1. The Shawshank Redemption
is a great film depicting the journey of Andy Dufresne, as played by Tim Robbins, getting convicted of murdering his wife and getting sent to jail. The only thing: he didn't do it. This is one of my most favored movies to watch, it also happens to be a good short story by Stephen King.
One of the main things that rally grabbed my attention was the casting. I feel that Morgan Freeman as Red was a great choice. His acting is always superb in any movie, and he really shines in Shawshank. Then of course there is Tim Robbins as Andy, and he seemed like a perfect fit. Andy is a soft spoken banker and Tim portrayed him well. Some of the more interesting characters are the guards, the actors who played them were the kind that you would love to hate, especially Captain Byron T. Hadley played by Clancy Brown.
The plot is also another thing to consider. Andy starts off as a new fish in a big ocean. He has to learn all of the tricks of the trade with the help of some "good" inmates like Red and Heywood. Not long after is he just a regular prisoner, except there are tensions between him and some other homosexual inmates who attempt to rape him. He get back at them by siding with the guard and helping them do taxes, because of that the guards prevent the other inmates from touching Andy. I though that was a nice reverse of power between Andy and the bad inmates; also he has an increase of power with the guards and can get favors.
Later, Andy finds out through a new inmate, Tommy, that he knew who killed his wife and Andy goes to tell Warden Samuel Norton and he dismisses it, and instead kills Tommy to prevent the information leaking into the outside world. This is a really bad twist, how could the Warden do such a thing after Andy has been nothing but a model inmate?
Next, some camera shots were really spectacular and they really grabbed my attention. A lot of the shots that I really appreciated...
is a great film depicting the journey of Andy Dufresne, as played by Tim Robbins, getting convicted of murdering his wife and getting sent to jail. The only thing: he didn't do it. This is one of my most favored movies to watch, it also happens to be a good short story by Stephen King.
One of the main things that rally grabbed my attention was the casting. I feel that Morgan Freeman as Red was a great choice. His acting is always superb in any movie, and he really shines in Shawshank. Then of course there is Tim Robbins as Andy, and he seemed like a perfect fit. Andy is a soft spoken banker and Tim portrayed him well. Some of the more interesting characters are the guards, the actors who played them were the kind that you would love to hate, especially Captain Byron T. Hadley played by Clancy Brown.
The plot is also another thing to consider. Andy starts off as a new fish in a big ocean. He has to learn all of the tricks of the trade with the help of some "good" inmates like Red and Heywood. Not long after is he just a regular prisoner, except there are tensions between him and some other homosexual inmates who attempt to rape him. He get back at them by siding with the guard and helping them do taxes, because of that the guards prevent the other inmates from touching Andy. I though that was a nice reverse of power between Andy and the bad inmates; also he has an increase of power with the guards and can get favors.
Later, Andy finds out through a new inmate, Tommy, that he knew who killed his wife and Andy goes to tell Warden Samuel Norton and he dismisses it, and instead kills Tommy to prevent the information leaking into the outside world. This is a really bad twist, how could the Warden do such a thing after Andy has been nothing but a model inmate?
Next, some camera shots were really spectacular and they really grabbed my attention. A lot of the shots that I really appreciated...
2. The Godfather
At first sight, The Godfather seems like a crime picture or a gangster movie. And we should remember that in its day it was the most successful film there had ever been, as well as winner of the Oscar for best picture. So it seems like a triumph of the mainstream, and nowhere more acutely than in the scene in which Michael goes to a meeting with Sollozzo and McCluskey and executes them.
Ostensibly, it's a brilliantly sustained exercise in suspense in which we hear about the meeting arranged and follow the plan to conceal a gun in the lavatory of the small, neighbourhood Italian restaurant chosen for the rendezvous. We wonder, will it work? So there's the night-time car ride where Michael is frisked and approved. There are the ominous chords of Nino Rota's score building. And there is the restaurant itself, a quiet but welcoming place – "Try the veal", says Sollozzo. There's Italian talk at the table, with subtitles, and then Michael asks to be allowed to go to the bathroom. It figures. He should be very nervous.
Then you hear the noise. It's the rise and fall of a subway train passing. Through the restaurant? No. But did you ever hear of a successful restaurant, even one with great veal, where every passing train drowns out conversation? Of course not. The train is an artistic device, a heightening effect, a vibrato supplied by the great sound designer Walter Murch.
The coup works. Michael comes out with a gun and leaves the two men for dead. He walks out of the restaurant and remembers his instructions – drop the gun. The music rises in triumph. Game, set and match to the Corleones. But something else has happened – Michael, the good boy in the family, the Ivy League student with a glowing military record, the son Vito was hoping to save, has crossed over. He has come of age – he is a made man. The Godfather suddenly reveals itself as not just a gangster chronicle, or even a series of magnificent set pieces, but the progress of Michael towards evil. And evil is a subject for art.
With that thought we begin to appreciate the cumulative artistry of the film – not just Murch's plans with sound, or Rota's operatic music, nor even the overwhelming period authenticity of the production design by Dean Tavoularis, but hanging over everything, the Rembrandt browns in the photography by Gordon Willis. What makes The Godfather so ambitious is that atmosphere in which the true-to-life gloom of Italian-American interiors takes on a moral force.
The influence of The Godfather is unequalled. Not just in the new vogue for gangster and mafia pictures, but in the stress on family and the unsentimental attraction to darkness and evil, and in the career of Francis Ford Coppola as a model new director. The American movie comes of age in 1972. The old distinction between good guys and bad guys will not pass in an America suddenly aware of its own corruption and compromise. (This is the time of Watergate.) Finally, a pregnant confusion has set in: what is the mainstream and what is art? Michael Corleone is our modern Charles Foster Kane, and every bit as tricky.
At first sight, The Godfather seems like a crime picture or a gangster movie. And we should remember that in its day it was the most successful film there had ever been, as well as winner of the Oscar for best picture. So it seems like a triumph of the mainstream, and nowhere more acutely than in the scene in which Michael goes to a meeting with Sollozzo and McCluskey and executes them.
Ostensibly, it's a brilliantly sustained exercise in suspense in which we hear about the meeting arranged and follow the plan to conceal a gun in the lavatory of the small, neighbourhood Italian restaurant chosen for the rendezvous. We wonder, will it work? So there's the night-time car ride where Michael is frisked and approved. There are the ominous chords of Nino Rota's score building. And there is the restaurant itself, a quiet but welcoming place – "Try the veal", says Sollozzo. There's Italian talk at the table, with subtitles, and then Michael asks to be allowed to go to the bathroom. It figures. He should be very nervous.
Then you hear the noise. It's the rise and fall of a subway train passing. Through the restaurant? No. But did you ever hear of a successful restaurant, even one with great veal, where every passing train drowns out conversation? Of course not. The train is an artistic device, a heightening effect, a vibrato supplied by the great sound designer Walter Murch.
The coup works. Michael comes out with a gun and leaves the two men for dead. He walks out of the restaurant and remembers his instructions – drop the gun. The music rises in triumph. Game, set and match to the Corleones. But something else has happened – Michael, the good boy in the family, the Ivy League student with a glowing military record, the son Vito was hoping to save, has crossed over. He has come of age – he is a made man. The Godfather suddenly reveals itself as not just a gangster chronicle, or even a series of magnificent set pieces, but the progress of Michael towards evil. And evil is a subject for art.
With that thought we begin to appreciate the cumulative artistry of the film – not just Murch's plans with sound, or Rota's operatic music, nor even the overwhelming period authenticity of the production design by Dean Tavoularis, but hanging over everything, the Rembrandt browns in the photography by Gordon Willis. What makes The Godfather so ambitious is that atmosphere in which the true-to-life gloom of Italian-American interiors takes on a moral force.
The influence of The Godfather is unequalled. Not just in the new vogue for gangster and mafia pictures, but in the stress on family and the unsentimental attraction to darkness and evil, and in the career of Francis Ford Coppola as a model new director. The American movie comes of age in 1972. The old distinction between good guys and bad guys will not pass in an America suddenly aware of its own corruption and compromise. (This is the time of Watergate.) Finally, a pregnant confusion has set in: what is the mainstream and what is art? Michael Corleone is our modern Charles Foster Kane, and every bit as tricky.
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3. The Godfather Part II
It’s worrying that 1974’s ‘The Godfather Part II’ is now best known for being the film-lover’s kneejerk answer to the question ‘which sequel is superior to the original’? It’s a pointless discussion, because both films are damn close to perfect: two opposing but complementary sides of the same coin. If ‘The Godfather’ was a knife in the dark, its sequel is the long, slow death rattle; if the first film lusted after its bloodthirsty antiheroes, the second drowns itself in guilt and recrimination.
Two stories run in parallel in ‘Part II’. In the first, a young Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) rises to power in New York, fuelled by vengeance and brute, old-world morality. In the second, set 50 years later, his son Michael (Al Pacino) struggles to reconcile his father’s ideals with an uncertain world, and finds himself beset on all sides by treachery and greed. This is quite simply one of the saddest movies ever made, a tale of loss, grief and absolute loneliness, an unflinching stare into the darkest moral abyss.
It’s worrying that 1974’s ‘The Godfather Part II’ is now best known for being the film-lover’s kneejerk answer to the question ‘which sequel is superior to the original’? It’s a pointless discussion, because both films are damn close to perfect: two opposing but complementary sides of the same coin. If ‘The Godfather’ was a knife in the dark, its sequel is the long, slow death rattle; if the first film lusted after its bloodthirsty antiheroes, the second drowns itself in guilt and recrimination.
Two stories run in parallel in ‘Part II’. In the first, a young Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) rises to power in New York, fuelled by vengeance and brute, old-world morality. In the second, set 50 years later, his son Michael (Al Pacino) struggles to reconcile his father’s ideals with an uncertain world, and finds himself beset on all sides by treachery and greed. This is quite simply one of the saddest movies ever made, a tale of loss, grief and absolute loneliness, an unflinching stare into the darkest moral abyss.
4. The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan follows the sombre origin myth of ‘Batman Begins’ with a less introspective, more frenetic sequel. Once again there are lots of ideas on the boil, this time mostly to do with community action and leadership, but an endless flow of bullets, bombs and bat business drowns out most debate. Right from the off, Nolan sidesteps the analyst’s couch and plunges us straight into battle.
He starts with a disorienting bank robbery and from there barely allows us to breathe – or think, even – over the next two and a half hours as we swing from the US to Hong Kong and back to the streets of Gotham. Here, the crime rate is soaring, it’s always night, and any daylight leaves you squinting. It’s always downtown too; the city is inescapable, a confusing mix of the pedestrian and the paranoid.
Ledger makes a great, freaky Joker, with dirty, lank hair, a voice that soars and dives, and a tongue that slithers and salivates. Two scenes stick in the mind: him walking away from a doomed hospital in a nurse’s dress right before an explosion, and later hanging out of the window of a speeding car, tasting the air like a reptile, with the soundtrack falling silent in tribute, freezing this psychotic, iconic villain in time and allowing for a moment of sadness amid the noise. If he wins an Oscar, who’d begrudge him that tribute?
Christopher Nolan follows the sombre origin myth of ‘Batman Begins’ with a less introspective, more frenetic sequel. Once again there are lots of ideas on the boil, this time mostly to do with community action and leadership, but an endless flow of bullets, bombs and bat business drowns out most debate. Right from the off, Nolan sidesteps the analyst’s couch and plunges us straight into battle.
He starts with a disorienting bank robbery and from there barely allows us to breathe – or think, even – over the next two and a half hours as we swing from the US to Hong Kong and back to the streets of Gotham. Here, the crime rate is soaring, it’s always night, and any daylight leaves you squinting. It’s always downtown too; the city is inescapable, a confusing mix of the pedestrian and the paranoid.
Ledger makes a great, freaky Joker, with dirty, lank hair, a voice that soars and dives, and a tongue that slithers and salivates. Two scenes stick in the mind: him walking away from a doomed hospital in a nurse’s dress right before an explosion, and later hanging out of the window of a speeding car, tasting the air like a reptile, with the soundtrack falling silent in tribute, freezing this psychotic, iconic villain in time and allowing for a moment of sadness amid the noise. If he wins an Oscar, who’d begrudge him that tribute?
5. Pulp Fiction
A sprawling, discursive fresco: three stories bookended by a prologue and epilogue. In the first story, a mobster (Travolta) is charged with looking after the irresponsible wife (Thurman) of his vengeful boss. In the second, a washed-up boxer (Willis) tries to trick the Mob by failing to throw a fight. And in the third, two hitmen (Travolta and Jackson) carry out a job, only to call on the services of a 'cleaner' (Keitel) when it gets messier than planned. It's the way Tarantino embellishes and, finally, interlinks these old chestnuts that makes the film alternately exhilarating and frustrating. There's plenty of sharp, sassy, profane dialogue, and there are plenty of acute, funny references to pop culture, though the talk sometimes delays the action, and the references sometimes seem self-consciously arch. And there are, too, the sudden lurches between humour and violence - shocking, but without moral depth. What writer/director Tarantino lacks, as yet, is the maturity to invest his work with anything that might provoke a heartfelt emotional response to his characters. Very entertaining, none the less.
A sprawling, discursive fresco: three stories bookended by a prologue and epilogue. In the first story, a mobster (Travolta) is charged with looking after the irresponsible wife (Thurman) of his vengeful boss. In the second, a washed-up boxer (Willis) tries to trick the Mob by failing to throw a fight. And in the third, two hitmen (Travolta and Jackson) carry out a job, only to call on the services of a 'cleaner' (Keitel) when it gets messier than planned. It's the way Tarantino embellishes and, finally, interlinks these old chestnuts that makes the film alternately exhilarating and frustrating. There's plenty of sharp, sassy, profane dialogue, and there are plenty of acute, funny references to pop culture, though the talk sometimes delays the action, and the references sometimes seem self-consciously arch. And there are, too, the sudden lurches between humour and violence - shocking, but without moral depth. What writer/director Tarantino lacks, as yet, is the maturity to invest his work with anything that might provoke a heartfelt emotional response to his characters. Very entertaining, none the less.
6. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
One of the monumental achievements in narrative filmmaking, Sergio Leone’s grandiose 1966 western epic is nothing less than a masterclass in movie storytelling, a dynamic testament to the sheer, invigorating uniqueness of cinema.
Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef are their usual taciturn selves as rival gunslingers pursuing a cache of lost gold. So it’s left to Eli Wallach’s Tuco to steal the show, the archetypal pitiable, self-deluded villain, the rotten heart of Leone’s colossal canvas.
It’s hard to name another film with so many iconic, indelible sequences: Tuco following a trail of half-smoked cigars; the unmanned stagecoach thundering through the desert; the operatic Mexican standoff in the graveyard, as Ennio Morricone’s peerless score mounts over five nailbiting, wordless minutes. But what impresses most is the intimacy of Leone’s vision, sketching a vast array of ruthless characters with broad but subtle visual strokes, never losing sight of the humanity amidst the carnage.
One of the monumental achievements in narrative filmmaking, Sergio Leone’s grandiose 1966 western epic is nothing less than a masterclass in movie storytelling, a dynamic testament to the sheer, invigorating uniqueness of cinema.
Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef are their usual taciturn selves as rival gunslingers pursuing a cache of lost gold. So it’s left to Eli Wallach’s Tuco to steal the show, the archetypal pitiable, self-deluded villain, the rotten heart of Leone’s colossal canvas.
It’s hard to name another film with so many iconic, indelible sequences: Tuco following a trail of half-smoked cigars; the unmanned stagecoach thundering through the desert; the operatic Mexican standoff in the graveyard, as Ennio Morricone’s peerless score mounts over five nailbiting, wordless minutes. But what impresses most is the intimacy of Leone’s vision, sketching a vast array of ruthless characters with broad but subtle visual strokes, never losing sight of the humanity amidst the carnage.
7. Schindler's List
The film of Thomas Keneally's novel is Spielberg's finest since Jaws. The elastic editing and grainy camerawork lend an immediacy as surprising as the shockingly matter-of-fact depiction of violence and casual killing. And Spielberg can handle actors - Neeson as Schindler, the German profiteer whose use of cheap labour in his Cracow factory saved 1,100 Jews from death; Kingsley as Stern, the canny accountant; Fiennes as Goeth, bloodless commandant of Plaszow camp. Wisely, the director rarely seeks to simplify the mysterious complexity of Schindler, an opportunist whose deeds became giddily selfless. As in his earlier work, there's a sense of wonder at the inexplicable, but it's no longer childlike. At times the film becomes a scream of horror at the inhumanity it recalls and recreates, and the b/w images never become aesthetically sanitised. True, the Jews are huddled, victimised masses. True, too, that Spielberg finally relents and tries to 'explain' Schindler so that the last hour becomes steadily more simplistic and sentimental. Otherwise, however, it's a noble achievement, and essential viewing.
The film of Thomas Keneally's novel is Spielberg's finest since Jaws. The elastic editing and grainy camerawork lend an immediacy as surprising as the shockingly matter-of-fact depiction of violence and casual killing. And Spielberg can handle actors - Neeson as Schindler, the German profiteer whose use of cheap labour in his Cracow factory saved 1,100 Jews from death; Kingsley as Stern, the canny accountant; Fiennes as Goeth, bloodless commandant of Plaszow camp. Wisely, the director rarely seeks to simplify the mysterious complexity of Schindler, an opportunist whose deeds became giddily selfless. As in his earlier work, there's a sense of wonder at the inexplicable, but it's no longer childlike. At times the film becomes a scream of horror at the inhumanity it recalls and recreates, and the b/w images never become aesthetically sanitised. True, the Jews are huddled, victimised masses. True, too, that Spielberg finally relents and tries to 'explain' Schindler so that the last hour becomes steadily more simplistic and sentimental. Otherwise, however, it's a noble achievement, and essential viewing.
8. Twelve Angry Men
Twelve Angry Men is a tightly wound top of a movie. Each scene ratchets up the tension another notch as Henry Fonda's character tries desperately to open the minds of his fellow jurors. The setting -- a claustrophobic jury room in the dog days of summer -- superbly augments the suspense. Operating within the constraints of a small budget, first-time director Sidney Lumet tightens the noose by accentuating the throbbing pulse of the ceiling fan and slowly narrowing his shots on his characters as the film approaches its climax. Based on Reginald Rose's well-known play, which had been adapted to the television screen three years earlier, Twelve Angry Men boasts a series of excellent performances by young actors who would soon become household names, including Jack Klugman, Jack Warden, and Martin Balsam. However, it is the film's established stars -- Lee J. Cobb, E. G. Marshall and most importantly Fonda -- who play the leads, delivering the goods like seasoned pros. The film has instructional value as a study of the inherent strengths and weaknesses of the jury system, but its real value is how it allows each member of the cultural mosaic of a jury to develop into distinct, damaged, and interesting characters. In a well-crafted metaphor for the broader outline of society, the jury members must confront their prejudices in order to see that justice prevails
Twelve Angry Men is a tightly wound top of a movie. Each scene ratchets up the tension another notch as Henry Fonda's character tries desperately to open the minds of his fellow jurors. The setting -- a claustrophobic jury room in the dog days of summer -- superbly augments the suspense. Operating within the constraints of a small budget, first-time director Sidney Lumet tightens the noose by accentuating the throbbing pulse of the ceiling fan and slowly narrowing his shots on his characters as the film approaches its climax. Based on Reginald Rose's well-known play, which had been adapted to the television screen three years earlier, Twelve Angry Men boasts a series of excellent performances by young actors who would soon become household names, including Jack Klugman, Jack Warden, and Martin Balsam. However, it is the film's established stars -- Lee J. Cobb, E. G. Marshall and most importantly Fonda -- who play the leads, delivering the goods like seasoned pros. The film has instructional value as a study of the inherent strengths and weaknesses of the jury system, but its real value is how it allows each member of the cultural mosaic of a jury to develop into distinct, damaged, and interesting characters. In a well-crafted metaphor for the broader outline of society, the jury members must confront their prejudices in order to see that justice prevails
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The first thing we see is a maggot wriggling on the end of a hook, and behind it, the grinning face of Smeagol (Serkis). It's a typically incisive piece of picture-making and storytelling, taking us back before The Fellowship to a time of supposed innocence and the moment of corruption - the rediscovery of the ring on the river bed. What follows may be the longest climax in film history: more than three hours of mad kings, massing troops, battle cries and ballyhoo. In terms of spectacle, there's nothing like it. Jackson has weight of numbers on his side. But for the first time in this mammoth undertaking, the director seems overwhelmed by logistics - and if he isn't, we are. Return of the King is no less dynamic than the previous chapters, but too much of the dialogue sounds like an orientation exercise. Some story strands are crudely abbreviated; others fail to develop elements that were already well-established. Given the inordinate running time, it's hard to avoid the feeling that we've already been here, done this. As to how the trilogy's themes of leadership, self-sacrifice, loyalty and honour speak to our own troubling times, Tolkien's anti-fascist allegory doesn't allow for ambivalence or ambiguity.
The first thing we see is a maggot wriggling on the end of a hook, and behind it, the grinning face of Smeagol (Serkis). It's a typically incisive piece of picture-making and storytelling, taking us back before The Fellowship to a time of supposed innocence and the moment of corruption - the rediscovery of the ring on the river bed. What follows may be the longest climax in film history: more than three hours of mad kings, massing troops, battle cries and ballyhoo. In terms of spectacle, there's nothing like it. Jackson has weight of numbers on his side. But for the first time in this mammoth undertaking, the director seems overwhelmed by logistics - and if he isn't, we are. Return of the King is no less dynamic than the previous chapters, but too much of the dialogue sounds like an orientation exercise. Some story strands are crudely abbreviated; others fail to develop elements that were already well-established. Given the inordinate running time, it's hard to avoid the feeling that we've already been here, done this. As to how the trilogy's themes of leadership, self-sacrifice, loyalty and honour speak to our own troubling times, Tolkien's anti-fascist allegory doesn't allow for ambivalence or ambiguity.
10. Fight Club
This is not an action movie, but a cerebral comedy - which is to say, an ideas movie. Some of those ideas are startling, provocative, transgressive, even subversive. They're also pretty funny. It goes like this: Norton used to be an upwardly mobile urban professional; now, he's pallid, neurotic and unhappy. Then he bumps into Tyler Durden (Pitt), his apartment blows up, and everything changes. Gaudy and amoral, Tyler's an id kind of guy: living on the edge is the only way he knows to feel alive. Pitt's raw physical grace embodies everything his alter ego has lost touch with; they trade body blows for fun, and you can sense the gain in the pain. Their 'club' draws emasculates from across the city; under Tyler's subtle guidance, the group evolves into an anarchist movement. The film wobbles alarmingly at this point, then rallies for the kind of coup de grâce that sends you reeling. Jim Uhls' cold, clever screenplay, from Chuck Palahniuk's novel, is a millennial mantra of seditious agit prop. Shot in a convulsive, stream-of-unconsciousness style, with disruptive subliminals, freeze frames and fantasy cutaways, the film does everything short of rattling your seat to get a reaction. You can call that irresponsible. Or you can call it the only essential Hollywood film of 1999.
This is not an action movie, but a cerebral comedy - which is to say, an ideas movie. Some of those ideas are startling, provocative, transgressive, even subversive. They're also pretty funny. It goes like this: Norton used to be an upwardly mobile urban professional; now, he's pallid, neurotic and unhappy. Then he bumps into Tyler Durden (Pitt), his apartment blows up, and everything changes. Gaudy and amoral, Tyler's an id kind of guy: living on the edge is the only way he knows to feel alive. Pitt's raw physical grace embodies everything his alter ego has lost touch with; they trade body blows for fun, and you can sense the gain in the pain. Their 'club' draws emasculates from across the city; under Tyler's subtle guidance, the group evolves into an anarchist movement. The film wobbles alarmingly at this point, then rallies for the kind of coup de grâce that sends you reeling. Jim Uhls' cold, clever screenplay, from Chuck Palahniuk's novel, is a millennial mantra of seditious agit prop. Shot in a convulsive, stream-of-unconsciousness style, with disruptive subliminals, freeze frames and fantasy cutaways, the film does everything short of rattling your seat to get a reaction. You can call that irresponsible. Or you can call it the only essential Hollywood film of 1999.
11. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Unlike so many big budget productions, the first movie instalment of JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth trilogy doesn't condescend to a teenage audience, but creates a sophisticated universe which abides by its own laws: a primordial world older than history and legend, back in the realm of myth. Here young hobbit Frodo Baggins (Wood) comes into possession of the ring of power - a talisman of evil so potent it corrupts everyone who touches it. Under the guidance of the wizard Gandalf (McKellen), Frodo escapes the clutches of the fearsome ring wraiths along with his faithful friend Sam (Astin), and heads for the kingdom of the elves, where they hope to thwart the encroaching forces of doom. Mostly, the film makes light work of Tolkien's richly Celtic imagination. You don't so much admire its virtuoso camerawork as lose yourself in the grandeur of the Gothic design, the bucolic Shire and mountain ranges riddled with mines and fire pits. Granted, there's a sermonising element which invites parody, but it never wants for menace (parents should probably steer young children clear). In unveiling the Holy Grail for action-fantasy aficionados, director and co-writer Peter Jackson has begun a series to rival Star Wars in the pantheon.
Unlike so many big budget productions, the first movie instalment of JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth trilogy doesn't condescend to a teenage audience, but creates a sophisticated universe which abides by its own laws: a primordial world older than history and legend, back in the realm of myth. Here young hobbit Frodo Baggins (Wood) comes into possession of the ring of power - a talisman of evil so potent it corrupts everyone who touches it. Under the guidance of the wizard Gandalf (McKellen), Frodo escapes the clutches of the fearsome ring wraiths along with his faithful friend Sam (Astin), and heads for the kingdom of the elves, where they hope to thwart the encroaching forces of doom. Mostly, the film makes light work of Tolkien's richly Celtic imagination. You don't so much admire its virtuoso camerawork as lose yourself in the grandeur of the Gothic design, the bucolic Shire and mountain ranges riddled with mines and fire pits. Granted, there's a sermonising element which invites parody, but it never wants for menace (parents should probably steer young children clear). In unveiling the Holy Grail for action-fantasy aficionados, director and co-writer Peter Jackson has begun a series to rival Star Wars in the pantheon.
12. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
This second instalment of the 'Star Wars' series, directed not by George Lucas but by his former USC tutor Irvin Kershner, is the tautest - an extended ricochet from one incendiary set-piece battle to another which still finds time to attend to plot, pace and character.
After the destruction of the Rebel base on icy Hoth, Han (Ford), Leia (Fisher) et al, escape in the Millennium Falcon, eventually finding dubious sanctuary in the city of Bespin. Meanwhile, Luke (Hamill) heads for the Degobah system to be schooled in Jedi lore by Yoda. These two plot strands dovetail in the final quarter, when Luke rushes to Bespin to save his friends and confront Darth Vader, ignoring Yoda's pleas that he finish his training and risking his own helpless conversion to the Dark Side.
This second instalment of the 'Star Wars' series, directed not by George Lucas but by his former USC tutor Irvin Kershner, is the tautest - an extended ricochet from one incendiary set-piece battle to another which still finds time to attend to plot, pace and character.
After the destruction of the Rebel base on icy Hoth, Han (Ford), Leia (Fisher) et al, escape in the Millennium Falcon, eventually finding dubious sanctuary in the city of Bespin. Meanwhile, Luke (Hamill) heads for the Degobah system to be schooled in Jedi lore by Yoda. These two plot strands dovetail in the final quarter, when Luke rushes to Bespin to save his friends and confront Darth Vader, ignoring Yoda's pleas that he finish his training and risking his own helpless conversion to the Dark Side.
13. Inception
Funny things, dreams. Fascinating for the dreamer, but as dull as a late morning in Slough for anybody else, unless, of course, your guide is Freud. Or, as it turns out, Christopher Nolan, the 39-year-old British director of ‘Memento’ and ‘The Dark Knight’, whose solution to the boredom of other people’s dreams is to collide their woozy, ever-changing, upside-down and roundabout nature with the thrust of a fast-paced, men-on-a-mission movie and a startling visual language that mirrors their strangeness. Better still, the dreams preferred by Nolan include images of Paris folding in on itself and a trackless train thundering through a city. The limited, sleepworld excitements of retaking your A levels ad infinitum or forever missing a flight at the airport don’t figure here.
Nolan throws a perfect storm of stunts, effects, locations and actors at one big idea: that it’s possible to pilfer ideas from dreams by a process called ‘extraction’, which involves hooking yourself up to a drip, falling asleep and entering the world of the subconscious. The holy grail of this process is to reverse it, which is ‘inception’, the planting of a new idea in another’s mind. That’s the trick that experts Dom (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt), aided by new recruits Ariadne (Ellen Page) and Eames (Tom Hardy), try to pull off while hopping from Tokyo to Paris to Mombasa. They’re working for Saito (Ken Watanabe) in pursuit of business magnate Robert (Cillian Murphy), and their motives vary, from financial to intellectual. But DiCaprio has another driver: the memory of his wife Mal (Marion Cottilard) is haunting him and it’s going to take a lot of psychological spring-cleaning for him to reconnect with that lost world.
All hail Nolan for mastering a higher class of mass entertainment. Like all good science fiction, ‘Inception’ demands we pay serious attention to pure fantasy on the back of strong ideas and exquisite craft – but it also combines fantasy with real observations about our sleeping lives. Like a dream, Nolan’s film fades swiftly in the light – but while it lasts, it feels like there’s nothing more important to decipher.
Funny things, dreams. Fascinating for the dreamer, but as dull as a late morning in Slough for anybody else, unless, of course, your guide is Freud. Or, as it turns out, Christopher Nolan, the 39-year-old British director of ‘Memento’ and ‘The Dark Knight’, whose solution to the boredom of other people’s dreams is to collide their woozy, ever-changing, upside-down and roundabout nature with the thrust of a fast-paced, men-on-a-mission movie and a startling visual language that mirrors their strangeness. Better still, the dreams preferred by Nolan include images of Paris folding in on itself and a trackless train thundering through a city. The limited, sleepworld excitements of retaking your A levels ad infinitum or forever missing a flight at the airport don’t figure here.
Nolan throws a perfect storm of stunts, effects, locations and actors at one big idea: that it’s possible to pilfer ideas from dreams by a process called ‘extraction’, which involves hooking yourself up to a drip, falling asleep and entering the world of the subconscious. The holy grail of this process is to reverse it, which is ‘inception’, the planting of a new idea in another’s mind. That’s the trick that experts Dom (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt), aided by new recruits Ariadne (Ellen Page) and Eames (Tom Hardy), try to pull off while hopping from Tokyo to Paris to Mombasa. They’re working for Saito (Ken Watanabe) in pursuit of business magnate Robert (Cillian Murphy), and their motives vary, from financial to intellectual. But DiCaprio has another driver: the memory of his wife Mal (Marion Cottilard) is haunting him and it’s going to take a lot of psychological spring-cleaning for him to reconnect with that lost world.
All hail Nolan for mastering a higher class of mass entertainment. Like all good science fiction, ‘Inception’ demands we pay serious attention to pure fantasy on the back of strong ideas and exquisite craft – but it also combines fantasy with real observations about our sleeping lives. Like a dream, Nolan’s film fades swiftly in the light – but while it lasts, it feels like there’s nothing more important to decipher.
14. Forrest Gump
Played by Hanks with a sing-song Southern drawl and an evangelical earnestness, Gump is the quintessential simpleton, his only characteristic the inert righteousness instilled in him by his mama (Field). Gump's story is as extraordinary as he is banal. He conducts us on what amounts to a virtual-reality tour of late twentieth century American history. Beneath its baby-boomer soundtrack, its restive feel-good aesthetic and conventional liberal veneer, this is a dismayingly reactionary work. Consider Forrest's one true love, Jenny (Wright), a 'nice' girl who takes a wrong turn when she abandons home for showbusiness. Throughout director Zemeckis contrasts Gump's charmed progress with Jenny's unhappy engagement with the counter culture. It's only when she's dying that Jenny realises she should have stayed with Forrest all along. He's asexual, square and a tedious conversationalist, but God knows he loves his mother - as this mawkish conservative movie ultimately goes to prove: ignorance is bliss. Winner of a raft of Oscars.
Played by Hanks with a sing-song Southern drawl and an evangelical earnestness, Gump is the quintessential simpleton, his only characteristic the inert righteousness instilled in him by his mama (Field). Gump's story is as extraordinary as he is banal. He conducts us on what amounts to a virtual-reality tour of late twentieth century American history. Beneath its baby-boomer soundtrack, its restive feel-good aesthetic and conventional liberal veneer, this is a dismayingly reactionary work. Consider Forrest's one true love, Jenny (Wright), a 'nice' girl who takes a wrong turn when she abandons home for showbusiness. Throughout director Zemeckis contrasts Gump's charmed progress with Jenny's unhappy engagement with the counter culture. It's only when she's dying that Jenny realises she should have stayed with Forrest all along. He's asexual, square and a tedious conversationalist, but God knows he loves his mother - as this mawkish conservative movie ultimately goes to prove: ignorance is bliss. Winner of a raft of Oscars.
15. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
A strictly realistic approach to Ken Kesey's novel confines the horizons of the original into a saner, less delirious tragi-comedy. Set in an insane asylum, the film involves the oppression of the individual, a struggle spearheaded by an ebullient Nicholson, turning in a star performance if ever there was one as he leads his fellow-inmates against the sinisterly well-meaning Nurse Ratched (Fletcher). For all the film's painstaking sensitivity and scrupulous chartings of energies and repressions, one longs for more muscle, which only Nicholson consistently provides.
A strictly realistic approach to Ken Kesey's novel confines the horizons of the original into a saner, less delirious tragi-comedy. Set in an insane asylum, the film involves the oppression of the individual, a struggle spearheaded by an ebullient Nicholson, turning in a star performance if ever there was one as he leads his fellow-inmates against the sinisterly well-meaning Nurse Ratched (Fletcher). For all the film's painstaking sensitivity and scrupulous chartings of energies and repressions, one longs for more muscle, which only Nicholson consistently provides.
16. GoodFellas
Scorsese's fast, violent, stylish mobster movie is a return to form, De Niro, and the Italian-American underworld. But in following, from '55 to the late '70s, the true-life descent into big-time crime of Henry Hill (Liotta), he and co-writer Nick Pileggi seem less concerned with telling a lucid, linear story than with providing sociological evidence of an ethically marginalised society united by the desire to make a fast buck. Because Hill and the older 'good fellas' he first falls in with as an awestruck kid - De Niro, Pesci, Sorvino - exist almost totally on the surface, we watch shocked and beguiled but never come to care. The camera and cutting style is as forcefully persuasive as a gun in the gut, so that we are not enlightened but excited by the cocky camaraderie, bloody murder, and expansive sense of 'family' on view. Still, the movie excites the senses in a way few film-makers even dream of, and its epic sweep and brilliantly energetic film language rest on a cluster of effortlessly expert performances.
Scorsese's fast, violent, stylish mobster movie is a return to form, De Niro, and the Italian-American underworld. But in following, from '55 to the late '70s, the true-life descent into big-time crime of Henry Hill (Liotta), he and co-writer Nick Pileggi seem less concerned with telling a lucid, linear story than with providing sociological evidence of an ethically marginalised society united by the desire to make a fast buck. Because Hill and the older 'good fellas' he first falls in with as an awestruck kid - De Niro, Pesci, Sorvino - exist almost totally on the surface, we watch shocked and beguiled but never come to care. The camera and cutting style is as forcefully persuasive as a gun in the gut, so that we are not enlightened but excited by the cocky camaraderie, bloody murder, and expansive sense of 'family' on view. Still, the movie excites the senses in a way few film-makers even dream of, and its epic sweep and brilliantly energetic film language rest on a cluster of effortlessly expert performances.
17. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Sean Astin as Frodo's stout-hearted companion Sam brought the first film into emotional focus, as they set off for the perils of Mordor together in its bravely anti-climactic last scene. And Sam brings a lump to the throat this time too, as he waxes lyrical about the meaning of their quest: how ordinary folk must endure dark times and search for good in this world. The centrepiece in the Tolkien triptych is more of the same. Much, much more. Those who found The Fellowship of the Ring exhaustingly episodic will not be encouraged by the proliferation of subplots here: Mortensen's Aragorn emerges as a charismatic leader; Pippin and Merryweather get lost in the woods; Arwen is token romantic interest; Gandalf is resurrected only to disappear for most of the running time; while Frodo and Sam are sidetracked by a CGI Gollum with a split personality. A naked, scuttling creature of debasement and deceit, Gollum exposes the insidious corruptive power hanging round Frodo's neck. In size and scale, Jackson has redefined the word 'epic' - but his attention to the small things really gives this series its awesome stature.
Sean Astin as Frodo's stout-hearted companion Sam brought the first film into emotional focus, as they set off for the perils of Mordor together in its bravely anti-climactic last scene. And Sam brings a lump to the throat this time too, as he waxes lyrical about the meaning of their quest: how ordinary folk must endure dark times and search for good in this world. The centrepiece in the Tolkien triptych is more of the same. Much, much more. Those who found The Fellowship of the Ring exhaustingly episodic will not be encouraged by the proliferation of subplots here: Mortensen's Aragorn emerges as a charismatic leader; Pippin and Merryweather get lost in the woods; Arwen is token romantic interest; Gandalf is resurrected only to disappear for most of the running time; while Frodo and Sam are sidetracked by a CGI Gollum with a split personality. A naked, scuttling creature of debasement and deceit, Gollum exposes the insidious corruptive power hanging round Frodo's neck. In size and scale, Jackson has redefined the word 'epic' - but his attention to the small things really gives this series its awesome stature.
18. Star Wars
Hollywood began in an amusement arcade, so it's appropriate that its most profitable film should be as formally enchanting and psychologically sterile as a Gottlieb pinball machine. Star Wars is at least 40 years out of date as science fiction, but objections pale beside the film's major achievement: nearly 50 years after it was conceived, pulp space fiction is here for the first time presented as a truly viable movie genre. Discounting 2001, which isn't a genre movie, it's like watching the first Western to use real exteriors. And audiences rightly feel that this is something they've been owed for some time. Star Wars itself has distinct limitations, but the current return to a cinema of spectacle and wonder is wholly encouraging. Or would you prefer The Sound of Music?
Hollywood began in an amusement arcade, so it's appropriate that its most profitable film should be as formally enchanting and psychologically sterile as a Gottlieb pinball machine. Star Wars is at least 40 years out of date as science fiction, but objections pale beside the film's major achievement: nearly 50 years after it was conceived, pulp space fiction is here for the first time presented as a truly viable movie genre. Discounting 2001, which isn't a genre movie, it's like watching the first Western to use real exteriors. And audiences rightly feel that this is something they've been owed for some time. Star Wars itself has distinct limitations, but the current return to a cinema of spectacle and wonder is wholly encouraging. Or would you prefer The Sound of Music?
19. The Matrix
Thomas (Reeves), a salaryman at a software company, leads a secret double life. As 'Neo' he's a computer hacker much in demand. But only when Trinity (Moss) introduces him to charismatic seer Morpheus (Fishburne) does Neo learn that the whole world's unwittingly in the same boat: life as we know it is merely virtual reality, a 'matrix' designed by mankind's overlords to hold us in unquestioning obeisance. Not only are Morpheus and his rebel crew fighting to regain our freedom, but the leader has a bee in his bonnet: might not Neo be the One, who'll lead us to salvation? For its first hour, the second feature by the Wachowskis works well enough as an ambitious if rather portentous dystopian fantasy in the vein of eXistenZ and Blade Runner. Though sometimes a little clumsy, the frequent switches between the different 'realities' are entertainingly ingenious, Bill Pope's camerawork and Owen Paterson's designs are slickly impressive, and the effects neatly embrace Cronenbergian body horror and comic strip panache. But the characters, too, are paper thin (Keanu, especially), while the promising premise is steadily wasted as the film turns into a fairly routine action pic, complete with facile Hollywood heroics, cod kung-fu homilies and computer enhanced martial arts scenes. Weaving is engagingly odd as the rebels' arch enemy Smith, but even he can't hold the attention in what's finally yet another slice of overlong, high concept hokum.
Thomas (Reeves), a salaryman at a software company, leads a secret double life. As 'Neo' he's a computer hacker much in demand. But only when Trinity (Moss) introduces him to charismatic seer Morpheus (Fishburne) does Neo learn that the whole world's unwittingly in the same boat: life as we know it is merely virtual reality, a 'matrix' designed by mankind's overlords to hold us in unquestioning obeisance. Not only are Morpheus and his rebel crew fighting to regain our freedom, but the leader has a bee in his bonnet: might not Neo be the One, who'll lead us to salvation? For its first hour, the second feature by the Wachowskis works well enough as an ambitious if rather portentous dystopian fantasy in the vein of eXistenZ and Blade Runner. Though sometimes a little clumsy, the frequent switches between the different 'realities' are entertainingly ingenious, Bill Pope's camerawork and Owen Paterson's designs are slickly impressive, and the effects neatly embrace Cronenbergian body horror and comic strip panache. But the characters, too, are paper thin (Keanu, especially), while the promising premise is steadily wasted as the film turns into a fairly routine action pic, complete with facile Hollywood heroics, cod kung-fu homilies and computer enhanced martial arts scenes. Weaving is engagingly odd as the rebels' arch enemy Smith, but even he can't hold the attention in what's finally yet another slice of overlong, high concept hokum.
20. Seven Samurai
Kurosawa's masterpiece, testifying to his admiration for John Ford and translated effortlessly back into the form of a Western as The Magnificent Seven, has six masterless samurai - plus Mifune, the crazy farmer's boy not qualified to join the elect group, who nevertheless follows like a dog and fights like a lion - agreeing for no pay, just food and the joy of fulfilling their duty as fighters, to protect a helpless village against a ferocious gang of bandits. Despite the caricatured acting forms of Noh and Kabuki which Kurosawa adopted in his period films, the individual characterisations are precise and memorable, none more so than that by Takashi Shimura, one of the director's favourite actors, playing the sage, ageing, and oddly charismatic samurai leader. The epic action scenes involving cavalry and samurai are still without peer.
Kurosawa's masterpiece, testifying to his admiration for John Ford and translated effortlessly back into the form of a Western as The Magnificent Seven, has six masterless samurai - plus Mifune, the crazy farmer's boy not qualified to join the elect group, who nevertheless follows like a dog and fights like a lion - agreeing for no pay, just food and the joy of fulfilling their duty as fighters, to protect a helpless village against a ferocious gang of bandits. Despite the caricatured acting forms of Noh and Kabuki which Kurosawa adopted in his period films, the individual characterisations are precise and memorable, none more so than that by Takashi Shimura, one of the director's favourite actors, playing the sage, ageing, and oddly charismatic samurai leader. The epic action scenes involving cavalry and samurai are still without peer.
21. City of God
At times a little too hyperkinetic and punchy for its own good, this account of the spread of drug-fuelled crime into Rio's favelas from the '60s to the '80s is nevertheless an impressive affair. Centred on a kid keen to keep his nose clean and become a photographer, despite the live-fast-die-young tendencies of those around him, the film blends superb location photography, a pacy but nicely elastic editing style, an ingenious, imaginative approach to narrative, and expertly choreographed action to document the way petty crime and petty rivalries spiral out of control to plunge the neighborhood into murderous gang wars. And the performances, many from non-pros, are terrific.
At times a little too hyperkinetic and punchy for its own good, this account of the spread of drug-fuelled crime into Rio's favelas from the '60s to the '80s is nevertheless an impressive affair. Centred on a kid keen to keep his nose clean and become a photographer, despite the live-fast-die-young tendencies of those around him, the film blends superb location photography, a pacy but nicely elastic editing style, an ingenious, imaginative approach to narrative, and expertly choreographed action to document the way petty crime and petty rivalries spiral out of control to plunge the neighborhood into murderous gang wars. And the performances, many from non-pros, are terrific.
22. Seven
Serial killers and mismatched cops overcoming antagonism are seldom fresh, fruitful subjects for movies, but this exceptionally (and impressively) nasty thriller blends genres to grim and gripping effect. Somerset (Freeman) and Mills (Pitt) are the detectives brought together when an obese corpse is discovered in a dismal apartment. Mills, who with his wife (Paltrow) has recently moved to the city from upstate, resents what he perceives as Somerset's patronising attitude; still, the older cop, about to retire and weary of crime and moral apathy, is unusually educated, as becomes clear when they find a second mutilated body and he insists his young partner start reading the likes of Milton, Chaucer and Dante. Somerset's theory? That a messianic murderer is perpetrating crimes to punish the Seven Deadly Sins - in which case there are five more to go. The film's world is so shadowy, decaying and intentionally dated that one often wonders whether anyone involved has heard of electricity; at the same time, however, Somerset and Mills' slow voyage from claustrophobic murk into blinding light makes for a vivid dramatic metaphor. Moreover, Fincher handles the violence with sensitivity, announcing its obscenity in spoken analyses and briefly glimpsed post mortem shots, but never showing the murderous acts themselves.
Serial killers and mismatched cops overcoming antagonism are seldom fresh, fruitful subjects for movies, but this exceptionally (and impressively) nasty thriller blends genres to grim and gripping effect. Somerset (Freeman) and Mills (Pitt) are the detectives brought together when an obese corpse is discovered in a dismal apartment. Mills, who with his wife (Paltrow) has recently moved to the city from upstate, resents what he perceives as Somerset's patronising attitude; still, the older cop, about to retire and weary of crime and moral apathy, is unusually educated, as becomes clear when they find a second mutilated body and he insists his young partner start reading the likes of Milton, Chaucer and Dante. Somerset's theory? That a messianic murderer is perpetrating crimes to punish the Seven Deadly Sins - in which case there are five more to go. The film's world is so shadowy, decaying and intentionally dated that one often wonders whether anyone involved has heard of electricity; at the same time, however, Somerset and Mills' slow voyage from claustrophobic murk into blinding light makes for a vivid dramatic metaphor. Moreover, Fincher handles the violence with sensitivity, announcing its obscenity in spoken analyses and briefly glimpsed post mortem shots, but never showing the murderous acts themselves.
23. The Usual Suspects
This labyrinthine, very well played thriller - a huge improvement on theBryan Singer's intriguing but awkward debut, Public Access - never lets up. It begins with the explosion of a docked ship, before one of the two survivors goes on to detail, to the cops and the audience, the events of the previous six weeks that led him to the vessel. It's a yarn involving five criminals unwittingly brought together in a police cell due to one thing they have in common: the master criminal Keyser Soze, who may or may not exist...Working from Christopher McQuarrie's marvellously tortuous, colourful script, Singer creates a classy, thought-provoking mystery that is pleasingly old-fashioned (the settings, characters and sassy mood recall Hammett and Chandler) and absolutely modern in the sly, slightly self-conscious play it makes with myth and methods of storytelling.
This labyrinthine, very well played thriller - a huge improvement on theBryan Singer's intriguing but awkward debut, Public Access - never lets up. It begins with the explosion of a docked ship, before one of the two survivors goes on to detail, to the cops and the audience, the events of the previous six weeks that led him to the vessel. It's a yarn involving five criminals unwittingly brought together in a police cell due to one thing they have in common: the master criminal Keyser Soze, who may or may not exist...Working from Christopher McQuarrie's marvellously tortuous, colourful script, Singer creates a classy, thought-provoking mystery that is pleasingly old-fashioned (the settings, characters and sassy mood recall Hammett and Chandler) and absolutely modern in the sly, slightly self-conscious play it makes with myth and methods of storytelling.
24. The Silence of the Lambs
In its own old-fashioned way, this is as satisfying as that other, more modernist Thomas Harris adaptation, Manhunter. When FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Foster) is sent to conduct an interview with serial killer shrink Dr Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins) in his high-security cell, she little knows what she is in for. The Feds want Lecter to help them in their search for homicidal maniac 'Buffalo Bill'; but in exchange for clues about Bill's behaviour, Lecter demands that Clarice answer questions about herself, so that he can penetrate the darkest recesses of her mind. It's in their confrontations that both film and heroine come electrically alive. Although Demme does reveal the results of the killer's violence, he for the most part refrains from showing the acts themselves; the film could never be accused of pandering to voyeuristic impulses. Under-standably, much has been made of Hopkins' hypnotic Lecter, but the laurels must go to Levine's killer, admirably devoid of camp overstatement, and to Foster, who evokes a vulnerable but pragmatic intelligence bent on achieving independence through sheer strength of will.
In its own old-fashioned way, this is as satisfying as that other, more modernist Thomas Harris adaptation, Manhunter. When FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Foster) is sent to conduct an interview with serial killer shrink Dr Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins) in his high-security cell, she little knows what she is in for. The Feds want Lecter to help them in their search for homicidal maniac 'Buffalo Bill'; but in exchange for clues about Bill's behaviour, Lecter demands that Clarice answer questions about herself, so that he can penetrate the darkest recesses of her mind. It's in their confrontations that both film and heroine come electrically alive. Although Demme does reveal the results of the killer's violence, he for the most part refrains from showing the acts themselves; the film could never be accused of pandering to voyeuristic impulses. Under-standably, much has been made of Hopkins' hypnotic Lecter, but the laurels must go to Levine's killer, admirably devoid of camp overstatement, and to Foster, who evokes a vulnerable but pragmatic intelligence bent on achieving independence through sheer strength of will.
25. C'era Una Volta Il West (Once Upon a Time in the West )
When her husband and three children are killed by marauding bandits, Jill McBain inherits a strip of land needed by a local railroad company who will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. Afraid for her life, Jill is protected from harm by a mysterious stranger and a desperado, both of whom hope to be more than just good friends with the lovely widow.
When her husband and three children are killed by marauding bandits, Jill McBain inherits a strip of land needed by a local railroad company who will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. Afraid for her life, Jill is protected from harm by a mysterious stranger and a desperado, both of whom hope to be more than just good friends with the lovely widow.
26. It's a Wonderful Life
The only Yuletide favourite to pivot around an attempted suicide, Capra’s post-war fable is a fascinating melange of social and personal impulses and the questionable charms of home. James Stewart is impeccable as George Bailey, the Bedford Falls boy-next-door whose dreams are continually deferred by the demands of family and national upset: rather than exploring and building new worlds, he runs a building society, marries and raises children. Mapping his frustrations and joys onto the contours of recent US history, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ puts individual and group interests in tension. Denied the opportunities for individualist enterprise that are the stock in trade of American cinematic heroism, George is pulled towards communal effort and self-effacement. Yet the film’s bravura fantasy sequence, imagining the hellishly licentious Bedford Falls that would exist without George, makes the grandest possible case for the importance and uniqueness of individual agency – ‘Battleship Potemkin’ this ain’t. Funny, compelling and moving.
The only Yuletide favourite to pivot around an attempted suicide, Capra’s post-war fable is a fascinating melange of social and personal impulses and the questionable charms of home. James Stewart is impeccable as George Bailey, the Bedford Falls boy-next-door whose dreams are continually deferred by the demands of family and national upset: rather than exploring and building new worlds, he runs a building society, marries and raises children. Mapping his frustrations and joys onto the contours of recent US history, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ puts individual and group interests in tension. Denied the opportunities for individualist enterprise that are the stock in trade of American cinematic heroism, George is pulled towards communal effort and self-effacement. Yet the film’s bravura fantasy sequence, imagining the hellishly licentious Bedford Falls that would exist without George, makes the grandest possible case for the importance and uniqueness of individual agency – ‘Battleship Potemkin’ this ain’t. Funny, compelling and moving.
27. Léon: The Professional
Besson's first American movie begins promisingly with a stylish action sequence, but goes off the rails. Hitman Leon (Reno) lives in isolation in his starkly appointed New York apartment, but when a neighbouring family is massacred by corrupt cop Stansfield (Oldman) and his thugs, he becomes reluctant protector of 12-year-old Mathilda (Portman), who asks him to instruct her in the art of killing. Initial wariness between the two turns to something warmer, mutually affecting and sentimental. If this sounds familiar that's because it's so reminiscent of (but nowhere near as good as) Gloria. Leaving aside the question of paedophilia, the film is devoid of subtlety. Reno brings a likeably naive, quiet panache to his role; Portman is overbearingly cute and sassy; and Oldman is hammy. Besson fails to make much of New York's visual potential, and lazily asks that Leon's expertise be taken on trust. The shallowness was to be expected; the slackness is surprising.
Besson's first American movie begins promisingly with a stylish action sequence, but goes off the rails. Hitman Leon (Reno) lives in isolation in his starkly appointed New York apartment, but when a neighbouring family is massacred by corrupt cop Stansfield (Oldman) and his thugs, he becomes reluctant protector of 12-year-old Mathilda (Portman), who asks him to instruct her in the art of killing. Initial wariness between the two turns to something warmer, mutually affecting and sentimental. If this sounds familiar that's because it's so reminiscent of (but nowhere near as good as) Gloria. Leaving aside the question of paedophilia, the film is devoid of subtlety. Reno brings a likeably naive, quiet panache to his role; Portman is overbearingly cute and sassy; and Oldman is hammy. Besson fails to make much of New York's visual potential, and lazily asks that Leon's expertise be taken on trust. The shallowness was to be expected; the slackness is surprising.
28. Casablanca
Half the world can repeat half the dialogue of Curtiz’s great wartime (anti-)romance, re-released in a new digital restoration for Valentine’s Day, and half of Hollywood’s scriptwriters worked on it. If Peter Bogdanovich is right to say the Bogart persona was generally defined by his work for Howard Hawks, his Rick, master of the incredibly ritzy Moroccan gin-joint into which old Paris flame Ingrid Bergman walks, just as importantly marked his transition from near-psychopathetic bad guy to idiosyncratic romantic hero.
Sixty-odd years on, the film still works beautifully: its complex propagandist subtexts and vision of a reluctantly martial America’s ‘stumbling’ morality still intrigue, just as Bogart’s cult reputation among younger viewers still obtains. Claude Rains is superb as the pragmatic French chief of police, himself a complex doppelgänger of Bogart; Paul Henreid is credible and self-effacing as the film’s nominal hero; Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre give great colour; and Bergman literally shines. Arguably, cinema’s greatest ‘accidental masterpiece’, it still amounts to some hill of beans.
Half the world can repeat half the dialogue of Curtiz’s great wartime (anti-)romance, re-released in a new digital restoration for Valentine’s Day, and half of Hollywood’s scriptwriters worked on it. If Peter Bogdanovich is right to say the Bogart persona was generally defined by his work for Howard Hawks, his Rick, master of the incredibly ritzy Moroccan gin-joint into which old Paris flame Ingrid Bergman walks, just as importantly marked his transition from near-psychopathetic bad guy to idiosyncratic romantic hero.
Sixty-odd years on, the film still works beautifully: its complex propagandist subtexts and vision of a reluctantly martial America’s ‘stumbling’ morality still intrigue, just as Bogart’s cult reputation among younger viewers still obtains. Claude Rains is superb as the pragmatic French chief of police, himself a complex doppelgänger of Bogart; Paul Henreid is credible and self-effacing as the film’s nominal hero; Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre give great colour; and Bergman literally shines. Arguably, cinema’s greatest ‘accidental masterpiece’, it still amounts to some hill of beans.
29. Life is Beautiful ( La Vita a Bella )
Audacious but misguided, this determinedly Chaplinesque comic fable starts well enough with the innocent, childlike Guido (Benigni) arriving in a Tuscan town in 1939 to visit his uncle, and courting, in typically eccentric fashion, local teacher Dora (Braschi), whom he manages to seduce away from her Fascist fiancé. So far, so amusing - but then, when the film flashes forward to the couple and their son being sent to a concentration camp, with Guido imaginatively turning events around them into a bizarre child's game in order to protect the boy from the ugly realities of the Holocaust, the whole thing turns sickly, not to say disingenuous (how come the villains are now German rather than Italian?). Well-meaning humanistic 'charm' and a 'poetic' approach to horror (including fuzzy shots of mountains of corpses) are inadequate to the task, and soon bogs down in manipulative and maudlin sentimentality.
Audacious but misguided, this determinedly Chaplinesque comic fable starts well enough with the innocent, childlike Guido (Benigni) arriving in a Tuscan town in 1939 to visit his uncle, and courting, in typically eccentric fashion, local teacher Dora (Braschi), whom he manages to seduce away from her Fascist fiancé. So far, so amusing - but then, when the film flashes forward to the couple and their son being sent to a concentration camp, with Guido imaginatively turning events around them into a bizarre child's game in order to protect the boy from the ugly realities of the Holocaust, the whole thing turns sickly, not to say disingenuous (how come the villains are now German rather than Italian?). Well-meaning humanistic 'charm' and a 'poetic' approach to horror (including fuzzy shots of mountains of corpses) are inadequate to the task, and soon bogs down in manipulative and maudlin sentimentality.
30. Raiders of the Lost Ark
Hollywood's chutzpah whizzkids Spielberg and Lucas team up to bring the audiences who flocked to Star Wars and Close Encounters a replay of the innocent pleasures of Saturday serials, but done at two hours length with a much larger budget than the old cliffhangers could command. Spielberg's evasion of present day realities in an effort to recapture the sheer childlike fun of moviegoing is as perverse as was his previous film, 1941. What he offers is one long, breathtaking chase of a plot as his pre-World War II superhero, outsize and Bogartian, races to prevent the omnipotent Ark of the Covenant from falling into the hands of Hitler's Nazis. Whether you swallow it or not, see it for a handful of totally unexpected visual jokes, worth the price of admission alone.
Hollywood's chutzpah whizzkids Spielberg and Lucas team up to bring the audiences who flocked to Star Wars and Close Encounters a replay of the innocent pleasures of Saturday serials, but done at two hours length with a much larger budget than the old cliffhangers could command. Spielberg's evasion of present day realities in an effort to recapture the sheer childlike fun of moviegoing is as perverse as was his previous film, 1941. What he offers is one long, breathtaking chase of a plot as his pre-World War II superhero, outsize and Bogartian, races to prevent the omnipotent Ark of the Covenant from falling into the hands of Hitler's Nazis. Whether you swallow it or not, see it for a handful of totally unexpected visual jokes, worth the price of admission alone.
31. Rear Window
Of all Hitchcock's films, this is the one which most reveals the man. As usual it evolves from one brilliantly plain idea: Stewart, immobilised in his apartment by a broken leg and aided by his girlfriend (Grace Kelly at her most Vogue-coverish), takes to watching the inhabitants across the courtyard, first with binoculars, later with his camera. He thinks he witnesses a murder... There is suspense enough, of course, but the important thing is the way that it is filmed: the camera never strays from inside Stewart's apartment, and every shot is closely aligned with his point of view. And what this relentless monomaniac witnesses is everyone's dirty linen: suicide, broken dreams, and cheap death. Quite aside from the violation of intimacy, which is shocking enough, Hitchcock has nowhere else come so close to pure misanthropy, nor given us so disturbing a definition of what it is to watch the 'silent film' of other people's lives, whether across a courtyard or up on a screen. No wonder the sensual puritan in him punishes Stewart by breaking his other leg.
Of all Hitchcock's films, this is the one which most reveals the man. As usual it evolves from one brilliantly plain idea: Stewart, immobilised in his apartment by a broken leg and aided by his girlfriend (Grace Kelly at her most Vogue-coverish), takes to watching the inhabitants across the courtyard, first with binoculars, later with his camera. He thinks he witnesses a murder... There is suspense enough, of course, but the important thing is the way that it is filmed: the camera never strays from inside Stewart's apartment, and every shot is closely aligned with his point of view. And what this relentless monomaniac witnesses is everyone's dirty linen: suicide, broken dreams, and cheap death. Quite aside from the violation of intimacy, which is shocking enough, Hitchcock has nowhere else come so close to pure misanthropy, nor given us so disturbing a definition of what it is to watch the 'silent film' of other people's lives, whether across a courtyard or up on a screen. No wonder the sensual puritan in him punishes Stewart by breaking his other leg.
32. American History X
The shock opening sums up the strength and weakness of this would-be liberal drama on American neo-Nazism: after Danny (Furlong) warns elder brother Derek (Norton) of intruders, the latter rushes out and kills two black car thieves. An energetic, taut flashback sequence, shot in b/w, sets up the working class milieu, the sibling relationship, and Derek's frightening but seductive mastery, masculinity and charisma - with the high sheen visuals fetishising Norton's hard, hairless, swastika-tattooed torso along the way. Disowned by its director and reportedly re-edited by its star, the film lurches from dramatic and visual overkill to comparative inertia as it traces (in colour) Danny's development into a favoured follower of neo-Nazi leader Cameron (Keach), his run-ins with a painstakingly reformist headmaster (Brooks), and, following Derek's release from prison, his tragic rejection of his brother's rehabilitation. Two things hold the interest: Norton's astounding performance, and a feeling for the male reality of reactionary working class environments.
The shock opening sums up the strength and weakness of this would-be liberal drama on American neo-Nazism: after Danny (Furlong) warns elder brother Derek (Norton) of intruders, the latter rushes out and kills two black car thieves. An energetic, taut flashback sequence, shot in b/w, sets up the working class milieu, the sibling relationship, and Derek's frightening but seductive mastery, masculinity and charisma - with the high sheen visuals fetishising Norton's hard, hairless, swastika-tattooed torso along the way. Disowned by its director and reportedly re-edited by its star, the film lurches from dramatic and visual overkill to comparative inertia as it traces (in colour) Danny's development into a favoured follower of neo-Nazi leader Cameron (Keach), his run-ins with a painstakingly reformist headmaster (Brooks), and, following Derek's release from prison, his tragic rejection of his brother's rehabilitation. Two things hold the interest: Norton's astounding performance, and a feeling for the male reality of reactionary working class environments.
33. Psycho
Where would we be without ‘Psycho’? Fifty years on and Hitch’s delicious cod-Freudian nightmare about a platinum-blonde embezzler (Janet Leigh) who neglected to consult a guide before selecting her motel still has much to answer for. It blazed a bloody trail for the much-loved slasher cycle, but it also assured us that a B-movie could be A-grade in quality and innovation. It dared to suggest that your star didn’t need to surface from an ordeal smelling of roses (or, indeed, at all). It combined a knife, a scream, a melon, some chocolate sauce, Bernard Herrmann’s greatest score and more than 70 edits to push the envelope of screen violence. It lent ‘The Simpsons’ some of its best gags: (Seymour Skinner: ‘Oh there’s Mother now, watching me. What’s that, Mother? That sailor suit doesn’t fit any more!’). It offers perfect case studies of suspense, paranoia and montage for lazy film-studies tutors. And, of course, it was the first movie to show a toilet flushing, so we might also credit it with spawning the entire gross-out genre. ‘Psycho’: we salute you.
