Claire Denis directs Denis Levant, Grégoire Colin and Michel Subor in this arthouse drama about French Legionnaires going mad in the the North African sun.

Sumptuously shot and well acted but can anyone guess the inherent problem with a film about crippling ennui?

5

Ridley Scott directs Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix and Oliver Reed in this historical actioner where a fallen Roman general fights his way towards a chance of revenge in the coliseum; his target, the new Emporer.

A rousing piece of blockbuster cinema, even if it has reached a vintage where it’s now dated style looks creaky rather than nostalgic. Every element works except a slightly trite script. The production design from ornate helmets to booby trapped battle arenas is awe inspiring. Hans Zimmer’s transcendent score carries you towards Elysium. Crowe glowers and thunders in his A-List breaking turn. Muscular, sensitive, capable… he’s a fine movie star, one of my favourites. Here he gets speeches and set-pieces of equal impressiveness. The support is rich with Richard Harris and Olly Reed turning ham into golden gammon. What a delight! And young Joaquin makes for a captivating villain… as he sticks his tongue out dementedly watching all the chopping, slashing tournaments you can’t help but grow a soft spot for the evil cad. Celluloid world builder Ridley working at full steam on a wobbly bit of writing with a budget that forced creativity and stars that were unruly and committed… It remains a fine piece of prestige entertainment.

8

Jon Watts directs Tom Holland, Jon Faverau and Jake Gyllenhaal in this Marvel superhero sequel to Homecoming and Avengers: Endgame where Peter Parker goes on a school trip to Europe and meets Mysterio.

The first solo film of this iteration of Spidey was a blast. Great villain in Keaton, compelling action and smart 1980s teen movie copying. This time everything that works is forgotten. Gyllenhaal is too subdued, having to tread water for over an hour until his true nature can be revealed. Once he’s out, the ruse is revealed, things improve, but it feels too late. The early, wobbly CGI FX saturated action plays out forced and unthreatening… there’s narrative reasons for that… but it doesn’t help a sluggish overly busy film. Once Peter is battling mind bending reality, it does raise the pulse. Until then it is all a bit sitcommy. Those likeable side players from Homecoming have nice wriggles of European Vacation business to distract us but none of it is as sharply written or visually zippy as the Ferris Bueller and Breakfast Club homages a few years back. To say of a Spider-Man blockbuster that the only real highlight is two lower credited characters hooking-up neatly is hardly the stuff of IMAX wonderment. The most shocking and exciting developments happen after the credits.

5

Isabella Eklöf directs Victoria Carmen Sonne, Lai Yde and Thijs Römer in this Danish crime drama where a potential love triangle forms between a trophy girlfriend, a cruel gangster and a traveller.

The film itself is a languid mixture of Sexy Beast and Knife in the Water punctuated by a gruelling sequence of sexual violence. It is not particularly deep nor pleasant viewing; pop nihilism. There is however a scene that after a lower rung henchman fucks up he has to buy everyone at the holiday villa penance gifts. I want to introduce this at work… shit at your job, then buy me a new shirt or the latest Ian Rankin.

5

Tom Gries directs Charles Bronson, Richard Crenna and Ben Johnson in this Alistair McLean thriller where a steam train making its way through the Wild West contains a conspiracy that is murdering the innocent passengers.

A movie star I could never get my head around is Charles Bronson. He’s wrinkled like a walnut, pugnacious and void of any real personality. I get the feeling he only existed to mop up the leftover projects than Clint and Steve McQueen deemed beneath them. But whereas those two genuine legends brought a charm and buried sparkle to the screen amid their gruff adventuring (they were their era’s embodiment of old fashioned ruggedness combined with a new self-aware cool), he is just a cowpuncher whose response to the changing cultural landscape was the occasional drop kick. Your proper stars felt like they moved with counter culture, kept their heads above the hippy movement by being both a counterpoint and a veiled acceptance. Whereas Bronson probably actively pursued scripts where he could genocide the youth movement or ignore it all together. McQueen has McGraw and Clint Sondra Locke. Their respective partners on and off screen. McGraw was a proper star in her own right. Locke had very little likability. Pointedly Bronson’s wife / perennial romantic interest was Jill Ireland. She’s a million times more charismatic than him. A far better actress than Locke by any measure, warmer with more than one setting on her emotional register. She and the supporting cast are the best thing in this. Charles Durning, Ed Lauter and David Huddlestone too. An ensemble whodunnit on a Western train… that descends into actioner when it turns out nearly everyone still alive is in on the plot. Would it be improved by McQueen being the lead? He probably would have found it old hat, only the later set pieces are passable. Would Clint have elevated it? Nah, he would have swapped out Ireland for Locke. Thus one step forward and two back. Forgettable stuff but those B players and that in-the-wild location stunt work suggest a better man could have forced this project into being an action classic.

