Gilles Paquet-Brenner directs Charlize Theron, Christina Hendricks and Nicholas Hoult in this crime thriller about the victim of a childhood massacre investigating her family’s murders decades later.

Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl had a He Said / She Said hook that lent itself to cinematic adaptation. This sister thriller is as flat as week old cola in its faithfulness to her other book without that hook. The flashbacks don’t marry up to the present day framing sleuthing. We just meet older versions of the survivors and suspects who go tell us to go meet someone else, while the fateful day flashbacks play out independently and ambiguously inbetween. It could have been the imprisoned brother, the bookie Satan worshipping teen, the junkie Dad, the impoverished mom or even the de facto protagonist or even… somehow… Holt’s murder obsessed nerd kid (time travel willing). As we get close to the credits, clearly the ball is going to land in one of those roulette slots but they have all spun around so dispassionately that when the number is finally settled and the chips cashed in, all that you can do is meet the conclusion with a shrug. The route to the solution is so cold and rote it just doesn’t matter. It wastes a good cast, with only Hendricks’ doomed single matriarch managing to eke out any drama or personality or humanity in the rush. Considering the talent assembled, that is a brutal shame, more shocking than any twist this reaches. You can tell what attracted Theron to the project, her vague lead shares many of the arrested development attributes of her Young Adult anti-heroine. Whereas as that was a part that stretched her, here she ends up a mere SnapBack donning avatar to an inconsequential mystery.

4

My Top 10 Charlize Theron Movies

1. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

2. Prometheus (2012)

3. Long Shot (2019)

4. The Cider House Rules (1999)

5. Atomic Blonde (2017)

6. Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

7. Hancock (2008)

8. Tully (2018)

9. 15 Minutes (2001)

10. The Yards (2000)

Sam Peckinpah directs Dustin Hoffman, Susan George and Peter Vaughan in this rural thriller where a nerdy mathematician and his restless wife come under threat from the unchecked aggression of the local men. 

A visceral experience that grows on me each time I watch it. My wife hit the nail on the head about its difficult reputation neutering the end product. The infamously troubling rape ordeal at its centre, that gave Straw Dogs a banned status in its home country for our entire youth, skews how you absorb a very unsettling thriller. You spend the first half ignoring Peckinpah’s astute portrait of a bullying atmosphere of toxic masculinity, waiting on tenterhooks for the inevitable sex attack to happen. When it does occur, it is an utterly gruelling sequence, but one that brushes uncomfortably with controversial moments that suggest enjoyment and some consent from the victim. And afterward it has so little effect on the home invasion finale as to feel like mere casual exploitation. Narratively, our ostensible “hero” Hoffman is never made aware of his wife’s trauma (even though there are hints he is being wilfully ignorant). And George’s mania is a more than understandable in-the-moment reaction to the lethal threat besieging their home and her husband’s out of character aggression to it, rather than as evidence of PTSD from the gang rape. So the controversial central set piece acts almost like a ironic lighthouse. It serves little narrative necessity but warns you of the dark, unsettling nature of Straw Dogs. Yet equally that overpowering scene blinds you on the first few watches as you sail too close into it, looking into its powerful bulb rather than taking in the jaggedness of the dangerous rock it is built on. The violent and bleak whole shares DNA with other classics of the time; the overpowering and bloody depiction of humanity of A Clockwork Orange, the unchecked threat of civilisation in isolation of The Wicker Man, the eerie use of horror evoking light and mist of The Fog, and the subverted Western form (Peckinpah’s genre of choice) of outnumbered white hats surrounded by marauders subverting the heroics of Shane or Rio Bravo. Hoffman is perfectly cast as the seemingly timid, rational man who loses control in the face of hostility and dominance. He proves as much a monster as the antagonists’ bullying and belittling his wife. When he finally snaps, his reaction to them, and brute authority of her, actually saves them. George (always shot with titillation in mind) puts in an ambiguous turn as an unhappy trophy wife. Struggling to find ways to get her ill-matched husband to engage with her, she exacerbates his insecurities and finds herself stirring up the less refined lusts of her old friends. It is a pessimistic portrait of a bad marriage in isolation. The savagery that eventually crosses their threshold accelerates the decline of their partnership but it is hard to see how the two would ever co-exist in isolation over much more time. Whether taken as a profane study of gender under accelerated conditions or a grim, nightmarish rollercoaster ride, Straw Dogs is an effective exercise in intent and execution.