Where would we be without ‘Psycho’? Fifty years on and Hitch’s delicious cod-Freudian nightmare about a platinum-blonde embezzler (Janet Leigh) who neglected to consult a guide before selecting her motel still has much to answer for. It blazed a bloody trail for the much-loved slasher cycle, but it also assured us that a B-movie could be A-grade in quality and innovation. It dared to suggest that your star didn’t need to surface from an ordeal smelling of roses (or, indeed, at all). It combined a knife, a scream, a melon, some chocolate sauce, Bernard Herrmann’s greatest score and more than 70 edits to push the envelope of screen violence. It lent ‘The Simpsons’ some of its best gags: (Seymour Skinner: ‘Oh there’s Mother now, watching me. What’s that, Mother? That sailor suit doesn’t fit any more!’). It offers perfect case studies of suspense, paranoia and montage for lazy film-studies tutors. And, of course, it was the first movie to show a toilet flushing, so we might also credit it with spawning the entire gross-out genre. ‘Psycho’: we salute you.
34. City Lights
With its plot focusing on Charlie's love for a blind flower-seller and his attempts to get enough money to pay for an eye operation, City Lightsedges dangerously close to the weepie wonderland of Magnificent Obsession and other lace-handkerchief jobs. This horrid fate is narrowly avoided by bracing doses of slapstick (the heroine unravels Charlie's vest thinking it's her ball of wool) and Chaplin's supreme delicacy in conveying all shades of human feeling. Matters aren't helped by the film's structure, which is as tattered and baggy as the tramp's trousers. But there are plenty of great moments, and the occasional comic use of sound (despite its date, the film is silent) is beautifully judged.
With its plot focusing on Charlie's love for a blind flower-seller and his attempts to get enough money to pay for an eye operation, City Lightsedges dangerously close to the weepie wonderland of Magnificent Obsession and other lace-handkerchief jobs. This horrid fate is narrowly avoided by bracing doses of slapstick (the heroine unravels Charlie's vest thinking it's her ball of wool) and Chaplin's supreme delicacy in conveying all shades of human feeling. Matters aren't helped by the film's structure, which is as tattered and baggy as the tramp's trousers. But there are plenty of great moments, and the occasional comic use of sound (despite its date, the film is silent) is beautifully judged.
35. Saving Private Ryan
Capt John Miller (Hanks), a decent school teacher in another life, is among the unfortunates storming Omaha Beach. As men are mown down and blown apart, the visceral editing and urgent camerawork tug us into the heart of chaos. No viewer can doubt that war, however justified, is hell. Only after 30 minutes does the pace ease and the story begin, with Miller and his platoon assigned to find and bring back Private Ryan, the brother of three soldiers killed in the same week, who's missing behind enemy lines. Thereafter the movie becomes more conventional and, mercifully, less relentlessly gory, at least until Ryan (Damon) and a few other soldiers are finally found, and Miller and his surviving men join them in defending a bridge, at which point the nightmare begins again. Except for a redundant epilogue, sentimentality is mostly held at bay, but the film remains an utterly American take on WWII, with the lack of political, ethical and historical perspective which that implies. Why did Spielberg make it? He wants us to imagine we can feel the terror of being there, but does that make us any wiser about this or any other conflict? Probably not.
Capt John Miller (Hanks), a decent school teacher in another life, is among the unfortunates storming Omaha Beach. As men are mown down and blown apart, the visceral editing and urgent camerawork tug us into the heart of chaos. No viewer can doubt that war, however justified, is hell. Only after 30 minutes does the pace ease and the story begin, with Miller and his platoon assigned to find and bring back Private Ryan, the brother of three soldiers killed in the same week, who's missing behind enemy lines. Thereafter the movie becomes more conventional and, mercifully, less relentlessly gory, at least until Ryan (Damon) and a few other soldiers are finally found, and Miller and his surviving men join them in defending a bridge, at which point the nightmare begins again. Except for a redundant epilogue, sentimentality is mostly held at bay, but the film remains an utterly American take on WWII, with the lack of political, ethical and historical perspective which that implies. Why did Spielberg make it? He wants us to imagine we can feel the terror of being there, but does that make us any wiser about this or any other conflict? Probably not.
36. Spirited Away
Miyazaki's first digitally animated feature (the highest-grossing Japanese film ever) initially seems like a Through the Looking-Glassfantasy, but rapidly picks up a resonance, weight and complexity that make it all but Shakespearean. Chihiro, a sullen and resentful 10-year-old, is moving house with her parents when they stumble into the world of the Japanese gods - where the greedy parents are soon turned into pigs. Chihiro bluffs her way into a job in the resort spa run by the sorceress Yubaba, but at the cost of her human name and identity; she becomes Sen. With her links to her own past slipping away, she finds an ally in Yubaba's factotum Haku, a mysteriously powerful boy who also has a lost identity behind him. Never remotely didactic, the film is ultimately a self-fulfilment drama that touches on religious, ethical, ecological and psychological issues. (There's also an undercurrent of satire: Miyazaki admits that Yubaba's bath-house is a parody of his own Studio Ghibli.) No other word for it: a masterpiece.
Miyazaki's first digitally animated feature (the highest-grossing Japanese film ever) initially seems like a Through the Looking-Glassfantasy, but rapidly picks up a resonance, weight and complexity that make it all but Shakespearean. Chihiro, a sullen and resentful 10-year-old, is moving house with her parents when they stumble into the world of the Japanese gods - where the greedy parents are soon turned into pigs. Chihiro bluffs her way into a job in the resort spa run by the sorceress Yubaba, but at the cost of her human name and identity; she becomes Sen. With her links to her own past slipping away, she finds an ally in Yubaba's factotum Haku, a mysteriously powerful boy who also has a lost identity behind him. Never remotely didactic, the film is ultimately a self-fulfilment drama that touches on religious, ethical, ecological and psychological issues. (There's also an undercurrent of satire: Miyazaki admits that Yubaba's bath-house is a parody of his own Studio Ghibli.) No other word for it: a masterpiece.
37. The Intouchables
Culture-clash comedy blends with heart-tugging true-life drama in this French box-office hit. François Cluzet (‘Tell No One’) is Philippe, a wealthy man left paralysed from the neck down after an accident. Interviewing worthy types for the job of carer, Philippe is struck by Driss (Omar Sy), a street-smart criminal who’s merely applying in order to receive benefits. Admiring his irreverence, Philippe hires Driss and moves him into his palatial home. Bonding ensues, amid many raised eyebrows.
It’s an enjoyable, if familiar, set-up, recalling ‘Scent of a Woman’ as Driss opens Philippe’s eyes to new worlds (pot smoking, soul music), and vice versa. Both become aware of their privileges: chiefly education and an able body, respectively. There’s also a whiff of ‘The Sound of Music’ as this whirlwind brings a different kind of tune to the household, challenging the way Philippe raises his daughter. Of course, this is not a romance, but a bromance: it’s these two against a world that fails to understand either of them properly.
While ‘Untouchable’ (released in France in 2011 as ‘Intouchables’) is based on a true story, you sense a good deal of artistic licence – the original carer was an Algerian immigrant, while the film’s Driss is Senegalese. And ‘Untouchable’ leaves itself wide open to criticism of racial stereotyping. As Driss grooves around the mansion, showing the uptight white people how to dance, one is reminded more of an ’80s Hollywood comedy than a modern French one. But both characters are enormously sympathetic and you can’t deny the film’s heart is in the right place. It delivers broad laughs and tugs at the heartstrings without delving too deep – the very definition of a crowd-pleaser.
Culture-clash comedy blends with heart-tugging true-life drama in this French box-office hit. François Cluzet (‘Tell No One’) is Philippe, a wealthy man left paralysed from the neck down after an accident. Interviewing worthy types for the job of carer, Philippe is struck by Driss (Omar Sy), a street-smart criminal who’s merely applying in order to receive benefits. Admiring his irreverence, Philippe hires Driss and moves him into his palatial home. Bonding ensues, amid many raised eyebrows.
It’s an enjoyable, if familiar, set-up, recalling ‘Scent of a Woman’ as Driss opens Philippe’s eyes to new worlds (pot smoking, soul music), and vice versa. Both become aware of their privileges: chiefly education and an able body, respectively. There’s also a whiff of ‘The Sound of Music’ as this whirlwind brings a different kind of tune to the household, challenging the way Philippe raises his daughter. Of course, this is not a romance, but a bromance: it’s these two against a world that fails to understand either of them properly.
While ‘Untouchable’ (released in France in 2011 as ‘Intouchables’) is based on a true story, you sense a good deal of artistic licence – the original carer was an Algerian immigrant, while the film’s Driss is Senegalese. And ‘Untouchable’ leaves itself wide open to criticism of racial stereotyping. As Driss grooves around the mansion, showing the uptight white people how to dance, one is reminded more of an ’80s Hollywood comedy than a modern French one. But both characters are enormously sympathetic and you can’t deny the film’s heart is in the right place. It delivers broad laughs and tugs at the heartstrings without delving too deep – the very definition of a crowd-pleaser.
38. Memento
Nolan's Following was one of the most original British films of the '90s, and this follow-up makes no compromise. It opens with reverse action: a Polaroid photo fading and sliding into the camera, a corpse returned to life, a gun pulled from the head, a bullet sucked into the barrel. The action thereafter plays forwards as usual - with Leonard Shelby (Pearce) out to track down and take revenge on whoever raped and killed his wife - save that the brief narrative chunks flash ever further backwards in time, so that we share Shelby's confused point of view. He suffers from a rare kind of memory loss whereby, while he remembers life before the murder, he's been unable since then to recall anything for more than a few minutes. Hence he's forever forced to fathom afresh everything he sees and hears. The photos he takes for future reference and words he tattoos into his flesh help, but life remains a mysterious, very risky business. This taut, ingenious thriller displays real interest in how perception and memory shape action, identity and, of course, filmic storytelling. Moreover, a plot strand featuring Stephen Tobolowsky even touches the heart. There's grade A work from all concerned, especially Pearce, but in the end this is Nolan's film. And he delivers, with a vengeance.
Nolan's Following was one of the most original British films of the '90s, and this follow-up makes no compromise. It opens with reverse action: a Polaroid photo fading and sliding into the camera, a corpse returned to life, a gun pulled from the head, a bullet sucked into the barrel. The action thereafter plays forwards as usual - with Leonard Shelby (Pearce) out to track down and take revenge on whoever raped and killed his wife - save that the brief narrative chunks flash ever further backwards in time, so that we share Shelby's confused point of view. He suffers from a rare kind of memory loss whereby, while he remembers life before the murder, he's been unable since then to recall anything for more than a few minutes. Hence he's forever forced to fathom afresh everything he sees and hears. The photos he takes for future reference and words he tattoos into his flesh help, but life remains a mysterious, very risky business. This taut, ingenious thriller displays real interest in how perception and memory shape action, identity and, of course, filmic storytelling. Moreover, a plot strand featuring Stephen Tobolowsky even touches the heart. There's grade A work from all concerned, especially Pearce, but in the end this is Nolan's film. And he delivers, with a vengeance.
39. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Having failed, in Cameron's impressive original, to prevent the birth of future resistance leader John Connor, the machines running the world in 2029 again send a cyborg to our era to kill him off as an unruly LA teenager (Furlong). Again, too, the resistance responds by sending the boy a protector: a T800 cyborg (Schwarzenegger) physically identical to the one which formerly laid siege to John's mom Sarah (Hamilton). That Arnie is now a good guy is one twist; the other is that he's the underdog, since the T1000 (Patrick) despatched by the machines is far more sophisticated, constructed from liquid steel so that it can adopt the appearance of anyone or anything it chooses. The film is much the same as its predecessor, except that the effects are more spectacular, there's a lumbering anti-nuke subtext, and the script's good-natured wit is undercut by the sentimentality of Arnie's becoming a caring cyborg. Structured as a simple chase, the story sags midway, but the first hour and last 30 minutes display an enjoyably relentless bravura.
Having failed, in Cameron's impressive original, to prevent the birth of future resistance leader John Connor, the machines running the world in 2029 again send a cyborg to our era to kill him off as an unruly LA teenager (Furlong). Again, too, the resistance responds by sending the boy a protector: a T800 cyborg (Schwarzenegger) physically identical to the one which formerly laid siege to John's mom Sarah (Hamilton). That Arnie is now a good guy is one twist; the other is that he's the underdog, since the T1000 (Patrick) despatched by the machines is far more sophisticated, constructed from liquid steel so that it can adopt the appearance of anyone or anything it chooses. The film is much the same as its predecessor, except that the effects are more spectacular, there's a lumbering anti-nuke subtext, and the script's good-natured wit is undercut by the sentimentality of Arnie's becoming a caring cyborg. Structured as a simple chase, the story sags midway, but the first hour and last 30 minutes display an enjoyably relentless bravura.
40. Modern Times
The last appearance of the Chaplin tramp, before Hitler, Monsieur Verdoux and other personae took over. Antics and situations from the earliest shorts are revived in a narrative framework designed to portray 'humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness', as the opening title puts it; the tramp faces the perils of factory machinery, poverty, starvation and Depression unrest - and just about survives. Chaplin's political and philosophical naivety now seems as remarkable as his gift for pantomime.
The last appearance of the Chaplin tramp, before Hitler, Monsieur Verdoux and other personae took over. Antics and situations from the earliest shorts are revived in a narrative framework designed to portray 'humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness', as the opening title puts it; the tramp faces the perils of factory machinery, poverty, starvation and Depression unrest - and just about survives. Chaplin's political and philosophical naivety now seems as remarkable as his gift for pantomime.
41. Sunset Boulevard
Re-release of Billy Wilder's 1950 film noir starring Swanson in her most celebrated role as fading big screen star Norma Desmond. The film explores Norma's insatiable appetite for fame and fortune, and her relationships with her toy boy lover and her faithful man servant Max.
Re-release of Billy Wilder's 1950 film noir starring Swanson in her most celebrated role as fading big screen star Norma Desmond. The film explores Norma's insatiable appetite for fame and fortune, and her relationships with her toy boy lover and her faithful man servant Max.
42. Dr Strangelove: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb
There's not a false note in Dr. Strangelove. This 1964 black comedy about the ultimate madness of nuclear conflict and the bloody folly of war is a masterpiece, and the best Cold War movie ever made.From the suggestive credit sequence of a B-52 bomber and a KC-135 tanker coupling for a romantic mid-air refueling to the deeply silly names for all the characters, Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is the funniest movie you'll ever see about the threat of global nuclear devastation.
There's not a false note in Dr. Strangelove. This 1964 black comedy about the ultimate madness of nuclear conflict and the bloody folly of war is a masterpiece, and the best Cold War movie ever made.From the suggestive credit sequence of a B-52 bomber and a KC-135 tanker coupling for a romantic mid-air refueling to the deeply silly names for all the characters, Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is the funniest movie you'll ever see about the threat of global nuclear devastation.
43. The Pianist
An adaptation of concert pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman's memoirs about his experiences in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Polanski's cinematic return to the ravaged world of his childhood starts inauspiciously, lumbered with the clichés of Ronald Harwood's script. The actors (mostly from British TV) who play the musician's doomed family squabble to order about how to react to events. Once Szpilman is left behind, however, and forced to hide in empty apartments in the ever more unrecognisable city, his struggle simply to survive is rendered with increasing subtlety, and Brody's lead performance steadily comes into its own. Old-fashioned in both visual and narrative style and in its overall restraint, the film clearly benefits from the director's first-hand knowledge of the territory.
An adaptation of concert pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman's memoirs about his experiences in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Polanski's cinematic return to the ravaged world of his childhood starts inauspiciously, lumbered with the clichés of Ronald Harwood's script. The actors (mostly from British TV) who play the musician's doomed family squabble to order about how to react to events. Once Szpilman is left behind, however, and forced to hide in empty apartments in the ever more unrecognisable city, his struggle simply to survive is rendered with increasing subtlety, and Brody's lead performance steadily comes into its own. Old-fashioned in both visual and narrative style and in its overall restraint, the film clearly benefits from the director's first-hand knowledge of the territory.
44. Apocalypse Now
No deleted scenes or unseen Sheen, just a straight remaster and reissue for the relatively lean, unrelentingly mean original cut of Coppola’s massive man-on-a-mission masterpiece. Shorn of its ‘Redux’ excesses, which transformed this already epic film into something sprawling, unwieldy and soap-operatic (if still brilliant), it’s remarkable how slick and streamlined the film feels: five guys in a boat, and the river only goes one way.
Not that there isn’t room for experimentation. The central storyline – Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is tasked with tracking down and executing Marlon Brando’s rogue Colonel Kurtz – is essentially a slender thread upon which Coppola and his co-writer John Milius hang a number of increasingly wild asides. But these brief, brutal and seemingly unconnected incidents work together to drive the film forward: in their very randomness, they build a picture of a war being fought without strategy or clear intent, making Willard’s mission simultaneously clearer and more morally meaningless.
In contrast to Coppola’s earlier ‘The Godfather Part II’ and ‘The Conversation’, ‘Apocalypse Now’ isn’t a conspicuously ‘smart’ film: literary references aside, there are no intellectual pretensions here. Instead, as befits both its tortuous hand-to-mouth genesis and the devastating conflict it reflects, this is a film of pure sensation, dazzling audiences with light and noise, laying bare the stark horror – and unimaginable thrill – of combat. And therein lies the true heart of darkness: if war is hell and heaven intertwined, where does morality fit in? And, in the final apocalyptic analysis, will any of it matter?
No deleted scenes or unseen Sheen, just a straight remaster and reissue for the relatively lean, unrelentingly mean original cut of Coppola’s massive man-on-a-mission masterpiece. Shorn of its ‘Redux’ excesses, which transformed this already epic film into something sprawling, unwieldy and soap-operatic (if still brilliant), it’s remarkable how slick and streamlined the film feels: five guys in a boat, and the river only goes one way.
Not that there isn’t room for experimentation. The central storyline – Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is tasked with tracking down and executing Marlon Brando’s rogue Colonel Kurtz – is essentially a slender thread upon which Coppola and his co-writer John Milius hang a number of increasingly wild asides. But these brief, brutal and seemingly unconnected incidents work together to drive the film forward: in their very randomness, they build a picture of a war being fought without strategy or clear intent, making Willard’s mission simultaneously clearer and more morally meaningless.
In contrast to Coppola’s earlier ‘The Godfather Part II’ and ‘The Conversation’, ‘Apocalypse Now’ isn’t a conspicuously ‘smart’ film: literary references aside, there are no intellectual pretensions here. Instead, as befits both its tortuous hand-to-mouth genesis and the devastating conflict it reflects, this is a film of pure sensation, dazzling audiences with light and noise, laying bare the stark horror – and unimaginable thrill – of combat. And therein lies the true heart of darkness: if war is hell and heaven intertwined, where does morality fit in? And, in the final apocalyptic analysis, will any of it matter?
45. The Green Mile
Now an inmate of an old folks' home, sometime Death Row guard Paul Edgecomb (Hanks) relates his Depression Era experiences on 'The Green Mile', the strip of lime linoleum that leads to the execution chamber. His memories centre on black inmate John Coffey (Duncan), a gentle giant convicted of murdering two white girls. Yet Coffey seems anything but violent: he's afraid of the dark and later reveals a gift for spiritual healing. Where Darabont's earlier period prison drama The Shawshank Redemption (also based on a Stephen King original) was very much of a piece, this suffers from a surfeit of plot threads and characters, some more compelling than others: for example, the volatile relationship between Edgecomb and a fellow guard, whose sadistic behaviour must be tolerated because he's the state governor's nephew. By contrast, the sentimental scenes featuring a Cajun inmate and his pet mouse soon become tiresome. The supernatural elements carry an undeniable emotional charge, but the solution to the underlying murder mystery is disappointingly tidy and trite. The flawless production design ensures one can almost smell the burning flesh, but Thomas Newman's score turns up the 'triumph of the human spirit' meter to 11.
Now an inmate of an old folks' home, sometime Death Row guard Paul Edgecomb (Hanks) relates his Depression Era experiences on 'The Green Mile', the strip of lime linoleum that leads to the execution chamber. His memories centre on black inmate John Coffey (Duncan), a gentle giant convicted of murdering two white girls. Yet Coffey seems anything but violent: he's afraid of the dark and later reveals a gift for spiritual healing. Where Darabont's earlier period prison drama The Shawshank Redemption (also based on a Stephen King original) was very much of a piece, this suffers from a surfeit of plot threads and characters, some more compelling than others: for example, the volatile relationship between Edgecomb and a fellow guard, whose sadistic behaviour must be tolerated because he's the state governor's nephew. By contrast, the sentimental scenes featuring a Cajun inmate and his pet mouse soon become tiresome. The supernatural elements carry an undeniable emotional charge, but the solution to the underlying murder mystery is disappointingly tidy and trite. The flawless production design ensures one can almost smell the burning flesh, but Thomas Newman's score turns up the 'triumph of the human spirit' meter to 11.
46. The Departed
‘Infernal Affairs’, the 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller that pitched a Triad mole in the police force against an undercover cop in the mob, finds its reflection in ‘The Departed’. We’ve moved to Irish Boston, where hotheaded rookie Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is ostensibly turfed out of the force as a cover for his long-term assignment, while ambitious hood Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) signs up for the State Police Academy and speedy promotion. Their respective controls are police Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and capo Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson).
William Monahan’s screenplay retains the basic architecture, and several bits of business, from the original, pepping it up with snappy macho banter, including some of the most gloriously expressive swearing this side of David Mamet; senior officers Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg spark off each other like an obscene double act. But it’s somewhat distended; it’s two decades since Scorsese made a feature less than two hours long, and he shows no sign of belt-tightening. The simple, mathematical tragedy of ‘Infernal Affairs’ is mussed by extra layers of hierarchy on both sides and a frustratingly over-seasoned climax.
‘Infernal Affairs’, the 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller that pitched a Triad mole in the police force against an undercover cop in the mob, finds its reflection in ‘The Departed’. We’ve moved to Irish Boston, where hotheaded rookie Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is ostensibly turfed out of the force as a cover for his long-term assignment, while ambitious hood Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) signs up for the State Police Academy and speedy promotion. Their respective controls are police Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and capo Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson).
William Monahan’s screenplay retains the basic architecture, and several bits of business, from the original, pepping it up with snappy macho banter, including some of the most gloriously expressive swearing this side of David Mamet; senior officers Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg spark off each other like an obscene double act. But it’s somewhat distended; it’s two decades since Scorsese made a feature less than two hours long, and he shows no sign of belt-tightening. The simple, mathematical tragedy of ‘Infernal Affairs’ is mussed by extra layers of hierarchy on both sides and a frustratingly over-seasoned climax.
47. Gladiator
The late second century: the Roman army is fighting Germania, but that's a small problem for general Maximus (Crowe), compared to his relations with the Imperial dynasty. Ailing Marcus Aurelius (Harris) would like his favourite soldier and confidant to take over and pass power to the Senate. His heir, however - the insecure Commodus (Phoenix) - feels miffed by the slight. Having ensured dad dies in his arms, the new Emperor exerts his murderous authority. But Maximus won't swear loyalty, and after a narrow escape, the enslaved ex-general, bent on vengeance, gets a chance to return to Rome as a gladiator. Scott's sword and sandal spectacular is a bloody good yarn, packed with epic pomp and pageantry, dastardly plots, massed action and forthright, fundamental emotions. That said, for all the efforts to suggest authenticity, it stays true to peplum tradition, not only in its age old clichés, but in saying as much about our era as that in which it's set. The implausibly efficient carnage of the opening battle evokes post-'Nam war movies; Maximus' improbably swift, deep bonding with an African slave lends a whiff of PC historicity; Commodus's vices arise from poor parental care. Still, the cast is strong (notably Nielsen as Commodus's vacillating sister, and the late Oliver Reed, unusually endearing as a gladiator owner), the pacing lively, and the sets, swordplay and Scud catapults impressive.
The late second century: the Roman army is fighting Germania, but that's a small problem for general Maximus (Crowe), compared to his relations with the Imperial dynasty. Ailing Marcus Aurelius (Harris) would like his favourite soldier and confidant to take over and pass power to the Senate. His heir, however - the insecure Commodus (Phoenix) - feels miffed by the slight. Having ensured dad dies in his arms, the new Emperor exerts his murderous authority. But Maximus won't swear loyalty, and after a narrow escape, the enslaved ex-general, bent on vengeance, gets a chance to return to Rome as a gladiator. Scott's sword and sandal spectacular is a bloody good yarn, packed with epic pomp and pageantry, dastardly plots, massed action and forthright, fundamental emotions. That said, for all the efforts to suggest authenticity, it stays true to peplum tradition, not only in its age old clichés, but in saying as much about our era as that in which it's set. The implausibly efficient carnage of the opening battle evokes post-'Nam war movies; Maximus' improbably swift, deep bonding with an African slave lends a whiff of PC historicity; Commodus's vices arise from poor parental care. Still, the cast is strong (notably Nielsen as Commodus's vacillating sister, and the late Oliver Reed, unusually endearing as a gladiator owner), the pacing lively, and the sets, swordplay and Scud catapults impressive.
48. Back to the Future
Teenager Marty McFly's dad is a hideous wimp, his mother a dipso, so he befriends mad scientist Dr. Brown (Lloyd). In a DeLorean time machine they travel back to 1955, the year his parents met in high school. But at that age, mom rather fancies her offspring more than his prospective father. Zemeckis takes obvious pleasure in solving not just the technical but also the emotional problems of time travel: how to avoid incest, how to unite your parents in order that you will be born, how to return to the future when both the car and the professor have blown a fuse, and above all how to avoid tampering with history. If this all sounds schematic, it shouldn't: the movie has all the benign good nature of a Frank Capra.
Teenager Marty McFly's dad is a hideous wimp, his mother a dipso, so he befriends mad scientist Dr. Brown (Lloyd). In a DeLorean time machine they travel back to 1955, the year his parents met in high school. But at that age, mom rather fancies her offspring more than his prospective father. Zemeckis takes obvious pleasure in solving not just the technical but also the emotional problems of time travel: how to avoid incest, how to unite your parents in order that you will be born, how to return to the future when both the car and the professor have blown a fuse, and above all how to avoid tampering with history. If this all sounds schematic, it shouldn't: the movie has all the benign good nature of a Frank Capra.
49. Alien
In the wake of the huge commercial success of Alien, almost all attention has perversely focused on the provenance of the script (was it a rip-off of It, the Terror from Beyond Space? Of Van Vogt's fiction? Was former John Carpenter collaborator Dan O'Bannon sold out by producers Walter Hill and David Giler's rewrites?). But the limited strengths of its staple sci-fi horrors - crew of commercial spacecraft menaced by stowaway monster - always derived from either the offhand organic/ Freudian resonances of its design or the purely (brilliantly) manipulative editing and pacing of its above-average shock quota. Intimations of a big-budget Dark Star fade early, and notions of Weaver as a Hawksian woman rarely develop beyond her resourceful reaction to jeopardy. At least Scott has no time to dawdle over redundant futuristic effects in the fashion that scuttles his later Blade Runner.
In the wake of the huge commercial success of Alien, almost all attention has perversely focused on the provenance of the script (was it a rip-off of It, the Terror from Beyond Space? Of Van Vogt's fiction? Was former John Carpenter collaborator Dan O'Bannon sold out by producers Walter Hill and David Giler's rewrites?). But the limited strengths of its staple sci-fi horrors - crew of commercial spacecraft menaced by stowaway monster - always derived from either the offhand organic/ Freudian resonances of its design or the purely (brilliantly) manipulative editing and pacing of its above-average shock quota. Intimations of a big-budget Dark Star fade early, and notions of Weaver as a Hawksian woman rarely develop beyond her resourceful reaction to jeopardy. At least Scott has no time to dawdle over redundant futuristic effects in the fashion that scuttles his later Blade Runner.
50. Batman - The Dark Knight Rises
In the wake of the huge commercial success of Alien, almost all attention has perversely focused on the provenance of the script (was it a rip-off of It, the Terror from Beyond Space? Of Van Vogt's fiction? Was former John Carpenter collaborator Dan O'Bannon sold out by producers Walter Hill and David Giler's rewrites?). But the limited strengths of its staple sci-fi horrors - crew of commercial spacecraft menaced by stowaway monster - always derived from either the offhand organic/ Freudian resonances of its design or the purely (brilliantly) manipulative editing and pacing of its above-average shock quota. Intimations of a big-budget Dark Star fade early, and notions of Weaver as a Hawksian woman rarely develop beyond her resourceful reaction to jeopardy. At least Scott has no time to dawdle over redundant futuristic effects in the fashion that scuttles his later Blade Runner.
In the wake of the huge commercial success of Alien, almost all attention has perversely focused on the provenance of the script (was it a rip-off of It, the Terror from Beyond Space? Of Van Vogt's fiction? Was former John Carpenter collaborator Dan O'Bannon sold out by producers Walter Hill and David Giler's rewrites?). But the limited strengths of its staple sci-fi horrors - crew of commercial spacecraft menaced by stowaway monster - always derived from either the offhand organic/ Freudian resonances of its design or the purely (brilliantly) manipulative editing and pacing of its above-average shock quota. Intimations of a big-budget Dark Star fade early, and notions of Weaver as a Hawksian woman rarely develop beyond her resourceful reaction to jeopardy. At least Scott has no time to dawdle over redundant futuristic effects in the fashion that scuttles his later Blade Runner.
51. Django Unchained
In the past decade there were those who – perfectly reasonably – assumed that Quentin Tarantino’s time had passed. Following the exhaustive movie-geek sprawl of the ‘Kill Bill’ movies, the crass indulgence of ‘Death Proof’ and the diverting but directionless ‘Inglourious Basterds’, it seemed like the ultimate fanboy had slipped into a terminal, self-congratulatory decline.
Well, somebody’s clearly rattled his cage, because ‘Django Unchained’, for all its digressive, episodic and frequently ludicrous nature, is a blazing return to form. This is a meaty spaghetti western, heavy on the spicy sauce and ketchup and peppered with the sort of unforgettable touches only Tarantino could get away with.
Last time around, Tarantino gave the Nazi top brass what for. This time, the topic for irreverent dissection is American slavery: Jamie Foxxi s Django, freed from a chain gang by German bounty hunter Schultz (Christoph Waltz), and on a mission to rescue his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Only trouble is, Hildy is owned by moustache-twirling Mississippi slavemaster Calvin Candy (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose ugly reputation precedes him.
The first thing to notice is how packed ‘Django Unchained’ feels. Tarantino’s love of pithy language hasn’t deserted him, but the dialogue never exists only for its own sake: every moment feels purposeful. The second is how great it looks: from the period design and incredible costumes – Foxx gets a dandyish blue silk number that could well spark a trend – to some gorgeous photography, particularly of human faces, this might be the director’s best-looking movie.There are problems: like every Tarantino film since the soulful ‘Jackie Brown’, ‘Django Unchained’ feels a little ersatz, favouring momentary thrills over lasting emotional punch. The romance between Django and Broomhilda is talked about in epic terms, but we never feel their connection, while the brutal dispatch of a couple of key characters late in the day is done with cold efficiency, when they deserved more.
But this is a film bursting with pleasures: the note-perfect performances (a director cameo aside, but that’s to be expected), a brace of close-to-the-bone, borderline offensive moments (Samuel L Jackson’s character will make jaws drop), the soaring cine-literate soundtrack, the sheer, relentless drive. So welcome back, Quentin. All may not be forgiven quite yet, but keep this up and even ‘Death Proof’ may vanish in the rearview.
In the past decade there were those who – perfectly reasonably – assumed that Quentin Tarantino’s time had passed. Following the exhaustive movie-geek sprawl of the ‘Kill Bill’ movies, the crass indulgence of ‘Death Proof’ and the diverting but directionless ‘Inglourious Basterds’, it seemed like the ultimate fanboy had slipped into a terminal, self-congratulatory decline.
Well, somebody’s clearly rattled his cage, because ‘Django Unchained’, for all its digressive, episodic and frequently ludicrous nature, is a blazing return to form. This is a meaty spaghetti western, heavy on the spicy sauce and ketchup and peppered with the sort of unforgettable touches only Tarantino could get away with.
Last time around, Tarantino gave the Nazi top brass what for. This time, the topic for irreverent dissection is American slavery: Jamie Foxxi s Django, freed from a chain gang by German bounty hunter Schultz (Christoph Waltz), and on a mission to rescue his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Only trouble is, Hildy is owned by moustache-twirling Mississippi slavemaster Calvin Candy (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose ugly reputation precedes him.
The first thing to notice is how packed ‘Django Unchained’ feels. Tarantino’s love of pithy language hasn’t deserted him, but the dialogue never exists only for its own sake: every moment feels purposeful. The second is how great it looks: from the period design and incredible costumes – Foxx gets a dandyish blue silk number that could well spark a trend – to some gorgeous photography, particularly of human faces, this might be the director’s best-looking movie.There are problems: like every Tarantino film since the soulful ‘Jackie Brown’, ‘Django Unchained’ feels a little ersatz, favouring momentary thrills over lasting emotional punch. The romance between Django and Broomhilda is talked about in epic terms, but we never feel their connection, while the brutal dispatch of a couple of key characters late in the day is done with cold efficiency, when they deserved more.
But this is a film bursting with pleasures: the note-perfect performances (a director cameo aside, but that’s to be expected), a brace of close-to-the-bone, borderline offensive moments (Samuel L Jackson’s character will make jaws drop), the soaring cine-literate soundtrack, the sheer, relentless drive. So welcome back, Quentin. All may not be forgiven quite yet, but keep this up and even ‘Death Proof’ may vanish in the rearview.
52. The Lives Of Others (Das Leben Der Anderen)
Acclaimed playwright Georg Dreyman lives in the divided city of Berlin during the mid-'80s with his actress girlfriend Christa-Maria. Suspected of activities contrary to the ways of East German Communism, Georg is placed under covert surveillance and Stasi officer Captain Gerd Wiesler is given the task of spying on the playwright, making detailed notes about every conversation. As the days pass, Gerd begins to sympathise with Georg and the officer interferes in his target's life to keep him safe from harm.
Acclaimed playwright Georg Dreyman lives in the divided city of Berlin during the mid-'80s with his actress girlfriend Christa-Maria. Suspected of activities contrary to the ways of East German Communism, Georg is placed under covert surveillance and Stasi officer Captain Gerd Wiesler is given the task of spying on the playwright, making detailed notes about every conversation. As the days pass, Gerd begins to sympathise with Georg and the officer interferes in his target's life to keep him safe from harm.
53. The Prestige
Nolan’s first period picture, ‘The Prestige’ shares the fractured chronology common to his earlier work. Based in turn-of-the-last-century London, the plot centres on two ambitious young illusionists: flashy, easygoing Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman, abetted, as in ‘Batman Begins’, by Michael Caine) and the more original but less extrovert Alfred Borden (Christian Bale). Fellow apprentices turned bitter rivals after a grisly onstage accident, their escalating feud is a game of cat and mouse played out in a hall of mirrors, set in cramped prison cells and Colorado expanses as well as theatres, as they compete to deliver the most spectacular version of a teleportation trick that calls for something like real magic.
Jackman and Bale make impressive tango partners, neither wholly sympathetic nor villainous, each drawing out the synergy between his character’s personality and his onstage style. It’s a handsome film, too, beautifully photographed by Wally Pfister in a chocolate-and-cinnamon sepia palette flashed with electric blue. But ‘The Prestige’ languishes in a structural Catch-22 of its own making. Explicitly modelled on the pattern of a magic trick, it’s also bound to the rules of the mystery thriller genre; yet the one relies on lingering uncertainty, the other on full disclosure. And in devoting so much room to hollow romantic subplots, the film ends up breaking two of the magician’s cardinal rules: not only does it tell you how it’s all done, it takes so long about it that you’ve got time to look up its sleeves and work it out for yourself.
Nolan’s first period picture, ‘The Prestige’ shares the fractured chronology common to his earlier work. Based in turn-of-the-last-century London, the plot centres on two ambitious young illusionists: flashy, easygoing Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman, abetted, as in ‘Batman Begins’, by Michael Caine) and the more original but less extrovert Alfred Borden (Christian Bale). Fellow apprentices turned bitter rivals after a grisly onstage accident, their escalating feud is a game of cat and mouse played out in a hall of mirrors, set in cramped prison cells and Colorado expanses as well as theatres, as they compete to deliver the most spectacular version of a teleportation trick that calls for something like real magic.
Jackman and Bale make impressive tango partners, neither wholly sympathetic nor villainous, each drawing out the synergy between his character’s personality and his onstage style. It’s a handsome film, too, beautifully photographed by Wally Pfister in a chocolate-and-cinnamon sepia palette flashed with electric blue. But ‘The Prestige’ languishes in a structural Catch-22 of its own making. Explicitly modelled on the pattern of a magic trick, it’s also bound to the rules of the mystery thriller genre; yet the one relies on lingering uncertainty, the other on full disclosure. And in devoting so much room to hollow romantic subplots, the film ends up breaking two of the magician’s cardinal rules: not only does it tell you how it’s all done, it takes so long about it that you’ve got time to look up its sleeves and work it out for yourself.
54. The Great Dictator
Chaplin acts the roles of Hitler (alias Adenoid Hynkel) and a Jewish barber who returns as an amnesiac, decades after an accident in World War I, totally unaware of the rise of Nazism and the persecution of his people. The representation of Hitler is vaudeville goonery all the way, but minus the acid wit and inventive energy that Groucho Marx managed in his impersonation of authoritarianism gone berserk in Duck Soup. Mr Nobody is eventually carted away to a concentration camp, which leads to a reversal of roles when the barber escapes and is mistaken for Hynkel on the eve of the invasion of Austria. Cue for an impassioned speech about freedom and democracy calculated to jerk tears out of the surliest fascist, in a manner startlingly similar to Hitler's very own delivery.
Chaplin acts the roles of Hitler (alias Adenoid Hynkel) and a Jewish barber who returns as an amnesiac, decades after an accident in World War I, totally unaware of the rise of Nazism and the persecution of his people. The representation of Hitler is vaudeville goonery all the way, but minus the acid wit and inventive energy that Groucho Marx managed in his impersonation of authoritarianism gone berserk in Duck Soup. Mr Nobody is eventually carted away to a concentration camp, which leads to a reversal of roles when the barber escapes and is mistaken for Hynkel on the eve of the invasion of Austria. Cue for an impassioned speech about freedom and democracy calculated to jerk tears out of the surliest fascist, in a manner startlingly similar to Hitler's very own delivery.
55. The Shining
All of Stanley Kubrick’s films – be it ‘The Killing’ or ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ – demand to be seen on a big screen. They’re about people trapped in huge, indifferent machines gone wrong, from a heist plot to a spaceship, and only the huge indifference of the cinema does them justice. In ‘The Shining’, the machine is a haunted house: the Overlook Hotel, created by Stephen King and turned by Kubrick into an awry environment in which mental stability, supernatural malignance and the sense of space and time shimmer and warp to terrible effect.
The story sees Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) drag his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and psychic son Danny (Danny Lloyd) up a mountain to be the hotel’s winter caretaker. Things go badly. This is the original 1980 US version, 24 minutes longer than the one familiar to UK audiences. On the upside, it fleshes out the family’s city life and includes an intriguing TV-watching motif; on the downside, there are some daft scare shots and it didn’t ever exactly feel short at two hours. Still, a masterpiece.
All of Stanley Kubrick’s films – be it ‘The Killing’ or ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ – demand to be seen on a big screen. They’re about people trapped in huge, indifferent machines gone wrong, from a heist plot to a spaceship, and only the huge indifference of the cinema does them justice. In ‘The Shining’, the machine is a haunted house: the Overlook Hotel, created by Stephen King and turned by Kubrick into an awry environment in which mental stability, supernatural malignance and the sense of space and time shimmer and warp to terrible effect.
The story sees Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) drag his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and psychic son Danny (Danny Lloyd) up a mountain to be the hotel’s winter caretaker. Things go badly. This is the original 1980 US version, 24 minutes longer than the one familiar to UK audiences. On the upside, it fleshes out the family’s city life and includes an intriguing TV-watching motif; on the downside, there are some daft scare shots and it didn’t ever exactly feel short at two hours. Still, a masterpiece.
56. Cinema Paradiso
Prepare to feel old: Giuseppe Tornatore’s wistful, honey-glazed ode to nascent cinephile pleasures, already something of a nostalgia piece when it first hit our screens in 1989, is 25 years old. Now, to prepare to feel young again: returning to cinemas in spiffily remastered form ahead of a new Blu-ray release, the film retains its wide-eyed charm, pitched halfway between unrestrained romanticism and unknowing kitsch. It’s never exactly been fashionable to like ‘Cinema Paradiso’, and time won’t have done much to soften the sneers of dissenters. But the advantage of brazen sentimentality is that it gives the film very little to lose.
Sure enough, this viewer’s tear ducts started prickling as early as the first scene, when renowned Italian auteur Salvatore (Jacques Perrin) learns that a certain Alfredo has died, and we mistily flash back to his post-WWII childhood in Sicily. Of course, Alfredo (the wonderful Philippe Noiret) is the village cinema projectionist. Six-year-old Salvatore (button-cute Salvatore Cascio) is the movie-mad poppet he takes under his wing. Mischief and melodrama ensue, but it’s the film’s ‘you can’t go home again’ message that now hits hardest amid the sweetness.
Prepare to feel old: Giuseppe Tornatore’s wistful, honey-glazed ode to nascent cinephile pleasures, already something of a nostalgia piece when it first hit our screens in 1989, is 25 years old. Now, to prepare to feel young again: returning to cinemas in spiffily remastered form ahead of a new Blu-ray release, the film retains its wide-eyed charm, pitched halfway between unrestrained romanticism and unknowing kitsch. It’s never exactly been fashionable to like ‘Cinema Paradiso’, and time won’t have done much to soften the sneers of dissenters. But the advantage of brazen sentimentality is that it gives the film very little to lose.
Sure enough, this viewer’s tear ducts started prickling as early as the first scene, when renowned Italian auteur Salvatore (Jacques Perrin) learns that a certain Alfredo has died, and we mistily flash back to his post-WWII childhood in Sicily. Of course, Alfredo (the wonderful Philippe Noiret) is the village cinema projectionist. Six-year-old Salvatore (button-cute Salvatore Cascio) is the movie-mad poppet he takes under his wing. Mischief and melodrama ensue, but it’s the film’s ‘you can’t go home again’ message that now hits hardest amid the sweetness.
57. The Lion King
The posters have been plastered around the London Underground for 12 years – long enough for this show to rack up 5,000 performances – but nothing prepares you for the sheer impact of 'The Lion King's opening sequence.
With the surge of 'Circle Of Life' reverberating through your chest, Julie Taymor's animal creations march on, species by species. Gazelles spring, birds swoop and an elephant and her child lumber through the stalls. It's a cacophonous cavalcade that genuinely stops you breathing. You'd think Noah's Ark had emptied onto the stage.
For a global blockbuster, 'The Lion King's absolute theatricality is astonishing. Techniques from all over the world – African masks, Japanese Kabuki costumes, Malaysian shadow puppetry – are smashed together in an explosion of spectacle. It's perfect for a musical, allowing both distinct flavours and an eclectic carnival spirit.
Admittedly, things deflate when it sacrifices this defiant originality for subservient approximation of the film. Timon and Pumba (Damian Baldet and Keith Bookman), though impressively like their screen counterparts, step into the savannah from a different dimension.
The hyena-infested elephant's graveyard swaps menace for goofiness and the famous stampede scene, so delicately handled and moving in the film, is merely ticked off with a sigh of relief.
The familiarity of the film is a root cause of the show's commercial success. But, ironically, 'The Lion King' can't afford such compromises. Its plot is thin enough to turn your brain to mulch and the score, which sits Elton John and Tim Rice's pop anthems with Lebo M's African-inspired additions, remains disjointed. Amongst the current cast, Andile Gumbi's Simba is too limply wholesome, but George Asprey and Shaun Escoffery are aptly majestic as Scar and Mufasa.
Nonetheless Taymor's theatrical fireworks, backed up by Donald Holder's oft-unsung, emotive lighting, are more than draw enough. 'The Lion King' is a show that demands to be seen.
The posters have been plastered around the London Underground for 12 years – long enough for this show to rack up 5,000 performances – but nothing prepares you for the sheer impact of 'The Lion King's opening sequence.
With the surge of 'Circle Of Life' reverberating through your chest, Julie Taymor's animal creations march on, species by species. Gazelles spring, birds swoop and an elephant and her child lumber through the stalls. It's a cacophonous cavalcade that genuinely stops you breathing. You'd think Noah's Ark had emptied onto the stage.
For a global blockbuster, 'The Lion King's absolute theatricality is astonishing. Techniques from all over the world – African masks, Japanese Kabuki costumes, Malaysian shadow puppetry – are smashed together in an explosion of spectacle. It's perfect for a musical, allowing both distinct flavours and an eclectic carnival spirit.
Admittedly, things deflate when it sacrifices this defiant originality for subservient approximation of the film. Timon and Pumba (Damian Baldet and Keith Bookman), though impressively like their screen counterparts, step into the savannah from a different dimension.
The hyena-infested elephant's graveyard swaps menace for goofiness and the famous stampede scene, so delicately handled and moving in the film, is merely ticked off with a sigh of relief.
The familiarity of the film is a root cause of the show's commercial success. But, ironically, 'The Lion King' can't afford such compromises. Its plot is thin enough to turn your brain to mulch and the score, which sits Elton John and Tim Rice's pop anthems with Lebo M's African-inspired additions, remains disjointed. Amongst the current cast, Andile Gumbi's Simba is too limply wholesome, but George Asprey and Shaun Escoffery are aptly majestic as Scar and Mufasa.
Nonetheless Taymor's theatrical fireworks, backed up by Donald Holder's oft-unsung, emotive lighting, are more than draw enough. 'The Lion King' is a show that demands to be seen.
58. Paths of Glory
Those who try to write Stanley Kubrick off as a dispassionate, style-over-substance filmmaker are urged to revisit his 1957 war film, ‘Paths of Glory’. This is the director’s most vivid, most emotional and humane film, and perhaps his best. Based on a real First World War incident, the film explores the morality of conflict as French Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) is asked to defend three fellow soldiers accused of cowardice and derelicton of duty. So furiously anti-military that it was withdrawn from circulation in France (though not banned, as many believe), it’s one of the great films about authority, rebellion and men under extreme pressure. But it’s also a visual masterpiece, one of the gleaming greats from the last days of monochrome, and features one of cinema’s great tracking shots as Douglas and his platoon go over the top. The final scene in a crowded bar – featuring the spectral singing voice of Christiane Harlan, soon to become Mrs Kubrick – is one of the most riveting, complex and heartbeaking in cinema.
Those who try to write Stanley Kubrick off as a dispassionate, style-over-substance filmmaker are urged to revisit his 1957 war film, ‘Paths of Glory’. This is the director’s most vivid, most emotional and humane film, and perhaps his best. Based on a real First World War incident, the film explores the morality of conflict as French Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) is asked to defend three fellow soldiers accused of cowardice and derelicton of duty. So furiously anti-military that it was withdrawn from circulation in France (though not banned, as many believe), it’s one of the great films about authority, rebellion and men under extreme pressure. But it’s also a visual masterpiece, one of the gleaming greats from the last days of monochrome, and features one of cinema’s great tracking shots as Douglas and his platoon go over the top. The final scene in a crowded bar – featuring the spectral singing voice of Christiane Harlan, soon to become Mrs Kubrick – is one of the most riveting, complex and heartbeaking in cinema.
59. American Beauty
After 14 years working in the same office, Lester Burnham (Spacey) is about to get canned. After two decades married to the same woman, he can't stand her any more. Carolyn (Bening) is no more fond of him. And as for their daughter, Jane (Birch), she's just dying from the embarrassment of it all. And so the worm turns. Quitting his job, he takes stock of what he's lost, and he begins to bench press, smoke pot and have fun flirting with Jane's best friend, Angela. It might be madness, but at least he can look himself in the mirror without cringing. The best reviewed movie of 1999 (and winner of five Oscars) is a polished and acerbic social satire with 'countercultural' tendencies. What does Lester do but 'turn on, tune in, and drop out'? Admittedly, he's not necessarily heroic; in fact, the real hero of the piece is his neighbour's teenager, Ricky (Bentley), and the real villain is Ricky's father (Cooper). Having established a recognisably droll, sardonic voice in Spacey's narration,Alan Ball's screenplay tempers biting wit with unexpected compassion for even the most obnoxious characters. Director Mendes guides an artful path between desire and self-disgust, playing youth against experience, male against female. It's a shade too pat to be truly revelatory (and as a suspense film it's frankly unconvincing), but it repeatedly transcends its apparent limitations to insist, after Arthur Miller, 'attention must be paid'.
After 14 years working in the same office, Lester Burnham (Spacey) is about to get canned. After two decades married to the same woman, he can't stand her any more. Carolyn (Bening) is no more fond of him. And as for their daughter, Jane (Birch), she's just dying from the embarrassment of it all. And so the worm turns. Quitting his job, he takes stock of what he's lost, and he begins to bench press, smoke pot and have fun flirting with Jane's best friend, Angela. It might be madness, but at least he can look himself in the mirror without cringing. The best reviewed movie of 1999 (and winner of five Oscars) is a polished and acerbic social satire with 'countercultural' tendencies. What does Lester do but 'turn on, tune in, and drop out'? Admittedly, he's not necessarily heroic; in fact, the real hero of the piece is his neighbour's teenager, Ricky (Bentley), and the real villain is Ricky's father (Cooper). Having established a recognisably droll, sardonic voice in Spacey's narration,Alan Ball's screenplay tempers biting wit with unexpected compassion for even the most obnoxious characters. Director Mendes guides an artful path between desire and self-disgust, playing youth against experience, male against female. It's a shade too pat to be truly revelatory (and as a suspense film it's frankly unconvincing), but it repeatedly transcends its apparent limitations to insist, after Arthur Miller, 'attention must be paid'.
60. WALL-E
Humans land a raw deal when it comes to animations. We upright, two-legged creatures regularly have to give way to the superior intelligence or endless fascination of a deer or a dog or a penguin. It’s part of the bargain: we draw them, they make us look stupid.
And so it is with ‘Wall-E’, except this time we have only ourselves to blame. Pixar has drawn inspiration for this bold, bleak and often very beautiful film from the worst approximations of the future we’re shaping for our planet.
In Pixar’s previous film, ‘Ratatouille’, it was a sewer rat who brilliantly grabbed our attention and revolutionised French cuisine. For ‘Wall-E’, humans again take a back seat, and it’s a robot with a cube for a belly and binoculars for eyes who’s bleeping for our love. When we do, finally, encounter humans – living on a self-sufficient spaceship, waited on by robots, sucking on straws – they’re fat, sedentary, greedy and unpleasant.
Plus ça change: from Cruella de Vil to our fellow folk in ‘Happy Feet’, cartoons have always held a mirror up to our selfish instincts.This time it’s 2700, and we’ve polluted ourselves out of existence. The only humans left live a sterile, bloated life high above earth, where we decamp for the second, more frenetic and less inspired half of the film. But everything that comes before is magical. The only animate object left in the lifeless, rust-coloured, dusty landscape of urban desolation that we used to call earth is one tireless mechanical waste-collector called Wall-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class). He lives in a cluttered container and spends his days buzzing about, piling up junk to look like skyscrapers or Mayan temples and sucking up sun for his solar panels. His only company is a lonesome cockroach.
So that’s one robot, a cockroach and a vision of earth gone to pot. This is a cartoon that offers an uncompromising, imaginative, angry portrait of the future. It’s daring in its simplicity: for the first 40 minutes, we watch in wonder as Wall-E goes about his business in near silence; it’s the sharp intelligence of the detail, always so painstakingly rendered, that most amazes. At one point, Wall-E finds an abandoned diamond ring in a jewellery box. What does he do with it? He throws away the ring and plays with the hinges of the container. Of course he does: hinges should fascinate more than precious minerals. Shame on us for not realising that before.
By rights, Wall-E shouldn’t be cute in the Bambi or Dumbo sense of the word: he’s battered and fading and the only noises he makes are computerised drawls not dissimilar to ET’s limited lingo. But Wall-E is alluring, and not because he’s got big eyes or dangling eyelashes but because he’s smart, hard-working, with a romantic side, and is hopelessly addicted to watching clips of Michael Crawford and Barbra Streisand in Gene Kelly’s ‘Hello Dolly!’ on a video screen. He’s everything we should have been if we hadn’t put all our energy into destroying the planet.
But none of this is preachy or obvious.
Environmental destruction is only the breathtaking backdrop to the film and it’s more the minimalism of Wall-E’s existence that fascinates. By the time a sleeker, feminine robot called Eve – who looks like an iPod shaped into a pepper-pot – arrives, we’re craving her company in sympathy with our mechanised friend. Pixar has done it again. I wonder a little what kids will make of the long silence of the first half followed by the disorienting mania of the second, but there’s nothing here that’s not wonderfully imagined and lovingly presented.
Humans land a raw deal when it comes to animations. We upright, two-legged creatures regularly have to give way to the superior intelligence or endless fascination of a deer or a dog or a penguin. It’s part of the bargain: we draw them, they make us look stupid.
And so it is with ‘Wall-E’, except this time we have only ourselves to blame. Pixar has drawn inspiration for this bold, bleak and often very beautiful film from the worst approximations of the future we’re shaping for our planet.
In Pixar’s previous film, ‘Ratatouille’, it was a sewer rat who brilliantly grabbed our attention and revolutionised French cuisine. For ‘Wall-E’, humans again take a back seat, and it’s a robot with a cube for a belly and binoculars for eyes who’s bleeping for our love. When we do, finally, encounter humans – living on a self-sufficient spaceship, waited on by robots, sucking on straws – they’re fat, sedentary, greedy and unpleasant.
Plus ça change: from Cruella de Vil to our fellow folk in ‘Happy Feet’, cartoons have always held a mirror up to our selfish instincts.This time it’s 2700, and we’ve polluted ourselves out of existence. The only humans left live a sterile, bloated life high above earth, where we decamp for the second, more frenetic and less inspired half of the film. But everything that comes before is magical. The only animate object left in the lifeless, rust-coloured, dusty landscape of urban desolation that we used to call earth is one tireless mechanical waste-collector called Wall-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class). He lives in a cluttered container and spends his days buzzing about, piling up junk to look like skyscrapers or Mayan temples and sucking up sun for his solar panels. His only company is a lonesome cockroach.
So that’s one robot, a cockroach and a vision of earth gone to pot. This is a cartoon that offers an uncompromising, imaginative, angry portrait of the future. It’s daring in its simplicity: for the first 40 minutes, we watch in wonder as Wall-E goes about his business in near silence; it’s the sharp intelligence of the detail, always so painstakingly rendered, that most amazes. At one point, Wall-E finds an abandoned diamond ring in a jewellery box. What does he do with it? He throws away the ring and plays with the hinges of the container. Of course he does: hinges should fascinate more than precious minerals. Shame on us for not realising that before.
By rights, Wall-E shouldn’t be cute in the Bambi or Dumbo sense of the word: he’s battered and fading and the only noises he makes are computerised drawls not dissimilar to ET’s limited lingo. But Wall-E is alluring, and not because he’s got big eyes or dangling eyelashes but because he’s smart, hard-working, with a romantic side, and is hopelessly addicted to watching clips of Michael Crawford and Barbra Streisand in Gene Kelly’s ‘Hello Dolly!’ on a video screen. He’s everything we should have been if we hadn’t put all our energy into destroying the planet.
But none of this is preachy or obvious.
Environmental destruction is only the breathtaking backdrop to the film and it’s more the minimalism of Wall-E’s existence that fascinates. By the time a sleeker, feminine robot called Eve – who looks like an iPod shaped into a pepper-pot – arrives, we’re craving her company in sympathy with our mechanised friend. Pixar has done it again. I wonder a little what kids will make of the long silence of the first half followed by the disorienting mania of the second, but there’s nothing here that’s not wonderfully imagined and lovingly presented.
61. North by Northwest
Fifty years on, you could say that Hitchcock’s sleek, wry, paranoid thriller caught the zeitgeist perfectly: Cold War shadiness, secret agents of power, urbane modernism, the ant-like bustle of city life, and a hint of dread behind the sharp suits of affluence. Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill, the film’s sharply dressed ad exec who is sucked into a vortex of mistaken identity, certainly wouldn’t be out of place in ‘Mad Men’. But there’s nothing dated about this perfect storm of talent, from Hitchcock and Grant to writer Ernest Lehman (‘Sweet Smell of Success’), co-starsJames Mason and Eva Marie Saint, composer Bernard Herrmann and even designer Saul Bass, whose opening-credits sequence still manages to send a shiver down the spine.
Hitchcock breezes through a tongue-in-cheek, nightmarish plot with a lightness of touch that’s equalled by a charming performance from Grant (below), who copes effortlessly with the script’s dash between claustrophobia and intrigue on one hand and romance and comedy on the other. The story is a pass-the-parcel of escalating threats, all of them interior fears turned inside-out: doubting mothers, untrustworthy lovers, vague government handlers, corrupt cops. Within minutes of the film’s opening, shady strangers in a hotel lobby mistake Thornhill for a ‘George Caplin’ and from there we sprint from country house to the United Nations, from the ticket hall of Grand Central Station to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Thornhill’s ignorance of his fate and complete lack of control offer Hitchcock a brilliant blank canvas on which to experiment with a story that would sound ludicrous on paper, yet it feels like anything’s possible in Lehman’s playful script. ‘I’m an advertising man, not a red herring,’ says Thornhill. He couldn’t be more mistaken.
Fifty years on, you could say that Hitchcock’s sleek, wry, paranoid thriller caught the zeitgeist perfectly: Cold War shadiness, secret agents of power, urbane modernism, the ant-like bustle of city life, and a hint of dread behind the sharp suits of affluence. Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill, the film’s sharply dressed ad exec who is sucked into a vortex of mistaken identity, certainly wouldn’t be out of place in ‘Mad Men’. But there’s nothing dated about this perfect storm of talent, from Hitchcock and Grant to writer Ernest Lehman (‘Sweet Smell of Success’), co-starsJames Mason and Eva Marie Saint, composer Bernard Herrmann and even designer Saul Bass, whose opening-credits sequence still manages to send a shiver down the spine.
Hitchcock breezes through a tongue-in-cheek, nightmarish plot with a lightness of touch that’s equalled by a charming performance from Grant (below), who copes effortlessly with the script’s dash between claustrophobia and intrigue on one hand and romance and comedy on the other. The story is a pass-the-parcel of escalating threats, all of them interior fears turned inside-out: doubting mothers, untrustworthy lovers, vague government handlers, corrupt cops. Within minutes of the film’s opening, shady strangers in a hotel lobby mistake Thornhill for a ‘George Caplin’ and from there we sprint from country house to the United Nations, from the ticket hall of Grand Central Station to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Thornhill’s ignorance of his fate and complete lack of control offer Hitchcock a brilliant blank canvas on which to experiment with a story that would sound ludicrous on paper, yet it feels like anything’s possible in Lehman’s playful script. ‘I’m an advertising man, not a red herring,’ says Thornhill. He couldn’t be more mistaken.
62. Amélie
Arguably the quintessential subtitled film for people who don’t like subtitled films (it’d be a dust-up between this and ‘Cinema Paradiso’),Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s rose-tinted Parisian romance is wheeled out once more to celebrate its tenth anniversary. Likely to be the role for which actress Audrey Tautou will be remembered until her dying day, the film is all the more interesting for remaining an eccentric one-of-a-kind that feels every bit the product of its writer-director’s unique sensibility and worldview. Revisiting it now, it still has the same strengths and weaknesses: the experience of watching is still like being swept along on a tidal wave of cheeky jokes and oddball observations, yet it still feels overlong and at times a little saccharine.
Arguably the quintessential subtitled film for people who don’t like subtitled films (it’d be a dust-up between this and ‘Cinema Paradiso’),Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s rose-tinted Parisian romance is wheeled out once more to celebrate its tenth anniversary. Likely to be the role for which actress Audrey Tautou will be remembered until her dying day, the film is all the more interesting for remaining an eccentric one-of-a-kind that feels every bit the product of its writer-director’s unique sensibility and worldview. Revisiting it now, it still has the same strengths and weaknesses: the experience of watching is still like being swept along on a tidal wave of cheeky jokes and oddball observations, yet it still feels overlong and at times a little saccharine.
63. Citizen Kane
The source book of Orson Welles, and still a marvellous movie. Thematically less resonant than some of Welles' later meditations on the nature of power, perhaps, but still absolutely riveting as an investigation of a citizen - newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst by any other name - under suspicion of having soured the American Dream. Its imagery (not forgetting the oppressive ceilings) as Welles delightedly explores his mastery of a new vocabulary, still amazes and delights, from the opening shot of the forbidding gates of Xanadu to the last glimpse of the vanishing Rosebud (tarnished, maybe, but still a potent symbol). A film that gets better with each renewed acquaintance.
The source book of Orson Welles, and still a marvellous movie. Thematically less resonant than some of Welles' later meditations on the nature of power, perhaps, but still absolutely riveting as an investigation of a citizen - newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst by any other name - under suspicion of having soured the American Dream. Its imagery (not forgetting the oppressive ceilings) as Welles delightedly explores his mastery of a new vocabulary, still amazes and delights, from the opening shot of the forbidding gates of Xanadu to the last glimpse of the vanishing Rosebud (tarnished, maybe, but still a potent symbol). A film that gets better with each renewed acquaintance.
64. Aliens
Fifty-seven years on, Ripley is discovered - Sleeping Beauty in space. Plagued by nightmares and surrounded by sceptics, she's forced to return to the resting place of the original alien's mother ship with a bunch of seen-it-all-before Marines. Confidently directed by James Cameron(heretofore known only for The Terminator and Piranha II), this sequel dares to build slowly, allowing Weaver to develop a multi-dimensional character even as it ups the ante by fetishising the Marines' hi-tech hardware and spawning legions of aliens (the suspense involves guessing which group will be cannon fodder). There is always an interesting tension in Cameron's work between masculine and feminine qualities. When it finally hits the fan here, we're in for the mother of all battles.
