Andrzej Żuławski directs Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill and Heinz Bennent in this psychological horror about a marriage falling apart in West Berlin. 

It is probably best to go into Possession blind, completely unprepared. Initial hints that it might be a Cold War thriller with its along The Wall locations and corporate espionage freelancer protagonist give way to a relationship in freefall. But this manifests itself in self harm, gloopy bodily leaks, tentacle monsters and senseless acts of violence. Rarely a scene goes by where one of the actors isn’t left dripping in their own blood. Does it make any sense? I’m not sure it is supposed to. Characters talk at cross purposes, their language descends into baby talk and guttural wails, the camera circles locations in ways that break the laws of physics, and the fight scenes have an ethereal balletic grace. Essentially everything presented discombobulates and uproots you out of your comfort zone. It would make a fine double bill with Lynch’s later Lost Highway But this is the more satisfying journey into oblivion, mainly due to Adjani’s blisteringly oblique, vicious lead performance.

7

Stephen Chbosky directs Logan Lerman, Ezra Miller and Emma Watson in this darker hued coming of age drama following the loneliness of a boy suffering mental health problems. 

Adapted and directed from the bestselling YA novel by its own author, this is an efficient, well acted teen drama that has a nice eye for an iconic moment. It is, all in all, relatively inoffensive stuff yet it left a bad taste in my mouth. Firstly the big twist involves child abuse but is so coyly hinted at and brushed over so as to be redundant. Either explore an issue or don’t. Secondly, it is kinda hard to care massively about a bunch of rich kids who barely struggle to fuck around and party hard together and get into world class universities. I’m sure their fears, hurt and struggles are just as valid but let’s not pretend their glossy little tragedies are particularly compelling. This is daddy’s platinum card funded misery porn at times. I’ll try to end on some positives as it really isn’t a bad little film. I liked how it showed the kids discovering older music and culture, and not being instantly au fait with it but trying to figure out if it was more authentic than what is directly marketed to them. I also liked the main character’s finding of friends and the importance of that. It was a shame that the romance between him and Watson seemed to be the end goal rather than focussing on the value of belonging.

5

Monte Hellman directs James Taylor, Warren Oates and Laurie Bird in this road movie where a hippy driver and his mechanic pick up a free spirit hitchhiker and engage in a relaxed cross country race with an ageing braggart. 

One of those flicks that are seemingly about nothing and everything at the same time. Both Laurie Bird’s girl in the backseat and Oates’ shlubby fibber make this worth watching. There’s a strong sense of time and place as we drift through rest stops, races and small towns. Nothing really happens, no conclusions are reached, the film just burns up mid race eventually … but the mood is often perfect.

6

 

Rob Schmidt directs Desmond Harrington, Eliza Dushku and Jeremy Sisto in this gory backwoods horror where a group of glossy youths are hunted by a family of mutant cannibals. 

Standard product. Dushku and Sisto are better than their thinly sketched roles, the bloodletting comically chunky, the set pieces rely far too much on heroics where one character runs off waving their arms to bait the monsters away. They’d probably follow anyway. Just get to running fourth billed so they can slaughter you and we can move onto the next woodland location.

4

Christopher Nolan directs Fionn Whitehead, Mark Rylance and Tom Hardy in this gripping recreation of the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940. 

Dementedly powerful stuff. I was sat bolt upright and leaning forward in my seat for the second half. With its propulsive editing, ticking Hans Zimmer score and stoic physical ensemble acting, this cinematic experience grabs you in a stranglehold. I staggered out thinking this has to be one of the greatest movies ever made. Some of you may not like the tricksy temporal structure, others the fact that long periods are dialogue free zones. But no one can deny that Nolan puts you right into the mix and these intentional showy tricks are part of that journey. He has been considered our finest large canvas filmmaker by many for years; Dunkirk finally delivers on that promise. I rarely discuss politics in my movie blogs. I’m uncertain on hot topic issues like representation and feel my own left leaning sentiments are rarely broached in modern studio output for it to be an issue worth raising but… After Dunkirk I was left with a nagging doubt about Britain in its current state. It feels unlikely our population would ever be pulled into such a large scale conflict again but stranger things have happened. Would we fight though? Would we survive the tragedies presented? With our services eroded by self serving governments, British identity divided by both the influences brought in by mass immigration and the media’s bias against what is often a positive change, and a generation brought up on excess and selfish values…  why would anyone still go to war even if needed? Would anyone feel Britain is worth fighting for? Or that if you did, that the person next to you would fight by your side to survive a Nazi advance, a sinking battleship or a crashing fighter? I know Nolan’s intention has little to do with celebrating patriotism and more to do with the collective zeal to endure… but as stukas howlingly swoop over beaches and men desperately plug bulletholes in boat hulls with their hands, has he recreated a lost world of men, bravery and action now completely alien to my era?

10

 

Peter Jackson directs Mark Hadlow, Donna Akersten and Peter Vere-Jones in this gross out backstage farce featuring detestable puppets. 

In terms of its juvenile intention to see fake muppets do revolting things this does what it sets out to. You get the joke by the third scene. There are 90 minutes to go.

2

Peter Jackson directs Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet and Sarah Pierse in this true crime recreation of the infamous 1950s New Zealand murder by two besotted teenage girls who had entered into their own intense fantasy world. 

