Philip D’Antoni directs Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco and Bill Hickman in this cop thriller were a tough unit of NYPD detectives uncover a kidnapping ring who focus on wealthy mob bosses

If you like car chases then this is the retro-flick for you. At the centre of the hard and gritty The Seven-Ups is a full reel car chase weaving around real New York traffic. The brief was clearly “Top The French Connection!” and this is definitely on a par. The story around it is pretty standard tough cop stuff. Scheider stands around on street corners in lovely winter coats, gets balled out by superiors with a resigned “Go fuck yourself” on his face and masters shoot-outs with convincing panache. He’s a great Seventies movie star – wryly humorous and emanating intelligence. The cinematic storytelling is abysmal though. The plot jerks forward and lurches off into subplots with no flow. You constantly feel left adrift in the first half, only really understanding who is who, what is what and why is why after scenes have finished. It boils down to a pretty simple story with lots of cliches but why the tale is spaffed out in such obtuse clunks is anyone’s guess?

7

Héctor Babenco directs Fernando Ramos Da Silva, Gilberto Moura and Marília Pera in this Brazilian drama looking at the tough lives of street kids as they move from borstal to criminal careers.

Grim, miserable and unrelenting. We start with the gang rape of a child and eventually end with a whore rejecting her pimp for being too young. Nothing inbetween has any hope or joy in it. Powerful, raw, didactic… and of interest if you are curious to see what the City of God kids’ grandparents were getting up to (surviving, not surviving) a few decades before. But no one’s idea of a good time.

6

Tony Gilroy directs Jake Gyllenhal, Renee Russo and Riz Ahmed in this neo-noir LA thriller were a hungry sociopath learns there’s big money money to be made in selling footage of police call outs to news channels and starts exacerbating the crimes he films.

“If it bleeds, it leads.” A towering central performance from Gyllenhal. He plays a human abyss who finds just the right urban dystopian conditions to violently flourish – akin to De Niro’s Travis Bickel and Phoenix’s Joker. If not better than those two? I’ll leave that thought there to stew in your head. The satire is unforced and unpredictable. The bursts of threat and fear have punch and lock you in. The city is a sodium glare hellscape; race through it, stop and film some gore, make a buck. Make a fucking buck! Just be ready for that performance review from a psycho raised by corrupt motivational speakers and YouTube business courses. This improved for me, grew into me, on a second watch. Stunning.

9

Sam Peckinpah directs Steve McQueen, Ida Lupino and Robert Preston in this modern cowboy drama where an itinerant rodeo rider returns to his hometown to take on the bull that threw him.

Natalie and I went to see this at Lisbon’s Museum of Cinema. Dedicated to retrospectives, they have a top floor with an exhibition of old projectors and lobby cards. The downstairs has a dozen worn out leather armchairs for the regulars to wait in, siesta before the film. You could spend the rest of your life there. A retirement home for the cinephile. This was screened as part of their Ida Lupino season and I was keen to revisit the film. I probably hadn’t seen it in twenty years. The cinema itself was wood panelled and well tiered, there was an extra little letterbox screen below the picture to project digital Portuguese subtitles. When You Wish Upon a star was played over the speaker for a few bars, then a warning doorbell… thirty seconds… another bell. Like a rodeo. Lights down, we’re off… the print was crackly, worn, faded with Denmark subtitles. Double subs. The movie was as fine as I remembered – good humoured and manly. Peckinpah with his foot off the pedal. A dusty, elegiac look at changing life in the West. The lonely, endless scrabble that belonged solely to the cowpuncher and the prospector is becoming motor homes and airports. The eyeless man in the bulldozer tearing down history don’t care if you are in his way, he’ll push your freedom and rights off the road. You can’t play chicken with progress. Your brother will sell out the family birthright for a buck, make a TV commercial bragging about this but accepts being punched through the porch window as comeuppance. The wild and charming devil of a father (a fantastic Preston) sees Australia as his only option, America just is too boxed, too sold off and too fenced in. Ida Lupino is the stately abandoned matriarch in gingham and denim. Bonner himself is a motel cowboy. McQueen’s steely blue stare taking in how his world has changed, his family has separated yet he only really cares about staying on the bull for eight seconds. An Independence Day parade, a grumpy dog, a bar fight, a little unjudgemental but jaded romance for young and old. A grand piece of cinema, about as thoughtful and as sensitive as a beer and pizza flick gets.