Fifty-seven years on, Ripley is discovered - Sleeping Beauty in space. Plagued by nightmares and surrounded by sceptics, she's forced to return to the resting place of the original alien's mother ship with a bunch of seen-it-all-before Marines. Confidently directed by James Cameron(heretofore known only for The Terminator and Piranha II), this sequel dares to build slowly, allowing Weaver to develop a multi-dimensional character even as it ups the ante by fetishising the Marines' hi-tech hardware and spawning legions of aliens (the suspense involves guessing which group will be cannon fodder). There is always an interesting tension in Cameron's work between masculine and feminine qualities. When it finally hits the fan here, we're in for the mother of all battles.
65. Toy Story 3
The ‘Toy Story’ films are deservedly seen as the gold standard for computer-generated animation, putting their gorgeously detailed digital craftsmanship at the service of a pleasingly simple fantasy set-up, warm, complex characterisation and classically elegant storytelling. But, like the best children’s stories, they’re also about something seriously scary: the separation anxiety with which all kids (and plenty of adults) are familiar and the spectre of its extreme extrapolation, total abandonment. It doesn’t take a sociologist to work out why such themes might strike a chord at a time when family life is so fragile for so many; the ‘Toy Story’ cycle broaches the subject with an emotional honesty that allows young viewers to exercise those anxieties in safety – even if it stops short of the kind of traumatic wallop associated with, say, Bambi’s mum.
This third outing finds the gang – Woody the cowboy (voiced by Tom Hanks), space ranger Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack), timid dinosaur Rex (Wallace Shawn) and various other dog, pig and potato-based playthings – facing the reality of their long-indifferent owner leaving for college. The toys fear indefinite leave in the attic or – worse – the trash; the middle ground is relocation to Sunnyside, a day-care centre where, perhaps, they can serve new owners. All seems well on their arrival – sweet kids, welcoming new toys – but jeopardy is, of course, around the corner.
The film is in 3D but, hang-gliding escapades notwithstanding, in-your-face effects take a back seat to more subtle applications, such as environmental immersion, mock-heroic playfulness and suspenseful contrasts of scale. That said, the opening adventure sequence is an assured stereo set piece and the short preceding the main feature, ‘Day & Night’, a high-concept gem.
There are several elements in ‘Toy Story 3’ that echo its predecessors: the outside-world escape plot, the reversion of Buzz to factory-setting-level naivety, the trustworthiness of new pals. But there are also many witty novelties, from a when-Barbie-met-Ken subplot to a 2D makeover for Mr Potato Head and gags about toys as Method actors. This is also a film willing to flirt with darker matter, including mortal jeopardy at a landfill, freaky clown, monkey and baby toys and a flashback in which a toy feels abandoned. Emotional responsibility is mutable in the toy-owner dynamic: at some points the toy feels like the owner’s vulnerable child, at others like its diligent parent. Either role, these reassuring movies recognise at their darkest moments, can yield the kind of despair that prompts one character to growl: ‘We’re all just trash waiting to be thrown away.’
The ‘Toy Story’ films are deservedly seen as the gold standard for computer-generated animation, putting their gorgeously detailed digital craftsmanship at the service of a pleasingly simple fantasy set-up, warm, complex characterisation and classically elegant storytelling. But, like the best children’s stories, they’re also about something seriously scary: the separation anxiety with which all kids (and plenty of adults) are familiar and the spectre of its extreme extrapolation, total abandonment. It doesn’t take a sociologist to work out why such themes might strike a chord at a time when family life is so fragile for so many; the ‘Toy Story’ cycle broaches the subject with an emotional honesty that allows young viewers to exercise those anxieties in safety – even if it stops short of the kind of traumatic wallop associated with, say, Bambi’s mum.
This third outing finds the gang – Woody the cowboy (voiced by Tom Hanks), space ranger Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack), timid dinosaur Rex (Wallace Shawn) and various other dog, pig and potato-based playthings – facing the reality of their long-indifferent owner leaving for college. The toys fear indefinite leave in the attic or – worse – the trash; the middle ground is relocation to Sunnyside, a day-care centre where, perhaps, they can serve new owners. All seems well on their arrival – sweet kids, welcoming new toys – but jeopardy is, of course, around the corner.
The film is in 3D but, hang-gliding escapades notwithstanding, in-your-face effects take a back seat to more subtle applications, such as environmental immersion, mock-heroic playfulness and suspenseful contrasts of scale. That said, the opening adventure sequence is an assured stereo set piece and the short preceding the main feature, ‘Day & Night’, a high-concept gem.
There are several elements in ‘Toy Story 3’ that echo its predecessors: the outside-world escape plot, the reversion of Buzz to factory-setting-level naivety, the trustworthiness of new pals. But there are also many witty novelties, from a when-Barbie-met-Ken subplot to a 2D makeover for Mr Potato Head and gags about toys as Method actors. This is also a film willing to flirt with darker matter, including mortal jeopardy at a landfill, freaky clown, monkey and baby toys and a flashback in which a toy feels abandoned. Emotional responsibility is mutable in the toy-owner dynamic: at some points the toy feels like the owner’s vulnerable child, at others like its diligent parent. Either role, these reassuring movies recognise at their darkest moments, can yield the kind of despair that prompts one character to growl: ‘We’re all just trash waiting to be thrown away.’
66. Vertigo
Brilliant but despicably cynical view of human obsession and the tendency of those in love to try to manipulate each other. Stewart is excellent as the neurotic detective employed by an old pal to trail his wandering wife, only to fall for her himself and then crack up when she commits suicide. Then one day he sees a woman in the street who reminds him of the woman who haunts him... Hitchcock gives the game away about halfway through the movie, and focuses on Stewart's strained psychological stability; the result inevitably involves a lessening of suspense, but allows for an altogether deeper investigation of guilt, exploitation, and obsession. The bleakness is perhaps a little hard to swallow, but there's no denying that this is the director at the very peak of his powers, while Novak is a revelation. Slow but totally compelling.
Brilliant but despicably cynical view of human obsession and the tendency of those in love to try to manipulate each other. Stewart is excellent as the neurotic detective employed by an old pal to trail his wandering wife, only to fall for her himself and then crack up when she commits suicide. Then one day he sees a woman in the street who reminds him of the woman who haunts him... Hitchcock gives the game away about halfway through the movie, and focuses on Stewart's strained psychological stability; the result inevitably involves a lessening of suspense, but allows for an altogether deeper investigation of guilt, exploitation, and obsession. The bleakness is perhaps a little hard to swallow, but there's no denying that this is the director at the very peak of his powers, while Novak is a revelation. Slow but totally compelling.
67. M
Lang's first sound film was based on the real-life manhunt for the Düsseldorf child-murderer (an extraordinary performance by Peter Lorre). A radical, analytical film that entertains many of Lang's fascinations: innovative use of sound; the detail of police procedure; the parallels drawn between organised police behaviour and the underworld... a construction which carries Lang's own view of the arbitrariness of the Law. A subversive film, or more simply a movie brimming over with the ferment of Lang's imagination at its height? You choose.
Lang's first sound film was based on the real-life manhunt for the Düsseldorf child-murderer (an extraordinary performance by Peter Lorre). A radical, analytical film that entertains many of Lang's fascinations: innovative use of sound; the detail of police procedure; the parallels drawn between organised police behaviour and the underworld... a construction which carries Lang's own view of the arbitrariness of the Law. A subversive film, or more simply a movie brimming over with the ferment of Lang's imagination at its height? You choose.
68. Das Boot ( The Boat )
This belongs to that least enticing of genres, the submarine movie. Yet, despite a narrative almost wholly confined to the cramped interior of a U-boat patrolling the Atlantic, it isn't hard to understand why Germany's most expensive film ever became an international hit. Apart from the fact that, like Chariots of Fire, it exploits a contemporary soft spot for nostalgic, non-sectarian patriotism, Petersen's shooting style displays a breathtaking, if impersonal and faintly academic, virtuosity comparable to that of Lean or Coppola. As the brilliantly deployed Steadicam whizzes through the sweaty clutter of the vessel's living quarters, the film's unfailing (and paradoxical) sense of spectacle is rendered even more dynamic by appearing about to burst at the seams of its own claustrophobia. A pity, then, that its ironies on the futility of warfare prove trite beyond belief.
This belongs to that least enticing of genres, the submarine movie. Yet, despite a narrative almost wholly confined to the cramped interior of a U-boat patrolling the Atlantic, it isn't hard to understand why Germany's most expensive film ever became an international hit. Apart from the fact that, like Chariots of Fire, it exploits a contemporary soft spot for nostalgic, non-sectarian patriotism, Petersen's shooting style displays a breathtaking, if impersonal and faintly academic, virtuosity comparable to that of Lean or Coppola. As the brilliantly deployed Steadicam whizzes through the sweaty clutter of the vessel's living quarters, the film's unfailing (and paradoxical) sense of spectacle is rendered even more dynamic by appearing about to burst at the seams of its own claustrophobia. A pity, then, that its ironies on the futility of warfare prove trite beyond belief.
69. Taxi Driver
Martin Scorsese’s marvellous and enduring ‘Taxi Driver’ is enjoying a thirty-fifth-anniversary re-release in the same week as its star, Robert De Niro, assumes the role of jury president at Cannes – where the film won the Palme d’Or in 1976.
Right from the opening credits, as we spy a cab emerging from steam and the eyes of Travis Bickle (De Niro) reflected in his rear-view mirror, we know we’re in someone’s personal hell. Bickle, as written by Paul Schrader, is a nasty but also oddly charming time-bomb of alienation and loneliness. One minute, we give him the time of day; the next, we recoil at his violence. Later on, we might think he’s dangerous, especially around women like Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), and yet we watch him in a café with teen prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster) and he seems less vile than the gangsters and pushers of her world. Bickle is complex, intriguing and never one-note. New York is the film’s other antihero, and mostly we see the city through the filter of Bickle’s paranoia. Don’t miss Scorsese’s own cameo as a nervy wreck in the back of his cab.
Martin Scorsese’s marvellous and enduring ‘Taxi Driver’ is enjoying a thirty-fifth-anniversary re-release in the same week as its star, Robert De Niro, assumes the role of jury president at Cannes – where the film won the Palme d’Or in 1976.
Right from the opening credits, as we spy a cab emerging from steam and the eyes of Travis Bickle (De Niro) reflected in his rear-view mirror, we know we’re in someone’s personal hell. Bickle, as written by Paul Schrader, is a nasty but also oddly charming time-bomb of alienation and loneliness. One minute, we give him the time of day; the next, we recoil at his violence. Later on, we might think he’s dangerous, especially around women like Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), and yet we watch him in a café with teen prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster) and he seems less vile than the gangsters and pushers of her world. Bickle is complex, intriguing and never one-note. New York is the film’s other antihero, and mostly we see the city through the filter of Bickle’s paranoia. Don’t miss Scorsese’s own cameo as a nervy wreck in the back of his cab.
70. Clockwork Orange
Kubrick's film exploited the current debate on the validity of aversion therapy in the context of a working lad's freedom to choose violence as his form of self-expression. A sexless, inhuman film, whose power derives from a ruthless subordination of its content to the demands of telling a good story. A glossy, action-packed ritual which is fun to watch but superficial to think about.
Kubrick's film exploited the current debate on the validity of aversion therapy in the context of a working lad's freedom to choose violence as his form of self-expression. A sexless, inhuman film, whose power derives from a ruthless subordination of its content to the demands of telling a good story. A glossy, action-packed ritual which is fun to watch but superficial to think about.
71. Oldboy
It’s easy to feel blasé about the steady stream of action-oriented movies from the Far East, but this head-spinner from the director of the crunching ‘Sympathy for Mr Vengeance’ is far, far too good to leave to the ‘Asia Extreme’ crowd.
When we first meet businessman Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-Sik), he’s a drunken boor, though he’d doubtless sober up if he knew what was coming. Abducted by persons unknown, he’s held prisoner for 15 years, until he’s just as unexpectedly released. Still none the wiser, he falls into a relationship with a sushi-bar hostess, whereupon his captor contacts him by mobile and offers a deal: if he can work out why he was kidnapped in the first place, the villain will offer up his life – if not, the girl cops it.
For Oh Dae-Su, getting mad and getting even amount to virtually the same thing. The sequence where he rearranges some low-life’s dental work will doubtless attract over-excited attention, much like the jaw-dropping one-take hammer-wielding skirmish in a corridor. But the upfront mayhem shouldn’t be allowed to distract from the film’s emotional depth or indeed its brilliant lead performance. For the protagonist, vengeance is a voyage of discovery, yet his newfound propensity towards violence troubles him, and his burning desire to confront his secretive nemesis may be fuelled by lingering self-doubt that he deserved his fate. Whatever happens, he’ll never be the same man again.
Choi Min-Sik is in the Pacino or De Niro class, running the gamut from terrifying rage to abject degradation. The implausibilities in the plot melt away because we’re living the experience with him, thanks also in part to the bravura expressiveness of Park’s direction. Hitchcock and Fincher are reference points, but this combines visceral punch, a tortured humanity and even an underlying Korean political resonance given the weight of the past. Quite an achievement then, and well worthy of its Cannes prize.
It’s easy to feel blasé about the steady stream of action-oriented movies from the Far East, but this head-spinner from the director of the crunching ‘Sympathy for Mr Vengeance’ is far, far too good to leave to the ‘Asia Extreme’ crowd.
When we first meet businessman Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-Sik), he’s a drunken boor, though he’d doubtless sober up if he knew what was coming. Abducted by persons unknown, he’s held prisoner for 15 years, until he’s just as unexpectedly released. Still none the wiser, he falls into a relationship with a sushi-bar hostess, whereupon his captor contacts him by mobile and offers a deal: if he can work out why he was kidnapped in the first place, the villain will offer up his life – if not, the girl cops it.
For Oh Dae-Su, getting mad and getting even amount to virtually the same thing. The sequence where he rearranges some low-life’s dental work will doubtless attract over-excited attention, much like the jaw-dropping one-take hammer-wielding skirmish in a corridor. But the upfront mayhem shouldn’t be allowed to distract from the film’s emotional depth or indeed its brilliant lead performance. For the protagonist, vengeance is a voyage of discovery, yet his newfound propensity towards violence troubles him, and his burning desire to confront his secretive nemesis may be fuelled by lingering self-doubt that he deserved his fate. Whatever happens, he’ll never be the same man again.
Choi Min-Sik is in the Pacino or De Niro class, running the gamut from terrifying rage to abject degradation. The implausibilities in the plot melt away because we’re living the experience with him, thanks also in part to the bravura expressiveness of Park’s direction. Hitchcock and Fincher are reference points, but this combines visceral punch, a tortured humanity and even an underlying Korean political resonance given the weight of the past. Quite an achievement then, and well worthy of its Cannes prize.
72. Double Indemnity
Six years before a Hollywood screenwriter’s corpse narrated ‘Sunset Blvd’, a dead-man-walking delivered the hard-boiled voiceover in another Billy Wilder inquiry into moral rot in sunny California. Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), a salesman for Pacific All-Risk Insurance, staggers into the office late one night to record a memorandum regarding the recent death of a policyholder: ‘I killed Dietrichson… for money, and a woman. I didn’t get the money, and I didn’t get the woman.’
There’s nothing but a towel and a staircase between Neff and the woman when they first meet; Neff pays a house call on Dietrichson’s Spanish-revival pile in LA, where old dust levitates in the bands of light through the Venetian blinds, and he encounters the oil executive’s bored, platinum-blonde second wife, Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck). She’d like to know if she can secretly procure a life insurance policy for her spouse; Neff knows she’s conscripting him for her husband-disposal unit, and he knows that claims manager Barton Keyes (Edward G Robinson) will smell a putrefying rat, but they’ve got power-surge chemistry, and that’s a honey of an anklet she’s wearing…
As poised and languorous as a cat, Stanwyck’s definitive femme fatale could be one of the savvy minxes of the actress’ delectable Pre-Code years – the jailhouse alpha female in ‘Ladies They Talk About’, the secretary trampolining up the office ranks one bed at a time in ‘Baby Face’ – grown older and harder, her manicured ruthlessness calcifying into brutal amorality. With diamond-hard repartee by Wilder andRaymond Chandler (by way of James M Cain’s novel) and ghoulish cinematography by the great John Seitz, this is the gold standard of ’40s noir, straight down the line.
Six years before a Hollywood screenwriter’s corpse narrated ‘Sunset Blvd’, a dead-man-walking delivered the hard-boiled voiceover in another Billy Wilder inquiry into moral rot in sunny California. Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), a salesman for Pacific All-Risk Insurance, staggers into the office late one night to record a memorandum regarding the recent death of a policyholder: ‘I killed Dietrichson… for money, and a woman. I didn’t get the money, and I didn’t get the woman.’
There’s nothing but a towel and a staircase between Neff and the woman when they first meet; Neff pays a house call on Dietrichson’s Spanish-revival pile in LA, where old dust levitates in the bands of light through the Venetian blinds, and he encounters the oil executive’s bored, platinum-blonde second wife, Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck). She’d like to know if she can secretly procure a life insurance policy for her spouse; Neff knows she’s conscripting him for her husband-disposal unit, and he knows that claims manager Barton Keyes (Edward G Robinson) will smell a putrefying rat, but they’ve got power-surge chemistry, and that’s a honey of an anklet she’s wearing…
As poised and languorous as a cat, Stanwyck’s definitive femme fatale could be one of the savvy minxes of the actress’ delectable Pre-Code years – the jailhouse alpha female in ‘Ladies They Talk About’, the secretary trampolining up the office ranks one bed at a time in ‘Baby Face’ – grown older and harder, her manicured ruthlessness calcifying into brutal amorality. With diamond-hard repartee by Wilder andRaymond Chandler (by way of James M Cain’s novel) and ghoulish cinematography by the great John Seitz, this is the gold standard of ’40s noir, straight down the line.
73. Princess Mononoke
Miyazaki was already a culture hero in Japan when this animated mythic adventure raised him to a status approaching living national treasure. The young warrior Ashitaka is infected by poison while saving his village from a demonic giant boar; he rides his elk to the west (where the boar came from) in the hope of finding a cure. He stumbles into a three-way battle between a woman chieftain in a fortified encampment (built to protect the secret of smelting iron from ore), a clan of samurai eager to take control of the iron - and the creatures (chiefly wolves and boars) of the surrounding forest, enraged by all the human damage to their natural habitat. Fighting on the side of the animals is Mononoke, a girl raised by the wolves, who hates and distrusts all humans, including Ashitaka. The samurai are pretty unredeemed, but Miyazaki insists that there are things to be said for both the Iron Age settlers and the animals and their deities: rather than a Lord of the Rings-style showdown between good and evil, this argues for peaceful co-existence. Superbly imagined and visually sumptuous, it's let down only by Hisaishi's sub-Miklos Rosza score. (An uncut English language dub also exists, with dialogue by Neil Gaiman and a voice cast including Gillian Anderson, Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver and Billy Bob Thornton.
Miyazaki was already a culture hero in Japan when this animated mythic adventure raised him to a status approaching living national treasure. The young warrior Ashitaka is infected by poison while saving his village from a demonic giant boar; he rides his elk to the west (where the boar came from) in the hope of finding a cure. He stumbles into a three-way battle between a woman chieftain in a fortified encampment (built to protect the secret of smelting iron from ore), a clan of samurai eager to take control of the iron - and the creatures (chiefly wolves and boars) of the surrounding forest, enraged by all the human damage to their natural habitat. Fighting on the side of the animals is Mononoke, a girl raised by the wolves, who hates and distrusts all humans, including Ashitaka. The samurai are pretty unredeemed, but Miyazaki insists that there are things to be said for both the Iron Age settlers and the animals and their deities: rather than a Lord of the Rings-style showdown between good and evil, this argues for peaceful co-existence. Superbly imagined and visually sumptuous, it's let down only by Hisaishi's sub-Miklos Rosza score. (An uncut English language dub also exists, with dialogue by Neil Gaiman and a voice cast including Gillian Anderson, Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver and Billy Bob Thornton.
74. Reservoir Dogs
Tarantino's powerful homage/reworking of the heist-gone-wrong thriller - stealing ideas from Kubrick's The Killing and Scorsese's Mean Streets, among others - is probably the final word (or frame) on the subject. A bunch of colour-coded crooks (Mr White, Mr Pink, etc), previously unknown to each other, chosen and named by ageing capo Joe Cabot (Tierney) and his son Nice Guy Eddie (Penn), execute a jewellery robbery. The job done, the getaway fucked up, they reassemble at a warehouse to get what's coming to them. Tarantino engineers their demise from the interaction of their character flaws - there is certainly no honour among these talkative thieves - with the inexorable logic of a chess grandmaster. Despite the clockwork theatrical dynamics - most of the action is restricted to the warehouse - the film packs a massive punch. It's violent, intelligent, well written (by Tarantino) and acted (Buscemi, Roth and Penn take the prizes). A tour de force.
Tarantino's powerful homage/reworking of the heist-gone-wrong thriller - stealing ideas from Kubrick's The Killing and Scorsese's Mean Streets, among others - is probably the final word (or frame) on the subject. A bunch of colour-coded crooks (Mr White, Mr Pink, etc), previously unknown to each other, chosen and named by ageing capo Joe Cabot (Tierney) and his son Nice Guy Eddie (Penn), execute a jewellery robbery. The job done, the getaway fucked up, they reassemble at a warehouse to get what's coming to them. Tarantino engineers their demise from the interaction of their character flaws - there is certainly no honour among these talkative thieves - with the inexorable logic of a chess grandmaster. Despite the clockwork theatrical dynamics - most of the action is restricted to the warehouse - the film packs a massive punch. It's violent, intelligent, well written (by Tarantino) and acted (Buscemi, Roth and Penn take the prizes). A tour de force.
75. To Kill a Mockingbird
Tackling Harper Lee's novel, Stanley Kramer would have hit us over the head with a hammer, so perhaps we can be grateful that Mulligan merely suffocates with righteousness. The film sits somewhere between the bogus virtue of Kramer's The Defiant Ones and the poetry of Laughton'sNight of the Hunter, combining racial intolerance with the nightmares of childhood, born out of Kennedy's stand on civil rights and Martin Luther King's marching. In Alabama in the early '30s, Peck is a Lincoln-like lawyer who defends a black (Peters) against a charge of rape, while loony-tune Duvall scares the shit out of Peck's kids. It looks like a storybook of the Old South, with dappled sunlight and woodwormy porches, and Peck is everyone's favourite uncle. But screenwriter Horton Foote does less well by Harper Lee's novel than Lillian Hellman did by Foote's The Chase for Arthur Penn. That movie really was a pressure-cooker; this one is always just off the boil.
Tackling Harper Lee's novel, Stanley Kramer would have hit us over the head with a hammer, so perhaps we can be grateful that Mulligan merely suffocates with righteousness. The film sits somewhere between the bogus virtue of Kramer's The Defiant Ones and the poetry of Laughton'sNight of the Hunter, combining racial intolerance with the nightmares of childhood, born out of Kennedy's stand on civil rights and Martin Luther King's marching. In Alabama in the early '30s, Peck is a Lincoln-like lawyer who defends a black (Peters) against a charge of rape, while loony-tune Duvall scares the shit out of Peck's kids. It looks like a storybook of the Old South, with dappled sunlight and woodwormy porches, and Peck is everyone's favourite uncle. But screenwriter Horton Foote does less well by Harper Lee's novel than Lillian Hellman did by Foote's The Chase for Arthur Penn. That movie really was a pressure-cooker; this one is always just off the boil.
76. Once Upon a Time in America
In 1968, Noodles (De Niro) returns to New York an old man after 35 years of exile, ridden by guilt. His cross-cut memories of the Jewish Mafia's coming of age on the Lower East Side in 1923, their rise to wealth during Prohibition, and their Götterdämmerung in 1933, provide the epic background to a story of friendship and betrayal, love and death. While Leone's vision still has a magnificent sweep, the film finally subsides to an emotional core that is sombre, even elegiac, and which centres on a man who is bent and broken by time, and finally left with nothing but an impotent sadness.
In 1968, Noodles (De Niro) returns to New York an old man after 35 years of exile, ridden by guilt. His cross-cut memories of the Jewish Mafia's coming of age on the Lower East Side in 1923, their rise to wealth during Prohibition, and their Götterdämmerung in 1933, provide the epic background to a story of friendship and betrayal, love and death. While Leone's vision still has a magnificent sweep, the film finally subsides to an emotional core that is sombre, even elegiac, and which centres on a man who is bent and broken by time, and finally left with nothing but an impotent sadness.
77. Requiem for a Dream
Refused a US censor's rating, this adaptation of Hubert Selby's 1978 novel is as visually experimental and thematically uncompromising as director Aronofsky's first feature Pi. A relentless sensory assault threatens to overwhelm the viewer, but the visceral images and frantic editing capture the euphoric 'highs' and repetitive rituals of drug blighted lives, while drawing clear parallels between the characters' different forms of addiction. Aronofsky interweaves the tales of four Coney Island residents, each desperate to escape a dull existence. Burstyn gives a fearless, heartbreaking performance as Sara Goldfarb, a widow who shrugs off lethargy when promised an appearance on her favourite TV game show; but an amphetamine-based crash diet slowly disconnects her from reality. Her junkie son Harry (Leto) dreams of becoming a bigtime dealer with his friend Tyrone (Wayans). With the profits, Harry plans to open a clothes shop, based on his girlfriend Marion's designs. Burnished camerawork and ex-Pop Will Eat Itself head Mansell's part-punchy, part-elegiac score reinforce and counterpoint the increasingly nightmarish visuals.
Refused a US censor's rating, this adaptation of Hubert Selby's 1978 novel is as visually experimental and thematically uncompromising as director Aronofsky's first feature Pi. A relentless sensory assault threatens to overwhelm the viewer, but the visceral images and frantic editing capture the euphoric 'highs' and repetitive rituals of drug blighted lives, while drawing clear parallels between the characters' different forms of addiction. Aronofsky interweaves the tales of four Coney Island residents, each desperate to escape a dull existence. Burstyn gives a fearless, heartbreaking performance as Sara Goldfarb, a widow who shrugs off lethargy when promised an appearance on her favourite TV game show; but an amphetamine-based crash diet slowly disconnects her from reality. Her junkie son Harry (Leto) dreams of becoming a bigtime dealer with his friend Tyrone (Wayans). With the profits, Harry plans to open a clothes shop, based on his girlfriend Marion's designs. Burnished camerawork and ex-Pop Will Eat Itself head Mansell's part-punchy, part-elegiac score reinforce and counterpoint the increasingly nightmarish visuals.
78. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi
At the opening of this third instalment of the Star Wars saga in the States, an audience rioted, convinced that someone had switched reels on them, so baffled were they by the shifts in the narrative. It is confusing.
All the old gang are there, older, wiser and tinnier: Luke Skywalker is looking more like Han Solo, who is looking more like Ben Kenobi; Princess Leia seems almost Queenly; and in the concentration on sub-Muppet gothic, impressive aerial combat effects, and occasional attempts at 'love me, love my monster' humour, it's not surprising that Billy Dee Williams's Lando Calrissian has little chance to re-establish his Empire Strikes Back persona in all the toing-and-froing.
But try telling that to the kids and the parents who come, not to riot, but to wonder. To wonder at the teddy-bear tribes, the monstrous Tenniel-style Jabba the Hutt, and the way in which heroes and heroines can fall off high-speed motorbikes without a stain on their 25th century jockstraps. The rest of us might be wondering if it isn't about time George Lucas tried his hand at universes new.
At the opening of this third instalment of the Star Wars saga in the States, an audience rioted, convinced that someone had switched reels on them, so baffled were they by the shifts in the narrative. It is confusing.
All the old gang are there, older, wiser and tinnier: Luke Skywalker is looking more like Han Solo, who is looking more like Ben Kenobi; Princess Leia seems almost Queenly; and in the concentration on sub-Muppet gothic, impressive aerial combat effects, and occasional attempts at 'love me, love my monster' humour, it's not surprising that Billy Dee Williams's Lando Calrissian has little chance to re-establish his Empire Strikes Back persona in all the toing-and-froing.
But try telling that to the kids and the parents who come, not to riot, but to wonder. To wonder at the teddy-bear tribes, the monstrous Tenniel-style Jabba the Hutt, and the way in which heroes and heroines can fall off high-speed motorbikes without a stain on their 25th century jockstraps. The rest of us might be wondering if it isn't about time George Lucas tried his hand at universes new.
79. Braveheart
Scotland at the end of the 13th century: William Wallace (Gibson) purposes to free his country from the tyranny of Edward Longshanks (McGoohan). From the opening shots, swirling through the mists o' time over snowy peaks and silvery lochs, to the final torture scenes in which disembowelment provokes only a brave grimace, Gibson's epic offers a stew of Hollywood clichés. Political analysis is not on the menu; this is a tale of heroes 'n' villains, pure and simplistic. The Sassenachs are rude stereotypes, while the Scots are either macho hunks or, should they be aristos, dour quislings. The battle scenes are staged effectively, but for the most part this is a vehicle for Gibson, graduating from cocky Lethal Weapon register to something more one-dimensional and rhetorically solemn. Pure hokum.
Scotland at the end of the 13th century: William Wallace (Gibson) purposes to free his country from the tyranny of Edward Longshanks (McGoohan). From the opening shots, swirling through the mists o' time over snowy peaks and silvery lochs, to the final torture scenes in which disembowelment provokes only a brave grimace, Gibson's epic offers a stew of Hollywood clichés. Political analysis is not on the menu; this is a tale of heroes 'n' villains, pure and simplistic. The Sassenachs are rude stereotypes, while the Scots are either macho hunks or, should they be aristos, dour quislings. The battle scenes are staged effectively, but for the most part this is a vehicle for Gibson, graduating from cocky Lethal Weapon register to something more one-dimensional and rhetorically solemn. Pure hokum.
80. Lawrence of Arabia
‘Epic’ is an over-used word in cinema, but David Lean’s 1962, near four-hour journey with TE Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) into the Arabian desert is surely the gold standard for films grand in scale, design and delivery. It’s 50 years since Lean chronicled the exploits of Lawrence, an unconventional British officer who struck out alone during World War I with the aid of Bedouins (including Omar Sharif in his most famous role) to fight the Turks in parts of modern Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria.
This digital restoration marks its anniversary. Most striking, still, are the desert scenes: battles yes, but also the film’s harnessing of the searing, inhuman heat of the sandy wilds, first introduced by Lean’s famous cut from a striking match to a rising sun. O’Toole, too, remains compelling, as he swings between arrogance and humility, confidence and doubt. You’ll need to dedicate half a day to it – but this deserves to be seen again on the big screen.
‘Epic’ is an over-used word in cinema, but David Lean’s 1962, near four-hour journey with TE Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) into the Arabian desert is surely the gold standard for films grand in scale, design and delivery. It’s 50 years since Lean chronicled the exploits of Lawrence, an unconventional British officer who struck out alone during World War I with the aid of Bedouins (including Omar Sharif in his most famous role) to fight the Turks in parts of modern Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria.
This digital restoration marks its anniversary. Most striking, still, are the desert scenes: battles yes, but also the film’s harnessing of the searing, inhuman heat of the sandy wilds, first introduced by Lean’s famous cut from a striking match to a rising sun. O’Toole, too, remains compelling, as he swings between arrogance and humility, confidence and doubt. You’ll need to dedicate half a day to it – but this deserves to be seen again on the big screen.
81. Grave of the Fireflies
Although it has become routine for graphic novels to address dark, grown-up subjects such as war and genocide, animators are still wary of crossing that unspoken boundary. Perhaps it’s simply that very few adult cartoons have ever been a success: ‘Animal Farm’, ‘Heavy Metal’ and ‘When the Wind Blows’ may be fondly remembered, but none set the box office alight. ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ is not exactly grown-up cinema: its central characters are children, its viewpoint unmistakeably childlike. But the topics it explores – war, exploitation, sickness, starvation and death – and the detail in which it explores them, mean that the film would be at least alienating – if not deeply disturbing – to the average child.
The film opens with the image of a 12-year-old boy, Seita, begging on the streets, his head sinking between his bony knees, and a single line of voiceover: ‘September 21, 1945… that was the night I died.’ We watch as Seita’s spirit leaves his body and is reunited with four-year-old Setsuko, his dead sister, before flashing back to the early days of the war, where the main body of the story unfolds: Seita and Setsuko lose their mother in an American bombing raid, and are forced into the care of a neighbour, and finally to fend for themselves.
This opening is a statement of intent. By alerting us to the fact that both his characters will die, Takahata is warning his audience. This is not a wartime adventure, or a nostalgic childhood reminiscence. This is a requiem for the dead, with all the sombre ceremony that that demands. There are moments of joy in ‘Grave of the Fireflies’, particularly as the two siblings escape from their selfish, exploitative aunt and learn to fend for themselves in the woods. But every one of these fleeting moments is overshadowed by the constant knowledge that death is coming, and the more we grow to like the characters, the weightier and more unfaceable that knowledge becomes.
‘Grave of the Fireflies’ is perhaps unique in that the medium of animation in no way softens the events of story. In fact, the opposite is true. Animation allows Takahata to draw performances from his children that no human of equal age could or should be expected to give. His treatment of little Setsuko results in arguably the most realistic four-year-old in cinema, simultaneously curious and wary, playful and serious, exploring her place in the world just as that world is beginning to fall apart. The scenes of her gradual decline would be simply impossible in a live-action context as it would be unwatchable.
‘Grave of the Fireflies’ is not a film to be taken lightly. It is not even a film to be enjoyed. It is a film which demands – and deserves – total concentration and emotional surrender. The reward is an experience unlike any other: exhausting, tragic and utterly bleak, but also somehow monumental.
Although it has become routine for graphic novels to address dark, grown-up subjects such as war and genocide, animators are still wary of crossing that unspoken boundary. Perhaps it’s simply that very few adult cartoons have ever been a success: ‘Animal Farm’, ‘Heavy Metal’ and ‘When the Wind Blows’ may be fondly remembered, but none set the box office alight. ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ is not exactly grown-up cinema: its central characters are children, its viewpoint unmistakeably childlike. But the topics it explores – war, exploitation, sickness, starvation and death – and the detail in which it explores them, mean that the film would be at least alienating – if not deeply disturbing – to the average child.
The film opens with the image of a 12-year-old boy, Seita, begging on the streets, his head sinking between his bony knees, and a single line of voiceover: ‘September 21, 1945… that was the night I died.’ We watch as Seita’s spirit leaves his body and is reunited with four-year-old Setsuko, his dead sister, before flashing back to the early days of the war, where the main body of the story unfolds: Seita and Setsuko lose their mother in an American bombing raid, and are forced into the care of a neighbour, and finally to fend for themselves.
This opening is a statement of intent. By alerting us to the fact that both his characters will die, Takahata is warning his audience. This is not a wartime adventure, or a nostalgic childhood reminiscence. This is a requiem for the dead, with all the sombre ceremony that that demands. There are moments of joy in ‘Grave of the Fireflies’, particularly as the two siblings escape from their selfish, exploitative aunt and learn to fend for themselves in the woods. But every one of these fleeting moments is overshadowed by the constant knowledge that death is coming, and the more we grow to like the characters, the weightier and more unfaceable that knowledge becomes.
‘Grave of the Fireflies’ is perhaps unique in that the medium of animation in no way softens the events of story. In fact, the opposite is true. Animation allows Takahata to draw performances from his children that no human of equal age could or should be expected to give. His treatment of little Setsuko results in arguably the most realistic four-year-old in cinema, simultaneously curious and wary, playful and serious, exploring her place in the world just as that world is beginning to fall apart. The scenes of her gradual decline would be simply impossible in a live-action context as it would be unwatchable.
‘Grave of the Fireflies’ is not a film to be taken lightly. It is not even a film to be enjoyed. It is a film which demands – and deserves – total concentration and emotional surrender. The reward is an experience unlike any other: exhausting, tragic and utterly bleak, but also somehow monumental.
82. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Joel (Carrey) is a shy sort of fellow who might prefer a huddle with his pens and drawing pads to the jolts and vagaries of novel human interaction. Waiting for the overland to work one wintry day, he feels an uncontrollable urge to hop a train in the opposite direction, and only thus encounters Clementine (Winslet), a blue-dyed boho who makes little distinction between her every thought and the words she speaks. His passivity attracts and antagonises her; she flummoxes him and turns him on. Counter-intuitively, they click. It's almost as if they've met before. Viewers deserve to see Gondry and screenwriter Kaufman's hilarious, love-stricken, endlessly inventive collaboration fresh for themselves - especially since the more surreal thrills hinge on an 'am I awake or dreaming' mix up, and since even the quieter passages tremble with pain and revelatory vulnerability. We won't go into too much detail about Dr Mierzwiak (Wilkinson), who runs a popular if low rent New York practice in memory-modification with a merry young staff (including Dunst, Ruffalo and Wood); or into how the film, in boldly dramatising memory and the subconscious, develops as an equally loopy and poignant companion piece to Kaufman's Being John Malkovich. Suffice to say the formidable Gondry/ Kaufman/Carrey axis works marvel after marvel in expressing the bewildering beauty and existential horror of being trapped inside one's own addled mind, and in allegorising the self-preserving amnesia of a broken but hopeful heart
Joel (Carrey) is a shy sort of fellow who might prefer a huddle with his pens and drawing pads to the jolts and vagaries of novel human interaction. Waiting for the overland to work one wintry day, he feels an uncontrollable urge to hop a train in the opposite direction, and only thus encounters Clementine (Winslet), a blue-dyed boho who makes little distinction between her every thought and the words she speaks. His passivity attracts and antagonises her; she flummoxes him and turns him on. Counter-intuitively, they click. It's almost as if they've met before. Viewers deserve to see Gondry and screenwriter Kaufman's hilarious, love-stricken, endlessly inventive collaboration fresh for themselves - especially since the more surreal thrills hinge on an 'am I awake or dreaming' mix up, and since even the quieter passages tremble with pain and revelatory vulnerability. We won't go into too much detail about Dr Mierzwiak (Wilkinson), who runs a popular if low rent New York practice in memory-modification with a merry young staff (including Dunst, Ruffalo and Wood); or into how the film, in boldly dramatising memory and the subconscious, develops as an equally loopy and poignant companion piece to Kaufman's Being John Malkovich. Suffice to say the formidable Gondry/ Kaufman/Carrey axis works marvel after marvel in expressing the bewildering beauty and existential horror of being trapped inside one's own addled mind, and in allegorising the self-preserving amnesia of a broken but hopeful heart
83. Witness for the Prosecution
The undisputed star of this courtroom drama is Alexander Trauner's magnificent recreation of the Old Bailey, which is just as well, since the presence of Charles Laughton as the defence counsel, and the film's origins as an Agatha Christie novel and play, combine to give the movie a heavy - almost stolid - theatrical flavour. Tyrone Power is surprisingly good as the man accused of murdering his mistress, but the swift twists and turns of Ms Christie's plot soon drain Dietrich and Laughton's roles of any dramatic credibility.
The undisputed star of this courtroom drama is Alexander Trauner's magnificent recreation of the Old Bailey, which is just as well, since the presence of Charles Laughton as the defence counsel, and the film's origins as an Agatha Christie novel and play, combine to give the movie a heavy - almost stolid - theatrical flavour. Tyrone Power is surprisingly good as the man accused of murdering his mistress, but the swift twists and turns of Ms Christie's plot soon drain Dietrich and Laughton's roles of any dramatic credibility.
84. Metal Jacket
The first half of Kubrick's movie steers clear of South East Asia altogether, focusing on the dehumanising training programme undergone by a group of novice US Marines. Then, after a suitably melodramatic bloodbath, the action switches to 'Nam, where star recruit Pvt Joker (Modine) soon tires of his behind-the-lines job as military journalist and provokes his CO into sending him forth into the shit. Black but obvious irony abounds, madness and racist bigotry are rampant, and a muddled moral message arises from the mire of a sprawling second half when the cynical, nominally heroic Joker finally learns to kill. None of which is to suggest that the film is bad; despite a certain stereotyping and predictability there are moments of gripping interest. Finally, however, Kubrick's direction is as steely cold and manipulative as the régime it depicts, and we never really get to know, let alone care about, the hapless recruits on view.
The first half of Kubrick's movie steers clear of South East Asia altogether, focusing on the dehumanising training programme undergone by a group of novice US Marines. Then, after a suitably melodramatic bloodbath, the action switches to 'Nam, where star recruit Pvt Joker (Modine) soon tires of his behind-the-lines job as military journalist and provokes his CO into sending him forth into the shit. Black but obvious irony abounds, madness and racist bigotry are rampant, and a muddled moral message arises from the mire of a sprawling second half when the cynical, nominally heroic Joker finally learns to kill. None of which is to suggest that the film is bad; despite a certain stereotyping and predictability there are moments of gripping interest. Finally, however, Kubrick's direction is as steely cold and manipulative as the régime it depicts, and we never really get to know, let alone care about, the hapless recruits on view.
85. Singin' in the Rain
Is there a film clip more often shown than the title number of this most astoundingly popular musical? The rest of the movie is great too. It shouldn't be. There never was a masterpiece created from such a mishmash of elements: Arthur Freed's favourites among his own songs from back in the '20s and '30s, along with a new number, 'Make 'Em Laugh', which is a straight rip-off from Cole Porter's 'Be A Clown'; the barely blooded Debbie Reynolds pitched into the deep end with tyrannical perfectionist Kelly; choreography very nearly improvised because of pressures of time; and Kelly filming his greatest number with a heavy cold. Somehow it all comes together. The 'Broadway Melody' ballet is Kelly's least pretentious, Jean Hagen and Donald O'Connor are very funny, and the Comden/Green script is a loving-care job. If you've never seen it and don't, you're bonkers.
Is there a film clip more often shown than the title number of this most astoundingly popular musical? The rest of the movie is great too. It shouldn't be. There never was a masterpiece created from such a mishmash of elements: Arthur Freed's favourites among his own songs from back in the '20s and '30s, along with a new number, 'Make 'Em Laugh', which is a straight rip-off from Cole Porter's 'Be A Clown'; the barely blooded Debbie Reynolds pitched into the deep end with tyrannical perfectionist Kelly; choreography very nearly improvised because of pressures of time; and Kelly filming his greatest number with a heavy cold. Somehow it all comes together. The 'Broadway Melody' ballet is Kelly's least pretentious, Jean Hagen and Donald O'Connor are very funny, and the Comden/Green script is a loving-care job. If you've never seen it and don't, you're bonkers.
86. The Sting
Hill's follow-up to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, teaming Newman and Redford again, sticks to the same proven box-office formula. The story takes place in 1936 Chicago this time, but the two protagonists remain the same, outlaws who ply their trade as conmen. The film ends up relying on different chapter headings to explain what's going on, but it's all very professional, with fine attention to period detail. All a bit soulless, but at least there's no equivalent of the 'Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head' sequence. All those who liked the earlier film should enjoy this as much.
Hill's follow-up to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, teaming Newman and Redford again, sticks to the same proven box-office formula. The story takes place in 1936 Chicago this time, but the two protagonists remain the same, outlaws who ply their trade as conmen. The film ends up relying on different chapter headings to explain what's going on, but it's all very professional, with fine attention to period detail. All a bit soulless, but at least there's no equivalent of the 'Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head' sequence. All those who liked the earlier film should enjoy this as much.
87. The Bicycle Thief
All you ‘Concerned of Actons’ can put down those Biros and half-cocked sawn-offs right now: yes, two stars for one of the Greatest Films of All Time may seem a little derisive, but what a time to reissue this bleak and emotionally manipulative (sorry, ‘poignant’) vision of humanity crushed under the jackboot of destitution and economic downturn! Celebrating its sixtieth, De Sica’s neo-realist lodestone may have retained its vitality over the decades, but whatever sense of anger it whipped up in the disgruntled masses of postwar Rome feels lost to the excessively syrupy score and ‘doe-eyed kid’ sidekick. Sure, the stark location shooting and a yearning central performance from Lamberto Maggiorani – a regular stiff who needs to get his stolen bike back – are beautifully measured, but the laissez-faire approach to metaphor jettisons detail in favour of broader commentary. Why not seek out a DVD of something like ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ – also 60 this year – to really stoke those feelings of withering disenfranchisement?
All you ‘Concerned of Actons’ can put down those Biros and half-cocked sawn-offs right now: yes, two stars for one of the Greatest Films of All Time may seem a little derisive, but what a time to reissue this bleak and emotionally manipulative (sorry, ‘poignant’) vision of humanity crushed under the jackboot of destitution and economic downturn! Celebrating its sixtieth, De Sica’s neo-realist lodestone may have retained its vitality over the decades, but whatever sense of anger it whipped up in the disgruntled masses of postwar Rome feels lost to the excessively syrupy score and ‘doe-eyed kid’ sidekick. Sure, the stark location shooting and a yearning central performance from Lamberto Maggiorani – a regular stiff who needs to get his stolen bike back – are beautifully measured, but the laissez-faire approach to metaphor jettisons detail in favour of broader commentary. Why not seek out a DVD of something like ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ – also 60 this year – to really stoke those feelings of withering disenfranchisement?
88. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Python's delightful and, on the whole, consistent reductio ad absurdum of the Grail legend, in which the Knights forsake their chorus line can-can dancing at Camelot for a higher aim. The Pythons set up a 'historical' tale as the sum total of modern anachronisms and misconceptions about it, a format repeated in The Life of Brian.
Python's delightful and, on the whole, consistent reductio ad absurdum of the Grail legend, in which the Knights forsake their chorus line can-can dancing at Camelot for a higher aim. The Pythons set up a 'historical' tale as the sum total of modern anachronisms and misconceptions about it, a format repeated in The Life of Brian.
89. Amadeus
Antonio Salieri, one of the most competent composers of his age, finds himself in competition with Mozart. This turns him into a hate-filled monster whose only aim in life is to ruin his more talented colleague. None the less Salieri emerges as the more tragic and sympathetic character, partly because he alone, of all his contemporaries, can appreciate this almost perfect music, and - more importantly, perhaps - because he speaks up for all of us whose talents fall short of our desires. The entire cast speaks in horribly intrusive American accents, but Forman makes some perceptive connections between Mozart's life and work.
Antonio Salieri, one of the most competent composers of his age, finds himself in competition with Mozart. This turns him into a hate-filled monster whose only aim in life is to ruin his more talented colleague. None the less Salieri emerges as the more tragic and sympathetic character, partly because he alone, of all his contemporaries, can appreciate this almost perfect music, and - more importantly, perhaps - because he speaks up for all of us whose talents fall short of our desires. The entire cast speaks in horribly intrusive American accents, but Forman makes some perceptive connections between Mozart's life and work.
90. All About Eve
In 1950, the movies recognised stardom as a pathological disorder. Exhibit A was ‘Sunset Blvd’, exhibit B ‘All About Eve’. Set in the Broadway jungle rather than among the ‘sun-burnt eager beavers’ of Hollywood,Joseph L Mankiewicz’s film dissects the narcissism and hypocrisy of the spotlight as sharply as Wilder’s, but pays equal attention to the challenges of enacting womanhood. ‘All About My Mother’ (not to mention ‘Showgirls’) would be unimaginable without it. Anne Baxter is Eve Harrington, the wide-eyed stage-door hanger-on who insinuates her way into the world of Bette Davis’ sacred monster, Margo Channing; butter-might-just-melt meets gin-hold-the-tonic. The fan who makes an audience of the stars, Eve is soon attracting her own admirers, as well as barbs worthy of Mankiewicz’s ’30s newsroom pedigree. Edith Head’s costumes stress the antagonism: Eve enters in a sexy-modest trenchcoat-and-trilby combo, and could anyone but Davis pull off a ball gown with pockets? Meanwhile, the real threat – Marilyn Monroe – sits at the party’s edge, shining, angling for another drink.
In 1950, the movies recognised stardom as a pathological disorder. Exhibit A was ‘Sunset Blvd’, exhibit B ‘All About Eve’. Set in the Broadway jungle rather than among the ‘sun-burnt eager beavers’ of Hollywood,Joseph L Mankiewicz’s film dissects the narcissism and hypocrisy of the spotlight as sharply as Wilder’s, but pays equal attention to the challenges of enacting womanhood. ‘All About My Mother’ (not to mention ‘Showgirls’) would be unimaginable without it. Anne Baxter is Eve Harrington, the wide-eyed stage-door hanger-on who insinuates her way into the world of Bette Davis’ sacred monster, Margo Channing; butter-might-just-melt meets gin-hold-the-tonic. The fan who makes an audience of the stars, Eve is soon attracting her own admirers, as well as barbs worthy of Mankiewicz’s ’30s newsroom pedigree. Edith Head’s costumes stress the antagonism: Eve enters in a sexy-modest trenchcoat-and-trilby combo, and could anyone but Davis pull off a ball gown with pockets? Meanwhile, the real threat – Marilyn Monroe – sits at the party’s edge, shining, angling for another drink.
91. Snatch
Ritchie's follow-up to Lock, Stock is an even more craftily concocted underworld entertainment, helped no end by the casting of Pitt as the bare-knuckle boxer Mickey, hellraising kingpin of a caricatured Irish Romany encampment, who get messily involved with psychopathic promoter Bricktop (Ford). The comic tone is more risqué, confident and richly enjoyed than in the earlier film. The knowing macho heroics, pubwise patter, tongue in cheek ethnic comparisons, locations and designer violence are balanced with a showman's bravado, fending off offensiveness with neat reversals, little ironies and hyperbolic buffoonery. Creating a thread through the crossweave of plot strands - involving a diamond theft, a vengeful Russian hitman and three hopeless black trainee thieves - are the antics of Tommy (Graham) and narrator Turkish (Statham). The latter is a find. His reserve, straightfaced demeanour and spot-on delivery typify Ritchie's ability to find the actors and faces that put the manners of London on screen.
Ritchie's follow-up to Lock, Stock is an even more craftily concocted underworld entertainment, helped no end by the casting of Pitt as the bare-knuckle boxer Mickey, hellraising kingpin of a caricatured Irish Romany encampment, who get messily involved with psychopathic promoter Bricktop (Ford). The comic tone is more risqué, confident and richly enjoyed than in the earlier film. The knowing macho heroics, pubwise patter, tongue in cheek ethnic comparisons, locations and designer violence are balanced with a showman's bravado, fending off offensiveness with neat reversals, little ironies and hyperbolic buffoonery. Creating a thread through the crossweave of plot strands - involving a diamond theft, a vengeful Russian hitman and three hopeless black trainee thieves - are the antics of Tommy (Graham) and narrator Turkish (Statham). The latter is a find. His reserve, straightfaced demeanour and spot-on delivery typify Ritchie's ability to find the actors and faces that put the manners of London on screen.
92. Rashomon
It’s hard to argue with the fact that the central conceit of Kurosawa’s global breakthrough – presenting divergent perspectives on a single contentious incident – provides such a strikingly insightful way of looking at the world that the term ‘Rashomon’ has entered the language. Far more people are au fait with this idea, however, than have seen the 1950 film, so this digital restoration as part of the BFI’s Kurosawa retrospective is welcome. Thankfully, visionary 1920s short-story specialist Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s multi-layered tale of rape and murder in feudal Japan doesn’t disappoint, and the switchback narrative, as befuddled parties shelter under the old Kyoto city gate to try and make sense of bandit Tajomaru’s attack on a travelling samurai and his wife, remains engrossing and provocative as conflicting testimonies emerge.
Admirers of the subtleties of Ozu and Mizoguchi, however, might find Kurosawa’s upfront project of attempting to make sense of human nature (irredeemable or not?) a little too obviously didactic – and Toshiro Mifune’s central performance veering on the hammy side of ‘earthy’. Those cavils aside, what’s still staggering is the vigour, fluidity and sheer invention of Kurosawa’s direction. No one anywhere in 1950 made the camera engage with movement and location in the way Kurosawa does here, slicing through the forest, and bringing a kinetic impact to violent confrontations, which is evidently the foundation for modern action cinema. This level of mastery is timeless, and although the movie is overly deliberate at times, when it takes off, it really flies. An essential reissue.
It’s hard to argue with the fact that the central conceit of Kurosawa’s global breakthrough – presenting divergent perspectives on a single contentious incident – provides such a strikingly insightful way of looking at the world that the term ‘Rashomon’ has entered the language. Far more people are au fait with this idea, however, than have seen the 1950 film, so this digital restoration as part of the BFI’s Kurosawa retrospective is welcome. Thankfully, visionary 1920s short-story specialist Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s multi-layered tale of rape and murder in feudal Japan doesn’t disappoint, and the switchback narrative, as befuddled parties shelter under the old Kyoto city gate to try and make sense of bandit Tajomaru’s attack on a travelling samurai and his wife, remains engrossing and provocative as conflicting testimonies emerge.
Admirers of the subtleties of Ozu and Mizoguchi, however, might find Kurosawa’s upfront project of attempting to make sense of human nature (irredeemable or not?) a little too obviously didactic – and Toshiro Mifune’s central performance veering on the hammy side of ‘earthy’. Those cavils aside, what’s still staggering is the vigour, fluidity and sheer invention of Kurosawa’s direction. No one anywhere in 1950 made the camera engage with movement and location in the way Kurosawa does here, slicing through the forest, and bringing a kinetic impact to violent confrontations, which is evidently the foundation for modern action cinema. This level of mastery is timeless, and although the movie is overly deliberate at times, when it takes off, it really flies. An essential reissue.
93. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
For once, Bogart plays a really vicious bastard, Fred C Dobbs, in this, the first of two movies he made in 1948 with Huston. It's a sort of lifeboat drama for three, with Holt the young innocent and director's dad Walter as the wise old buzzard, flanking Bogart's bravura paranoia. Director Huston tries to yank the basic elements - gold lust in a Mexican wilderness - into the spare eloquence of a fable, and tends to look pretentious rather than profound. In any case, outrageously Oscar-seeking performances like actor Huston's, coupled with director Huston's comparative conviction with action sequences, work against any yearning for significance. There's a quite enjoyable yarn buried under the hollow laughter.
For once, Bogart plays a really vicious bastard, Fred C Dobbs, in this, the first of two movies he made in 1948 with Huston. It's a sort of lifeboat drama for three, with Holt the young innocent and director's dad Walter as the wise old buzzard, flanking Bogart's bravura paranoia. Director Huston tries to yank the basic elements - gold lust in a Mexican wilderness - into the spare eloquence of a fable, and tends to look pretentious rather than profound. In any case, outrageously Oscar-seeking performances like actor Huston's, coupled with director Huston's comparative conviction with action sequences, work against any yearning for significance. There's a quite enjoyable yarn buried under the hollow laughter.
94. L.A. Confidential
Dime store detective stories have inspired more great movies than Dostoevsky ever will, but local-boy-made-bad James Ellroy always seemed too tough a proposition for Hollywood to take on. Hanson's adaptation of Ellroy's most complex novel is a towering achievement, probably the finest mystery thriller since Chinatown. Set in the '50s, this punchy cocktail of gangland violence, police brutality, racism and sex-scandal cover-ups feels torn from today's headlines. It operates on the principles of an exposé, highlighting the parallax between image and reality. As Danny DeVito's muck-raising, 'Hush Hush' magazine hack guides us on a gleeful trawl through the seedier, sleazier aspects of this, the last of the frontier towns, we meet three very different lawmen: Spacey's cynical showboat Jack Vincennes; Ed Exley (Pearce), a straight-arrow cop headed for the top; and Crowe's Bud White, the strong arm of the law, brawn to Exley's brains. Contrasting not only their approaches to procedure, justice and respect, but also their vividly etched, distinctly volatile psycho-pathologies, Hanson inexorably draws these three cases to one conclusion: when the trio do take a stand, it's inspired less by idealism than self-disgust. As the emotional nexus, a Veronica Lake lookalike trapped in a web of male desires, Basinger is arguably the pick of a perfect cast. Subtle, shocking, compelling and immensely assured.
Dime store detective stories have inspired more great movies than Dostoevsky ever will, but local-boy-made-bad James Ellroy always seemed too tough a proposition for Hollywood to take on. Hanson's adaptation of Ellroy's most complex novel is a towering achievement, probably the finest mystery thriller since Chinatown. Set in the '50s, this punchy cocktail of gangland violence, police brutality, racism and sex-scandal cover-ups feels torn from today's headlines. It operates on the principles of an exposé, highlighting the parallax between image and reality. As Danny DeVito's muck-raising, 'Hush Hush' magazine hack guides us on a gleeful trawl through the seedier, sleazier aspects of this, the last of the frontier towns, we meet three very different lawmen: Spacey's cynical showboat Jack Vincennes; Ed Exley (Pearce), a straight-arrow cop headed for the top; and Crowe's Bud White, the strong arm of the law, brawn to Exley's brains. Contrasting not only their approaches to procedure, justice and respect, but also their vividly etched, distinctly volatile psycho-pathologies, Hanson inexorably draws these three cases to one conclusion: when the trio do take a stand, it's inspired less by idealism than self-disgust. As the emotional nexus, a Veronica Lake lookalike trapped in a web of male desires, Basinger is arguably the pick of a perfect cast. Subtle, shocking, compelling and immensely assured.
95. The Apartment
Re-teaming actor Jack Lemmon, scriptwriter Iz Diamond and director Billy Wilder a year after ‘Some Like It Hot’, this multi-Oscar winning comedy is sharper in tone, tracing the compromises of a New York insurance drone who pimps out his brownstone apartment for his married bosses’ illicit affairs. The quintessential New York movie – with exquisite design byAlexandre Trauner and shimmering black-and-white photography – it presented something of a breakthrough in its portrayal of the war of the sexes, with a sour and cynical view of the self-deception, loneliness and cruelty involved in ‘romantic’ liaisons.
Directed by Wilder with attention to detail and emotional reticence that belie its inherent darkness and melodramatic core, it’s lifted considerably by the performances: the psychosomatic ticks and tropes of nebbish Lemmon balanced by the pathos of Shirley MacLaine’s put-upon ‘lift girl’.
Re-teaming actor Jack Lemmon, scriptwriter Iz Diamond and director Billy Wilder a year after ‘Some Like It Hot’, this multi-Oscar winning comedy is sharper in tone, tracing the compromises of a New York insurance drone who pimps out his brownstone apartment for his married bosses’ illicit affairs. The quintessential New York movie – with exquisite design byAlexandre Trauner and shimmering black-and-white photography – it presented something of a breakthrough in its portrayal of the war of the sexes, with a sour and cynical view of the self-deception, loneliness and cruelty involved in ‘romantic’ liaisons.
Directed by Wilder with attention to detail and emotional reticence that belie its inherent darkness and melodramatic core, it’s lifted considerably by the performances: the psychosomatic ticks and tropes of nebbish Lemmon balanced by the pathos of Shirley MacLaine’s put-upon ‘lift girl’.
96. Some Like It Hot
Still one of Wilder's funniest satires, its pace flagging only once for a short time. Curtis and Lemmon play jazz musicians on the run after witnessing the St Valentine's Day massacre, masquerading in drag as members of an all-girl band (with resulting gender confusions involving Marilyn) to escape the clutches of Chicago mobster George Raft (bespatted and dime-flipping, of course). Deliberately shot in black-and-white to avoid the pitfalls of camp or transvestism, though the best sequences are the gangland ones anyhow. Highlights include Curtis' playboy parody of Cary Grant, and what is surely one of the great curtain lines of all time: Joe E Brown's bland 'Nobody's perfect' when his fiancée (Lemmon) finally confesses that she's a he.
Still one of Wilder's funniest satires, its pace flagging only once for a short time. Curtis and Lemmon play jazz musicians on the run after witnessing the St Valentine's Day massacre, masquerading in drag as members of an all-girl band (with resulting gender confusions involving Marilyn) to escape the clutches of Chicago mobster George Raft (bespatted and dime-flipping, of course). Deliberately shot in black-and-white to avoid the pitfalls of camp or transvestism, though the best sequences are the gangland ones anyhow. Highlights include Curtis' playboy parody of Cary Grant, and what is surely one of the great curtain lines of all time: Joe E Brown's bland 'Nobody's perfect' when his fiancée (Lemmon) finally confesses that she's a he.
97. The Third Man
Re-released as part of the NFT’s Carol Reed season, ‘The Third Man’ continued the director’s collaboration with Graham Greene and, like ‘The Fallen Idol’, it’s about secrets, lies and the tension between naiveté and loyalty. The location, however, has shifted from London. Summoned to occupied post-war Vienna by his schoolfriend Harry Lime, brash American pulp writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) arrives to find his old chum being widely mourned, especially by the actress Anna (Alida Valli), though less so by British Major Calloway (Trevor Howard). In this quartered, ruined, double-talking city, however, it’s as well to take nothing at face value…
A considerably more harmonious collaborative effort than Allied powersharing, ‘The Third Man’ remains among the most consummate of British thrillers: Reed and Greene’s sardonic vision of smiling corruption is deliciously realised with superb location work, a roster of seasoned Viennese performers and the raised eyebrow of Anton Karas’ jaunty zither score.
Although his screen time is famously scanty, Orson Welles’ Harry haunts each scene: everywhere and invisible, he’s a smirking Cheshire cat of a villain, a superb case study in shameless charisma as poisonous contagion. Audiences, like many of the characters, have tended to fall for his charms, fondly recalling the privilege of being taken into his confidence rather than the rotten core it conceals. The film, however, is less charitable, pursuing the performer backstage into the sewers, sick bowels of the city he lords it over. Playing American heroics against British pragmatism, elements of noir against horror (the empty grave, the burning torches), ‘The Third Man’ is suffused with irony yet ultimately serious-minded: without personal responsibility, it says, there is no hope for civilisation – however charming the smirk.
