Tsai Ming-liang directs Lee Kang-sheng, Chen Siang-chi and Sumomo Yozukora in this Taiwanese arthouse film about pornography, boredom and watermelons.

Some pretty extreme fuck scenes and some playful musical non-sequiturs slice up hours of boring waiting about. There are symbolic points here about the human condition, commodification and lust… but lost in an intentionally draggy whole. A modern classic perhaps, but not for me or the casual viewer. If you own a dirty mac or a Derrida Reader maybe you can jack off a part of your body to it that I just can’t.

5

Kevin Connolly directs John Travolta, Spencer Lofranco and Kelly Preston in this crime biopic of “The King of New York” / “The Teflon Don” John Gotti.

A poorly made film. Not the utter clusterfuck of repute but pretty irredeemable. The wavering positives are Travolta works hard not to rely on his charms and the ageing make-up is award worthy. Yet the structure is random, uninvolving. And the tone seems to suggest this thug and profiteer from misery is some kind of misunderstood folk hero. When the events at best present him as a half hearted bully. Then we waste time exploring his son, suggesting his prison time was some kind of conspiratorial injustice akin to Mandela or Steve Biko. Getthefuckouttahere! He lived the mafia life, was ‘made’, committed violence. Who cares if he wanted to go straight when his Dad got cancer and the Feds got evidence. He was as dirty as the next goombah, and the poor mope playing him can’t play – shit actor.

3

Craig R Baxley directs Brian “The Boz” Bosworth, Lance Henriksen and William Forsythe in this undercover cop who owns a pet komodo dragon takes on a racist, criminal biker gang actioner.

Shoot-outs! Chases! Titties! Stone Cold is lowest common denominator stuff. The kinda film that Season 2 Homer Simpson might watch, only it actually has been made and released in this reality. The kinda film that only troubled cinemas for a fortnight but had its own bigger than life cardboard standee at the video shop for a year. The kinda film that actually kinda delivers on all the mayhem and energy that its once-glimpsed trailer promised back in 1992. Stone Cold is a bad film that does what it sets out to really well. The Boz is unconvincing as a human being but utterly convincing as a direct-to-video action hulk. He is no Arnie but the same vibes are there. Lance Henriksen, William Forsythe and Mac’s Dad from Always Sunny make for an deliciously OTT group of Hell’s Angels terrorists. Threatening, despicable but cool enough to be cult icons. The biker subculture feels more accurately represented here in this bubblegum comic book than Sons of Anarchy. And we end on a finale where motorcycles are driven through fourth storey windows at helicopters and people are shotgun blasted off balconies with gay abandon. The very last tracking shot even suggests some cinematic wit and artistry. Stone Cold is a guilty pleasure, yet one that has aged well, has stayed valid for the simple reason it is never for a single second boring.

6

Paweł Powilkowski directs Agatha Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza and Dawid Ogrodnik in the monochrome arthouse drama about a nun exploring Iron Curtain Poland before she takes her vows.

Beautiful B&W cinematography. Sexy nun. Sexier alcoholic bureaucratic aunt. A road trip. An investigation into the holocaust. And guilt. Tragedy. Romance. Decisions. A real breath of fresh air to sit on the couch with my wife and enjoy this human, subtle piece of moviemaking amid my own self inflicted big dumb blockbuster catch-up.

7

David Leitch directs Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham and Vanessa Kirby in this buddy action spin-off where the hulking international cop and spy turned hardnut criss-cross the globe chasing after a technology that might kill humanity.

As I type right now, helicopters are thundering around my tenement flat, filming stunts for F&F9. Edinburgh, infamous for its illegal street race scene, is home to the next of these dumbly OTT crowd pleasers. In theory, a The Rock / The Stath side mission should be the best of the series given the charisma, chemistry and action cache of the headliners. And at its intermittent best Hobbs & Shaw feels like the Arnie V Sly crossover that should have happened around 1992. Did happen in this pubescent’s imagination on a daily basis.

It is bombastic and full of PG-13 ‘tude. Yet also a bit stingy. The epic and daft set pieces feel a little too thriftily spaced apart. The scenes where Dwayne and Jase banter go on aimlessly for too long, without covering new ground. Often they are interrupted or subservient to some big name cameos (both from stars I find grating rather than gratifying – but I realise I’m in the minority, they are both very popular and coups for this production.) There’s no line as memorable as “I’m gonna beat you like a cherokee drum”: the juicy fruit of their previous face off.

The best moment is when Hobbs fights Shaw’s spry sister (Kirby – notably standing out in this kinda of summer ramtam again). At one point the hero lifts the speedy little dynamo up like Mac does to Sweet Dee in a recent Always Sunny. They blow up entire industrial complexes and race down the windows of a skyscraper yet the most memorable individual frame was already done better here…

“It made me feel teeny tiny. Like Thumbelina.” Sweet Dee is happy. The Gang would like this too. It is totally Thunder Gun Express. So it is hard to be disappointed by something only fictional characters would have high expectations for.

