Darren Aronofsky directs Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem and Michelle Pfeiffer in this psychological nightmare about a young wife whose home is invaded by her writer husband’s fan base.

I’m an idiot at times. I sat down and watched mother! at face value. I enjoyed it and then didn’t enjoy it and then thought “OiOi, here we go again” and then thought “OK…wow… where are we going now?” until the end and then buttoned up my cardigan and thought I probably will never bother watching that again. If anything my overriding initial assessment was it had a disruptive sound mix. Javier Bardem pissing in another room was afforded the same amped up volume as an X-Wing zooming into shot in Star Wars. My wife took my hand and as we crossed the road from the cinema to my flat, she explained to me all the biblical parallels and how Javier Bardem represented God and Jennifer Lawrence represents Mother Earth. And I nodded and agreed that made a lot of sense. Then I read a cagey interview where Aronofsky took time to explicitly state that Natalie, my wife, was completely right. And then there were a load of opinion pieces and YouTube blogs about how mother! had flopped even though it stars the biggest movie star of our times, and it was pretentious and people don’t want to see downbeat, disturbing movies with explicit anti religion / pro green messages. And I thought…well we did follow Jennifer Lawrence around a lot and care for her and fear for her intensely for two hours. And unlike any other Hollywood film in years, I was genuinely unsettled by the places it went and the fact I didn’t have any handle onto where it was going. Like Dunkirk or Detroit, mother! was a completely immersive experience where tone and craft dominated over character and narrative. But unlike those two films I wouldn’t want to sit through it ever again. So more like Requiem for a Dream or The Fountain then. So how do I feel about mother!? I think Darren Aronofsky should stick to making movies in a defined genre with a strong simple narrative (like Black Swan, The Wrestler or Noah). I think Michelle Pfeiffer was excellent in a small role and wish she was used more still by better directors. I think most importantly you should go see it and see how you respond to it. You, like me, probably will find lots to hate… but it is an experience you wouldn’t want to miss out on… probably the closest thing to Russian war shocker Come And See or Pasolini’s Salo as a major movie star will ever be in. And Jennifer Lawrence is in every moment of mother! working her little socks off as we stalk and orbit and try to comfort her. Until she isn’t.

5

Curtis Hanson directs Annabella Sciorra, Rebecca De Mornay and Ernie Hudson in this domestic thriller where a yuppie couple’s new nanny harbours a vengeful agenda. 

One of the biggest yuppie in peril cycle movies of its day, this hasn’t aged well. Lacking the strong acting of Fatal Attraction or the visceral nastiness of Pacific Heights or Unlawful Entry, THTRTC instead settles into recreating a series of nightmare scenarios for housewives. Your gynaecologist molests you, the home help is accused of touching your kid, you suspect your best friend and husband are having an affair, everyone prefers to suck on Rebecca De Mornay’s nipples over yours, you struggle to get the right glass for your greenhouse, Ahhhh!… A black man just knocked on the kitchen window…. So it is dated and exploitative, a supermarket rack magazine writ large. It still works as a gentle potboiler and De Mornay is an icy antagonist.

5

Lee Hae-young directs Park Bo-young, Park Do-dam and Uhm Ji-won in this school set mystery where girls experience weird reactions in an oppressive Korean boarding school. 

Watch this one for the curated, achingly beautiful imagery as the plot is off the wall. In fact with so many characters having double names plus nicknames and looking entirely uniform it is often difficult to follow what is happening to whom. I know as a westerner exactly how that criticism translates but the reality is the nonsense plot is harder to follow when you struggle to distinguish characters. Still, on looks and mood alone this just about passes muster. And Uhm Ji-won is great as the corrupt principal.

5

David Lynch directs Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern and Diane Ladd in this lovers on the run road movie full of sex, violence and warped Wizard of Oz imagery. 

Easily Lynch’s most throwaway movie. There’s no real art, just madness – sexy, histrionic mania. Oh my, it is strange and gory. But the simple(ish) plot means it is relatively accessible for Lynch. Willem Dafoe’s chisel toothed Bobby Peru turns up to steal the film in the last act. A vibrant rooster of menace. And that’s “steal a film” where Diane Ladd is an Oscar nominated evil mother, Laura Dern lets it all out (“Welcome to Jurassic Park!”), and Nic is somehow the most regular, normal thing in it… and believe you me, our Mr Cage holds nothing back.

7

Andy Muschietti directs Jaeden Lieberher, Bill Skarsgård and Sophia Lillis in the big screen adaptation of Stephen King’s horror epic about small town kids trying not to be the prey of a fear eating clown monster. 

IT certainly is creepy. There’s a shit ton of unhinged imagery – my favourite being the clown nonchalantly tucking into a servered arm in the background while watching some of that bullying he loves. But… B-HUT… IT, criminally at times, isn’t all that scary. You rarely feel overwhelmed with dread. The Losers first group encounter with Pennywise is consequenceless and this hobbles the finale. If we are to believe the Derry controlling monster truly is an unstoppable evil force then you just can’t have encounters where half a dozen disorganised kids walk away unscathed. This is a problem inherent in the novel and the TV miniseries too but even more noticeable when you remove all the deaths in the parallel “30 years later…” half of the narrative. But lack of fear factor aside, IT is glossily enjoyable. Well cast, even the extras and one line roles are evocative faces. Skarsgård makes a fine deliriously drooling monster when not being CGI augmented,  while token girl Sophia Lillis puts in a starmaking turn, an eye catching performance full of grit and charm.

