Hayao Miyazaki directs Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino and Mari Natsuki in this animated fantasy about an out of time girl who finds herself working in a bathhouse for spirits. 

Episodic but compellingly beautiful. The sense of scale in the densely populated design work and the positive ethics emphasised in the narrative give this a wholesome and quality focussed heft. As journeys to “otherworlds” go this is engrossing and inventive, matching the magic of Disney and far exceeding the animation gold standard’s maturity.

8

Martin Scorsese directs Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci in this gangster drama spanning the life of one true life mafia wiseguy. 

The sheer breathless verve and fetishisation of criminal consumerism shoves us forcefully through this fascinating life story. Pushing you along so fast and so hard that three hours feels like 90 minutes. Endless rewatches spoil you with new details. Ray Liotta’s take on Henry Hill, as he goes from neighbourhood kid parking goombahs Caddys to desperate snitch, is a tapestry of criminality evolving. Scorsese thumps us through the years through keen soundtrack choices (revolutionary at the time) and a keener eye for fashion. Interestingly, real world news events are pointedly never ever even glimpsed, these criminals are in their own world untouched by JFK, moon landings or ‘Nam. Forrest Gump this ain’t. You live their life, not the history books ‘prescribed’ significant events of the period. In the first half we are inveigled into the world of the mob. We are swept to the front table of the club by the steadicam wizardry, we are let in on the codes, nicknames and shared humour of the killers, we are Lorraine Bracco (brilliant here) being handed a bloody pistol and stuffing it into our knickers. Then the DVD disc flips (too much movie for one side alone) and we get coked up, sweaty and paranoid darting around town trying to get the score settled. Scorsese sells us the life then kills it right there in front of us, a prepossessing Liotta manages to make us care even when it becomes clear he is just as corrupt and as immoral as the more open psychos he introduced us to. The scene where Jimmy Conway beckons Karen Hill into a dark warehouse side door bristles with threat. It is one of cinema’s most terrifying moments. Movie perfection, all in, all out.

10

David O. Russell directs Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert DeNiro in this romantic comedy about two broken individuals with mental health issues coming together to win a dance competition. 

This really works, proving to be sweetly unguarded in its characters’ mania and completely feelgood in its “this going to be utter car crash” big dance comp finale. Jennifer Lawrence and Jacki Weaver are excellent as always but Russell impressively manages to wring out likeable and detailed performances from Cooper, post-1996 DeNiro and even Chris Tucker. Who else can say that? It is just winning to see a director aiming for the acerbic bleakness and witty sparkle of Billy Wilder’s heyday rather than dipping toward the vapid sheen of a Kate Hudson / Katherine Heigl vehicle when making a romcom.

8

Luc Beeson directs Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne and Clive Owen in this space adventure about two future cops trying to protect a little, multicolour gem producing beastie who links to an intergalactic genocide.

Oh, I wanted this to be better. I wanted it to be great. The opening montage presenting the century spanning creation of an alien multiculture to David Bowie is mind blowing. The introduction of pearl and coral based planet is an eye popping work of art. A sting operation in a multidimensional shopping mall is quite frankly warped brilliance. But then we have 90 minutes left and all that visual invention and  unique oomph gets lost in boring and weirdly slapdash episodic ‘adventures’. Culminating in a cheap Eighties TV shoot out.  By then you have given up. You are left cold and shivering by the dullness and disappointment . The surreal sight of Rihanna as a shapeshifting stripper and blank star Delevingne in the universe’s biggest hat can’t get you back on board. A waste.

4

Michael Showalter directs Kumail Nanjiani, Holly Hunter and Ray Romano in this romantic comedy about a Pakistani comedian whose white ex falls into a coma before he can realise he wants to be with her despite family objections.

