Anton Corbijn directs Robert Pattinson, Dane DeHaan and Joel Edgerton in this true story drama where a struggling photo journalist strikes up an opportunistic friendship with James Dean who is on the cusp of fame.

Inessential but solid. Corbijn uses the film as a delivery system for some lovely period imagery – every selected skinny tie and faked cityscape evokes beauty. I’m not sure there’s a feature films worth of narrative in this extended historical anecdote but even the filler scenes have a visual lyricism. The acting is a positive with both leads given quite rich, complex roles. DeHaan’s Dean is seductive, obtuse but scared of attention, passively hostile to sacrificing control. Pattinson’s photographer is a darker character and it say something about the reluctant star that you never quite get a fix on him. There’s something worthwhile in Pattinson’s deep water, buried treasure acting style. Maybe it covers up his limitations and pretty boy sins but I find it very magnetic. He’s better in Good Time and The Rover but this contains that same smooth puzzle.

6

Alfred Hitchcock directs Ray Milland, Grace Kelly and Robert Cummings in this apartment set murder thriller where a cuckolded husband arranges the perfect murder of his young wife.

A bit too limited in scope and experimentation to be A-Grade Hitch but diverting none the less. Kelly is ever glamorous as the unaware victim gliding around an increasingly complicated trap. It also helps that Milland is particularly unlikeable, so we take perverse pleasure whenever his well laid plan either works or wobbles. Perfectly watchable technicolor thrills.

7

The Wachowskis direct Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon and Joe Pantoliano in this apartment set thriller where an ex-con lesbian “handyman” gets honey trapped into a big score by a gangster’s moll.

Joey Pants rocks in this. He is better than The Wachowskis calling card camera moves and arch plot wrinkles. Joey Pants is better than a hot lesbian sex scene by two Hollywood C-lister with fantastic chemistry together. Joey Pants is better than most things and this self aware little noir is the perfect display case for him.

7

Preston Sturges directs Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea and Rudy Vallée in this screwball comedy where a loving wife leaves her husband so he can focus on his dream of building an airport suspended over the city.

My first Preston Sturges experience. I really liked it. Had the same energy as Capra or Hawks at their best but with a more modern playfulness. A brilliant showcase for the sexy comic battering ram that is Colbert, and Mary Astor gets a great role too. Not just an utterly pleasurable watch but paced so strangely you kinda want to watch it all over again straight away. I have no idea what happened during the opening sequence that appears to be a highlight reel from a previous “never made” chapter of the Jeffers zany romance but I’m pretty sure it might explain the out of nowhere finale. Even when it makes no rational sense, this was witty and gorgeous larks. The first setpiece between our heroine and the deaf and lustless Wienie King who invades her apartment is a masterclass of exposition and charming back-and-forth.

9

Jennifer Kent directs Aisling Franciosi, Sam Claflin and Baykali Ganambarr in this rape revenge drama where an indentured convict crosses the Tasmanian wilderness hunting the British soldiers who grievously wronged her.

Oof! The Nightingale is some tough, rough road to travel down. Infamously, at the movie’s debut at the Sydney Film Festival, one viewer was heard shouting “I’m not watching this, she’s already been raped twice” as she exited the theater. One grown man, next to me at our screening, spent most of the film with his head in hands, moaning lowly at all the bloody attacks and colonial trauma. If you’ve seen Kent’s previous film The Babadook you’ll know she is not interested in safe, comfortable or happy experiences. Her films are bleak, depressive attacks on social structures. Just as The Babadook was an unrelenting hard slap to the usually sacrosanct notions of sanity and maternal love, The Nightingale goes for the jugular of Australian history and British colonialism. Unflinchingly taking in what the brutalisation and extermination of the native population looked like while following an oppressed and vulnerable protagonist who literally has had her life decimated by her exploiters. This is a film that has bursts of transgressive violence so hardcore that even I would struggle to think of equivalent Seventies Exploitation Cinema that carve similar psychological wounds. Yet, beyond the fact it isn’t a “nice” film, it is a compelling one. The “western / adventure” aspects unfold slowly yet satisfyingly… the final act moves into a different unexpected territory that may rob us of the traditional justice and vengeance bloodletting we’ve been anticipating but feel more wholemeal on reflection. Uniformly excellent performances from a cast given some very difficult material, beautiful location cinematography. Kent’s second feature feels like a step-up, a doubling down on her style and joins The Proposition and Comrades in the enviable group of great anti-patriotic Australian Period films. Would I rush to rewatch it again? No. Should you gird yourself and watch it once? Very much so.

7

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

2. Deadwood: The Movie

3. Dragged Across Concrete

4. The Irishman

5. Never Look Away

6. The Favourite

7. Mid 90s

8. Under the Silver Lake

9. Crawl

10. Star Wars: Rise of the Skywalker

11. Apollo 11

12. Terminator: Dark Fate

13. Godzilla: King of the Monsters

14. Us

15. Midsommar

16. Long Shot

17. Green Book

18. Colette

19.  Ad Astra

20. Bait

Bubbling Under: Official Secrets, Sorry We Missed You, Hustlers, Alita: Battle Angel, Shazam!, The Nightingale, In Fabric

Still Need to Watch: Cats, Charlie’s Angels, One Cut of the Dead, The Peanut Butter Falcon, Eight Grade

J.J. Abrams directs Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Issacs in the final chapter of the space battle saga where Rey learns her true origins while the Rebellion makes their last stand in the face of overwhelming odds.

