Werner Herzog directs Helmut Döring, Paul Glauer and Gisela Hertwig in this comedy drama about a group of little people who takeover their care home and go on a destructive bender.

Cackling, cackling and more cackling. This is Herzog’s most blatant portrayal of a mini-society descending into anarchy. The stark monochrome visuals swing from grotesque to balletic. You never feel he is exploiting his cast. But once you get “it” there’s still a whole lot of unbridled, maniacal little person laughter to go. An unbearable 90 minutes of audible hysteria. And there’s a fair swedge of animal cruelty for a “PG”.

5

Roger Corman directs Vincent Price, John Kerr and Luana Anders in this Edgar Allen Poe mystery about an infamous torturer’s son and his missing bride. 

A gothic whodunnit powered by a hammy but hypnotic turn by Price. He modulates from sinister to guilty to confused to pathetic… but always loveable. Corman experiments vividly with colour and while the cheapo stagey sets limit the spectacle, they seem oddly appropriate for the blunt force acting.

7

Peter Berg directs Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch and Ben Foster in this true war story of doomed Navy Seals trapped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan.

Gory and dusty, the true parts stretch incredulity while the film only really pops when focusing on character not carnage. Still a watchable patriotic thrill machine.

6

Terence Young directs Sean Connery, Ursula Andress and Joseph Wiseman in this first 007 adventure where Ian Fleming’s superspy investigates murders in Jamaica.

For me this is the birth of modern cinema. A sexy star vehicle with an emphasis on action, humour and seduction. The start of a franchise which set out a template for future sequels… one still being adhered to over 50 years later. A relatively straight adaptation of Fleming’s novel, this retains all the risk and refinement. It is so damn beautiful too with its exotic locale and pop art outfits. Connery is superior as the indestructible detective. Every lead he pursues is right, his instincts are unwaveringly spot on. You don’t watch a Bond to see a mystery solved, you watch it to see the winner win. While it might lack the excess of future Bonds it instantly captures the arrogant hero, the man who doesn’t quit as he knows he has to, and will always, come out on top. We meet Bond, the sexy enigma, beating a lady at cards and then taking her like a trophy too. Every subsequent tale has been an extension of that one introductory minute in the casino. He hasn’t stopped being the assured victor since (O.H.M.S.S. aside).

8

Jay Chandrasekhar directs himself, Kevin Heffernan and Brian Cox in this belated comedy sequel about highway patrolmen given a new jurisdiction in Canada.

For the first hour this is more of the committed yet dumb same, if you aren’t childishly giggling then you are howling with laughter. It does run out of steam in the final stretch but in the main this is a mindlessly silly return to form for a group with great, unabashed chemistry.

7

Steven Spielberg directs John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Nancy Allen in this ensemble war farce, where California thinks it might be about to come under attack and become “the next Pearl Harbour.”

Excessive, racist, overlong… this was considered the rare misfire of Spielberg’s blockbuster career. Comedy isn’t his forte and he seems happier with destroying miniatures or setting props and humans up as domino rallies than hitting punchlines. Stanley Kubrick’s assessment of his friend’s foray into spoof was it should have been marketed as a drama rather than a comedy. Spielberg considered turning it into a musical at one point, mid production. Yet there is a seductive mania to it all and the sheer unrepeated size of the production that actually makes it quite watchable. When John Belushi is allowed to let rip (he’s one of the few actors who gets space to himself- not surrounded by a hundred extras, choreographed FX work or complex camera set ups) he is very funny. The bullying hubris and clumsy slapstick of his Wild Bill Kelso generates plenty of free form laughs. Sadly, his character also spouts a lot of clunky racism. Given the period and wartime attitudes it isn’t exactly out of character but it sits awkwardly in a family comedy for modern viewers. It is one small aspect of a very busy film but it kept occurring, and not just in Belushi’s crazed, possibly improvised, rants.  Maybe if 1941 lost one subplot or gave Aykroyd similar leeway to cut loose it would be considered a comedy classic. It looks as good as any Spielberg fantasy and there is enough chaotic, sexy, daft and satirical fun within for a great film. But fuck me do you have to sift for it at times.

7

James Cameron directs Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang in the epic sci-fi adventure where a disabled marine enters the cloned body of an alien species in an attempt to win the hearts and minds of the native population of Pandorra. 