9

George Nolfi directs Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and Anthony Mackie in this sci-fi romance where unseen agents of fate try to nudge history so a politician and a ballet dancer do not end up together.

Sold as a chase movie on release this works better as a high concept romance. Damon and Blunt make for a favourable on-screen pairing, their meet cutes have considerable heat. Proper Hollywood chemistry. The Philip K Dick reality altering stuff is well handled and it does build to a mind bending mad dash finale. This is a very classy movie for adults, one that is ageing well with every year due to its timeless visual design. Well worth getting lost in.

8

Lee Toland Krieger directs Blake Lively, Harrison Ford and Michiel Huisman in this fantasy romance where a beautiful woman finds her looks and health frozen meaning she cannot age while her lovers, family and America does.

Polished but drama-lite doings. Ford is always good value, Lively looks stunning but the plot and passions are stillborn, predictable. Underwhelming, wasteful of a good premise.

4

Mia Hansen-Løve directs Louis-Do De Lencquesaing, Chiara Caselli and Alice De Lencquesaing in this French drama where a producer of arthouse cinema faces bankruptcy as his life falls apart and his family grows distant.

A film of two halves. Watching our ostensible lead desperately glued to his phone as his arthouse empire is destroyed by poor financial decisions is pretty compelling. We know we are supposed to relate to his ignored family waiting in the sidelines but watching a man run across a a tightrope about to be cut is more captivating. The second half where liquidators and caretakers move in to either salvage or close down the business opens up secrets and emotions for the family, a slightly more humane ensemble emerges… Yet I enjoyed the stress headache of the one man show first half far more.

6

Daniel Mann directs James Coburn, Lee J. Cobb and Gina Golan in this Bond parody that has dated terminally.

Derek Flint is a smug, detestable hero. He glides through the diluted plot never really putting any effort in. The overriding values are callously sexist and imperialistic – there may have been satirical intent but the cake was definitely being had and eaten. Women are sexless doll slaves to be rescued – lacking none of the agency nor resistance of Fleming’s lustier, vivacious counterparts. This is now a laughless, thrill-free, pop art wannabe. Why bother with it when Austin Powers does such a better job with the same intent?

3

Fred Dekker directs Andre Gower, Ryan Lambert and Ashley Bank in this Shane Black scripted teen horror comedy, where a group of small town nerds take on the pantheon of classic movie monsters.

One of those childhood delights that you hope will live up to your adolescent adulation. This does – it proves really good fun, still snappy, showcasing brilliant live Stan Winston FX and with nice set pieces. A more definitive influence on Stranger Things than say The Goonies, this puts the kids in believable fantasy peril and plays on them working as a group of foul mouthed friends. There’s a sense of awe and wonder, there’s a surprising level of gore to it that just wouldn’t pass muster for a PG rating today. And the villains (Dracula, his brides, The Wolf Man, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Creature From the Black Lagoon) are not just well realised but updated sympathetically so they fit in with the legacy of their black and white forebears. A thrilling, juvenile romp.

7

Trey Parker and Matt Stone direct their own voices, George Clooney and Isaac Hayes in this bad taste musical comedy where the animated TV show characters go to war over some farting Canadian comedians.

Believe it or not I outgrew South Park very quickly. I don’t think I’ve chosen to watch an episode this century. The film though is delicious. Rousing musical numbers and relentless nasty behaviour. We watched this on a train this week, so had to suppress our laughter a bit. That was incredibly difficult. The refreshment trolley pusher came at an unfortunate moment. We paused to politely respond to her. She got an eye full of Kenny floating into some heavenly hand-drawn titties. Freeze framed. Brightness up. Could have been worse though… Could have been as Saddam Hussien was waving his photorealistic schlong at Satan! Crammed full of the funny.

10