They buy things on credit; he works overtime. He shows up with flowers and expensive gifts. When construction slows and he works less overtime, he cannot adjust his spending habits: he needs to be loved. Pressures mount. When he snaps, and violence ensues, who will be his victim?While working in a lower key than his more groundbreaking television productions, Fassbinder's personal semi-autobiographical social-realist parable about a young man's desperate attempt to buy love & acceptance (compelling him towards self-destruction) is quietly audacious. The narrative as confessional, with its complex memory within memory structure, is still way ahead of what most TV auteurs are attempting today.
- 8/10
- DirectorWes AndersonStarsJared GilmanKara HaywardBruce WillisTwo 12-year-olds, who live on an island, fall in love with each other and elope into the wilderness. While people set out on a search mission, a violent storm approaching them catches their attention.Anderson wants to tell human stories, but his approach is dehumanising. His aesthetic reduces characters to clockwork objects; actions & consequences pre-programmed to facilitate his particular system. While technique is enviable, it robs the work of life & spontaneity. It expects the audience to fall in love with its cutesy characters & quirky narrative based on a series of stylistic fetishes, but not actual depth.
- 6/10
- DirectorSeijun SuzukiStarsYoshio HaradaNaoko ÔtaniKisako MakishiA surreal period film following an university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.
- 9/10
- DirectorYorgos LanthimosStarsColin FarrellRachel WeiszJessica BardenIn a dystopian near future, according to the laws of The City, single people are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in 45 days or they're transformed into beasts and sent off into The Woods.Lanthimos cements his reputation as a modern-master. His senses of space, timing, colour, composition, the effect that location has on a both character & audience, are continually inspired. First half is probably stronger than the second, but this is an imaginative, shocking & insightful work about the search for love & relationships in the 21st century & the nature of compromise & sacrifice that often comes with it.
- 9/10
- DirectorClaude ChabrolStarsIsabelle HuppertSandrine BonnaireJacqueline BissetA newly hired maid for a rich countryside family befriends a post-office clerk who encourages her to rebel against her employers.There's a practical matter-of-factness to the way Chabrol handles the material; focusing in on the small details of human interaction; the seemingly trivial relationships. The effect numbs the audience to the underlining emotional instability; the routines & repetitions of characters leaving us ill-prepared for the inevitable fury of its final act. The result is like Hitchcock by way of Bresson. The work of a master.
- 10/10
- DirectorVíctor EriceStarsOmero AntonuttiSonsoles ArangurenIcíar BollaínA woman reflects on her childhood relationship with her father, attempting to understand the depths of his despair and the truth of his myths.Intimate to the point of privacy. So subtle & delicate in its handling of serious themes that the important events occur almost by happenstance; childhood trauma caught up in the greater flow of memories that run throughout. As a young woman looks back on an evocation of the past, the filmmakers tease out a whole tapestry of political history, familial relationships; with 'the South' itself as a yearning for escape.
- 9/10
- DirectorFritz LangStarsWalter PidgeonJoan BennettGeorge SandersBritish hunter Thorndike vacationing in Bavaria has Hitler in his gun sight. He is captured, beaten, left for dead, and escapes back to London where he is hounded by German agents and aided by a young woman.Ever the iconoclast, Lang underscores scenes of conversation with a melodramatic soundtrack, but allows scenes of action & suspense to play out against the sound of heightened actuality. Combined with a political commentary wielded like a sledgehammer & a subtext about war turning pacifists into killers, the films feels almost as Brechtian as the subsequent Hangmen Also Die! Lang's filmmaking is as ever astonishing.
- 8/10
- DirectorGuy RitchieStarsCharlie HunnamAstrid Bergès-FrisbeyJude LawRobbed of his birthright, Arthur comes up the hard way in the back alleys of the city. But once he pulls the sword from the stone, he is forced to acknowledge his true legacy - whether he likes it or not.Ritchie's auteurism is admirable. With many directors aspiring to become anonymous journeymen, there to safeguard the 'brand', here is a work suffused with its filmmaker's creative DNA. This is Arthurian myth by way of Lock, Stock; where the Knights become a gang of tooled-up lads "havin' it large my son!" It doesn't really work, descending into generic set pieces & poor CGI, but at least it has a sense of character.
- 5/10
- DirectorDarren AronofskyStarsJennifer LawrenceJavier BardemEd HarrisA couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.The ghost of Sarah Kane haunts this film. Its use of allegory & psychosis; its predatory, self-destructive relationships; its descent into monstrous sadism; its closing act of disarming tenderness; & its gradual devastation of a single location as reflection of the breakdown between conscious & subconscious states, all recall Kane's landmark work, Blasted. A similarly provocative, relevant & unforgettable experience.