This doesn’t feel like the end. The new trilogy characters threads are tied up but you feel there’s more potential in them. John Boyega’s Finn never really found his stride despite a fascinating starting point and a few unresolved hints. Rey is now on an uncertain path… where next for her? What will her galaxy look like in 5 years or 15 years time when we revisit her “A long time ago” again?

Very beautiful, is the answer. The one aspect of The Last Jedi that Abrams has truly embraced is the artful, huge canvas fantasy imagery that Rian Johnson ran wild with. The gothic horror of Exegol (a sublime mixture of Hellraiser and Prometheus). The desert party planet of Pasaana, where a showdown occurs where both Sergio Leone and David Lean are brilliantly ripped-off. The pastoral wreckage of Kef Bir… black tidal waves buttressing a fallen Death Star. This is cinematic painting, true art out of childish dreams. So the action that happens in these landscapes is good rather than outstanding. Solid thrills. This entry isn’t too reliant on its set-pieces. The kinetics nip along, not particularly memorable, but keep you focussed in the moment.

Interestingly, this is the first of the new films that feels fuelled by character arcs rather than fan service. There’s plenty of cheery callbacks and legacy reinforcement but not at the expense of giving the new kids their curtain call. Everyone significant has already been introduced. Their stories need closure. So we follow them growing. Rey decides what side of the balance of the force she is going fall to. Kylo Ren learns what life is like alone. Finn works through his past as an orphaned child soldier turned runaway. Poe Dameron considers a life after the rebellion. The whole thing is sewn together with an artefact scavenger hunt plot that feels like The Goonies goes Intergalactic (they spend a lot of time in tunnels, rainy cliff edges and in wrecks looking at clues). Abrams’ neat approach works crisply and unchallengingly, you follow the sweep, rarely bored or feeling superfluous to the plot.

Episode 9 settles together into a strong entertainment – eye candy, nostalgia and bit of well invested melodrama. Jedi fights now can take place over two locuses creating some elegant shifts of backdrop. C-3PO makes a heroic sacrifice. An old foe returns to fantastic results… hell, everyone returns. EVERYONE! Chewie gets his just desserts. We even finally see the Knights of Ren in action. A spy is revealed… a good hoodwink. More consistent than Solo, broader than The Last Jedi.

Rise of the Skywalker all feels, gloriously, like kids in the playground. “You’re the bad guy.” “Now I’m a good guy.” “Ah, you got me.” “You’re dead.” “I’m back from the dead.” “NO! I’M BACK FROM THE DEAD!”

It might look ridiculous to outsiders and casuals but this is always what Star Wars was for my generation. A leaping off point for play. We grew up on the toys and stickers. Afternoons in the park or garden were filled with who got to be Han Solo. Death means nothing in play. Ends mean nothing in imagination. Star Wars is no longer my favourite franchise but I doubt anything could ever replace it in my fondest movie memories. Christmas, seeing the Lucasfilm logo, then that pale blue thin font, the fanfare, the big yellow recap flying up the screen… IT BEGINS! Toxic fans or dodgy entries or playing things safe cannot kill what that means to someone like me.

Rise of the Skywalker fulfils the promise of that indoctrinated iconography and I can gloss over any flaws and fudges as I was thoroughly taken back to childhood by it. Happiness in one more adventure, the victory of a whole saga.

8

Paul Schrader directs Nicolas Cage, Willem Dafoe and Christopher Matthew Cook in this black crime comedy where three unhinged ex-cons move out of their low-level comfort zone and try you pull off a big score with fatal results.

Lurches between gonzo violence to solid character study to exploitation pulp to amateur scratch work to pure visual art. Essentially if you like Cage and Dafoe and you expect nothing of it, there’s nasty pleasures hidden among the randomness. Imagine a crime film told in the style of Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and you’ve got the milieu. Ends with loose ends all over the place, don’t expect plot resolution. Still, I’d watch this utter carnage again. Based on a Eddie Bunker book, with Schrader himself acting well in a key role.

6

Hugh Hudson directs Al Pacino, Nastassja Kinski and Sid Owen in this war movie where a father and son are dragged into the turmoil of the War of Independence between the British and Americans.

The film that pretty much destroyed the British film industry for a decade. It cost $28 million and in the States made only 300 grand. After that the city backed away from investing in British productions, pretty much only superior TV movies got cinema distribution until 1994. Eventually Shallow Grave and Four Weddings & A Funeral got commerce pumping again. As for the culprit / scapegoat itself, Revolution still isn’t very good. The kinda club footed production that cast Annie Lennox in a role but then dubs her singing voice with someone else’s. There are battles and scale and stars and period detail but no life. Everything that happens fails to connect with the restless, persevering viewer. Pacino is subdued, Kinski miscast, everyone else lost. Often compared to the notorious Heaven’s Gate, this displays the same levels of hubris and often boredom. Sometimes the film slips out of it own consciousness it so cack handedly edited down. But with Heaven’s Gate you could see a great, beautiful film fighting beneath a miasma of indulgence. This doesn’t have that soul, the dirty dullness is hollow inside.

3

Henry Koster directs Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven in this Christmas romance where a dashing angel falls for the wife of a Bishop he has been assigned to help.

A lovely festive matinee trip to the Filmhouse. The movie feels like a progenitor of Mary Poppins. Grant’s sharp suited angel fills the same role, his miracles are delivered with similar Hollywood trickery and his effect on people is exactly the same. Which puts Niven in a stuffy George Banks role – a little thankless apart from when a chair magics itself to his butt. There’s lots of brisk humour, wondrous flights of fancy and suave heartstring pulling. A pinnacle of studio system lightness.

10