8

Orson Welles directs Joseph Cotten, Tim Holt and Anne Baxter in this turn-of-the century family saga about a powerful clan in terminal decline. 

A difficult movie to assess in its own right, whether you take it as squashed fragments of a masterpiece or a stunted bore. Its reputation as the first of many Welles’ works that were butchered by a studio irreparably and the starting injury to his reputation (a festering wound that crippled his ability to control his projects for the rest of his life) means it will always be viewed through a strange miasma. What could have been? It clearly is a compromised work with a clunky second half of rushed exits and that glaringly tacked on happy ending that looks more suited to a Marx Brothers film. But equally the first half has an elegant motion that matches Scorsese’s similar and stronger The Age of Innocence in its recreation of a lost age. Aside from its place in cinematic history and puzzles of its choppy production, Ambersons does still suffer from an ensemble of unsavoury rich folk and the intended air of ennui is often stifling. As a portrait of America in decline it is lacerating, as a soapy entertainment it can be a struggle. Best watched for the mastery of Welles’ storytelling – there are moments of visual verve that match Kane.

7

Roger Donaldson directs Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton and Charles Hallahan in this disaster movie about a volcanologist who thinks a small town is under threat from a dormant volcano. 

A rather dull and worthy survival scenario; perfunctory, dawdling and uninspired. We wait an eternity for shit to go down. And when shit goes down it too often feels like studio based, toddler-aged CGI tainted fakery. Not even Brosnan nor Hamilton, two very likeable actors, can add much more than semi-authentic grimacing to the low level thrills that eventually bombard them.

4

Mel Gibson directs himself, Patrick McGoohan and Sophie Marceau in this historical war movie about William Wallace and the medieval Scottish rebellions he led.

“FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE-DOOOOOOOMMM!” A gorgeously satisfying epic. You get a Mad Mel revenge thriller, a gorily ornate re-enactment of the battle of Stirling Bridge, two heartfelt romance subplots, a dry run for the prestige torture porn of The Passion and a beautiful performance by lush, green Ireland as Scotland. The interaction of the rebels has an easy John Ford-ish humour and rhythm, while the romance sequences have a high cranked etherealness that evokes silent movies. Sure, it is a little black and white in its politics; I remember a Christmas Day viewing where my little nanny bellowed “KILL THE ENGLISH!” at the screen. And you wouldn’t want to take it as a source material into a history exam. So this is inaccurate and that is inaccurate. Blah! Blah! Blah! We open up with the bullshit justifying narration “I shall tell you of William Wallace. Historians from England will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who have hanged heroes. ” And it feels emotionally true. That’s what Gibson understands… sometimes we just need to pick a side and follow it (in movies, not life), not question the anachronisms if they signify what they need to. Sure, it makes Braveheart’s rampant nationalism a bit shaky. But if you want to base your patriotism and party politics on a violent rollicker from the star of Lethal Weapon, then you probably should stay well out of political discourse. For those of us who just want a lush star vehicle, full of meaty massive scale barneys, this hits the spot. As John Ford said “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
10

Brad Peyton directs Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in this video game adaptation about a giant gorilla, wolf and crocodile who destroy a city.

One day there will be a truly great movie derived from a video game. Likewise The Rock will one day take his ridiculous physique, laid back charm and cartoonish action chops into a script meeting for an eventual five star movie. Rampage isn’t a diamond but it still feels like the closest we have got so far to either of those scenarios becoming a reality. It is a big carnage driven effects fest… with a bird flipping gorilla, three excessively silly action sequences and plenty of cool moments for our Dwayne AND Jeffrey Dean Morgan. You’ll forget you’ve even seen it by autumn but as summer blockbusters go this entertains swaggeringly for its inoffensive 100 minutes. Big dumb fun.

7

Robin Campillo directs Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Arnaud Valois and Adèle Haenel in this drama following AIDS awareness activists in 1990s Paris.

