Michael Winner directs Charles Bronson, Jan-Michael Vincent and Keenan Wynn in this methodical hitman trains Young Turk up in his unique skillset thriller.

Has there ever been a more baffling box office star than Bronson? He can’t act, he looks awkward if asked to display any other emotion than confused and if a line requires any combination of syllables it is dictated tersely like it was originally gibberish. The one positive of his career success is he paved the way in movie backers minds that Arnie could be a star; a genuine talent who moved on from the same limitations Charlie seems more than happy to just lean on. I wonder if here he even questioned the barely hidden homosexual relationship that bubbles away between his assassin and Vincent’s dangerous protege? I mean, he had to question why they start hanging out quite so much before training begins? It’s not like his blank killer is great company or even all that mysterious. As a plot this has all been done better in the remake starring The Stath and Ben Foster, at least then any dialogue between the characters, that was not about practicalities of the next job, doesn’t seem interminable. Still the 70s location filming, the wordless missions (things really pick up before the credits) and Jerry Fielding’s wonderful score of jazzy sound clusters allow this to ascend some of the deadwood like Bronson and Winner involved.

5

Bryan Singer directs Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and Jennifer Lawrence in this time travelling mission to stop a mutant holocaust that has our heroes down to their final stand.

The original cast of the franchise and the period reboot new class cross paths to winning effect in this action packed, emotionally engaging big screen rager. Smartly plotted, confidentally told and assuredly performed by all onscreen this is a great night at the movies and a series high. Everyone gets a worthy bit of business (except Halle Berry’s Storm but why change the habit of the lifetime?) and “everyone” is one hell of a movie star roll call. Newcomers Peter Dinklage (well written villian), Fan Bingbing (terrifically realised and utilised as portal creating Blink -more please) and especially Evan Peters (superspeedy and adorable as Quicksilver) fit in to their slots with ease and underline just how cleverly assembled the chess like action  sequences have been formulated. And shockingly for a summer juggernaut many of those early set pice take place in small, enclosed locations (safe, hotel room, kitchen, conference room) so only once all hell breaks out in the double era-spanning, gigantic send off does the scale move noticeably up. Until then the mutant powers combined and the conflicting character motivations unleashed are enough to make the fights and fantasy grip. The Rogue Cut has some great extra scenes; Old Magneto rescues series starter Anna Paquin’s Rogue while Lawrence and Hoult’s brilliant Beast have a fireside pause for romance / politics. This is the definitive version of a new summer classic.

10

 

Bryan Singer directs James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence and Michael Fassbender in this Eighties good mutants versus ancient evil mutant epic.

X-Men is nobody’s favourite comic book franchise but it often is one of the most pleasurable and satisfying in its adherence to good old fashioned Spielbergian and Cameronesque big screen movie craft. Coming off the series best Days of Future Past and game changing Deadpool, Apocalypse is not the strongest entry (a bit like the same damp praise I gave Spectre of being a mid tier Bond – it went through the beats but they are beats I love). Apocalypse suffers deeply from an air that the at-the-end-of-their-deals Fassbender and Lawrence don’t really want to be here anymore and therefore their key lead characters seem diluted rather than evolved. Kinky Mystique’s rebooting as dour Raven has defanged the troublemaker of purpose, she’s here now to make speeches, look glum and only turn blue if she really, really, really contractually has to. And being the box office powerhouse and undeniable acting talent J-Law is, she gets it her way and not the way a fan of this series needs her mutant to be. Fassbender gets a nice “Oh the humanity” acting scene in a forest before switching to clock watching autopilot for the next two hours. Much has been made of it. I actually thought the preceding scene where Magneto uses his powers to instinctually save a human, then can’t trust those around him not to betray his mutanty -ness a little more interesting. That was almost a tipping point where Magneto was beginning to value “normal” life and trust them not to turn. Unthinkable in previous instalments that he might value and trust “us”. And then proven right in the scene that is getting all the attention. The universe can move on without them especially if a still game McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult and especially Evan Peters stick about. Ensemble issue aside the stakes do not seem as involving as DoFP and therefore the action often perfunctory. The series standard excellent world building, Singer’s strong blockbuster storytelling skills (the pyramid self destruct at the start is thrillingly inventive) and the long won affection I have for this franchise over 16 years of some amazing peaks, occasional troughs means I’m OK with an OK one. Marvel for all their successes haven’t earned that from me (yet). I doubt I’ll ever watch the second Iron Man or second Thor again. Whereas I’d relish a full X-Men marathon even with Origins stumbling about at the midway point, blocking the runners. The weakest so far of this year’s mega cast superhero rumbles but one that at the very least has at long last an R-rated Wolverine break out of nowhere for a whoppingly bloody set piece and scuttle off to his Old Man Logan solo pic, claws dripping tantalising  in (assumed) gore. Now you want to buy a ticket, don’t you?