5

Henry Hathaway, John Ford and George Marshall direct Debbie Reynolds, George Peppard and James Stewart in this all star, era spanning Western epic exploring manifest destiny from lone beaver trappers in the wilderness to the age of law, order and electricity.

Politically iffy as fuck but just marvel at the sheer goddamn scale of the thing. Genuinely all star, wonderous Cinerama action sequences and your afternoon thrillingly devoured. These may be the white man’s words but by God they sure make a big fuck-off movie.

7

Steve Miner directs Amy Steel, Adrienne King and Marta Kober in this slasher sequel where a new summer camp opens next door to “Camp Blood” and young jiggling flesh is butchered.

More of the lowest common denominator same. The few points to note are not improvements. The killer’s backstory is convoluted to the brink of delirium. Jason is avenging his mother’s death who was avenging his death and his age is off the chart. The highlight for returning viewers is a sequence where the first entry’s final girl is stalked around her apartment; “fans” of the film know at one point an unfortunate stunt cat will be visibly thrown through a window by some poor production assistant for a cheap jump scare… the tension towards the tacky cruelty is unbearable on repeated viewings. The “bad girl”, hired no doubt for her two massive… ahem… talents, turned out to be underage so her much promised nudity has been cut. None of those trivial things make this in anyway required watching. There is no struggling for a break Kevin Bacon… we haven’t quite yet found that iconic hockey mask. For completists only.

4

Peter Strickland directs Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Leo Bill and Hayley Squires in this camp British horror where a murderous dress connects its owners to a demented department store.

What starts out as relatively simple premise for a self-consciously mannered horror (cursed item, vampiric otherworldly shop of ominous mysteries) becomes a centrifuge for lots of ideas to spin around. The comical loneliness of a divorcee in a world of inadequates. Menstruating mannequins. A bank with soft sold Kafka-esque performance reviews. A washing machine repairman with sexually hypnotic descriptive powers. A washing machine repair business run like a cartel. All with the visuals palette of a seventies John Lewis, lit like a Tale of the Unexpected. This is an exercise in deadpan parodic style over substance. Not all of the beautiful puzzle pieces scattered are neatly slotted together. There’s a moment well past the midway point where the plot resets (think like Lost Highway or Full Metal Jacket) and you lose a smidge of investment. The restart eventually satisfies, broadening the scope and realigning the intentions of Strickland. This is a satire bathing in the weirdness of horror. The Channel 4 sitcom interludes and Marianne Jean Baptiste’s brilliant, sensitive performance don’t really fit in a pure shocker. In Fabric is a more unruly, ambitious boondoggle. One that is often formally spellbinding and persuasively queer enough to get lost in.

7

Lee Unkrich directs Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and Joan Cusack in this animated classic where the toys face a new home now Andy is going to college; day care!

First time I watched this at the cinema, it got me. Utterly. Twice. I thought those loyal and neuroses packed little toys were fucked. They held together in a little group… little plastic hands joined together… doomed to sink into a swirling vortex of fire at the dump. A lump formed in my throat. They were really going to do it. Pixar were going to holocaust the toys! And then deus ex machina… one set-up 15 years earlier, swooped in and saved them. Probably the finest cliffhanger ever… characters you loved imperilled with no obvious escape, snatched from the maw of oblivion… BY… THE… CLAW!!! Then it got me the second time. One last playtime. Was I crying like a bitch… no. Were my stubble flecked cheeks entirely dry? Certainly not. And on this rewatch I can say unequivocally that this is it. This is the best one. The thrillingest set-pieces. The prison movie vibe. The brilliant ensemble working perfectly. The hilarious addition of Ken (the start of the Michael Keaton comeback) and Mister Pricklepants. Chuckles the Clown’s film noir flashback. Buzz in spanish mode. That terrifying Monkey! Rex’s poor tail. That relentless, heartless grand finale. The very best of the best. It got me again. Eyes like a Scottish hillside.

10

Claire Denis directs Alice Houri, Grégoire Colin and Jacques Nolot in this French drama about a low level criminal and pizza chef who abandons his lurid sexual fantasies when his teenage sister turns up at his flat.

Rich and incident packed. Denis follows Boni’s compulsive desires well -sensually filming baking, dough, rabbits and gurgling coffee machines. The darker edges of the drama (loan sharks, possible incest) are the weakest but I think this is the first Denis film I watched where boredom never pervaded my brain.

6