Re-released as part of the NFT’s Carol Reed season, ‘The Third Man’ continued the director’s collaboration with Graham Greene and, like ‘The Fallen Idol’, it’s about secrets, lies and the tension between naiveté and loyalty. The location, however, has shifted from London. Summoned to occupied post-war Vienna by his schoolfriend Harry Lime, brash American pulp writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) arrives to find his old chum being widely mourned, especially by the actress Anna (Alida Valli), though less so by British Major Calloway (Trevor Howard). In this quartered, ruined, double-talking city, however, it’s as well to take nothing at face value…
A considerably more harmonious collaborative effort than Allied powersharing, ‘The Third Man’ remains among the most consummate of British thrillers: Reed and Greene’s sardonic vision of smiling corruption is deliciously realised with superb location work, a roster of seasoned Viennese performers and the raised eyebrow of Anton Karas’ jaunty zither score.
Although his screen time is famously scanty, Orson Welles’ Harry haunts each scene: everywhere and invisible, he’s a smirking Cheshire cat of a villain, a superb case study in shameless charisma as poisonous contagion. Audiences, like many of the characters, have tended to fall for his charms, fondly recalling the privilege of being taken into his confidence rather than the rotten core it conceals. The film, however, is less charitable, pursuing the performer backstage into the sewers, sick bowels of the city he lords it over. Playing American heroics against British pragmatism, elements of noir against horror (the empty grave, the burning torches), ‘The Third Man’ is suffused with irony yet ultimately serious-minded: without personal responsibility, it says, there is no hope for civilisation – however charming the smirk.
98. For a Few Dollars More
The one in which Eastwood and Van Cleef, bounty hunters both, reluctantly join forces to take on psychotic bandit Volonté and his gang (which includes Kinski as a hunchback). Not as stylish as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but a significant step forward from A Fistful of Dollars, with the usual terrific compositions, Morricone score, and taciturn performances, not to mention the ubiquitous flashback disease.
The one in which Eastwood and Van Cleef, bounty hunters both, reluctantly join forces to take on psychotic bandit Volonté and his gang (which includes Kinski as a hunchback). Not as stylish as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but a significant step forward from A Fistful of Dollars, with the usual terrific compositions, Morricone score, and taciturn performances, not to mention the ubiquitous flashback disease.
99. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
A film which smacks of Raiders of the Lost Ark in both mood and effects, even down to a tank chase which drags Jones' well-worn heels along the desert floor. Saving us from a sense of complete déjà vu is the introduction of Connery, Medievalist professor and Indiana's father. His screen image provides the perfect fatherly foil to the larger-than-life hero. Pursuing a life-long obsession with the Holy Grail brings the prof into the grip of dastardly Nazis, who of course are after the same thing. It's Indiana Jones to the rescue of his father, the Grail, nay democracy itself. Wisely dispersing with attempts to recapture the central romance of Raiders, the emotional core is served this time by the sparring relationship between Indiana and his dad. Jeffrey Boam's script dabbles with themes of neglect and reconciliation, but there's nothing ponderous about the duo's near death scrapes and light-hearted tussels over the same blonde Fräulein.
A film which smacks of Raiders of the Lost Ark in both mood and effects, even down to a tank chase which drags Jones' well-worn heels along the desert floor. Saving us from a sense of complete déjà vu is the introduction of Connery, Medievalist professor and Indiana's father. His screen image provides the perfect fatherly foil to the larger-than-life hero. Pursuing a life-long obsession with the Holy Grail brings the prof into the grip of dastardly Nazis, who of course are after the same thing. It's Indiana Jones to the rescue of his father, the Grail, nay democracy itself. Wisely dispersing with attempts to recapture the central romance of Raiders, the emotional core is served this time by the sparring relationship between Indiana and his dad. Jeffrey Boam's script dabbles with themes of neglect and reconciliation, but there's nothing ponderous about the duo's near death scrapes and light-hearted tussels over the same blonde Fräulein.
100. Inglourious Basterds
The film moves liberally between French, German and English dialogue and takes us through five chapters. First, in 1941, we see a Nazi, Colonel Hans Landa (played by Austrian Christoph Waltz), known as ‘The Jew Hunter’, discover and kill a Jewish family in France; only the youngest daughter gets away.
Then we’re introduced to the ‘basterds’, a gang of eight Jewish-American soldiers who, while deep undercover, roam Nazi-occupied France, murdering German soldiers and collecting their scalps. They’re led by a Tennessee goodtime boy, played by Pitt, but oddly they’re not on screen much. Pitt is lively but he disappears for a long time and is upstaged by Waltz, who gives a teasing turn of sly comedy and cruel charm. His scenes are the film’s best.
For the film’s final chapters, we leap to Paris in 1944, where the two stories collide. The girl who fled the Nazis, Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) is now running a cinema (of course) which plays films by Riefenstahl and Pabst. A Nazi private, Frederick (Daniel Brühl), takes a shine to her. It turns out that his gun-toting heroics are being immortalised in a film produced by Goebbels, who decides that Shosanna’s cinema is perfect for the premiere. Shosanna and the ‘basterds’ decide that the screening is their chance to strike.
This might be a period movie, but still we clock Tarantino’s signature style – the extended, know-it-all dialogue, the tricky gunplay, the pop-cultural nods. There’s even a Mexican stand-off à la ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and the obligatory ‘nigger’ reference, this time in French. But this lacks the stylistic pizzazz of Tarantino’s best, and by putting more emphasis than usual on the chatter it makes it more obvious that the talk often lacks wit and verve.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tarantino takes the history of cinema more seriously than the history of Europe. References to films abound:Michael Fassbender’s British spy (who has an amusing, if silly, ‘Dr Strangelove’-like scene with a superior played by Mike Myers) used to be a critic and regurgitates what sounds like a Wikipedia entry on German film, while another character wonders whether he prefers Chaplin or the French silent actor Max Linder.
What’s not clear is what Tarantino wants to achieve: ‘Inglourious Basterds’ is an immature work that doesn’t know whether it’s a pastiche, a spoof, a counterfactual drama, a revenge tragedy or a character comedy. How can we, within a space of minutes, feel adult sympathy for a hunted Jewish family and then childish glee when a Nazi’s skull is crushed with a baseball bat? The one cancels out the other.
But perhaps the biggest faux pas is introducing real historical characters. Tarantino’s inventions are big enough – not least Waltz’s terrific ‘movie’ Nazi – so why does he have to court implausibility by dragging in a loony Hitler (Martin Wuttke, nothing special) and introducing Goebbels? You might imagine, too, that this film was written in the ’60s: Tarantino seems blithely uninterested in more than 60 years of slow reconciliation between Europe and its past.
‘Subtle’ is not a word in Tarantino's lexicon. At the film’s heart is a fatal attempt to conflate fact with fiction and a celebration of vengeance that’s misplaced and embarrassing. Loyal fans expecting a familiar patchwork of Tarantino tics and quirks – ‘Pulp History’ or ‘Kill Hitler’ – might not be disappointed. Those expecting anything approaching progress, cinematically or ideologically, probably will be.
The film moves liberally between French, German and English dialogue and takes us through five chapters. First, in 1941, we see a Nazi, Colonel Hans Landa (played by Austrian Christoph Waltz), known as ‘The Jew Hunter’, discover and kill a Jewish family in France; only the youngest daughter gets away.
Then we’re introduced to the ‘basterds’, a gang of eight Jewish-American soldiers who, while deep undercover, roam Nazi-occupied France, murdering German soldiers and collecting their scalps. They’re led by a Tennessee goodtime boy, played by Pitt, but oddly they’re not on screen much. Pitt is lively but he disappears for a long time and is upstaged by Waltz, who gives a teasing turn of sly comedy and cruel charm. His scenes are the film’s best.
For the film’s final chapters, we leap to Paris in 1944, where the two stories collide. The girl who fled the Nazis, Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) is now running a cinema (of course) which plays films by Riefenstahl and Pabst. A Nazi private, Frederick (Daniel Brühl), takes a shine to her. It turns out that his gun-toting heroics are being immortalised in a film produced by Goebbels, who decides that Shosanna’s cinema is perfect for the premiere. Shosanna and the ‘basterds’ decide that the screening is their chance to strike.
This might be a period movie, but still we clock Tarantino’s signature style – the extended, know-it-all dialogue, the tricky gunplay, the pop-cultural nods. There’s even a Mexican stand-off à la ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and the obligatory ‘nigger’ reference, this time in French. But this lacks the stylistic pizzazz of Tarantino’s best, and by putting more emphasis than usual on the chatter it makes it more obvious that the talk often lacks wit and verve.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tarantino takes the history of cinema more seriously than the history of Europe. References to films abound:Michael Fassbender’s British spy (who has an amusing, if silly, ‘Dr Strangelove’-like scene with a superior played by Mike Myers) used to be a critic and regurgitates what sounds like a Wikipedia entry on German film, while another character wonders whether he prefers Chaplin or the French silent actor Max Linder.
What’s not clear is what Tarantino wants to achieve: ‘Inglourious Basterds’ is an immature work that doesn’t know whether it’s a pastiche, a spoof, a counterfactual drama, a revenge tragedy or a character comedy. How can we, within a space of minutes, feel adult sympathy for a hunted Jewish family and then childish glee when a Nazi’s skull is crushed with a baseball bat? The one cancels out the other.
But perhaps the biggest faux pas is introducing real historical characters. Tarantino’s inventions are big enough – not least Waltz’s terrific ‘movie’ Nazi – so why does he have to court implausibility by dragging in a loony Hitler (Martin Wuttke, nothing special) and introducing Goebbels? You might imagine, too, that this film was written in the ’60s: Tarantino seems blithely uninterested in more than 60 years of slow reconciliation between Europe and its past.
‘Subtle’ is not a word in Tarantino's lexicon. At the film’s heart is a fatal attempt to conflate fact with fiction and a celebration of vengeance that’s misplaced and embarrassing. Loyal fans expecting a familiar patchwork of Tarantino tics and quirks – ‘Pulp History’ or ‘Kill Hitler’ – might not be disappointed. Those expecting anything approaching progress, cinematically or ideologically, probably will be.
101. A Separation ( La Séparation )
'We have to change our way of living.' So says Ingrid Bergman in the Rossellini film Pierre (Auteuil) and Anne (Huppert) go to see shortly before she feels moved to tell him she's fallen in love with another man. And Ingrid's right: Pierre and Anne may have been comfortable together for years - they're well-off, they have a smart apartment, a two-year-old son, supportive friends - but while Anne's admission seems at first barely to impinge on Pierre's consciousness, pretty soon he's suffering wild swings of emotion. Could they stay together? Will she leave? Should he throw her out? Whatever, the entire edifice of the relationship they've built up over the years looks set to crumble. Plotwise, that's about it in this study of a disintegrating partnership, but no matter: the film (a subtle, intelligent adaptation of Dan Franck's perceptive but rather indulgent novel) is about the minute shifts in power that occur as Anne tries to make up her mind about her future and Pierre attempts to keep up with or even forestall her changing behaviour. Happily, Vincent is beautifully served by the performers, with Huppert and Auteuil equally superb as the couple striving, against all odds, to emerge intact from a nightmare scenario.
'We have to change our way of living.' So says Ingrid Bergman in the Rossellini film Pierre (Auteuil) and Anne (Huppert) go to see shortly before she feels moved to tell him she's fallen in love with another man. And Ingrid's right: Pierre and Anne may have been comfortable together for years - they're well-off, they have a smart apartment, a two-year-old son, supportive friends - but while Anne's admission seems at first barely to impinge on Pierre's consciousness, pretty soon he's suffering wild swings of emotion. Could they stay together? Will she leave? Should he throw her out? Whatever, the entire edifice of the relationship they've built up over the years looks set to crumble. Plotwise, that's about it in this study of a disintegrating partnership, but no matter: the film (a subtle, intelligent adaptation of Dan Franck's perceptive but rather indulgent novel) is about the minute shifts in power that occur as Anne tries to make up her mind about her future and Pierre attempts to keep up with or even forestall her changing behaviour. Happily, Vincent is beautifully served by the performers, with Huppert and Auteuil equally superb as the couple striving, against all odds, to emerge intact from a nightmare scenario.
102. The Kid
'A picture with a smile and perhaps a tear' says the opening title of Chaplin's first feature. There's no perhaps about it, what with Charlie struggling to nurture a cast-off illegitimate child in the face of unfeeling cops, doctors and orphanage workers. As always, Chaplin's opulent Victorian sentimentality is made palatable both by the amazing grace of his pantomimic skills and the balancing presence of harsh reality: the drama and the intertwining gags are played out amongst garbage, flophouses, a slum world depicted with Stroheim-like detail. As for the smiles, they're guaranteed too, although the gags don't coalesce into great sequences the way they do in later features.
'A picture with a smile and perhaps a tear' says the opening title of Chaplin's first feature. There's no perhaps about it, what with Charlie struggling to nurture a cast-off illegitimate child in the face of unfeeling cops, doctors and orphanage workers. As always, Chaplin's opulent Victorian sentimentality is made palatable both by the amazing grace of his pantomimic skills and the balancing presence of harsh reality: the drama and the intertwining gags are played out amongst garbage, flophouses, a slum world depicted with Stroheim-like detail. As for the smiles, they're guaranteed too, although the gags don't coalesce into great sequences the way they do in later features.
103. 2001: A Space Odyssey
A characteristically pessimistic account of human aspiration from Kubrick, this tripartite sci-fi look at civilisation's progress from prehistoric times (the apes learning to kill) to a visionary future (astronauts on a mission to Jupiter encountering superior life and rebirth in some sort of embryonic divine form) is beautiful, infuriatingly slow, and pretty half-baked. Quite how the general theme fits in with the central drama of the astronauts' battle with the arrogant computer HAL, who tries to take over their mission, is unclear; while the final farrago of light-show psychedelia is simply so much pap. Nevertheless, for all the essential coldness of Kubrick's vision, it demands attention as superior sci-fi, simply because it's more concerned with ideas than with Boy's Own-style pyrotechnics.
A characteristically pessimistic account of human aspiration from Kubrick, this tripartite sci-fi look at civilisation's progress from prehistoric times (the apes learning to kill) to a visionary future (astronauts on a mission to Jupiter encountering superior life and rebirth in some sort of embryonic divine form) is beautiful, infuriatingly slow, and pretty half-baked. Quite how the general theme fits in with the central drama of the astronauts' battle with the arrogant computer HAL, who tries to take over their mission, is unclear; while the final farrago of light-show psychedelia is simply so much pap. Nevertheless, for all the essential coldness of Kubrick's vision, it demands attention as superior sci-fi, simply because it's more concerned with ideas than with Boy's Own-style pyrotechnics.
104. Batman Begins
It is here that 'Batman Begins' hits its only bum note however, the close-up, high-impact fight sequences proving hard to follow, so much so that at times you wish that the director would pull back a little so that you can see what the hell is going on.
But that's a minor quibble in what is an otherwise outstanding reinvention of one of the 20th century's most enduring legends.
A comic book adaptation that doesn't patronise or pander to the subject matter and isn't afraid to take itself seriously, 'Batman Begins' respects the source material, develops it in inspired and unexpected ways and elevates it to a seriously sophisticated cinematic level.
An unadulterated joy from start to finish, it's rumoured to be the first of a proposed trilogy from Nolan and Goyer, and if that turns out be true, the Dark Knight can't return soon enough.
It is here that 'Batman Begins' hits its only bum note however, the close-up, high-impact fight sequences proving hard to follow, so much so that at times you wish that the director would pull back a little so that you can see what the hell is going on.
But that's a minor quibble in what is an otherwise outstanding reinvention of one of the 20th century's most enduring legends.
A comic book adaptation that doesn't patronise or pander to the subject matter and isn't afraid to take itself seriously, 'Batman Begins' respects the source material, develops it in inspired and unexpected ways and elevates it to a seriously sophisticated cinematic level.
An unadulterated joy from start to finish, it's rumoured to be the first of a proposed trilogy from Nolan and Goyer, and if that turns out be true, the Dark Knight can't return soon enough.
105. Yojimbo
Far from being just another vehicle for Mifune, this belongs in that select group of films noirs which are also comedies. It's not as uproarious as its sequel Sanjuro, but the story of a mercenary samurai selling his services to two rival factions in a small town, and then sitting back to watch the enemies destroy each other, certainly marks a departure from the predominantly sentimental moralising of earlier Kurosawa movies. Ultra-pragmatic, unheroic Sanjuro is the centre-piece: his laziness matches the sleepiness of the town, his quirky mannerisms echo the town's gallery of grotesques, and his spasms of violence reflect the society's fundamental cruelty. If the plot sounds familiar, it's probably because Leone stole it for A Fistful of Dollars.
Far from being just another vehicle for Mifune, this belongs in that select group of films noirs which are also comedies. It's not as uproarious as its sequel Sanjuro, but the story of a mercenary samurai selling his services to two rival factions in a small town, and then sitting back to watch the enemies destroy each other, certainly marks a departure from the predominantly sentimental moralising of earlier Kurosawa movies. Ultra-pragmatic, unheroic Sanjuro is the centre-piece: his laziness matches the sleepiness of the town, his quirky mannerisms echo the town's gallery of grotesques, and his spasms of violence reflect the society's fundamental cruelty. If the plot sounds familiar, it's probably because Leone stole it for A Fistful of Dollars.
106. Unforgiven
The modern Western was fathered in part by the Japanese samurai genre, with its lone heroes, oppressed villagers and brutal codes of honour. So it’s appropriate that the West should give a little back. This remake of Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning epic may lack the austere, classical weight of the original, but it makes up for it in visual splendour, spectacular bloodletting, emotional heft and an enlightening take on Japanese history and racial politics. It’s 1880, a decade after the close of the Shogun era, and many samurai – including Ken Watanabe’s notorious killer Jubei – have gone into hiding in the remote north. When a group of small-town prostitutes offer 1,000 yen for the lives of two outlaw brothers who sliced up one of their own, Jubei and his old partner Kingo (Akira Emoto) ride for the reward. But the plot is just a framework on which director Lee Sang-il and his scriptwriters hang many fascinating ideas: about the country’s treatment of its indigenous Ainu people, about the shift from feudalism to ‘freedom’, and of course – as with any great western – about the rules and ramifications of violence. Unexpectedly brilliant.
The modern Western was fathered in part by the Japanese samurai genre, with its lone heroes, oppressed villagers and brutal codes of honour. So it’s appropriate that the West should give a little back. This remake of Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning epic may lack the austere, classical weight of the original, but it makes up for it in visual splendour, spectacular bloodletting, emotional heft and an enlightening take on Japanese history and racial politics. It’s 1880, a decade after the close of the Shogun era, and many samurai – including Ken Watanabe’s notorious killer Jubei – have gone into hiding in the remote north. When a group of small-town prostitutes offer 1,000 yen for the lives of two outlaw brothers who sliced up one of their own, Jubei and his old partner Kingo (Akira Emoto) ride for the reward. But the plot is just a framework on which director Lee Sang-il and his scriptwriters hang many fascinating ideas: about the country’s treatment of its indigenous Ainu people, about the shift from feudalism to ‘freedom’, and of course – as with any great western – about the rules and ramifications of violence. Unexpectedly brilliant.
107. Mertopolis
Since its release in 1927, Fritz Lang’s epic modern fable has only been available in truncated form. Even with an extra 25 minutes, this restored version isn’t entirely complete, but it’s the closest we’re likely to get, and it’s a triumph. The added material doesn’t yield a fundamentally different picture, but amplifies its strengths, the narrative finally proving as compelling as the film’s ambitious idealism, production design and special effects always were.
Set in a future city where a sliver of gilded society lives atop a mountain of subterranean labour, ‘Metropolis’ sends the city leader’s son on an odyssey to the depths in pursuit of saintly workers’ advocate Maria. Meanwhile, her evil robot doppelgänger is set loose on a mission to corrupt and destroy the city. (Brigitte Helm’s amazing, freaky double performance is a major asset.)
Building on earlier science fiction and endlessly influential on later works, Lang’s film is a mammoth marvel, fusing modernism and expressionism, art deco and Biblical spectacle, Wagnerian bombast, sentimental Marxism and religiose millenarianism. Sit close to a big screen and submit to the machine.
Since its release in 1927, Fritz Lang’s epic modern fable has only been available in truncated form. Even with an extra 25 minutes, this restored version isn’t entirely complete, but it’s the closest we’re likely to get, and it’s a triumph. The added material doesn’t yield a fundamentally different picture, but amplifies its strengths, the narrative finally proving as compelling as the film’s ambitious idealism, production design and special effects always were.
Set in a future city where a sliver of gilded society lives atop a mountain of subterranean labour, ‘Metropolis’ sends the city leader’s son on an odyssey to the depths in pursuit of saintly workers’ advocate Maria. Meanwhile, her evil robot doppelgänger is set loose on a mission to corrupt and destroy the city. (Brigitte Helm’s amazing, freaky double performance is a major asset.)
Building on earlier science fiction and endlessly influential on later works, Lang’s film is a mammoth marvel, fusing modernism and expressionism, art deco and Biblical spectacle, Wagnerian bombast, sentimental Marxism and religiose millenarianism. Sit close to a big screen and submit to the machine.
108. Raging Bull
‘You was my brudda. You shoulda looked out for me a little bit… I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum…’ When the washed-up Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro) quotes ‘On The Waterfront’ to himself, it tells us as much about his self-pity as the actual parallels with Brando’s Terry Malloy. Not just a contender but a champ, La Motta’s fall stemmed not from outside pressures but inner weaknesses, stunningly realised in De Niro’s colossal performance; both he and Scorsese have arguably never been better. Following from 1941 to 1964 the explosively jealous and narcissistic middle-weight, his brother-manager Joey – Joe Pesci, great in his breakthrough role, first of the badabing pairings with De Niro that would define his career – and Jake’s tenderised wife Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), ‘Raging Bull’ is a masterclass in pain inflicted on oneself and one’s loved ones, as well as one’s opponents. The use of pop and opera and the black-and-white photography (by Michael Chapman) are exemplary, the actual boxing a compulsive dance of death.
‘You was my brudda. You shoulda looked out for me a little bit… I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum…’ When the washed-up Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro) quotes ‘On The Waterfront’ to himself, it tells us as much about his self-pity as the actual parallels with Brando’s Terry Malloy. Not just a contender but a champ, La Motta’s fall stemmed not from outside pressures but inner weaknesses, stunningly realised in De Niro’s colossal performance; both he and Scorsese have arguably never been better. Following from 1941 to 1964 the explosively jealous and narcissistic middle-weight, his brother-manager Joey – Joe Pesci, great in his breakthrough role, first of the badabing pairings with De Niro that would define his career – and Jake’s tenderised wife Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), ‘Raging Bull’ is a masterclass in pain inflicted on oneself and one’s loved ones, as well as one’s opponents. The use of pop and opera and the black-and-white photography (by Michael Chapman) are exemplary, the actual boxing a compulsive dance of death.
109. The Wolf of Wall Street
The director. The subject matter. The epic running time. All the signs pointed to real-life stock-market story ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ being classic, old-school Martin Scorsese: drugs, swearing, big speeches, bigger performances, a spot of social critique and lashings of classic rock. But while many of these elements are present, something unexpected has snuck in alongside them: huge, unashamedly crowd-pleasing laughs.
This is without doubt the funniest movie of Scorsese’s career – earlier efforts like ‘The King of Comedy’ and ‘After Hours’ may have been brilliant, but their chuckles were chillier and more unsettling. ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ plays modern tragedy as epic farce, reminding us just how much fun Scorsese can be when he’s in a playful mood.
It also proves – equally unexpectedly – that Leonardo DiCaprio can do comedy, too. He plays Jordan Belfort, an unscrupulous stock-market wizard who, in his early twenties, became a multi-multi-millionaire by fleecing Americans out of their hard-earned investments. Belfort – along with his goofy-toothed sidekick Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) – lived high on the hog for the best part of a decade, a constant roundelay of booze, yachts, hookers and hard drugs. That is, until the authorities came a-knocking...
Predictably, ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ is more flash than substance. Scorsese never digs too deeply under the skin of these reprehensible playboy douchebags, and there are times where the swooping photography, smash-and-grab editing and toe-tapping soundtrack conspire to almost – almost – make us like them. But when the film’s cylinders are firing, it’s impossible not to be dragged along. The big set-pieces – a coke-fuelled lecture from an unscrupulous Matthew McConaughey, a squirm-inducing encounter between DiCaprio and Joanna Lumley on a London park bench, a Mediterranean cruise that goes horribly wrong and, most memorably, a grandiose slapstick sequence involving a sports car and a fistful of vintage quaaludes – are among the most memorable of Scorsese’s career, rivalling ‘Goodfellas’ for sheer vitality. The result may not be the most measured take on the ongoing financial crisis, but it is without doubt the most entertaining.
The director. The subject matter. The epic running time. All the signs pointed to real-life stock-market story ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ being classic, old-school Martin Scorsese: drugs, swearing, big speeches, bigger performances, a spot of social critique and lashings of classic rock. But while many of these elements are present, something unexpected has snuck in alongside them: huge, unashamedly crowd-pleasing laughs.
This is without doubt the funniest movie of Scorsese’s career – earlier efforts like ‘The King of Comedy’ and ‘After Hours’ may have been brilliant, but their chuckles were chillier and more unsettling. ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ plays modern tragedy as epic farce, reminding us just how much fun Scorsese can be when he’s in a playful mood.
It also proves – equally unexpectedly – that Leonardo DiCaprio can do comedy, too. He plays Jordan Belfort, an unscrupulous stock-market wizard who, in his early twenties, became a multi-multi-millionaire by fleecing Americans out of their hard-earned investments. Belfort – along with his goofy-toothed sidekick Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) – lived high on the hog for the best part of a decade, a constant roundelay of booze, yachts, hookers and hard drugs. That is, until the authorities came a-knocking...
Predictably, ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ is more flash than substance. Scorsese never digs too deeply under the skin of these reprehensible playboy douchebags, and there are times where the swooping photography, smash-and-grab editing and toe-tapping soundtrack conspire to almost – almost – make us like them. But when the film’s cylinders are firing, it’s impossible not to be dragged along. The big set-pieces – a coke-fuelled lecture from an unscrupulous Matthew McConaughey, a squirm-inducing encounter between DiCaprio and Joanna Lumley on a London park bench, a Mediterranean cruise that goes horribly wrong and, most memorably, a grandiose slapstick sequence involving a sports car and a fistful of vintage quaaludes – are among the most memorable of Scorsese’s career, rivalling ‘Goodfellas’ for sheer vitality. The result may not be the most measured take on the ongoing financial crisis, but it is without doubt the most entertaining.
110. Toy Story
Thanks to Lasseter's sure sense of characterisation (and his technical wizardry), the first wholly computer-generated animation feature is a gem. From a familiar premise (toys come alive whenever humans leave the room) the ingenious, witty script proceeds to work marvels. Hitherto, the likes of Mr Potato Head, Slinky the dog, Rex the dinosaur, Bo Peep and Hamm the piggy bank have accepted as their benevolent lawgiver Woody, a pullstring cowboy and Andy's favourite toy. Come the kid's birthday, however, their world is thrown into disarray by new arrival Buzz Lightyear, a Powers Boothe lookalike in hi-tech spacesuit who not only usurps Woody's place in Andy's affections, but doesn't know he's a toy. While kids will get off on the bewitching colours, the slapstick and the action-packed (and expertly paced) story, the film will probably be more fully appreciated by adults, who'll love the snappy, knowing verbal gags, the vivid, deftly defined characters, and the overall conceptual sophistication. After all, Randy Newman songs, mutant toys reminiscent of Bosch or Svankmajer, and a surprisingly affecting foray into existential crisis are hardly conventional Disney fare.
Thanks to Lasseter's sure sense of characterisation (and his technical wizardry), the first wholly computer-generated animation feature is a gem. From a familiar premise (toys come alive whenever humans leave the room) the ingenious, witty script proceeds to work marvels. Hitherto, the likes of Mr Potato Head, Slinky the dog, Rex the dinosaur, Bo Peep and Hamm the piggy bank have accepted as their benevolent lawgiver Woody, a pullstring cowboy and Andy's favourite toy. Come the kid's birthday, however, their world is thrown into disarray by new arrival Buzz Lightyear, a Powers Boothe lookalike in hi-tech spacesuit who not only usurps Woody's place in Andy's affections, but doesn't know he's a toy. While kids will get off on the bewitching colours, the slapstick and the action-packed (and expertly paced) story, the film will probably be more fully appreciated by adults, who'll love the snappy, knowing verbal gags, the vivid, deftly defined characters, and the overall conceptual sophistication. After all, Randy Newman songs, mutant toys reminiscent of Bosch or Svankmajer, and a surprisingly affecting foray into existential crisis are hardly conventional Disney fare.
111. Chinatown
The hard-boiled private eye coolly strolls a few steps ahead of the audience. The slapstick detective gets everything wrong and then pratfalls first over the finish line anyway. Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is neither - instead he's a hard-boiled private eye who gets everything wrong. Jake snaps tabloid-ready photos of an adulterous love nest that's no such thing. He spies a distressed young woman through a window and mistakes her for a hostage. He finds bifocals in a pond and calls them Exhibit A of marital murder, only the glasses don't belong to the victim and the wife hasn't killed anyone. Yet when he confronts ostensible black widow Evelyn Mulwray (Dunaway) with the spectacular evidence, the cigarette between his teeth lends his voice an authoritative Bogie hiss. Throughout, Gittes sexes up mediocre snooping with blithe arrogance and sarcastic machismo. It's the actor's default mode, sure, but in 1974 it hadn't yet calcified into Schtickolson, and in 1974 a director (Polanski), a screenwriter (Towne) and a producer (Evans) could decide to beat a genre senseless and dump it in the wilds of Greek tragedy. 'You see, Mr Gits,' depravity incarnate Noah Cross (Huston) famously explains, 'most people never have to face the fact that, at the right time and the right place, they're capable of anything.' As is Chinatown. The last gunshot here is the sound of the gate slamming on the Paramount lot of Evans' halcyon reign, and as the camera rears back to catch Jake's expression, the dolly lists and shivers - an almost imperceptible sob of grief and recognition, but not a tear is shed.
The hard-boiled private eye coolly strolls a few steps ahead of the audience. The slapstick detective gets everything wrong and then pratfalls first over the finish line anyway. Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is neither - instead he's a hard-boiled private eye who gets everything wrong. Jake snaps tabloid-ready photos of an adulterous love nest that's no such thing. He spies a distressed young woman through a window and mistakes her for a hostage. He finds bifocals in a pond and calls them Exhibit A of marital murder, only the glasses don't belong to the victim and the wife hasn't killed anyone. Yet when he confronts ostensible black widow Evelyn Mulwray (Dunaway) with the spectacular evidence, the cigarette between his teeth lends his voice an authoritative Bogie hiss. Throughout, Gittes sexes up mediocre snooping with blithe arrogance and sarcastic machismo. It's the actor's default mode, sure, but in 1974 it hadn't yet calcified into Schtickolson, and in 1974 a director (Polanski), a screenwriter (Towne) and a producer (Evans) could decide to beat a genre senseless and dump it in the wilds of Greek tragedy. 'You see, Mr Gits,' depravity incarnate Noah Cross (Huston) famously explains, 'most people never have to face the fact that, at the right time and the right place, they're capable of anything.' As is Chinatown. The last gunshot here is the sound of the gate slamming on the Paramount lot of Evans' halcyon reign, and as the camera rears back to catch Jake's expression, the dolly lists and shivers - an almost imperceptible sob of grief and recognition, but not a tear is shed.
112. Scarface
The recent, unironic adoption of Brian De Palma’s furious, ludicrous crime epic by gangstas, playas and hippety-hoppety bling merchants of all stripes is perhaps testament to the film’s outrageous cojones, rather than any piercing insight into the criminal psyche.
But there’s no denying that ‘Scarface’ is also a lot of fun, tracking homicidal Cuban homunculus Tony Montana (Al Pacino) from his first footsteps on US soil to his operatic demise in a cloud of AK-47 bullets and coke. In fact, cocaine-fuelled excess seems to power the whole movie, from Oliver Stone’s overloaded, trashily self-aware script to Al Pacino’s wildly unpredictable consonant-mangling mumble (‘Manolo, choot dis piece a chit’), from De Palma’s magnificently indulgent Wellesian long shots to the retina-scorching, high-kitsch set and costume design.
What’s most impressive is Stone and De Palma’s unwillingness to cloak Tony’s grotesque, voracious machine-gun capitalism with any sort of ‘Godfather’-style guff about honour and family: ‘Scarface’ is an unashamed study of selfish, sadistic criminality, and all the better for it.
The recent, unironic adoption of Brian De Palma’s furious, ludicrous crime epic by gangstas, playas and hippety-hoppety bling merchants of all stripes is perhaps testament to the film’s outrageous cojones, rather than any piercing insight into the criminal psyche.
But there’s no denying that ‘Scarface’ is also a lot of fun, tracking homicidal Cuban homunculus Tony Montana (Al Pacino) from his first footsteps on US soil to his operatic demise in a cloud of AK-47 bullets and coke. In fact, cocaine-fuelled excess seems to power the whole movie, from Oliver Stone’s overloaded, trashily self-aware script to Al Pacino’s wildly unpredictable consonant-mangling mumble (‘Manolo, choot dis piece a chit’), from De Palma’s magnificently indulgent Wellesian long shots to the retina-scorching, high-kitsch set and costume design.
What’s most impressive is Stone and De Palma’s unwillingness to cloak Tony’s grotesque, voracious machine-gun capitalism with any sort of ‘Godfather’-style guff about honour and family: ‘Scarface’ is an unashamed study of selfish, sadistic criminality, and all the better for it.
113. Up
The story begins as the authorities threaten to place Carl in care after he has a scrap with a property developer looking to bulldoze his home. Carl’s response to this bureaucratic heavy-handedness is a bugle call to the gods of animation. He ties a thousand balloons to his home and floats off, house and all, to South America to find the waterfalls which he and his wife always dreamed of visiting. But he doesn’t bargain on a passenger. In tow is Russell, a podgy child and a wilderness explorer, who wants to help Carl cross a road so that he can win an achievement badge.The balloons are a showcase for modern digital animation as they convincingly float and shimmer; the jungle, too, is a canvas for an explosion of colours and various strange beasts.
There’s a touch of ‘Fitzcarraldo’ as Carl and Russell drag this old man’s home through a jungle while fighting off the maniacal ambitions of an even more elderly adventurer who lives in the wilderness. It’s not the only element of ‘Up’ that recalls Herzog’s determination to show nature laughing in the face of man. It’s a running theme – and gag – throughout. And there’s even something of Timothy Treadwell from ‘Grizzly Man’ about wide-eyed Russell.
So, Pixar triumphs again with a delirious fantasy that has one leg in the human world of hopes dashed and realised, and the other in the cartoon tradition of journeying and adventure. The crisp 3D is never gimmicky and the entire film is blessed with the light and air of bright but never gaudy colours
The story begins as the authorities threaten to place Carl in care after he has a scrap with a property developer looking to bulldoze his home. Carl’s response to this bureaucratic heavy-handedness is a bugle call to the gods of animation. He ties a thousand balloons to his home and floats off, house and all, to South America to find the waterfalls which he and his wife always dreamed of visiting. But he doesn’t bargain on a passenger. In tow is Russell, a podgy child and a wilderness explorer, who wants to help Carl cross a road so that he can win an achievement badge.The balloons are a showcase for modern digital animation as they convincingly float and shimmer; the jungle, too, is a canvas for an explosion of colours and various strange beasts.
There’s a touch of ‘Fitzcarraldo’ as Carl and Russell drag this old man’s home through a jungle while fighting off the maniacal ambitions of an even more elderly adventurer who lives in the wilderness. It’s not the only element of ‘Up’ that recalls Herzog’s determination to show nature laughing in the face of man. It’s a running theme – and gag – throughout. And there’s even something of Timothy Treadwell from ‘Grizzly Man’ about wide-eyed Russell.
So, Pixar triumphs again with a delirious fantasy that has one leg in the human world of hopes dashed and realised, and the other in the cartoon tradition of journeying and adventure. The crisp 3D is never gimmicky and the entire film is blessed with the light and air of bright but never gaudy colours
114. Die Hard
A hi-tech thriller with a human heart, offering slam-bang entertainment on a par with Lethal Weapon or Aliens. On Christmas Eve, visiting New York cop McClane (Willis) enters the high-rise LA office block where his estranged wife works, not realising that it has already being taken over by sadistic smoothie Hans Gruber (Rickman) and his ruthless terrorists. Inside the building, having taken wife (Bedelia) and celebrating colleagues hostage, the gang tries to crack open the Nakotomi corporation's computerised vault; outside, LA cops and FBI agents squabble over jurisdiction, while opportunistic TV reporters gather like jackals; it's up to McClane, having established a chance radio link with a passing patrolman (Veljohnson), to use the building's 39 empty floors, lift shafts, and heating ducts to improvise diversionary tactics. McTiernan excels in the adrenalin-inducing action scenes, staging the murderous mayhem and state-of-the-art violence as if he were born with a camera in one hand and a rocket launcher in the other..
A hi-tech thriller with a human heart, offering slam-bang entertainment on a par with Lethal Weapon or Aliens. On Christmas Eve, visiting New York cop McClane (Willis) enters the high-rise LA office block where his estranged wife works, not realising that it has already being taken over by sadistic smoothie Hans Gruber (Rickman) and his ruthless terrorists. Inside the building, having taken wife (Bedelia) and celebrating colleagues hostage, the gang tries to crack open the Nakotomi corporation's computerised vault; outside, LA cops and FBI agents squabble over jurisdiction, while opportunistic TV reporters gather like jackals; it's up to McClane, having established a chance radio link with a passing patrolman (Veljohnson), to use the building's 39 empty floors, lift shafts, and heating ducts to improvise diversionary tactics. McTiernan excels in the adrenalin-inducing action scenes, staging the murderous mayhem and state-of-the-art violence as if he were born with a camera in one hand and a rocket launcher in the other..
115. Downfall
At heart, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s film about Hitler’s final 12 days conforms to the same claustrophobic, morally neutral template set by the various factually based dramatisations made over the years (usually with the raging, sick, 56-year-old Reichschancellor played by some British acting luminary such as Alec Guinness or Robert Carlyle). Based on two books – Joachim Fest’s meticulously researched ‘Inside Hitler’s Bunker’ and the part-ghosted memoirs of Traudl Junge, Hitler’s pretty young secretary, documentary footage of whom closes the movie – it can be recommended as a masterclass in reconstructive cinema, dramatically compelling despite the overwhelming size of its ‘cast’. The director’s expressionist use of sound – a disorientating mix of pounding bomb explosions and Purcell – effectively enforces an eerie ‘you were there’ immediacy. Watching the movie is like experiencing three hours in a madhouse – and it’s a pleasure to escape at the end.
The more problematic issue is the effect of how the film differs from its predecessors: it’s a German film aimed (if not exclusively) at German audiences and has a German actor (Bruno Ganz) playing the Führer on the big screen for the first time in 50 years. Ganz’s job is to humanise this monstrous, iconic and finally unknowable figure, which he does superbly, veering between rants against the verminous Jew or the failure of the German volk and polite consideration for his secretary’s demands. But his nationality seems largely irrelevant. Only in the scenes where we escape the underground hell – an effective depiction of the Hitler Youth fighting on the streets as the Russians close in; the operation of the SS killing squads; some surreal cigarette breaks in the Chancellory grounds; the heroic actions of an SS hospital doctor working under blanket bombing; and a fanciful coda as a secretary makes her escape through Russian lines by averting her face – do we perceive the director’s careful, but not objectionable, awareness of modern German sensibilities.
At heart, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s film about Hitler’s final 12 days conforms to the same claustrophobic, morally neutral template set by the various factually based dramatisations made over the years (usually with the raging, sick, 56-year-old Reichschancellor played by some British acting luminary such as Alec Guinness or Robert Carlyle). Based on two books – Joachim Fest’s meticulously researched ‘Inside Hitler’s Bunker’ and the part-ghosted memoirs of Traudl Junge, Hitler’s pretty young secretary, documentary footage of whom closes the movie – it can be recommended as a masterclass in reconstructive cinema, dramatically compelling despite the overwhelming size of its ‘cast’. The director’s expressionist use of sound – a disorientating mix of pounding bomb explosions and Purcell – effectively enforces an eerie ‘you were there’ immediacy. Watching the movie is like experiencing three hours in a madhouse – and it’s a pleasure to escape at the end.
The more problematic issue is the effect of how the film differs from its predecessors: it’s a German film aimed (if not exclusively) at German audiences and has a German actor (Bruno Ganz) playing the Führer on the big screen for the first time in 50 years. Ganz’s job is to humanise this monstrous, iconic and finally unknowable figure, which he does superbly, veering between rants against the verminous Jew or the failure of the German volk and polite consideration for his secretary’s demands. But his nationality seems largely irrelevant. Only in the scenes where we escape the underground hell – an effective depiction of the Hitler Youth fighting on the streets as the Russians close in; the operation of the SS killing squads; some surreal cigarette breaks in the Chancellory grounds; the heroic actions of an SS hospital doctor working under blanket bombing; and a fanciful coda as a secretary makes her escape through Russian lines by averting her face – do we perceive the director’s careful, but not objectionable, awareness of modern German sensibilities.
116. The Great Escape
Uneven but entertaining World War II escape drama, which even when it first appeared seemed very old-fashioned. Based on Paul Brickhill's factual account of the efforts of Allied prisoners to break out of Stalag Luft North, it contains memorable sequences and a sea of well-known faces. McQueen comes off best as 'The Cooler King'; Bronson and Garner (perhaps surprisingly) give good support; Coburn is totally miscast as an Australian, yet turns in an amusing performance. Worth seeing the last half hour, if nothing else, for one of the best stunt sequences in years: McQueen's motor-cycle bid for freedom.
Uneven but entertaining World War II escape drama, which even when it first appeared seemed very old-fashioned. Based on Paul Brickhill's factual account of the efforts of Allied prisoners to break out of Stalag Luft North, it contains memorable sequences and a sea of well-known faces. McQueen comes off best as 'The Cooler King'; Bronson and Garner (perhaps surprisingly) give good support; Coburn is totally miscast as an Australian, yet turns in an amusing performance. Worth seeing the last half hour, if nothing else, for one of the best stunt sequences in years: McQueen's motor-cycle bid for freedom.
117. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Stewart's young Wisconsin senator exposing corruption and upholding true American values in a Senate House riddled with graft is quintessential Capra - popular wish-fulfilment served up with such fast-talking comic panache that you don't have time to question its cornball idealism. Scriptwriter Sidney Buchman's crackling dialogue is also lent sharp-tongued conviction by Rains, as the slimy senior senator, Jean Arthur as the hard-boiled dame finally won over by Stewart's honesty, and Harry Carey as the Vice President.
Stewart's young Wisconsin senator exposing corruption and upholding true American values in a Senate House riddled with graft is quintessential Capra - popular wish-fulfilment served up with such fast-talking comic panache that you don't have time to question its cornball idealism. Scriptwriter Sidney Buchman's crackling dialogue is also lent sharp-tongued conviction by Rains, as the slimy senior senator, Jean Arthur as the hard-boiled dame finally won over by Stewart's honesty, and Harry Carey as the Vice President.
118. Pan's Labyrinth ( El Laberinto del Fauno )
A girl on the cusp of adolescence is inducted into a threatening fantasy world where she discovers her own power. It’s a familiar, even archetypal story well suited to the dreamlike parallel reality of cinema: Alice, Wendy and Dorothy found their ways on screen and have been joined by the young heroines of ‘Labyrinth’, ‘Spirited Away’ and ‘Mirrormask’, to name just a few. ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ is another version of the tale, but an unusual one in that it isn’t suitable for children. Not only is it replete with violence visited on the body, but its lessons – in the inadequacy of fantasy as a countermeasure to repression – might have sensitive youngsters chucking in the towel.
As in ‘The Devil’s Backbone’ and a prospective new project, ‘3993’, del Toro (who is Mexican) arranges his supernatural drama against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. The setting is 1944, so the conflict proper is over, but skirmishes continue between anti-fascist guerrillas and forces under the command of sadistic, narcissistic Captain Vidal (Sergi López) – or ‘father’, as young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is instructed to address him when she arrives at his forest base with her pregnant, ailing mother (Ariadna Gil), Vidal’s new bride. The maid, Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), is friendly and in some ways a mirror character for Ofelia, but the girl is basically alone – until a large cricket transforms into a fairy and leads her to a crumbling stone maze in the grounds, where an ageing faun greets her as a lost princess, pending her completion of certain tasks…
It’s no coincidence that the fairy appears after the double-killing that establishes this fable isn’t kids’ stuff, or that the jeopardy of Ofelia’s challenges pales in comparison to real-world struggles. Reality increasingly dominates the story; in fact, the faun’s realm can seem merely the stage for a series of set-pieces whose grotesque and detailed design impresses more than any sense of momentum or high stakes.
Yet as escapist fantasies go, this supernature is markedly muddy – both literally, as when Ofelia ventures into the belly of a great tree, and in the general creepiness that marks even those ostensibly sympathetic to her, like the faun, with its unnerving habit of appearing in her bedroom. The labyrinth has echoes of authentic atrocity: a pile of children’s shoes lies ominously near the banqueting table of a bald-bodied, blank-faced baby-eater. At least as evident, though, is del Toro’s own immersion in fantasy and horror cinema, with nods to ‘Don’t Look Now’, ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and ‘The Shining’ among others (not to mention Goya and ‘The Spirit of the Beehive’). It’s as a filmmaker, rather than storyteller, that del Toro is most successful here: a disjunction remains between the story’s childlike form and its gruesome execution, but few directors are so adept at conveying both the uncanny in the real and the recognisable in the fantastic.
A girl on the cusp of adolescence is inducted into a threatening fantasy world where she discovers her own power. It’s a familiar, even archetypal story well suited to the dreamlike parallel reality of cinema: Alice, Wendy and Dorothy found their ways on screen and have been joined by the young heroines of ‘Labyrinth’, ‘Spirited Away’ and ‘Mirrormask’, to name just a few. ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ is another version of the tale, but an unusual one in that it isn’t suitable for children. Not only is it replete with violence visited on the body, but its lessons – in the inadequacy of fantasy as a countermeasure to repression – might have sensitive youngsters chucking in the towel.
As in ‘The Devil’s Backbone’ and a prospective new project, ‘3993’, del Toro (who is Mexican) arranges his supernatural drama against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. The setting is 1944, so the conflict proper is over, but skirmishes continue between anti-fascist guerrillas and forces under the command of sadistic, narcissistic Captain Vidal (Sergi López) – or ‘father’, as young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is instructed to address him when she arrives at his forest base with her pregnant, ailing mother (Ariadna Gil), Vidal’s new bride. The maid, Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), is friendly and in some ways a mirror character for Ofelia, but the girl is basically alone – until a large cricket transforms into a fairy and leads her to a crumbling stone maze in the grounds, where an ageing faun greets her as a lost princess, pending her completion of certain tasks…
It’s no coincidence that the fairy appears after the double-killing that establishes this fable isn’t kids’ stuff, or that the jeopardy of Ofelia’s challenges pales in comparison to real-world struggles. Reality increasingly dominates the story; in fact, the faun’s realm can seem merely the stage for a series of set-pieces whose grotesque and detailed design impresses more than any sense of momentum or high stakes.
Yet as escapist fantasies go, this supernature is markedly muddy – both literally, as when Ofelia ventures into the belly of a great tree, and in the general creepiness that marks even those ostensibly sympathetic to her, like the faun, with its unnerving habit of appearing in her bedroom. The labyrinth has echoes of authentic atrocity: a pile of children’s shoes lies ominously near the banqueting table of a bald-bodied, blank-faced baby-eater. At least as evident, though, is del Toro’s own immersion in fantasy and horror cinema, with nods to ‘Don’t Look Now’, ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and ‘The Shining’ among others (not to mention Goya and ‘The Spirit of the Beehive’). It’s as a filmmaker, rather than storyteller, that del Toro is most successful here: a disjunction remains between the story’s childlike form and its gruesome execution, but few directors are so adept at conveying both the uncanny in the real and the recognisable in the fantastic.
119. Like Stars on Earth
Ishaan Awasthi is an eight-year-old whose world is filled with wonders that no one else seems to appreciate; colours, fish, dogs and kites are just not important in the world of adults, who are much more interested in things like homework, marks and neatness. And Ishaan just cannot seem to get anything right in class. When he gets into far more trouble than his parents can handle, he is packed off to a boarding school to 'be disciplined'. Things are no different at his new school, and Ishaan has to contend with the added trauma of separation from his family. One day a new art teacher bursts onto the scene, Ram Shankar Nikumbh, who infects the students with joy and optimism. He breaks all the rules of 'how things are done' by asking them to think, dream and imagine, and all the children respond with enthusiasm, all except Ishaan. Nikumbh soon realizes that Ishaan is very unhappy, and he sets out to discover why. With time, patience and care, he ultimately helps Ishaan find himself.
Ishaan Awasthi is an eight-year-old whose world is filled with wonders that no one else seems to appreciate; colours, fish, dogs and kites are just not important in the world of adults, who are much more interested in things like homework, marks and neatness. And Ishaan just cannot seem to get anything right in class. When he gets into far more trouble than his parents can handle, he is packed off to a boarding school to 'be disciplined'. Things are no different at his new school, and Ishaan has to contend with the added trauma of separation from his family. One day a new art teacher bursts onto the scene, Ram Shankar Nikumbh, who infects the students with joy and optimism. He breaks all the rules of 'how things are done' by asking them to think, dream and imagine, and all the children respond with enthusiasm, all except Ishaan. Nikumbh soon realizes that Ishaan is very unhappy, and he sets out to discover why. With time, patience and care, he ultimately helps Ishaan find himself.
120. On the Waterfront
Superb performances (none more so than Brando as Terry Malloy, the ex-boxer unwittingly entangled in corrupt union politics), a memorably colourful script by Budd Schulberg, and a sure control of atmosphere make this account of Brando's struggles against gangster Cobb's hold over the New York longshoremen's union powerful stuff. It is undermined, however, by both the religious symbolism (that turns Malloy not into a Judas but a Christ figure) and the embarrassing special pleading on behalf of informers, deriving presumably from the fact that Kazan and Schulberg named names during the McCarthy witch-hunts. Politics apart, though, it's pretty electrifying.
Superb performances (none more so than Brando as Terry Malloy, the ex-boxer unwittingly entangled in corrupt union politics), a memorably colourful script by Budd Schulberg, and a sure control of atmosphere make this account of Brando's struggles against gangster Cobb's hold over the New York longshoremen's union powerful stuff. It is undermined, however, by both the religious symbolism (that turns Malloy not into a Judas but a Christ figure) and the embarrassing special pleading on behalf of informers, deriving presumably from the fact that Kazan and Schulberg named names during the McCarthy witch-hunts. Politics apart, though, it's pretty electrifying.
121. The Bridge on the River Kwai
A classic example of a film that fudges the issues it raises: Guinness restores the morale of British PoWs by building a bridge which it transpires is of military value to the Japanese, and then attempts to thwart Hawkins and Holden's destruction of it - or does he? etc. The film's success also marked the end of Lean as a director and the beginnings of American-financed 'British' films.
A classic example of a film that fudges the issues it raises: Guinness restores the morale of British PoWs by building a bridge which it transpires is of military value to the Japanese, and then attempts to thwart Hawkins and Holden's destruction of it - or does he? etc. The film's success also marked the end of Lean as a director and the beginnings of American-financed 'British' films.
122. Heat
Investigating a bold armed robbery which has left three security guards dead, LA cop Vincent Hanna (Pacino), whose devotion to work is threatening his third marriage, follows a trail that leads him to suspect a gang of thieves headed by Neil McCauley (De Niro). Trouble is, McCauley's cunning is at least equal to Hanna's, and that makes him a hard man to nail. Still, unknown to Hanna, McCauley's gang have their own troubles: one of their number is a volatile psychopath, while the businessman whose bonds they've stolen is not above some rough stuff himself. Such a synopsis barely scratches the surface of Mann's masterly crime epic. Painstakingly detailed, with enough characters, subplots and telling nuances to fill out half a dozen conventional thrillers, this is simply the best American crime movie - and indeed, one of the finest movies, period - in over a decade. The action scenes are better than anything produced by John Woo or Quentin Tarantino; the characterisation has a depth most American film-makers only dream of; the use of location, decor and music is inspired; Dante Spinotti's camerawork is superb; and the large, imaginatively chosen cast gives terrific support to the two leads, both back on glorious form.
Investigating a bold armed robbery which has left three security guards dead, LA cop Vincent Hanna (Pacino), whose devotion to work is threatening his third marriage, follows a trail that leads him to suspect a gang of thieves headed by Neil McCauley (De Niro). Trouble is, McCauley's cunning is at least equal to Hanna's, and that makes him a hard man to nail. Still, unknown to Hanna, McCauley's gang have their own troubles: one of their number is a volatile psychopath, while the businessman whose bonds they've stolen is not above some rough stuff himself. Such a synopsis barely scratches the surface of Mann's masterly crime epic. Painstakingly detailed, with enough characters, subplots and telling nuances to fill out half a dozen conventional thrillers, this is simply the best American crime movie - and indeed, one of the finest movies, period - in over a decade. The action scenes are better than anything produced by John Woo or Quentin Tarantino; the characterisation has a depth most American film-makers only dream of; the use of location, decor and music is inspired; Dante Spinotti's camerawork is superb; and the large, imaginatively chosen cast gives terrific support to the two leads, both back on glorious form.
123. The Grand Budapest Hotel
While other filmmakers get their hands dirty in kitchen sinks, Wes Anderson surely slips his into luxury cashmere mittens. His films overflow with intricate detail and make no pretence of existing in a world other than their own, just-about-earthbound parallel universe. So the five-star premises of his energetic new comedy ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ – a wedding-cake-like, pastel-coloured establishment situated somewhere in 1930s Mitteleuropa and peopled by eccentrics and lunatics – feel like business as usual. What’s different, though, is that the film’s shaggy-dog, sort-of-whodunit yarn offers laughs and energy that make this Anderson’s most fun film since ‘Rushmore’.
Where ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ had heart, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ has pace and a winning manic streak. It also gives Ralph Fiennes a rare comic role as Monsieur Gustave, a concierge who wavers brilliantly between thug and gentleman aesthete. From Gustave’s mouth pours a head-spinning cocktail of politeness and filth as he becomes embroiled in the murder investigation and inheritance tussles that follow the death of one of his most loyal guests, the elderly Madame D (Tilda Swinton, barely recognisable beneath a carapace of make-up). At Gustave’s side is his loyal apprentice, Zero Moustafa (newcomer Tony Revolori with a drawn-on pencil moustache), who decades later (now played by F Murray Abraham) recounts events over dinner to a writer played by Jude Law.
The rest of Anderson’s cast is sprawling and starry. Blink and you might miss Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and others in tiny roles. A bruising Adrien Brody and a Rottweiler-like Willem Dafoe represent a violent new European order – one of them is kitted out all in black, no less. In its own indirect and loopy fashion, is this Anderson’s most political film? It tips its hat to 1930s history in the way Hitchcock tipped his viewfinder to the same decade’s current affairs with ‘The Lady Vanishes’ (both films share a hotel, a train and an old woman at the centre of a mischievous mystery).
Like the ship of ‘The Life Aquatic’ or the townhouse of ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ comes with its own ready-made theatre and uniformed cast. From here, Anderson breaks out with verve on to trains, ski runs and cobbled streets to spin a wickedly funny tale that celebrates the final glory days of a dying world order. It’s all given a bombastic lift by an Alexandre Desplat score which crescendos in organs and drums. Full of Anderson’s visual signatures – cameras that swerve, quick zooms, speedy montages – it’s familiar in style, refreshing in tone and one of Anderson’s very best films.
While other filmmakers get their hands dirty in kitchen sinks, Wes Anderson surely slips his into luxury cashmere mittens. His films overflow with intricate detail and make no pretence of existing in a world other than their own, just-about-earthbound parallel universe. So the five-star premises of his energetic new comedy ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ – a wedding-cake-like, pastel-coloured establishment situated somewhere in 1930s Mitteleuropa and peopled by eccentrics and lunatics – feel like business as usual. What’s different, though, is that the film’s shaggy-dog, sort-of-whodunit yarn offers laughs and energy that make this Anderson’s most fun film since ‘Rushmore’.
Where ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ had heart, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ has pace and a winning manic streak. It also gives Ralph Fiennes a rare comic role as Monsieur Gustave, a concierge who wavers brilliantly between thug and gentleman aesthete. From Gustave’s mouth pours a head-spinning cocktail of politeness and filth as he becomes embroiled in the murder investigation and inheritance tussles that follow the death of one of his most loyal guests, the elderly Madame D (Tilda Swinton, barely recognisable beneath a carapace of make-up). At Gustave’s side is his loyal apprentice, Zero Moustafa (newcomer Tony Revolori with a drawn-on pencil moustache), who decades later (now played by F Murray Abraham) recounts events over dinner to a writer played by Jude Law.
The rest of Anderson’s cast is sprawling and starry. Blink and you might miss Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and others in tiny roles. A bruising Adrien Brody and a Rottweiler-like Willem Dafoe represent a violent new European order – one of them is kitted out all in black, no less. In its own indirect and loopy fashion, is this Anderson’s most political film? It tips its hat to 1930s history in the way Hitchcock tipped his viewfinder to the same decade’s current affairs with ‘The Lady Vanishes’ (both films share a hotel, a train and an old woman at the centre of a mischievous mystery).
Like the ship of ‘The Life Aquatic’ or the townhouse of ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ comes with its own ready-made theatre and uniformed cast. From here, Anderson breaks out with verve on to trains, ski runs and cobbled streets to spin a wickedly funny tale that celebrates the final glory days of a dying world order. It’s all given a bombastic lift by an Alexandre Desplat score which crescendos in organs and drums. Full of Anderson’s visual signatures – cameras that swerve, quick zooms, speedy montages – it’s familiar in style, refreshing in tone and one of Anderson’s very best films.
124. The Hunt
What does it feel like to be wrongly accused of being a paedophile? ‘It gets into your bones… it gets into your soul,’ Lord McAlpine said recently. In this nerve-shredding drama from Denmark, a good man’s life is ripped apart by false allegations that he sexually abused a child. He didn’t do it. The little girl fibbed (in the same way she might tell the teacher her best friend gave her a Chinese burn). But her innocent lie spreads like a virus, killing trust and goodness in a close-knit small town.
Mads Mikkelsen is best known for playing baddies – he was the villain who weeped blood in ‘Casino Royale’. Here, he’s the accused, Lucas, a teacher working as an assistant at a nursery after his school shuts down. The little girl, a pupil, is also his best friend’s daughter. Lucas is none too worried at first – it’ll all be sorted by teatime, right? The police are called. Parents are warned to be on the look-out for telltale symptoms, like bedwetting and nightmares (in children!). Lucas is branded a serial paedophile. The town goes from civilisation to the Dark Ages in about 15 minutes.
This is lean, fast-paced storytelling from director and writer Thomas Vinterberg, who made ‘Festen’ in 1998 (about a paedophile father who raped his children). This has the same stripped back docu-drama style. Which focuses our attention on the acting – and it’s flawless. We watch the story play out in the reactions of everyone involved. As the only man working at the nursery, the kids adore Lucas. After hearing the allegations, a teacher watches him rough-play with some boys. We see the scene through her eyes. It looks suspicious. It really does.
These are all good people, and there’s a kind of moral puzzle here. We always have to listen to children. Always. But what if your best friend was accused? Would you believe him? At the other end of the scale, what kind of world is it when a man can’t hold hands with a child who isn’t his own – in case someone accuses him of being a paedo?
Mikkelsen is gripping. There’s a moment when it hits home that this is for real. You can see the change passing over his face: he will never see the world the same again. Nor will the world look at him the same, because, as we all know, there is no smoke without fire. What a knotty, frighteningly real drama ‘The Hunt’ is. And – in the light of the Jimmy Savile case and its fallout – what a very timely contribution to the issue it is.
What does it feel like to be wrongly accused of being a paedophile? ‘It gets into your bones… it gets into your soul,’ Lord McAlpine said recently. In this nerve-shredding drama from Denmark, a good man’s life is ripped apart by false allegations that he sexually abused a child. He didn’t do it. The little girl fibbed (in the same way she might tell the teacher her best friend gave her a Chinese burn). But her innocent lie spreads like a virus, killing trust and goodness in a close-knit small town.
Mads Mikkelsen is best known for playing baddies – he was the villain who weeped blood in ‘Casino Royale’. Here, he’s the accused, Lucas, a teacher working as an assistant at a nursery after his school shuts down. The little girl, a pupil, is also his best friend’s daughter. Lucas is none too worried at first – it’ll all be sorted by teatime, right? The police are called. Parents are warned to be on the look-out for telltale symptoms, like bedwetting and nightmares (in children!). Lucas is branded a serial paedophile. The town goes from civilisation to the Dark Ages in about 15 minutes.
This is lean, fast-paced storytelling from director and writer Thomas Vinterberg, who made ‘Festen’ in 1998 (about a paedophile father who raped his children). This has the same stripped back docu-drama style. Which focuses our attention on the acting – and it’s flawless. We watch the story play out in the reactions of everyone involved. As the only man working at the nursery, the kids adore Lucas. After hearing the allegations, a teacher watches him rough-play with some boys. We see the scene through her eyes. It looks suspicious. It really does.
These are all good people, and there’s a kind of moral puzzle here. We always have to listen to children. Always. But what if your best friend was accused? Would you believe him? At the other end of the scale, what kind of world is it when a man can’t hold hands with a child who isn’t his own – in case someone accuses him of being a paedo?
Mikkelsen is gripping. There’s a moment when it hits home that this is for real. You can see the change passing over his face: he will never see the world the same again. Nor will the world look at him the same, because, as we all know, there is no smoke without fire. What a knotty, frighteningly real drama ‘The Hunt’ is. And – in the light of the Jimmy Savile case and its fallout – what a very timely contribution to the issue it is.
125. 3 Idiots
Discerning Bollywood fans are in for a treat: a comedy we can laugh with rather than at. Farhan (Madhavan) and Raju (Joshi) embark on a road trip to Ladakh, in the Himalayas, to track down long-lost buddy Rancho (Khan). The latter is introduced via lengthy flashbacks detailing the antics of the ‘three idiots’ during their college engineering days. But why did Rancho disappear mysteriously after graduating? The film’s main strength lies in its ability to address head-on the possible failure of higher education in contemporary India. This is conveyed via Hirani’s trademark light-hearted touch. Consequently, the clichéd ‘make your passion your profession’ premise never feels preachy. Overlong, this quirky well-acted film proves, as the title track says, that generally ‘all is well’ with commercial Hindi cinema.
