James Neilson directs James Stewart, Audie Murphy and Brandon deWilde in this western about a former railroad security man who goes up against his little brother’s gang to get his old job back. 

Convulted and daft, even in its simpler moments, though colourful to watch. A big mess of cowboy thriller that includes way, way too much ensemble, a heck of a lot of accordion playing from a subdued Stewart, a security expert hiding the payroll in the youngest gang member’s lunchbox and much diving n’ shooting around an abandoned mine entrance. It’s a lark occasionally, I suppose, if you can stop yourself from repeatedly asking “What the fuck am I watching?”

3

Peter Strickland directs Sidse Babett Knudsen, Chiara D’Anna and Fatma Mohamed in this tale of a lesbian sub-dom couple feeling the strain of living out their fantasies in a lush country villa. 

A kind of flip side to the wonderful Secretary – there a pair of misfits found connection and tenderness through kink, here the demands of one partner’s precise sexual needs create tension and mistrust in their idyllic set-up. Everything about this film is sensual and sublime; the ethereal soundtrack, autumnal location, beautiful outerwear, tastefully discreet lingerie, Roeg inspired edits and the two exquisite leads. Having said that, like Strickland’s previous Berberian Sound Studio it is an exercise in a whole lot of gorgeous nothing and your patience will be tested if you don’t invest in the couples subtle shifts in sanity, power and happiness. Here I did  (more so than with Toby Jones’ “chiff chaff” obsessed sound effects guru) and it proves about as good as a film where one lead classily pisses into the other’s mouth can be.

7

Peter Yates directs Ken Marshall, Lysette Anthony and Freddie Jones in this full on fantasy that wants to be a cheap Star Wars cash-in but plays as if HR Giger designed Lord of the Rings.

Krull is not a good film, it certainly does not entertain. I remember being thoroughly bored by it as a kid, apart from a set piece or two mainly involving a five blade frisbee type gidget (this universe’s lightsaber). And this revisit as an adult I found myself easily distracted again too, it was hard not to spend the entire running time checking emails on my phone. There were action beats which happened so fast (possibly due to budget or shoddy effects that would not withstand more than a milliseconds scrutiny) that even on a rewind I struggled to understand what the threat was and where it had come from. This aside there are campy pleasures too; Marshall is the spit of a young Chris Pratt and has maybe a fifth of his charisma, the cast list cherry picks from RADA to Carry On, and the FX are optimistically ambitious given their limitations. Also the moments when a breathy young Lysette Anthony runs around an alien prison palace seemingly made up of dedicated internal organs, populated by a beast seen only in jarring Lovecraftian reflections, have a haunting quality. As also does some plot wrinkles involving blank eyed doubles replacing key characters. Not very watchable aside from these stark images unless fantasy is your manna.

5

The Hughes Brothers direct Johnny Depp, Heather Graham and Ian Holm in this gothic take on Alan Moore’s comic book adaption of the Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution theory.

A thoroughly disjointed film hampered most of all by a transparent lead performance by Depp (he clearly doesn’t want to be there). Heather Graham tries her hardest as the tart with a heart, and uniquely half a brain. I can’t help but wonder if this take on the much filmed mystery might have benefited from her as the sole lead; her Mary trying to protect her fellow working girls would anchor the narrative to everything else the script and its source grabs at greedily (Masonic conspiracies! Anti Semitic tensions! The rise of the Tabloid! The Elephant Man! Drugged up tripping detectives!) and also present a slightly more palatable, modern difference to the traditional whodunnit entertainment spun again and again from a fascinating but grim real life social tragedy. As a casual Ripperologist myself, it is a bit galling this will be seen as the definitive take from Hollywood on the source, theory and agreed events. There’s just no thrill nor verisimilitude to it and while some moments are visually inventive, others have all the craft of a particularly saucy episode of Crossroads. Worth picking through despite its indegistible chunks though.

6

Woody Allen directs Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Corey Stoll in this 1930s West Coast / East Coast romance.

Woody Allen’s most visually sumptuous (not two words you associate with the wordy master) movie since Manhattan. This is filled with great visual moments from back room dive jazz bars, New Year Eve parties in old school night clubs, golden age Hollywood mansions and none more so than the pictured frame where two friends become intimate silhouettes in Klimt-esque candlelight. As the bodies closen and darken we get maybe the most tender and charming cinematic shot filmed this year. You receive everything you expect from Woody – Jewish families with existential subplots, erudite humour and Eisenberg making a fine young stand-in as the nebbish ladies man lead. But two performances sing loudest. Stoll, as the gangster older brother, just pops in all his scenes with a loveable danger, and Stewart who here manages to marry her unmistakable movie star beauty and awkward style into something genuinely likeable rather than just wanly sexy. It is, all in all, a deftly fun, surprisingly and unpredictably involving film… but fans of shit 80s cinema might notice the plot is a near direct lift of Michael J Fox’s near forgotten yuppie comedy The Secret of My Success. Just as the previously strong Irrational Man was Allen’s take on Dostoevsky, it good to see the geriatric auteur now feels ready to put his unique spin on Marty McFly’s back catalogue too.

7

Alfred Hitchcock directs James Stewart, Grace Kelly and Raymond Burr in this classic thriller of a housebound man who thinks his neighbour across the way might be a murderer. 

