Gary Ross directs Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mahershala Ali in this true story of a Civil War deserter who sets up his own racially equal state in Reconstruction Era America.

A disappointment. All the ingredients are here – thrilling war time battles, a historically accurate forgotten moment recreated, a fine central McConaughey performance, a strong supporting cast and a top notch writer and director working on a passion project. Yet it spins out in directionless loops, never really progressing or getting to any tangible destination. You leave the film unsure what impact such anachronist adventure and heroism had, nor what really eventually happened to the rebellious Jones county’s hard fought for sovereignty. Maybe that’s the point – despite the best efforts nothing has changed – but as a moral writ large that makes for a terminally redundant final hour. Wafts between exciting and depressing in the most frustrated way, then depression wins out.

4

 

Peter Berg directs Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell and John Malkovich in this gripping recreation of the recent oil rig disaster.

Masterful storytelling setting up the physics and corporate malpractice of the tragic incident give way to a furiously intense hour of characters you care about surviving (or not surviving) the credibly realised inferno. To be honest, that opening half of working men and profit margin driven suits operating at knowingly dangerous cross purposes is so naturally acted and excitingly paced that when the hellish spectacle finally butts in you are almost disappointed we have to leave that talkier, more intelligent drama. If you were marvelled by Captain Phillips then this works a very similar high-end, top quality groove… although obviously a rather fine Wahlberg lead turn is still no match for Hanks. Emotionally captivating big budget cinema.

9

Sam Fuller directs Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan and Gene Barry in this western where a cattle woman with a town at her feet falls for the alpha male who begrudgingly cleans things up.

A bizarre mixture of the Wyatt Earp legend and a Great Expectations style gothic romance, this is a strangely endearing film. I’m still wrapping my head around Sam Fuller as an auteur and his punk-ish, pop art sensibilities here grinds hard against the more interesting themes of the tale. He shoots everything from experimental angles via gun rifles and between legs (Leone’s trademark eye close ups arrive here 5 years early too) – and it is the kind of drumbeat speed melodrama where anything and everything can happen quickly. The energetic action, storytelling and framing is infectious but this isn’t your father’s Western despite its vintage. So many powerful moments deserve mention…. including a 5 minute tracking shot leading to a suicide, Stanwyck’s horseback posse introduction, a tornado that chases our heros into a tryst and a town riot that feels more like a cowboy themed angel dust party. Sexually aware and with some hinky gender politics, this is a real curate’s egg for the viewer to pick through. Fun though.

7

Simon Wincer directs Billy Zane, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Treat Williams in this stodgily faithful adaptation of the 1930’s comic book avenger.

A movie in concept you want to hold onto and cuddle but which proves so lacking in any meaty curve or satisfying edge in reality that it is difficult to gain any meaningful traction with it. The intention is clearly to play this as straight as possible, and period true also, but achingly so. It means everything is po faced and slowly paced – an anomaly from the era that gave us Con Air and Independence Day. In his stringent avoidance of camp Wincer’s face value direction neuters both Billy Zane and Treat Williams (two usually unsubtle but distinctive actors who could easily wink this into a more fun movie given a bit more rope) and leaves you begging it to just amp things up a notch. The derring-do is well staged (Vic Armstrong stunts with 90s budgets are always going to catch the eye) and it all looks like it should be a romp despite itself. Spielberg showed with Raiders and Jurassic Park he uniquely understands that no matter how much realism you instill into these revivals of the cliffhanger adventure series, you still need a touch of modern anarchy and self-awareness to make it flow.

4

 

David Fincher directs Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter in the modern masterpiece rejecting consumerism, soft masculinity and sanity.

No matter how many times you watch it, this pitch black comedy can become a bit of an achy blur. Fincher just directs the fuck out of it using digital effects confidently to take us out of a fear receptor through an Ikea catalogue into a chemical burn fever dream and leave us in our pants with our brains spilling out of our cheeks. And being pummelled in the face like that with so much quality cutting edge filmmaking, anarchic humour and gleeful misanthropic destruction can leave even the keenest viewer only remembering the final twisty blow and not all the colourful, vivid bruises and scars earned throughout. Norton and Pitt have a lovely chemistry making you wish they would reunite on a project with similar vision and ambition. A massive “go fuck yourself” to corporate led studio filmmaking (Three Kings, Being John Malkovich… what was in the Hollywood water coolers in 1999?) that set everyone involved up on a pedestal you’d need a long hard reach to knock them down off of to this day.