Neither Splash or Honeymoon in Vegas are perfect romantic comedies. They both suffer from “fake obstacles” thrown into the mix to create drama. But they come from a period where romcoms were a monthly occurrence on the release schedule. The Big Sick feels like a rarity, a reunion with an old friend. But it doesn’t work. It aches of an Apatow hangover, you know what I mean. Often more interested in Nanjiani’s stand-up career than his romances, it is way too distracted to seduce. The falling out that separates the lead couple happens in an instance after months together. People genuinely in love don’t break up in one scene. And when Ray Romano and Holly Hunter turn up as the waiting room parents they steal the film. Not quite a positive as you are left wanting to see more of the old hands repairing their marriage rather than the unbelievable people not be horrible to each other. There are enough laughs and manipulative bits to make it watchable. Just not very likeable.

5

Roger Spottiswoode directs Nick Nolte, Joanna Cassidy and Gene Hackman in this romantic drama set around the fall of Nicaragua. 

A top cast is lost in an uninvolving Casablanca wannabe love triangle and an uncertain approach to the verite action. You just can’t get into or care about the narrative. Ed Harris crops up intermittently as a mercenary, and you kinda wish he was the focus of the movie.

3

Martin Brest directs Robert DeNiro, Charles Grodin and John Aston in this buddy cop movie where a bounty hunter takes a prissy embezzler cross country against the clock.

A very relaxed running time, a distinct lack of punchlines or particularly outstanding set pieces yet it is one of the best of its genre. Definitively enjoyable, it waves along off of the brilliant interplay between DeNiro (committed) and Grodin (perfection). Their Odd Couple dynamic is unmatched in an action film, always abrasive but believably warms as state lines are crossed and the deadline looms. The early Danny Elfman score is a hoot too. Just watch it.

9

Bong Joon-ho directs Ahn Seo-hyun, Paul Dano and Jake Gyllenhaal in this disturbing adventure about a girl who races across the globe to stop her genetically modified giant pig from being exploited by the corporation who created it. 

So glad I have given up meat before watching this. It can be harrowing for prolonged periods, both visually and to your guilt gland – a veritable porky Schindler’s List by the end. Aside from the brutality of flesh harvesting, envisioned convincingly and disturbingly, it is quite the satirical romp. Choppy though, the humour never syncs with the action, which never aligns with the emotionally open drama. But that is par for the course for Bong Joon-ho. What makes up for all the manipulation and unevenness is the dedicated supporting performances. It is almost as if creepy Dano and attractive Gyllenhaal have swapped their stock roles here and both work fine against type. Swinton is also fantastic in dual villian roles – matching her outstanding work in Snowpiercer. Okja, unusually for an adult arthouse fantasy, harks back to the kind of kid’s films I grew up on, a contemporary quest to save the loveable animal. Better than E.T., darker say than D.A.R.Y.L. ,essentially we get a vegan polemic for The Goonies generation now we are going grey and giving more of a shit about our legacy.

7

 

Andrew Bergman directs Nicolas Cage, James Caan and Sarah Jessica Parker in this Elvis marinated romantic comedy about a gangster who tricks a pair of almost weds into letting him date the bride to be for a weekend. 

I remember watching this at the fleapit in West Ealing. Possibly the first movie I watched alone in the cinema. God, that’s a sad sentence. And I love going to the cinema on my todd. It is a strange film, with an off putting set-up (Cage essentially whores his true love out, albeit under pressure) yet it works. There’s a compulsive gaudy energy to it, matching The King soundtrack, matching Cage’s barely restrained everyman acting. Colourful and propulsive, it works if you leave your brain, and ethics, at the door.

7

Jennie Livingston directs Dorian Corey, Pepper LaBeija and Venus Xtravaganza in this documentary capturing the Ball culture of New York and the dispossessed gay and transgendered communities that it was a hub for. 

One of the best documentaries ever made. Immersive, frank and unromantic. You feel like you have had an education of the aesthetic, tragedies and victories of a subculture by the end. This is exactly what I want from this kind of experience. Funny too.

9