I watched this as a spotty teenage boy and was non-plussed by it. It lacked the illicit thrill of The Cement Garden or Sister, My Sister and was nowhere as hardcore in its violence as say Fun or Freeway. Nearly all those flicks are forgotten now, but Heavenly Creatures grows in my estimation with each and every sitting. I rode next to a girl on a train recently and wanted to tell her the Anne Perry novel she was reading was written by Kate Winslet’s killer in this… but she probably already knew… and who wants to be that creepy guy who strikes up a casual conversation about a brutal murder with a stranger. Winslet is great in this, her enthusiastic performance fuelled by huge dollops of Rik Mayall as much as anything else. All the acting seems to be working from a script punctuated solely with exclamation marks. There’s deliberately no subtlety in the reading. Except for Lynskey’s Pauline Parker. Due to her confessional diaries being a faithfully reproduced seam we learn more about her internally frustrated character than the other more enigmatic shouters and creeps. The narration isn’t all that necessary though, with a bite of a lip or a stroppy downward chin buried in a cardigan she speaks volumes anyway. The mutually created dream world and eventual violence of the kids are expressed with Jackson’s usual proud glee. He is no longer working on a shoestring but the deliberate shonkyness remains to match the girls’ handcrafted ambitions coming to life. I’d completely forgotten about a later sequence where a monochrome Harry Lime from The Third Man smirkingly stalks them around their bedroom but it is bloody brilliant. As a wider portrait of a repressive community struggling with intense teenage emotions it is accurate and sensitive. Jackson matures as a filmmaker before our eyes without losing any of his verve or ickyness.

8

Victor Fleming directs Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner in this dramatic adaptation of the horror classic where a scientist unleashes his evil side. 

It starts slowly but eventually becomes a compelling straight take on the fantasy schizophrenia horror original. London is captured in foreboding peasoupers, gothic alleyways and teeming variety halls. Tracy is likeable as the naive Jekyll but his Hyde is a powerhouse of menace, mayhem and controlling abuse. His transformation sequences mirror the FX used in the contemporary The Wolf Man but adding in some psychosexual imagery. You get kinky flashes of Tracy horsewhipping Turner and Bergman like mares pulling a carriage, and heads being popped off in lustful volcanic eruptions. Pretty trippy surreal stuff. Speaking of surreal, the lovely Ingrid Bergman’s shifting accent equally feels like something from David Lynch rather than the Golden Age of Hollywood. Despite this, when trapped in a domestic cage by the brutish Hyde you do feel for her terribly.

8

Matt Reeves directs Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson and Steve Zahn in this blockbuster final chapter to the exemplary Apes prequel series. 

Despite not being revered or as embraced as a phenomenon as say Lord of the Rings,  Bourne or The Dark Knight Trilogy, this franchise has hit for the exact same classy focus on emotion, intelligence and mature storytelling as those recent high watermarks. This concluding chapter shifts perspective fully onto the simians, there’s no human protoganist to explore the world with anymore. Good. Serkis’ Caesar has been one of the most engaging and emotionally conflicted heroes to emerge out of mainstream cinema in decades. You connect to his struggle and arc more so than any tentpole icon I can think of since… fuck…. let’s say… Martin Riggs. As a cinematic experience there has been a shameless attempt to homage just about every great adventure from the history of cinema here… even The Overlook Hotel of The Shining and the most memorable moment of The Last of the Mohicans are recycled and converted. It does prove a little wearying as the movie random shuffles through plot beats plundered from Apocalypse Now to Unforgiven to The Hidden Fortress to The Bridge on the River Kwai to Le Trou. The previous films were a bit more original and streamlined in their plotting. But hell if you are going to steal, steal from the best. And while fighting for multiplex screens against the summer fizz of primary coloured superkids, the bleak middle act bravely returns to the harrowing animal cruelty that made the first entry, Rise of…, quite so affecting. The suppression of the apes is hardly nacho chomping friendly stuff and it always leaves me conflicted. Why do I care about these animated creatures and their suffering more than their human equivalents? And I mean both within the narrative but also in competition with any other movie released this summer. I care about Caesar, Maurice, Rocket and Blue Eyes more than the countless hairless familiar fictional constructs of my own species. I care that they defeat the soldiers, survive the hardships of their nascent society and are reunited in peaceful harmony. The series is so strong in its characterisation, harsh edges and compelling set pieces that I truly care. For a SFX driven, studio entertainment that is quite the achievement.

8

 

Joseph L. Mankiewicz directs Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton in this inconceivably lavish and horizon scaled epic following the Egyptian queen’s power struggles and romances with the leaders of Rome. 

Five hours in the big screen and I dozed, dawdled, was distracted and (rarely but more than once) delighted. The sheer goddamn size of the thing is an undeniable achievement. Even if all that is expected of her is to be a curvy little clothes horse, (one interminable argument has three costume changes within it) Taylor is electric when given the right lines. It is at its best when being a series of grand spectacular entrances of which there are half a dozen, and at its worst when it enters a rut of endless scenes rehashing the same conversation over and over again, just in different sets. Burton in particular seems overwhelmed in a thanklessly whiny part that he all but gives up on in some monologues. A bloated mess, but often fantastic to gawk at when there is a little less conversation and a little more action.

5