10

Irvin Kershner directs Sean Connery, Kim Basinger and Klaus Maria Brandauer in this remake of Thunderball from the people who didn’t bring you James Bond.

Obviously Big Tam did this for the cold hard cash but imagine a moment where he watched everything wrong with the Roger Moore era films and said aloud “Why can’t I do all that shite, only cheaper and slower?” And then set to it with a production team with none of the flair or love for the franchise that EON clearly possesses. Just awful, with only the villians putting anything resembling more than minimum effort in.

2

 

Jon Lucas and Scott Moore direct Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn in this comedy where moms rejected by the PTA unite and rebel… mainly by drinking.

An absolute waste of a great and spirited cast all of whom have carried worse premises than this. The jokes just aren’t there, everything spewed out of the mouths of the hardworking comic actresses feels mechanically like what male writers think dirty talking moms might say, when all we really want is punchlines. Instead we get a lot of loud soundtracked montages and pratfalls. Now the drinking ones do actually have a surreal OTT quality that raises chuckles but they act like signal flares in an ocean of mediocrity. The film also exists in an alternate reality where characters seem to operate under short term memory loss and there are no real world consequences. The most troubling moment comes at wrap up, when in a sop for false sisterhood, Kunis befriends Christina Applegate’s brilliantly boo hiss villian mom AFTER SHE PLANTED DRUGS IN HER DAUGHTER’S SCHOOL LOCKER ONLY SCENES EARLIER. Add to that a joke free sequence where Mila struggles to pick up a man in a single’s bar because she keeps revealing she has kids…. yeah right, it’s Mila Fucking Kunis… And you have a comedy that might as well be set on Mongo it is so blandly not of this world.

3

Woody Allen directs Seth Green, Diane Weist and Mia Farrow in this celebration of his own youth and the radio stars of the 1940s.

A collection of vignettes charmingly cast and recreated. It would all feel a bit disposable and indulgent if it didn’t have quite so many stand out moments. My own personal favourite is when Farrow’s struggling actress witnesses a mob hit and is then taken home by Danny Aiello’s hitman so he can borrow a shovel from his Ma to bury her. A lot of classy fun.

7

Tim Burton directs Eva Green, Asa Butterfield and Samuel L Jackson in this quirky, gothic tale of freak children hiding in a timeloop sanctuary from monsters who want to eat their eyeballs. 

Like Sweeny Tood, this feels like an acceptable echo of what the formerly brilliant Tim Burton can achieve if he engages with his source material. Stuck in the middle of this film is an hour long hoot where we gently meet and interact with all the strange younglings, get hints of their personalities and potential dramas. If that middle hour was a pilot for a TV show you’d be hooked. A ghoulish and visually stunning Party of Five or Dawson’s Creek with Eva Green as the big name adult showing the youth how to steal the show. The problem is the opening and closing acts that bookend it all. We take far too long to get to the titular home and after an admittedly thrilling prologue it’s a trudgy route taken. While the close is actually about three finales crushed into one, with the established tone drastically shifting from magical to knockabout, and only Samuel L Jackson’s full fat villian managing to keeps things popping. The most promising of these climaxes sees Butterfield’s relative norm leaping through eras to reconnect with his new love lost. Frustratingly this promising premise should have been the sequel rather than a rushed afterthought. Still if this disturbing little romance does get a second shot then more pipe smoking Green and floating Ella Purnell and moody Scottish adolescent reanimators with less forced plot would actually be most welcome.

6

Colm McCarthy directs Paddy Considine, Gemma Arterton and Senna Nenua in this zombie apocalypse thriller told from the perspective of a half infected child.

At times compelling, then at other moments cliched, this 2000AD / Vertigo inspired zombie movie fails to catch the creep of Romero nor match the relentless action bleak of 28 Days Later or World War Z. It feels very much like a spin off from one of those recent superior films – and while that is satisfying in bursts and often ambitious in its attempts to find beauty in the corpse strewn wastelands – it would struggle to seduce you into a second viewing. Nenua, as the child lead is sweetly convincing; her potential vaccine carrying monster, one missed meal away from munching on the attractive supporting cast but looking for a cuddle, is about as complex a turn as a young actor can deliver. Whenever the focus shifts from her to the adults who surround her though you can’t help but feel star power wins out and you’d much rather more screentime was devoted to Considine’s hardline grunt, Arterton gorgeous knitwear clad teacher or Glenn Close’s fanatical scientist. The neat ending also starts to get tied into a ribbon a little too early and obviously. Gory, even unsettling when more children are introduced into the mix, but doesn’t linger or thrill in the way the best of this sub-genre manages too.

6