Robert Smigel directs Adam Sandler, Chris Rock and Steve Buscemi in the domestic comedy about a father of the bride trying to give his daughter a dream wedding on a budget while housing the extended families.

Every Adam Sandler comedy opens to terrible reviews. Yet some are perfectly adequate and some are truly great. So who you gonna believe? This is an appealing attempt to make an overly busy, sitcommy ensemble around wedding planning stress. It hits the same sweet notes as Father of the Bride or a National Lampoon’s Vacation movie. The laughs in the main come from thick and fast character beats, only losing focus when escalating to a grander scale than the “truth” allows. A sequence involving bat sabotage is a farce too far but even that lengthy misstep leads to a neat resolution. As we’ve seen before, Rock and Sandler have great chemistry and their scenes together chime with a magic that very few other comedic pairings have recently. On the whole this works. You’ll chuckle out loud consistently for 2 hours. And could easily watch it with any generation of your family. Is that the worse thing in the world?

7

Bertrand Blier directs Gérard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere and Miou-Miou in this French road movie about a sexist pair of hustlers bouncing around the country, engaging in petty crimes and deadpan sex. 

A pair of misogynistic thieves get into scrapes and slowly, subtly begin to value the women they use and abuse. The bad behaviour and treatment of Miou-Miou will be abhorrent to modern audiences. Yet it is a transgressive treat, never boring, with some emotion to its callous shocks and ribald jokes. I do genuinely think Blier’s intention is to show how all sexually vicarious men do eventually mature into more sensitive, caring lovers the more they interact with women. Yet this is never explicitly stated while the overpowering flavour of their gonad led debasement of anything in a skirt of the first hour will be most people’s take home from this.

7

László Benedek directs Marlon Brando, Mary Murphy and Lee Marvin in this “issues” movies about the “misunderstood” leader of a biker gang who inspires the town they are tearing up to become a lynch mob. 

“What are you rebelling against, Johnny?”

“Whaddaya got?”

”How do you afford your beer and petrol, Johnny?”

…

“Aren’t you and white haired Lee Marvin a bit old to be playing leaders of youth gangs?”

…

“I mean you look like you have a mortgage, Johnny.”

[mumbles something indiscernible]

”They are forming a lynch mob, mate… just leave.”

…

“I know it is unfair and the civilised are being uncivil but you have a bike… just get out of here… for fuck sake, there’s no windows left to smash, mate.”

“Whaddaya got?”

“…Oh!”

5

Philip Kaufman directs Ken Wahl, John Friedrich and Karen Allen in this teen drama about a Bronx high school gang coming of age in 1963. 

Part raunchy comedy, part social drama, part expressionist action movie, all in though this is a hidden gem. The acting is ropey and the dialogue (based on gritty crime writer Richard Price’s first novel) needs a million trigger warning for any PC snowflake commie libtards out there. At its best though this takes the colour of The Warriors, the warmth of A Bronx Tale, the sexy larks of an American Pie film and the fragile, naive yet pure sense of nostalgic camaraderie of Stand By Me and mixes them messily but enthusiastically. It is a film of constant conflict and emotions – a football game can turn into smokefilled war zone where fathers swing youths around as weapons or a skit involving groping strangers in the street can evolve into quite a sweet glimpse of instant attraction and stumbling courtship. The Wanderers is a broad, harsh experience that consistently entertains and leaves you with a smile on your face. Even if you are hearing Dion’s contemporaneous hit for the fifth overkill time by the end credits.

8

Jeff Wadlow directs Lucy Hale, Violett Beane and Tyler Posey in this teen horror about students pursued by a curse that manifests itself in the standard drinking game. 

Drag Me to Hell. Ringu. Hell even… Final Destination. They’ve all done deadly curses better than this. Truth or Dare suffers from bland leads and a supernatural trap that gives them way, way too much room to manoeuvre – at best it often just inconveniently interrupts their soapy interactions. It is glossy, harmless filler with a resolution that is intended to be a global epidemic expanding cliffhanger but comes across as a middle-aged man trying to write up a hip way these kids would use their apps to defeat the demon. Some better kills or spunkier leads might have saved this from being forgettable formulaic  fluff.