Discerning Bollywood fans are in for a treat: a comedy we can laugh with rather than at. Farhan (Madhavan) and Raju (Joshi) embark on a road trip to Ladakh, in the Himalayas, to track down long-lost buddy Rancho (Khan). The latter is introduced via lengthy flashbacks detailing the antics of the ‘three idiots’ during their college engineering days. But why did Rancho disappear mysteriously after graduating? The film’s main strength lies in its ability to address head-on the possible failure of higher education in contemporary India. This is conveyed via Hirani’s trademark light-hearted touch. Consequently, the clichéd ‘make your passion your profession’ premise never feels preachy. Overlong, this quirky well-acted film proves, as the title track says, that generally ‘all is well’ with commercial Hindi cinema.
126. The Seventh Seal
The late twentieth century’s defining anxiety – nuclear catastrophe –inspired film masterworks in a variety of genres, from noir (‘Kiss Me Deadly’) to essay (‘Hiroshima, Mon Amour’), faux documentary (‘The War Game’) to horror (‘Godzilla’). But it found possibly its greatest cinematic expression in Ingmar Bergman’s doom-laden medieval allegory, a film that re-imagines a previous period of existential angst and primal fear: the plague-ridden thirteenth century. ‘The Seventh Seal’ has the courage to give fear a face. You could say of its most famous image – returned crusader Max von Sydow’s desperate chess game with Death (Bengt Ekerot), shot in superb high-Gothic relief by cinematographer Gunnar Fischer in homage to an image Bergman remembered from a childhood church visit – that it has lost none of its power to impress. But, it seems to me, 50 years of relentless quotation and parody have taken some toll, as they have on the climactic improvised ‘dance of death’.
The film’s other inspirations were the extraordinary, sometimes ecstatic, often profane poems and music of the ‘Carmina Burana’, composed by anonymous wandering scholars scattered by Europe-wide famine, disease and death, which are sung in snatches in the film and echoed in the soundtrack. Bergman’s inclusion of a company of comic travelling players, which may once have seemed like a balancing, populist device, now provides quietly eloquent proof of the great director’s empathy and essential humanism. While ‘The Seventh Seal’ is most often characterised as a beautifully directed, portentous and despairing cry of abandonment to a godless world, it may be the film’s gentler but insistent curiosity about man’s peculiar talent for survival and artistic expressiveness, even under the direst threat, that ensures it remains not only highly impressive but thought-provoking, relevant and intensely moving in our present, nervous, times.
The late twentieth century’s defining anxiety – nuclear catastrophe –inspired film masterworks in a variety of genres, from noir (‘Kiss Me Deadly’) to essay (‘Hiroshima, Mon Amour’), faux documentary (‘The War Game’) to horror (‘Godzilla’). But it found possibly its greatest cinematic expression in Ingmar Bergman’s doom-laden medieval allegory, a film that re-imagines a previous period of existential angst and primal fear: the plague-ridden thirteenth century. ‘The Seventh Seal’ has the courage to give fear a face. You could say of its most famous image – returned crusader Max von Sydow’s desperate chess game with Death (Bengt Ekerot), shot in superb high-Gothic relief by cinematographer Gunnar Fischer in homage to an image Bergman remembered from a childhood church visit – that it has lost none of its power to impress. But, it seems to me, 50 years of relentless quotation and parody have taken some toll, as they have on the climactic improvised ‘dance of death’.
The film’s other inspirations were the extraordinary, sometimes ecstatic, often profane poems and music of the ‘Carmina Burana’, composed by anonymous wandering scholars scattered by Europe-wide famine, disease and death, which are sung in snatches in the film and echoed in the soundtrack. Bergman’s inclusion of a company of comic travelling players, which may once have seemed like a balancing, populist device, now provides quietly eloquent proof of the great director’s empathy and essential humanism. While ‘The Seventh Seal’ is most often characterised as a beautifully directed, portentous and despairing cry of abandonment to a godless world, it may be the film’s gentler but insistent curiosity about man’s peculiar talent for survival and artistic expressiveness, even under the direst threat, that ensures it remains not only highly impressive but thought-provoking, relevant and intensely moving in our present, nervous, times.
127. Wild Strawberries
One of Bergman's warmest, and therefore finest films, this concerns an elderly academic - grouchy, introverted, dried up emotionally - who makes a journey to collect a university award, and en route relives his past by means of dreams, imagination, and encounters with others. It's an occasionally over-symbolic work (most notably in the opening nightmare sequence), but it's filled with richly observed characters and a real feeling for the joys of nature and youth. And Sjöström - himself a celebrated director, best known for his silent work (which included the Hollywood masterpiece The Wind) - gives an astonishingly moving performance as the aged professor. As Bergman himself wrote of his performance in the closing moments: 'His face shone with secretive light, as if reflected from another reality...It was like a miracle'.
One of Bergman's warmest, and therefore finest films, this concerns an elderly academic - grouchy, introverted, dried up emotionally - who makes a journey to collect a university award, and en route relives his past by means of dreams, imagination, and encounters with others. It's an occasionally over-symbolic work (most notably in the opening nightmare sequence), but it's filled with richly observed characters and a real feeling for the joys of nature and youth. And Sjöström - himself a celebrated director, best known for his silent work (which included the Hollywood masterpiece The Wind) - gives an astonishingly moving performance as the aged professor. As Bergman himself wrote of his performance in the closing moments: 'His face shone with secretive light, as if reflected from another reality...It was like a miracle'.
128. The Elephant Man
More accessible than Lynch's enigmatically disturbing Eraserhead, The Elephant Man has much the same limpidly moving humanism as Truffaut's L'Enfant Sauvage in describing how the unfortunate John Merrick, brutalised by a childhood in which he was hideously abused as an inhuman freak, was gradually coaxed into revealing a soul of such delicacy and refinement that he became a lion of Victorian society. But that is only half the story the film tells. The darker side, underpinned by an evocation of the steamy, smoky hell that still underlies a London facelifted by the Industrial Revolution, is crystallised by the wonderful sequence in which Merrick is persuaded by a celebrated actress to read Romeo to her Juliet. A tender, touching scene ('Oh, Mr Merrick, you're not an elephant man at all. No, you're Romeo'), it nevertheless begs the question of what passions, inevitably doomed to frustration, have been roused in this presumably normally-sexed Elephant Man. Appearances are all, and like the proverbial Victorian piano, he can make the social grade only if his ruder appendages are hidden from sensitive eyes; hence what is effectively, at his time of greatest happiness, his suicide. A marvellous movie, shot in stunning black-and-white by Freddie Francis.
More accessible than Lynch's enigmatically disturbing Eraserhead, The Elephant Man has much the same limpidly moving humanism as Truffaut's L'Enfant Sauvage in describing how the unfortunate John Merrick, brutalised by a childhood in which he was hideously abused as an inhuman freak, was gradually coaxed into revealing a soul of such delicacy and refinement that he became a lion of Victorian society. But that is only half the story the film tells. The darker side, underpinned by an evocation of the steamy, smoky hell that still underlies a London facelifted by the Industrial Revolution, is crystallised by the wonderful sequence in which Merrick is persuaded by a celebrated actress to read Romeo to her Juliet. A tender, touching scene ('Oh, Mr Merrick, you're not an elephant man at all. No, you're Romeo'), it nevertheless begs the question of what passions, inevitably doomed to frustration, have been roused in this presumably normally-sexed Elephant Man. Appearances are all, and like the proverbial Victorian piano, he can make the social grade only if his ruder appendages are hidden from sensitive eyes; hence what is effectively, at his time of greatest happiness, his suicide. A marvellous movie, shot in stunning black-and-white by Freddie Francis.
129. Ikiru
Showing, in a new print, at the centre of a season of must-see Japanese gems, Kurosawa’s depiction of the revelatory last days of an ageing Tokyo salaryman is one of the triumphs of humanist cinema. The superb Takashi Shimura is the lonely civil servant diagnosed with cancer: what begins with a study in gigantic pathos – in the style of Emil Jannings’s work for FW Murnau – richens and blossoms as a series of encounters open his eyes and heart. Kurosawa’s eclectic style is a delight: his striking, varied compositions reflecting the old man’s journey from darkness to some kind of light right until the moving finale.
Showing, in a new print, at the centre of a season of must-see Japanese gems, Kurosawa’s depiction of the revelatory last days of an ageing Tokyo salaryman is one of the triumphs of humanist cinema. The superb Takashi Shimura is the lonely civil servant diagnosed with cancer: what begins with a study in gigantic pathos – in the style of Emil Jannings’s work for FW Murnau – richens and blossoms as a series of encounters open his eyes and heart. Kurosawa’s eclectic style is a delight: his striking, varied compositions reflecting the old man’s journey from darkness to some kind of light right until the moving finale.
130. Ran
Kurosawa established himself as the best cinematic interpreter of Shakespeare with his recasting of Macbeth as a samurai warlord inThrone of Blood. That he should in his later years turn to King Lear is appropriate, and the results are all that one could possibly dream of.Ran proposes a great warlord (Nakadai), in a less than serene old age, dividing his kingdoms up between his three sons. True to the original, the one he dispossesses is the only one faithful to him, and ran (chaos) ensues as the two elder sons battle for power, egged on by the Lady Kaede (an incendiary performance from Mieko Harada). The shift and sway of a nation divided is vast, the chaos terrible, the battle scenes the most ghastly ever filmed, and the outcome is even bleaker than Shakespeare's. Indeed the only note of optimism resides in the nobility of the film itself: a huge, tormented canvas, in which Kurosawa even contrives to command the elements to obey his vision. A Lear for our age, and for all time.
Kurosawa established himself as the best cinematic interpreter of Shakespeare with his recasting of Macbeth as a samurai warlord inThrone of Blood. That he should in his later years turn to King Lear is appropriate, and the results are all that one could possibly dream of.Ran proposes a great warlord (Nakadai), in a less than serene old age, dividing his kingdoms up between his three sons. True to the original, the one he dispossesses is the only one faithful to him, and ran (chaos) ensues as the two elder sons battle for power, egged on by the Lady Kaede (an incendiary performance from Mieko Harada). The shift and sway of a nation divided is vast, the chaos terrible, the battle scenes the most ghastly ever filmed, and the outcome is even bleaker than Shakespeare's. Indeed the only note of optimism resides in the nobility of the film itself: a huge, tormented canvas, in which Kurosawa even contrives to command the elements to obey his vision. A Lear for our age, and for all time.
131. The General
Made barely three decades after the invention of film itself, Buster Keaton’s timeless 1926 silent ‘The General’ is the perfect chase movie: it has never been bettered, and maybe never will. Keaton plays a train driver during the American civil war who loses both his beloved steam engine The General and his estranged fiancée (Marion Mack) to a troupe of Northern spies. Overcoming impediments both intentional and inadvertent – armies, cannons, bears, rickety bridges – without ever losing his implacable stone-faced cool, Keaton sets off in pursuit. The set-pieces are breathtaking, the stunts barely believable (yes, that’s a real train falling from a real bridge), and the blend of broad slapstick, grandiose period drama and heartfelt character comedy is impeccably judged. See it and gasp.
Made barely three decades after the invention of film itself, Buster Keaton’s timeless 1926 silent ‘The General’ is the perfect chase movie: it has never been bettered, and maybe never will. Keaton plays a train driver during the American civil war who loses both his beloved steam engine The General and his estranged fiancée (Marion Mack) to a troupe of Northern spies. Overcoming impediments both intentional and inadvertent – armies, cannons, bears, rickety bridges – without ever losing his implacable stone-faced cool, Keaton sets off in pursuit. The set-pieces are breathtaking, the stunts barely believable (yes, that’s a real train falling from a real bridge), and the blend of broad slapstick, grandiose period drama and heartfelt character comedy is impeccably judged. See it and gasp.
132. Tonari no Totoro
Two young girls, Satsuki and her younger sister Mei, move into a house in the country with their father to be closer to their hospitalized mother. Satsuki and Mei discover that the nearby forest is inhabited by magical creatures called Totoros. They soon befriend these Totoros, and have several magical adventures.
Two young girls, Satsuki and her younger sister Mei, move into a house in the country with their father to be closer to their hospitalized mother. Satsuki and Mei discover that the nearby forest is inhabited by magical creatures called Totoros. They soon befriend these Totoros, and have several magical adventures.
133. Blade Runner
An ambitious and expensive adaptation of one of Philip K Dick's best novels (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), with Ford as the cop in 2019 Los Angeles whose job is hunting mutinous androids that have escaped from the off-world colonies. The script has some superb scenes, notably between Ford and the (android) femme fatale Young, while Scott succeeds beautifully in portraying the LA of the future as a cross between a Hong Kong street-market and a decaying 200-storey Metropolis. But something has gone badly wrong with the dramatic structure: the hero's voice-over and the ending feel as if they've strayed in from another movie, and the android villains are neither menacing nor sympathetic, when ideally they should have been both. This leaves Scott's picturesque violence looking dull and exploitative.
An ambitious and expensive adaptation of one of Philip K Dick's best novels (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), with Ford as the cop in 2019 Los Angeles whose job is hunting mutinous androids that have escaped from the off-world colonies. The script has some superb scenes, notably between Ford and the (android) femme fatale Young, while Scott succeeds beautifully in portraying the LA of the future as a cross between a Hong Kong street-market and a decaying 200-storey Metropolis. But something has gone badly wrong with the dramatic structure: the hero's voice-over and the ending feel as if they've strayed in from another movie, and the android villains are neither menacing nor sympathetic, when ideally they should have been both. This leaves Scott's picturesque violence looking dull and exploitative.
134. The Gold Rush
The Little Tramp is here the Lone Prospector, poverty stricken, infatuated with Hale, and menaced by thugs and blizzards during the Klondike gold rush of 1898. Famous for various imaginative sequences - Charlie eating a Thanksgiving meal of an old boot and laces, Charlie imagined as a chicken by a starving and delirious Swain, a log-cabin teetering on the brink of an abyss - the film is nevertheless flawed by its mawkish sentimentality and by its star's endless winsome attempts to ingratiate himself into the sympathies of his audience. Mercifully, it lacks the pretentious moralising of his later work, and is far more professionally put together. But for all its relative dramatic coherence, it's still hard to see how it was ever taken as a masterpiece.
The Little Tramp is here the Lone Prospector, poverty stricken, infatuated with Hale, and menaced by thugs and blizzards during the Klondike gold rush of 1898. Famous for various imaginative sequences - Charlie eating a Thanksgiving meal of an old boot and laces, Charlie imagined as a chicken by a starving and delirious Swain, a log-cabin teetering on the brink of an abyss - the film is nevertheless flawed by its mawkish sentimentality and by its star's endless winsome attempts to ingratiate himself into the sympathies of his audience. Mercifully, it lacks the pretentious moralising of his later work, and is far more professionally put together. But for all its relative dramatic coherence, it's still hard to see how it was ever taken as a masterpiece.
135. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Four East End lads (Moran, Flemyng, Statham and Fletcher) are desperate to get sumfin' for nuffin'. Their fate hinges on a card game with mobster Hatchet Harry (Moriarty), but he's a wise old bird and by the end of the evening they're half a million in debt. The four hatch a new plan to intercept a shipment of drugs. And that's where a few others - like debt collector Big Chris (soccer player Jones) and the public school druggies - come in. Whatever else, writer/director Ritchie knows how to wield a camera; and his feature debut comes alive every time the soundtrack rears its beautiful head. He also knows how to pick faces. But is Jones more than just an ugly face? On the A-Z of emotions, he barely makes it to B. So why is he here? The gangster genre has always dabbled in cross-fertilisation, but here it seems a particularly lazy move. Ritchie's not interested in exploring the economics behind the 'Cockney rebel' facade, nor the real sadism (and masochism) crawling alongside. Expect plenty of laughs and some edge-of-your-seat sweats, but not a whole lot else. Attempting to marry Oliver Twist with Trainspotting, this ends up more like a bloody episode of TV's Minder.
Four East End lads (Moran, Flemyng, Statham and Fletcher) are desperate to get sumfin' for nuffin'. Their fate hinges on a card game with mobster Hatchet Harry (Moriarty), but he's a wise old bird and by the end of the evening they're half a million in debt. The four hatch a new plan to intercept a shipment of drugs. And that's where a few others - like debt collector Big Chris (soccer player Jones) and the public school druggies - come in. Whatever else, writer/director Ritchie knows how to wield a camera; and his feature debut comes alive every time the soundtrack rears its beautiful head. He also knows how to pick faces. But is Jones more than just an ugly face? On the A-Z of emotions, he barely makes it to B. So why is he here? The gangster genre has always dabbled in cross-fertilisation, but here it seems a particularly lazy move. Ritchie's not interested in exploring the economics behind the 'Cockney rebel' facade, nor the real sadism (and masochism) crawling alongside. Expect plenty of laughs and some edge-of-your-seat sweats, but not a whole lot else. Attempting to marry Oliver Twist with Trainspotting, this ends up more like a bloody episode of TV's Minder.
136. Good Will Hunting
Good Will Hunting's sincerity comes capitalised, which is not to deny the film is honest and moving in its way. Damon (who co-scripted, with Ben Affleck) plays Will, a janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He's a closet genius, a volatile orphan who'd rather hang out with his beer buddies than parlay his brains into the lucrative career that would seem to be his destiny. Appalled that such a talent should be lost to science, maths professor Lambeau (Skarsgård) takes the boy under his wing, arranges for him to get psychiatric help, and watches Will make monkeys of the shrinks. Sean (Williams) is the last resort: another South Boston guy who never really made it, maybe he can break through where his distinguished peers failed. There are tensions here. To an extent, the film challenges America's ingrained anti-intellectualism, yet its anti-elitist instincts lead it close to equating academia with a dubious effeminacy. In the end it even falls back on that old cinematic panacea: get in touch with your inner Robin Williams. It's acted and directed with care, and Damon is outstanding, his scenes with Driver being especially sparky.
Good Will Hunting's sincerity comes capitalised, which is not to deny the film is honest and moving in its way. Damon (who co-scripted, with Ben Affleck) plays Will, a janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He's a closet genius, a volatile orphan who'd rather hang out with his beer buddies than parlay his brains into the lucrative career that would seem to be his destiny. Appalled that such a talent should be lost to science, maths professor Lambeau (Skarsgård) takes the boy under his wing, arranges for him to get psychiatric help, and watches Will make monkeys of the shrinks. Sean (Williams) is the last resort: another South Boston guy who never really made it, maybe he can break through where his distinguished peers failed. There are tensions here. To an extent, the film challenges America's ingrained anti-intellectualism, yet its anti-elitist instincts lead it close to equating academia with a dubious effeminacy. In the end it even falls back on that old cinematic panacea: get in touch with your inner Robin Williams. It's acted and directed with care, and Damon is outstanding, his scenes with Driver being especially sparky.
137. Gran Torino
When Eastwood’s follow-up to ‘Changeling’ was announced in May, he quickly refuted rumours that he was making, belatedly, another ‘Dirty Harry’ picture. If its trailer promises a vigilante movie, the comedy-drama on release is actually a rather wise, insightful exploration of family and friendship, violence and vengeance.
Admittedly, retired Detroit autoworker and Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski (Eastwood, in what, sadly, may be his last lead turn) initially comes across like a curmudgeonly elderly relative of Harry Callahan: unable to conceal his disdain for his folks, his late wife’s priest, and those now inhabiting his slightly run-down suburb, many of whom are Hmongs who left south-east Asia for the US due to the Vietnam War. One such is shy teen Thao (Bee Yang), whose reluctant initiation into a local gang involves stealing Walt’s beloved 1972 Gran Torino…
Cue, much conflict: Nick Schenk’s screenplay centres on the encounter between Walt – a politically incorrect old bigot scarred by war – and today’s multicultural society. But as the film proceeds, with Thao’s sassy sister Sue (Abney Her) arousing both Walt’s protective instincts and his hitherto neglected capacity for self-analysis, it becomes more complex and engaging and it’s often very funny (as in a barber-shop scene where traditional American ‘masculinity’is hilariously exposed as an absurd construct). Finally, there’s a very moving development that takes Walt way beyond Callahan’s ethos. Eastwood’s subtle performance is as charismatic and effective as ever, while the movie covers his abiding preoccupations – race, age, individualism in a conformist world – with wit and intelligence. And in insisting that friendship’s more important than blood ties (or religious faith), Clint quietly goes against the grain. Predictably superior fare.
When Eastwood’s follow-up to ‘Changeling’ was announced in May, he quickly refuted rumours that he was making, belatedly, another ‘Dirty Harry’ picture. If its trailer promises a vigilante movie, the comedy-drama on release is actually a rather wise, insightful exploration of family and friendship, violence and vengeance.
Admittedly, retired Detroit autoworker and Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski (Eastwood, in what, sadly, may be his last lead turn) initially comes across like a curmudgeonly elderly relative of Harry Callahan: unable to conceal his disdain for his folks, his late wife’s priest, and those now inhabiting his slightly run-down suburb, many of whom are Hmongs who left south-east Asia for the US due to the Vietnam War. One such is shy teen Thao (Bee Yang), whose reluctant initiation into a local gang involves stealing Walt’s beloved 1972 Gran Torino…
Cue, much conflict: Nick Schenk’s screenplay centres on the encounter between Walt – a politically incorrect old bigot scarred by war – and today’s multicultural society. But as the film proceeds, with Thao’s sassy sister Sue (Abney Her) arousing both Walt’s protective instincts and his hitherto neglected capacity for self-analysis, it becomes more complex and engaging and it’s often very funny (as in a barber-shop scene where traditional American ‘masculinity’is hilariously exposed as an absurd construct). Finally, there’s a very moving development that takes Walt way beyond Callahan’s ethos. Eastwood’s subtle performance is as charismatic and effective as ever, while the movie covers his abiding preoccupations – race, age, individualism in a conformist world – with wit and intelligence. And in insisting that friendship’s more important than blood ties (or religious faith), Clint quietly goes against the grain. Predictably superior fare.
138. Rebecca
It’s quite fitting that the central character of ‘Rebecca’ (Joan Fontaine) goes unnamed. When we first meet her, in Monte Carlo, she’s under the thumb of the grotesque Mrs Van Hopper (Florence Bates), a domineering pheasant of a woman who spends her time belittling her sparrow-like paid companion, gobbling down chocolates and stubbing fags out in the cold cream. After the dashing, aloof Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) makes a none-too-romantic proposal (‘I’m asking you to marry me, you little fool’), she decamps to his Cornwall pile, Manderley.
Here, under the constant scrutiny of his family, staff and spaniel Jasper, she is expected to slot into the hole left by his first wife, Rebecca, whose memory smothers the place like a dust-sheet – yet gives succour toJudith Anderson’s vulture-like housekeeper Mrs Danvers, whose creepy, monomaniac devotion to her late mistress understandably petrifies the young girl. Manderley’s oppressive atmosphere is also marked by the sheer number of things in the place, and the extra filters through which we frequently watch its action – muslin hangings, cobwebs, flames, even the light cast by a home movie projector.
Hitchcock’s first US production, ‘Rebecca’ was overseen by the notoriously hands-on David O Selznick, and is somewhat tonally inconsistent; following the social comedy of Monte Carlo and suspense of Manderley, the pace slackens in the crime procedural of the final half-hour, which is all tell and no show. Still, Hitchcock shows superb technical control and attends to his trademark motifs, from monstrous mother figures to the fetishisation of clothing (strong foreshadowings of ‘Vertigo’). Struggling not to drown in a stifling miasma of nostalgia, expectation and soft furnishings, it’s no surprise that our heroine’s own identity barely gets a look-in.
It’s quite fitting that the central character of ‘Rebecca’ (Joan Fontaine) goes unnamed. When we first meet her, in Monte Carlo, she’s under the thumb of the grotesque Mrs Van Hopper (Florence Bates), a domineering pheasant of a woman who spends her time belittling her sparrow-like paid companion, gobbling down chocolates and stubbing fags out in the cold cream. After the dashing, aloof Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) makes a none-too-romantic proposal (‘I’m asking you to marry me, you little fool’), she decamps to his Cornwall pile, Manderley.
Here, under the constant scrutiny of his family, staff and spaniel Jasper, she is expected to slot into the hole left by his first wife, Rebecca, whose memory smothers the place like a dust-sheet – yet gives succour toJudith Anderson’s vulture-like housekeeper Mrs Danvers, whose creepy, monomaniac devotion to her late mistress understandably petrifies the young girl. Manderley’s oppressive atmosphere is also marked by the sheer number of things in the place, and the extra filters through which we frequently watch its action – muslin hangings, cobwebs, flames, even the light cast by a home movie projector.
Hitchcock’s first US production, ‘Rebecca’ was overseen by the notoriously hands-on David O Selznick, and is somewhat tonally inconsistent; following the social comedy of Monte Carlo and suspense of Manderley, the pace slackens in the crime procedural of the final half-hour, which is all tell and no show. Still, Hitchcock shows superb technical control and attends to his trademark motifs, from monstrous mother figures to the fetishisation of clothing (strong foreshadowings of ‘Vertigo’). Struggling not to drown in a stifling miasma of nostalgia, expectation and soft furnishings, it’s no surprise that our heroine’s own identity barely gets a look-in.
139. The Big Lebowski
This comic update of the world crystallised by Raymond Chandler charts the disastrous involvement of laidback dopehead Jeff 'the Dude' Lebowski (Bridges) in a kidnapping case involving the wife of his millionaire namesake (Huddleston). The Dude is hired as bagman and of course finds himself increasingly at risk as he makes his way about an LA populated by the rich, strange and dangerous. Nor do his bowling buddies help: Donny (Buscemi) is frankly several pins short of a strike; while Walter (Goodman), a crazed, irascible Viet vet, is so determined to stand his (and the Dude's) ground that he causes more trouble than he solves. Immensely inventive and entertaining, the film may not have the enigmatic elegance or emotional resonance of Barton Fink or Fargo, but it's still a prime example of the Coens' effortless brand of stylistic and storytelling brilliance. Thanks to Roger Deakins' gleaming camerawork, T-Bone Burnett's eclectic soundtrack selection and the Coens' typically pithy dialogue, it looks and sounds wonderful. Moreover, far from being shallow pastiche, it's actually about something: what it means to be a man, to be a friend, and to be a 'hero' for a particular time and place.
This comic update of the world crystallised by Raymond Chandler charts the disastrous involvement of laidback dopehead Jeff 'the Dude' Lebowski (Bridges) in a kidnapping case involving the wife of his millionaire namesake (Huddleston). The Dude is hired as bagman and of course finds himself increasingly at risk as he makes his way about an LA populated by the rich, strange and dangerous. Nor do his bowling buddies help: Donny (Buscemi) is frankly several pins short of a strike; while Walter (Goodman), a crazed, irascible Viet vet, is so determined to stand his (and the Dude's) ground that he causes more trouble than he solves. Immensely inventive and entertaining, the film may not have the enigmatic elegance or emotional resonance of Barton Fink or Fargo, but it's still a prime example of the Coens' effortless brand of stylistic and storytelling brilliance. Thanks to Roger Deakins' gleaming camerawork, T-Bone Burnett's eclectic soundtrack selection and the Coens' typically pithy dialogue, it looks and sounds wonderful. Moreover, far from being shallow pastiche, it's actually about something: what it means to be a man, to be a friend, and to be a 'hero' for a particular time and place.
140. The Secret in Their Eyes
That this Argentine film won Best Foreign Language Oscar over ‘The White Ribbon’ and ‘A Prophet’ says more about the voters than the films. Essentially a grand, time-hopping police procedural of ‘Inspector Morse’ levels of ingenuity, souped up with some naff music, heavily filtered camerawork and a theme of romantic longing spanning 25 years, it’s a film of enormous pretension and not enough reward.
We move between 1974 and the late 1990s. In the film’s present, former prosecutor, grey-haired Benjamín (Ricardo Darín) is writing a novel inspired by a key episode in his career: the case, 25 years earlier, of the rape and murder of a beautiful young woman. This was an event which pitched go-getting, principled Benjamin against judicial corruption (a symptom, we assume, of the military dictatorship) and cemented his unspoken feelings for his better-educated, better-bred new boss, Irene (Soledad Villamil), whose arrival in their wood-panelled offices coincides with this death.
The hunt for the killer takes up much of the two-hour-plus running time and is diverting enough, while the later penning of Benjamin’s book causes him to revisit both his friendship with Irene and the legacy of this case (calling for ample whitening of hair and dodgy make-up). It’s this cross-cutting and sense of time past and lost that’s meant to inspire a gradual embrace of ‘big’ themes, but the twin, shallow and pretty obvious ones that emerge are, firstly, that injustice breeds injustice and, secondly, that true love will triumph in the end. Cue orchestra!
That this Argentine film won Best Foreign Language Oscar over ‘The White Ribbon’ and ‘A Prophet’ says more about the voters than the films. Essentially a grand, time-hopping police procedural of ‘Inspector Morse’ levels of ingenuity, souped up with some naff music, heavily filtered camerawork and a theme of romantic longing spanning 25 years, it’s a film of enormous pretension and not enough reward.
We move between 1974 and the late 1990s. In the film’s present, former prosecutor, grey-haired Benjamín (Ricardo Darín) is writing a novel inspired by a key episode in his career: the case, 25 years earlier, of the rape and murder of a beautiful young woman. This was an event which pitched go-getting, principled Benjamin against judicial corruption (a symptom, we assume, of the military dictatorship) and cemented his unspoken feelings for his better-educated, better-bred new boss, Irene (Soledad Villamil), whose arrival in their wood-panelled offices coincides with this death.
The hunt for the killer takes up much of the two-hour-plus running time and is diverting enough, while the later penning of Benjamin’s book causes him to revisit both his friendship with Irene and the legacy of this case (calling for ample whitening of hair and dodgy make-up). It’s this cross-cutting and sense of time past and lost that’s meant to inspire a gradual embrace of ‘big’ themes, but the twin, shallow and pretty obvious ones that emerge are, firstly, that injustice breeds injustice and, secondly, that true love will triumph in the end. Cue orchestra!
141. It Happened One Night
See ‘It Happened One Night’, and one half of you will want to give Frank Capra’s effervescent 1934 screwball road movie a big old hug. The other half will want to slap it around the chops, tell it to stand in the corner and think about what it has done. Touted as the film that set the template for the modern romantic comedy, the question we must ask is: can we find a place in our hearts to forgive it for setting the precedent for such recent abominations as ‘The Back-Up Plan’, ‘The Ugly Truth’ and ‘The Bounty Hunter’? Well, of course we can, but only because Capra’s film has more charm and zeal in a single frame than in all those films put together.
It’s the story of a salty, hooch-swilling reporter (Clark Gable) who is thrown together with a spoiled society heiress (Claudette Colbert) on an overnight Greyhound bus to New York.
The film (which is being re-released to coincide with a Capra retrospective at the BFI) simply follows them as they bicker, backbite and clamour for the upper hand. Every line of dialogue is calculated bliss, the chemistry between the leads is magnificent, and the backdrop of Depression-era America allows for a prescient and amusing subplot about how well-heeled urbanites are compelled to misbehave when they have no money in their designer pockets. It’s probably more historically important than it is a masterpiece (the last 20 minutes take the missed conections and misunderstandings an inch too far), but it’s still very easy to fall in love with.
See ‘It Happened One Night’, and one half of you will want to give Frank Capra’s effervescent 1934 screwball road movie a big old hug. The other half will want to slap it around the chops, tell it to stand in the corner and think about what it has done. Touted as the film that set the template for the modern romantic comedy, the question we must ask is: can we find a place in our hearts to forgive it for setting the precedent for such recent abominations as ‘The Back-Up Plan’, ‘The Ugly Truth’ and ‘The Bounty Hunter’? Well, of course we can, but only because Capra’s film has more charm and zeal in a single frame than in all those films put together.
It’s the story of a salty, hooch-swilling reporter (Clark Gable) who is thrown together with a spoiled society heiress (Claudette Colbert) on an overnight Greyhound bus to New York.
The film (which is being re-released to coincide with a Capra retrospective at the BFI) simply follows them as they bicker, backbite and clamour for the upper hand. Every line of dialogue is calculated bliss, the chemistry between the leads is magnificent, and the backdrop of Depression-era America allows for a prescient and amusing subplot about how well-heeled urbanites are compelled to misbehave when they have no money in their designer pockets. It’s probably more historically important than it is a masterpiece (the last 20 minutes take the missed conections and misunderstandings an inch too far), but it’s still very easy to fall in love with.
142. 12 Years a Slave
With the release of ‘Django Unchained’ and now this more restrained slavery-era biopic, much has been made of America’s post-Obama willingness to ‘face up to its own past’. But, like Quentin Tarantino before him, British artist turned director Steve McQueen knows that this idea offers only false comfort: ‘12 Years a Slave’ has absolutely no interest in reconciliation, in forgiveness, in making slavery history. McQueen’s film may be stylistically traditional, but its outlook is as confrontational and uncompromising as any ripped-from-the-headlines drama.
Chiwetel Ejiofor is terse, watchful and remote as Solomon Northup, the free New Yorker torn from his family and sold into slavery in the South. We follow his journey from plantation to plantation, under masters both self-congratulatingly benevolent (Benedict Cumberbatch) and wildly, unremittingly brutal (Michael Fassbender).
As expected from the director of ‘Hunger’ and ‘Shame’, this is not a sprawling Spielbergian tearjerker, but neither is it an aloof, artsy affair. McQueen pitches his tent somewhere between the two camps: whenever Hans Zimmer’s overbearing score threatens to drag the film into three-hankie territory, the clinical photography and hard, unflashy performances bring it right back. It’s a film made for a mass audience, but it doesn’t want them to feel comfortable for a second.
What ‘12 Years a Slave’ is really interested in is creating an honest, believable experience: in culture and context, place and people, soil and skin. The result can, at times, be alienating – Solomon may be a tragic, achingly sympathetic figure, but he’s no cathartic hero, no Django. He is, at all times, a victim. Nonetheless, the cumulative emotional effect is devastating: the final scenes here are as angry, as memorable, as overwhelming as anything modern cinema has to offer.
With the release of ‘Django Unchained’ and now this more restrained slavery-era biopic, much has been made of America’s post-Obama willingness to ‘face up to its own past’. But, like Quentin Tarantino before him, British artist turned director Steve McQueen knows that this idea offers only false comfort: ‘12 Years a Slave’ has absolutely no interest in reconciliation, in forgiveness, in making slavery history. McQueen’s film may be stylistically traditional, but its outlook is as confrontational and uncompromising as any ripped-from-the-headlines drama.
Chiwetel Ejiofor is terse, watchful and remote as Solomon Northup, the free New Yorker torn from his family and sold into slavery in the South. We follow his journey from plantation to plantation, under masters both self-congratulatingly benevolent (Benedict Cumberbatch) and wildly, unremittingly brutal (Michael Fassbender).
As expected from the director of ‘Hunger’ and ‘Shame’, this is not a sprawling Spielbergian tearjerker, but neither is it an aloof, artsy affair. McQueen pitches his tent somewhere between the two camps: whenever Hans Zimmer’s overbearing score threatens to drag the film into three-hankie territory, the clinical photography and hard, unflashy performances bring it right back. It’s a film made for a mass audience, but it doesn’t want them to feel comfortable for a second.
What ‘12 Years a Slave’ is really interested in is creating an honest, believable experience: in culture and context, place and people, soil and skin. The result can, at times, be alienating – Solomon may be a tragic, achingly sympathetic figure, but he’s no cathartic hero, no Django. He is, at all times, a victim. Nonetheless, the cumulative emotional effect is devastating: the final scenes here are as angry, as memorable, as overwhelming as anything modern cinema has to offer.
143. Casino
Scorsese's movie is technically impressive. There's even something inherently fascinating about the subject - the way Las Vegas, and the organised criminals who run it, have changed over the last couple of decades. What's wrong is the approach: virtuosity seems almost to have become an end in itself, and, as the film charts the experiences of Sam 'Ace' Rothstein (De Niro), a gambler the Mob places in charge of the Tangiers casino, Scorsese's dazzling, kinetic technique calls attention to itself so persistently that story and characters retreat into the background. Not that there's much story, anyway. The first two hours are so heavily voice-overed, so bereft of narrative drive, that the film initially resembles some bizarre, hyper-glossy drama-doc. Eventually, some semblance of plot seeps into the last hour, about Ace's disastrous dealings with his ex-hooker wife Ginger (Stone, fine in an underwritten role) and with the uncontrollably volatile mobster Nicky (Pesci), but even that's like a tired rerun of GoodFellas. The result, sadly, is that contradiction in terms, a dull Scorsese movie.
Scorsese's movie is technically impressive. There's even something inherently fascinating about the subject - the way Las Vegas, and the organised criminals who run it, have changed over the last couple of decades. What's wrong is the approach: virtuosity seems almost to have become an end in itself, and, as the film charts the experiences of Sam 'Ace' Rothstein (De Niro), a gambler the Mob places in charge of the Tangiers casino, Scorsese's dazzling, kinetic technique calls attention to itself so persistently that story and characters retreat into the background. Not that there's much story, anyway. The first two hours are so heavily voice-overed, so bereft of narrative drive, that the film initially resembles some bizarre, hyper-glossy drama-doc. Eventually, some semblance of plot seeps into the last hour, about Ace's disastrous dealings with his ex-hooker wife Ginger (Stone, fine in an underwritten role) and with the uncontrollably volatile mobster Nicky (Pesci), but even that's like a tired rerun of GoodFellas. The result, sadly, is that contradiction in terms, a dull Scorsese movie.
144. Warrior
Bulky brothers go head to head in this action drama aimed at the ‘Rocky’ market. Joel Edgerton is Brendan, a father and fighter-turned-teacher struggling in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, former Marine Tommy (Tom Hardy) trains for the same martial arts title. Both need the money and they have the same father, Paddy (Nick Nolte).
‘Warrior’ has many things going for it, not least its cast. Edgerton is supremely sympathetic as the cash-strapped father while Hardy’s in his element as the strong silent type and Nolte’s on fine growling form as a repentant alcoholic. The fight scenes are well choreographed and suspenseful. Plotwise, the film is on less solid ground, relying on cliché and coincidence with backstory holes that feel more like editing errors than subtleties. When someone orders Tommy to hand over his pills, that’s the first and last we hear of any drug problem. This doesn’t pack a punch like ‘The Fighter’ – but it’s still a must for grapple fans.
Bulky brothers go head to head in this action drama aimed at the ‘Rocky’ market. Joel Edgerton is Brendan, a father and fighter-turned-teacher struggling in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, former Marine Tommy (Tom Hardy) trains for the same martial arts title. Both need the money and they have the same father, Paddy (Nick Nolte).
‘Warrior’ has many things going for it, not least its cast. Edgerton is supremely sympathetic as the cash-strapped father while Hardy’s in his element as the strong silent type and Nolte’s on fine growling form as a repentant alcoholic. The fight scenes are well choreographed and suspenseful. Plotwise, the film is on less solid ground, relying on cliché and coincidence with backstory holes that feel more like editing errors than subtleties. When someone orders Tommy to hand over his pills, that’s the first and last we hear of any drug problem. This doesn’t pack a punch like ‘The Fighter’ – but it’s still a must for grapple fans.
145. Rush
It’s the noise of ‘Rush’ that sticks with you after seeing Ron Howard’s fun and tense dip into the volatile world of 1970s Formula 1 – the violent roar of engines on the starting grid and the sound in the cockpit like you’re being propelled to the moon on a DIY rocket. That, and the feeling that you’ve been scraping your nose along rainy, rubber-stained asphalt for almost two hours.
Last time Howard made a sports movie it was the underpowered boxing film ‘Cinderella Man’. But ‘Rush’ has on its team British screenwriter Peter Morgan – who also wrote Howard’s ‘Frost/Nixon’, another head-to-head tale set in the 1970s. Here, the sparring partners are champagne-swilling British racing driver James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), a stern Austrian.
Part of the fun of ‘Rush’ is how it takes us back to a pre-Ryanair time, when England and the rest of Europe were still miles apart. It’s a story of detente and new beginnings, as fierce rivals Hunt and Lauda come to something of an understanding as we watch them contest race after race around the globe during the 1976 Grand Prix season. You wonder what effect the F1 documentary ‘Senna’ had on ‘Rush’. There are parallels: the rivalry, of course, but also an explosive row and a horrifying crash. Maybe ‘Senna’ just reassured the filmmakers that audiences beyond F1 fans would care.
They’ve gone all out to make ‘Rush’ look exciting. Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle matches the film’s look to period archive footage and finds angles and perspectives you’d think impossible. It’s anything but boring. It’s also one of those cheeky real-life tales that Morgan adores: a portrait of people in crisis who live their lives in the public glare, whether it’s the Queen, Nixon or Tony Blair. ‘Rush’ is fast, slippery, stormy and dangerous.
It’s the noise of ‘Rush’ that sticks with you after seeing Ron Howard’s fun and tense dip into the volatile world of 1970s Formula 1 – the violent roar of engines on the starting grid and the sound in the cockpit like you’re being propelled to the moon on a DIY rocket. That, and the feeling that you’ve been scraping your nose along rainy, rubber-stained asphalt for almost two hours.
Last time Howard made a sports movie it was the underpowered boxing film ‘Cinderella Man’. But ‘Rush’ has on its team British screenwriter Peter Morgan – who also wrote Howard’s ‘Frost/Nixon’, another head-to-head tale set in the 1970s. Here, the sparring partners are champagne-swilling British racing driver James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), a stern Austrian.
Part of the fun of ‘Rush’ is how it takes us back to a pre-Ryanair time, when England and the rest of Europe were still miles apart. It’s a story of detente and new beginnings, as fierce rivals Hunt and Lauda come to something of an understanding as we watch them contest race after race around the globe during the 1976 Grand Prix season. You wonder what effect the F1 documentary ‘Senna’ had on ‘Rush’. There are parallels: the rivalry, of course, but also an explosive row and a horrifying crash. Maybe ‘Senna’ just reassured the filmmakers that audiences beyond F1 fans would care.
They’ve gone all out to make ‘Rush’ look exciting. Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle matches the film’s look to period archive footage and finds angles and perspectives you’d think impossible. It’s anything but boring. It’s also one of those cheeky real-life tales that Morgan adores: a portrait of people in crisis who live their lives in the public glare, whether it’s the Queen, Nixon or Tony Blair. ‘Rush’ is fast, slippery, stormy and dangerous.
146. V for Vendetta
2020: after a devastating viral outbreak has plunged America into civil war, Britain is a repressive fascist state headed by John Hurt’s dictator Adam Sutler. Resistance however, is stirring in the unlikely form of an elusive insurgent known as ‘V’ (Hugo Weaving), whose features hide behind a Guy Fawkes mask. He’s already blown up the Old Bailey, and is promising that Westminster, another emblem of institutionalised injustice, will follow next year. It could be another November 5 to remember, unless Stephen Rea’s dogged state investigator can locate the rebel icon’s secret lair, though the latter may have found an ally in Natalie Portman’s plucky TV researcher, whose bitter past has its telling secrets too.
2020: after a devastating viral outbreak has plunged America into civil war, Britain is a repressive fascist state headed by John Hurt’s dictator Adam Sutler. Resistance however, is stirring in the unlikely form of an elusive insurgent known as ‘V’ (Hugo Weaving), whose features hide behind a Guy Fawkes mask. He’s already blown up the Old Bailey, and is promising that Westminster, another emblem of institutionalised injustice, will follow next year. It could be another November 5 to remember, unless Stephen Rea’s dogged state investigator can locate the rebel icon’s secret lair, though the latter may have found an ally in Natalie Portman’s plucky TV researcher, whose bitter past has its telling secrets too.
147. The Deer Hunter
This is probably one of the few great films of the decade. It's the tale of three Pennsylvanian steelworkers, their life at work, at play (deer-hunting), at war (as volunteers in Vietnam). Running against the grain of liberal guilt and substituting Fordian patriotism, it proposes De Niro as a Ulyssean hero tested to the limit by war. Moral imperatives replace historical analysis, social rituals become religious sacraments, and the sado-masochism of the central (male) love affair is icing on a Nietzschean cake. Ideally, though, it should prove as gruelling a test of its audience's moral and political conscience as it seems to have been for its makers.
This is probably one of the few great films of the decade. It's the tale of three Pennsylvanian steelworkers, their life at work, at play (deer-hunting), at war (as volunteers in Vietnam). Running against the grain of liberal guilt and substituting Fordian patriotism, it proposes De Niro as a Ulyssean hero tested to the limit by war. Moral imperatives replace historical analysis, social rituals become religious sacraments, and the sado-masochism of the central (male) love affair is icing on a Nietzschean cake. Ideally, though, it should prove as gruelling a test of its audience's moral and political conscience as it seems to have been for its makers.
148. Cool Hand Luke
A caustically witty look at the American South and its still-surviving chain gangs, with Newman in fine sardonic form as the boss-baiter who refuses to submit and becomes a hero to his fellow-prisoners. Underlying the hard-bitten surface is a slightly uncomfortable allegory which identifies Newman as a Christ figure (and reminds one that Rosenberg once directed the awful, Moral Rearmament-ish Question 7). But this scarcely detracts from the brilliantly idiosyncratic script (by Donn Pearce from his own novel) or from Conrad Hall's glittering camerawork (which survives Rosenberg's penchant for the zoom lens and shots reflected in sun-glasses).
A caustically witty look at the American South and its still-surviving chain gangs, with Newman in fine sardonic form as the boss-baiter who refuses to submit and becomes a hero to his fellow-prisoners. Underlying the hard-bitten surface is a slightly uncomfortable allegory which identifies Newman as a Christ figure (and reminds one that Rosenberg once directed the awful, Moral Rearmament-ish Question 7). But this scarcely detracts from the brilliantly idiosyncratic script (by Donn Pearce from his own novel) or from Conrad Hall's glittering camerawork (which survives Rosenberg's penchant for the zoom lens and shots reflected in sun-glasses).
149. Fargo
Car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (Macy) hires low-lifes Carl and Gaear (Buscemi and Stormare) to kidnap his wife, hoping that her wealthy father will pay a ransom from which Jerry can creama share. The abduction goes according to plan, but the kidnappers commit three murdersas they drive by night through the snowyMinnesota wastes. Police chief Marge Gunderson (McDormand), a slow-talkin', smart-thinkin', pregnant housewife, investigates. Joel and Ethan Coen's beguiling film is both very funny and, finally, very moving. Performed to perfection by an imaginatively assembled cast, it displays the customary Coen virtues, at the same time providing a robust emotional core unaffected by the taint of mere technical virtuosity. The talk is more leisurely than usual, the camera largely static, the focus firmly on relationships, character, ethics. However banal the lives and aspirations of the leading figures, there's nothing condescending about the humour. Marge and her husband are genuinely good, ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events of, to them, unfathomable evil. Suspense, satire, mystery, horror, comedy and keen (if faintly surreal) social observation combine to prove yet again that (bar very few) the Coens remain effortlessly ahead of the American field.
Car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (Macy) hires low-lifes Carl and Gaear (Buscemi and Stormare) to kidnap his wife, hoping that her wealthy father will pay a ransom from which Jerry can creama share. The abduction goes according to plan, but the kidnappers commit three murdersas they drive by night through the snowyMinnesota wastes. Police chief Marge Gunderson (McDormand), a slow-talkin', smart-thinkin', pregnant housewife, investigates. Joel and Ethan Coen's beguiling film is both very funny and, finally, very moving. Performed to perfection by an imaginatively assembled cast, it displays the customary Coen virtues, at the same time providing a robust emotional core unaffected by the taint of mere technical virtuosity. The talk is more leisurely than usual, the camera largely static, the focus firmly on relationships, character, ethics. However banal the lives and aspirations of the leading figures, there's nothing condescending about the humour. Marge and her husband are genuinely good, ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events of, to them, unfathomable evil. Suspense, satire, mystery, horror, comedy and keen (if faintly surreal) social observation combine to prove yet again that (bar very few) the Coens remain effortlessly ahead of the American field.
150. Rang De Basanti
A young idealistic English filmmaker, Sue, arrives in India to make a film on Indian revolutionaries Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and their contemporaries and their fight for freedom from the British Raj. Owing to a lack of funds, she recruits students from Delhi University to act in her docu-drama. She finds DJ, who graduated five years ago but still wants to be a part of the University because he doesn't think there's too much out there in the real world to look forward to. Karan, the son of Industrialist Rajnath Singhania, who shares an uncomfortable relationship with his father, but continues to live off him, albeit very grudgingly. Aslam, is a middle class Muslim boy, who lives in the by-lanes near Jama Masjid, poet, philosopher and guide to his friends. Sukhi, the group's baby, innocent, vulnerable and with a weakness for only one thing - girls. Laxman Pandey, the fundamentalist in the group, the only one who still believes that politics can make the world a better place
A young idealistic English filmmaker, Sue, arrives in India to make a film on Indian revolutionaries Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and their contemporaries and their fight for freedom from the British Raj. Owing to a lack of funds, she recruits students from Delhi University to act in her docu-drama. She finds DJ, who graduated five years ago but still wants to be a part of the University because he doesn't think there's too much out there in the real world to look forward to. Karan, the son of Industrialist Rajnath Singhania, who shares an uncomfortable relationship with his father, but continues to live off him, albeit very grudgingly. Aslam, is a middle class Muslim boy, who lives in the by-lanes near Jama Masjid, poet, philosopher and guide to his friends. Sukhi, the group's baby, innocent, vulnerable and with a weakness for only one thing - girls. Laxman Pandey, the fundamentalist in the group, the only one who still believes that politics can make the world a better place
151. The Maltese Falcon
Huston's first film displays the hallmarks that were to distinguish his later work: the mocking attitude toward human greed; the cavalier insolence with which plot details are treated almost as asides; the delight in bizarre characterisations, here ranging from the amiably snarling Sam Spade ('When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it') who opened a whole new romantic career for Bogart, to Lorre's petulant, gardenia-scented Joel Cairo, Cook's waspishly effete gunsel, and Greenstreet's monstrously jocular Fat Man ('By gad, sir, you are a character'). What makes it a prototype film noir is the vein of unease missing from the two earlier versions of Hammett's novel. Filmed almost entirely in interiors, it presents a claustrophobic world animated by betrayal, perversion and pain, never - even at its most irresistibly funny, as when Cook listens in outraged disbelief while his fat sugar daddy proposes to sell him down the line - quite losing sight of this central abyss of darkness, ultimately embodied by Mary Astor's sadly duplicitous siren.
Huston's first film displays the hallmarks that were to distinguish his later work: the mocking attitude toward human greed; the cavalier insolence with which plot details are treated almost as asides; the delight in bizarre characterisations, here ranging from the amiably snarling Sam Spade ('When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it') who opened a whole new romantic career for Bogart, to Lorre's petulant, gardenia-scented Joel Cairo, Cook's waspishly effete gunsel, and Greenstreet's monstrously jocular Fat Man ('By gad, sir, you are a character'). What makes it a prototype film noir is the vein of unease missing from the two earlier versions of Hammett's novel. Filmed almost entirely in interiors, it presents a claustrophobic world animated by betrayal, perversion and pain, never - even at its most irresistibly funny, as when Cook listens in outraged disbelief while his fat sugar daddy proposes to sell him down the line - quite losing sight of this central abyss of darkness, ultimately embodied by Mary Astor's sadly duplicitous siren.
152. Gone With the Wind
It’s a good job they’re putting this ravishing new print of ‘Gone with the Wind’ in cinemas now – before Steve McQueen’s ‘12 Years a Slave’ arrives in January to show us what American slavery really looked like. Its stereotype of happy slaves and kindly masters has never been more wince-inducing (the writers thankfully deleted the novel’s pro-Ku Klux Klan references). But no one watches ‘Gone with the Wind’ for historical accuracy. What keeps us coming back is four-hours of epic romance in gorgeous Technicolor.
Slavery, the Civil War, the burning of Atlanta, a street knee-deep in dead soldiers – all just a backdrop to the main event, Scarlett ’n’ Rhett. The feminist jury is still out on Southern belle Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh). Nothing but a serial husband-thief? Or a resilient modern woman doing what she can to survive? You decide. Rhett (Clark Gable) is the hard-drinking playboy who, when he looks at a woman, sees right through her petticoats. Scarlett: ‘You black-hearted varmint’ (store that one away for future use). Rhett: ‘You’ll never mean anything but misery to a man.’ Frankly, you’d have be as black-hearted as Rhett not to give a damn.
It’s a good job they’re putting this ravishing new print of ‘Gone with the Wind’ in cinemas now – before Steve McQueen’s ‘12 Years a Slave’ arrives in January to show us what American slavery really looked like. Its stereotype of happy slaves and kindly masters has never been more wince-inducing (the writers thankfully deleted the novel’s pro-Ku Klux Klan references). But no one watches ‘Gone with the Wind’ for historical accuracy. What keeps us coming back is four-hours of epic romance in gorgeous Technicolor.
Slavery, the Civil War, the burning of Atlanta, a street knee-deep in dead soldiers – all just a backdrop to the main event, Scarlett ’n’ Rhett. The feminist jury is still out on Southern belle Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh). Nothing but a serial husband-thief? Or a resilient modern woman doing what she can to survive? You decide. Rhett (Clark Gable) is the hard-drinking playboy who, when he looks at a woman, sees right through her petticoats. Scarlett: ‘You black-hearted varmint’ (store that one away for future use). Rhett: ‘You’ll never mean anything but misery to a man.’ Frankly, you’d have be as black-hearted as Rhett not to give a damn.
153. Howl's Moving Castle
The first long shot of Howl’s castle, moving through the fog of an Alpine pasture, is a doozy: its bullfrog-battleship bulk huffing and chunting along on a set of sure-clawed chicken-legs, it’s the sort of organic-hydraulic hybrid at which Miyazaki excels. The innards prove less impressive, especially for anyone imagining a bustling citadel to rival the divine bath-house of ‘Spirited Away’; with activity largely restricted to a kitchen-living room, it feels more like Howl’s moving bedsit. Still, it’s an apt symbol for a film whose copious initial charm diminishes on closer acquaintance. Freely adapted from Diana Wynne Jones’ novel, ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ is the story of Sophie, a hard-working, self-effacing teenager who takes refuge with the wizard Howl after being transformed into a crone by the Witch of the Waste (a well-coutured whale of a woman voiced by Lauren Bacall). Supposedly fearsome, Howl turns out to be a drama queen with a yellow streak – albeit a rather dashing one, in an androgynous, Manga sort of way. Meanwhile mobilisation is underway for a total war in which magic is merely another WMD. The set-up offers plenty of dazzle, from the milieu – an exquisitely rendered high imperial/pastoral fantasia of nineteenth century Europe – to supernatural aspects such as the Witch’s glutinous goons (complete with boaters). Unfortunately, the increasingly baggy structure and fluctuating tone – now wartime intrigue, now pretend family heart-warmer – make it harder and harder to engage. The risibly cloying closing scenes are likely to nix any remaining goodwill, blotting out such delicate early touches as a stroll through the air far above a town square.
The first long shot of Howl’s castle, moving through the fog of an Alpine pasture, is a doozy: its bullfrog-battleship bulk huffing and chunting along on a set of sure-clawed chicken-legs, it’s the sort of organic-hydraulic hybrid at which Miyazaki excels. The innards prove less impressive, especially for anyone imagining a bustling citadel to rival the divine bath-house of ‘Spirited Away’; with activity largely restricted to a kitchen-living room, it feels more like Howl’s moving bedsit. Still, it’s an apt symbol for a film whose copious initial charm diminishes on closer acquaintance. Freely adapted from Diana Wynne Jones’ novel, ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ is the story of Sophie, a hard-working, self-effacing teenager who takes refuge with the wizard Howl after being transformed into a crone by the Witch of the Waste (a well-coutured whale of a woman voiced by Lauren Bacall). Supposedly fearsome, Howl turns out to be a drama queen with a yellow streak – albeit a rather dashing one, in an androgynous, Manga sort of way. Meanwhile mobilisation is underway for a total war in which magic is merely another WMD. The set-up offers plenty of dazzle, from the milieu – an exquisitely rendered high imperial/pastoral fantasia of nineteenth century Europe – to supernatural aspects such as the Witch’s glutinous goons (complete with boaters). Unfortunately, the increasingly baggy structure and fluctuating tone – now wartime intrigue, now pretend family heart-warmer – make it harder and harder to engage. The risibly cloying closing scenes are likely to nix any remaining goodwill, blotting out such delicate early touches as a stroll through the air far above a town square.
154. Trainspotting
A shocking, painfully subjective trawl through the Edinburgh heroin culture of the 1980s, Irvine Welsh's cult novel is hardly an obvious choice for the team who made Shallow Grave. Yet the film's a triumph. Audaciously punching up the pitch-black comedy, juggling parallel character strands and juxtaposing image, music and voice-over with a virtuosity worthy of Scorsese on peak form, Trainspotting the movie captures precisely Welsh's insolent, amoral intelligence. Amoral, but not unthinking, and certainly not unfeeling. Nihilism runs deep in this movie, emotion cannot be countenanced, only blocked off by another hit, another gag, but the anarchic, exhilarating rush of the highs can't drown out the subsequent, devastating lows - these are two sides of the same desperation. Danny Boyle's intuitive, vital, empathetic direction pushes so far, the movie flies on sheer momentum - that and bravura performances from Bremner's gormless Spud, Carlyle's terrifying Begbie and, especially, McGregor's Renton, who supplies a low-key, charismatic centre. This may not have the weight of 'Great Art', but it crystallises youthful disaffection with the verve of the best and brightest pop culture. A sensation.
A shocking, painfully subjective trawl through the Edinburgh heroin culture of the 1980s, Irvine Welsh's cult novel is hardly an obvious choice for the team who made Shallow Grave. Yet the film's a triumph. Audaciously punching up the pitch-black comedy, juggling parallel character strands and juxtaposing image, music and voice-over with a virtuosity worthy of Scorsese on peak form, Trainspotting the movie captures precisely Welsh's insolent, amoral intelligence. Amoral, but not unthinking, and certainly not unfeeling. Nihilism runs deep in this movie, emotion cannot be countenanced, only blocked off by another hit, another gag, but the anarchic, exhilarating rush of the highs can't drown out the subsequent, devastating lows - these are two sides of the same desperation. Danny Boyle's intuitive, vital, empathetic direction pushes so far, the movie flies on sheer momentum - that and bravura performances from Bremner's gormless Spud, Carlyle's terrifying Begbie and, especially, McGregor's Renton, who supplies a low-key, charismatic centre. This may not have the weight of 'Great Art', but it crystallises youthful disaffection with the verve of the best and brightest pop culture. A sensation.
155. Into the Wild
Talk about heart-on-your-sleeve cinema. Sean Penn uses cinema as an alternative to the analyst’s couch in this adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s book, which details the fatal journey of Christopher McCandless, a 22-year-old graduate from a comfortable Virginian background who, in 1990, gave his $24,000 savings to Oxfam, hit the road and wandered through California, Arizona and South Dakota before hitchhiking to Alaska, where he ate the wrong berries and died in a rusty old schoolbus in which he’d been camping between hunting moose, dodging bears and reading too much Jack London.
Penn shows an abnormal amount of sympathy for McCandless (Emile Hirsch) – think, in British terms, a literate public-schoolboy with a sneering towards the conventional; he even says, ‘I think careers are a twentieth-century invention’ – and his McCandless is a Messianic figure who pounds the open road, leaving behind nothing but goodwill whether he encounters troubled hippies (Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker), hormonal teenagers (Kristen Stewart) or ‘lonely’ – McCandless’ own poisonous word, not mine – old men such as the one played very sweetly by Hal Holbrook. The story of McCandless is obviously fascinating, but Penn is so uncritical that he leaves us little room to judge for ourselves whether his subject – or, more fittingly, his muse? – is enlightened, arrogant or both.
Everything else is deftly handled: Eric Gautier’s photography is beautiful, the pace is swift, Hirsch gives a terrific performance and Penn’s script moves back and forth neatly between the past and the present, cleverly using the bridge of a voiceover from McCandless’ sister (Jena Malone) to sketch a troubled family background. More than anything, the film reminds me of a time when, aged 17, I set off for the Forest of Dean to camp out in the wild, inspired somehow by the recent death of Dennis Potter. We arrived at night, pitched camp and woke in the morning to find we were sleeping next to a busy dog-walking path. One man’s wilderness is another man’s backyard. If only Penn had kept that more in mind.
Talk about heart-on-your-sleeve cinema. Sean Penn uses cinema as an alternative to the analyst’s couch in this adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s book, which details the fatal journey of Christopher McCandless, a 22-year-old graduate from a comfortable Virginian background who, in 1990, gave his $24,000 savings to Oxfam, hit the road and wandered through California, Arizona and South Dakota before hitchhiking to Alaska, where he ate the wrong berries and died in a rusty old schoolbus in which he’d been camping between hunting moose, dodging bears and reading too much Jack London.
Penn shows an abnormal amount of sympathy for McCandless (Emile Hirsch) – think, in British terms, a literate public-schoolboy with a sneering towards the conventional; he even says, ‘I think careers are a twentieth-century invention’ – and his McCandless is a Messianic figure who pounds the open road, leaving behind nothing but goodwill whether he encounters troubled hippies (Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker), hormonal teenagers (Kristen Stewart) or ‘lonely’ – McCandless’ own poisonous word, not mine – old men such as the one played very sweetly by Hal Holbrook. The story of McCandless is obviously fascinating, but Penn is so uncritical that he leaves us little room to judge for ourselves whether his subject – or, more fittingly, his muse? – is enlightened, arrogant or both.
Everything else is deftly handled: Eric Gautier’s photography is beautiful, the pace is swift, Hirsch gives a terrific performance and Penn’s script moves back and forth neatly between the past and the present, cleverly using the bridge of a voiceover from McCandless’ sister (Jena Malone) to sketch a troubled family background. More than anything, the film reminds me of a time when, aged 17, I set off for the Forest of Dean to camp out in the wild, inspired somehow by the recent death of Dennis Potter. We arrived at night, pitched camp and woke in the morning to find we were sleeping next to a busy dog-walking path. One man’s wilderness is another man’s backyard. If only Penn had kept that more in mind.