6

Neil Jordan directs Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury and David Warner in this feminist exploration of werewolf / Little Red Riding Hood tales.

Angela Carter adapts her own short stories that intwine young womanhood, lycanthropy and storytelling itself into this esoteric adult fantasy. A lot of the symbolism and FX work has aged some episodes horribly but the implicit sexual charge coursing through all the varied encounters and Anton Furst’s beautiful set designs hold true to make this a lush, unique treat. A wild rarity.

7

Alfred Hitchcock directs Robert Cummings, Priscilla Lane and Norman Lloyd in this wartime spy thriller with a man on the run through America from the authorities and a cabal of fascists.

Not by any means gold standard Hitch. Dull leads and a succession of daft wrinkles to push home the homefront propoganda message means this often just trundles along. There are weird sequences involving kindly blind men in secluded cabins (Did they live anywhere else in Forties America?) and democratic circus freaks, then a crowbarred in romance. Still the last reel involving a ballroom fundraiser where no-one will listen that the hosts are villians, a shoot out in a movie theatre showing a shootout and a tussle on the torch of the Statue of Liberty is all worth the wait. Ends abruptly as if now Hitch has done what he came for he can’t wait to be rid of it.

6

Eleanor Coppola, George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr direct Francis Ford Coppola, Eleanor Coppola and Marlon Brando in this candid documentary on the chaos  experienced filming Apocalypse Now.

If you don’t know just quite what a troubled production the classic Vietnam war movie had then you are in for a shocking treat. If you do, then strap yourself in for one of the funniest fly on the wall documentaries ever made. For the first hour it’s Copolla’s topless hubris as his vision and fortune is obliterated by typhoons, Cambodian army manoeuvres or critically ill actors where HoD never fails to find a shot or line that doesn’t raises a chuckle at his misfortune and arrogance. It opens with a statement from his wife saying she see secretly recorded many of his private conversations, full of disbelief in what he had gotten himself into and self doubt in his own talents. This feels like the Watergate Tapes of DVD extras. As bad as things get for the strutting, vain glorious New Hollywood titan we at least have the inbuilt relief of knowing the finished film will be a masterpiece. Yet then Dennis Hopper and Marlon Brando turn up and the fun really begins. Hopper cast on a fourth strike in his final game of his then failing career is drugged out and belligerent. Brando is overweight, money grabbing and employing his famous on set stalling tactics – a monster. A triumph against adversity, topped by Brando bluntly exclaiming to camera mid monologue  “I swallowed a bug.” A making of doc better than most films, a documentary with more big laughs than most spoof documentaries. And a cast even better than Apocalypse Now.

8

Hal Ashby directs Bud Cort, Ruth Gordon and Vivian Pickles in this romance between a quiet young rich man obsessed with death and a vibrant old lady who has lived life her own way.

