Susan Seidelman directs Susan Berman, Brad Rinn and Richard Hell in this independent about a talentless young woman trying to barge her way into NY’s dying punk scene.

Made at the tail end of punk and just before the mainstream interest in US independents, Seidelman’s debut operates in the paragraph space of the two scenes. Working best as a glancing, over the shoulder look at bankrupt New York (squats, boarded up business, rubble pits where prostitutes lurk, ballrooms turned dive bars) like Stranger Than Paradise, Beat Street or Brother From Another Planet you get the feeling you are glimpsing a long ignored and forgotten Big Apple of squalor. The destitution and colours are hypnotic. The plot following the toxic relationships and fading hustle of Berman’s Wren is at times annoying, other times sympathetic. As obnoxiously as she is portrayed you hate the sad fate suggested for her in the final moments. Seidelman retooled this uncanny ability to celebrate the free spirited but blunt with Madonna in the superior Desperately Seeking Susan. That is the better film but this has some fascinatingly unique rough edges.

7

Walter Hill directs Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Belushi and Ed O’Ross in this East meets West buddy cop movie.

No ones favourite Arnie movie – this feel very much like it is going through the motions. Arnold is great in the role of the monotone Russian cop who is the Fish Out of Water in grimy Chicago (What is this? 1988?!) but essentially this is a rehash of Hill’s superior 48 Hrs. Entire scenes, plot wrinkle and characters are lifted wholesale from the better film. Belushi is given a little too much leeway and his ‘comedy’ scenes slow things down, he does the same schtick better in K-9. Having said all that… Red Heat is slickly made and would certainly be a decent excuse to crack open a six pack and order a Dominos.

6

Todd Phillips directs Miles Teller, Jonah Hill and Bradley Cooper in this “based on a true story” of screw ups who become arms dealers for the Pentagon. 

Like an equally bloodless The Big Short, this wants to replicate the absurdity and rush of some white collar crime craziness (tutting at the end at the behaviour it was lauding only ten minutes earlier) but never quite comes anywhere near the dizzying gold standard of its shared template: Goodfellas. In fact the only film that ever has managed to speak convincingly in that modern classic’s bold language is Scorsese’s own The Wolf of Wall Street. Jonah Hill shone in that and here he is the best thing in War Dogs too. From his girlish giggles to his glee at firing off machine guns via his long perfected schmuck grin when making serious bucks, he proves captivating. The gory cavity where any heart of the tale should be. When he is off screen things dull right down and numbers are thrown at us. A million dollar deal here and there; Miles Teller reminds us, for the seventh time, a few months earlier his stooge was massaging guys for a mere $75 dollars an hour. We live in a universe where the protagonists and writers and director and producers all think $75 dollars an hour is breadline poverty. Also one where nobody really gets their comeuppance. Teller has to go back to earning seven times minimum wage and spending time with his family – oh the humanity! At least he was the nicer of the two death merchants. We leave Jonah Hill’s obstential villian in his plush office possibly facing four years in prison – we never see him giving up his ill-gotten lifestyle nor do we suffer the pain of the deaths that happen in his wake. Only a epilogue scene, where Teller has an impressively guarded conversation with bigger fish Cooper in the aftermath, carries any of the threat or tension or genuine moral turpitude the rest of the running time severely lacks. Still, Hill continually celebrating any arms deal to some choice soundtrack proves diverting, if you go into this looking for cynical entertainment. Leave your ethics at home.

5

Nimród Antal directs Adrien Brody, Walton Goggins and Topher Grace in this late third pure entry into the sci-fi / horror hybrid. 

