John Lasseter directs Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and Annie Potts in this classic animated adventure about a pair of lost toys who have to team together to return home before moving day. 

As well as the obvious eye-poppingly colourful presentation and groundbreaking technical achievement, Toy Story boasts one of tightest ensemble comedy scripts ever committed to the big screen (it could easily be four great episodes of an Emmy winning sitcom at its midpoint peak) and some of the most intricately orchestrated set pieces outside of any traditional action blockbusters. But really it is the characters that make it fly (or at least fall with style). My favourite will always be Woody. Manufactured plastic body aside, he is human.  Insecure, grumpy, vain, the perfect critique of modern masculinity (the cowboy without a gun) and somehow Tom Hanks’ endearing voice just papers over all these gaping cracks. The star’s easy going vocal presence makes him an old friend by the end of the first scene. I also think Buzz Lightyear is a bit of a dick, but couldn’t justify the statement in court. Movie perfection and would be my Film of the Week any other week.

10

Gore Verbinski directs Dane DeHaan, Mia Goth and Jason Isaacs in this movie mystery puzzle about an executive trying to escape a Swiss spa that no one ever leaves. 

Mixed emotions on this one. At two and a half hours this is frustratingly baggy, but there’s a decent creepy 90 minute long film in here that evokes Fincher, Polanski, Kubrick, Hitchock and Bernard Rose…. but by the eighth time our unlikeable protagonist finds himself back at the spa, chasing his own tail, you want to eat the screen… And yet there are some sharply nasty spikes outside of the endless looping plot. A nerve wracking visit to the local town, a gloopily gruesome revelation long after you’ve given up on the plot and many extreme sexually suggestive moments have a squirming transgressive tension. At its strongest, the movie feel like your are watching a porno version of an old Boris Karloff movie. All those names, all those influences above, maybe A Cure For Wellness works best as a primer, a gateway drug for the better creatives’ work. If young people catch movies late night anymore (do they?), then this distracting failure might inspire kids to explore energetic hack Verbinski’s cribbed influences further. And that’s no real bad thing, he’s at least misappropriating from the very best.

5

Theodore Melfi directs Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Kevin Costner in this glossy true tale of black female mathematicians who helped NASA win the space race.

A satisfying crowd pleaser that pleasantly kills an afternoon. Imagine A League of Their Own with a more historically momentous outcome and an inoffensively button pushing racial angle. Despite its admirable cast and some captivating period recreation, the 1960s black experience aspect seems muddled to a honky cynic like me. The African American characters feel like amalgamations of modern concerns (they get their sassy moments, their triumphant moments, their oppressed moments fed to us as we the “right on” audience members require)  rather than flesh and bone citizens of their time. With the exception of the always exceptional Octavia Spencer, their opposing reactions to these wobbly arcs often feel schizophrenic from scene to scene. Taraji P. Henson can go from enraged to enfeebled to dominant to meek depending on what the easiest emotional reaction needed to be elicited happens to be. The character who efficiently flirts with a handsome church goer, furtively deals with a highway patrolman and screams at the head of NASA about a coffeepot feel like three very different people. I don’t put this shakiness down to either complexity (it’s not that kinda movie, it admirably wears its pure heart on its sleeve) or bad acting. There is no strong, sustainable throughline in the writing leaving two of these important yet regular people in history feeling like mere cyphers on the screen. It jars, leaving way too much room for old hand Costner and new star in the making Glen Powell to pretty much steal the film with broader but more consistently nailed down roles. And as fine a feelgood experience as Hidden Figures is, I’m pretty sure the end goal was not to have you leaving thinking just quite how good the white male co-stars were. Clunky manipulation aside, this is classy, fun and charmingly crafted.

6

Miloš Forman directs Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher and Brad Dourif in this ensemble drama looking at an opportunist but sane man trying to not conform to the regime of a head nurse in an oppressive mental ward. 

One the most intelligent and sensitive cinematic satires ever produced. Watching Randle P McMurphy’s individuality scrape and chafe against Nurse Ratched’s cruel regime creates laughter, tears and long lasting further thought. Each and every time Jack Nicholson’ lead aggressively battles against the mania, passivity or rules of the ward and its denizen you see him lose his grip on reality and shining bright sense of self a little bit more. It is an epic piece of acting, towering high within a fine ensemble of weirdos and freaks (early appearances from Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, Vincent Schiavelli and, especially, Brad Dourif makes this feel like a flashpoint in modern movie character acting.) Louise Fletcher’s totalitarian head nurse proves more than a test of his mettle in a viciously cold performance. You can feel the ice forming on her constant steely suppression of anyone’s happiness in the ward, none more so than in her eternally painful group therapy sessions. Forman’s grip on this world where everything is a dirty, flavourless off-white and everyone is resigned to their role within it makes for a terrifying stage for a very funny tragedy. He expertly knows when to let everyone explode but then is also quite adept at slowing the pacing right down. Watch his pleasure in stretching awkward moments out with painful reaction shots from the cast at whatever madness is taking place, whether it be psychological or societal.

10

Fritz Kiersch directs Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton and John Franklin in this Stephen King adaptation about a farming community taken over by murderous children. 

A creepy kick off and some fun initial moments with Linda Hamilton disappear in the rear view mirror pretty early. For over an hour the movie finds longer and more elaborately yawn worthy ways to kill time, cutting its short story source to shit. The underground monster finale kicks things up a notch but with a random, guessed-at logic that could easily have been set-up with a bit of bullshit exposition while the protagonists are endlessly wandering around a deserted town.

4