Popping with quirk and charm this is a lovely little gem. Cat Stevens on the soundtrack, perfect casting, the wonderfully grim fake suicides Harold inflicts on his mother (and us), the constantly dotty bad behaviour of his geriatric new flame Maude. There’s a lot to adore, Wes Anderson clearly did… the DNA of the film is a near perfect match to his oeuvre. The modern hip wunderkind has yet to have such a poignant edit comparing a field of unique daisies to the uniform white gravestones of the war dead though. Pretty brave for a studio film made in Vietnam era 1971. Having said all that praise Harold and Maude is often a slight, trite, predictable experience. The script feels like a first draft of a potential classic rather than the polished and gift wrapped item the amazing leads and the rest of the film crew make it. There’s an obvious blind adherence of the rule of three that means we, the viewer, often get blugeoned by the same sequences on the third run. If Harold fakes a death in front of a blind date once then we have to see two more variations later. If Maude bamboozles a cop hilariously in the first act then expect to see it again and again. I won’t be hypocritical and give a third example. That deadening repetition holds this beautiful little oddity back from greatness. Still for a film with one foot in the grave it is remarkably uplifting in its message.

8

Jeremy Saulnier directs Anton Yelchin, Alia Shawkat and Patrick Stewart in this claustrophobic punk band versus skinheads thriller.

Last time I trembled like this in the cinema I was watching Ringu in the ICA, 1999. Sadako was climbing out of a TV screen and I knew what was about to happen next was going to be dreadful for a character I had invested in. Jeremy Saulnier, building on his intense Blue Ruin, hits exactly the same nerve expertly with this. It is a tight, aggressive little shocker that plays out with a relentless glee. Unlike say, Return of the Living Dead (see below) the protagonists aren’t running around like headless chickens. They are introduced as resourceful but careless – they’ve run out petrol but problem solve the best siphoning opportunity with experienced petty criminal precision. And this characterises the Ain’t Rights once the shit hits the fan as they make smart plays and reckless moves to escape a horrific situation. They are a captivating crew who have trouble being decisive in their new prison, but every time the clock runs out on them the violence that occurs is explicitly awful. The voice through the door plotting against them is none other than Patrick Stewart, who gives up on anything resembling a yank accent and just launches at every line reading with a hammy Yorkshire menace. Head Skin is accompanied by vicious dogs and lower ranking bother boys with hidden agendas. Their wavering against the boss’ ideology will be the bands only thin windows to make their break. So they tool up and go for it… Kubrickian in detailed realisation of the punk scene, Fincher-esque in its cold, practical springing of the trap and John Carpenter amplified in every fibre and shot and edit and line. Borrowing from the best is no crime. Yet this still moshes, glasses and stomps to it own hideously compelling rhythm. Class.

10

Sebastian Schipper directs Laia Costa, Frederick Lau and Franz Rogowski in this Berlin set romance / thriller all done in one late night take.

It starts like a less pretentious, working class Before Sunrise and warps into a very, very dragged out Run Lola Run. The one shot gimmick is effectively achieved, the likeable performances (Lau in particular makes this worth watching) never noticeably slip, the action really rather awesomely never treads water. But after a slow but appealing flirtation and an enjoyable if unbelievable heist, we get left with one hell of a hungover comedown. Characters become unlikable and you keep thinking back to an earlier point where everything neatly came about full circle and just wish the credits had started rolling off there and then rather than half an hour later. As an exercise in plate spinning it is laudable, as a night out at the movies frustrating.

5

U

The Russo Brothers direct Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson and Sebastian Stan in this conspiracy thriller lite where Cap finds the modern world to be a distinctly untrustworthy milieu.

Strong ensemble character work and some genuinely kick ass action make this standard issue blockbuster fun. Evans stretches out perfectly into his iconic long term home – he’s still a Boy Scout in his small asides, actions and exchanges albeit an indestructible one. Johansson’s Black Widow is given more to do here than any other Marvel appearance, winningly so. Sure, the plot and paranoia isn’t quite up to scratch when held near the 70s genre it apes, the weather is that near constant Marvel bland utopia of never changing 40 degree days and you do wish in the final big battle they might “shut the fuck up” with the jokes and let the well set up stakes of the boom boom speak for itself. But all in all out an efficient romp.

7