Renny Harlin directs Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia and William Sadler in this sequel to the action disaster movie where off duty cop John McClane finds himself up against terrorists who this time had the gall to take over the airport his wife’s plane needs to land at.

I find people are very binary when talking about sequels. A sequel has to be better or it is shit. No middle ground. Die Hard 2 is a superb action flick, epic entertainment… just not quite as perfect as the original Die Hard. The issues are minor. It is unlikely (and jokingly addressed) that McClane, Holly AND Dick Thornberg would all find themselves in the same lightning strike situation twice on a Christmas Eve. The support players lack the rich joyful detailing that the ensemble of the first adventure did (though John Amos, Franco Nero and especially Denis Franz have nice character moments other actioners wouldn’t waste time affording them). McClane can free roam more and has access to more weaponry, taking away a smidge of the improvisational Boy Scout McGuyver desperation that motored the original. There are montages in the first act that lack personality and feel a bit more like disaster movie stock footage rather than determined storytelling. Quibbles. This has truly fantastic in-camera action, tremendous stunts and spectacular carnage. Willis quips and endures and goes hell to leather in a way you never see him do anymore, not even in a Die Hard cash-in. It also has the most romantic ending to a Hollywood movie ever… any Hollywood movie ever! Considering the amount of pithy motherfuckers and gleeful gore thrown about mere minutes before, that’s quite a feat to pull off. Not as diamond standard as Nakatomi Plaza? Fair comment. One of the best action sequels ever? You motherfuckers are spoilt.

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Ivan Reitman directs Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito and Emma Thompson in this comedy where Arnie’s scientist impregnates himself to test his fertility drug.

Oh sweet, strange, glossy movie, why don’t you have more jokes? The oodles of plotting ain’t important?! Six more laughs and you’d be worth remembering. DeVito subdued, Arnie uncomfortable, only Pamela Reed brings any pep.

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Annabel Jankel & Rocky Morton direct Dennis Quad, Meg Ryan and Charlotte Rampling in this remake of a noir classic where a bum professor is poisoned and has 24 hours to uncover his killer or die trying.

Whichever version of D.O.A. you watch, you are watching, in my my opinion, the best one line plot hook for a movie ever. Doomed man races against clock to find killer. This doesn’t have enough focus or thrills to fully exploit that goldmine. It is an exercise in style from the makers of Max Headroom and the Super Mario Bros flop. So the mystery elements are obvious, the killer guessable, the deaths superfluous, the red herrings blatant and the action chaotic… near-parodic. You get not quite enough Meg Ryan in the good girl role. Quaid is a bit too All-American and manly to sell the paranoia and desperation his character should ooze as the noose tightens and the clock runs out. It looks wonderful though and that plot is a doozy. You can’t really fuck it up. Bonus point for being an accidental Christmas Movie chosen by luck on Christmas Eve as it seemed a universal, inoffensive choice and was the Goldilocks correct running time for our plans. It isn’t ever going to threaten Die Hard or Lethal Weapon as the alternative Yuletide 1980s choice but it eggnogged the early evening colourfully with its low grade death and mayhem.

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Stanley Donen directs Gregory Peck, Sofia Loren and Alan Badel in this romantic spy caper where a stuffy professor and a sexy double agent find themselves chasing a hieroglyphic cypher that everyone wants cracked.

Les, my beloved father-in-law, will let you know if he doesn’t like a film. Repeatedly. While you are trying to watch it. That was the case here, over Christmas, as he sat in our armchair. Whether his continual moaning made me lean into this rather contrarily I’ll never know but I found many light pleasures in the pop art nonsense plotting, the London setting and Loren in a series of fabulous Dior costumes. It isn’t as good as Charade -both stars are a downgrade, the support lack sparkle – but as rehashes of a previous success go this had a jaunty deftness that transcended being called “The worst film I’ve ever seen” repeatedly. I’d watch it again and having endured a few genuine duff swinging Bond spoofs recently I can attest without prejudice this has aged far better. At the very least the set pieces have invention, peril and purpose and Loren’s totty actually has some semblance of a personality invested into her.

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Clint Eastwood directs himself, Freddie Jones and Warren Clarke in this Cold War espionage action film where a pilot suffering from PTSD needs to infiltrate a Soviet airbase and steal a psychic fighter jet.

Boring, overlong and possibly Clint’s nadir.

