Mark Waters directs Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox and Brett Kelly in this soulless cash-in on the cult cynical Christmas classic.

I laughed loudly once near the beginning of this belated sequel to a personal festive favourite and I feel guilty. Not because the humour was in bad taste (it fucking should be) but because I’m sure it was goodwill rather than accidental good writing that tickled out this solitary reaction. Quickly you realise the relentless bleakness of the original has been replaced by frat boy naughtiness… and not even the mindlessly funny kind. Then I had a nap but no further laughter from the quarter full screening woke me and when I opened my eyes of my own volition we were all exactly where we already were when I nodded off. Willie Soke of the original was a failure at his lowest ebb, all transgressive behaviour was the hilarious lashings out of a man who has long ago given up, his partner was a midget who nearly always had the upper hand, and the kid was a fucking enigma who baffled us as much as the thief – a real funny dynamic for the black hearted. Here Soke gets to insult his partner with achingly obvious jibes, who is pointedly always the butt of the joke, while the kid disappointingly just goes full retard. About as funny as a used chemotherapy drip… at least one of those went through its gloopy poisonous motions with some hope of a positive result. Disgraceful given the first film’s rare qualities… I can’t believe I’ve wasted quite so many keystrokes on this humourless cheap slither of shit.

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James Schamus directs Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon and Tracy Letts in the Philip Roth adaptation involving a determined Jewish student’s discovery of the unfairness of compromise.

Schamus has been part of movie landscape for decades – I know and rate him best from his rather awesome collaborations with Ang Lee – strange then that he chose a lesser Roth work to unleash his long bottled up craftsmanship and deft cinematic touch on as his own debut. Indignation makes a fine companion piece to Ewan McGregor’s underrated take on American Pastoral, whereas many critics felt the actor turned new director was swamped by the epic sweep and meta narrative of the original work, here the slimmer tome gives Schamus more room to explore Roth’s very recognisable set list of lust, repression, Americanism, Jewishness, conformity and beliefs. In fact in a few (later echoed) establishing shots of rest home wallpaper and the Korean War he manages to skip smartly over the whole issue of imagined perspectives and unreliable narrators that seem to trip most Roth adaptations up. As for the plot itself, it initially feels inconsequential – there’s a sexually awkward romance with a damaged but unnervingly confident girl (Gadon stands out), family issues back home ignored, the alien environment of a passive aggressively Christian university… but then midway through comes a WOW moment… a sustained single scene of sparring dialogue, a 10 minute verbal joust between our lead and the Dean… and it wears you down like all the wars in the world are being fought over a sunlit mahogany desk. It is a captivating achievement, beautifully acted, precisely scripted and leaves you breathless. Everything that happens around it is well rendered and engrossing (if less weighty than even I care to admit… at times almost to the point of cliche) and for all Schamus’ fine direction, Gadon’s starmaking turn and that scene this should really be rated far higher by me. I guess I just preferred the overwhelming scope and reaching ambition of McGregor’s riskier punt. With Indignation you get a faultless tale oft told (there seemed one of these mid century blazer, ties, prejudice and romance bildungsromans a week in the early 90s) but we are left with a film you admire rather than love.

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Mary Harron directs Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe and Chloë Sevigny in this blackly satirical adaption of Bret Easton Ellis’ yuppie serial killer novel. 

Not a movie you can watch with mother. This amps up the underlying comedy (it has more laugh out loud moments than most pure genre pieces) and psychological paranoia of Ellis’ 80s masterpiece while only slightly toning down the violence – the pornographic sex, obscene consumption, “trendy” soundtrack and nihilist misogyny all pointedly remain. Disturbingly Bale has never quite inhabited a role ever so snugly again, his Patrick Bateman is a predatory fool struggling in a world of guileless idiots. While Dafoe’s cop sparkles… he might just be asking routine questions, might rightly suspect our vile antihero or might be a symptom of his own suppressed conscience… this supporting turn is an absolute hoot – each line delivery slamoning from a differing perspective to unnerve you and the protagonist expertly. A near perfect adaptation of an “unfilmable” (and often purposefully repulsive) modern classic, a forensic autopsy of the yuppie hedonism and sociopathic practice of the Reagan era.

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Francis Ford Coppola directs Al Pacino, James Caan and Marlon Brando in this tale of a 1940s mafia family being torn apart by outside rivalries.

The Godfather is a sumptuous experience to just get lost in. Classical in pace, calmly inventive in shot composition, perfectly cast. Like deliberately dense HBO shows The Wire or Deadwood repeat viewings allow you to immerse yourself in hidden subplots and character arcs – this time I noticed what eventual payback is asked of everyone who is granted a favour in the iconic opening sequence – but you could equally concentrate on the background wives or  unrelated goons and see that no part has been left without some shift over the year and events of this epic. That deeply layered approach, full of an artisan’s care and craft, is what makes The Godfather one of the true greats. You get the feeling, more than any other entertainment, that every fibre, edit and word has been deliberated over by Coppola to perfection. It is a timeless masterpiece of cinematic art with not one hair out of place. Tremendous stuff.