7

 

Joe Dante directs John Goodman, Simon Fenton and Cathy Moriarty in this period coming of age tale about a boy more interested in a schlock horror premiere than the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolding around him.   

An absolute treat – a love letter to old school horror, cinema going itself and America’s loss of innocence. A fine Goodman performance holds it together, Dante keeps the chaos and hysteria at just the right levels and the kids (while bland and not exactly Academy botherers) go through the motions attractively. The real highlight though is MANT! the black and white horror film shown within. Dante recreates this form of cheap age of the atom exploitation with an artisan’s zeal.

7

Doug Liman directs Tom Cruise, Sarah Wright and Domnhall Gleeson in this true tale of a pilot who quits his steady commercial airline job and starts working for the CIA, the Contras and eventually the Medellin cartel. 

Now this is much more like it. Cruise’s first serious lead role since Valkyrie and it buzzes with quality. It is an effervescent, propulsive tall tale that grips and makes you giggle. Reviews have unfairly written off American Made as just another Blow or War Dogs. And while it is in love with the domino rally structure of Goodfellas just as much as any of those hollow copycat flicks, it is a more nuanced and entertaining drug smuggling piece. We don’t merely follow the rise and fall of a luxury scumbag. We follow a family man who decides to abandon the safety net he placed himself in, and for a while thrives living on the edge of a razor blade. We are introduced to Barry Seal flying a full airliner, going by the flight plan, all operating lights lit. His co-pilot is asleep, as are all his passengers back there. So he decides to click off the auto pilot and try a little free fall. And we follow him from there on out, one miscalculation away from being terminal wreckage. Each humorously threat laden episode sees a cocksure middle-aged man jerking and plunging his solid existence into more and more dangerous territory. He flies too low over military bases he needs to photograph, taking flack he could avoid from a sensible height. He drags the wife n’ kids away at night to a new rural home, the cops passing them as they turn out of the driveway. We essentially run with a man constantly putting his steady life in peril and watch as the CIA and Pablo Escobar exploit this. American Made is a kind of a suburban 9to5er existence slapstick show plus a bonus Reagan-era satire to boot. And when his downfall comes, his cocksure grin can’t protect him. Hell, he loses some trademark dazzling white teeth by the first act but he keeps on smiling. He crashes his plane in a way that would make Goose and Iceman cry. Cruise’s Top Gun aviator shades and his running shoes have already been stolen off him by freedom fighters he has arrived to “assist.” He turns up again, smile at full beam, with Playboys, a case of Jack and only a baseball bat as protection. How else are you going to give these guys their guns? The joke is clear; everyone (Escobar, the Contras, the Sandinistas) wants to be American, while the American success story wants action and danger and oblivion. He ends up making confessional tapes. He wants someone to talk to. He wants to reveal what the American Dream looks like while your eyes are closed dreaming; what is happening outside the borders to make that myth work. But his co-pilot and all the passengers are still asleep. America does not care what is being done in its name. American Made delivers this message lightly and with deft humour. Liman ably uses Cruise as both an icon and a desperate charm power tool. As the life threatening set pieces and dirty money pummel over us, we are always thoroughly with Golden Tom. We want him to win (still four decades of winning on), to get the girl (even though she is now already his wife) but we want to see him do it clinging by his fingertips, grinning that million dollar smile at us like a deflector shield, as the weight of the real world drags him down.

8

 

William Wyler directs Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker and Lee Grant in this day in the life in a police precint thriller. 

A retro NYPD Blue episode with various cases being closed while the personal lives and private demons of the detectives get explored between the desks. So it is essentially a filmed play? Great. Kirk and a magnificent support cast of character faces make it a very watchable filmed play.

6

Roman Polanski directs himself, Isabelle Adjani and Melvyn Douglas in this psychological suspenser about a man who becomes paranoid that his new neighbours are trying to kill him. 

Surreal horror meets slapstick farce ineffectually in this overlong pain. Polanski does the pratfalling cornered prey act suprisingly well and there are flashes of his previous disturbing brilliance. If you want to read into it all some parallels to either his childhood surviving the Holocaust or his fleeing of America on statutory rape charges; then please be my guest. Taken at face value though it is merely a self indulgent puzzle.

4

James Ponsoldt directs Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aaron Paul and Octavia Spencer in this drama about an alcoholic primary school teacher who attempts to go sober while her partner continues drinking. 

Visually this is Bukowski meets Etsy – all dive bars and floral dresses, vomit flecked chins and master shots dappled in overcranked sunlight. It is wryly amusing and hits believable depths. Winstead is beautiful as ever, even when waking up jonseing on a flytipped sofa. You can see her enjoy being challenged by a role that stretches her after a decade of genre work. Here the monster she has to survive is her addiction and she sails that ship to safety without ever being mawkish.

7