- 9/10
- DirectorNeill BlomkampStarsSteve BoyleNic RhindRobert HobbsWhile fighting the Vietnam war, both sides face a new kind of threat that neither of them were prepared for.While it aims for a kind of modern-day variant on The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits, this short piece from Blomkamp feels more like a series of cut-scenes from an unproduced video game; a work of big 'ideas', but very little actual cohesion. A fascinating premise burdened by weak characterisations, wooden acting & the absence of a narrative through-line. Nonetheless, the spirit of independence is to be commended.
- 6/10
- DirectorSam MendesStarsDaniel CraigJavier BardemNaomie HarrisJames Bond's loyalty to M is tested when her past comes back to haunt her. When MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.Riffs on Bond's place in the modern-world; his role as anachronism: connecting the usual espionage & intrigue to a political narrative that is frighteningly relevant. There's a moral complexity here too often lacking in other Bond productions; the villain is grounded & sympathetic, while the protagonists are ruthless & unfeeling. This is a Bond film that begins 'big’ then closes in to something more intimate & cinematic.
- 9/10
- DirectorChristopher NolanStarsMatthew McConaugheyAnne HathawayJessica ChastainWhen Earth becomes uninhabitable in the future, a farmer and ex-NASA pilot, Joseph Cooper, is tasked to pilot a spacecraft, along with a team of researchers, to find a new planet for humans.Suffers from many of the filmmaker's worst traits & yet benefits from his greatest virtues. The film is grounded, ambitious, emotionally affecting & often visually overwhelming; working best as an extended mediation on time that attempts to connect the spirit of Spielberg to the ghost of Tarkvosky. Nolan reaches for something here. He might not grasp it completely, but at least he's reaching. An almost profound work.
- 7/10
- DirectorJackie ChanSammo Kam-Bo HungStarsJackie ChanSammo Kam-Bo HungBiao YuenFighting against pirates at the turn of the 20th century, the Hong Kong navy are failing miserably. It's up to Sergeant Lung (Jackie Chan) to take matters into his own hands.Chan's pirate adventure forgoes an interesting political subtext in favor of a typically engaging blend of intricately choreographed action & slapstick. Many cite the Harold Lloyd clock tower fall as a highlight, but really it's a film chock-full of jaw-dropping sequences; the brawl at the nightclub, the bicycle chase through the streets, etc. A perfect balance between Hong Kong action & classic Hollywood influences.
- 8/10
- DirectorRon ClementsJohn MuskerStarsTate DonovanSusan EganJames WoodsThe son of Zeus and Hera is stripped of his immortality as an infant and must become a true hero in order to reclaim it.Greek myth by way of the Rocky series; with a Motown-influenced soundtrack that almost made me wish I was watching the Little Shop of Horrors instead. It's one of the more eclectic Disney productions, benefiting from Gerald Scarfe's imaginative monster designs & the voice casting of DeVito & Woods; although it could've pushed its exploration of the underworld & the more serious aspects of the story a little further.
- 7/10
- DirectorJohn WooStarsLeslie CheungChow Yun-FatCherie ChungA romantic and action packed story of three best friends, a group of high end art thieves, who come into trouble when a love-triangle forms between them.Typical John Woo themes of brotherhood & chivalry abound in this knockabout caper, which works best as a kind of action variant on the themes of Jules et Jim. The childhood flashback sequence is the real standout here, capturing some of the same poetic whimsy as early Chaplin, but too much of the broad comedy is forced & unfunny, while the action sequences are often poorly edited & derivative of Woo's greater films.
- 5/10
- DirectorMike FlanaganStarsKaren GillanBrenton ThwaitesKatee SackhoffA recently released inmate from a mental asylum learns from his sister that the murders he was convicted of committing were actually orchestrated by a supernatural entity, the Lasser Glass mirror.Like any great B-movie auteur, Flanagan understands that the supernatural is often an extension of the psychological. Like The Babadook, Oculus frames its strange occurrences against a backdrop of traumatic family dysfunction; its haunted mirror introducing literal themes of reflection, identity, the potential of split personalities. The doubling is further reflected in the film's intricate melding of past & present.
- 8/10
- DirectorMike FlanaganStarsElizabeth ReaserLulu WilsonAnnalise BassoIn 1967 Los Angeles, a widowed mother and her daughters add a new stunt to bolster their seance scam business by inviting an evil presence into their home, not realizing how dangerous it is.In crafting a prequel to a critically derided Michael Bay produced demonic possession movie about an old board game, Flanagan does the impossible & actually creates something of genuine value. Overcoming generic plot elements with a strong emphasis on character, classical formalist tendencies reminiscent of peak-period Shyamalan & a keen intuition for the cinematic set-piece, Origin has the makings of a cult classic.