4

 

F. W. Murnau and Werner Herzog direct Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schroeder, Klaus Kinski, Bruno Ganz and Isabelle Adjani in these Bram Stoker’s Dracula influenced tales of a vampire count’s journey to (and destruction of) a small town. 

The masterpiece of German silent cinema and a most efficient (if somewhat bootlegged) adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic novel. These days it is hard to tell if Nosferatu is so eerie and memorable because of its antiquated, otherworldly format or because of some technical invention on Murnau’s part that is now commonplace. All I know is Schreck’s wholly physical depiction of the rotting immortal predator sends shivers down the spine, each and every time.

Herzog’s re-adaptation is surprisingly loyal – sometimes to the point of redundancy. He gets to use Stoker’s character names, some beautiful on location mountain shots, beefs up the female protagonist screentime and agency, opens up with unsettling shots of mummified corpses. He focuses more on the apocalyptic plague and destruction of society the cursed bloodsucker brings in his wake than the monstrous gothic romance. Rats teem around deserted cityscapes. And Kinski imbues his Nosferatu with a yearning and a sadness, a soul trapped in eternity as much as a grotesque to be avoided. Isolated from humanity, but a humanity depicted as uniformly senile or insane. In Herzog’s vision everyone is susceptible to the virus.

8/7

I

Josh Whedon directs Robert Downey Jnr, Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans in this superhero team-up movie where Loki threatens Earth with an intergalactic army. 

The first big culmination of the neverending, self perpetuating narrative loose ends of the Marvel universe. The prologue (minor SHEILD characters being chased by Loki through a base) lacks wonder. Then we get a globe trotting first act to pinpoint where all our actual heroes are. These introductions are strong. Everyone gets a nice bit of business (especially Black Widow and Bruce Banner) and you can chalk this up to Whedon – his innate understanding of characters with dual lives, mythic responsibility and a uniform brevity of wit that doubles up neatly as storytelling shorthand. His TV work on Buffy, Firefly and Dollhouse made him a dab hand at playfully exposing the root of his characters in a well placed quip and an unfussy tease, watching him unleash his talents on the figureheads of superheroics is a snarky joy to behold.  Then we get poorly motivated in-fighting at a time of crisis. Watching Thor / Cap / Stark go at it in a forest makes for cool trailer moments but on repeated viewings feels superfluous and indicative of a lot of the rot the franchise has concealed behind critical acclaim and stellar box office. If the end of the world is nigh, then we don’t really have time for macho posturing and inconsequential scraps. Then an interminable extra half hour of chat and further arguing on a hellicarrier. Staffroom bickering (a hangover from Whedon’s TV work too) and a flaw he exported wholesale to his Justice League reshoots. But finally we are in New York, with a palpable insurmountable threat, a villian on the loose and the steel, glass and concrete of an iconic metropolis as a playground. The blockbuster comes to life with a prolonged spectacle where the Hulk gets to smash, Cap gets to valiantly lead and Black Widow gets to do that thing where she wraps her supple thighs around a bad guy’s head and then pivots around him like a swingball thus breaking his neck and making me want to be a doomed henchman. It is a jamboree of destruction, courage, one liners and sheer comic bookyness. Such a spot on jubilant climax wipes clean the flat and stunted water treading of the earlier acts. You get massive screen fun… then you get the inevitable trademarked and copyrighted teases of where this will all go next. It doesn’t hold up to scrutiny or multiple viewings but the first big Avengers team-up gets away with being a top heavy delight where it counts.

7

Julian Gilbey directs Melissa George, Ed Speleers and Sean Harris in this thriller where a group of mountaineers find themselves pursued by killers. 

A gripping first hour, full of twists and lethal wilderness set pieces, gives way to a slightly more standard gangster shoot-out in the end. The grimly achieved sense of isolation and ambitious scale is sacrificed for shooters and hardboiled dialogue. Classy scream queen Melissa George and brittle Sean Harris are dab hands at this malarkey and fulfil their roles with an effortless quality. A diverting thriller.

7