Robert Altman directs Keith Carradine, Karen Black and Ned Beatty in this sprawling ensemble following a week of country music, affairs and electioneering. 

The danger with writing this blog is revealing to my half dozen readers that occasionally there’s a bonafide classic that just does nothing for me. The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey, E.T. and this. Other people’s favourites and universally lauded critical darlings that genuinely baffle me with their inertness. I usually enjoy a mosaic narrative (Dazed and Confused, Do the Right Thing and Pulp Fiction are among my favourite films) but this proves dawdling and purposeless. It squanders a good cast and some decent original songs on grating, pointless, obvious sequences that bored the skin off me.

3

Richard Fleischer directs  Arnold Schwarzenegger, Grace Jones and Sarah Douglas in this violent fantasy romp which sees Conan escort a nubile princess to reclaim a jewel. 

Less emphasis on the epic and more on daft kinetics, this is the most watchable of the Conan series. So it’s silly, and Olivia D’Abo is far far too young to be the Tits & Ass for the lads… it powers along through ornate sets and consistent character design pleasingly. And even with almost endless shots of Arnold’s prime warrior slaying physique, Fleischer still somehow finds room for both Eighties faves Sarah Douglas and Grace Jones to vamp it up proper rotten.

6

RZA directs himself, Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu in this wired yet reverent pastiche of retro kung-fu flicks.  

Visually opulent and well cast, this is an amped up, playground run through of all that is great about mad old martial arts flicks. It is a little too jam packed with characters and incidents to ever truly coalesce into a flowing journey. RZA’s vanity casting of himself in the lead role leaves a gargantuan charisma deficit and the jarring use of hip hop language and misogyny tarnish a fair few sequences. Still Russell Crowe and Byron Mann are particularly good value.

5

John Madden directs Jessica Chastain, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Michael Stuhlbarg in this political drama about a hard nosed lobbyist who crosses over to the side of gun control. 

This whole lengthy walker / talker orbits around a supposed powerhouse performance by Chastain. Yet she remains an enigma throughout, blurry at her ill defined edges, inhuman… and not in a dastardly way. As an insight into the world of cut throat influence groups it share more with the pulpy Grisham novels Sloane reads in her downtime than say the high watermark passionate exploration of a The Social Network or a Moneyball. That’s the inimitable power Aaron Sorkin brings to his own potentially dull corporate dramas, a power no-one has ever got close to matching, certainly not here. You feel your own knowledge of this lobbying subculture is being affirmed, rather than expanded. Unforgivably though, the twists are foreseeable, especially the final piece of brinkmanship involving a support member who is too good to be cast aside from the main thrust quite so early. Bragging time, I rarely get caught pants down by a narrative switcheroo these days, I’m as cynical and searching as the avatars here are supposed to be. But a movie like this really should try much much harder to at least obfuscate its surprise coup de grace to battle hardened eyes. Not awful, merely a slick fail.

4

Joel and Ethan Coen direct Jeff Bridges, John Goodman and Steve Buscemi in this flawless bowling noir. 

The Coen Brothers most accessible film in that it is unequivocally a laugh a minute ride, and some of those laughs are very, very dumb. The punchlines often feel as much at home in Only Fools And Horses as they do Raymond Chandler. Obviously Altman’s equally hip and loose adaptation of The Long Goodbye is a massive influence but the shaggy dog thriller plot is just a Christmas tree to hang some marvellous character baubles off. And the character work from this deepdrilled Coens-y castlist, though broad, is overwhelmingly excellent. This review will now turn into a list. The Dude: Jeff Bridge’s best, most apt performance- the Dude abides. Goodman’s Walter is even more of a hoot – a raging failure of a man, at war with a world who doesn’t care about his aggression. Then you have smaller stand outs like Turturro’s pederast rival bowler Jesus, his bitch Liam, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s drippingly oily PA to the eponymous Big Lebowski, David Thewlis’s grating and discombobulating cameo, and nihilist pornstar Peter Stomare. The soundtrack is heaven, the film even gets away with multiple dream sequences that are not just exercises in avante garde but move the plot gently forward. Wow!… “This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass, Larry!”

10

François Ozon directs Paula Beer, Aierre Niney and Ernst Stötzner in this post World War One drama about a Frenchman who visits a grieving German family with hidden motivations.