James Cameron only works big. Ever since The Terminator every single one of his films has been an event. Every one essential. I remember booking tickets, in advance (unheard of in 1997), to go see Titanic twice on the day of its release. Avatar, his only movie since, is the most financially successful movie ever. It contains a whole alien world and culture and biosphere realised. A traditional adventure story brimming with Cameron’s trademark warrior woman protagonist, technological boundary pushing, pure heart on his sleeve politics and IMAX scale weaponised destruction. The script is simple, once it gets a fuck ton of exposition out of the way, while the characterisation and “Oorah Marine” dialogue is lifted directly from previous blockbusters, many of them Cameron’s own. It is a bit too basic, a bit too unoriginal, a bit too self assured. It is the work of a director unfettered by budgetary concerns or studio notes. It has a draggingly baggy middle hour and a naive overriding spirit that exotic visual excess is enough to keep us engaged. The characters are too blank or repetitive to cover up this gaping flaw. Avatar, once the initial shock of its optical artistry has been spent, is too rudimentary and casual a story to fill its three hours. I was restless on my second cinema viewing in 2009 and this next, long delayed, revisit at home, saw me checking my phone frequently. Almost a decade later, with much of the film forgotten again, and there was very little to hold my attention aside from the spectacle. Now, there are three fantastic action set pieces; the taming of the sky dragons, the helicopter war among the floating mountain range and the final fight involving a mecha armoured Stephen Lang. His maniacal fanatic Colonel is one of the rare times the movie truly comes to life. He sneers, he’s scarred and he makes for a formidable antagonist in mindset and presence. But these bursts of excitement aside, Avatar is overly worthy and overly familiar. You see things you’ve never seen before but it is set dressing for a plot with very little hook. The hokey romance, the hippy dipping politicking, the industrial military conspiracies are basic. The only time Avatar explores a unique emotion is in the wonder Cameron imbues when his disabled protagonist enters an abled foreign body. We share the excitement of a man running barefoot again who had abandoned the experience. How do wheelchair users feel about these sequences? Does it deliver a rare moment of wish fulfilment? An intriguing fantasy Hollywood rarely explores because of its niche audience or potential bad taste? Cameron is too visionary a filmmaker to make wholly terrible or redundant movies and Avatar’s visual design achievements cannot be dismissed. But for entertainment purposes it is inessential. Ruining the King of the World’s perfect record. Maybe that is why it made unrepeatable amounts of cash at the multiplex. We all secretly knew this was a razzle dazzle that only works on the big screen, the viewer unjaded by return business. Like losing your virginity or life itself Avatar can and should only be experienced once.

7

Ari Aster directs Toni Collette, Alex Wolff and Gabriel Byrne in this horror about a grief stricken family being toyed with by a supernatural force.

“The scariest horror film since The Exorcist.” “Toni Collette delivers an Oscar worthy performance.” “The opening shot where a miniature doll’s house is zoomed in on and a real person enters a room is visually stunning.” The critics sure love Hereditary. It is so-so though. Beautiful to look at and with an excellent lead but only one truly rattling scare sequence. It is overlong. The threat is too vague, made by a filmmaker in love with preserving his twist rather than instilling dread in his audience. The family is unlikeable, their actions and reactions difficult to engage or sympathise with. Byrne (and I’m a big Miller’s Crossing fan) struggles with certain line readings… “What language thatBEin?” While Wolff fails to bring any heart to a character with a lot of silent heavy lifting. There is an abundance of high camp motifs that come across as goofily annoying rather than rhythmically building – the clucking, the makeshift dolls, the excessive amounts of chopping, the closing minutes of old people nudity-O-RAMA. In fact for a film with a prestigious, quality air it swerved frequently into the cartoonishly ridiculous by the end. And not in a transgressively WTF shocking way. Just daft, mood shattering, overkill. Hereditary is not terrrible but it is hard to see where the near universal 5 star push is coming from. It exists in the rich mainstream horror era of The Conjuring, Don’t Breathe, It Follows and Green Room (all brilliantly manipulative thrillrides with no pedigree that genuinely deliver) or artier but truly affecting horrors like Get Out, The Witch, The Killing of the Sacred Deer or The Neon Demon. So to hype this messy, worthy, ambitious, unsuccessful and often inaccessible film is to emphasise a disconnection between movie critics and the general public. Audiences are leaving frustrated or ridiculing the movie, I’m merely just disappointed. I think it’s fair to say with Hereditary, reviewers are suffering from a stark case of the Emperor’s New Clothes.

5

Volker Schlöndorff directs David Bennent, Angela Winkler and Katharina Thalbach in this historical drama about Danzig in the grip of Nazism told from the point of view of a boy who refuses to grow up and objects to everything with his tin drum and shrill scream. 

An exhausting, uneasy and troubling history lesson. Epic in length it swings from grim realities to fableist fantasy sequences. There probably is a bit too much of Gunther Grass’ novel chewed off here to make a consistent whole. The ironic comeuppances of each compromised character we meet are bittersweet but often we don’t get anything more than infantile view of their lives and personalities before they go kaput. It is far too ambitious and captivating a sprawl to dismiss, there are at least a dozen visual moments that stay in the memory. Some of them quite unsettling.

7

 

Gary Nelson directs Maximilian Schell, Robert Forster and Joseph Bottoms in the sci-fi “adventure” about space explorers who find a long-lost ship orbiting a black hole. 

Middle age people talk in a variety of future caverns. And talk. And talk. Referencing degree level literature texts. Then we go to Hell. And then Heaven. Some Eighties game show mascots buzz about and these robots are the characters with most agency and personality. It can look fantastic at times, some of the set design is awe inspiring. Until those robots swing past on their fishing wire, looking like utter shit. Nothing happens, maybe everything happens, but nothing entertaining. A rubbish version of Event Horizon but… Y’know… for kids. John Barry’s ominous whirlpool of a score is the only redeeming feature.

3