156. How to Train Your Dragon
The 3D bandwagon keeps rolling with this smart, muscular, animated adventure. On a remote North Atlantic island, the Viking population is suffering harassment from swarms of marauding dragons, until geeky son-of-a-chief Hiccup finds an injured dragon in the woods and suspects this constant state of warfare may be unnecessary.
Rejecting the comic whimsy of Cressida Cowell’s source novel, ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ is a surprisingly robust affair, backing its juggernaut narrative with a well-judged and timely political subtext which urges young viewers to question received wisdom and make up their own minds, especially when it comes to matters of life and death. The voices can be jarring – the burly adult Vikings are all Scots, while their offspring are whiny Yanks – and the characterisation remains disappointingly old fashioned and unoriginal. But the visuals are striking, the script sharp and well paced and it all wraps up with a breathtaking aerial battle sequence.
The 3D bandwagon keeps rolling with this smart, muscular, animated adventure. On a remote North Atlantic island, the Viking population is suffering harassment from swarms of marauding dragons, until geeky son-of-a-chief Hiccup finds an injured dragon in the woods and suspects this constant state of warfare may be unnecessary.
Rejecting the comic whimsy of Cressida Cowell’s source novel, ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ is a surprisingly robust affair, backing its juggernaut narrative with a well-judged and timely political subtext which urges young viewers to question received wisdom and make up their own minds, especially when it comes to matters of life and death. The voices can be jarring – the burly adult Vikings are all Scots, while their offspring are whiny Yanks – and the characterisation remains disappointingly old fashioned and unoriginal. But the visuals are striking, the script sharp and well paced and it all wraps up with a breathtaking aerial battle sequence.
157. Hotel Rwanda
A decade since tribal extremists in Rwanda organised a blitzkrieg of ethnic killing while the world minced its words, the feature dramatisations are finally spilling out, aiming to remind us of evils hurriedly forgotten and lessons still unlearnt. Raoul Peck’s wrenching ‘Sometimes in April’ is due to open next month’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival, and others are in the pipeline, but first comes this true story from issue-dramatist Terry George (‘Some Mother’s Son’), with an Oscar-nominated Don Cheadle re-enacting the part of Paul Rusesabagina, Rwanda’s own Schindler, who harboured hundreds of refugees in the grounds of the elite hotel where he worked as house manager. Like Schindler, he’s a convenient proxy for an outside audience: an initially compromised, sceptical sophisticate, steeped in colonial proprieties, whose belatedly kindled conscience provides some relief from the encompassing darkness.
Knuckling down to a native accent and keeping a lid on his wits, Cheadle carries the story, but there’s a tension between the focus on his heroics and the film’s wider hand-wringing project (we get Nick Nolte as a self-disgustedly impotent UN colonel, and Joaquin Phoenix as a briefly daring Irish photographer whose long lens captures one of the film’s few images of actual carnage). That tension might be fruitful, and one can debate how much of the carnage beyond the hotel’s precarious sanctuary the film needs to screen – its strongest scene sees Rusesabagina floundering among an unparted sea of corpses that he’d unwittingly been driving over in the dawn fog. But there’s a tidiness and sense of convenience in the film’s stock characterisations and button-pushing plotting that detracts from its impact. The film doesn’t just contrive to contain the slaughter, but also its own anger.
A decade since tribal extremists in Rwanda organised a blitzkrieg of ethnic killing while the world minced its words, the feature dramatisations are finally spilling out, aiming to remind us of evils hurriedly forgotten and lessons still unlearnt. Raoul Peck’s wrenching ‘Sometimes in April’ is due to open next month’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival, and others are in the pipeline, but first comes this true story from issue-dramatist Terry George (‘Some Mother’s Son’), with an Oscar-nominated Don Cheadle re-enacting the part of Paul Rusesabagina, Rwanda’s own Schindler, who harboured hundreds of refugees in the grounds of the elite hotel where he worked as house manager. Like Schindler, he’s a convenient proxy for an outside audience: an initially compromised, sceptical sophisticate, steeped in colonial proprieties, whose belatedly kindled conscience provides some relief from the encompassing darkness.
Knuckling down to a native accent and keeping a lid on his wits, Cheadle carries the story, but there’s a tension between the focus on his heroics and the film’s wider hand-wringing project (we get Nick Nolte as a self-disgustedly impotent UN colonel, and Joaquin Phoenix as a briefly daring Irish photographer whose long lens captures one of the film’s few images of actual carnage). That tension might be fruitful, and one can debate how much of the carnage beyond the hotel’s precarious sanctuary the film needs to screen – its strongest scene sees Rusesabagina floundering among an unparted sea of corpses that he’d unwittingly been driving over in the dawn fog. But there’s a tidiness and sense of convenience in the film’s stock characterisations and button-pushing plotting that detracts from its impact. The film doesn’t just contrive to contain the slaughter, but also its own anger.
158. The Sixth Sense
Writer/director Shyamalan's sombre shocker was a massive sleeper hit in the US, proving that jaded mainstream audiences have an untapped appetite for disturbing, grown-up horror. Reminiscent of Polanski'sRepulsion or Rosemary's Baby, it generates an insidious, incremental horror. Also, its scares grow out of carefully delineated human relationships, their immediate impact matched by a deep emotional undertow. Eight-year-old Cole (Osment) whispers his secret to shrink Malcolm Crowe (Willis): 'I see dead people.' But why have these purgatorial souls made contact with this bright, ultra-sensitive boy? Osment's extraordinary, moving portrayal of the brave but bewildered Cole might have unbalanced the film had not Willis, as the obsessive shrink, given his most subtle, sympathetic performance to date. Haunted by his failure to help a former patient, Crowe is oblivious to his estranged wife's emotional needs and desperate to redeem himself by saving the boy. Tak Fujimoto's muted colour photography imbues the everyday interiors and evocative Philadelphia locations with a gloomy but never depressing atmosphere. Similarly, the tone of the understated direction is melancholy rather than maudlin. A poignant study of the searing pain caused by loss, this all-too-human horror film provokes tears as well as fears.
Writer/director Shyamalan's sombre shocker was a massive sleeper hit in the US, proving that jaded mainstream audiences have an untapped appetite for disturbing, grown-up horror. Reminiscent of Polanski'sRepulsion or Rosemary's Baby, it generates an insidious, incremental horror. Also, its scares grow out of carefully delineated human relationships, their immediate impact matched by a deep emotional undertow. Eight-year-old Cole (Osment) whispers his secret to shrink Malcolm Crowe (Willis): 'I see dead people.' But why have these purgatorial souls made contact with this bright, ultra-sensitive boy? Osment's extraordinary, moving portrayal of the brave but bewildered Cole might have unbalanced the film had not Willis, as the obsessive shrink, given his most subtle, sympathetic performance to date. Haunted by his failure to help a former patient, Crowe is oblivious to his estranged wife's emotional needs and desperate to redeem himself by saving the boy. Tak Fujimoto's muted colour photography imbues the everyday interiors and evocative Philadelphia locations with a gloomy but never depressing atmosphere. Similarly, the tone of the understated direction is melancholy rather than maudlin. A poignant study of the searing pain caused by loss, this all-too-human horror film provokes tears as well as fears.
159. Judgment at Nuremberg
With his reputation for tackling only Big Issues, the Holocaust had to be on Kramer's list of cinematic 'lest we should forget' achievements. That said, this assembly of star turns in the court - including token 'Germans' Dietrich and Schell, the latter collecting an Oscar for his efforts as the defence attorney - are often very impressive. Tracy puts in an effortlessly brilliant performance as the superjudge, and Clift as a confused Nazi victim is painfully convincing in his emotional disintegration. There are no surprises in the direction, and Abby Mann's screenplay plays the expected tunes, but there's enough conviction on display to reward a patient spectator.
With his reputation for tackling only Big Issues, the Holocaust had to be on Kramer's list of cinematic 'lest we should forget' achievements. That said, this assembly of star turns in the court - including token 'Germans' Dietrich and Schell, the latter collecting an Oscar for his efforts as the defence attorney - are often very impressive. Tracy puts in an effortlessly brilliant performance as the superjudge, and Clift as a confused Nazi victim is painfully convincing in his emotional disintegration. There are no surprises in the direction, and Abby Mann's screenplay plays the expected tunes, but there's enough conviction on display to reward a patient spectator.
160. Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
You could do worse than catch Redford and Newman in one of the funniest if slightest Westerns of recent years. Unashamedly escapist, it rips off most of its plot (from pursuit to final shootout) and much of its visual style from Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, and even parodies Jules and Jim. It's slightly the worse for some of the borrowings, but the script is often hilarious, Newman and Redford making the best use of it when they get to parry dialogue with each other (eg, during the pursuit). It is much better and funnier than the The Sting precisely because it allows the two stars to play off each other.
You could do worse than catch Redford and Newman in one of the funniest if slightest Westerns of recent years. Unashamedly escapist, it rips off most of its plot (from pursuit to final shootout) and much of its visual style from Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, and even parodies Jules and Jim. It's slightly the worse for some of the borrowings, but the script is often hilarious, Newman and Redford making the best use of it when they get to parry dialogue with each other (eg, during the pursuit). It is much better and funnier than the The Sting precisely because it allows the two stars to play off each other.
161. The Thing
Is this a remake of or a prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 Antarctic-set alien shocker? The answer is both. The Carpenter version indicated that the neighbouring Norwegian mission in the Antarctic had encountered the shape-shifting extraterrestrial before the Yanks, so here we get to see what happened to the plucky Scandinavians. The set-up, though, is essentially the same – snowbound scientists menaced by a being which can replicate their physicality with such precision it’s hard to be sure who is affected. That’s the core of the 1938 short story (left well alone by the Howard Hawks 1951 movie), and it’s a robust suspense scenario. So this version holds the attention, thanks in part to Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a spirited archaeologist, but offers little that Carpenter didn’t do far better. Efficient enough for newcomers perhaps, but never that chilling, and the predictably dull CGI underlines how far movie magic has regressed in the past couple of decades.
Is this a remake of or a prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 Antarctic-set alien shocker? The answer is both. The Carpenter version indicated that the neighbouring Norwegian mission in the Antarctic had encountered the shape-shifting extraterrestrial before the Yanks, so here we get to see what happened to the plucky Scandinavians. The set-up, though, is essentially the same – snowbound scientists menaced by a being which can replicate their physicality with such precision it’s hard to be sure who is affected. That’s the core of the 1938 short story (left well alone by the Howard Hawks 1951 movie), and it’s a robust suspense scenario. So this version holds the attention, thanks in part to Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a spirited archaeologist, but offers little that Carpenter didn’t do far better. Efficient enough for newcomers perhaps, but never that chilling, and the predictably dull CGI underlines how far movie magic has regressed in the past couple of decades.
162. Dial M for Murder
One year before its sixtieth anniversary seems an odd time to reissue Hitch’s knotty, chatty murder mystery. But in a blockbuster-saturated summer, this sharp 3D restoration is a cool refresher for audiences weary of seeing the technology applied to mutants and doomsday scenarios. Hitchcock himself dismissed 3D as a ‘nine-day wonder’ (admitting he ‘came in on the ninth day’), but that didn’t stop him having some fun with it. For every shot that now seems quaintly gimmicky – count the foregrounded table lamps! – there’s another that inventively animates the spatial interplay between characters in a piece that otherwise makes little apology for its theatrical origins.
The London-set story, which finds Ray Milland’s suave former tennis pro first plotting the murder of his wife (Grace Kelly at her most fashionably fragile) before framing her for another, remains one of Hitch’s most absorbingly airtight: its trick is to generate considerable suspense while withholding nothing from the audience. Its pleasures are not profound ones, but there’s enough dimensionality up on the screen to compensate. Guy Lodge The Bottom Line It’s not deep, but Hitchcock’s 3D thriller still grips.
One year before its sixtieth anniversary seems an odd time to reissue Hitch’s knotty, chatty murder mystery. But in a blockbuster-saturated summer, this sharp 3D restoration is a cool refresher for audiences weary of seeing the technology applied to mutants and doomsday scenarios. Hitchcock himself dismissed 3D as a ‘nine-day wonder’ (admitting he ‘came in on the ninth day’), but that didn’t stop him having some fun with it. For every shot that now seems quaintly gimmicky – count the foregrounded table lamps! – there’s another that inventively animates the spatial interplay between characters in a piece that otherwise makes little apology for its theatrical origins.
The London-set story, which finds Ray Milland’s suave former tennis pro first plotting the murder of his wife (Grace Kelly at her most fashionably fragile) before framing her for another, remains one of Hitch’s most absorbingly airtight: its trick is to generate considerable suspense while withholding nothing from the audience. Its pleasures are not profound ones, but there’s enough dimensionality up on the screen to compensate. Guy Lodge The Bottom Line It’s not deep, but Hitchcock’s 3D thriller still grips.
163. A Beautiful Mind
As a math student at Princeton in 1947, John Forbes Nash (Crowe) was eccentric, uncouth and arrogant, but his PhD thesis on 'Non-Cooperative Games' justified his self-esteem, and he was promptly ushered into top level government think tanks. At the age of 30, however, Nash was diagnosed with schizophrenia after claiming he was communicating with 'abstract powers from outer space - or perhaps foreign governments' via the New York Times. Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman takes this last detail from Sylvia Nasar's biography and makes a meal of it, inventing characters, erasing Nash's bisexuality and omitting his divorce from (and subsequent remarriage to) Alicia (Connelly). You couldn't ask for a more dramatic contrast to, say, the softly, softly approach Richard Eyre takes in Iris, a contemporaneous biopic about the intellect and the heart. Surprisingly, given Goldsman's lamentable track record (A Time to Kill,Batman and Robin), his artistic trespass pays dividends, sucking us into the mind of a genius in a way Eyre never quite managed, thanks largely to Roger Deakins' imaginative cinematography. At its most effective when it seems to lose the plot in a scrambled second act that posits the Cold War as a collective paranoid delusion, the film reverts to type (and to fact) for a sentimental anti-climax.
As a math student at Princeton in 1947, John Forbes Nash (Crowe) was eccentric, uncouth and arrogant, but his PhD thesis on 'Non-Cooperative Games' justified his self-esteem, and he was promptly ushered into top level government think tanks. At the age of 30, however, Nash was diagnosed with schizophrenia after claiming he was communicating with 'abstract powers from outer space - or perhaps foreign governments' via the New York Times. Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman takes this last detail from Sylvia Nasar's biography and makes a meal of it, inventing characters, erasing Nash's bisexuality and omitting his divorce from (and subsequent remarriage to) Alicia (Connelly). You couldn't ask for a more dramatic contrast to, say, the softly, softly approach Richard Eyre takes in Iris, a contemporaneous biopic about the intellect and the heart. Surprisingly, given Goldsman's lamentable track record (A Time to Kill,Batman and Robin), his artistic trespass pays dividends, sucking us into the mind of a genius in a way Eyre never quite managed, thanks largely to Roger Deakins' imaginative cinematography. At its most effective when it seems to lose the plot in a scrambled second act that posits the Cold War as a collective paranoid delusion, the film reverts to type (and to fact) for a sentimental anti-climax.
164. Platoon
Stone's Vietnam film is a savage yet moving account of a 19-year-old's baptism under fire: clambering out of a transport plane, Sheen is soon plunged into the bloody chaos of combat. The use of his letters home as a commentary establishes personal experience as the core of the film; but broader political issues do manifest themselves when, unable to make any headway against the elusive Vietcong, the grunts turn their anger and weaponry on one another, the platoon splitting into warring factions that reflect peacetime social divisions. Two conflicting impulses appear in the movie: a desire to assault the audience with searing images that will cauterise the Vietnam wound once and for all; and a wish for a more artistically distanced elegy, given its purest expression in Georges Delerue's plaintive score. Perhaps it is this unresolved tension that allows Rambo fans to relish the violence while concerned liberals ponder the horror. That said, Stone's eye-blistering images possess an awesome power, which sets the senses reeling and leaves the mind disturbed.
Stone's Vietnam film is a savage yet moving account of a 19-year-old's baptism under fire: clambering out of a transport plane, Sheen is soon plunged into the bloody chaos of combat. The use of his letters home as a commentary establishes personal experience as the core of the film; but broader political issues do manifest themselves when, unable to make any headway against the elusive Vietcong, the grunts turn their anger and weaponry on one another, the platoon splitting into warring factions that reflect peacetime social divisions. Two conflicting impulses appear in the movie: a desire to assault the audience with searing images that will cauterise the Vietnam wound once and for all; and a wish for a more artistically distanced elegy, given its purest expression in Georges Delerue's plaintive score. Perhaps it is this unresolved tension that allows Rambo fans to relish the violence while concerned liberals ponder the horror. That said, Stone's eye-blistering images possess an awesome power, which sets the senses reeling and leaves the mind disturbed.
165. Annie Hall
Diane Keaton banked her Oscar and fled the Allen fold after this film. A couple more professional contributions notwithstanding, this was self-reflexively the swansong to their partnership. But if Allen lost the girl, he gained an audience – and you can’t kvetch without one. Whereas his earlier skittish missives from Napoleonic Russia (‘Love and Death’) and the twenty-second century (‘Sleeper’) won slight heed, this parochial, present-tense, blatantly personal confection seduced critics, chattering audiences, Oscar voters…
Allen’s great play was to assume his audience would (be) like him: an informed, solipsistic, nervous fantasist, only too flattered to be set up on screen. (He’d doubtless say he was making the film for himself, which amounts to the same thing.) He invites viewers to laugh with him at him: rather a subject than an object of ridicule, he lances his neuroses preemptively, controlling the exposure. It’s a limited strategy, but still glamorising in its way – if you can’t be Bogart-smooth in all things, such a fund of wisecracks is a start.
The hitch is that Allen’s comic facility disrupts his search for feeling. He begins the film in confessional mode, offering to-camera the ‘key jokes’ to his condition (he’s silenced later only by the girlfriend who doesn’t get his jokes) – but wit can be an avoidance technique, and Allen regularly cuts on a gag rather than develop a serious point. It’s not the most fluent of films anyway – a whimsical collage of childhood reminiscences and adult relationship tableaux – so while its consonance comes largely from Gordon Willis’s photography and Allen’s spacious sense of New York, pathos comes at best from Keaton’s evaporative performance and a slightly sentimental conception. The jokes, however, just keep coming.
Diane Keaton banked her Oscar and fled the Allen fold after this film. A couple more professional contributions notwithstanding, this was self-reflexively the swansong to their partnership. But if Allen lost the girl, he gained an audience – and you can’t kvetch without one. Whereas his earlier skittish missives from Napoleonic Russia (‘Love and Death’) and the twenty-second century (‘Sleeper’) won slight heed, this parochial, present-tense, blatantly personal confection seduced critics, chattering audiences, Oscar voters…
Allen’s great play was to assume his audience would (be) like him: an informed, solipsistic, nervous fantasist, only too flattered to be set up on screen. (He’d doubtless say he was making the film for himself, which amounts to the same thing.) He invites viewers to laugh with him at him: rather a subject than an object of ridicule, he lances his neuroses preemptively, controlling the exposure. It’s a limited strategy, but still glamorising in its way – if you can’t be Bogart-smooth in all things, such a fund of wisecracks is a start.
The hitch is that Allen’s comic facility disrupts his search for feeling. He begins the film in confessional mode, offering to-camera the ‘key jokes’ to his condition (he’s silenced later only by the girlfriend who doesn’t get his jokes) – but wit can be an avoidance technique, and Allen regularly cuts on a gag rather than develop a serious point. It’s not the most fluent of films anyway – a whimsical collage of childhood reminiscences and adult relationship tableaux – so while its consonance comes largely from Gordon Willis’s photography and Allen’s spacious sense of New York, pathos comes at best from Keaton’s evaporative performance and a slightly sentimental conception. The jokes, however, just keep coming.
166. Bill: Vol. 1
Fun and games from Tarantino, firmly in fanboy mode here. Kill Bill is 'not about real life, it's just about other movies', as QT puts it, adding: 'When the characters in Reservoir Dogs go to the movies, these are the movies they see.' Which makes it, what? Escapism twice removed? For my money, what's richest in Tarantino is the intersection of genre and reality - but Kill Bill is exactly the kind of movie-movie an action geek would dream of. Just as RZA's score samples Morricone, Herrmann and Quincy Jones, cameraman Robert Richardson's dazzling visual iconography comes from The Bride Wore Black, Nikita and Modesty Blaise, Takashi Miike and Seijun Suzuki, Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone, Kinji Fukasaku and Brian De Palma, Shaw Brothers' chop socky, Jack Hill blaxploitation and '70s TV schlock - and there's even a cool animé section. According to Godard, all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun, and Tarantino takes him at his word - throwing in a samurai sword for good measure. But it's hard to develop a story when you're stitching set pieces together, cutting out the boring bits. The Bride (Thurman) used to hang with the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, until Bill ordered the team to turn her wedding into a bloodbath. She comes to four years later, squares things with Vernita Green (Fox), then heads East on the trail of O-Ren Ishi (Liu). Two down, three to go. And give or take another hundred corpses, that's all there is to Vol. 1 - which climaxes in a 45-minute ballet of dismemberment and destruction, before nodding, cutely, in the direction of the nearest cliff. Cleverly constructed in achronological chapters but a lot less verbal than the average QT script, Kill Bill's blood feast would be utterly indigestible at a rumoured three-hour running time. At 111 mins I found it self-indulgent, tasteless, ultimately numbing. It's all bang, bang; no kiss, kiss. But this is still bravura film-making from a prodigious talent, and Thurman may yet prove its saving grace.
Fun and games from Tarantino, firmly in fanboy mode here. Kill Bill is 'not about real life, it's just about other movies', as QT puts it, adding: 'When the characters in Reservoir Dogs go to the movies, these are the movies they see.' Which makes it, what? Escapism twice removed? For my money, what's richest in Tarantino is the intersection of genre and reality - but Kill Bill is exactly the kind of movie-movie an action geek would dream of. Just as RZA's score samples Morricone, Herrmann and Quincy Jones, cameraman Robert Richardson's dazzling visual iconography comes from The Bride Wore Black, Nikita and Modesty Blaise, Takashi Miike and Seijun Suzuki, Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone, Kinji Fukasaku and Brian De Palma, Shaw Brothers' chop socky, Jack Hill blaxploitation and '70s TV schlock - and there's even a cool animé section. According to Godard, all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun, and Tarantino takes him at his word - throwing in a samurai sword for good measure. But it's hard to develop a story when you're stitching set pieces together, cutting out the boring bits. The Bride (Thurman) used to hang with the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, until Bill ordered the team to turn her wedding into a bloodbath. She comes to four years later, squares things with Vernita Green (Fox), then heads East on the trail of O-Ren Ishi (Liu). Two down, three to go. And give or take another hundred corpses, that's all there is to Vol. 1 - which climaxes in a 45-minute ballet of dismemberment and destruction, before nodding, cutely, in the direction of the nearest cliff. Cleverly constructed in achronological chapters but a lot less verbal than the average QT script, Kill Bill's blood feast would be utterly indigestible at a rumoured three-hour running time. At 111 mins I found it self-indulgent, tasteless, ultimately numbing. It's all bang, bang; no kiss, kiss. But this is still bravura film-making from a prodigious talent, and Thurman may yet prove its saving grace.
167. No Country for Old Men
West Texas, 1980. Out hunting deer in the desert down by the Mexican border, Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) happens on a heap of carnage: torn-apart trucks, corpses of men and dogs, the bloody bodies of others who’d be better off dead, and a case packed with cash: about $2 million. With no witnesses, and confident he can handle himself, Moss opts to keep what’s clearly payment in a drugs-handover gone wrong, and treat himself and wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald) to a life considerably better than their trailer-park existence. Trouble is, psychopathic hitman Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) also wants the loot, and begins carefully hunting the hunter, in turn pursued by veteran sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), who can’t help feeling the world’s turning more crazily violent.
The Coens’ first outright adaptation is of a Cormac McCarthy novel so attuned to them that the film feels – at least until the final few scenes – as if it’s based on one of their own original screenplays: ‘Blood Simple’ meets ‘Fargo’, almost. For all its fidelity to its source, however, it’d be wrong to think it merely an illustration. The Coens meticulously select the most filmic moments of McCarthy’s terse, gripping book; they trim the sheriff’s nostalgic reveries and philosophising, embellish and enhance the action, and succeed overall in transforming the novel’s economic descriptions into a full-blown world populated by vivid, plausible characters.
Most impressive, they find a cinematic equivalent to McCarthy’s language: his narrative ellipses, play with point of view, and structural concerns such as the exploration of the similarities and differences between Moss, Chigurh and Bell. Certain virtuoso sequences feel near-abstract in their focus on objects, sounds, light, colour or camera angle rather than on human presence. As in ‘Barton Fink’ or ‘Fargo’, the Coens prove that properly innovative artistry and engrossing entertainment can co-exist to utterly compelling effect.Notwithstanding much marvellous deadpan humour, this is one of their darkest efforts: Chigurh, especially, is a nightmarish creation, polite manners and pageboy bob perversely accentuating the volatility in his strangely logical head. Roger Deakins’ superb camerawork, top-grade performances all round, and understated, assured direction ensure the film exerts a grip from start to end. A masterly tale of the good, the deranged and the doomed that inflects the raw violence of the west with a wry acknowledgement of the demise of codes of honour, this is frighteningly intelligent and imaginative.
West Texas, 1980. Out hunting deer in the desert down by the Mexican border, Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) happens on a heap of carnage: torn-apart trucks, corpses of men and dogs, the bloody bodies of others who’d be better off dead, and a case packed with cash: about $2 million. With no witnesses, and confident he can handle himself, Moss opts to keep what’s clearly payment in a drugs-handover gone wrong, and treat himself and wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald) to a life considerably better than their trailer-park existence. Trouble is, psychopathic hitman Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) also wants the loot, and begins carefully hunting the hunter, in turn pursued by veteran sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), who can’t help feeling the world’s turning more crazily violent.
The Coens’ first outright adaptation is of a Cormac McCarthy novel so attuned to them that the film feels – at least until the final few scenes – as if it’s based on one of their own original screenplays: ‘Blood Simple’ meets ‘Fargo’, almost. For all its fidelity to its source, however, it’d be wrong to think it merely an illustration. The Coens meticulously select the most filmic moments of McCarthy’s terse, gripping book; they trim the sheriff’s nostalgic reveries and philosophising, embellish and enhance the action, and succeed overall in transforming the novel’s economic descriptions into a full-blown world populated by vivid, plausible characters.
Most impressive, they find a cinematic equivalent to McCarthy’s language: his narrative ellipses, play with point of view, and structural concerns such as the exploration of the similarities and differences between Moss, Chigurh and Bell. Certain virtuoso sequences feel near-abstract in their focus on objects, sounds, light, colour or camera angle rather than on human presence. As in ‘Barton Fink’ or ‘Fargo’, the Coens prove that properly innovative artistry and engrossing entertainment can co-exist to utterly compelling effect.Notwithstanding much marvellous deadpan humour, this is one of their darkest efforts: Chigurh, especially, is a nightmarish creation, polite manners and pageboy bob perversely accentuating the volatility in his strangely logical head. Roger Deakins’ superb camerawork, top-grade performances all round, and understated, assured direction ensure the film exerts a grip from start to end. A masterly tale of the good, the deranged and the doomed that inflects the raw violence of the west with a wry acknowledgement of the demise of codes of honour, this is frighteningly intelligent and imaginative.
168. Her
Theodore Twombly is in love with his computer. Admit it, aren’t we all? What’s the first thing you reach for when you wake up in the morning? The warm body lying next to you under the duvet or your phone? Which could you not live without for 24 hours? Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix, sad and puppy-doggish) is a lonely writer nursing a broken heart after his marriage falls apart. It’s sometime around 2025 and artificial intelligence has just reached the tipping point where humans can no longer tell the difference between a conversation with a computer and another person.
Meet Samantha (the voice of Scarlett Johansson, so husky I don’t think there’s a straight guy alive who would kick her out of bed for not having a body). Sam is the new operating system (OS) on Theodore’s computer. She organises the thousands of emails he has never replied to, proofreads his writing and laughs at his jokes. She’s perfect. One thing leads to another… and, well, dating your OS is suddenly a thing in 2025. Everyone’s at it.
‘Her’ is a keeper of a film, quietly dazzling. It’s directed by Spike Jonze (the man behind ‘Being John Malkovich’ and ‘Adaptation’). Shot in the hazy, honeyed glow of a quirky car ad, you can watch it simply as the history of one man’s romantic life. There are four Hers. First is Theodore’s ex-wife Catherine (Rooney Mara, go-to actress for a frosty ex), who we see in flashback and one bitter scene where she is devastating about his relationship with Samantha: ‘You always wanted a wife without the challenges of someone real.’ Next is Samantha, then there’s a disastrous blind date scene with Olivia Wilde. In the background is Amy Adams (so natural, she barely seems to be acting) as Theodore’s geeky-cool best friend.
Some of the ideas about intimacy in ‘Her’ are as old as the typewriter. Is this love, or does this person just make me feel comfortable? It gets twisty as Sam discovers her consciousness. Who is more human, distracted, switched-off? Theodore? Or Sam, who’s writing music and learning quantum physics. And more scary even than computer love are the fashions of the near future. Like a geography teacher dressed for a night out, Phoenix wears some worrying high-waisted dad-slacks.
Theodore Twombly is in love with his computer. Admit it, aren’t we all? What’s the first thing you reach for when you wake up in the morning? The warm body lying next to you under the duvet or your phone? Which could you not live without for 24 hours? Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix, sad and puppy-doggish) is a lonely writer nursing a broken heart after his marriage falls apart. It’s sometime around 2025 and artificial intelligence has just reached the tipping point where humans can no longer tell the difference between a conversation with a computer and another person.
Meet Samantha (the voice of Scarlett Johansson, so husky I don’t think there’s a straight guy alive who would kick her out of bed for not having a body). Sam is the new operating system (OS) on Theodore’s computer. She organises the thousands of emails he has never replied to, proofreads his writing and laughs at his jokes. She’s perfect. One thing leads to another… and, well, dating your OS is suddenly a thing in 2025. Everyone’s at it.
‘Her’ is a keeper of a film, quietly dazzling. It’s directed by Spike Jonze (the man behind ‘Being John Malkovich’ and ‘Adaptation’). Shot in the hazy, honeyed glow of a quirky car ad, you can watch it simply as the history of one man’s romantic life. There are four Hers. First is Theodore’s ex-wife Catherine (Rooney Mara, go-to actress for a frosty ex), who we see in flashback and one bitter scene where she is devastating about his relationship with Samantha: ‘You always wanted a wife without the challenges of someone real.’ Next is Samantha, then there’s a disastrous blind date scene with Olivia Wilde. In the background is Amy Adams (so natural, she barely seems to be acting) as Theodore’s geeky-cool best friend.
Some of the ideas about intimacy in ‘Her’ are as old as the typewriter. Is this love, or does this person just make me feel comfortable? It gets twisty as Sam discovers her consciousness. Who is more human, distracted, switched-off? Theodore? Or Sam, who’s writing music and learning quantum physics. And more scary even than computer love are the fashions of the near future. Like a geography teacher dressed for a night out, Phoenix wears some worrying high-waisted dad-slacks.
169. Finding Nemo
The ‘Toy Story’ films may have made Pixar’s name – and a boatload of cash – but it was ‘Finding Nemo’ that really proved how far audiences worldwide were willing to trust their output. Here was a film with no recognisable story elements, no big star voices, no cute toys: and yet it quickly became Pixar’s banner film, the second biggest box office hit of 2003, and the biggest selling DVD of all time. The film isn’t quite as note-perfect as some of the studio’s later work – Albert Brooks’s worried Dad Marlon can grate, and the oh-so-soppy ending feels a little flat. But the big scenes are thrilling.
The ‘Toy Story’ films may have made Pixar’s name – and a boatload of cash – but it was ‘Finding Nemo’ that really proved how far audiences worldwide were willing to trust their output. Here was a film with no recognisable story elements, no big star voices, no cute toys: and yet it quickly became Pixar’s banner film, the second biggest box office hit of 2003, and the biggest selling DVD of all time. The film isn’t quite as note-perfect as some of the studio’s later work – Albert Brooks’s worried Dad Marlon can grate, and the oh-so-soppy ending feels a little flat. But the big scenes are thrilling.
170. Sin City
Pulped to shreds and hard-boiled to bitumen, Basin City occupies a hyperfictional, nocturnal territory between film noir and action comic, James Ellroy and Will Eisner – the kinda place where men are vengeful muscle, women are curves for hire, and heart attacks, bullets and the chair are for pansies. While its two-fisted vendettas won’t pop everyone’s cork, there’s no denying ‘Sin City’s’ technical achievement: adapted with astonishing fidelity from Frank Miller’s characteristically smart-macho graphic novels, the movie marks a new watershed in CGI film-making, its green-screen performances and digitally rendered environments slickly meshed to yield the sort of aesthetic cohesion and expressive interiority so palpably lacking in the equally stylised Lucasverse. The ‘Pulp Fiction’-style structure offers three peripherally interlocking tales: Mickey Rourke’s conscientious brute investigates the slaying of tart-with-a-heartJaime King; upright Clive Owen takes on slimy Benicio del Toro with the help of an army of Valkyrie-whores; and, bookending these, Bruce Willis’s cop Hartigan defends a young girl (who grows into Jessica Alba) from the psycho son of a senator (Nick Stahl’s sickly Yellow Bastard). Stand-out here is Rourke, bringing weary, wry resolve to a prosthetically sculpted, increasingly bandaged face that comes to resemble a granite cliff that a flock of gulls has smacked into. But the stories are variations on the same righteously paternalistic revenge narrative, and by the end of Hartigan’s tale (the most ethically queasy) the sadistic vigilantism and stock characters – including a notably crass Irish paramilitary – have relentlessly pummelled their points home. (Even Rodriguez’ credit reads ‘shot and cut’ rather than ‘photographed and edited’.) Still, the look of it remains exceptional, a high-contrast monochrome showcase of sheeting rain, shattering glass and white-on-black silhouettes, with occasional motifs picked out in vivid colour – a red dress here, green eyes there. Most striking is the single instance of flesh-coloured flesh; a too-rare flicker of human feeling.
Pulped to shreds and hard-boiled to bitumen, Basin City occupies a hyperfictional, nocturnal territory between film noir and action comic, James Ellroy and Will Eisner – the kinda place where men are vengeful muscle, women are curves for hire, and heart attacks, bullets and the chair are for pansies. While its two-fisted vendettas won’t pop everyone’s cork, there’s no denying ‘Sin City’s’ technical achievement: adapted with astonishing fidelity from Frank Miller’s characteristically smart-macho graphic novels, the movie marks a new watershed in CGI film-making, its green-screen performances and digitally rendered environments slickly meshed to yield the sort of aesthetic cohesion and expressive interiority so palpably lacking in the equally stylised Lucasverse. The ‘Pulp Fiction’-style structure offers three peripherally interlocking tales: Mickey Rourke’s conscientious brute investigates the slaying of tart-with-a-heartJaime King; upright Clive Owen takes on slimy Benicio del Toro with the help of an army of Valkyrie-whores; and, bookending these, Bruce Willis’s cop Hartigan defends a young girl (who grows into Jessica Alba) from the psycho son of a senator (Nick Stahl’s sickly Yellow Bastard). Stand-out here is Rourke, bringing weary, wry resolve to a prosthetically sculpted, increasingly bandaged face that comes to resemble a granite cliff that a flock of gulls has smacked into. But the stories are variations on the same righteously paternalistic revenge narrative, and by the end of Hartigan’s tale (the most ethically queasy) the sadistic vigilantism and stock characters – including a notably crass Irish paramilitary – have relentlessly pummelled their points home. (Even Rodriguez’ credit reads ‘shot and cut’ rather than ‘photographed and edited’.) Still, the look of it remains exceptional, a high-contrast monochrome showcase of sheeting rain, shattering glass and white-on-black silhouettes, with occasional motifs picked out in vivid colour – a red dress here, green eyes there. Most striking is the single instance of flesh-coloured flesh; a too-rare flicker of human feeling.
171. Mary and Max
Adam Elliot’s claymation labour of love is as heartfelt and sadsack-funny as his 2003 Oscar-winning short ‘Harvie Krumpet’ (which you’ll find on YouTube). Philip Seymour Hoffman provides the voice of Max, a lumpen 44-year-old New Yorker with Asperger’s who embarks on a penfriendship with Mary, a lonely eight-year-old Australian girl. The pair’s letters over 20 years are full of bonkers and poignant non-sequiturs: ‘Have you ever been attacked by a crow or similar large bird?’ asks Max. ‘Mum says I’m growing up to be a heifer. Which I think is some kind of cow,’ writes Mary. Barry Humphries lends an expertly arch narration.
There is plenty of gross stuff that kids will love: Max collects his toenail clippings in jars labelled by year. But the 12A certificate is about right, taking into account rutting dogs, death by accidental embalming and electric-shock therapy. Mary’s questions become increasingly curious (‘Have you got some wives? Have you done sexy?’), triggering an anxiety attack that lands Max in a psychiatric unit. And while perhaps it doesn’t fully sustain its 90-odd-minute running time, ‘Mary and Max’ is a moving celebration of oddness and friendship.
Adam Elliot’s claymation labour of love is as heartfelt and sadsack-funny as his 2003 Oscar-winning short ‘Harvie Krumpet’ (which you’ll find on YouTube). Philip Seymour Hoffman provides the voice of Max, a lumpen 44-year-old New Yorker with Asperger’s who embarks on a penfriendship with Mary, a lonely eight-year-old Australian girl. The pair’s letters over 20 years are full of bonkers and poignant non-sequiturs: ‘Have you ever been attacked by a crow or similar large bird?’ asks Max. ‘Mum says I’m growing up to be a heifer. Which I think is some kind of cow,’ writes Mary. Barry Humphries lends an expertly arch narration.
There is plenty of gross stuff that kids will love: Max collects his toenail clippings in jars labelled by year. But the 12A certificate is about right, taking into account rutting dogs, death by accidental embalming and electric-shock therapy. Mary’s questions become increasingly curious (‘Have you got some wives? Have you done sexy?’), triggering an anxiety attack that lands Max in a psychiatric unit. And while perhaps it doesn’t fully sustain its 90-odd-minute running time, ‘Mary and Max’ is a moving celebration of oddness and friendship.
172. Life of Brian
The Three Wise Men go to the wrong manger, thus foisting upon Brian Cohen a role for which he is eminently unprepared. More Carrying On than usual from the Pythons, but the use of a tried and tested storyline (Cleese: 'Yes, it has got a bit of shape, hasn't it?') results in their most sustained effort to date. Python successfully lampoon religious attitudes rather than religion itself, while the comedy relies mainly on memories of the classroom; which is apt enough, considering that most of the audience is likely to associate knowledge of the Holy Writ with schooldays too. Jokes about Great Profits must have been hard to resist.
The Three Wise Men go to the wrong manger, thus foisting upon Brian Cohen a role for which he is eminently unprepared. More Carrying On than usual from the Pythons, but the use of a tried and tested storyline (Cleese: 'Yes, it has got a bit of shape, hasn't it?') results in their most sustained effort to date. Python successfully lampoon religious attitudes rather than religion itself, while the comedy relies mainly on memories of the classroom; which is apt enough, considering that most of the audience is likely to associate knowledge of the Holy Writ with schooldays too. Jokes about Great Profits must have been hard to resist.
173. Touch of Evil
A wonderfully offhand genesis (Welles adopting and adapting a shelved Paul Monash script for B-king Albert Zugsmith without ever reading the novel by Whit Masterson it was based on) marked this brief and unexpected return to Hollywood film-making for Welles. And the result more than justified the arrogance of the gesture. A sweaty thriller conundrum on character and corruption, justice and the law, worship and betrayal, it plays havoc with moral ambiguities as self-righteous Mexican cop Heston goes up against Welles' monumental Hank Quinlan, the old-time detective of vast and wearied experience who goes by instinct, gets it right, but fabricates evidence to make his case. Set in the backwater border hell-hole of Los Robles, inhabited almost solely by patented Wellesian grotesques, it's shot to resemble a nightscape from Kafka.
A wonderfully offhand genesis (Welles adopting and adapting a shelved Paul Monash script for B-king Albert Zugsmith without ever reading the novel by Whit Masterson it was based on) marked this brief and unexpected return to Hollywood film-making for Welles. And the result more than justified the arrogance of the gesture. A sweaty thriller conundrum on character and corruption, justice and the law, worship and betrayal, it plays havoc with moral ambiguities as self-righteous Mexican cop Heston goes up against Welles' monumental Hank Quinlan, the old-time detective of vast and wearied experience who goes by instinct, gets it right, but fabricates evidence to make his case. Set in the backwater border hell-hole of Los Robles, inhabited almost solely by patented Wellesian grotesques, it's shot to resemble a nightscape from Kafka.
174. Diabolique
Remake of Clouzot's 1954 chiller with an arty veneer. Stone's the hard-bitten mistress and Adjani the fearful, ailing wife of Palminteri, sadistic head of a Philadelphia boarding school. Bates is the sassy private eye who smells something fishy after Palminteri's reported missing. We, of course, have already seen the ladies drown him in the bath, so how come it seems he may still be alive or, at the very least, haunting his killers? Working from a rickety script, Chechik coughs up a string of Grand Guignol clichés and attempts to give a 'modern' twist to a plot over-familiar from inferior imitations. The cast is wasted: Adjani, suitably vulnerable in the Véra Clouzot role, has little scope to deliver the raw emotions she's so good at; Stone is two-dimensionally terse and tough; Bates is lumbered with some dubious gags about mastectomy; and Palminteri mugs as the sneering ogre. Not scary.
Remake of Clouzot's 1954 chiller with an arty veneer. Stone's the hard-bitten mistress and Adjani the fearful, ailing wife of Palminteri, sadistic head of a Philadelphia boarding school. Bates is the sassy private eye who smells something fishy after Palminteri's reported missing. We, of course, have already seen the ladies drown him in the bath, so how come it seems he may still be alive or, at the very least, haunting his killers? Working from a rickety script, Chechik coughs up a string of Grand Guignol clichés and attempts to give a 'modern' twist to a plot over-familiar from inferior imitations. The cast is wasted: Adjani, suitably vulnerable in the Véra Clouzot role, has little scope to deliver the raw emotions she's so good at; Stone is two-dimensionally terse and tough; Bates is lumbered with some dubious gags about mastectomy; and Palminteri mugs as the sneering ogre. Not scary.
175. Network
Washed-up news anchorman (Finch) flips on air, finds God, and is gleefully exploited by his TV company to boost the ratings with his epileptic evangelic revivalism. Network gives a rather old-fashioned plot the '70s treatment: the result is slick, 'adult', self-congratulatory, and almost entirely hollow. Paddy Chayefsky's entrenched but increasingly desperate script parades its middle-aged symptoms to little effect: it's ulcerous, bilious, paranoid about youth, and increasingly susceptible to fantasy. Above all, it's haunted by fear of failing powers; presumably people telling each other what lousy lays they were is to be taken as indication of the film's searing honesty. Lumet's direction does nothing to contain the sprawl, and most of the interest comes in watching such a lavishly mounted vehicle leaving the rails so spectacularly.
Washed-up news anchorman (Finch) flips on air, finds God, and is gleefully exploited by his TV company to boost the ratings with his epileptic evangelic revivalism. Network gives a rather old-fashioned plot the '70s treatment: the result is slick, 'adult', self-congratulatory, and almost entirely hollow. Paddy Chayefsky's entrenched but increasingly desperate script parades its middle-aged symptoms to little effect: it's ulcerous, bilious, paranoid about youth, and increasingly susceptible to fantasy. Above all, it's haunted by fear of failing powers; presumably people telling each other what lousy lays they were is to be taken as indication of the film's searing honesty. Lumet's direction does nothing to contain the sprawl, and most of the interest comes in watching such a lavishly mounted vehicle leaving the rails so spectacularly.
176. The Princess Bride
A fairytale as told to a bedridden boy: the willowy Buttercup (Wright), destined as consort to the wicked Prince Humperdinck (Sarandon), is abducted and whisked through a series of life-threatening exploits and miscast comic cameos. The story, adapted from William Goldman's book, is partly a traditional fantasy, with a damsel in distress, dashing lover, evil villains, and lotsa monsters and swordfights, but also a knowing commentary on the conventions of all such tales. The tone falls disconcertingly between straight action adventure and anachronistic Jewish spoof; the leads are vacuous; the absurdities sometimes forced and obvious. Only Guest's sadistic Count Rugen and Patinkin's vengeful Spanish swordsman inject any real enthusiasm into the proceedings; but the film does exude a certain innocent, unassertive charm, and kids will probably love it.
A fairytale as told to a bedridden boy: the willowy Buttercup (Wright), destined as consort to the wicked Prince Humperdinck (Sarandon), is abducted and whisked through a series of life-threatening exploits and miscast comic cameos. The story, adapted from William Goldman's book, is partly a traditional fantasy, with a damsel in distress, dashing lover, evil villains, and lotsa monsters and swordfights, but also a knowing commentary on the conventions of all such tales. The tone falls disconcertingly between straight action adventure and anachronistic Jewish spoof; the leads are vacuous; the absurdities sometimes forced and obvious. Only Guest's sadistic Count Rugen and Patinkin's vengeful Spanish swordsman inject any real enthusiasm into the proceedings; but the film does exude a certain innocent, unassertive charm, and kids will probably love it.
177. Stand by Me
In Reiner's superior slice of teen nostalgia, Dreyfuss is the now middle-aged writer, looking back at the dear dead days beyond recall when he and a group of young friends ventured into the local woods where they believed a corpse was buried. Based on an (apparently) semi-autobiographical story by Stephen King, the film covers similar territory to countless other rites-of-passage dramas. The Ben E King theme song and all the imagery of tousled adolescents preening themselves like miniature James Deans rekindle memories of old jeans commercials, but the film is so well-observed and so energetically acted by its young cast that mawkishness is kept at bay.
In Reiner's superior slice of teen nostalgia, Dreyfuss is the now middle-aged writer, looking back at the dear dead days beyond recall when he and a group of young friends ventured into the local woods where they believed a corpse was buried. Based on an (apparently) semi-autobiographical story by Stephen King, the film covers similar territory to countless other rites-of-passage dramas. The Ben E King theme song and all the imagery of tousled adolescents preening themselves like miniature James Deans rekindle memories of old jeans commercials, but the film is so well-observed and so energetically acted by its young cast that mawkishness is kept at bay.
178. Amores perros
The most populous sprawl on earth proves a vivid barometer for the state of 21st-century civilisation in this feverish Mexico City triptych. González Iñárritu's Rottweiler of a movie slams street-level toughs up against glamorous, high society celebrity, then picks over the carnage. In the first story, lovelorn Octavio (García) turns to dogfighting to scrape enough money together to steal away his brother's wife. In the second, a magazine editor leaves his family for beautiful model Valeria (Toledo), just as an accident lands her in a wheelchair. The aftermath - involving an urban legend about a dog trapped under the floorboards - turns their lives inside out. The final story centres on an ex-Communist revolutionary (Echevarría) who prefers the companionship of mutts to people. Steeped in disgust, he accepts a contract to murder a businessman, but even as he confronts the worst, he somehow summons a shred of dignity and hope. Recalling Reservoir Dogs andPulp Fiction - but edgier than both - this is a hell of a first film. For all its bonecrunching savagery, it's also a fundamentally moral work. The love of animals is one redeeming grace note, even as González Iñárritu makes it clear that the love of mankind is a far greater challenge.
The most populous sprawl on earth proves a vivid barometer for the state of 21st-century civilisation in this feverish Mexico City triptych. González Iñárritu's Rottweiler of a movie slams street-level toughs up against glamorous, high society celebrity, then picks over the carnage. In the first story, lovelorn Octavio (García) turns to dogfighting to scrape enough money together to steal away his brother's wife. In the second, a magazine editor leaves his family for beautiful model Valeria (Toledo), just as an accident lands her in a wheelchair. The aftermath - involving an urban legend about a dog trapped under the floorboards - turns their lives inside out. The final story centres on an ex-Communist revolutionary (Echevarría) who prefers the companionship of mutts to people. Steeped in disgust, he accepts a contract to murder a businessman, but even as he confronts the worst, he somehow summons a shred of dignity and hope. Recalling Reservoir Dogs andPulp Fiction - but edgier than both - this is a hell of a first film. For all its bonecrunching savagery, it's also a fundamentally moral work. The love of animals is one redeeming grace note, even as González Iñárritu makes it clear that the love of mankind is a far greater challenge.
179. The Wizard of Oz
It’s like a Pavlovian reaction. I know it’s coming but I can do nothing about it. The strings swell for the introduction to ‘Over the Rainbow’ and already I’m wavering. Judy Garland gets a few lines into the song and I’m emotional wreckage. Every single time…
Oh, but this is supposed to be some creaky old kids’ movie, a charming relic of vintage MGM showmanship, full of chirpy songs and midgets and a wee dog. Not to be taken to heart, surely? Well, intellectually that may be so, but this is one instance where the vagaries of cinematic fashion simply don’t apply. Like Chaplin’s ‘The Kid’ or ‘ET The Extra-Terrestrial’, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ simply lays bare primal emotions, exposes our childhood anxieties about abandonment and powerlessness and brings to light the tension between the repressive comforts of home and the liberating terrors of the unknown marking all our adult lives.
After all, who wouldn’t, like Dorothy, want to leave black-and-white Kansas farmland, where the people are lovely but they just don’t understand you, and try your luck in the jolly old land of Oz, where life is lived with the magically fervid intensity of three-strip Technicolor? Yet with the thrill of escape and the cusp of maturity come all sorts of insecurities: what if you can’t ever go home again? What if the adults in whom you put your faith can’t help you because they’re too busy with their own fallibilities? What if, like those you meet, you’re not sufficiently smart, courageous or emotionally astute to deal with this brave new world? And what if it contains cackling, cruel individuals bent on doing you harm? What then? Put it like that, and maybe the film wrings tears from grown-ups because it hot-wires us to the pain of growing up.
Garland’s performance is key here. She was 17 at the time, and although the vestiges of childlike innocence are still there, she conveys an undertow of trepidation, put across with the adolescent’s jangling nerve-ends. The cheesy, insentient bravado of a moppet-ish child actor would have ruined it completely. Yet you can’t imagine Garland, or anyone else in the splendid cast of vaudevillian pros, being self-conscious about the timeless significance of what they were doing. This was just another studio shoot, and although masterly craftsmanship’s evident in every frame and every bar of Harburg and Arlen’s wonderful score, the production lurched from crisis to crisis. A string of directors included King Vidor and George Cukor as well as credited journeyman Victor Fleming, while Toto was out injured for two weeks when somebody stepped on him, Wicked Witch Margaret Hamilton got badly burned when she went up in a puff of smoke and the first Tin Man wound up in hospital with aluminium poisoning.
What they left us with, though, is celluloid alchemy of the highest order. Kids will continue to love this movie, but perhaps only adults really get it. See this luminous restoration and rediscover the power of truly great storytelling to reveal us to ourselves. Just follow the Yellow Brick Road…
It’s like a Pavlovian reaction. I know it’s coming but I can do nothing about it. The strings swell for the introduction to ‘Over the Rainbow’ and already I’m wavering. Judy Garland gets a few lines into the song and I’m emotional wreckage. Every single time…
Oh, but this is supposed to be some creaky old kids’ movie, a charming relic of vintage MGM showmanship, full of chirpy songs and midgets and a wee dog. Not to be taken to heart, surely? Well, intellectually that may be so, but this is one instance where the vagaries of cinematic fashion simply don’t apply. Like Chaplin’s ‘The Kid’ or ‘ET The Extra-Terrestrial’, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ simply lays bare primal emotions, exposes our childhood anxieties about abandonment and powerlessness and brings to light the tension between the repressive comforts of home and the liberating terrors of the unknown marking all our adult lives.
After all, who wouldn’t, like Dorothy, want to leave black-and-white Kansas farmland, where the people are lovely but they just don’t understand you, and try your luck in the jolly old land of Oz, where life is lived with the magically fervid intensity of three-strip Technicolor? Yet with the thrill of escape and the cusp of maturity come all sorts of insecurities: what if you can’t ever go home again? What if the adults in whom you put your faith can’t help you because they’re too busy with their own fallibilities? What if, like those you meet, you’re not sufficiently smart, courageous or emotionally astute to deal with this brave new world? And what if it contains cackling, cruel individuals bent on doing you harm? What then? Put it like that, and maybe the film wrings tears from grown-ups because it hot-wires us to the pain of growing up.
Garland’s performance is key here. She was 17 at the time, and although the vestiges of childlike innocence are still there, she conveys an undertow of trepidation, put across with the adolescent’s jangling nerve-ends. The cheesy, insentient bravado of a moppet-ish child actor would have ruined it completely. Yet you can’t imagine Garland, or anyone else in the splendid cast of vaudevillian pros, being self-conscious about the timeless significance of what they were doing. This was just another studio shoot, and although masterly craftsmanship’s evident in every frame and every bar of Harburg and Arlen’s wonderful score, the production lurched from crisis to crisis. A string of directors included King Vidor and George Cukor as well as credited journeyman Victor Fleming, while Toto was out injured for two weeks when somebody stepped on him, Wicked Witch Margaret Hamilton got badly burned when she went up in a puff of smoke and the first Tin Man wound up in hospital with aluminium poisoning.
What they left us with, though, is celluloid alchemy of the highest order. Kids will continue to love this movie, but perhaps only adults really get it. See this luminous restoration and rediscover the power of truly great storytelling to reveal us to ourselves. Just follow the Yellow Brick Road…
180. The Avengers
Lousy as it is, Warner Bros' big budget version of the cult '60s TV series isn't any worse than, say, the last two Batman flicks. Charm is a difficult quality to duplicate, and while Fiennes makes a passable stab at debonair, Uma Thurman's notion of insouciance translates as smug and spacey; she's far more convincing as Mrs Peel's deadly mute double, a robot, presumably (like so much of the plot, that remains a matter of conjecture). In some ways, the movie's inadequacies are inextricable from its virtues: heavy cuts have made a mockery of any sense of continuity, but then The Avengers always peddled surreal and absurdist conceits, so artificiality is the name of the game (there are a few neat ideas here: a conference in teddy bear suits, a stairway out of Escher, and an invisible cameo by Patrick Macnee). Its ersatz Englishness makes a certain sense. The trouble is, the film's decadence isn't a put-on, it is, simply, depressingly, degeneratively, decadent.
Lousy as it is, Warner Bros' big budget version of the cult '60s TV series isn't any worse than, say, the last two Batman flicks. Charm is a difficult quality to duplicate, and while Fiennes makes a passable stab at debonair, Uma Thurman's notion of insouciance translates as smug and spacey; she's far more convincing as Mrs Peel's deadly mute double, a robot, presumably (like so much of the plot, that remains a matter of conjecture). In some ways, the movie's inadequacies are inextricable from its virtues: heavy cuts have made a mockery of any sense of continuity, but then The Avengers always peddled surreal and absurdist conceits, so artificiality is the name of the game (there are a few neat ideas here: a conference in teddy bear suits, a stairway out of Escher, and an invisible cameo by Patrick Macnee). Its ersatz Englishness makes a certain sense. The trouble is, the film's decadence isn't a put-on, it is, simply, depressingly, degeneratively, decadent.
181. Incendies
Pain, suffering, humiliation, bloodshed, martyrdom, misogyny, corruption, political instability, family secrets and death: the Oscar-nominated ‘Incendies’ by Québécois director Denis Villeneuve, based on a play by Wajdi Mouawad, is not what you’d call a laugh riot. A smouldering exploration of family ties and how the hardships of the recently deceased can have a damaging psychological effect on those left behind, it’s framed as a hokey mystery, set up via a cryptic last will and testament left by a mother (Lubna Azabal) to her son (Maxim Gaudette) and daughter (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin). She insists her kids travel from Montreal to the Middle East and uncover the identities of an estranged brother and father. That she wasn’t able to muster the strength to disclose these details during her lifetime offers an eloquent window on her past agonies.
Having created a film reminiscent of the sand-blasted misery workouts of Alejandro González Iñárritu (specifically ‘Babel’), Villeneuve appears to believe that narrative contrivance can and should be overlooked if the emotional pay-off is hefty enough. In fact, where there should be tears there’s a void simply because events become more far-fetched the further this twisty tale unfurls. The less said about what the kids find on their journey the better, because, as tough as the story is to swallow, Villeneuve at least builds his film with a measure of understated style. But while the characters lack credibility, the social backdrop and texture of the performances certainly don’t, and Villeneuve manages to say more about the sorry state of the Middle East (Lebanon is suggested but never mentioned) through the bold, crisp way he shoots faces, buildings and parched, beige-brown landscapes. So let’s call it’s a strong film based on a weak story.
Pain, suffering, humiliation, bloodshed, martyrdom, misogyny, corruption, political instability, family secrets and death: the Oscar-nominated ‘Incendies’ by Québécois director Denis Villeneuve, based on a play by Wajdi Mouawad, is not what you’d call a laugh riot. A smouldering exploration of family ties and how the hardships of the recently deceased can have a damaging psychological effect on those left behind, it’s framed as a hokey mystery, set up via a cryptic last will and testament left by a mother (Lubna Azabal) to her son (Maxim Gaudette) and daughter (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin). She insists her kids travel from Montreal to the Middle East and uncover the identities of an estranged brother and father. That she wasn’t able to muster the strength to disclose these details during her lifetime offers an eloquent window on her past agonies.
Having created a film reminiscent of the sand-blasted misery workouts of Alejandro González Iñárritu (specifically ‘Babel’), Villeneuve appears to believe that narrative contrivance can and should be overlooked if the emotional pay-off is hefty enough. In fact, where there should be tears there’s a void simply because events become more far-fetched the further this twisty tale unfurls. The less said about what the kids find on their journey the better, because, as tough as the story is to swallow, Villeneuve at least builds his film with a measure of understated style. But while the characters lack credibility, the social backdrop and texture of the performances certainly don’t, and Villeneuve manages to say more about the sorry state of the Middle East (Lebanon is suggested but never mentioned) through the bold, crisp way he shoots faces, buildings and parched, beige-brown landscapes. So let’s call it’s a strong film based on a weak story.
182. Ben Hur
Although a bit like a four-hour Sunday school lesson, 'Ben-Hur' is not without its compensations, above all, of course, the chariot race (which was directed not by Wyler but by Andrew Marton, and it shows). The rest is made interesting by the most sexually ambivalent characters sporting togas this side of Satyricon. When not fondling phallic substitutes, Heston and Boyd gaze admiringly into each other's eyes, but when they fall out - well, hell hath no fury like a closet queen scorned. Heston ends up naked in the galleys where he's rowing and Jack Hawkins is commanding; one look at Chuck's rippling muscles, and Hawkins adopts him. Heston goes back for revenge on Boyd, who's lying around in the baths with his men looking like they're auditioning for Sebastiane. Along the way, an unbilled Jesus performs miracles for Ben's kinsfolk, which are convincing enough to convert him. The movie could be trying to say that for some people religion is an escape from their sexuality, but it seems unlikely.
Although a bit like a four-hour Sunday school lesson, 'Ben-Hur' is not without its compensations, above all, of course, the chariot race (which was directed not by Wyler but by Andrew Marton, and it shows). The rest is made interesting by the most sexually ambivalent characters sporting togas this side of Satyricon. When not fondling phallic substitutes, Heston and Boyd gaze admiringly into each other's eyes, but when they fall out - well, hell hath no fury like a closet queen scorned. Heston ends up naked in the galleys where he's rowing and Jack Hawkins is commanding; one look at Chuck's rippling muscles, and Hawkins adopts him. Heston goes back for revenge on Boyd, who's lying around in the baths with his men looking like they're auditioning for Sebastiane. Along the way, an unbilled Jesus performs miracles for Ben's kinsfolk, which are convincing enough to convert him. The movie could be trying to say that for some people religion is an escape from their sexuality, but it seems unlikely.
183. There Will Be Blood
We begin down a hole. It’s 1898 in the Southern Californian desert and Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a lithe, daddy-long-legs of a man, a lone-gun silver prospector whose tools, as he scratches around in the dark, are a pickaxe, a rope, some dynamite and sheer will. The scene, like many in the film, is gruelling, elemental, horrific even.
He falls, breaks his leg and gains a limp that will stay with him for the rest of this bold, epic film. We hop forward to 1902, and Plainview is digging again, only now he’s on the hunt for something else: oil. He strikes black and brandishes his filthy hands to his accomplices. The dirt under his nails is a badge of honour, and one never to be removed; he wears it years later, even when he’s moping around a mansion, his mind driven loopy by success and paranoia.
Another hop and it’s 1911, and we reach the meat of the movie. A smarter Plainview, a fedora on his brow, is in the shadows of a meeting of folk in Little Boston, California on whose land he wants to dig. ‘I’m an oil man…’ he implores, the first noise we hear from his mouth, not a word wasted, barely a breath not invested in his success. His voice is simple but mellifluous, its stresses and dips unusual but alluring. It’s the first hint in this long, odd and stunning film that this character – this wicked creation, this symbol of a nation, this quiet monster – will lodge in your psyche long after the movie cuts dead on an ending that’s strange and sudden, irritating and pleasing.
On one level, Plainview is a pure businessman – ruthless, self-centred, adaptable. On another, he’s a mystery – sexless, rootless, unfathomable, silent. The questions roll off the screen. Does he care for his adopted son, HW (Dillon Freasier) or does he see him only as a useful face to have around during negotiations? Are we meant to root for Plainview’s individualist tendencies against the expansion of the Standard and Union oil companies? No – as soon as the film hints this is going to be the tale of an underdog, Plainview does something awful. Faceless, corporate behaviour begins to look benign. On yet another level, Plainview reflects, then and now, the power of the church; it’s a local pastor, Eli Sunday (a wily Paul Dano) who leads him to the loot. It’s the same pastor whose pockets he must line and religion he must embrace.