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Anton Corbijn directs Robert Pattinson, Dane DeHaan and Joel Edgerton in this true story drama where a struggling photo journalist strikes up an opportunistic friendship with James Dean who is on the cusp of fame.

Inessential but solid. Corbijn uses the film as a delivery system for some lovely period imagery – every selected skinny tie and faked cityscape evokes beauty. I’m not sure there’s a feature films worth of narrative in this extended historical anecdote but even the filler scenes have a visual lyricism. The acting is a positive with both leads given quite rich, complex roles. DeHaan’s Dean is seductive, obtuse but scared of attention, passively hostile to sacrificing control. Pattinson’s photographer is a darker character and it say something about the reluctant star that you never quite get a fix on him. There’s something worthwhile in Pattinson’s deep water, buried treasure acting style. Maybe it covers up his limitations and pretty boy sins but I find it very magnetic. He’s better in Good Time and The Rover but this contains that same smooth puzzle.

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Alfred Hitchcock directs Ray Milland, Grace Kelly and Robert Cummings in this apartment set murder thriller where a cuckolded husband arranges the perfect murder of his young wife.

A bit too limited in scope and experimentation to be A-Grade Hitch but diverting none the less. Kelly is ever glamorous as the unaware victim gliding around an increasingly complicated trap. It also helps that Milland is particularly unlikeable, so we take perverse pleasure whenever his well laid plan either works or wobbles. Perfectly watchable technicolor thrills.

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The Wachowskis direct Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon and Joe Pantoliano in this apartment set thriller where an ex-con lesbian “handyman” gets honey trapped into a big score by a gangster’s moll.

Joey Pants rocks in this. He is better than The Wachowskis calling card camera moves and arch plot wrinkles. Joey Pants is better than a hot lesbian sex scene by two Hollywood C-lister with fantastic chemistry together. Joey Pants is better than most things and this self aware little noir is the perfect display case for him.

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Preston Sturges directs Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea and Rudy Vallée in this screwball comedy where a loving wife leaves her husband so he can focus on his dream of building an airport suspended over the city.

My first Preston Sturges experience. I really liked it. Had the same energy as Capra or Hawks at their best but with a more modern playfulness. A brilliant showcase for the sexy comic battering ram that is Colbert, and Mary Astor gets a great role too. Not just an utterly pleasurable watch but paced so strangely you kinda want to watch it all over again straight away. I have no idea what happened during the opening sequence that appears to be a highlight reel from a previous “never made” chapter of the Jeffers zany romance but I’m pretty sure it might explain the out of nowhere finale. Even when it makes no rational sense, this was witty and gorgeous larks. The first setpiece between our heroine and the deaf and lustless Wienie King who invades her apartment is a masterclass of exposition and charming back-and-forth.

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Jennifer Kent directs Aisling Franciosi, Sam Claflin and Baykali Ganambarr in this rape revenge drama where an indentured convict crosses the Tasmanian wilderness hunting the British soldiers who grievously wronged her.

Oof! The Nightingale is some tough, rough road to travel down. Infamously, at the movie’s debut at the Sydney Film Festival, one viewer was heard shouting “I’m not watching this, she’s already been raped twice” as she exited the theater. One grown man, next to me at our screening, spent most of the film with his head in hands, moaning lowly at all the bloody attacks and colonial trauma. If you’ve seen Kent’s previous film The Babadook you’ll know she is not interested in safe, comfortable or happy experiences. Her films are bleak, depressive attacks on social structures. Just as The Babadook was an unrelenting hard slap to the usually sacrosanct notions of sanity and maternal love, The Nightingale goes for the jugular of Australian history and British colonialism. Unflinchingly taking in what the brutalisation and extermination of the native population looked like while following an oppressed and vulnerable protagonist who literally has had her life decimated by her exploiters. This is a film that has bursts of transgressive violence so hardcore that even I would struggle to think of equivalent Seventies Exploitation Cinema that carve similar psychological wounds. Yet, beyond the fact it isn’t a “nice” film, it is a compelling one. The “western / adventure” aspects unfold slowly yet satisfyingly… the final act moves into a different unexpected territory that may rob us of the traditional justice and vengeance bloodletting we’ve been anticipating but feel more wholemeal on reflection. Uniformly excellent performances from a cast given some very difficult material, beautiful location cinematography. Kent’s second feature feels like a step-up, a doubling down on her style and joins The Proposition and Comrades in the enviable group of great anti-patriotic Australian Period films. Would I rush to rewatch it again? No. Should you gird yourself and watch it once? Very much so.

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