Sergei Eisenstein directs Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barksy and Grigori Aleksandrov in this silent historical reenactment of a 1905 ship mutiny and the tsarist massacre of supporters that followed. 

I never massively enjoyed school. I found the rigidness of sitting, listening and transcribing unengaging. I struggled to find friends with similar interests. College was different though. I chose the subjects, the young adults in those classes were also curious or passionate about those topics, giving us common ground to form friendships over mutual taste rather than enforced proximity… and there was oodles of free time throughout the day to pursue your own side projects with access to all manner of media, content and equipment. I made terrible short films using the bulky “pro” camcorders and cut them painstakingly on linear video editing decks. There was a darkroom (and an easy going, encouraging photography teacher) where you could fuck about for hours with no pressure of results, or even talent. There was a pub across the way, Finnegan’s Wake, who had never even thought of IDing their clientele and allowed you to sit around all afternoon chatting nonsense, surrounded by fake Irish tat. And there was… and here’s where I get to Battleship Potemkin… a media-centric library. It was small yet bright. But it had computers that hooked up to the internet (most people didn’t even have dial up in their homes back then), meaning I spent hours on the new, seemingly inexhaustible, IMDB. It had back issues of Sight and Sound which I spent days skimming through. And it had a whole wall bank of videos. Cassettes of old movies recordered off the TV. And I worked through these diligently. Devouring Hitchcocks, realising just how much John Ford and Howard Hawks I had unwittingly watched with my Dad as a kid, seeing Citizen Kane and Nosferatu and Doctor Strangelove for the very first time. And Battleship Potemkin. I must have borrowed their copy of Battleship Potemkin, taped from a silent film season on Channel 4, three or four times. Whichever former faculty member had built up this haphazard canon of timer recorded, possibly illegal, treasures at Ealing Tertiary College, I salute you. You stoked my passion for classic cinema by making it freely available yet curated. Battleship Potemkin is the cornerstone of just about every Introduction to Film Studies that I doubt I can say anything particularly new about it. It is the finest propaganda film, a clear example of montage theory and a silent movie whose vibrant accessibility keeps it from being a dusty, revered museum piece. The Odessa Steps massacre sequence reappears, or is copied, so often that even people who will never watch a silent film are familiar with it. That is how it has earned its place as an indisputable “great.” But how watchable is it now, a century on? Pretty captivating. It can be strange following a narrative with no obvious protagonist but Eisenstein evokes the feelings and aims of the rebellion humanistically. You know their motivations and the stakes at every setpiece. He has an eye for an interesting face, whether weathered and expressive or heroic and idealised. There are also moments that are somehow both surreal yet intense. That famous doomed baby bouncing down the stairs, its carriage being dragged to oblivion by gravity, the murdering soldiers pursuing it uncaringly. The cowed sailors put under a white tarp, facing a firing squad as a faceless mass. The rhythmic, suggestive editing helps keeps things propulsive. The metaphorical juxtapositions are rousing. A series of lion statues rise in shock. Men work with the harmony of a well oiled machine. This is basic, easy to decipher stuff, but it is framed purely without pretensions or artifice. Only the final sequence where the mutinous ship is engaged lacks the captivating grip of the first two acts. It is still a well put together chase sequence, just bereft of the bloody impact of the rebellion and the massacre. Battleship Potemkin isn’t an acquired taste or a mere rights of passage for movie fans. If you go into it with an open mind it is a thrilling and effective war pic achieved via compelling and confident storytelling techniques.

9

 

Michael Crichton directs Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Leslie Anne-Down in this Victorian heist caper where a top hatted trio aim to steal bullion from a moving train. 

An absolute corker of a period adventure. Chucking us right deep into the world of 19th Century crime with convincingly obscure vernacular and telling detail. Brothels, hangings, dog fights and alleyway mugging are thrillingly recreated. Anne-Down rocks about in a series of wigs and corsets. Sutherland moans gleefully and cracks his knuckles friskily as the cocksure expert screwsman. And Connery smiles ruefully through a ton of Bondian innuendo and then performs an amazing 10 minute stunt atop a moving steam engine. It is a spectacular finale that fucking quickens the pulse like very little could these days. Expert entertainment.

9

Ryan Coogler directs Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan and Lupita Nyong’o in this Marvel superhero adventure about the new king of Wakanda’s struggle to maintain power when a forgotten family member challenges him. 

I realise I’m in the minority here but the latest Marvel product felt very much like more of the ever diminishing same to me. There were two plus points; Michael B. Jordan’s reparations focussed antagonist Erik Killmonger is a lad, all street talk and deadly aggression, and the Afro-Futurism design work is impressive, especially the costumes. But, as I suspected from his smaller role in Captain America: Civil War, Boseman’s T’Challa is overly worthy, leading to a leaden dullness in most of his interactions. And the rare sustained action has the similar weightless tickle of Doctor Strange’s uninvolving rumbles, stuff is happening but with no real physical or narrative consequence. The only time you can tell if a character is winning or losing, hurt or victorious, is when they stop leaping and dodging to smile or grimace. Considering our blue blooded hero wears a vibranium cowl for a lot of it… blankness overwhelms. This has been lauded as the closest we’ll get to a black James Bond… it felt more like I was watching a sexless Flash Gordon. Still it is too glossy and too safe a film to really dislike.

5

Craig Gillespie directs Margot Robbie, Allison Janney and Sebastian Stan in this retelling of the 90s female figure skating scandal where the top US competitor had her knee broken by attackers associated with her teammate. 

