Chris Koch directs Jason Lee, Julia Stiles and Selma Blair in this gross out romantic comedy about a soon to be wed groom who keeps bumping into the girl he might have slept with on his stag do. 

Clearly aiming for a There’s Something About Mary vibe but the gags aren’t there, the charms isn’t there and the heart is no where to be seen. You end up with lots of weak characters behaving like no one in reality ever would and extraneous side plots that reach for wacky but can’t grasp onto anything tangible. When film historians ask why the brilliant Jason Lee wasn’t an A-list star, the answer will be misguided breakout vehicles like this.

3

Antoine Fuqua directs Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal and Melissa Leo in this sequel to the highly trained vigilante reboot. 

Denzel is unstretched by the drama. The action merely bookends the film, there are no set pieces for a good 90 minutes of the running time. Is this because the various plot strands are particularly complex? No. It is by the numbers conspiracy stuff. So rote I struggled to figure out exactly why the baddies were covering their tracks. I’m sure there was a macguffin, I just lost interest whenever Denzel wasn’t onscreen either righting wrongs, raising up or beating down. There enough of his take on Robert McCall doing these things that you don’t feel your time has been utterly wasted. The avoidance of going bigger is admirable but it could have been better, no? Only the grand finale in an evacuated town really hits the sweet spot.

4

Roger Vadim directs Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law and Anita Pallenberg in this sci-fi space adventure where a sexy intergalactic navigator investigates a planet full of surreal danger, physical intercourse and hateful inhabitants.

Not quite as good as I remember. The near constant costume changes of a gorgeously vapid Fonda and a production design that loves a bit of coloured, diaphanous moulded plastic are the highlights. I love the tackiness of the breathy bubblegum pop soundtrack and the shag carpet spaceship interiors. The moments of peril are ludicrously inventive; vampiric dollies, death by sparrow cage, a fatal sexual pleasure machine induced into overload. Shame nothing more is made from them… you wouldn’t call Barbarella action packed even though the foundations are there. Essentially each set piece involves Fonda bound in a kinky death trap then released after a beat of struggling.  But it does trundle along slowly with no end in sight. And when the end comes, it is abrupt. An experience that probably needed one screenwriter rather than 14. Yet the boredom of an aimless narrative isn’t what sticks in the memory a week later. All that saucy nuttiness does.

6

Susanna Fogel directs Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon and Sam Heughan in this buddy action comedy about a pair of flatmates who get embroiled in a globetrotting caper. 

This is overlong, uninspired and surprisingly violent (for a light spoof it goes full Bourne at times) . The chuckles come in jerking spits and spats. Yet I did enjoy it. It was distractingly colourful and gave Kunis and McKinnon lots of leeway to show off their chemistry. They riff well off each other. I’d definitely give a tighter scripted, more off the wall sequel a chance.

5

 

Gordon Douglas directs James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn and Joan Weldon in this atomic age sci-fi about gigantic ants attacking America.

Dull scientists and wooden cops take on mutant insects. Not particularly transgressive or kitsch. Did exactly what it said on the tin back then but serves as little more than the inspiration for a fun retro quad poster these days.

4

Zak Hilditch directs Thomas Jane, Neal McDonough and Molly Parker in this period psychological horror about a farmer who kills his wife and whose reality falls apart. 

As a character study this works, Jane is convincingly gruff, subtle and batshit as a guilt ridden killer. But the story is too slight to fill the running time and you wish you were watching a King adaptation with a bit more emotional punch and scope. Like Shawshank, like The Mist.

4

My Top 10 Stephen King Movies

1. The Shining (1980)

2. The Mist (2007)

3. Stand By Me (1986)

4. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

5. Misery (1990)

6.  11.22.63 (2016)

7. Silver Bullet (1985)

8. IT (2017)

9. The Dead Zone (1983)

10. Carrie (1976)

Spike Lee directs John David Washington, Adam Driver and Laura Harrier in this true story recreation of the black Colorado cop who infiltrated the Klu Klux Klan in 1973. 