- 9/10
- DirectorTim BurtonStarsEva GreenAsa ButterfieldSamuel L. JacksonWhen Jacob (Asa Butterfield) discovers clues to a mystery that stretches across time, he finds Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. But the danger deepens after he gets to know the residents and learns about their special powers.Subtext is incredibly sad. A wounded boy disappears into a story told by his grandfather; a child of the Holocaust who saw men become monsters. In the story, dead children killed by war remain frozen in time. The narrative then becomes an attempt by the boy to reconcile with his grandfather, through death. Burton's imagery is some of the most beautiful of his career, though not always well served by Goldman's script.
- 8/10
- DirectorShin'ya TsukamotoStarsShin'ya TsukamotoLily FrankyTatsuya NakamuraA Japanese soldier endures illness, starvation and brutality in the Philippines at the tail end of WW2.The film's nightmarish depiction of 'war as hell' is nothing wholly original, & yet one can't help but feel numbed by Tsukamoto's bold reiteration of this well-worn theme. At its best, 'Fires' juggles tranquillity & suffering; tethering the violence of man to the serenity of nature & creating an episodic narrative that feels more like the dizzying fever-dream of a character caught between a moment of life & death.
- 8/10
- DirectorCheh ChangStarsTien-Chi ChengTien-Hsiang LungMeng LoA Chinese martial arts school is infiltrated and destroyed by ninjas. Tian Hao survives the massacre and seeks to uncover the trickery of ninjutsu in order to beat the Five Element Ninjas and avenge his family.This violent, brightly colored, comic book style revenge fable feels like the Mortal Kombat film Hollywood should've given us, but didn't. The fantastical elements don't necessarily gel alongside the more serious historical fiction, but the physicality of the film & its martial arts choreography are both compelling. Chang abuses the hell out of his zoom lens, creating some often disorienting moments within the frame.
- 7/10
- DirectorWilliam FriedkinStarsRoy ScheiderBruno CremerFrancisco RabalFour unfortunate men from different parts of the globe agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across dangerous Latin American jungle.While the front-loading of character exposition could've been more carefully interwoven, Sorcerer is no less of an achievement. Taking an old-fashioned adventure story & pushing it to the extremes of new Hollywood excess, the film maintains a fearless push for authenticity so prevalent in '70s cinema. The final act & its use of montage to illustrate a character's descent into madness & desperation are unforgettable.
- 8/10
- DirectorTim BurtonStarsEwan McGregorAlbert FinneyBilly CrudupA frustrated son tries to determine the fact from fiction in his dying father's life.Alongside his other great triumphs, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood & Sweeney Todd, Big Fish finds Burton pushing for something more personal than his usual ironic reinvention. Finding a context for imaginative imagery through the story of a son connecting with his father's legacy of tall tales, Burton's film employs carnivalesque magical realism & southern gothic folklore to create a picaresque fable rife with emotion.
- 10/10
- DirectorPeter LordJeff NewittStarsHugh GrantSalma HayekJeremy PivenPirate Captain sets out on a mission to defeat his rivals Black Bellamy and Cutlass Liz for the Pirate of the year Award. The quest takes Captain and his crew from the shores of Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London.The films imaginative plot scores points for its audacious re-writing of history. Gleefully casting respectable real-life figures as antagonists against a band of bumbling pirates is almost as radical as the historical fiction found in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, creating a context for anarchic fun. The story doesn't cut too deep or challenge the audience on any greater level, but the animation is incredible.
- 8/10
- DirectorStanley KubrickStarsJames MasonShelley WintersSue LyonA middle-aged college professor becomes infatuated with a 14-year-old girl.
- 5/10
- DirectorCheh ChangStarsFeng LuLi WangTien-Hsiang LungA team of skilled fighters navigate a house rigged with an array of ingenious and deadly traps.Have to agree with Bey Logan's assessment that late period Shaw productions should be approached more like Cirque du Soleil style spectacles than actual narratives. Like Five Element Ninjas, the plotting here is haphazard & convoluted, while characters are often vague & uninteresting. It's the physicality of the film - its bold comic book colours & the intricacy of its choreography - that really makes an impression.