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Charles Vidor directs Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly and Phil Silvers in this tale of a showgirl who becomes the toast of the town but loses touch with the club owner who fell for her.

A very bitty musical, where a hundred bright and daft ideas seem strung together haphazardly. Luckily old fashioned starpower carries you through the bumpiness of it all. Hayworth is gorgeous, Kelly gets to have a dance with his reflection and we glimpse the treat of Silver’s finding laughs in his only significant pre-Bilko role. So the plot is all over the shop and there’s only one memorable song, this still pleasantly kills an afternoon whenever the premium cast’s chemistry is allowed to fizz and pop together.

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David Hogan directs Pamela Anderson, Temuera Morrison and Xander Berkeley in this sci fi actioner about bar owner / assassin / stripper who rubs some future Nazis the wrong way.

Just awful. After getting all the latex, nudity and presenting out of the way really early, we somehow slip into a remake of Casablanca with all that classic’s seduction, nuance and drama scraped out from it. What were they thinking? The vision of the dystopia is remarkably sunny and well lit and this exposes just how artificial and unpleasantly shiny the vacuous mess all is, fittingly like Pamela Anderson herself… but let’s assume that is an unintentional coincidence and not a howl of discontent from the creative team who put their names on this dreck. The humour clunks, the action has all the excitement of one man playing lasertag against himself. No redeeming features.

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John Lafia directs Jenny Agutter, Christine Elise and the voice of Brad Dourif in this sequel to the possessed doll goes on murderous rampage horror.

A soulless cash-in on an OK first film that occasionally has pleasurable spikes in quality. The deaths are just about closer to inventive than routine and the factory set finale blends the better elements of The Terminator and The Shining‘s closers to pleasing effect. But the human cast often phone-in their thinly sketched roles, the foster home setting reeks of cheap artifice and, as with nearly every franchise slasher in the early 90s, Chucky’s “humorous zingers” mainly boil down to him snarling a repetitive and misogynistic “BITCH!” at yet another unfortunate middle aged woman for nil reward.

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Martin Scorsese directs Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro and Amy Robinson in this drama following a small time hood juggling internal crisis with his fuck up friend. 

There’s plenty to feast on through Mean Streets; a director developing his house style of narration, pop soundtrack and virtuoso camera moves, eye catching early performances from two of New Hollywood’s greats (Keitel is particularly outstanding) and when we get out on the New York streets some real documentary snapshots of a time and a place surrounding the foreground fiction. But it is palpably an early work by a master and not perfect. A certain scrappiness pervades and there always feels like there’s an air of no consequences, for all rumbles and posturing threats, these characters are safe in their bubbles until the end. Perhaps that is intentional, making the final tragedy more of a shock… but the movie is at its most effective when we descend into the red lit basement bar and we feel like we are trapped in a wood panelled hellhole. These scenes have an almost mythical quality, with the deals being made and relationships torn asunder in that crimson light becoming intriguingly ambiguous.

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Ewan McGregor direct himself, Jennifer Connelly and Dakota Fanning in this adaptation of Philip Roth’s masterpiece about a family’s American dream being torn apart by Sixties radicalism. 

Opening to toxic reviews and little public interest, I think McGregor’s directorial debut is actually the work of a fine new craftsman filled with neat performances and masterful touches. Sure at times the dialogue can feel didactic and stilted but no more than say Mamet or Sorkin often can, the actors throw themselves into the vast narrative and theatrical exchanges with confidence and aplomb. The recreation of the era has a melancholy sheen that echoes Fincher at his best, the grimy tragedy uncovered recalls McGregor’s earlier acting working in the sexually aggressive worlds of Shallow Grave and Young Adam. Certain scenes are charged with an affecting explicitness that seem at odds with the prestige costumes and set dressing, but this demonstrates that McGregor the director understand Roth’s meta novel is a lusty, confused, repressed and desolate work. He plays these challenging chords together with an impressive smoothness. A depressing ride, for sure… but one engrossing enough and finely made enough that I feel confident in recommending it.

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Denis Villeneuve directs Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker in this tale of a linguistics genius trying to communicate with aliens making first contact. 

A hauntingly beautiful film anchored by a strong central performance by the ever excellent Adams and likeable support from Renner (his best position). Villeneuve keeps the background out of focus making everything seem hazy and alien. As always with these films worked around an inevitable twist there is that clunky scene that feels unnatural for the sake of the plot gymnastics working. But even this moment, involving unlikely phone calls, is handled as gracefully as possible. A finely crafted piece of cerebral sci-fi which doesn’t quite hit the emotionally grounded notes of the similar but broader Contact.

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