There’s a telling moment near the end of 120 BPM. A young man has died. Friends, lovers and colleagues from the ACT UP group arrive one by one to the flat. The bereaved mother asks for help with a sofa bed. A fair few of them get involved in folding the creaking contraption. In the face of the unavoidable (death) they find a problem to solve together, and by pushing against the rusty old mechanisms of comfort and complacency they feel like a community achieving something. It is a literal representation of what we have witnessed them do with passion and desperation over a year or two of story. Surprisingly, Campillo’s recreation of the protest’s groups action, stunts and interactions doesn’t come alive most in the slightly idealised raids and riots. Nor in the romances, which (explicit sex aside) often have the innocent enthusiasm of a 90s teen soap like Byker Grove. The strongest moments are the formal and verbal conflict heavy debates between the group’s membership in a sterile lecture hall. An early scene runs us through the points of order and rules of speaking within these intense sessions, indoctrinating us into the cause like curious new members. We meet and feel the outrage of the young people in these sequences, young people whose life expectancies can be measured in their rapidly diminishing T cell counts. As they try to provoke change within the government, awareness within their community and urgency in the pharma corporations you feel complicit with the power of their motivations. It is powerful film, but also a very loose one… focus shifts onto quite a few glimpsed but unexplored stories and there are about eight adequate conclusions in the overlong last act.

 

7

John Krasinski directs himself, Emily Blunt and Millicent Simmonds in this survival horror where a family try to stay completely silent so as to evade sound seeking monsters who have decimated America.

A good solid thrill-ride. Bolstered by uniformly excellent performances (Blunt and newcomer Simmonds duke it out for top honours), a Spielbergian sense of confident visual storytelling and a well defined level of threat. The opening salvo lays out how brutal the consequences of making a sound in this universe are, and exactly how far the filmmakers are willing to go when putting this beautiful family through the grinder. The creature design is strong, about as good as CGI grotesques get. The moments where we hear things from the deaf daughter’s aural POV have a vivid true silence to them. In a world where everyone is trying not to make a sound, she is sometimes dangerously oblivious to her sonic footprint. It makes the toughest, most likeable player, harshly vulnerable. One quibble, the actual action set pieces are a little too brief – a Hitchcock, Craven or DePalma might keep the jeopardy churning at the clan for a few extra moments before resolving each attack.

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7

Jim Wynorski directs John Terlesky, Monique Gabrielle and Toni Naples in this tongue-in-cheek fantasy adventure where a swashbuckling thief escorts a dispossessed princess back to her lands.

Exploitation with a grin. John Terlesky is like a poor man’s Bruce Campbell. And there ain’t nothing wrong with that. Clearly a decision was made during the cheapo production on hand me down sets just to go with the flow, shoplift the best Han Solo gags from Star Wars and wink at the camera as much as possible. And that self-awareness works in a clunkily enthusiastic way. It never reaches the intelligence, of say, Terry Pratchett’s early novels but there’s a hint of the same knowing, humorous vibe. With added boobs and boobs and boobs and boobs. Boobs aside, the fight sequences are energetically delivered and the three henchmen actors are recycled nicely. Take that Beastmaster. I will probably never try Deathstalker: Episode I though.
5

Don Coscarelli directs Marc Singer, Tanya Roberts and Rip Torn in this adult fantasy actioner where an orphaned warrior prince develops the power to control animals. 

One of the earliest films I remember. My aunt and uncle had it on VHS and despite the 18 certificate I’m sure it was put on a fair few times while we played in the front room. Violence and shadowy buttshots aside, it is essentially a childish sword and sorcery romp. Like Phantasm, Coscarelli throws every piece of shit he can against the wall. Sometimes that churns up an decent bit of imagery (the flesh absorbing bat people, the writhing deformed witches) but it often feels slapdash. The fight sequences, for example, look like practice runs rather than anything that is supposed to convince or excite. It also says something about the human cast’s talent or dedication to the project that they are roundly acted off the screen by a pair of abused ferrets.

3

 

My Top Ten Fantasy Movies

1. The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
3. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
4. Return to Oz (1985)
5. Highlander (1986)

6. The Princess Bride (1987)
7. Tale of Tales (2016)
8. Arabian Nights (1942)
9. Beauty And The Beast (1991)
10. Spirited Away (2001)