- 6/10
- DirectorEthan CoenJoel CoenStarsMichael StuhlbargRichard KindSari LennickLarry Gopnik, a Midwestern physics teacher, watches his life unravel over multiple sudden incidents. Though seeking meaning and answers amidst his turmoils, he seems to keep sinking.There's something of Job in this theological existentialism; its character's efforts to do right lead only to further difficulties; while an inevitable moral transgression creates a catastrophe powerful enough to destroy a world. The Coens have grappled with themes of fate & consequence in previous works, but never to such an obscure degree; the final product is both a thought-provoking character study & cosmic joke.
- 8/10
- DirectorWoody AllenStarsJesse EisenbergKristen StewartSteve CarellIn the 1930s, a Bronx native moves to Hollywood and falls in love with a young woman who is seeing a married man.A slight but charming romantic drama, elevated to a level of formalist masterwork by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. Working closely with the production designer & art directors, Storaro turns every frame into a little miracle of colour & composition; ensuring that the world of the film is vibrant & atmospheric. It's a low-key work for Allen, but one that connects many of the major themes he's explored in the past.
- 8/10
- CreatorKatie KrentzPatrick McHaleStarsElijah WoodCollin DeanMelanie LynskeyTwo brothers find themselves lost in a mysterious land and try to find their way home.Featuring beautifully crafted animation, endearing characters & a storybook narrative, Over the Garden Wall is a little masterpiece of perfectly balanced content & form. The sense of humour, the emotional maturity & the episodes of genuine surrealism (to say nothing of the thematically rich narrative with its allusions to Dante's Inferno) results in something that could almost be described as Twin Peaks for children.
- 10/10
- DirectorYorgos LanthimosStarsBarry G. BernsonHerb CaillouetBill CampSteven, a charismatic surgeon, is forced to make an unthinkable sacrifice after his life starts to fall apart, when the behavior of a teenage boy he has taken under his wing turns sinister.With its wide-angle lenses, tracking shots & slow, penetrating zooms, 'Deer' seems a masterpiece of cinematic form. Distorting Greek tragedy with allusions to Pasolini's Theorem & Hanake's Cache - as a stranger subverts the order of bourgeois existence; conspiring with a family to punish the father for a personal transgression - the story's moral conundrums & exclusively allegorical form are both rich & unsettling.
- 9/10
- DirectorPaul W.S. AndersonStarsMilla JovovichIain GlenAli LarterAlice returns to where the nightmare began: The Hive in Raccoon City, where the Umbrella Corporation is gathering its forces for a final strike against the only remaining survivors of the apocalypse.Drops the interesting formalist strategies of Afterlife & Retribution in favour of an ugly colour palette, frenetic editing & horrible shot composition. Anderson seems to be striving for a post-Fury Road aesthetic, but the result is actually much closer to his own Death Race in terms of lazy, derivative filmmaking. At this point in the series narrative continuity & the relationship between characters is non-existent.
- 3/10
- DirectorJohn BrunoStarsJamie Lee CurtisDonald SutherlandWilliam BaldwinAfter outrunning a typhoon at sea, a strong-willed tugboat navigator and her crew discover a high-tech alien life form that's taken control of a Russian research vessel and aims to destroy on a massive scale.Feels very much like a TV movie with an over emphasis on close-ups & mid-shots. Nonetheless, the deserted ship provides a good atmospheric location, while the body horror transmutations between man & machine show definite imagination & originality (at least in the context of 90s Hollywood taking influence from the likes of Katsuhiro Otomo & Shin'ya Tsukamoto).
- 5/10
- DirectorSøren Kragh-JacobsenStarsSofie GråbølSigne Egholm OlsenFrederik Christian JohansenHelen, who is a priest, is approached by scientist Lisbeth with a desperate plea for help. A young man, who has been sent to a high security psychiatric ward after having killed an old couple, has attempted suicide while rambling about God. In a race against time the two women begin a shocking journey deeper and deeper into the sick mind of a young man's soul.
- 7/10
- DirectorKathryn BigelowStarsRalph FiennesAngela BassettJuliette LewisA former cop turned street-hustler accidentally uncovers a conspiracy in Los Angeles in 1999.Cameron's story, while steeped in pre-millennial tensions, is about 30 years ahead of its time; its 90s-era reflection on racial tension & police brutality having only intensified in subsequent years. However it's the idea of people dealing in recorded memory, the society of the self & consumer voyeurism, where Cameron seemingly predicts the future. While well acted throughout, the film is never as good as its ideas.