The dusty  1994 Robert Rodriquez script seems to have been written with a “wouldn’t it be cool if…” vibe overriding everything so here we have giant predators, alien game reserves, yakuzas, Colonel Kurtz style survivors, a variation on the original abandoned Predator design loloping through the trees and the supercool Danny Trejo all lobbed into the mix. It makes for an amazing trailer first and a perfectly fine film second. Problem is this wasn’t made in 1994 when a decent Predator film would have cleaned up, it was made 20 years after Predator 2. After two decades of radio silence, apart from the ignored static bursts from those dreadful Alien Vs Predator pair, this really needed to knock it out of the park if it was to reignite the franchise. The action is good but never really builds up a head of steam, the deaths mainly occur off screen (robbing the series of its trademark illicit violence) and Brody is the first lead you are genuinely surprised makes it to the end – he is clearly just not Alpha enough, despite a good stab from the script to suggest otherwise. Of a decent ensemble this leaves Goggins and Grace to walk away with the film. Goggins in particular is an absolute hoot in his death row oranges, ready to take on his killer compatriots and any weaponised alien shit that might come his way with psychotic glee and a homemade shiv. The Bill Paxton School of Movie Stealing has its first true Honours student.

7

 

 

James DeMonaco directs Frank Grillo, Elizabeth Mitchell and Mykelti Williamson in this continuation of the dystopian night where all crime in America is legal.

I love The Purge Franchise. Visually inventive, unrelentingly dark and filled with full on bursts of violent mayhem – it ticks a lot off from the shopping list of a lad raised on The Warriors and Mad Max. This might be the least streamlined , least daring one (there is certainly not the gleefully expansive upgrade that occurred between so 1’s home invasion “bottle episode” and 2’s Escape From New York inspired city wide adventure) yet… but it still delivers exactly what the true believers want. We get masked up nastiness both glimpsed in passing rear view mirrors and leaping right up on us in immersive set pieces, we get several mini plots tee’d up (more like the first act of a disaster film than a sci-fi horror) at the start knowing that not many will end with their bubble unburst by the morning, and we get another serving from Grillo – possibly my favourite current B movie star. Striding through the chaos like Humphrey Bogart with an oilslick for hair has learnt mixed martial arts, any plot that has his him front and centre, gun out and calling people he has just bled out “Motherfucker!” can just take my money. More please.

8

 

 

John McTiernan directs Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers and Bill Duke in this commandos versus alien hunter in the jungle action classic.

Every year I watch it, Predator tricks me. I’m always shocked at just how marvellous it is. In the intervening months I write my love of it off down to pure nostalgia. I remember watching, with my cousin, a pirate VHS of spines being ripped out, the hardest cast in cinema history unloading magazine after magazine into a forest and a mask coming off so one ugly muthafucker can finally be revealed (brilliant and iconic Stan Winston creature design that is hard to believe was a last minute rush job). I must have been 10 if I was a day. I was blown away, this was illicit stuff. The kind of wild, wild adventure nasty you did with your Action Force toys when no adults could overhear. Stuff that would get you sent to a child psychologist these days as you gleefully introduced an out of scale He-Man villian action figure into the mix and watched the heroes suffer the carnage. When it eventually came out to own, (big long release windows back then) I bought Predator from Variety Video in Greenford for £9.99 rrp and my video collection had begun. But watching it through the jaded eyes of an adult, for what must be at least the 30th time… Fuck me, it holds up. The action is fantastic; an assault on a compound has to be one of the greatest fictional war sequences ever filmed, the laying of the traps by Arnie’s beleaguered squad has a Boy’s Own quality that belongs in a film of a different era (in fact the middle of nowhere setting and high quality cinematography give Predator a timeless, undated feel) and that long teased chase through the undergrowth as the survivors are picked off one by one or make their individual final stands is like an orgasm after an hour of sweet lovemaking. We have not even got to a lone mud covered Arnie’s taking the battle to the freak with nothing but a bow, an arrow and a bonfire. Violent, gripping, taut. Considering acting is most of the cast’s second professions (a rag tag bunch of bodybuilders, wrestlers, screenwriters and whatever the fuck Sonny Ladham is) the performances are compelling. Dialogue is spoken off to the middle distance in curt instructions or haunting monologues (Blade Runner and Unforgiven’s David Peoples did a late pass on the script and blips and burst of such quality are evident). Both Carl Weathers and Bill Duke put in far better craft than such a throwaway premise deserves but it is Arnie who walk away showered in glory. This is possibly the only time he has played a believable human. Not a killing machine or a comic exaggeration of the Schwarzenegger brand. His Dutch interacts like an actual person, shows subtle unspoken emotions, conveys the terror of the situation (even more effectively considering his in-his-prime 1987 muscular build and proven badass reputation) and then we have that shellshocked last shot. Arnie (childhood hero, unbeatable force) has survived but he hasn’t won. Cue up one of the most underrated movie scores ever, we are leaving Val Verde listening to Silvestri’s bombastic pastiche of militaria and undulating timpani rolls. I doubt Dutch would want to go through it all again… But, bloody hell, we do. Action cinema doesn’t come any more engrossing. Movie villians don’t come anymore OMFG insurmountable. Flawless.

