Roger Spottiswoode directs Nick Nolte, Joanna Cassidy and Gene Hackman in this romantic drama set around the fall of Nicaragua. 

A top cast is lost in an uninvolving Casablanca wannabe love triangle and an uncertain approach to the verite action. You just can’t get into or care about the narrative. Ed Harris crops up intermittently as a mercenary, and you kinda wish he was the focus of the movie.

3

Martin Brest directs Robert DeNiro, Charles Grodin and John Aston in this buddy cop movie where a bounty hunter takes a prissy embezzler cross country against the clock.

A very relaxed running time, a distinct lack of punchlines or particularly outstanding set pieces yet it is one of the best of its genre. Definitively enjoyable, it waves along off of the brilliant interplay between DeNiro (committed) and Grodin (perfection). Their Odd Couple dynamic is unmatched in an action film, always abrasive but believably warms as state lines are crossed and the deadline looms. The early Danny Elfman score is a hoot too. Just watch it.

9

Bong Joon-ho directs Ahn Seo-hyun, Paul Dano and Jake Gyllenhaal in this disturbing adventure about a girl who races across the globe to stop her genetically modified giant pig from being exploited by the corporation who created it. 

So glad I have given up meat before watching this. It can be harrowing for prolonged periods, both visually and to your guilt gland – a veritable porky Schindler’s List by the end. Aside from the brutality of flesh harvesting, envisioned convincingly and disturbingly, it is quite the satirical romp. Choppy though, the humour never syncs with the action, which never aligns with the emotionally open drama. But that is par for the course for Bong Joon-ho. What makes up for all the manipulation and unevenness is the dedicated supporting performances. It is almost as if creepy Dano and attractive Gyllenhaal have swapped their stock roles here and both work fine against type. Swinton is also fantastic in dual villian roles – matching her outstanding work in Snowpiercer. Okja, unusually for an adult arthouse fantasy, harks back to the kind of kid’s films I grew up on, a contemporary quest to save the loveable animal. Better than E.T., darker say than D.A.R.Y.L. ,essentially we get a vegan polemic for The Goonies generation now we are going grey and giving more of a shit about our legacy.

7

 

Andrew Bergman directs Nicolas Cage, James Caan and Sarah Jessica Parker in this Elvis marinated romantic comedy about a gangster who tricks a pair of almost weds into letting him date the bride to be for a weekend. 

I remember watching this at the fleapit in West Ealing. Possibly the first movie I watched alone in the cinema. God, that’s a sad sentence. And I love going to the cinema on my todd. It is a strange film, with an off putting set-up (Cage essentially whores his true love out, albeit under pressure) yet it works. There’s a compulsive gaudy energy to it, matching The King soundtrack, matching Cage’s barely restrained everyman acting. Colourful and propulsive, it works if you leave your brain, and ethics, at the door.

7

Jennie Livingston directs Dorian Corey, Pepper LaBeija and Venus Xtravaganza in this documentary capturing the Ball culture of New York and the dispossessed gay and transgendered communities that it was a hub for. 

One of the best documentaries ever made. Immersive, frank and unromantic. You feel like you have had an education of the aesthetic, tragedies and victories of a subculture by the end. This is exactly what I want from this kind of experience. Funny too.

9

 

Ron Howard directs Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah and John Candy in this romantic comedy about a man who falls for a mermaid who only has a week on land to hit Manhattan and spend time with her curly haired beau. 

A 1984 doubler. Two brilliant New York location movies in a row. Two Daryl Hannah movies in a row. In Pope of Greenwich Village she is literally background soft furnishings / a “beard” but in Splash she gets centre stage. And she absolutely rocks it. Ethereal and convincing. I just googled the origins of the phrase ‘fish out of water’ hoping Splash would be the birth date and it turns out it was actually coined for the film Crocodile Dundee three years later… Not really, it is in Chaucer allegedly, but wouldn’t it be fantastic if ‘fish out of water’ did spring out the 1980s genre that profited from it. Why don’t we get ‘fish out of water’ movies anymore? Probably wouldn’t be PC. Blooming progressive, polite, sympathetic society. I don’t know. Lost genre. Bring it back. I want to see a North Korean housewife hit Disneyland. Or a tough Maryland homicide detective solve a crime on a Bollywood set. Does Splash work? Moment by moment it is syrupy and funny. But bizarrely Tom Hanks gets neutered by a role defined by plot machinations. He goes from loveable foil to out and out prick once Hannah’s aquatic secret is revealed. It is all to create unnecessary obstacles for the big resolutions to feel like a victory. But it takes the magic out of the modern fairytale, and sucks the chemistry out of Hanks inherent charm. A shame as in the first hour, Splash is a sweet treat.

6

Stuart Rosenberg directs Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts and Daryl Hannah in this crime drama about two low rent NY criminals trying to survive an incompetent mid-level score.

Mean Streets remade as a coded camp cabaret show. So histrionic, so closeted flaming gay, so easily distracted with side-plot scrapes that this really should be awful. It isn’t – it often is fantastic in just how hard everyone is trying to be authentic, to be the next Brando or Pacino. Sure, most of it is men shouting poetic street slang at each other in suits (baggy) and leisurewear (tight) when really they should be unbuttoning each other’s flies. Just fuck already. It makes it all the more fun, the heist and mob drama are a mere nail in the wall to hang it all off of. Probably Rourke’s best youthful turn and easily Roberts most…. err… distinctive.

8