Spike Lee on a comeback. I’m there. I’m in. I held onto the legend longer than most. Critically he went off the boil around Clockers in 1995. But I stayed with him and would say He Got Game, Get On the Bus, 25th Hour and Inside Man are among his best. After that his projects struggled to get much of a release over here in the UK, and my appetite dwindled also. I own Chi-Raq on DVD but have felt no pressing hurry to unwrap the cellophane from the packaging. But now we have a heavily marketed, universally acclaimed, multiplex bothering, Cannes Grand Prix winning “return to form” and it’s… O.K.? BlacKkKlansman is an intriguing story on paper, the concept pops. But the reality is the investigation was stunted before it really got going and the benefits of it were minimal. Once you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve kinda seen the film. There’s not much more to the history than a stranger than fiction hook. Spike is as cinematically playful and as incendiary as ever. Therefore the film is unsurprisingly a mixed bag. The thriller elements are weak and watery, the attempts to satirically future echo the slogans and attitudes of the Trump administration become overbearingly obvious. Less is more once we’ve got that joke. The romance works, as do the scenes were Washington and Driver become woke of their own endurance of everyday racism. The ragtag rhythm of fiery didacticism and laidback period caricature produces only a few moments of true power. Lee seems emboldened when he recreates speeches of historical figures. The sequences replicating the oratory of Kwame Ture, Jerome Turner and Kennebrew Beauregard are captivating. They are also the most obviously bolted on additions, extraneous to the narrative. There’s social horror too… the Klan guffawing at The Birth of a Nation’s dated racism is uncomfortable viewing, the use of video footage depicting a white supremacist ploughing his car into Charlottesville protesters in 2017 proves devastating. It makes for quite the punctuation point. But if you were sold by the trailer advertising a hip, zany thriller then you are gonna walk out unsated.

6

 

Michael Lehmann directs Winona Ryder, Christian Slater and Lisanne Falk in this black teen comedy about a trio of bitchy school bullies, a serial killer cool kid and the girl caught in the middle of them. 

With its vibrant primary colour palette, razor sharp dialogue and sexy, threatening performances Heathers is an easy movie to love. Ryder makes for a winning lead (convincingly smart yet naive as the plot needs her to be) and her chemistry with Slater’s manipulative bad lad is smoking. The ecosystem of the school is captured perfectly too. An intentional recipe of three parts satire, one part condemnation. No tribe of children or adults gets away unscathed from Lehmann’s and screenwriter Daniel Waters’ skewed vision. You get the feeling even the background characters have been conceived to be presented as more complex than their chosen stereotypes. The nastiness of the film, both psychological and the violence, motors the entertainment. Horrid behaviour. Excessive retribution. The film easily slips into the visual mode of horror when it wants to grip you. Heathers straddles the no man’s land between John Hughes dramedies and Scream shocks. Tone and timeline sync up perfectly for it to act as the crossover point. A nexus point between teen classics. It meanders a little getting to the third act but the finale is taut and explosive. 30 years still young.

9

 

 

Albert Hughes directs Kodi Smit-McPhee, Johannes Haukur Johannesson and Natassia Malthe in this adventure film about a Stone Age boy seperated from his tribe who partners up with an injured wolf to survive the journey home. 

A tribal White Fang, this is the epitome solid filmmaking. Hughes creates some beautiful imagery, making the prehistoric environment realistic yet spectacular. It is not going to be anyone’s favourite movie but it passed a couple of Dog Day hours effectively.

5

John Landis directs Tim Matheson, Tom Hulce and John Belushi star in this frat comedy about the worst house on campus – the original of its sub-genre. 

I’ve never been a fan of this “hit” but this revisit (almost definitely my last) was a slog. Just repugnant characters behaving badly. Yet the mayhem has no timing, wit or satirical intent. Belushi’s occasional appearances have a charming anarchy, the SHOUT! musical number is brilliantly edited, the lovely Karen Allen is in it and doesn’t have too offensive a role… I’m clutching at straws. The very, very dated gender politics will consign this one to the bin. Bin it!

3