10

John Erick Dowdle directs Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman and François Civil in this found footage shocker set in the catacombs of Paris.

Unlikeable characters, who can only spout their CVs and guessed exposition, survive far, far too long in this weak stew of The Descent, The Da Vinci Code, Flatliners and a lot of ropey old shite. Fittingly it belongs in a sewer.

2

Powell and Pressburger direct David Niven, Kim Hunter and Roger Livesey in this tale of an RAF pilot who misses his death and falls in love during the extra day of life he gains.

Just magical. The stiff upper lift acting of all involved (Niven especially has never been quite so good elsewhere) makes this feel like a love letter found in an ancient treasure chest. Powell and Pressburger play mischievously with monochrome and technicolor, the intimate and the infinite. They are never more than a scene away from an indelible piece of imagery. Their bureaucratic (rationing and ministry era) vision of heaven is economically achieved yet stunningly believable. The plot itself shifts with narrative dexterity; one minute we are quoting poetry in the battle worn cockpit of a Lancaster (like something from a James Cameron film if The King of the World did verse) next we are viewing village life through a camera obscura… then an amateur Shakespeare rehearsal takes place while key philosophical issues are being discussed and culminating in a celestial courtroom where the lead couple barely appear. Utter madness yet never indulgent. The rule book for cinematic storytelling is torn up, then torn up again. The beautiful tatters make a romance classic. This is vibrant, experimental, captivating stuff.

10

Dennis Gansel directs Jason Statham, Jessica Alba and Michelle Yeoh in this late sequel to Stath’s hitman with a heart / code / stacked physique thriller.

Blindfold yourself. Throw a dart. If it lands on a list of our Jase’s works, then chances are the arrow will be right bullseye in one where he nimbly somersaults (chuckling menacingly) over the low, low, low bar of your expectations. The Mechanic was such a treat, this is not. Only an action sequence at the start – involving hand gliders, cable cars and a brunch grill – has any of the old sparkle. The rest of the plod feels like the never ending sizzle reel for a Mechanic TV show; random episodes’ highlights crushed together into a feature length. The central concept of an assassin who makes his murders look like accidents is retardedly lost in every body damaging barney to make ’em happen. The point where one fight on a yacht is followed by yet another fight on a yacht exposes the artistic redundancy of this. The Stath and Alba work best when eyeing each others’ semi clothed bods, Yeoh is seriously wasted and Tommy Lee Jones puts all the effort in of a man on a Zero Hours contract having to do a surprise half shift when he planned to spend the day in his pyjamas. He is wearing his pyjamas.

2

David F. Sandberg directs Teresa Palmer, Maria Bello and Gabriel Bateman in this ghoul who can only attack in the dark horror.

A film that coasts merely on the strength of a not exactly original premise, almost belligerently so in its mechanics. No sense of dread is ever generated so the J horror inspired jump scares and narrow “hit the switch” escapes feel fitted as standard rather than any kind of hoot. Teresa Palmer hampers proceedings too. The uniformly good performances from all around her, show up a very wet turn from a “star” in the making. Will we ever care about a fake tan drenched goth who cannot even convey fear effectively? Her poor work matches the creative effort behind the camera put into this  Ronseal movie.

4