- 6/10
- DirectorTom FordStarsAmy AdamsJake GyllenhaalMichael ShannonA wealthy art gallery owner is haunted by her ex-husband's novel, a violent thriller she interprets as a symbolic revenge tale.Not sure the two strands of narrative really add up to anything all that conclusive. While it might suggest something about the fragility of the male ego, or the role of art in expressing personal truths, we never learn enough about the characters for this reflection to carry much depth. That said, the performances & direction are superb, with Ford sustaining a suitably chilling atmosphere that is stark & compelling.
- 6/10
- DirectorBryan SingerStarsPatrick StewartHugh JackmanIan McKellenIn a world where mutants (evolved super-powered humans) exist and are discriminated against, two groups form for an inevitable clash: the supremacist Brotherhood, and the pacifist X-Men.
- 7/10
- DirectorJames WanStarsVera FarmigaPatrick WilsonMadison WolfeEd and Lorraine Warren travel to North London to help a single mother raising four children alone in a house plagued by a supernatural spirit.
- 7/10
- DirectorDavid KeatingStarsAidan GillenEva BirthistleTimothy SpallThe parents of a girl who was killed by a savage dog are granted the opportunity to spend three days with their deceased daughter.Others have already remarked on the comparisons to The Wicker Man & Pet Sematary, which cast a long shadow of influence over the film. While the theme of bereavement is suitably affecting & served well by the performances of Gillen & Birthistle, the script is underdeveloped, never finding a consistent tone. Folk horror soon gives way to slasher movie clichés, none of which evoke much in the way of terror or suspense.
- 5/10
- DirectorJohn R. LeonettiStarsWard HortonAnnabelle WallisAlfre WoodardA couple begins to experience terrifying supernatural occurrences involving a vintage doll shortly after their home is invaded by satanic cultists.While the film is ultimately let down by the necessity of its ridiculous killer doll premise, there's actually a really affecting & intriguing through-line about mental illness here. The satanic panic of the post-Manson family massacre, mixed with the anxiety of a changing world & the pain of postpartum depression, give context to the film's most memorable sequences; creating something that draws heavily on Polanski.
- 7/10
- DirectorJordan PeeleStarsDaniel KaluuyaAllison WilliamsBradley WhitfordA young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.Never quite betters its amazing prologue. Finding a balance between contemporary horror movie cliché & social satire, it creates a scene that is not only unnerving, but thought-provoking too. The main narrative flaunts its absurd sci-fi subtext as if trying to critique the genre itself, but while clever, funny & engaging throughout, the characters are two-dimensional & the ending lacks the courage of its convictions.
- 7/10
- DirectorPedro AlmodóvarStarsAntonio BanderasElena AnayaJan CornetA brilliant plastic surgeon, haunted by past tragedies, creates a type of synthetic skin that withstands any kind of damage. His guinea pig: a mysterious and volatile woman who holds the key to his obsession.
- 9/10
- DirectorAlexandre BustilloJulien MauryStarsChloé CoulloudFélix MoatiJérémy KaponeThe suggestion of a big treasure hidden somewhere inside Mrs Jessel's once renowned classical dance academy will become an irresistible lure to a fiendish trap for Lucie and her friends.An interesting combination of Texas Chainsaw Massacre's old rustic house/kids in peril narrative with the clockwork Gothicism of Guillermo del Toro's Spanish language works. While some of the imagery is arresting, unsettling & even beguiling, the plotting is vague & paper thin. The film does draw the viewer into its world & the relationships between characters, but squanders much of its early potential.
- 5/10
- DirectorDavid Robert MitchellStarsMaika MonroeKeir GilchristOlivia LuccardiA young woman is followed by an unknown supernatural force after a sexual encounter.
- 9/10
- DirectorDanny BoyleStarsEwan McGregorEwen BremnerJonny Lee MillerAfter 20 years abroad, Mark Renton returns to Scotland and reunites with his old friends Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie.By placing the emphasis on lost time, the film becomes less about plot & more about a changing world. The characters, the city, even the culture itself, create a stark contrast to the earlier work; enriching the original while also suggesting something on disillusionment, even failure. The artifice of Boyle's stylisation seems to exaggerate how disconnected the characters are from this world & their place within it.
- 8/10
- DirectorMike HodgesStarsMichael CaineMickey RooneyLionel StanderA seedy writer of sleazy pulp novels is recruited by a quirky, reclusive ex-actor to help him write his biography at his house in Malta.A pop-cinema companion piece to Hodge's Get Carter; with Caine again taking on a character lured into unfamiliar territory, where gangsters & corruption reign. While Carter dealt in gritty violence, Pulp is a deadpan "meta" picture in the Godard tradition; its narrative inertia only occasionally broken by bursts of audio-visual invention. It's a witty film with deeper political ideas, but possibly too arch for some.
- 7/10