Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger direct Godfrey Tearle, Eric Portman and Hugh Williams in this wartime propaganda thriller about a downed bomber crew making their way back through the occupied Netherlands.

A nice little teatime adventure through the realities of resistance Europe bursting with stiff upper lip acting and a few of the experimental flourishes you’d expect from the makers of A Matter of Life and Death and The Red Shoes. We start with the doomed bomber mission and for twenty or so minutes The Archers touch base with future Paul Greengrass in their docudrama recreation, after that though proceedings normalise into something a bit sweeter but familiar. Fine but nowhere close to their brilliant gold period.

6

Jonathan Hensleigh direct Thomas Jane, John Travolta and Samantha Mathis in this early Marvel feature that attempts to dilute the unstoppable gun nut vigilante for a mainstream audience. 

A very uncertain movie actively hobbles a well cast Jane. Only the purposefully conceived assassination of Frank Castle’s family convinces (a blistering quarter of an hour seemingly borrowed from a forgotten 70s thriller), as after that the script desperately tries to avoid anything too Punisher-y. We obstinately concentrate and embellish the minor sitcom subplots of Garth Ennis’ comic revival (instead of its transgressive violence and anti-heroics), while giving Travolta’s bland mob launderer equal screentime, and only allowing distinctive henchmen to be as nasty as the named protagonist really should be. A Punisher flick that seems repulsed by Punishing. C’mon Marvel, what the fuck? Google “Punisher Laundry Day” to witness what should have been instead.

3

Roger Allers and Rob Minkof direct Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons and James Earl Jones in this Hamlet inspired tale of a Lion prince who goes absent after his father’s murder.

The Lion King has never been a favourite. I never rated it as a teenager but then again I was a teenager, starting to define my movie tastes through Tarantino, De Palma and Verehoven… Disney was pointedly kid’s stuff. Another chance for the global megahit released when I was putting away childish things then… Two decades down the line it turns out that spotty, greasy me actually had this one bang on. The Lion King is just dull. The Oscar winning Elton John songs are insipid. The king by birth right plotline grating. Maybe it is the small ‘r’ republican in me but I find “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” and prologue’s overwrought ceremonial worship for the birth of Simba’s by the other subjugated species to chafe at my very soul. The royalty aspect of other Disney films comes from a narrative necessity: so that Princes and Princesses are just a key to an ideal, albeit sometimes stolen, dream life. The crown is the symbolic prize for the good, heroic and lovely, there is no political import to it as the end point of the drama. A fantasy full stop with banquets and four poster beds and romantic happiness for everyone. Whereas here it constantly suggests that the chosen apex predators are essential to a cohesive society, the strong must lord it over the weak, Ayn Rand meets The Jungle Book, the Divine Right of Kings propaganda with Happy Meal tie-ins. UGH! The animation is handsomely put together but lacks the gilded Wow Factor spectacle of Beauty and the Beast, the perfectly calibrated adventure sequences of Aladdin or darker, underrated The Hunchback of Norte Dame. As for the forced humour… I think by the eighth “food chain” dud gag we can maybe all just put some guns in our mouths. The post- Walt conveyor belt at its most soulless nadir, though I realise it is wildly, inexplicably successful.  Can you feel the hate tonight?

3

Richard T. Heffron directs Blythe Danner, Peter Fonda and Arthur Hill in this sequel to the iconic sci-fi blockbuster Westworld.

OK… so in set-up, look and philosophy it may be wearing the better known movie’s hand me downs but I actually think Futureworld is slightly better than its more famous progenitor. Fonda and Danner are bigger stars (the latter excelling in a thankless Lois Lane role), there is a ton more action and paranoia, even the score is more energetic. So it’s all a bit cheesier… I love cheddar… And who exactly is watching either film in 2016 for their artfulness? Personally I can’t wait to revisit this version of Delos, got my return ticket booked.

8

Mike Bakewell directs himself, Mollie Moncrieff and Doreen Valiente in this even handed but charming look at “modern” British witchcraft.

A lost treat currently available to stream if you have a quick google… a BBC special taking in covens, lapsed witches and zealous Christian objectors. The whole endeavour has a fascinating echo from the past feel, revealing a time when people were both less hyper aware and not falsely open with filmmakers. Whether your interest is in pagan culture or 70s attitudes, this proves a genuinely captivating peek through the temporal peephole.

9

Courtney Solomon directs Rachel Hurd-Wood, Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek in this colonial curse chiller. 

Everything but the kitchen sink is thrown at you in the jump scare stakes meaning this “true” ghost story never calms down anywhere near long enough to build an involving sense of dread. The decent cast seem lost, the sets distractingly cheap, the stylistic flourishes random and the final twist feels like a bad taste character assassination on people long dead… just to add a bit of justification to a litany of unoriginal and laughable carnival tricks. Avoid.

1

Emile Ardolino directs Jennifer Grey, Patrick Swayze and Jerry Orbach in this sixties set summer camp romance with backstreet abortions, incongruous Eighties music and a questionable age difference between a dim middle aged dance instructor and a forward thinking kid. 

I’m not going to justify my love of Dirty Dancing. You don’t have to either.

10

Edward Zwick directs Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders and Danika Yarosh in this sequel to the ex-military drifter takes down a conspiracy time waster. 

A step in the wrong direction for a series already put on warning. While the first one celebrated, tongue firmly in cheek and pleasurably so , the Reacher / Cruise uberhuman, this one dials everything comic book right down to a whisper so our unstoppable force becomes someone who just dashes about a lot and survives the occasional one storey fall. Nothing to write home about. The mystery is superfluous, the baddies one note. We had a Richard Jenkins, Rosamund Pike, Robert Duvall, Jai Courtney and Werner Herzog in the last one. This one just contains TV faces… a sequel that makes you yearn for the days Jai Courtney was in the cast… what is the world coming to? The one interesting plot wrinkle is that Reacher picks up a makeshift family of a temporary Mrs Reacher and Junior Reacher. Even this feels like a subversion better saved for a fourth or fifth entry when we are completely comfortable with the concept being skewered. And the action is meh. Any third entry might want to ignore this rare dud from the TC brand and look back to the opener’s ridiculous but self aware strengths.

3

Michael Crichton directs Richard Benjamin, Yul Brynner and James Brolin in this robot populated theme park gone awry science fiction thriller. 

Whisper it… but the original Westworld can actually be quite a trudge when you are watching it. Little happens, slowly… and with asides to subplots that matter less and less to the main thrust. Yet give it a day or so after viewing to percolate and any dawdling narrative and cheap set dressing is easy to ignored. You remember Yul Brynner’s relentless killing machine pursuing you. You remember the excitement of arriving at Delos. You remember the terror as the robots reveal themselves. From Terminator to Jurassic Park to Inception it is an irremovable block of the modern blockbuster’s DNA; wonder gives way to danger gives way heroism. As essential as Star Wars.

8

Charles Russell directs Jim Carrey, Cameron Diaz and Peter Greene in this tale of a put upon bank clerk who uses a magical mask to become a chaotic cartoon character who wins the girl. 

Cameron Diaz’s boiling hot debut introduction and the joy of seeing Jim Carrey at his box office peak mean this will never be forgotten but maybe it should. The jokes, though well rendered and enthusiastically delivered, are at best snort-a-little smart rather than laugh-out-loud funny. While the near ubiquitous smoking of fags in a family film make this seem like a relic compared with classmates like Jurassic Park or Mrs Doubtfire. The kinda colourful and energetic film that exists better in your head as a distantly remembered concept than as an actual experience to sit through again with modern, adult eyes.

5