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

Josh Cooley directs Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and Annie Potts in this unexpected fourth entry to the beloved Toy Story trilogy… this time Woody is relegated in Bonnie’s affection so tries to protect her new favourite toy on a road trip; Forky, a creation who is so makeshift he wants to be trash.

We didn’t ask for this. Like John Wick 3, it does what it is great at so well you feel like a curmudgeon for pointing out the rest isn’t quite as good. You chuckle rather than laugh out loud. You admire the new characters but miss the ensemble as they move just out of the spotlight. New “villain” Gabby Gabby is a complex delight, Forky works. It looks fantastic… that opening rainfilled shot… WOW! But who turned up to the Toy Stories for their CGI artistry? It is a decent extension, a better summer blockbuster than nearly everything released so far this 2019. But markedly not as perfect as those three stone cold classics that it shares a name with. Legacy still intact but let’s not wear the details off a universally adored plaything, hey?

7

Todd Douglas Miller directs Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins in the documentary where the first moon landing mission is captured using large format cameras.

Just dazzling. My favourite type of documentary is a collage of footage. No talking heads, no narration. We can experience being there, like we are making history. Spectating man’s greatest achievement… where’s my cardboard sun-visor? I want to watch the explosive lift off again, and again.

8

Mary Harron directs Gretchen Mol, Lili Taylor and Chris Bauer in this biopic of the 1950s bondage and nudes star.

Enjoyably unjudgmental; both the film and Mol’s approach to her iconic character. She’s revelatory in this… sunny, positive, more open than naive and never portrayed as stupid. She’s only ever the victim when she has no agency. The film mixes period appropriate black and white photography, reanimated antiquated establishing shots and bright 8mm holiday footage. Kink and flesh are kept to a relative minimum… I’m not sure whether that adds or detracts. While the film never reaches true greatness, it equally rarely puts a foot wrong. Far less distastefully formulaic than most Hollywood biographies.

7

Freddie Francis directs Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Donald Sutherland in this standard 60s Amicus horror anthology taking in killer plants, voodoo jazz tunes and art critics chased by vengeful hands.

Donald Sutherland plays Bob Carroll.

6

Peter Hyams directs Sean Connery, Frances Sternhagen and Peter Boyle in this High Noon set in space mash-up.

The look, FX and vibes are ripped off from Ridley Scott’s Alien. Genuinely, this could be an alternative prequel or a sequel to the 1979 space mining corporation classic and that’s no bad thing. The plot is the Gary Cooper classic with a space amphetamine twist… equally no bad thing. If you don’t come looking for originality then Outland has juicy stuff to offer. Cat and mouse chases through weaving, sprawling future corridors and hive cells. Steadicam is employed daringly to launch you right into the dash and dodge of these battles. A dedicatedly nuanced performance from the far too often glib Connery. An eclectic support cast. A rousing Jerry Goldsmith score (again sharing DNA with his superior work on Alien). Shock moments that will sate your bloodthirsty cravings. A fine Friday night macho blockbuster from the near past.

8

My Top 10 Sean Connery Movies

Bryan Forbes directs Michael Caine, Ralph Richardson and Peter Cook in this Victorian era farce about two ageing brothers who must outlive each other to win a lottery prize.

A sluggish mess… wasting the talents of Pete and Dud AND Peter Sellers. Dated Sixties attitudes deflate good production values. Rambling nonsense even derails a sexually chaste romance between beautiful kissing cousins Caine and Nanette Newman. Everyone except her feels miscast and half mast. A sleep inducing mess.

2

David Yarovesky directs Elisabeth Banks, Jackson A Dunn and David Dunham in this horror that subverts the classic superhero origin story set-up; what if a childless couple adopted an alien refugee and he grew up evil?

One of those situations where if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the movie entire. There’s just not enough weight or nuance to Brightburn beyond its high concept pitch. It is a reasonably crafted, reasonably acted and surprisingly gory horror. Yet not one that has anything further up its sleeve than being a dark reflection on those 5 minutes where Pa and Martha Kent find a naked baby Supes in his krater back in 1978. 5 minutes stretched over 90.

6