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Twelve Monkeys 1995
Gilliam cranks open the top of his head, drops other people's work in, rolls his eyes around a bit and cinematic mincemeat comes worming out of his ears. With his masterpiece Brazil he pushed in Orwell's 1984 and Fellini's 8 1/2 and managed to produced my favourite of his films so far. When he was asked to drop in La Jetee he also had to toss in a couple of big time Hollywood actors who had the potential to clog…
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Gadkie Lebedi 2006
What a completely mesmerising experience from start to finish. I dont think I've gone into a film blind and been so richly rewarded for many years. The mystery of where the story is heading, what the sides are and where my own personal sympathies lie kept drawing me further and further into the film's rainy red world while reminding me of my place in the real one. This probably doesn't make a lot of sense. Regardless, its a very interesting and accomplished film, with superb child acting and set design, that deserves a much larger audience.
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The Twonky 1953
When a wife leaves her husband a brand new television set, to keep him company while she is away visiting her family, neither of them expect it to be a Super State robot from the future...don't they know they're living in the 1950s? The Twonky (meaning something you can't explain) soon sets about lighting the husband's cigarettes with an electric beam, choosing which records to listen to, monitoring his coffee intake and doing the hoovering. Things turn ugly when the…
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Creature from the Black Lagoon 1954
Aaah the 1950s. A period in America's cinematic history when mutant monsters gave form to the unspeakable terror of nuclear war. Paraniod delusions and shared trauma. Men in rubber suits. Good times. So how does the story of an archaeological expedition to the Amazon in the hope of making an important scientific discovery fit into all this?
Well for starters there's the half-man half-fish creature tormenting our plucky gang of scientists. It's from another world, not space this time, but…
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Blue Chips 1994
Action Bronson's free downloadable album of the same name brought Blue Chips to my attention, particulary one sample as Nick Nolte's unmistakable gruff voice tells sports reporter Ed that a bribe wasn't just any automobile, it was a fully loaded Lexus! It's a wonderful moment in what turned out to be a powerful performance. It's also the most realistic sports film I've seen with some great basketball action, directed by William Friedkin.
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The Raid: Redemption 2012
This is a decent fight film bookended by two utterly fantastic scenes. The first is a masterfully directed and surprisingly inventive shootout, which comes close to rivalling Hard Boiled for insane gunplay. The second, a wonderfully choreographed martial arts final showdown, as playful as it is brutal. Both sections showcasing different styles and approaches to the genre, as well as the versatility of the film's lead. As a whole host of 1980s action heroes try to convince us that they've…
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Def-Con 4 1985
Canadian low budget post apocalypse movie with bad...well, pretty much everything. It does, however, contain one amazing piece of dialogue followed later by a very amusing sight gag to do with an astronaut's areolas! Is it worth watching this movie for? Depends how many beers you've had.
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Straight Out of Brooklyn 1991
Matty Rich made this film when he was just 19 years old for £450,000 using credit cards and donations secured from a local radio station. It was a critical success and grossed $2.7 million at the box office.
This fact is in stark contrast to the events of the film as a young black male tries to free himself and his family from a Brooklyn housing project, via a briefcase full of stolen drug money. Its a hard watch. An…
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Blue City 1986
Stumbled across this on Netflix and immediately had to watch it. I'm a huge fan of The Breakfast Club, so the chance to see two of it's stars - Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy - teamed up again just a year after getting out of detention was irresistible. The first half hour gave me exactly what I was after. Judd is again John Bender, if he was the son of a small Florida town's mayor instead of having a drunk…
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The Game 1997
This paranoid fantasy is up there with Fincher's best. No matter how many times I see it, knowing the set up and outcome it still manages to captivate me. Credit should also go to Douglas' performance which is superb throughout. I know people have issue with the plausibility of the ending amongst other scenes, but for me it's a glorious fairytale that leaves me questioning if it really is all over.
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Repo Man 1984
One word sums up this cult classic - "attitude". It's a comic book movie about the world of automobile repossession, where the legal car thief is a white suburban punk. There's aliens, conspiracy theories, radiation, crimes, guns, drugs, money, anarchy and angst. And it's all presented with balls. I hear the new Repo Man Blu-ray is real nice, but I got the £3 DVD so fuck you.
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Transformers: Dark of the Moon 2011
Pouring a box of staples into my eyes would have been more fun than this. Is the movie 3 hours long? It certainly felt like it was 3 hours long, yet 5 minutes after watching this I can't remember one interesting moment. No wait, there was some objectification of the female lead, she was compared to a sports car during one creepy lingering shot as Bay mentally undressed her from his directors chair. Can somebody take that chair off him…