Two blistering female performances carry I, Tonya. Robbie brings heart to the bullish and corrupt, eventually  demonised, figure skater Tonya Harding. While Janney as the harsh, unloving but devoted mother electrifies whenever she is on screen. In fact, the period where she drops off our radar drags… you can’t help but agree with her talking head when she interjects that she is noticeably absent. For the second half, Gillespie seems happy focusing on the doofs and unwise guys who farcically destroy one skater’s chances and end up crucifying the other. It is all told with a knowingly Goodfellas-esque verve – narration, breakneck pace, thumping timestamp soundtrack. And the modern day interview segments playfully reveal the ultimate truth is still obscured but not unguessable. Only the virtuoso skating sequences – absolutely stunt packed, whiplash inducing belters, you can tell CGI must have been used but struggle to see the joins – feel truly original though. This is mainly homage to established classics, made camp by the glittery, frilly nature of the subject matter’s sport. It is a scabrously funny film, yet deals unflinchingly with domestic abuse and tries to make a martyr of a figure, who while she was often dealt a shitty hand, was almost definitely complicit in an assault on one of her peers. That leaves a slightly bad taste in my mouth. Similar to the moral blinkers Molly’s Game suffered from. At least this spirited, foul mouthed defence has a blast while trying to transmogrify a real life crim into a tarnished saint.

8

Jeremy Rush directs Frank Grillo, Garret Dillahunt and Shea Whigham in this claustrophobic crime actioner where a getaway driver finds himself being strung along by various gangs over one long journey. 

I’m a big fan of Grillo. He is superb in The Purge sequels, all brow furrowed intensity and controlled brutishness. The man does gruff masculinity like Bill Murray does sarcasm or Jennifer Lawrence does vulnerability. It is just who he is. Here he delivers more of the same in this Phone Booth meets Baby Driver gripper. Almost enitirely set in his car’s driver’s seat we get car chases, dodgy drops, shoot outs, interrogations and frustrated parenting. It isn’t a massively different prospect from Locke. Just a desperate man on his hands free mobile, trying to get his life in order before he runs out of road. Only instead of a gargantuan cement pour the stakes are gang warfare. Locke, in all honesty, is the better film despite the risk being more obscure in its target. But with a clearly Michael Mann inspired nighttime shoot, unexpected punches of action and a decent score this proved itself as a solid, manly pleasure.

7

 

My Top 10 Heist Movies

1. The Getaway (1972)
2. Die Hard (1988)
3. Quick Change (1990)
4. Out of Sight (1997)

5. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
6. Goldfinger (1964)
7. The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974)
8. The Usual Suspects (1995)
9. Inception (2010)
10. Point Break (1991)

 

Hayao Miyazaki directs Yasuo Yamada, Eiko Masuyama and Kiyoshi Kobayashi in this animated adventure where a master thief grows weary of counterfeit money turning up in his swag bag so goes to the small country that appears to be the source to investigate. 

A really fun, pacy adventure flick. The car chases have a Looney Tunes craziness to them, the gadgets are Bond meets steampunk, and the setting and mythology contain visual echoes of Miyazaki’s later, more personalised fairytale work for Ghibli.

7

Peter Yates directs Robert Redford, George Segal and Moses Gunn in this caper flick where a gang keep having to steal the same gem over and over and over again due to… complications.

A fine little star vehicle for Redford. The various jobs aren’t particularly memorable and Segal, who you’d think would steal the show, doesn’t have that blunt movie star humour that Paul Newman would have brought to the nervous lockman role. Strange that in a relaxed farce the most naturally comedic actor feels out of sync with all the straightmen. The jazzy Quincy Jones score sells it all hard. The final sequence of victory, literally just Redford trying to walk calmly down a Manhattan sidewalk, is a 5 Star moment in a 3 Star movie.

6

Brian G. Hutton directs Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas and Donald Sutherland in this WWII heist movie.

Overlong and with very little oomph. Clint looks like he doesn’t want to be there. Donald Sutherland and the soundtrack are anachronistic, hippyfied but not hip. The penultimate stealth sequence where the outlaw squad move silently into position to take the secret bank full of Nazi bullion is the only entertaining 20 minutes. The robbery itself feels far too easy. I had high hope for this. From the writer of The Italian Job and director of Where Eagles Dare, it has an appropriate pedigree, yet this lacks any of the energy that made those classic movies work. Just watch Three Kings instead as that upcycles this plot to the first Iraq war with far more humour, peril and satirical bite.

4

Phil Alden Robinson directs Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman and James Cromwell in this Jack Ryan espionager where the rookie CIA analyst finds himself between the White House and the Kremlin at a moment when both nations are poised with their fingers on the all out nuclear war buttons.

Affleck makes for a smug, dimples front and centre, everyman spy. Freeman is better as a mischievous yet in control data and defence Yoda. It often feels like near continuous shots of men sweatily grimacing at screens. Then… SPOILER… (you’ve had 16 years to watch it)… Baltimore is nuked. Brutally, suddenly, like a hard slap in your face, convulsing you to full alertness on your sofa.  All the principals are in the fallout zone. The final hour, set in the crumbling chaos, as Dimples tries to confirm the providence of the nuke is gripping stuff. Friday night filler just went up a notch. Sure it would be even better if Affleck was throwing up on himself from radiation poisoning, clumps of his preppy mane shedding off as he tackles Neo-Nazi stooges and tries to find a direct line to the retaliation bent president… But the escalation of that devastating explosion certainly ups what would have been a plodding, talky thriller.

6

Mark Gill directs Jack Lowden, Jessica Brown Findlay and Laurie Kynaston in this biopic of Morrissey, pre-the Smiths.

Big Mouth Begins. The arrogance and the angst is there but it’s hard to believe this prick could translate that into the jangly yearning of Ask, There Is a Light That Never Goes Out or Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want. All we get is rooftop fag breaks and moody bottom of the stairs phone calls. Lacks the urgency of Control or the myth confirming aggrandising of Walk the Line.

4