5

Gene Stupnitsky directs Jacob Tremblay, Keith L. Williams and Brady Noon in this adult comedy where three innocent kids find themselves getting lost in a madcap chase of E, sex toys and dangerous stunts to recover a valuable drone.

The joke is they only half understand the transgressive adult world they have to navigate but that runs pretty thin, pretty early. It is cookie cutter product with the colour and the shape of Superbad and the soundtrack of Booksmart. Keith L. Williams is notable for finding a bit of adorable nuance in the repetitive material, his rules loving nice boy steals the otherwise average show.

4

Alexandre Aja directs Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper and Morfydd Clark in this monster thriller where a swimmer and her daddy are trapped in a flooding basement during a hurricane where some hungry alligators have decided to nest.

This is it, Jaws for a new generation. The perfect Saturday night triple bill middle flick to marry Alligator with Hard Rain. The big Barry Pepper comeback. My friend Martin Croser suggested I do a podcast called “Barry Pepper Is Great In Everything!” He certainly is hardcore here, taking on gargantuan snappers with bricks and his bare fists, coming back from the grizzled chewed up dead 88 times. The film is a tight 87 minutes long. Squeezed hard, pleasingly economic. Even ends on the old John Landis punchline of a lyrically on-point yet incongruously upbeat credit song. Does our Barry Pepper make it all the way to that throwback B-Movie punctuation point? I ain’t spoiling shit. He’s not even the star. The steel eyed final girl dives around, problem solving, flippering between ravenous jaws and hellish high water with convincing abandon. The kids should have turned up in droves for this old school rollercoaster. It is the best thing gore and grip master Alexandre Aja has ever done, even better than his classic debut Switchblade Romance. He’s made good remakes since (his The Hills Have Eyes is surprisingly worthwhile) but never quite redelivered that blood guzzling cocaine rush of his debut. Well now, in this slick little slice of late summer nasty, he has surpassed it. Everything I want in a movie.

8

Andrew Tennant directs Matthew Perry, Salma Hayek and Carlos Gómez in this romantic comedy where an ambitious yuppie and tempestuous latina get married after a one-night stand.

Oh, Chandler Bing. Funniest, most talented of the Friends. This bland, by the numbers, pointless vehicle is the reason you never broke Hollywood. Salma Hayek looks beautiful, it is smoothly made, they never allow a joke or emotion get in the way of all that autopilot surface. Oh, Chandler Bing… could you be any more self-sabotaging?

2

Hal Ashby directs Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid and Otis Young in this poignant comedy where two navy lifers must escort a young kleptomaniac to a harsh sentence in military prison across the States.

3 facts.

1) I tried watching this twice before over the last 20 years and never made it past the first half hour where nothing seemed to happen. Late night too, which really didn’t work in this loose film’s favour. I now realise that like Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood or the first few episodes of a good sitcom you need time to marinate with these characters before you find them funny. Before you care. So what seems wasteful, eventless and directionless at the start invests you into the three men’s differences and eventual camaraderie. Third times a charm as once I got over that hump and hung out with this trio a bit I truly related to them and wanted them to break free of the shit detail they were putting off but always moving towards.

2) The word “fuck, and all permutations of it, are said sixty-five times. This was a record in 1973. The script by Robert Towne sat on the shelf in Hollywood for three years until attitudes about on-screen profanity became more relaxed. They filmed two versions of nearly every scene so that it might eventually be broadcast on TV.

3) This is one of Jack Nicholson’s most relaxed, subtle and generous lead turns. He lets Randy Quaid’s hulking innocent take the limelight. When they go to the world’s most depressing cathouse you don’t care what Jack is up to. And I could watch Nicholson read magazines in a brothel waiting room for an entire 7 season boxset.

Fucking 7

Denis Villeneuve directs Jake Gyllenhaal, Jake Gyllenhaal and Mélanie Laurent in this existential thriller where a man discovers his doppelgänger and tries to make contact.

Cronenbergian architecture and (non-)emotion. Kubrickian framing and mordant wit. Lynchian bursts of surrealism and mundanity… are all xeroxed here. This ‘bottle episode’ exercise from a director who thinks large should be a cult item. Yet it never fully comes to life. The patient mystery is primed by the third act to shift into a dark thriller or psycho sexual love quadrangle territory but then ends abruptly on a weak punchline. A superb cast inhabit their puzzling enigmas well, but this is cryptic without ever being taxing. Like the best cult items then – a movie with a better poster than content.

5