Tony Richardson directs Mick Jagger, Clarissa Kaye-Mason and Mark McManus in this Australian folk Western about the infamous bandit outlaw. 

Dull, dour and dirty – Richardson attempts to lens just about anything but Jagger as he is such an uncomfortable, stunted presence on screen. Annoyingly he is playing the lead character so on the rare occasion he is forced to enunciate a line of scripted dialogue you feel you are in some kinda feral school nativity play. Awful.

3

Mark Dunstan directs Josh Stewart, Randall Archer and Emma Fitzpatrick in this gorehound sequel where the survivor of The Collector leads a rescue team into the serial killer’s booby trapped lair. 

The first low budget entry was unexpectedly intense, believable and low key. This stumbles greedily the other way and is just nastily sloppy.

3

Brian DePalma directs John Travolta, Nancy Allen and John Lithgow in this paranoid thriller about a movie sound engineer who records an assassination à la Blow Up.

I tried to watch this twice before late night (once on Moviedrome as a kid, another time drunk) and each time never made it past the murder. I have robbed myself of a brilliantly orchestrated thriller. Like Travolta himself , it is not a lean experience. There’s a seedy subplot involving a sex killer and a lengthy flashback to a bungled sting that tells us more about the main character than it affects the already in-motion plot. The use of blinding primary colour, deep focus, jarring close ups, movies within movies (Boy Oh Boy, doesn’t the exploitation slasher flick we open up with seem innocent compared to the corrupt “reality” we end up in?) all disrupt you the viewer out of your complacency. The ending is both downbeat and a cruel punchline. Blow Out is DePalma at his most hatefully playful, like Batman’s nemesis The Joker, the violent prank he openly plays is on everyone. Genre movie making is a joke, a trick, and here’s the method, here’s the artifice, here’s the strings. Yet I the director can still hurt you when I pull them the right way. Ow!

8

Joe Dante directs Dennis Quaid, Martin Short and Meg Ryan in an action comedy about a hypochondriac store clerk who has to rescue the minitaturised test pilot who has been injected inside him. 

A summer blast, so full of neat ideas and well executed wonderment that you can’t help but be won over by it. There are about half a dozen movies fighting for dominance here (a Fantastic Voyage update, a Spielbergian Amazing Tale, a paranoid chase movie, a Meg Ryan romance, a Martin Short broad comedy and a Joe Dante live action Looney Tunes jamboree) yet the pace never slips and it rarely tips over into messiness. A busy romp but busy with pointedly entertaining elements. Most importantly for a high concept flick like this the internal FX work is convincingly gloopy and awe inducing while the set pieces, both within and without the body, prove to be consistently kinetic and intense. Add to that some killer use of soul singer Sam Cooke and you have a winner, lacking any rust or wear three decades on.

8

Kenneth Branagh directs Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman and Tom Hiddleston in this Marvel flick about an Asgardian warrior god prince banished to Buttfuck, USA for his half brother’s plotting. 

Some glowing design work in Asgard and Hemsworth’s nice line in hunky doofus heroics aside there’s very little to actually revisit on a second viewing. Essentially a muted, tasteful version of Dolph Lungren’s Masters of the Universe with franchise building when there should be action (Take the shot, Hawkeye!) and no real pace or commitment from the paycheck players. The Marvel machine at its weakest.

4

David F. Sandberg directs Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman and Anthony LaPaglia in this prequel to the prequel of The Conjuring’s subplot; this time orphaned girls uncover the demonic doll in her creator’s farmhouse.

Creepy and well acted, this is miles better than the other Annabelle prequel yet still lacks the rollercoaster relentlessness and star power of the core The Conjuring flicks. Acceptable for a couple of keen rural setting shocks and some taut dread-building throughout, this should just about sate horror aficionados.

5

 

Brad Furman directs Matthew McConaughey, Ryan Phillippe and Marisa Tomei in this courtroom thriller about an amoral defence attorney who picks up a client he soon wishes he hadn’t. 

Gritty and gorgeous but never all that gripping. A fine cast and a strong concept is leaned on a little too heavily for the sake of hurried storytelling. At one point William H Macy taps out of the film as an exposition spouter, only for Bryan Cranston to tag in for the same purpose the very next scene. While it is all very watchable, the rush through the bullet point plot never gives you that satisfying set piece or memorable face off that would justify all the machinations.

6

Luis Buñuel directs Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel and Michel Piccoli in this allegorical drama about a repressed Parisian housewife who starts working in a brothel.

A film made to celebrate, lightly degrade and examine Deneuve’s fragile, ethereal beauty.  Fantasies and flashback explore why she is so outwardly repressed. Exquisite framing and costumes accentuate why that is so desirable. The reverie of an extended dirty dream pulsates throughout Buñuel’s direction. And as the forced drama and humiliation escalate towards the finale, we are never truly sure whether we are awake in a tragedy or still glossed over and blissed out in her twisted sexual fantasia. It is all gently transgressive, persuasively attacking class and gender politics without ever losing its charm and beauty. What is in that jolly chinaman’s decorative box? What are the consequences? This nicely contrasts with Deneuve’s recent The Midwife where she plays a character with few societal reservations.

9

 

David Leitch directs Charlize Theron, James McAvoy and Sofia Boutella in this hyperstyilsed Cold War thriller about sexy double agents and the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

Let down only by a plot that somehow manages to be overly complicated yet also wholly predictable everything else chimes together nicely. It has sexy action to match a John Wick or a Kingsman. It has sexy sex scenes. Sexy eighties fashion. Sexy eighties remix soundtrack. Sexy eighties cold neon lighting. And considering Charlize, when framed by all these elements, is the epitome of sexy, it proves to be a perfect vehicle for her. A perfect vehicle is something this hard working star is rarely gifted with by Hollywood, and therefore its mere efficient existence increases the endeavour’s overall likability.

7

Brett Whitcomb directs Mountain Fiji,  Matilda the Hun and Little Egypt in this documentary revisiting the surprise hit Eighties sports phenomenon. 

Diverting more as the obvious inspiration for the brilliant new Netflix show with Alison Brie and Marc Maron than as a piece of quality filmmaking in its own right. The permitted content is colourful but limited and the manipulation to form the standard exposé narrative and emotional arc are blatant. As a DVD extra for the new show or a fan friendly celebration of the nostalgic original it is watchable enough.

5