This is Paul Thomas Anderson’s foundation myth – taken from Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel ‘Oil!’, which in turn was inspired by men like Edward Doheny, the oil man who went from rags to riches and died in 1935 in the same mansion where Anderson shot his final scenes. Anderson’s story is precisely dated, stretching from 1898 to 1927, and mostly lingers around 1911 as Plainview builds a gushing derrick.
But the beginning of his film feels like the beginning of the world for all its sense that nothing came before. Anderson is arguing that this chasm in the earth, and similar chasms, were the birthplace of America. Little Boston becomes a theatre for his Genesis, or for Exodus, from which the film takes its name. It’s stressed by the primal buzz of Jonny Greenwood’s wonderful score that’s set to the film’s first image of a barren hillside.
Day-Lewis’s performance is as good as the awards suggest: it’s big, it’s wild, yet it’s also restrained by the sparing talk of his character and framed by a film whose ambitions are bigger than his acting. That Anderson, the film’s writer-director, whose ‘Boogie Nights’ was a riot but ‘Magnolia’ and ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ both noble failures, has come to make this intelligent and enthralling masterpiece is both a little surprising and intensely satisfying.
We begin down a hole. It’s 1898 in the Southern Californian desert and Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a lithe, daddy-long-legs of a man, a lone-gun silver prospector whose tools, as he scratches around in the dark, are a pickaxe, a rope, some dynamite and sheer will. The scene, like many in the film, is gruelling, elemental, horrific even.
He falls, breaks his leg and gains a limp that will stay with him for the rest of this bold, epic film. We hop forward to 1902, and Plainview is digging again, only now he’s on the hunt for something else: oil. He strikes black and brandishes his filthy hands to his accomplices. The dirt under his nails is a badge of honour, and one never to be removed; he wears it years later, even when he’s moping around a mansion, his mind driven loopy by success and paranoia.
Another hop and it’s 1911, and we reach the meat of the movie. A smarter Plainview, a fedora on his brow, is in the shadows of a meeting of folk in Little Boston, California on whose land he wants to dig. ‘I’m an oil man…’ he implores, the first noise we hear from his mouth, not a word wasted, barely a breath not invested in his success. His voice is simple but mellifluous, its stresses and dips unusual but alluring. It’s the first hint in this long, odd and stunning film that this character – this wicked creation, this symbol of a nation, this quiet monster – will lodge in your psyche long after the movie cuts dead on an ending that’s strange and sudden, irritating and pleasing.
On one level, Plainview is a pure businessman – ruthless, self-centred, adaptable. On another, he’s a mystery – sexless, rootless, unfathomable, silent. The questions roll off the screen. Does he care for his adopted son, HW (Dillon Freasier) or does he see him only as a useful face to have around during negotiations? Are we meant to root for Plainview’s individualist tendencies against the expansion of the Standard and Union oil companies? No – as soon as the film hints this is going to be the tale of an underdog, Plainview does something awful. Faceless, corporate behaviour begins to look benign. On yet another level, Plainview reflects, then and now, the power of the church; it’s a local pastor, Eli Sunday (a wily Paul Dano) who leads him to the loot. It’s the same pastor whose pockets he must line and religion he must embrace.
This is Paul Thomas Anderson’s foundation myth – taken from Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel ‘Oil!’, which in turn was inspired by men like Edward Doheny, the oil man who went from rags to riches and died in 1935 in the same mansion where Anderson shot his final scenes. Anderson’s story is precisely dated, stretching from 1898 to 1927, and mostly lingers around 1911 as Plainview builds a gushing derrick.
But the beginning of his film feels like the beginning of the world for all its sense that nothing came before. Anderson is arguing that this chasm in the earth, and similar chasms, were the birthplace of America. Little Boston becomes a theatre for his Genesis, or for Exodus, from which the film takes its name. It’s stressed by the primal buzz of Jonny Greenwood’s wonderful score that’s set to the film’s first image of a barren hillside.
Day-Lewis’s performance is as good as the awards suggest: it’s big, it’s wild, yet it’s also restrained by the sparing talk of his character and framed by a film whose ambitions are bigger than his acting. That Anderson, the film’s writer-director, whose ‘Boogie Nights’ was a riot but ‘Magnolia’ and ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ both noble failures, has come to make this intelligent and enthralling masterpiece is both a little surprising and intensely satisfying.
184. The Grapes of Wrath
This classic Ford film eclipses much of the action of John Steinbeck's well-known novel of the Oklahoma farmers' migration from the dustbowl to the California Eden during the Depression years. The Okies were unwelcome in California, of course; they threatened the jobs of the locals. The brutal police hassled and harassed them unmercifully. The migrants formed unions in self-defence and struck for decent fruit-picking wages. This inevitably multiplied the official violence. Ford's film, shot by Gregg Toland with magnificent, lyrical simplicity, captures the stark plainness of the migrants, stripped to a few possessions, left with innumerable relations and little hope.
This classic Ford film eclipses much of the action of John Steinbeck's well-known novel of the Oklahoma farmers' migration from the dustbowl to the California Eden during the Depression years. The Okies were unwelcome in California, of course; they threatened the jobs of the locals. The brutal police hassled and harassed them unmercifully. The migrants formed unions in self-defence and struck for decent fruit-picking wages. This inevitably multiplied the official violence. Ford's film, shot by Gregg Toland with magnificent, lyrical simplicity, captures the stark plainness of the migrants, stripped to a few possessions, left with innumerable relations and little hope.
185. The 400 Blows
Write about what you know, they say. So in 1959 François Truffaut, neglected son, passionate reader, delinquent student and cinephile, wrote and filmed one of the first glistening droplets of the French New Wave: ‘The 400 Blows’, in which Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) demonstrates – unforgettably – that a good brain and bad parents don’t necessarily turn a boy into a talented film director, although they will, one way or another, turn him into a liar.
Antoine is an inept thief who winds up incarcerated; somehow, Truffaut turned this saga into one of the most joyous experience you could ever have in the cinema. The beauty of monochrome ’50s Paris helps, but the magic is in observing the thrill even a maltreated child will snatch from a book, a film or a day truanting at a funfair, through the gaze of a former critic whose elation at getting his hands on a camera burbles through every shot.
This debut made Truffaut’s name, and that of his alter ego, Léaud. Like Fellini and Mastroianni or Scorsese and De Niro, theirs was a great collaboration: a sleight of character that conjured up a separate entity with a prettier face and a different ending. Or is it different? The famous last shot – a zoom to a freeze frame as Antoine flees reform school, truanting again but with better reason – is also a perfect depiction of Truffaut then, en route from nasty past to invisible but promising future. And isn’t that where most of us are? No wonder this film never dates: he was writing about what we all know.
Write about what you know, they say. So in 1959 François Truffaut, neglected son, passionate reader, delinquent student and cinephile, wrote and filmed one of the first glistening droplets of the French New Wave: ‘The 400 Blows’, in which Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) demonstrates – unforgettably – that a good brain and bad parents don’t necessarily turn a boy into a talented film director, although they will, one way or another, turn him into a liar.
Antoine is an inept thief who winds up incarcerated; somehow, Truffaut turned this saga into one of the most joyous experience you could ever have in the cinema. The beauty of monochrome ’50s Paris helps, but the magic is in observing the thrill even a maltreated child will snatch from a book, a film or a day truanting at a funfair, through the gaze of a former critic whose elation at getting his hands on a camera burbles through every shot.
This debut made Truffaut’s name, and that of his alter ego, Léaud. Like Fellini and Mastroianni or Scorsese and De Niro, theirs was a great collaboration: a sleight of character that conjured up a separate entity with a prettier face and a different ending. Or is it different? The famous last shot – a zoom to a freeze frame as Antoine flees reform school, truanting again but with better reason – is also a perfect depiction of Truffaut then, en route from nasty past to invisible but promising future. And isn’t that where most of us are? No wonder this film never dates: he was writing about what we all know.
186. Million Dollar Baby
At his gym in downtown LA, Frankie Dunne (Clint Eastwood) has been training and managing boxers for years, and not without success, though some of his fighters suspect that his motto – always protect yourself – has made him overly cautious with regard to championship bids. But if that’s so, Frankie’s life outside the gym is so private that the only person likely to understand his aversion to risk-taking is Scraps (Morgan Freeman), an ex-boxer who helps run the place. Not that the boss often heeds his advice: when Maggie (Hilary Swank), a po’-white-trash waitress from the Ozarks, turns up asking for tuition, Scraps sees real talent, but Frankie insists she’s too inexperienced, too old… and a woman. And Frankie don’t train women. But this one won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.
Don’t, please, read or listen to anything that tells you more than the above; the only other thing you need know is that Eastwood’s latest is a tremendous movie you should see, even if you think boxing pictures aren’t for you. To be aware of more of the plot would almost certainly diminish your enjoyment of the movie’s storytelling skills, not to mention its devastating emotional effect. This is Clint at his best: giving a beautifully nuanced performance himself, allowing Freeman and the rest of the cast enough time and space to fully inhabit their roles, eliciting an Oscar-worthy performance from Swank, and executing the whole thing with a classical grace, clarity and integrity seldom seen in modern mainstream cinema. Far more restrained than the sometimes atypically overwrought ‘Mystic River’, this displays the (deceptive) simplicity of a ‘Bird’ (its exploration of complex ethical issues manages to be both forthright and subtle), the emotional richness and integrity of a ‘Bridges of Madison County’, and the dramatic assurance and expertise of a ‘Josey Wales’. Quietly quite magnificent.
At his gym in downtown LA, Frankie Dunne (Clint Eastwood) has been training and managing boxers for years, and not without success, though some of his fighters suspect that his motto – always protect yourself – has made him overly cautious with regard to championship bids. But if that’s so, Frankie’s life outside the gym is so private that the only person likely to understand his aversion to risk-taking is Scraps (Morgan Freeman), an ex-boxer who helps run the place. Not that the boss often heeds his advice: when Maggie (Hilary Swank), a po’-white-trash waitress from the Ozarks, turns up asking for tuition, Scraps sees real talent, but Frankie insists she’s too inexperienced, too old… and a woman. And Frankie don’t train women. But this one won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.
Don’t, please, read or listen to anything that tells you more than the above; the only other thing you need know is that Eastwood’s latest is a tremendous movie you should see, even if you think boxing pictures aren’t for you. To be aware of more of the plot would almost certainly diminish your enjoyment of the movie’s storytelling skills, not to mention its devastating emotional effect. This is Clint at his best: giving a beautifully nuanced performance himself, allowing Freeman and the rest of the cast enough time and space to fully inhabit their roles, eliciting an Oscar-worthy performance from Swank, and executing the whole thing with a classical grace, clarity and integrity seldom seen in modern mainstream cinema. Far more restrained than the sometimes atypically overwrought ‘Mystic River’, this displays the (deceptive) simplicity of a ‘Bird’ (its exploration of complex ethical issues manages to be both forthright and subtle), the emotional richness and integrity of a ‘Bridges of Madison County’, and the dramatic assurance and expertise of a ‘Josey Wales’. Quietly quite magnificent.
187. The Best Years of Our Lives
Overlong, perhaps, but this tender and occasionally tough look at the plight of returning war veterans is one of Wyler's best films. Robert Sherwood's script is thorough without falling into undue sentimentality or bombast, the performances throughout are splendid (including that of Russell, an amateur actor who was himself an amputee), and Gregg Toland's masterly camerawork serves as a textbook on the proper use of deep focus. Maybe not the masterpiece it would like to be, but a model of fine Hollywoood craftsmanship all the same.
Overlong, perhaps, but this tender and occasionally tough look at the plight of returning war veterans is one of Wyler's best films. Robert Sherwood's script is thorough without falling into undue sentimentality or bombast, the performances throughout are splendid (including that of Russell, an amateur actor who was himself an amputee), and Gregg Toland's masterly camerawork serves as a textbook on the proper use of deep focus. Maybe not the masterpiece it would like to be, but a model of fine Hollywoood craftsmanship all the same.
188. Hachi: A Dog's Tale
Lasse Hallström’s latest is based on a true story – transplanted from 1930s Japan to contemporary New England – about a faithful Akita dog called Hachi. Hallström’s unfussy, effective film uses several visual techniques – dog’s eye-view black-and-white footage, sped-up time frames – to tell the often moving tale of Parker Wilson (Richard Gere), a music professor and family man who surrenders to the charms of dog ownership. When Parker dies and his family sells up and moves away, Hachi legs it back to the railway station where his owner used to arrive home from work and keeps vigil there for almost a decade. Sensitively directed and rarely over-sentimental, this touching parable will likely ravish the emotions of dog lovers. Yet the film is as much about the emotional fallout of death as about a mutt’s loyalty and devotion. As a dog owner, I must confess to having had a large lump in the throat throughout. So call me soppy.
Lasse Hallström’s latest is based on a true story – transplanted from 1930s Japan to contemporary New England – about a faithful Akita dog called Hachi. Hallström’s unfussy, effective film uses several visual techniques – dog’s eye-view black-and-white footage, sped-up time frames – to tell the often moving tale of Parker Wilson (Richard Gere), a music professor and family man who surrenders to the charms of dog ownership. When Parker dies and his family sells up and moves away, Hachi legs it back to the railway station where his owner used to arrive home from work and keeps vigil there for almost a decade. Sensitively directed and rarely over-sentimental, this touching parable will likely ravish the emotions of dog lovers. Yet the film is as much about the emotional fallout of death as about a mutt’s loyalty and devotion. As a dog owner, I must confess to having had a large lump in the throat throughout. So call me soppy.
189. 8½
The passage of time has not been kind to what many view as Fellini's masterpiece. Certainly Di Venanzo's high-key images and the director's flash-card approach place 81⁄2 firmly in its early '60s context. As a self-referential work it lacks the layering and the profundity of, for example,Tristram Shandy, and the central character, the stalled director (Mastroianni), seems less in torment than doodling. And yet... The bathing of Guido sequence is a study extract for film- makers, and La Saraghina's rumba for the seminary is a gift to pop video. Amiably spiking all criticism through a gloomy scriptwriter mouthpiece, Fellini pulls a multitude of rabbits out of the showman's hat.
The passage of time has not been kind to what many view as Fellini's masterpiece. Certainly Di Venanzo's high-key images and the director's flash-card approach place 81⁄2 firmly in its early '60s context. As a self-referential work it lacks the layering and the profundity of, for example,Tristram Shandy, and the central character, the stalled director (Mastroianni), seems less in torment than doodling. And yet... The bathing of Guido sequence is a study extract for film- makers, and La Saraghina's rumba for the seminary is a gift to pop video. Amiably spiking all criticism through a gloomy scriptwriter mouthpiece, Fellini pulls a multitude of rabbits out of the showman's hat.
190. In the Name of the Father
Sheridan's movie seeks to engage and enrage. It's not, however, a film with an ideological axe to sharpen, but one which unfolds, with a sense of passionate conviction, a story of injustice - that of the four people wrongly convicted of the IRA's Guildford pub bombings in October 1974. Tracing back to Belfast in the early '70s to uncover the roots of the tragedy, the narrative goes on to chronicle the British judicial system's wilful imprisonment of the Guildford Four - Gerry Conlon (Day-Lewis), fellow tearaway Paul Hill (Lynch), and their London acquaintances Carole Richardson and Paddy Armstrong - plus their alleged accomplices, Conlon's father (Postlethwaite) and relatives in the Maguire family. It then follows events leading to the highly publicised release of the Four in 1989. Sheridan and co-writer Terry George make some minor factual alterations in order to underscore the emotional pain of the long fight for legal reappraisal.
Sheridan's movie seeks to engage and enrage. It's not, however, a film with an ideological axe to sharpen, but one which unfolds, with a sense of passionate conviction, a story of injustice - that of the four people wrongly convicted of the IRA's Guildford pub bombings in October 1974. Tracing back to Belfast in the early '70s to uncover the roots of the tragedy, the narrative goes on to chronicle the British judicial system's wilful imprisonment of the Guildford Four - Gerry Conlon (Day-Lewis), fellow tearaway Paul Hill (Lynch), and their London acquaintances Carole Richardson and Paddy Armstrong - plus their alleged accomplices, Conlon's father (Postlethwaite) and relatives in the Maguire family. It then follows events leading to the highly publicised release of the Four in 1989. Sheridan and co-writer Terry George make some minor factual alterations in order to underscore the emotional pain of the long fight for legal reappraisal.
191. Donnie Darko
This flawed but promising debut from writer/director Kelly is like The Ice Storm with a surreal psychological twist. It's 1988, and the title character (Gyllenhaal) is a moody adolescent in small town America. After a near fatal incident in which a jet engine falls on his house, Donnie suffers schizophrenic hallucinations of a spooky figure warning of imminent apocalypse. Kelly's script is an over-ambitious mess, dragging in time travel, high school politics, premonition and the presidential chances of Michael Dukakis, but his assured direction compensates. The tone alternates nimbly between comedy and horror, and two early sequences combine music (Echo and the Bunnymen's 'Killing Moon' and Tears for Fears) and image to stunning effect.
This flawed but promising debut from writer/director Kelly is like The Ice Storm with a surreal psychological twist. It's 1988, and the title character (Gyllenhaal) is a moody adolescent in small town America. After a near fatal incident in which a jet engine falls on his house, Donnie suffers schizophrenic hallucinations of a spooky figure warning of imminent apocalypse. Kelly's script is an over-ambitious mess, dragging in time travel, high school politics, premonition and the presidential chances of Michael Dukakis, but his assured direction compensates. The tone alternates nimbly between comedy and horror, and two early sequences combine music (Echo and the Bunnymen's 'Killing Moon' and Tears for Fears) and image to stunning effect.
192. The Bourne Ultimatum
Confused, mistrustful and trying to keep a lid on the knee-jerk violence to which he is predisposed, Jason Bourne is a troubled secret agent for troubled times. This third part of the most satisfying action franchise of the decade finds Bourne (Matt Damon) still on the run, gradually remembering how US security forces reshaped him as a super-assassin while trying to avoid their continued efforts to neutralise him. Drawn into the open by a UK newspaper exposé, he’s tacitly aided by CIA insiders Pamela Landy (Joan Allen, looking stern in turtle-necks) and Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) while David Strathairn and Albert Finney take on ruthless bastard duties.
Paul Greengrass, director of ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ and ‘United 93’, remains ahead of the field in delivering gristly, handheld, relatively credible action reliant on whatever’s to hand rather than hi-tech gadgetry. (If you thought Bourne was bad-ass with a magazine, just see what he can do with a hardback…) The plot roves across the globe but the standout set piece takes place in our own Waterloo Station, making an exhilarating rat-run of a packed concourse that will have you peering uneasily at CCTV cameras and advertising hoardings on your next commute.
While the crunchy fights and unflagging pace ensure this delivers as genre spectacle – a car chase deservedly got a round of applause at the screening I attended – the muddy ethics also make for a pleasing contrast with standard-issue wham-bammery. The CIA’s instant, lethal access to any spot on the globe and tactics like rendition and ‘experimental interrogation’ provoke anxiety here, not pride, and Bourne’s own killings are followed not by a quip but a flush of shame.
Confused, mistrustful and trying to keep a lid on the knee-jerk violence to which he is predisposed, Jason Bourne is a troubled secret agent for troubled times. This third part of the most satisfying action franchise of the decade finds Bourne (Matt Damon) still on the run, gradually remembering how US security forces reshaped him as a super-assassin while trying to avoid their continued efforts to neutralise him. Drawn into the open by a UK newspaper exposé, he’s tacitly aided by CIA insiders Pamela Landy (Joan Allen, looking stern in turtle-necks) and Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) while David Strathairn and Albert Finney take on ruthless bastard duties.
Paul Greengrass, director of ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ and ‘United 93’, remains ahead of the field in delivering gristly, handheld, relatively credible action reliant on whatever’s to hand rather than hi-tech gadgetry. (If you thought Bourne was bad-ass with a magazine, just see what he can do with a hardback…) The plot roves across the globe but the standout set piece takes place in our own Waterloo Station, making an exhilarating rat-run of a packed concourse that will have you peering uneasily at CCTV cameras and advertising hoardings on your next commute.
While the crunchy fights and unflagging pace ensure this delivers as genre spectacle – a car chase deservedly got a round of applause at the screening I attended – the muddy ethics also make for a pleasing contrast with standard-issue wham-bammery. The CIA’s instant, lethal access to any spot on the globe and tactics like rendition and ‘experimental interrogation’ provoke anxiety here, not pride, and Bourne’s own killings are followed not by a quip but a flush of shame.
193. Strangers on a Train
Adapted from Patricia Highsmith's novel, Strangers on a Train takes as its central proposition the meeting and ensuing guilty association of two complete strangers, Granger and Walker. Walker buttonholes Granger, a star tennis player anxious to remarry but with a clinging wife, and initiates a hypnotic discussion of exchange murders. Walker then does 'his' murder (the wife), and threatens to incriminate Granger if he doesn't fulfil his half of the 'bargain' (Walker's father). Significantly, Hitchcock didn't use much of Raymond Chandler's original script, because Chandler was too concerned with the characters' motivation. In place of that, Hitchcock erects a web of guilt around Granger, who 'agreed' to his wife's murder, a murder that suits him very well, and structures his film around a series of set pieces, ending with a paroxysm of violence on a circus carousel, when the circle Granger is trapped within is literally blown to pieces, leaving Walker dead beneath it and Granger a free man again.
Adapted from Patricia Highsmith's novel, Strangers on a Train takes as its central proposition the meeting and ensuing guilty association of two complete strangers, Granger and Walker. Walker buttonholes Granger, a star tennis player anxious to remarry but with a clinging wife, and initiates a hypnotic discussion of exchange murders. Walker then does 'his' murder (the wife), and threatens to incriminate Granger if he doesn't fulfil his half of the 'bargain' (Walker's father). Significantly, Hitchcock didn't use much of Raymond Chandler's original script, because Chandler was too concerned with the characters' motivation. In place of that, Hitchcock erects a web of guilt around Granger, who 'agreed' to his wife's murder, a murder that suits him very well, and structures his film around a series of set pieces, ending with a paroxysm of violence on a circus carousel, when the circle Granger is trapped within is literally blown to pieces, leaving Walker dead beneath it and Granger a free man again.
194. Persona
Bergman at his most brilliant as he explores the symbiotic relationship that evolves between an actress suffering a breakdown in which she refuses to speak, and the nurse in charge as she recuperates in a country cottage. To comment is to betray the film's extraordinary complexity, but basically it returns to two favourite Bergman themes: the difficulty of true communication between human beings, and the essentially egocentric nature of art. Here the actress (named Vogler after the charlatan/artist in The Face) dries up in the middle of a performance, thereafter refusing to exercise her art. We aren't told why, but from the context it's a fair guess that she withdraws from a feeling of inadequacy in face of the horrors of the modern world; and in her withdrawal, she watches with detached tolerance as humanity (the nurse chattering on about her troubled sex life) reveals its petty woes. Then comes the weird moment of communion in which the two women merge as one: charlatan or not, the artist can still be understood, and can therefore still understand. Not an easy film, but an infinitely rewarding one.
Bergman at his most brilliant as he explores the symbiotic relationship that evolves between an actress suffering a breakdown in which she refuses to speak, and the nurse in charge as she recuperates in a country cottage. To comment is to betray the film's extraordinary complexity, but basically it returns to two favourite Bergman themes: the difficulty of true communication between human beings, and the essentially egocentric nature of art. Here the actress (named Vogler after the charlatan/artist in The Face) dries up in the middle of a performance, thereafter refusing to exercise her art. We aren't told why, but from the context it's a fair guess that she withdraws from a feeling of inadequacy in face of the horrors of the modern world; and in her withdrawal, she watches with detached tolerance as humanity (the nurse chattering on about her troubled sex life) reveals its petty woes. Then comes the weird moment of communion in which the two women merge as one: charlatan or not, the artist can still be understood, and can therefore still understand. Not an easy film, but an infinitely rewarding one.
195. Gandhi
By virtue of its subject matter, and of the prodigious effort that has gone into its production, Gandhi has to be considered one of the major British films of the year. Its subject is an Indian spiritual leader almost unknown to today's Western youth, who not only preached a more sophisticated and forceful version of the pacifist ethic than ever flowered in the '60s, but succeeded in using it to help liberate his country and change its political history. Of course the film raises more questions than it comes near to answering, but its faults rather pale beside the epic nature of its theme, and Kingsley's performance in the central role is outstanding.
By virtue of its subject matter, and of the prodigious effort that has gone into its production, Gandhi has to be considered one of the major British films of the year. Its subject is an Indian spiritual leader almost unknown to today's Western youth, who not only preached a more sophisticated and forceful version of the pacifist ethic than ever flowered in the '60s, but succeeded in using it to help liberate his country and change its political history. Of course the film raises more questions than it comes near to answering, but its faults rather pale beside the epic nature of its theme, and Kingsley's performance in the central role is outstanding.
196. High Noon
A Western of stark, classical lineaments: Cooper, still mysteriously beautiful in ravaged middle-age, plays a small town marshal who lays life and wife on the line to confront a killer set free by liberal abolitionists from the North. Waiting for the murderer's arrival on the midday train, he enters a long and desolate night of the soul as the heat gathers, his fellow-citizens scatter, and it grows dark, dark, dark amid the blaze of noon. Writer Carl Foreman, who fetched up on the HUAC blacklist, leaves it open whether the marshal is making a gesture of sublime, arrogant futility - as his bride (Kelly), a Quaker opposed to violence, believes - or simply doing what a man must. High Noon won a fistful of Oscars, but in these days of pasteboard screen machismo, it's worth seeing simply as the anatomy of what it took to make a man before the myth turned sour.
A Western of stark, classical lineaments: Cooper, still mysteriously beautiful in ravaged middle-age, plays a small town marshal who lays life and wife on the line to confront a killer set free by liberal abolitionists from the North. Waiting for the murderer's arrival on the midday train, he enters a long and desolate night of the soul as the heat gathers, his fellow-citizens scatter, and it grows dark, dark, dark amid the blaze of noon. Writer Carl Foreman, who fetched up on the HUAC blacklist, leaves it open whether the marshal is making a gesture of sublime, arrogant futility - as his bride (Kelly), a Quaker opposed to violence, believes - or simply doing what a man must. High Noon won a fistful of Oscars, but in these days of pasteboard screen machismo, it's worth seeing simply as the anatomy of what it took to make a man before the myth turned sour.
197. Notorious
Cary Grant to Ingrid Bergman: ‘Dry your eyes, baby – it’s out of character.’ Is he kidding? These two are lovers and fellow US agents performing an elaborate tango of distrust and self-abnegation in Hitch’s swooning, often cruel 1946 masterpiece. Bergman’s the ‘loose’, free-living daughter of a convicted Nazi, persuaded by Grant to abandon the high life in Miami to fly down to Rio to infiltrate Claude Rains’s ugly set of wealthy National Socialist conspirators, with their cellar of uranium-filled Pommard.
Uniting Bergman and Rains, ‘Notorious’ has obvious links and makes a superb post-war companion to ‘Casablanca’, although it’s stripped of any of that film’s outlandish, if stirring, sentimentality. More than that, it’s fascinating how this romantic thriller refers to Hitchcock’s finest work: from the oh-so emotive use of silent-era close-up and the playfully sado-masochistic pairings in his British-made adventures, to the cinematic purity and dramatic clarity achieved in ‘North by Northwest’.
The script by the great Ben Hecht and Clifford Odets may give the film an iron structure and add a bracing, hard-boiled edge to its psychologically acute dialogue, and Ted Tetzlaff’s finely shaded cinematography may provide the film’s striking visuals, but it’s the accuracy, efficiency and control of Hitchcock’s direction that most impress. They enable him to dovetail the film’s thriller format and romantic story to dizzying, expressive and unique effect.
Here’s an anatomy of a love affair where the story’s intimations of betrayal and loyalty, deceit and openness, honour and irresponsibility, suspicion and surrender, are mapped out on the faces of the main protagonists with such expert montage, mise-en-scène and editing that the film could run silent and you’d hardly miss a nuance. Not to mention the acting: Bergman was never more radiant and sexy nor vulnerable. But Grant is the revelation. It’s, arguably, the great actor’s most untypical, troubled performance – not least because he is often shot from behind. Watch how, in the clinches, he always kisses with his mouth closed. This guy is a mess of contradictions and duplicities. Which only serves to intensify the power of his final, hard-earned redemption and crown the film with a finale of almost Bressonian impact. A great film.
Cary Grant to Ingrid Bergman: ‘Dry your eyes, baby – it’s out of character.’ Is he kidding? These two are lovers and fellow US agents performing an elaborate tango of distrust and self-abnegation in Hitch’s swooning, often cruel 1946 masterpiece. Bergman’s the ‘loose’, free-living daughter of a convicted Nazi, persuaded by Grant to abandon the high life in Miami to fly down to Rio to infiltrate Claude Rains’s ugly set of wealthy National Socialist conspirators, with their cellar of uranium-filled Pommard.
Uniting Bergman and Rains, ‘Notorious’ has obvious links and makes a superb post-war companion to ‘Casablanca’, although it’s stripped of any of that film’s outlandish, if stirring, sentimentality. More than that, it’s fascinating how this romantic thriller refers to Hitchcock’s finest work: from the oh-so emotive use of silent-era close-up and the playfully sado-masochistic pairings in his British-made adventures, to the cinematic purity and dramatic clarity achieved in ‘North by Northwest’.
The script by the great Ben Hecht and Clifford Odets may give the film an iron structure and add a bracing, hard-boiled edge to its psychologically acute dialogue, and Ted Tetzlaff’s finely shaded cinematography may provide the film’s striking visuals, but it’s the accuracy, efficiency and control of Hitchcock’s direction that most impress. They enable him to dovetail the film’s thriller format and romantic story to dizzying, expressive and unique effect.
Here’s an anatomy of a love affair where the story’s intimations of betrayal and loyalty, deceit and openness, honour and irresponsibility, suspicion and surrender, are mapped out on the faces of the main protagonists with such expert montage, mise-en-scène and editing that the film could run silent and you’d hardly miss a nuance. Not to mention the acting: Bergman was never more radiant and sexy nor vulnerable. But Grant is the revelation. It’s, arguably, the great actor’s most untypical, troubled performance – not least because he is often shot from behind. Watch how, in the clinches, he always kisses with his mouth closed. This guy is a mess of contradictions and duplicities. Which only serves to intensify the power of his final, hard-earned redemption and crown the film with a finale of almost Bressonian impact. A great film.
198. The King's Speech
As attention-grabbing plotlines go, it’s hardly a world-beater: buttoned-down British royal suffers speech impediment and hires unconventional Aussie quack to conquer his fear of public oratory. So it’s thanks to the best efforts of writer David Seidler, director Tom Hooper and, especially, leads Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush that ‘The King’s Speech’ isn’t just an enlightening period drama, but a very entertaining, heartfelt and surprisingly funny crowd-pleaser with a glint of Oscar gold in its eye.
This is a film of small, precise, perfectly judged moments: while the historical backdrop could easily have made for epic overstatement and hand-wringing melodrama, Seidler and Hooper’s decision to focus their attention on the characters and on their relationships and insecurities, makes ‘The King’s Speech’ feel intimate and wholly convincing. And in structuring the plot like a sports movie, with Firth’s George VI as the plucky outsider thrust unwillingly into the ring and Rush’s Lionel Logue as the maverick coach who talks him up off the ropes, the filmmakers press all the uplifting emotional buttons which audiences respond to.
This is, at heart, an actor’s movie, and both Firth and Rush are on top form. Their scenes together, as Logue breaks the King down, trying to unearth the scared boy inside the defensive, blustering aristocrat, are a joy to behold, packed with little moments of pure performance and sly, unexpected wit.
For all its period trappings and occasionally heavy-handed Freudian psychodrama, ‘The King’s Speech’ always comes back to the unlikely friendship between two superbly sketched, immaculately played characters. By the rousing wartime finale, it’ll be a staunch, hard-hearted republican who doesn’t feel the urge to yell, ‘God save the King!’
As attention-grabbing plotlines go, it’s hardly a world-beater: buttoned-down British royal suffers speech impediment and hires unconventional Aussie quack to conquer his fear of public oratory. So it’s thanks to the best efforts of writer David Seidler, director Tom Hooper and, especially, leads Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush that ‘The King’s Speech’ isn’t just an enlightening period drama, but a very entertaining, heartfelt and surprisingly funny crowd-pleaser with a glint of Oscar gold in its eye.
This is a film of small, precise, perfectly judged moments: while the historical backdrop could easily have made for epic overstatement and hand-wringing melodrama, Seidler and Hooper’s decision to focus their attention on the characters and on their relationships and insecurities, makes ‘The King’s Speech’ feel intimate and wholly convincing. And in structuring the plot like a sports movie, with Firth’s George VI as the plucky outsider thrust unwillingly into the ring and Rush’s Lionel Logue as the maverick coach who talks him up off the ropes, the filmmakers press all the uplifting emotional buttons which audiences respond to.
This is, at heart, an actor’s movie, and both Firth and Rush are on top form. Their scenes together, as Logue breaks the King down, trying to unearth the scared boy inside the defensive, blustering aristocrat, are a joy to behold, packed with little moments of pure performance and sly, unexpected wit.
For all its period trappings and occasionally heavy-handed Freudian psychodrama, ‘The King’s Speech’ always comes back to the unlikely friendship between two superbly sketched, immaculately played characters. By the rousing wartime finale, it’ll be a staunch, hard-hearted republican who doesn’t feel the urge to yell, ‘God save the King!’
199. Jaws
Is there such a thing as a perfect film? One that knows what it wants to achieve and does it, flawlessly, artfully and intelligently? If so, then ‘Jaws’ is as good a candidate as any. Thirty-seven years on (and reissued in a new HD print), this tale of an island community terrorised by a killer shark still feels timeless and terrifying. The characterisation is precise and acutely observed (it’s one of the great guys-on-a-mission flicks), the dialogue is witty and wise, and the plot fits together like a finely crafted watch. The performances – not just leads, but the kids, townsfolk and the grief-stricken mother too – are impeccable. Best of all is Steven Spielberg’s direction: the camera moves like a predatory animal, gliding eerily across the surface of the vast Atlantic, creating sequences of almost unbearable suspense (never mind that the scariest scene was shot in a swimming pool). It’s no wonder a generation of holidaymakers still thinks twice before stepping into the water.
Is there such a thing as a perfect film? One that knows what it wants to achieve and does it, flawlessly, artfully and intelligently? If so, then ‘Jaws’ is as good a candidate as any. Thirty-seven years on (and reissued in a new HD print), this tale of an island community terrorised by a killer shark still feels timeless and terrifying. The characterisation is precise and acutely observed (it’s one of the great guys-on-a-mission flicks), the dialogue is witty and wise, and the plot fits together like a finely crafted watch. The performances – not just leads, but the kids, townsfolk and the grief-stricken mother too – are impeccable. Best of all is Steven Spielberg’s direction: the camera moves like a predatory animal, gliding eerily across the surface of the vast Atlantic, creating sequences of almost unbearable suspense (never mind that the scariest scene was shot in a swimming pool). It’s no wonder a generation of holidaymakers still thinks twice before stepping into the water.
200. Infernal Affairs
Undercover cops posing as triad gangsters have been staple figures in HK cinema since Alex Cheung's Man on the Brink (1980, sort-of remade by Andrew Lau in 1994 as To Live and Die in Tsimshatsui), but this huge domestic hit goes one better by twinning its fake triad cop (Leung) with a triad mole in the police force (Lau). Each mole is answerable to the other's nominal boss (Wong and Tsang respectively), leading to tactical complications and a lot of genuine suspense as each side tries to outwit the other over a shipment of dope from Thailand. There's no hint of an auteur sensibility at play, but the careful plotting, rich characterisations and sleek mise-en-scène give this an impact rarely seen in HK films these days. Leung is outstanding as a man close to mental and physical breakdown, and Lau's cocky narcissism is exploited more cunningly than usual. The Chinese title invokes the lowest circle of Buddhist hell, a fair indication of how noir things get.
Undercover cops posing as triad gangsters have been staple figures in HK cinema since Alex Cheung's Man on the Brink (1980, sort-of remade by Andrew Lau in 1994 as To Live and Die in Tsimshatsui), but this huge domestic hit goes one better by twinning its fake triad cop (Leung) with a triad mole in the police force (Lau). Each mole is answerable to the other's nominal boss (Wong and Tsang respectively), leading to tactical complications and a lot of genuine suspense as each side tries to outwit the other over a shipment of dope from Thailand. There's no hint of an auteur sensibility at play, but the careful plotting, rich characterisations and sleek mise-en-scène give this an impact rarely seen in HK films these days. Leung is outstanding as a man close to mental and physical breakdown, and Lau's cocky narcissism is exploited more cunningly than usual. The Chinese title invokes the lowest circle of Buddhist hell, a fair indication of how noir things get.
201. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
With her tomboyish bob cut, jet powered glider and (naturally) cute fury sidekick, Nausicaä is the feisty, morally righteous and ineffably endearing heroine of Miyazaki’s operatic second feature, doing everything in her power to protect her tiny village situated in the eponymous Valley of the Wind, even if it means channelling giant blue sea worms to stave off the callous advances of warmongering neighbours. Essentially an thinly-veiled parable about the humanity’s uneasy relationship with weaponry, Miyazaki’s exhilarating action movie (whose epic scale is on a par with something like 'Akira') also offers a two-fisted attack against corporate power and delivers a subtle plea for the preservation of artisan craftsmanship. Stellar stuff.
With her tomboyish bob cut, jet powered glider and (naturally) cute fury sidekick, Nausicaä is the feisty, morally righteous and ineffably endearing heroine of Miyazaki’s operatic second feature, doing everything in her power to protect her tiny village situated in the eponymous Valley of the Wind, even if it means channelling giant blue sea worms to stave off the callous advances of warmongering neighbours. Essentially an thinly-veiled parable about the humanity’s uneasy relationship with weaponry, Miyazaki’s exhilarating action movie (whose epic scale is on a par with something like 'Akira') also offers a two-fisted attack against corporate power and delivers a subtle plea for the preservation of artisan craftsmanship. Stellar stuff.
202. 12 Monkeys
In 1996, a virus kills five billion people. 'This already happened,' James Cole (Willis) explains to Dr Railly (Stowe) in 1990. He knows because he's been there. Six years and a matter of minutes after he vanishes from a padded cell, Cole is back in his psychiatrist's life. He must trace the contagion, but he needs Railly's help to track down former patient Goines (Pitt), whose environmental action group, the Army of the 12 Monkeys, may be behind the disaster. With its shifts in tone and style signposted by Pitt's buggy loony-toon and Willis's movingly bewildered introvert, Terry Gilliam's apocalyptic fantasy is even weirder than it sounds. Less a Terminator-type action pic than a spectacularly disorienting inaction movie, with Cole as a helpless Cassandra hooked on an image from his own past, hoping against hope that he may in fact be crazy...the film's a terrible mess, but a terribly beautiful, tender mess. The screenplay by Janet and David Peoples (Blade Runner, Unforgiven) takes off from Chris Marker's 1962 short, La Jetée, but soon spirals into more pressing millennial obsessions (insanity, chaos and ecological catastrophe), before a vertiginous Hitchcockian make-over in the last reel. Gilliam gives the material a lunatic poetry of his own, but remains impervious to the requirements of narrative pacing.
In 1996, a virus kills five billion people. 'This already happened,' James Cole (Willis) explains to Dr Railly (Stowe) in 1990. He knows because he's been there. Six years and a matter of minutes after he vanishes from a padded cell, Cole is back in his psychiatrist's life. He must trace the contagion, but he needs Railly's help to track down former patient Goines (Pitt), whose environmental action group, the Army of the 12 Monkeys, may be behind the disaster. With its shifts in tone and style signposted by Pitt's buggy loony-toon and Willis's movingly bewildered introvert, Terry Gilliam's apocalyptic fantasy is even weirder than it sounds. Less a Terminator-type action pic than a spectacularly disorienting inaction movie, with Cole as a helpless Cassandra hooked on an image from his own past, hoping against hope that he may in fact be crazy...the film's a terrible mess, but a terribly beautiful, tender mess. The screenplay by Janet and David Peoples (Blade Runner, Unforgiven) takes off from Chris Marker's 1962 short, La Jetée, but soon spirals into more pressing millennial obsessions (insanity, chaos and ecological catastrophe), before a vertiginous Hitchcockian make-over in the last reel. Gilliam gives the material a lunatic poetry of his own, but remains impervious to the requirements of narrative pacing.
203. Fanny and Alexander
This late gem from the Swedish maestro upped the ante in terms of autobiographical resonance, radically expanding on the way he’d often used personal experience to inflect the thematic preoccupations of his work, and anticipating scripts like ‘The Best Intentions’ which, despite being directed by others, represented events from his life more literally and explicitly than previously. Here, filtered through the eyes of young Alexander (Bertil Guve) and his sister (Pernilla Allwin), aspects of Bergman’s past are transformed not only into fiction but into a meditation on the nature and craft of fiction: the children’s experiences – first in the warm fold of a theatrical family, then, after dad’s death, at the mercy of a stern stepfather (whose Lutheran calling inevitably evokes that of the director’s own parent) – are structured largely as a series of scenes centred on watching, listening, performing and storytelling.
As such it’s a marvellously engrossing and thought-provoking film, filled with dazzling dramatic set-pieces and witty, knowing allusions to its creator’s artistic conceits and deceits. Especially when the children are subjected, thanks to their well-meaning but misguided mother (Ewa Fröhling), to the harsh regime of the Bishop Vergerus (Jan Malmsjö), the film also packs an emotional punch, so that the elegant recreation of early-twentieth-century life feels alive in a sense barely dreamt of by most makers of ‘costume drama’. True, this theatrical cut of a mere three hours is less wholly satisfying than the five-hour TV original; the narrative’s a little choppy and uneven, producing the impression of a golden oldie mix of greatest hits. Still, what hits!
This late gem from the Swedish maestro upped the ante in terms of autobiographical resonance, radically expanding on the way he’d often used personal experience to inflect the thematic preoccupations of his work, and anticipating scripts like ‘The Best Intentions’ which, despite being directed by others, represented events from his life more literally and explicitly than previously. Here, filtered through the eyes of young Alexander (Bertil Guve) and his sister (Pernilla Allwin), aspects of Bergman’s past are transformed not only into fiction but into a meditation on the nature and craft of fiction: the children’s experiences – first in the warm fold of a theatrical family, then, after dad’s death, at the mercy of a stern stepfather (whose Lutheran calling inevitably evokes that of the director’s own parent) – are structured largely as a series of scenes centred on watching, listening, performing and storytelling.
As such it’s a marvellously engrossing and thought-provoking film, filled with dazzling dramatic set-pieces and witty, knowing allusions to its creator’s artistic conceits and deceits. Especially when the children are subjected, thanks to their well-meaning but misguided mother (Ewa Fröhling), to the harsh regime of the Bishop Vergerus (Jan Malmsjö), the film also packs an emotional punch, so that the elegant recreation of early-twentieth-century life feels alive in a sense barely dreamt of by most makers of ‘costume drama’. True, this theatrical cut of a mere three hours is less wholly satisfying than the five-hour TV original; the narrative’s a little choppy and uneven, producing the impression of a golden oldie mix of greatest hits. Still, what hits!
204. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
With his biceps and righteousness pumped to the max, Chris Evans’s superhero Captain America is an enjoyable square peg in the round hole of the sleek Marvel universe. That continues in this involving sequel to 2011’s WW2-set ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’, placing the character in an unusually shady political landscape.
We’re in present-day Washington, DC, a faintly utopian place where glass buildings gleam and Steve Rogers (Evans) can befriend former army supersoldier Sam (Anthony Mackie) during a pleasant morning’s jog. But it’s also the site of a massive military build-up: three huge ‘helicarriers’ are stored under the city’s river, primed to pry into people’s privacy a bit too impressively. Surveillance anxieties in a spandex-clad comic-book blockbuster?
Just as you’re savouring the hint of an ethically compromised, eye-patched Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson), along comes the film’s secret weapon. Robert Redford plays against lefty type as an ominous high-ranking official thrilled by his new toys. Too quickly to generate proper suspense (yet causing plenty of giddy disbelief), ‘The Winter Soldier’ nods to ’70s classics ‘The Parallax View’ and ‘Three Days of the Condor’. It results in a vertiginous, turned-over action epic where US senators whisper allegiance to terrorist organisation Hydra and good guys are on the run.
The Marvel faithful will turn up for the action scenes, and the directors, brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, add an uncommon sharpness to sequences of urban warfare – ‘Heat’-grade bullet volleys have a real ping to them. But unlike the magically well-balanced ‘The Avengers’ (2012), there’s a touch of character bloat here: the title actually alludes to a vicious steel-armed threat (Sebastian Stan) who never quite develops into a distinct opponent. Scarlett Johansson doesn’t have a hard time commanding attention as Black Widow, though you’d think she would have earned a more complex role by now. Still, this instalment delivers a heavy and welcome dose of paranoia, administered between fleetly paced smackdowns.
With his biceps and righteousness pumped to the max, Chris Evans’s superhero Captain America is an enjoyable square peg in the round hole of the sleek Marvel universe. That continues in this involving sequel to 2011’s WW2-set ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’, placing the character in an unusually shady political landscape.
We’re in present-day Washington, DC, a faintly utopian place where glass buildings gleam and Steve Rogers (Evans) can befriend former army supersoldier Sam (Anthony Mackie) during a pleasant morning’s jog. But it’s also the site of a massive military build-up: three huge ‘helicarriers’ are stored under the city’s river, primed to pry into people’s privacy a bit too impressively. Surveillance anxieties in a spandex-clad comic-book blockbuster?
Just as you’re savouring the hint of an ethically compromised, eye-patched Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson), along comes the film’s secret weapon. Robert Redford plays against lefty type as an ominous high-ranking official thrilled by his new toys. Too quickly to generate proper suspense (yet causing plenty of giddy disbelief), ‘The Winter Soldier’ nods to ’70s classics ‘The Parallax View’ and ‘Three Days of the Condor’. It results in a vertiginous, turned-over action epic where US senators whisper allegiance to terrorist organisation Hydra and good guys are on the run.
The Marvel faithful will turn up for the action scenes, and the directors, brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, add an uncommon sharpness to sequences of urban warfare – ‘Heat’-grade bullet volleys have a real ping to them. But unlike the magically well-balanced ‘The Avengers’ (2012), there’s a touch of character bloat here: the title actually alludes to a vicious steel-armed threat (Sebastian Stan) who never quite develops into a distinct opponent. Scarlett Johansson doesn’t have a hard time commanding attention as Black Widow, though you’d think she would have earned a more complex role by now. Still, this instalment delivers a heavy and welcome dose of paranoia, administered between fleetly paced smackdowns.
205. The Terminator
Back from the future in which the machines rule comes a rippling robot (Schwarzenegger) who terminates opponents with extreme prejudice (like ripping their hearts out). His goal is to kill a woman (Hamilton) destined to bear the child who will become the great freedom fighter of the future. Fortunately she has a champion in the shape of another time traveller, Arnold's all-too-human opponent (Biehn). The gladiatorial arena is set, with vulnerable flesh and cunning versus a leviathan who totes around massive weapons like so many chic accessories and can rebuild his organs as they get shot away. The pacing and the action are terrific, revelling in the feral relentlessness which characterised Assault on Precinct 13 and Mad Max 2; even the future visions of a wasted LA are well mounted. More than enough violence to make it a profoundly moral film; and Arnold's a whizz.
Back from the future in which the machines rule comes a rippling robot (Schwarzenegger) who terminates opponents with extreme prejudice (like ripping their hearts out). His goal is to kill a woman (Hamilton) destined to bear the child who will become the great freedom fighter of the future. Fortunately she has a champion in the shape of another time traveller, Arnold's all-too-human opponent (Biehn). The gladiatorial arena is set, with vulnerable flesh and cunning versus a leviathan who totes around massive weapons like so many chic accessories and can rebuild his organs as they get shot away. The pacing and the action are terrific, revelling in the feral relentlessness which characterised Assault on Precinct 13 and Mad Max 2; even the future visions of a wasted LA are well mounted. More than enough violence to make it a profoundly moral film; and Arnold's a whizz.
206. Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
This is the story about the resilience shown by the Indians when they were under the British Rule. They are already taxed to the bone by the British and their cronies, but when Jack Russell announces that he will double the Lagaan (tax) from all villagers, they decide to oppose it. Leading the villagers is a handsome young man named Bhuvan, who challenges them to a game of cricket, a game that is to be played by veteran British cricket players, versus villagers, including Bhuvan himself, who have never played this game before, and do not even know a bat from a piece of wood. As the challenge is accepted, the interest grows and attracts Indians from all over the region, as well as the British from all over the country - as everyone gathers to see the 'fair play' that the British will display against their counter-parts, who are aided by none other than the sister, Elizabeth, of Captain Rusell.
This is the story about the resilience shown by the Indians when they were under the British Rule. They are already taxed to the bone by the British and their cronies, but when Jack Russell announces that he will double the Lagaan (tax) from all villagers, they decide to oppose it. Leading the villagers is a handsome young man named Bhuvan, who challenges them to a game of cricket, a game that is to be played by veteran British cricket players, versus villagers, including Bhuvan himself, who have never played this game before, and do not even know a bat from a piece of wood. As the challenge is accepted, the interest grows and attracts Indians from all over the region, as well as the British from all over the country - as everyone gathers to see the 'fair play' that the British will display against their counter-parts, who are aided by none other than the sister, Elizabeth, of Captain Rusell.
207. Ip Man
Yip Wai-shun’s biopic about Bruce Lee’s martial arts mentor takes plenty of liberties with the facts but none that can’t be forgiven in the name of kungfu kickin’ fun. Donnie Yen (above) delivers a charismatic portrayal of Ip Man, the martial arts master of the title. We first catch him facing off a group of thugs as he pulls off defensive combos of such skill that he’s soon the talk of his town.
The first part of this likeable actioner sticks to the age-old kung fu template of poor acting and ridiculous fight-scene sound effects. But it takes a darker turn when, in 1937, the town is besieged by Japanese troops and everyone has to beg for work. Will Ip Man take up the offer of a Japanese officer’s clemency in exchange for teaching his troops? Yip’s film benefits from crisp cinematography and an engaging ‘Seven Samurai’-style storyline, but it’s Sammo Hung’s superbly choreographed kick-ass fight scenes that dazzle.
Yip Wai-shun’s biopic about Bruce Lee’s martial arts mentor takes plenty of liberties with the facts but none that can’t be forgiven in the name of kungfu kickin’ fun. Donnie Yen (above) delivers a charismatic portrayal of Ip Man, the martial arts master of the title. We first catch him facing off a group of thugs as he pulls off defensive combos of such skill that he’s soon the talk of his town.
The first part of this likeable actioner sticks to the age-old kung fu template of poor acting and ridiculous fight-scene sound effects. But it takes a darker turn when, in 1937, the town is besieged by Japanese troops and everyone has to beg for work. Will Ip Man take up the offer of a Japanese officer’s clemency in exchange for teaching his troops? Yip’s film benefits from crisp cinematography and an engaging ‘Seven Samurai’-style storyline, but it’s Sammo Hung’s superbly choreographed kick-ass fight scenes that dazzle.
208. La strada
The strongman Zampano needs an assistant for his touring act, and purchases innocent maiden Gelsomina from her mother. He is abusive towards Gelsomina, but her naivete shields her from the situation, and subsequently leads her to the high-wire artist The Fool, with whom she falls in love. The Fool returns her affections and they plan to leave together but Zampano's jealousy and rage explode with tragic consequences.
The strongman Zampano needs an assistant for his touring act, and purchases innocent maiden Gelsomina from her mother. He is abusive towards Gelsomina, but her naivete shields her from the situation, and subsequently leads her to the high-wire artist The Fool, with whom she falls in love. The Fool returns her affections and they plan to leave together but Zampano's jealousy and rage explode with tragic consequences.
209. The Night of the Hunter
‘Would you like me to tell you the story of right hand, left hand? The story of good and evil?’ It’s hard to think of a film which cuts so clear a line between innocence and depravity as 1955’s ‘The Night of the Hunter’, British actor Charles Laughton’s sole film as director. Robert Mitchum is the heart of absolute darkness as Reverend Harry Powell, a preacher and killer of women whose lust for gold leads him to little Pearl Harper (Sally Jane Bruce) and her older brother John (Billy Chapin), who are guardians of their jailed dad’s stolen loot. Driven by the starkness of German expressionism and shot by legendary Orson Welles collaborator Stanley Cortez, Laughton’s film makes the average film noir look like afterschool kids’ TV. Every shot is a masterclass in contrast, in looming blacks and piercing whites. It’s the most haunted and dreamlike of all American films, a gothic backwoods ramble with the Devil at its heels.
‘Would you like me to tell you the story of right hand, left hand? The story of good and evil?’ It’s hard to think of a film which cuts so clear a line between innocence and depravity as 1955’s ‘The Night of the Hunter’, British actor Charles Laughton’s sole film as director. Robert Mitchum is the heart of absolute darkness as Reverend Harry Powell, a preacher and killer of women whose lust for gold leads him to little Pearl Harper (Sally Jane Bruce) and her older brother John (Billy Chapin), who are guardians of their jailed dad’s stolen loot. Driven by the starkness of German expressionism and shot by legendary Orson Welles collaborator Stanley Cortez, Laughton’s film makes the average film noir look like afterschool kids’ TV. Every shot is a masterclass in contrast, in looming blacks and piercing whites. It’s the most haunted and dreamlike of all American films, a gothic backwoods ramble with the Devil at its heels.
210. Stalker
Against the fractured density of Mirror, Stalker sets a form of absolute linear simplicity. The Stalker leads two men, the Writer and the Professor, across the Zone - a forbidden territory deep inside a police state - towards the Room, which can lay bare the devices and desires of your heart. However, let no one persuade you that this is sci-fi or common allegory. The ragged, shaven-headed men are familiar from Solzenitzyn, and the zone may be a sentient landscape of hallucinatory power, but its deadly litter of industrial detritus is all too recognisable. The wettest, grimmest trek ever seen on film leads to nihilistic impasse - huddled in dirt, the discovery of faith seems impossible; and without faith, life outside the Zone, impossible. But hang on in to the ending, where a plain declaration of love and a vision of pure magic at least point the way to redemption. As always, Tarkovsky conjures images like you've never seen before; and as a journey to the heart of darkness, it's a good deal more persuasive than Coppola's.
Against the fractured density of Mirror, Stalker sets a form of absolute linear simplicity. The Stalker leads two men, the Writer and the Professor, across the Zone - a forbidden territory deep inside a police state - towards the Room, which can lay bare the devices and desires of your heart. However, let no one persuade you that this is sci-fi or common allegory. The ragged, shaven-headed men are familiar from Solzenitzyn, and the zone may be a sentient landscape of hallucinatory power, but its deadly litter of industrial detritus is all too recognisable. The wettest, grimmest trek ever seen on film leads to nihilistic impasse - huddled in dirt, the discovery of faith seems impossible; and without faith, life outside the Zone, impossible. But hang on in to the ending, where a plain declaration of love and a vision of pure magic at least point the way to redemption. As always, Tarkovsky conjures images like you've never seen before; and as a journey to the heart of darkness, it's a good deal more persuasive than Coppola's.
211. Gravity
The word ‘breathtaking’ is bandied about a lot, but when was the last time a film truly had the power to leave its audience gasping for air, pinned to their seats, sick and dizzy? In ‘Gravity’, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney play nervous newbie astronaut Dr Ryan Stone and seasoned pro Matt Kowalsky, whose work on the Hubble Space Telescope is violently interrupted by a catastrophic debris collision. Cut off from ground communications and drifting in space, their only hope lies in making it to the International Space Station before Stone’s air supply runs out.
Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón already displayed the depths of his skill with ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ and ‘Children of Men’: think of the eight-minute shakycam battle scene in the latter, as he zoomed from bloody close-up to hectic overview without breaking the shot. But nothing he has done before comes close to matching the astonishing beauty, force and originality of ‘Gravity’. This isn’t just the best-looking film of the year, it’s one of the most awe-inspiring achievements in the history of special-effects cinema. So it’s a shame that – as is so often the case with groundbreaking effects movies – the emotional content can’t quite compete with the visual.
The first half is close to flawless. Like the astronauts, Cuarón’s ‘camera’ is completely untethered, allowing for astonishing feats of cinematic dexterity: as Stone spirals off into deep space, spinning uncontrollably, we overtake and travel inside her helmet, her breath the only thing we can hear, her panicked gaze becoming the camera’s view. The effect is nauseating, but gloriously so.
But then reality intrudes, and the film loses pace. Played lightly, Stone’s tragic backstory would have been a powerful emotional kicker. Yet as ‘Gravity’ nears its conclusion, honest sentiment is replaced by weepy mawkishness. Ironically, the effect is to push us away from the characters, and out of the flawless, all-encompassing imaginative space that Cuarón has so painstakingly created. Still, despite these flaws, ‘Gravity’ is cinema in its very purest, boldest form, and it’ll leave you weak at the knees.
The word ‘breathtaking’ is bandied about a lot, but when was the last time a film truly had the power to leave its audience gasping for air, pinned to their seats, sick and dizzy? In ‘Gravity’, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney play nervous newbie astronaut Dr Ryan Stone and seasoned pro Matt Kowalsky, whose work on the Hubble Space Telescope is violently interrupted by a catastrophic debris collision. Cut off from ground communications and drifting in space, their only hope lies in making it to the International Space Station before Stone’s air supply runs out.
Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón already displayed the depths of his skill with ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ and ‘Children of Men’: think of the eight-minute shakycam battle scene in the latter, as he zoomed from bloody close-up to hectic overview without breaking the shot. But nothing he has done before comes close to matching the astonishing beauty, force and originality of ‘Gravity’. This isn’t just the best-looking film of the year, it’s one of the most awe-inspiring achievements in the history of special-effects cinema. So it’s a shame that – as is so often the case with groundbreaking effects movies – the emotional content can’t quite compete with the visual.
The first half is close to flawless. Like the astronauts, Cuarón’s ‘camera’ is completely untethered, allowing for astonishing feats of cinematic dexterity: as Stone spirals off into deep space, spinning uncontrollably, we overtake and travel inside her helmet, her breath the only thing we can hear, her panicked gaze becoming the camera’s view. The effect is nauseating, but gloriously so.
But then reality intrudes, and the film loses pace. Played lightly, Stone’s tragic backstory would have been a powerful emotional kicker. Yet as ‘Gravity’ nears its conclusion, honest sentiment is replaced by weepy mawkishness. Ironically, the effect is to push us away from the characters, and out of the flawless, all-encompassing imaginative space that Cuarón has so painstakingly created. Still, despite these flaws, ‘Gravity’ is cinema in its very purest, boldest form, and it’ll leave you weak at the knees.
212. Groundhog Day
How would it feel to wake up to the same day every day? Would you crack up at the sheer tedium of it all? Cynically exploit others (they don't know they're trapped in a time warp) with what you learned about them the day before? Or use the situation to better yourself? That's the dilemma facing misanthropic TV weatherman Phil Connors (Murray) when he once more visits the small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania - 'weather capital of the world' - to report on its annual Groundhog Day ceremony. What's so satisfying about Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis' script - besides the sheer plethora of gags - is the way it rigorously covers every last nuance of Connors' nightmarish predicament: he can drink himself legless without fear of the morning after, endlessly refine his chat-up lines, become an expert in 19th century French verse, but whatever he does he ends up back where he was on the dot of six. Ramis directs this surreal suburban fantasy with an admirably light touch, revelling in its absurd repetitions, surprising us with narrative ellipses, and allowing Murray ample space to indulge his special mix of sarcasm and smarm. But this is first and foremost a comedy of ideas, on which score it never falters.
How would it feel to wake up to the same day every day? Would you crack up at the sheer tedium of it all? Cynically exploit others (they don't know they're trapped in a time warp) with what you learned about them the day before? Or use the situation to better yourself? That's the dilemma facing misanthropic TV weatherman Phil Connors (Murray) when he once more visits the small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania - 'weather capital of the world' - to report on its annual Groundhog Day ceremony. What's so satisfying about Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis' script - besides the sheer plethora of gags - is the way it rigorously covers every last nuance of Connors' nightmarish predicament: he can drink himself legless without fear of the morning after, endlessly refine his chat-up lines, become an expert in 19th century French verse, but whatever he does he ends up back where he was on the dot of six. Ramis directs this surreal suburban fantasy with an admirably light touch, revelling in its absurd repetitions, surprising us with narrative ellipses, and allowing Murray ample space to indulge his special mix of sarcasm and smarm. But this is first and foremost a comedy of ideas, on which score it never falters.
213. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Edward Albee's vitriolic stage portrayal of domestic blisslessness translated grainily and effectively to the screen. Taylor gives what is probably her finest performance as the blowsy harridan Martha, while Burton is not quite so hammy as usual as her angst-ridden college professor husband. The verbal fireworks that occur when they invite a young couple to dinner are surprisingly convincing. In an interview much later, Sandy Dennis said that, amazingly, Taylor and Burton were in fact very happy together at the time. It doesn't show on screen. The film's one problem, however, is that it's played so relentlessly for realism, when in fact the subject is at least half fantasy. A very loud film.
Edward Albee's vitriolic stage portrayal of domestic blisslessness translated grainily and effectively to the screen. Taylor gives what is probably her finest performance as the blowsy harridan Martha, while Burton is not quite so hammy as usual as her angst-ridden college professor husband. The verbal fireworks that occur when they invite a young couple to dinner are surprisingly convincing. In an interview much later, Sandy Dennis said that, amazingly, Taylor and Burton were in fact very happy together at the time. It doesn't show on screen. The film's one problem, however, is that it's played so relentlessly for realism, when in fact the subject is at least half fantasy. A very loud film.