Quintessential Hitch and one that grows on me more with every viewing. Watching All American Jimmy Stewart and pristine Hollywood royalty in waiting Grace Kelly slowly growing more corrupted with their morbid fascination (they in turn are watching a man they suspect has killed, dismembered and dumped his wife as we watch them) makes Rear Window a true guilty pleasure. It all looks so technicolor pleasant, a prestige production about the lives we spy on, our leering inaction as they spiral out of control. Yet then we get gripping set pieces like Kelly daintily dropping off a blackmail letter or Stewart trying to keep his eyes open to track his suspect’s nocturnal movements. A fine romance bubbles away as a troubled relationship is thickened and renewed by rubbernecking and amateur sleuthing. Technically the creation of the back of an apartment block the other side of our one location set is a cinematic marvel. Hitch plays with his new elaborate toy gleefully, none more so than when putting Stewart and Kelly in suggestive positions.

9

Luke Scott directs Anya Taylor-Joy, Kate Mara and Rose Leslie in this genetically modified superhuman goes berserk horror.

Luke Scott isn’t a bad director but equally he is not a particularly inspired one given his pedigree. Taking his father and producer’s premise from Alien (work colleagues who don’t live in harmony get trapped in with something deadly) while constantly hinting that one character might be “more than human.” And I’m not talking about the titular Morgan as the Deckard / Ash in our midsts. And by “hinting” I meant bludgeoning you over the head with the… ahem… twist every other line or scene. Aside from riding on Daddy’s long coat tails, the film itself is redundant in its set up. We’ve done all this far better too recently in Splice, Ex Machina and this summer’s Netflix hit Stranger Things. A tough sell to make your villian the phenomenon everyone is currently crushing on right in the eye of that storm. So Fox have modified the trailer to include a Nostromo-a-like countdown and alarm bleeps that never occur onscreen. “IT’S MADE BY RIDDER’S SON, PLEASE BUY A TICKET!” Legacy aside, does Morgan stand up? There’s a great cast but only a one scene Paul Giamatti gets to have any fun as a pushy shrink. All the other talent is wasted, introducing themselves in a tension free build up then dying like dominos in a rushed climax. The joyless massacre of such an enviable ensemble aside, we are stuck in a scentless, gritless world where cars drive through reinforced steel gates with nary a scratch sustained and inescapable cells have ladders leading up to smashable skylights. We are a long way from the fantasy realism of 2019 or LV-426. Unengaging.

2

 

 

John Carpenter directs Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen and Charles Martin Smith in this tale of an alien visitation taking the form of a bereaved woman’s lost husband.

Utterly charming, with only the excessively explosive action beats not ringing true. Aside from the pyrotechnics, the FX are sparsely used and instead the film relies on the affecting chemistry of the brilliant Bridges and wonderful Allen. Charles Martin Smith also stands out as the government tracker with unusual heart and his trademark boyish enthusiasm. Carpenter frames it all gloriously – the romance and road trip take in stunning landscapes and perfectly positioned moments of mystical intimacy. A forgotten gem, and rarity for the horror master’s lack of cynicism.

8

Na Hong-jin directs Ha Jung-woo, Kim Yoon-seok and Kwak Do-won in this thriller about a poor Chinese taxi driver who has to violently settle the debt of his missing wife’s visa fee and also find her within one week. 

What starts as a mildly diverting modern noir about immigration and sexual jealousy suddenly leaps the rails at the one hour mark, becoming an unrelenting and frankly flabbergastingly action packed chase movie. Amateur assassin and lovelorn husband goes from cautiously planning murder and aimlessly tracking down his missing missus to being a human pinball bounced between police squads, rampant gangs, cargo ships and articulated lorries. Two lengthy chases, that would no doubt make Jason Bourne salute as he passes, make this worth your while. They don’t exactly justify the 160 minute running time and as more and more characters are introduced in the final hour it can be slightly confusing to western eyes exactly who is who and what bearing they have to the flabby plot. Still Ha Jung-woo is involvingly dead eyed as the man out of his depth constantly churning the waters, while Kim Yoon-seok is memorable and cool as the gangster who not only initially sets him in motion but soon finds himself leading the chase.

7

 

Pedro Almodóvar directs Emma Suárez, Adriana Ugarte and Rossy De Palma in this tale of a woman retracing her life to understand why her daughter disappeared from it.

Whisper it but I’m not that big a fan of Almodóvar. For every decent Live Flesh or The Skin I Live In, there are a dozen of his films I find gratingly camp, screechingly histrionic and suffocatingly arch. Yes, even the Oscar nominated ones. But like the two just mentioned, Julieta is based on literary source material and something about that seems to anchor down Pedro’s worst excesses and force him to make a fine film. This one trades bludgeoning melodrama for quiet despair, catty farce for subtle but constant homages to Hitchcock. The opening segment is a mother and daughter twist on Vertigo, then we get a kinky Strangers on a Train / The Lady Vanishes interlude, while the excellent Rossy De Palma turns in a Galician variation on Mrs Danvers. Intertextual playfulness aside this more restrained approach allows the auteur to do, what even I concede, he does best; strong and multilayered female roles, gorgeous sex scenes and unmistakable eye catching colour schemes. Sonia Grande’s brilliant costume design in particular stands out. Accessible and pleasing.

6