A lovely slice of arthouse this. Visually intoxicating, achingly heartfelt yet Ozon still gets to play his games. By the end of the first act we still aren’t sure what the Frenchman is planning on confessing? Where he and the titular dead German pre-war lovers? Or did he kill the young man in the theatre of war? Or is he now Frantz himself, warped into the body of the enemy? And then by the end of second act we are heading somewhere else entirely. There’s a fine romance to hook you in throughout but as mediation on loss, guilt, patriotism and deceit this beautiful work excels.

8

 

John Glen directs Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell and Robert Davi in this extremely hard edged Bond where 007 quits the secret service to infiltrate a drug cartel with revenge solely on his mind. 

Like Moonraker or even more pointedly Quantum of Solace, this is one of those Bonds that lurches so far away from the long perfected franchise formula that it proves too overpowering in flavour for some. The graphic violence, lack of humour and more intimate plotting put many off on its summer release. I love it though. Nearly every aspect of it stands out. Davi’s baddie is complex and compelling. Both Bond girls serve a narrative purpose, have their own agendas, look great and even are proactive. Not that I have a crass ranking list but Carey Lowell is almost definitely the sexiest sidekick to save James TWICE! Cracking theme by Gladys Knight (the soundtrack entire could easily be for a Eddie Murphy romantic comedy rather than spy thriller). Three prolonged stunt sequences – frock coat plane jackings, scuba diving escapes, petrol truck demolition derbies. A young Benicio Del Toro with bad teeth! And you get loads of on assignment Q! Dalton looks a little less comfortable here than in the more romantic, trad The Living Daylights. Still he is the only Bond never to make a duffer while being still great in the role. Tim can hold is dignified head up high on this his premature exit adventure.

8

Guy Ritchie directs Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law and Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey in this fantasy crime mash-up of the English mythology involving swords in stones and ladies in lakes.

About 15 minutes into this flop epic, I almost leant over to my mate and whispered “I’m quite enjoying this.” A barrage of traditional and amped up fantasy imagery, some quickfire spectacle, elephants the size of mountains with phasma blasting pyramids built on their backs, a sea witch is all writing tentacles and varying nude bodies. Then clunk, we switch into a pantomime costumed version of RockNRolla. Characters (“Nice boys”) refer to each other as Kung Fu George and the like, cameras are attached to faces during footchases, a story is told and retold over three different timeshifts, we just about resist putting Oasis’ Fucking in the Bushes on over a montage. King Arthur never blends its clearly cut up and rearranged narrative together. Yet I still liked it, this King Arthur didn’t exactly work or have much point but it had an energy. But after an hour you grow flaggy, grow bored, as bored as Jude Law’s neutered villian looks. The Guy Ritchie-ism eventually prove deadening, the flickering fantasy gets drowned out by them. Too much happens with too little consequence. You’ve run a marathon distance at a sprint. And with the finishing line not even in sight no one bothers to pop  Oasis’ Fucking in the Bushes on to keep you going. No one really makes a massive forced error but you care little for the end result. Draining rather than inspiring. Clanging rather biting. Everyone looks pretty at least.

4

 

Delmer Daves directs Glenn Ford, Van Heflin and Richard Jaeckel in this classic western where a down on his luck farmer signs up to escort a charming killer to jail, only as the fee will save the family farm.

One of those rare occasions where I actually prefer the overblown modern remake to the original – the Russell Crowe version explores the distinctive characters even further and adds a ton of big budget action – but only just. This first attempt to adapt Elmore Leonard’s flavoursome short story is more a nail in the post off which hangs quirky moments of frontier moralising, temptation and seduction. It feels biblical at times, biblical with a shotgun. And that ain’t no bad thing.

8

Lone Scherfig directs Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin and Bill Nighy in this Blitz based drama about a young woman making her way in the film industry. 

A pleasant surprise – this could have been easy, dumbed down Daily Mail and Glamour reader romantic fodder yet actually proves to be quite the tough faced, kill happy, luvvie acting treat. There are a fair few realistic, bracing shocks among all the expected woollen knit cosiness. Arterton has constantly struggled to find a lead role that fits her obvious star power (she has both the limitations and the cheeky allure that strikingly match the great Roger Moore) and while this is no masterpiece, it feels like the best use of her ample headliner charms so far.

6