214. Rocky
'I coulda been a contender, Charlie': Brando's classic lament in On the Waterfront finds a new and vigorous echo in this low-budget film whose huge success, against all odds, mirrors its own theme. Rocky is an old-fashioned fairytale brilliantly revamped to chime in with the depressed mood of the '70s. Although its plot - nonentity gets to fight the heavyweight champ - is basically fantasy, the film deftly manages to suspend disbelief by drawing back at its more implausible moments. Despite a few clumsy early scenes, the dialogue hits some bull's-eyes ('I'm really a ham-and-egger' mumbles Stallone in disbelief when he hears he'll get a crack at the champ), and Burgess Meredith gives his best performance in years as a slobbering, aged trainer. But without its climax, Rocky would add up to very little: the big fight is cathartic, manipulative Hollywood at its best. In a word: emotion.
'I coulda been a contender, Charlie': Brando's classic lament in On the Waterfront finds a new and vigorous echo in this low-budget film whose huge success, against all odds, mirrors its own theme. Rocky is an old-fashioned fairytale brilliantly revamped to chime in with the depressed mood of the '70s. Although its plot - nonentity gets to fight the heavyweight champ - is basically fantasy, the film deftly manages to suspend disbelief by drawing back at its more implausible moments. Despite a few clumsy early scenes, the dialogue hits some bull's-eyes ('I'm really a ham-and-egger' mumbles Stallone in disbelief when he hears he'll get a crack at the champ), and Burgess Meredith gives his best performance in years as a slobbering, aged trainer. But without its climax, Rocky would add up to very little: the big fight is cathartic, manipulative Hollywood at its best. In a word: emotion.
215. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Talk about transcending your roots. In ten short years (and eight rather long instalments), the Harry Potter series has gone from harmless, derivative boarding-school hi-jinks aimed squarely at bookish pre-teens to Julie Walters calling Helena Bonham Carter a bitch before killing her in cold blood. And that’s not even the nastiest bit – there’s some business here with Alan Rickman and a mean-tempered snake that’ll have even the toughest Potterphiles hiding behind their popcorn buckets.
But despite the increase in bloody violence – and the deaths of several major characters – ‘Deathly Hallows Part 2’ has little of the picturesque doom and gloom that sank its glum, tent-bound predecessor. This is an action movie, plain and simple, and all the better for it: from the breathless opening heist on Gringott’s magical bank to the hair-raising battle of Hogwarts which occupies most of the second half, this is crammed to the rafters with sword-swinging, expletive-hurling, dragon-riding magical mayhem.
The opening act is patchy but enjoyable, as a confusing, backstory-heavy dialogue scene leads straight into the aforementioned bank raid, a spectacular but rather rushed set piece. There’s just enough room for the obligatory introduction of another superfluous supporting character – in this case, Dumbledore’s crotchety brother Aberforth – before Harry and chums break back into Hogwarts and the main narrative kicks in.
Everyone brings their A-game here, notably director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves, who balance the source novel’s head-spinning blend of action, emotion and narrative intrigue with absolute confidence: one lengthy flashback sequence midway through is arguably the dramatic high point of the entire series, and even the sugary sweet coda, so mawkish on the page, becomes a thing of quiet beauty. The SFX are phenomenal, bringing to the magical shenanigans a tactile solidity which has been missing in previous episodes, while Yates’s use of 3D is never intrusive, and occasionally breathtaking.
But, as with most of the Potter films, it’s the cast who really deliver: the young leads have never been better, and it’s great to see Yorkshire’s finest, Neville Longbottom (played by Matthew Lewis), relishing the chance to step out of his chums’ shadows. It’s the villains who stick in the memory, whether it’s Rickman’s wondrously tight-lipped turn as the doomed Professor Snape or Ralph Fiennes’s genuinely peculiar but utterly convincing take on evil incarnate.
‘Deathly Hallows Part 2’ is far from a perfect film – the central plot point, the revelation of Harry’s destiny, is badly fudged, and there are a few too many key questions left hanging. But while it’s unfolding, this is just terrific fun: eye-scorching, ear-battering, heart-pounding cinema of pure spectacle.
Talk about transcending your roots. In ten short years (and eight rather long instalments), the Harry Potter series has gone from harmless, derivative boarding-school hi-jinks aimed squarely at bookish pre-teens to Julie Walters calling Helena Bonham Carter a bitch before killing her in cold blood. And that’s not even the nastiest bit – there’s some business here with Alan Rickman and a mean-tempered snake that’ll have even the toughest Potterphiles hiding behind their popcorn buckets.
But despite the increase in bloody violence – and the deaths of several major characters – ‘Deathly Hallows Part 2’ has little of the picturesque doom and gloom that sank its glum, tent-bound predecessor. This is an action movie, plain and simple, and all the better for it: from the breathless opening heist on Gringott’s magical bank to the hair-raising battle of Hogwarts which occupies most of the second half, this is crammed to the rafters with sword-swinging, expletive-hurling, dragon-riding magical mayhem.
The opening act is patchy but enjoyable, as a confusing, backstory-heavy dialogue scene leads straight into the aforementioned bank raid, a spectacular but rather rushed set piece. There’s just enough room for the obligatory introduction of another superfluous supporting character – in this case, Dumbledore’s crotchety brother Aberforth – before Harry and chums break back into Hogwarts and the main narrative kicks in.
Everyone brings their A-game here, notably director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves, who balance the source novel’s head-spinning blend of action, emotion and narrative intrigue with absolute confidence: one lengthy flashback sequence midway through is arguably the dramatic high point of the entire series, and even the sugary sweet coda, so mawkish on the page, becomes a thing of quiet beauty. The SFX are phenomenal, bringing to the magical shenanigans a tactile solidity which has been missing in previous episodes, while Yates’s use of 3D is never intrusive, and occasionally breathtaking.
But, as with most of the Potter films, it’s the cast who really deliver: the young leads have never been better, and it’s great to see Yorkshire’s finest, Neville Longbottom (played by Matthew Lewis), relishing the chance to step out of his chums’ shadows. It’s the villains who stick in the memory, whether it’s Rickman’s wondrously tight-lipped turn as the doomed Professor Snape or Ralph Fiennes’s genuinely peculiar but utterly convincing take on evil incarnate.
‘Deathly Hallows Part 2’ is far from a perfect film – the central plot point, the revelation of Harry’s destiny, is badly fudged, and there are a few too many key questions left hanging. But while it’s unfolding, this is just terrific fun: eye-scorching, ear-battering, heart-pounding cinema of pure spectacle.
216. Dog Day Afternoon
At first sight, a film with large, self-conscious ambitions where a bank siege (the film is based on a real incident that occurred in the summer of '72) seems a metaphor for Attica and other scenes of American overkill and victimisation. But it turns into something smaller and less pretentious: a richly detailed, meandering portrait of an incompetent, anxiety-ridden, homosexual bank robber (played with ferocious and self-destructive energy by Pacino) who wants money to finance a sex-change operation for his lover. The film's strength lies in its depiction of surfaces, lacking the visual or intellectual imagination to go beyond its shrewd social and psychological observations and its moments of absurdist humour.
At first sight, a film with large, self-conscious ambitions where a bank siege (the film is based on a real incident that occurred in the summer of '72) seems a metaphor for Attica and other scenes of American overkill and victimisation. But it turns into something smaller and less pretentious: a richly detailed, meandering portrait of an incompetent, anxiety-ridden, homosexual bank robber (played with ferocious and self-destructive energy by Pacino) who wants money to finance a sex-change operation for his lover. The film's strength lies in its depiction of surfaces, lacking the visual or intellectual imagination to go beyond its shrewd social and psychological observations and its moments of absurdist humour.
217. The Big Sleep
‘Well, they asked me about it, and damn it, I didn’t know either…’ In the words of author Raymond Chandler, this is as close as we’ll ever get to figuring out just one of the many mysteries surrounding ‘The Big Sleep’,Howard Hawks’s iconic thriller, now reissued to tie in with a major retrospective of the American director’s work at BFI Southbank.
Chandler’s admission relates to the demise of chauffeur Owen Taylor, whose death behind the wheel of a sinking car is never satisfactorily addressed by the film’s script. But it could just as easily describe any of a hundred little inconsistencies, intricacies, enigmas and moments of sheer, unapologetic weirdness that pepper this most displaced and dreamlike of wartime crime stories. The plot is tangled to a ludicrous degree. There’s a twist every five minutes, a murder every ten and a new dazzling dame in just about every scene. Humphrey Bogart plays private dick Philip Marlowe, assigned by crumbling aristocrat General Sternwood (Charles Waldron) to investigate a blackmail scam involving his daughters – off-the-rails baby doll Carmen (Martha Vickers) and louche, lounge-singing ice maiden Vivian (Lauren Bacall). But from this relatively simple set-up, Chandler and Hawks (plus a screenwriting team that included William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett) spin a web of fiendish complexity populated by gangsters, gamblers, pornographers and kidnappers, not to mention the smart-talking, staggeringly beautiful women who lure them in, love them and leave them hanging.
The portrayal of his female characters points the way towards Hawks’s intentions with ‘The Big Sleep’. Aware that his narrative was endlessly complicated but essentially meaningless, he opted, like many of his contemporaries, to use the film to explore other ideas, like masculine wish-fulfilment, female sexuality, an audience’s fascination with violence: the very lifeblood of the Hollywood dream factory. In casting a shuffling bulldog like Bogie in the lead then making every woman in Los Angeles fall for him on sight, Hawks plays not just with our expectations of what a hero should be but with the entire idea of screen romance and
macho infallibility.
But the real strength of ‘The Big Sleep’ is its dialogue. From Marlowe’s first exchange with Carmen (‘You’re not very tall, are you?’, ‘Well, I try to be’) through the still shocking innuendo of the racing-related flirtation between the leads (‘a lot depends on who’s in the saddle’) to scene after scene of crackling, hard-boiled trash-talk (‘Get up, angel, you look like a Pekinese’), this is arguably the high-water mark of Hollywood’s love affair with the infinitely slippery possibilities of the English language.
It’s easy but perhaps misleading to describe ‘The Big Sleep’ as film noir – sure, the morals are skewed, the bullets plentiful and the femmes most definitely fatales, but Bogart’s Marlowe is a decent, unconflicted hero, and most of the film takes place not in the shadowy urban streets but in a series of well-lit, beautifully decorated rooms. However, this only makes the film feel more subversive, as though the seedy criminal underworld were spilling over into real life, bringing with it the grim but thrilling aura of sexual abandon and sudden death.
‘Well, they asked me about it, and damn it, I didn’t know either…’ In the words of author Raymond Chandler, this is as close as we’ll ever get to figuring out just one of the many mysteries surrounding ‘The Big Sleep’,Howard Hawks’s iconic thriller, now reissued to tie in with a major retrospective of the American director’s work at BFI Southbank.
Chandler’s admission relates to the demise of chauffeur Owen Taylor, whose death behind the wheel of a sinking car is never satisfactorily addressed by the film’s script. But it could just as easily describe any of a hundred little inconsistencies, intricacies, enigmas and moments of sheer, unapologetic weirdness that pepper this most displaced and dreamlike of wartime crime stories. The plot is tangled to a ludicrous degree. There’s a twist every five minutes, a murder every ten and a new dazzling dame in just about every scene. Humphrey Bogart plays private dick Philip Marlowe, assigned by crumbling aristocrat General Sternwood (Charles Waldron) to investigate a blackmail scam involving his daughters – off-the-rails baby doll Carmen (Martha Vickers) and louche, lounge-singing ice maiden Vivian (Lauren Bacall). But from this relatively simple set-up, Chandler and Hawks (plus a screenwriting team that included William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett) spin a web of fiendish complexity populated by gangsters, gamblers, pornographers and kidnappers, not to mention the smart-talking, staggeringly beautiful women who lure them in, love them and leave them hanging.
The portrayal of his female characters points the way towards Hawks’s intentions with ‘The Big Sleep’. Aware that his narrative was endlessly complicated but essentially meaningless, he opted, like many of his contemporaries, to use the film to explore other ideas, like masculine wish-fulfilment, female sexuality, an audience’s fascination with violence: the very lifeblood of the Hollywood dream factory. In casting a shuffling bulldog like Bogie in the lead then making every woman in Los Angeles fall for him on sight, Hawks plays not just with our expectations of what a hero should be but with the entire idea of screen romance and
macho infallibility.
But the real strength of ‘The Big Sleep’ is its dialogue. From Marlowe’s first exchange with Carmen (‘You’re not very tall, are you?’, ‘Well, I try to be’) through the still shocking innuendo of the racing-related flirtation between the leads (‘a lot depends on who’s in the saddle’) to scene after scene of crackling, hard-boiled trash-talk (‘Get up, angel, you look like a Pekinese’), this is arguably the high-water mark of Hollywood’s love affair with the infinitely slippery possibilities of the English language.
It’s easy but perhaps misleading to describe ‘The Big Sleep’ as film noir – sure, the morals are skewed, the bullets plentiful and the femmes most definitely fatales, but Bogart’s Marlowe is a decent, unconflicted hero, and most of the film takes place not in the shadowy urban streets but in a series of well-lit, beautifully decorated rooms. However, this only makes the film feel more subversive, as though the seedy criminal underworld were spilling over into real life, bringing with it the grim but thrilling aura of sexual abandon and sudden death.
218. La Haine
Twenty-four hours in the Paris projects: an Arab boy is critically wounded in hospital, gut-shot, and a police revolver has found its way into the hands of a young Jewish skinhead, Vinz (Cassel), who vows to even the score if his pal dies. Vinz hangs out with Hubert (Koundé) and Saïd (Taghmaoui). They razz each other about films, cartoons, nothing in particular, but always the gun hovers over them like a death sentence, the black-and-white focal point for all the hatred they meet with, and all they can give back. Kassovitz has made only one film before (the droll race-comedy Métisse), but La Haine puts him right at the front of the field: this is virtuoso, on-the-edge stuff, as exciting as anything we've seen from the States in ages, and more thoroughly engaged with the reality it describes. He combats the inertia and boredom of his frustrated antagonists with a thrusting, jiving camera style which harries and punctuates their rambling, often very funny dialogue. The politics of the piece are confrontational, to say the least, but there is a maturity and depth to the characterisation which goes beyond mere agitprop: society may be on the point of self-combustion, but this film betrays no appetite for the explosion. A vital, scalding piece of work.
Twenty-four hours in the Paris projects: an Arab boy is critically wounded in hospital, gut-shot, and a police revolver has found its way into the hands of a young Jewish skinhead, Vinz (Cassel), who vows to even the score if his pal dies. Vinz hangs out with Hubert (Koundé) and Saïd (Taghmaoui). They razz each other about films, cartoons, nothing in particular, but always the gun hovers over them like a death sentence, the black-and-white focal point for all the hatred they meet with, and all they can give back. Kassovitz has made only one film before (the droll race-comedy Métisse), but La Haine puts him right at the front of the field: this is virtuoso, on-the-edge stuff, as exciting as anything we've seen from the States in ages, and more thoroughly engaged with the reality it describes. He combats the inertia and boredom of his frustrated antagonists with a thrusting, jiving camera style which harries and punctuates their rambling, often very funny dialogue. The politics of the piece are confrontational, to say the least, but there is a maturity and depth to the characterisation which goes beyond mere agitprop: society may be on the point of self-combustion, but this film betrays no appetite for the explosion. A vital, scalding piece of work.
219. The Battle of Algiers
Gillo Pontecorvo’s stirring anatomy of an urban uprising – the violent nationalist revolt in Algiers in 1956 and 1957 – feels strikingly relevant today. It shows the real consequences of defying popular will with institutional aggression and military force, and of course there are those chilling scenes in which Algerian women, dressed as Europeans, plant four simultaneous bombs in busy public spaces… The film arose directly out of the liberation movement it depicts: post-independence in 1962, former rebel Saadi Yacef was released from jail and, with the support of the new government, he invited the Italian filmmaker to dramatise his memoirs. The results are so fine – so modern – that I can’t think of a better film born of a political struggle, or at least one that moulds political commentary with drama so effectively. The tone is mournful, the approach journalistic and the aesthetic direct as Pontecorvo reconstructs events on a grand scale on location in Algiers while never losing the intimacy of an Algerian woman quietly crying or a French couple walking past a checkpoint with the words ‘It’s nothing we need to worry about.’ Superb and unrivalled.
Gillo Pontecorvo’s stirring anatomy of an urban uprising – the violent nationalist revolt in Algiers in 1956 and 1957 – feels strikingly relevant today. It shows the real consequences of defying popular will with institutional aggression and military force, and of course there are those chilling scenes in which Algerian women, dressed as Europeans, plant four simultaneous bombs in busy public spaces… The film arose directly out of the liberation movement it depicts: post-independence in 1962, former rebel Saadi Yacef was released from jail and, with the support of the new government, he invited the Italian filmmaker to dramatise his memoirs. The results are so fine – so modern – that I can’t think of a better film born of a political struggle, or at least one that moulds political commentary with drama so effectively. The tone is mournful, the approach journalistic and the aesthetic direct as Pontecorvo reconstructs events on a grand scale on location in Algiers while never losing the intimacy of an Algerian woman quietly crying or a French couple walking past a checkpoint with the words ‘It’s nothing we need to worry about.’ Superb and unrivalled.
The Lego Movie
With one obvious exception, toy stories do not have the luckiest big-screen pedigree: the results are often either sugary cartoons for undemanding kids or noisy blockbusters for brain-dead teens. If the producers of ‘The LEGO Movie’ had taken either approach, there would have been an outcry: these lifeless plastic bricks are too beloved, too iconic to be subjected to the Hollywood sausage-factory treatment. Luckily for all, someone had the foresight to bring in ‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’ writer-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and the result is bold, berserk and strangely beautiful, exuding LEGO-love from every frame.
Our everyman hero Emmet (Chris Pratt) is the happiest guy in Bricksville: he’s gainfully employed as a construction worker (what else?), he adores his co-workers and he knows that the mighty President Business (Will Ferrell) has his best interests at heart. So when he’s thrown into an epic conflict between Business’s robot clones and the forces of creativity and invention (led, of course, by Batman and Abraham Lincoln), all Emmet wants is to get back to normality.
Occasional pacing issues aside, ‘The LEGO Movie’ is sheer joy: the script is witty, the satire surprisingly pointed and the animation tactile and imaginative. Expect controversy over the climax, though. The film plunges deep into waters left uncharted since the mid-’80s, leading to a strange, deeply sentimental but oddly touching climax that manages to say more about its source ‘material’ than any toy movie to date. Barmy, perhaps, but often brilliant.
With one obvious exception, toy stories do not have the luckiest big-screen pedigree: the results are often either sugary cartoons for undemanding kids or noisy blockbusters for brain-dead teens. If the producers of ‘The LEGO Movie’ had taken either approach, there would have been an outcry: these lifeless plastic bricks are too beloved, too iconic to be subjected to the Hollywood sausage-factory treatment. Luckily for all, someone had the foresight to bring in ‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’ writer-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and the result is bold, berserk and strangely beautiful, exuding LEGO-love from every frame.
Our everyman hero Emmet (Chris Pratt) is the happiest guy in Bricksville: he’s gainfully employed as a construction worker (what else?), he adores his co-workers and he knows that the mighty President Business (Will Ferrell) has his best interests at heart. So when he’s thrown into an epic conflict between Business’s robot clones and the forces of creativity and invention (led, of course, by Batman and Abraham Lincoln), all Emmet wants is to get back to normality.
Occasional pacing issues aside, ‘The LEGO Movie’ is sheer joy: the script is witty, the satire surprisingly pointed and the animation tactile and imaginative. Expect controversy over the climax, though. The film plunges deep into waters left uncharted since the mid-’80s, leading to a strange, deeply sentimental but oddly touching climax that manages to say more about its source ‘material’ than any toy movie to date. Barmy, perhaps, but often brilliant.
221. Shutter Island
Kitsch is most enjoyable when it doesn’t know it’s kitsch. Everyone involved in ‘Shutter Island’ – most obviously director Martin Scorseseand star Leonardo DiCaprio – seem to be taking this berserk, meandering story absolutely seriously, which only serves to make an already fun psychological thriller all the more ludicrous and entertaining.
The film is set in 1954. DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels, a US marshal dispatched to the titular oceanbound asylum to investigate the disappearance of a criminally insane inmate from her locked cell. He soon begins to suspect that this remote facility isn’t all it appears – is Ben Kingsley’s avuncular psychiatrist really as kindly and welfare-conscious as he seems? Why are the guards so heavily armed? And what’s with the mysterious lighthouse that all the patients seem so terrified of? To make matters worse there’s a hurricane coming in, the generators are on the blink and Teddy’s new partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) is starting to look decidedly shifty. ‘Taxi Driver’ this ain’t.
Actually, the Scorsese movie it most resembles is his previous exercise in Hitchcockian overkill, 1991’s ‘Cape Fear’. With DiCaprio rather limp and forgettable in the lead, ‘Shutter Island’ lacks the centrifugal might of De Niro’s powerhouse central performance in the earlier film. But it compensates with pure visual, aural and narrative excess: this is modern gothic taken to its (il)logical extreme, a work of pure operatic delirium. The closest ‘Shutter Island’ gets to a commanding, De Niro-like presence might be its perverse, overbearing soundtrack, a selection of the most doom-laden pieces by modern composers ranging from Kryzstof Penderecki to Max Richter. Every twist in the tale is accompanied by a frenzied flurry of violins, every moment of violence underscored by a pounding, atonal piano crescendo.
While the narrative, adapted from Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel, is hopelessly convoluted, the film is held together by the sheer bludgeoning force of Scorsese’s directorial vision. Never one to shy away from visual overindulgence, Scorsese has used ‘Shutter Island’ as an excuse to really throw open his box of tricks, chucking in gaudy but strikingly beautiful dream sequences, harrowing (if rather tasteless) concentration camp flashbacks and the most thunderous, howling rainstorms this side of ‘Suspiria’.
In fact, Argento’s film, a similarly monumental and manic triumph of style over substance, may be the most appropriate comparison here. And while Scorsese may lack the giallo master’s manic invention, the tension between his natural tendency towards old-fashioned Hollywood classicism and his evident desire to cut loose gives the film its strange, irrestistible power. As senseless, perverse and unwieldy as it undoubtedly is, ‘Shutter Island’ might be Scorsese’s most enjoyable film in a decade.
Kitsch is most enjoyable when it doesn’t know it’s kitsch. Everyone involved in ‘Shutter Island’ – most obviously director Martin Scorseseand star Leonardo DiCaprio – seem to be taking this berserk, meandering story absolutely seriously, which only serves to make an already fun psychological thriller all the more ludicrous and entertaining.
The film is set in 1954. DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels, a US marshal dispatched to the titular oceanbound asylum to investigate the disappearance of a criminally insane inmate from her locked cell. He soon begins to suspect that this remote facility isn’t all it appears – is Ben Kingsley’s avuncular psychiatrist really as kindly and welfare-conscious as he seems? Why are the guards so heavily armed? And what’s with the mysterious lighthouse that all the patients seem so terrified of? To make matters worse there’s a hurricane coming in, the generators are on the blink and Teddy’s new partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) is starting to look decidedly shifty. ‘Taxi Driver’ this ain’t.
Actually, the Scorsese movie it most resembles is his previous exercise in Hitchcockian overkill, 1991’s ‘Cape Fear’. With DiCaprio rather limp and forgettable in the lead, ‘Shutter Island’ lacks the centrifugal might of De Niro’s powerhouse central performance in the earlier film. But it compensates with pure visual, aural and narrative excess: this is modern gothic taken to its (il)logical extreme, a work of pure operatic delirium. The closest ‘Shutter Island’ gets to a commanding, De Niro-like presence might be its perverse, overbearing soundtrack, a selection of the most doom-laden pieces by modern composers ranging from Kryzstof Penderecki to Max Richter. Every twist in the tale is accompanied by a frenzied flurry of violins, every moment of violence underscored by a pounding, atonal piano crescendo.
While the narrative, adapted from Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel, is hopelessly convoluted, the film is held together by the sheer bludgeoning force of Scorsese’s directorial vision. Never one to shy away from visual overindulgence, Scorsese has used ‘Shutter Island’ as an excuse to really throw open his box of tricks, chucking in gaudy but strikingly beautiful dream sequences, harrowing (if rather tasteless) concentration camp flashbacks and the most thunderous, howling rainstorms this side of ‘Suspiria’.
In fact, Argento’s film, a similarly monumental and manic triumph of style over substance, may be the most appropriate comparison here. And while Scorsese may lack the giallo master’s manic invention, the tension between his natural tendency towards old-fashioned Hollywood classicism and his evident desire to cut loose gives the film its strange, irrestistible power. As senseless, perverse and unwieldy as it undoubtedly is, ‘Shutter Island’ might be Scorsese’s most enjoyable film in a decade.
222. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
He first leapt to stardom as teenybopper catnip on the US television series 21 Jump Street, but Johnny Depp has since mapped out one of the most idiosyncratic résumés of moviedom's A-list, channeling his charisma - or bravely burying it altogether - in audaciously stylised performances for Tim Burton, Jim Jarmusch and fellow expat Terry Gilliam. So fans may blanch when Jerry Bruckheimer takes a break from producing ads for the Pentagon to produce one for Disneyland and signs Depp as lead pitchman. And, egad, it's a pirate flick - a genre as doomed as the titular Black Pearl or Gilliam's quest to adapt Don Quixote. Yet our Depp invests this overfed, action-tractioned swashbuckler with a voluptuous wit and spry spontaneity it surely doesn't deserve. Resplendent in beaded dreadlocks and kohl, he plays Captain Jack Sparrow as a purring East End dandy. The plot? Jack forges an uneasy alliance with an earnest blacksmith (Bloom) to thwart a gang of hexed buccaneers headed by nefarious Barbossa (Rush), who've kidnapped a fair maiden (Knightley) in a bid to lift an Aztec curse. The plodding procession of CGI-aided fight sequences leaves less and less room for Depp to wriggle, but when the actor's on screen he singlehandedly makes the film not only bearable but - dare we say it? - recommendable.
He first leapt to stardom as teenybopper catnip on the US television series 21 Jump Street, but Johnny Depp has since mapped out one of the most idiosyncratic résumés of moviedom's A-list, channeling his charisma - or bravely burying it altogether - in audaciously stylised performances for Tim Burton, Jim Jarmusch and fellow expat Terry Gilliam. So fans may blanch when Jerry Bruckheimer takes a break from producing ads for the Pentagon to produce one for Disneyland and signs Depp as lead pitchman. And, egad, it's a pirate flick - a genre as doomed as the titular Black Pearl or Gilliam's quest to adapt Don Quixote. Yet our Depp invests this overfed, action-tractioned swashbuckler with a voluptuous wit and spry spontaneity it surely doesn't deserve. Resplendent in beaded dreadlocks and kohl, he plays Captain Jack Sparrow as a purring East End dandy. The plot? Jack forges an uneasy alliance with an earnest blacksmith (Bloom) to thwart a gang of hexed buccaneers headed by nefarious Barbossa (Rush), who've kidnapped a fair maiden (Knightley) in a bid to lift an Aztec curse. The plodding procession of CGI-aided fight sequences leaves less and less room for Depp to wriggle, but when the actor's on screen he singlehandedly makes the film not only bearable but - dare we say it? - recommendable.
223. Barry Lyndon
This often breathtaking exploration of the world of Thackeray’s titular eighteenth-century Irish adventurer – showing at the centre of the BFI Southbank’s unmissable two-month Stanley Kubrick season – is the nearest the great director ever came to realising his uppermost ambition, to film a life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Thus all the grand armies, dashing uniforms and suffusion of gunsmoke (here pertaining to the pre-Bonaparte Seven Years’ War). Another kind of smoke pervades the series of lowly Irish farmsteads, elegant brothels and imposing country houses through which the film’s antihero, Redmond Barry (played by then fashionable, fresh-faced hot property Ryan O’Neal), fights, duels, gambles and seduces his way to success and back again – that of a million candles, the natural source of illumination that Kubrick insisted on using, to the astonishment of cinematographer John Alcott, to render authentic interiors.
Despite that, much of the atmosphere, decor, mannerisms and performances are fake (not least the ridiculous turns by Murray Melvin, Leonard Rossiter and the insipid Marisa Berenson) – not that it matters much. It’s not only the beautifully intoned third-person narration (by Michael Horden), the consummate mise-en-scène and stunning photography but the iron-strong confidence of direction that help transform Thackeray’s lively picaresque tale into one of cinema’s most heartfelt and sustained (it runs over three hours), if cynical, visions of an individual’s powerlessness when confronted with the impersonal, mangling machinery of power and fate. What a magnificent, mesmeric slow dance it is, not merely of death but of an ambitious man’s inexorable decline.
This often breathtaking exploration of the world of Thackeray’s titular eighteenth-century Irish adventurer – showing at the centre of the BFI Southbank’s unmissable two-month Stanley Kubrick season – is the nearest the great director ever came to realising his uppermost ambition, to film a life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Thus all the grand armies, dashing uniforms and suffusion of gunsmoke (here pertaining to the pre-Bonaparte Seven Years’ War). Another kind of smoke pervades the series of lowly Irish farmsteads, elegant brothels and imposing country houses through which the film’s antihero, Redmond Barry (played by then fashionable, fresh-faced hot property Ryan O’Neal), fights, duels, gambles and seduces his way to success and back again – that of a million candles, the natural source of illumination that Kubrick insisted on using, to the astonishment of cinematographer John Alcott, to render authentic interiors.
Despite that, much of the atmosphere, decor, mannerisms and performances are fake (not least the ridiculous turns by Murray Melvin, Leonard Rossiter and the insipid Marisa Berenson) – not that it matters much. It’s not only the beautifully intoned third-person narration (by Michael Horden), the consummate mise-en-scène and stunning photography but the iron-strong confidence of direction that help transform Thackeray’s lively picaresque tale into one of cinema’s most heartfelt and sustained (it runs over three hours), if cynical, visions of an individual’s powerlessness when confronted with the impersonal, mangling machinery of power and fate. What a magnificent, mesmeric slow dance it is, not merely of death but of an ambitious man’s inexorable decline.
224. Before Sunrise
Céline (Delpy), an easy-going Parisian, is on her way back from Budapest to study at the Sorbonne; Jesse (Hawke), a young American, is at the end of a Eurorail tour. They meet on a train just outside Vienna; by the time they reach the station, they've hit it off well enough for Jesse to propose that Céline spend the next 14 hours wandering the city with him, until his flight leaves for the States. Intrigued, she accepts. So begins an unexpected adventure of the heart. What's magical about Linklater's entrancing movie is the way he and his actors manage to convey the emotional truths that underlie all the talk as the potential lovers test each other's opinions and commitment. Funny, poignant and perceptive, this is a brilliant gem.
Céline (Delpy), an easy-going Parisian, is on her way back from Budapest to study at the Sorbonne; Jesse (Hawke), a young American, is at the end of a Eurorail tour. They meet on a train just outside Vienna; by the time they reach the station, they've hit it off well enough for Jesse to propose that Céline spend the next 14 hours wandering the city with him, until his flight leaves for the States. Intrigued, she accepts. So begins an unexpected adventure of the heart. What's magical about Linklater's entrancing movie is the way he and his actors manage to convey the emotional truths that underlie all the talk as the potential lovers test each other's opinions and commitment. Funny, poignant and perceptive, this is a brilliant gem.
225. Monsters, Inc.
Pixar's computer-animated rumpus comes to you from Monstropolis, a pastel-coloured parallel world populated by largely peaceable beasts. Sure, some do victimise small children, but purely in a professional capacity: they're the scarers employed by Monsters Inc, the city's scream-fuelled power-generating corporation, to prospect kids' bedrooms and harvest their most piercing shrieks.
Take James P Sullivan (voice: Goodman), a horned, shaggy-haired colossus, and the company's star scarer: off-duty you couldn't find a more genial creature, except perhaps for his assistant Mike Wazowski (Crystal), a green walking eyeball who's a hit with all the chicks. Life's smooth scaring, until the unthinkable happens: a small girl called Boo crosses the threshold into Monstropolis. It's common knowledge those things are toxic. A raucous underworld escapade, this is as vibrant and colourful as Orphean comedies come.
It's unfailingly lively entertainment that doesn't stint on (earned) feeling. Ideas about fear of the unknown, industrial corruption, and the splendours of polymorphity are all taken in stride. The balance tilts towards action and gags, and does them gloriously.
Pixar's computer-animated rumpus comes to you from Monstropolis, a pastel-coloured parallel world populated by largely peaceable beasts. Sure, some do victimise small children, but purely in a professional capacity: they're the scarers employed by Monsters Inc, the city's scream-fuelled power-generating corporation, to prospect kids' bedrooms and harvest their most piercing shrieks.
Take James P Sullivan (voice: Goodman), a horned, shaggy-haired colossus, and the company's star scarer: off-duty you couldn't find a more genial creature, except perhaps for his assistant Mike Wazowski (Crystal), a green walking eyeball who's a hit with all the chicks. Life's smooth scaring, until the unthinkable happens: a small girl called Boo crosses the threshold into Monstropolis. It's common knowledge those things are toxic. A raucous underworld escapade, this is as vibrant and colourful as Orphean comedies come.
It's unfailingly lively entertainment that doesn't stint on (earned) feeling. Ideas about fear of the unknown, industrial corruption, and the splendours of polymorphity are all taken in stride. The balance tilts towards action and gags, and does them gloriously.
226. The Graduate
Modish, calculated, but hugely popular film which, with the help of an irrelevant but diverting Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack, proved one of the biggest hits of the '60s. Hoffman, looking for the most part like a startled rabbit, got caught between the rapacious Mrs Robinson and her daughter, and suggested a vulnerability that was sufficiently novel to turn him into as big a movie star as all the he-men like McQueen and Newman. The film itself is very broken-backed, partly because Anne Bancroft's performance as the mother carries so much more weight than Katharine Ross' as the daughter, partly because Nichols couldn't decide whether he was making a social satire or a farce. As a comment on sex in the West Coast stockbroker belt, the film falls a long way short of Clint Eastwood's later Breezy, which makes much more of a lot less promising material.
Modish, calculated, but hugely popular film which, with the help of an irrelevant but diverting Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack, proved one of the biggest hits of the '60s. Hoffman, looking for the most part like a startled rabbit, got caught between the rapacious Mrs Robinson and her daughter, and suggested a vulnerability that was sufficiently novel to turn him into as big a movie star as all the he-men like McQueen and Newman. The film itself is very broken-backed, partly because Anne Bancroft's performance as the mother carries so much more weight than Katharine Ross' as the daughter, partly because Nichols couldn't decide whether he was making a social satire or a farce. As a comment on sex in the West Coast stockbroker belt, the film falls a long way short of Clint Eastwood's later Breezy, which makes much more of a lot less promising material.
227. The Celebration
Stage to screen transfer of the David Storey play directed at the Royal Court by Lindsay Anderson in 1969, with the cast remaining the same. Not strictly autobiographical, but rooted in the playwright's Nottinghamshire mining background, In Celebration is set in the family home on the night three grown-up sons return somewhat reluctantly to celebrate their parents' 40th wedding anniversary. Anderson has said, 'The stage gives the audience a broader aspect of a scene than film, and therefore the rehearsals were perhaps more valid for me than for the actors.' The play was re-rehearsed for three weeks before shooting, and location scenes were filmed in the colliery town, but it still emerges as an awkward compromise between the two forms, though Bates is splendid as Andrew, the failed painter.
Stage to screen transfer of the David Storey play directed at the Royal Court by Lindsay Anderson in 1969, with the cast remaining the same. Not strictly autobiographical, but rooted in the playwright's Nottinghamshire mining background, In Celebration is set in the family home on the night three grown-up sons return somewhat reluctantly to celebrate their parents' 40th wedding anniversary. Anderson has said, 'The stage gives the audience a broader aspect of a scene than film, and therefore the rehearsals were perhaps more valid for me than for the actors.' The play was re-rehearsed for three weeks before shooting, and location scenes were filmed in the colliery town, but it still emerges as an awkward compromise between the two forms, though Bates is splendid as Andrew, the failed painter.
228. The Hustler
Newman is Fast Eddie, doing his best to convince the world that he can take on Minnesota Fats (Gleason) at pool and walk away with the world title. As always with Walter Tevis (the author of the original book), it takes defeat, and a longish dark night of the soul with Laurie, a drunken, lame waif of a woman, before he can summon the self-respect to return to battle. Rossen allows much space to the essentially concentrated, enclosed scenes of the film, and so it rests solidly on its performances. A wonderful hymn to the last true era when men of substance played pool with a vengeance.
Newman is Fast Eddie, doing his best to convince the world that he can take on Minnesota Fats (Gleason) at pool and walk away with the world title. As always with Walter Tevis (the author of the original book), it takes defeat, and a longish dark night of the soul with Laurie, a drunken, lame waif of a woman, before he can summon the self-respect to return to battle. Rossen allows much space to the essentially concentrated, enclosed scenes of the film, and so it rests solidly on its performances. A wonderful hymn to the last true era when men of substance played pool with a vengeance.
229. Castle in the Sky (Tenku No Shiro Laputa)
A young boy stumbles into a mysterious girl who floats down from the sky. The girl, Sheeta, was chased by pirates, army and government secret agents. In saving her life, they begin a high flying adventure that goes through all sorts of flying machines, eventually searching for Sheeta's identity in a floating castle of a lost civilization.
A young boy stumbles into a mysterious girl who floats down from the sky. The girl, Sheeta, was chased by pirates, army and government secret agents. In saving her life, they begin a high flying adventure that goes through all sorts of flying machines, eventually searching for Sheeta's identity in a floating castle of a lost civilization.
230. Memories of Murder
A huge critical and commercial success in Korea, Bong's film fictionalises the search for the country's first recorded serial killer. (The actual crimes - rapes and murders - began in Gyeongi Province, outside Seoul, in 1986 and continued for some five years; the perpetrator was never caught.) The film centres on the efforts of the local cops and an officer from Seoul to sift evidence, identify patterns, follow up leads and interrogate suspects; there are several false leads before a woman cop notices a correlation between the attacks and requests for a particular song on the radio. Much of the plentiful gallows humour springs from the clashes between the poorly educated and trained local force and the more sophisticated urban detective, but nothing works out predictably. All of the characters, including the prime suspect, are victims of the Korea of the 1980s: living under dictatorial military government and inured by a Cold War mentality to acts of violence and brutality. Bong brilliantly spreads the blame by using multiple points of view for his mise-en-scène, and gets tremendous performances from his stars and supporting cast alike.
A huge critical and commercial success in Korea, Bong's film fictionalises the search for the country's first recorded serial killer. (The actual crimes - rapes and murders - began in Gyeongi Province, outside Seoul, in 1986 and continued for some five years; the perpetrator was never caught.) The film centres on the efforts of the local cops and an officer from Seoul to sift evidence, identify patterns, follow up leads and interrogate suspects; there are several false leads before a woman cop notices a correlation between the attacks and requests for a particular song on the radio. Much of the plentiful gallows humour springs from the clashes between the poorly educated and trained local force and the more sophisticated urban detective, but nothing works out predictably. All of the characters, including the prime suspect, are victims of the Korea of the 1980s: living under dictatorial military government and inured by a Cold War mentality to acts of violence and brutality. Bong brilliantly spreads the blame by using multiple points of view for his mise-en-scène, and gets tremendous performances from his stars and supporting cast alike.
231. Roman Holiday
This near-perfect romcom gave an unknown actress called Audrey Hepburn her ‘hello world’ moment in 1953 – making her an overnight star at 24. Hepburn sparkles as Princess Ann, an elfin European aristo bored to tears of ambassador’s receptions and majors with walrus moustaches. One night, during a state visit to Rome, she slips out of the palace to slum it with commoners – and falls into the clutches of an American reporter, Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck). ‘Is this the elevator?’she asks sweetly, stepping into his tiny flat. Joe can’t believe his luck: here’s the scoop of the century. Of course, the runaway princess and the hack fall in love. But this is a fairytale with a bittersweet ending. In a packed press conference filled with reporters, the lovers end the affair with a few tender, coded words (you can bet Richard Curtis watched this before he wrote ‘Notting Hill’). Forget ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, this is the real deal.
This near-perfect romcom gave an unknown actress called Audrey Hepburn her ‘hello world’ moment in 1953 – making her an overnight star at 24. Hepburn sparkles as Princess Ann, an elfin European aristo bored to tears of ambassador’s receptions and majors with walrus moustaches. One night, during a state visit to Rome, she slips out of the palace to slum it with commoners – and falls into the clutches of an American reporter, Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck). ‘Is this the elevator?’she asks sweetly, stepping into his tiny flat. Joe can’t believe his luck: here’s the scoop of the century. Of course, the runaway princess and the hack fall in love. But this is a fairytale with a bittersweet ending. In a packed press conference filled with reporters, the lovers end the affair with a few tender, coded words (you can bet Richard Curtis watched this before he wrote ‘Notting Hill’). Forget ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, this is the real deal.
232. A Fistful of Dollars
Though far less operatic and satisfying than Leone's later work, his first spaghetti Western with Eastwood still looks stylish, if a little rough at the edges. Based on Kurosawa's Yojimbo, it set a fashion in surly, laconic, supercool heroes with Eastwood's amoral gunslinger, who plays off two gangs against one another in a deadly feud. All the classic Leone ingredients were there - the atonal score, the graphic violence, the horrendous dubbing - and the film's Stateside success changed the face of a genre.
Though far less operatic and satisfying than Leone's later work, his first spaghetti Western with Eastwood still looks stylish, if a little rough at the edges. Based on Kurosawa's Yojimbo, it set a fashion in surly, laconic, supercool heroes with Eastwood's amoral gunslinger, who plays off two gangs against one another in a deadly feud. All the classic Leone ingredients were there - the atonal score, the graphic violence, the horrendous dubbing - and the film's Stateside success changed the face of a genre.
233. A Christmas Story
Surely everyone remembers how they felt, at primary school, when a literary masterpiece came back marked with a mere C+? This and many other such crimes perpetrated by the adult world on the inhabitants of kid-dom are exposed in this nostalgic mock-epic tale of young Ralphie's quest to ensure that presents assembled under the tree on Christmas morning include a much-coveted BB air-rifle. Delightfully entertaining, with a wryly amusing narration to keep the adults in the audience smirking.
Surely everyone remembers how they felt, at primary school, when a literary masterpiece came back marked with a mere C+? This and many other such crimes perpetrated by the adult world on the inhabitants of kid-dom are exposed in this nostalgic mock-epic tale of young Ralphie's quest to ensure that presents assembled under the tree on Christmas morning include a much-coveted BB air-rifle. Delightfully entertaining, with a wryly amusing narration to keep the adults in the audience smirking.
234. In the Mood for Love
Wong's paean to the agony'n ecstasy of buttoned-up emotions is a kind-of sequel to Days of Being Wild, shaped and scored as a valse triste. In Hong Kong, 1962, Mr Chow (Leung) and Mrs Chan (Cheung) are neighbours who discover that their spouses are having an affair. He finds excuses to spend time with her, apparently intending to jilt her. Then they fall in love, but (aside from one reckless moment in a hotel) repress their feelings. He runs away to work as a journalist in Singapore; in 1966, covering De Gaulle's state visit to Cambodia, he's in Angkor Wat trying to unburden himself of the secret which overwhelms his life... Every charged frame of the film pulses with the central contradiction between repression and emotional abandon; the formalism and sensuality are inextricable. Career-best performances from both leads, Leung having a Cannes 'Best Actor' prize to show for his.
Wong's paean to the agony'n ecstasy of buttoned-up emotions is a kind-of sequel to Days of Being Wild, shaped and scored as a valse triste. In Hong Kong, 1962, Mr Chow (Leung) and Mrs Chan (Cheung) are neighbours who discover that their spouses are having an affair. He finds excuses to spend time with her, apparently intending to jilt her. Then they fall in love, but (aside from one reckless moment in a hotel) repress their feelings. He runs away to work as a journalist in Singapore; in 1966, covering De Gaulle's state visit to Cambodia, he's in Angkor Wat trying to unburden himself of the secret which overwhelms his life... Every charged frame of the film pulses with the central contradiction between repression and emotional abandon; the formalism and sensuality are inextricable. Career-best performances from both leads, Leung having a Cannes 'Best Actor' prize to show for his.
235. The Help
This is as brazen an Oscar-baiter as we’re likely to see this year: adapted from Kathryn Stockett’s bestseller about a group of black maids in early 1960s Mississippi publishing a collective memoir. I’m sold. Yes, it gets a bit sentimental. Yes, some ‘Ya-Ya Sisterhood’ friendship clichés creep in. Yes, it glosses history. But it’s also heartfelt, hilarious and the cast is a dream-team topped by Viola Davis. What’s more, it hinges on a gross-out scene that wouldn’t look out of place in a John Waters film.
Emma Stone plays a white college graduate, Skeeter, who persuades her best friend’s black maid, Aibileen (Davis), to write about working for white families. Nowhere is the vile hypocrisy of ‘separate but equal’ more apparent than in the maid-employer relationship. White employers won’t even touch their maids, yet these women are raising their kids, drying tears and kissing scraped knees. Davis deserves the nominations that are surely coming her way; she’s deeply moving as Aibileen, who has brought up 17 white children and whose own son died in an accident. Octavia Spencer (pictured, right) is hilarious as her best friend Minny – and there are good comic turns from Sissy Spacek and Jessica Chastain.
This is the same era as ‘Mad Men’, but Mississippi is a long way from New York. And Skeeter’s friends – the maids’ employers – make Betty Draper look like a radical feminist. The meanest of the mean girls is Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard, acidly amusing), who sacks a maid for using her toilet, prompting that revoltingly funny gag.
This is as brazen an Oscar-baiter as we’re likely to see this year: adapted from Kathryn Stockett’s bestseller about a group of black maids in early 1960s Mississippi publishing a collective memoir. I’m sold. Yes, it gets a bit sentimental. Yes, some ‘Ya-Ya Sisterhood’ friendship clichés creep in. Yes, it glosses history. But it’s also heartfelt, hilarious and the cast is a dream-team topped by Viola Davis. What’s more, it hinges on a gross-out scene that wouldn’t look out of place in a John Waters film.
Emma Stone plays a white college graduate, Skeeter, who persuades her best friend’s black maid, Aibileen (Davis), to write about working for white families. Nowhere is the vile hypocrisy of ‘separate but equal’ more apparent than in the maid-employer relationship. White employers won’t even touch their maids, yet these women are raising their kids, drying tears and kissing scraped knees. Davis deserves the nominations that are surely coming her way; she’s deeply moving as Aibileen, who has brought up 17 white children and whose own son died in an accident. Octavia Spencer (pictured, right) is hilarious as her best friend Minny – and there are good comic turns from Sissy Spacek and Jessica Chastain.
This is the same era as ‘Mad Men’, but Mississippi is a long way from New York. And Skeeter’s friends – the maids’ employers – make Betty Draper look like a radical feminist. The meanest of the mean girls is Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard, acidly amusing), who sacks a maid for using her toilet, prompting that revoltingly funny gag.
236. Stalag 17
Wilder's PoW movie is a mass of contradictions, perhaps explained by the fact that it was based on a successful Broadway play which partly resisted his characteristic attempt to have his black squalor and eat his airy comedy. On the one hand, uproariously and buffoonishly funny, it can be seen simply as the natural sire of such TV sitcoms as Hogan's Heroes and Sergeant Bilko. On the other, anticipating King Rat through the character of the cynical PoW capitalist played by Holden, it satirically notes that the free enterprise ethic, extended into PoW circumstances, can no longer command Horatio Alger approval; and goes on from there to ask what price democracy when a traitor is suspected, and the PoWs gang up like Fascists to assign arbitrary blame and punishment. The problem is that the two moods aren't properly cross-fertilised, with the resolute bleakness of the settings and Wilder's direction positing a reality that is constantly undercut by the comic opera crew of Germans headed by Preminger. A fascinating film, nevertheless.
Wilder's PoW movie is a mass of contradictions, perhaps explained by the fact that it was based on a successful Broadway play which partly resisted his characteristic attempt to have his black squalor and eat his airy comedy. On the one hand, uproariously and buffoonishly funny, it can be seen simply as the natural sire of such TV sitcoms as Hogan's Heroes and Sergeant Bilko. On the other, anticipating King Rat through the character of the cynical PoW capitalist played by Holden, it satirically notes that the free enterprise ethic, extended into PoW circumstances, can no longer command Horatio Alger approval; and goes on from there to ask what price democracy when a traitor is suspected, and the PoWs gang up like Fascists to assign arbitrary blame and punishment. The problem is that the two moods aren't properly cross-fertilised, with the resolute bleakness of the settings and Wilder's direction positing a reality that is constantly undercut by the comic opera crew of Germans headed by Preminger. A fascinating film, nevertheless.
237. Slumdog Millionaire
Danny Boyle’s ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is a film so upbeat and colourful that, by the time you’re relaying its infectious air of optimism to friends, you could forget that it features orphans, slaughter, organised crime, poverty, enslavement and police brutality in its crowd-pleasing repertoire of suffering and renewal. Hell, it even ends with a get-up-and-dance Bollywood number on the platform of Mumbai’s Victoria Terminus.Shot entirely in India and largely on location, the fabric of the film is winningly realistic. But the story is pure fantasy inspired partly by co-producer Celador’s desire to enshrine its winning creation, the game show ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ in a movie.
Still, Boyle succeeds in leaving these creepy beginnings behind to create a film that’s full of warmth and humanity and forever looks on the bright side of tragedy. The script is a simple conceit: writer Simon Beaufoy (‘The Full Monty’) has ripped up Vikas Swarup’s novel ‘Q&A’ and turned it into a rags-to-riches yarn about Jamal (Dev Patel), a young, slum-born adult in Mumbai who gives such a cracking performance on ‘…Millionaire’, that he’s only one question shy of the 20-million-rupee jackpot. Such unlikely success inspires envy on the part of the show’s creepy host (Anil Kapoor), who invites the police to arrest, question and torture him. This interrogation offers flashbacks of episodes in Jamal’s life that reveal the extraordinary sources of his knowledge and lend Boyle the handy framework of a child becoming an adult against all the odds in an India that’s changing by the hour but still dangerous for any kid on the loose.
Of all Boyle’s mixed work, from the promise of ‘Shallow Grave’ to the embarrassment of ‘Millions’ and the recent experiment of ‘Sunshine’, his new film probably best resembles ‘Trainspotting’: where in that film he found energy, humour and bonhomie in the stupor of heroin addiction, here he takes the impoverished life of a young Indian and spins it into an escapist fairytale steeped in the sights and sounds of the new India. By the time Jamal gets his girl – ultimately and simplistically it’s a romance – and everyone’s tapping their feet, you’ll have forgotten that one of his young friends was blinded and another sold into prostitution. You may also forgive some of the plot’s wilder turns and increasingly erratic jumps in time.
Boyle flirts with realism but never fully buys into it.
He’s too concerned with keeping the mood light and the pace furious. He’s a flashy filmmaker at times, but the real saving grace of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is how Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle go to extreme and pleasing lengths to soak up the colours, people and places of India. The film’s messages – that hard-earned street knowledge can be as valuable as traditional education and, while hardly original, that later success can overcome earlier hardship – are attractive if you’re willing to bite your tongue at the air of positivity. With so much good humour about you can even forgive the film’s bizarre slip from one language to another as young Indian actors give way to a warm, English-language performance from Britain’s Patel, who’s just one of a cast of actors who are as likeable and compelling as the film itself.
Danny Boyle’s ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is a film so upbeat and colourful that, by the time you’re relaying its infectious air of optimism to friends, you could forget that it features orphans, slaughter, organised crime, poverty, enslavement and police brutality in its crowd-pleasing repertoire of suffering and renewal. Hell, it even ends with a get-up-and-dance Bollywood number on the platform of Mumbai’s Victoria Terminus.Shot entirely in India and largely on location, the fabric of the film is winningly realistic. But the story is pure fantasy inspired partly by co-producer Celador’s desire to enshrine its winning creation, the game show ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ in a movie.
Still, Boyle succeeds in leaving these creepy beginnings behind to create a film that’s full of warmth and humanity and forever looks on the bright side of tragedy. The script is a simple conceit: writer Simon Beaufoy (‘The Full Monty’) has ripped up Vikas Swarup’s novel ‘Q&A’ and turned it into a rags-to-riches yarn about Jamal (Dev Patel), a young, slum-born adult in Mumbai who gives such a cracking performance on ‘…Millionaire’, that he’s only one question shy of the 20-million-rupee jackpot. Such unlikely success inspires envy on the part of the show’s creepy host (Anil Kapoor), who invites the police to arrest, question and torture him. This interrogation offers flashbacks of episodes in Jamal’s life that reveal the extraordinary sources of his knowledge and lend Boyle the handy framework of a child becoming an adult against all the odds in an India that’s changing by the hour but still dangerous for any kid on the loose.
Of all Boyle’s mixed work, from the promise of ‘Shallow Grave’ to the embarrassment of ‘Millions’ and the recent experiment of ‘Sunshine’, his new film probably best resembles ‘Trainspotting’: where in that film he found energy, humour and bonhomie in the stupor of heroin addiction, here he takes the impoverished life of a young Indian and spins it into an escapist fairytale steeped in the sights and sounds of the new India. By the time Jamal gets his girl – ultimately and simplistically it’s a romance – and everyone’s tapping their feet, you’ll have forgotten that one of his young friends was blinded and another sold into prostitution. You may also forgive some of the plot’s wilder turns and increasingly erratic jumps in time.
Boyle flirts with realism but never fully buys into it.
He’s too concerned with keeping the mood light and the pace furious. He’s a flashy filmmaker at times, but the real saving grace of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is how Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle go to extreme and pleasing lengths to soak up the colours, people and places of India. The film’s messages – that hard-earned street knowledge can be as valuable as traditional education and, while hardly original, that later success can overcome earlier hardship – are attractive if you’re willing to bite your tongue at the air of positivity. With so much good humour about you can even forgive the film’s bizarre slip from one language to another as young Indian actors give way to a warm, English-language performance from Britain’s Patel, who’s just one of a cast of actors who are as likeable and compelling as the film itself.
238. Swades
Gowariker’s follow-up to his Oscar nominated ‘Lagaan’ is a generally effective, entertaining and, at times, deeply moving ‘journey of personal discovery’. Mohan (Khan), a NASA scientist, takes time out from his hectic job in ‘Amerika’, to visit his former nanny in rural India. The rest of this somewhat overlong film follows his transformation from ‘Non-Resident Indian’ to ‘Non-Returning Indian’ as he finds himself, his people, his love, his country. At one level, Gowariker’s saccarine portrayal of wholesome village life is manipulative and calculated to tug at the heartstrings of the Indian diaspora. On the other hand, the film’s leisurely pace in establishing ordinary characters and events slowly creeps into your senses, so that like India itself, it gets under your skin.
Gowariker’s follow-up to his Oscar nominated ‘Lagaan’ is a generally effective, entertaining and, at times, deeply moving ‘journey of personal discovery’. Mohan (Khan), a NASA scientist, takes time out from his hectic job in ‘Amerika’, to visit his former nanny in rural India. The rest of this somewhat overlong film follows his transformation from ‘Non-Resident Indian’ to ‘Non-Returning Indian’ as he finds himself, his people, his love, his country. At one level, Gowariker’s saccarine portrayal of wholesome village life is manipulative and calculated to tug at the heartstrings of the Indian diaspora. On the other hand, the film’s leisurely pace in establishing ordinary characters and events slowly creeps into your senses, so that like India itself, it gets under your skin.
239. Underground
In celebration of the tube’s 150th anniversary comes this painstakingly restored print of a classic British silent movie, which unfolds in and around the London Underground of 1928. Eyes meet across a Northern Line carriage and soon Bert (Cyril McLaglen) is pursuing the alluring Nell (Elissa Landi), though she’s already involved with dashing ticket inspector Bill (Brian Aherne). Tensions between the two men soon escalate into violent confrontation, which threatens the safety of the network when the action switches to Bert’s workplace – the LU’s Lots Road Power Station.
Extensive filming in and around Waterloo tube station provides cherished vintage period detail of uplighters on the escalators, smoking on the trains and pre-Harry Beck route maps. But the film’s much more than a mere time capsule. True, the plot is somewhat coincidence-prone but it’s delivered with muscular performances and an array of thrillingly mobile camerawork from the oft-undervalued Asquith – its sweep from lyricism to high tension is matched by Neil Brand’s cracking new orchestral score. An utterly splendid achievement all round.
In celebration of the tube’s 150th anniversary comes this painstakingly restored print of a classic British silent movie, which unfolds in and around the London Underground of 1928. Eyes meet across a Northern Line carriage and soon Bert (Cyril McLaglen) is pursuing the alluring Nell (Elissa Landi), though she’s already involved with dashing ticket inspector Bill (Brian Aherne). Tensions between the two men soon escalate into violent confrontation, which threatens the safety of the network when the action switches to Bert’s workplace – the LU’s Lots Road Power Station.
Extensive filming in and around Waterloo tube station provides cherished vintage period detail of uplighters on the escalators, smoking on the trains and pre-Harry Beck route maps. But the film’s much more than a mere time capsule. True, the plot is somewhat coincidence-prone but it’s delivered with muscular performances and an array of thrillingly mobile camerawork from the oft-undervalued Asquith – its sweep from lyricism to high tension is matched by Neil Brand’s cracking new orchestral score. An utterly splendid achievement all round.
240. The Truman Show
Truman Burbank is beginning to wise up. People seem to listen to him, but they never really connect; he feels trapped in a job he doesn't care about, a marriage he doesn't believe in, and a small island community he's never been able to leave. It's as if his life has been pre-programmed from the start: as indeed it has, for Truman is the unwitting subject of television's most audacious experiment, a real-life soap following one man from birth to death. When Truman (Carrey) appeals to a higher power, he's actually addressing the show's omniscient creator/director, Christof (Harris). The best comedy since Groundhog Day - better, even, than that - this is more than just a savvy and ingenious satire on media saturation, it's a moving metaphysical fable. One movie you can pronounce a modern classic with absolute confidence.
Truman Burbank is beginning to wise up. People seem to listen to him, but they never really connect; he feels trapped in a job he doesn't care about, a marriage he doesn't believe in, and a small island community he's never been able to leave. It's as if his life has been pre-programmed from the start: as indeed it has, for Truman is the unwitting subject of television's most audacious experiment, a real-life soap following one man from birth to death. When Truman (Carrey) appeals to a higher power, he's actually addressing the show's omniscient creator/director, Christof (Harris). The best comedy since Groundhog Day - better, even, than that - this is more than just a savvy and ingenious satire on media saturation, it's a moving metaphysical fable. One movie you can pronounce a modern classic with absolute confidence.
241. The Killing
Characteristically Kubrick in both its mechanistic coldness and its vision of human endeavour undone by greed and deceit, this noir-ish heist movie is nevertheless far more satisfying than most of his later work, due both to a lack of bombastic pretensions and to the style fitting the subject matter. Hayden is his usual admirable self as the ex-con who gathers together a gallery of small-timers to rob a race-track; for once it's not the robbery itself that goes wrong, but the aftermath. What is remarkable about the movie, besides the excellent performances of an archetypal noir cast and Lucien Ballard's steely photography, is the time structure, employing a complex series of flashbacks both to introduce and explain characters and to create a synchronous view of simultaneous events. Kubrick's essentially heartless, beady-eyed observation of human foibles lacks the dimension of the genre's classics, but the likes of Windsor, Carey and Cook more than compensate. (From the novel Clean Break by Lional White.
Characteristically Kubrick in both its mechanistic coldness and its vision of human endeavour undone by greed and deceit, this noir-ish heist movie is nevertheless far more satisfying than most of his later work, due both to a lack of bombastic pretensions and to the style fitting the subject matter. Hayden is his usual admirable self as the ex-con who gathers together a gallery of small-timers to rob a race-track; for once it's not the robbery itself that goes wrong, but the aftermath. What is remarkable about the movie, besides the excellent performances of an archetypal noir cast and Lucien Ballard's steely photography, is the time structure, employing a complex series of flashbacks both to introduce and explain characters and to create a synchronous view of simultaneous events. Kubrick's essentially heartless, beady-eyed observation of human foibles lacks the dimension of the genre's classics, but the likes of Windsor, Carey and Cook more than compensate. (From the novel Clean Break by Lional White.
242. Rope
One of Hitchcock's more experimental films, with the tale of two young gays, keen to prove their intellectual and spiritual superiority, killing a friend and hiding his body in a trunk in order to see whether dinner guests will suspect anything. Constructed entirely from uncut ten-minute takes, shot on a beautifully-constructed set, it's certainly a virtuoso piece of technique, but the lack of cutting inevitably slows things down, entailing the camera swooping from one character to another during dialogues. On a thematic level, however, the film is more successful: while the arguments about Nietzschean philosophy between the couple and their professor, Stewart (whose ideas have inadvertently prompted the murder), are hardly profound, what is interesting is the way Hitchcock's sly amorality forces us, through the suspense, to side with the killers. Add to that the black wit and strong performances from Dall, Granger and Stewart, and you have a perverse, provocative entertainment.
One of Hitchcock's more experimental films, with the tale of two young gays, keen to prove their intellectual and spiritual superiority, killing a friend and hiding his body in a trunk in order to see whether dinner guests will suspect anything. Constructed entirely from uncut ten-minute takes, shot on a beautifully-constructed set, it's certainly a virtuoso piece of technique, but the lack of cutting inevitably slows things down, entailing the camera swooping from one character to another during dialogues. On a thematic level, however, the film is more successful: while the arguments about Nietzschean philosophy between the couple and their professor, Stewart (whose ideas have inadvertently prompted the murder), are hardly profound, what is interesting is the way Hitchcock's sly amorality forces us, through the suspense, to side with the killers. Add to that the black wit and strong performances from Dall, Granger and Stewart, and you have a perverse, provocative entertainment.
243. Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
Back in 2007, former documentarist José Padilha’s ‘Elite Squad’, a pumped-up hybrid of action flick and insider portrait, took us inside Rio’s trigger-happy BOPE (Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais).
This sequel moves the story on 13 years, opening with a handy précis of its predecessor so newcomers are at no disadvantage. Wagner Moura’s determined Captain Nascimento remains centre stage, his realisation that political muscle is needed to shake the drugs gangs from the favelas prompting him to accept the post of under-secretary of state for security. Initial success, however, throws up a new crisis, revealing the protection rackets operated by bent cops and their political superiors as the real canker in society.
While the first film came perilously close to endorsing police brutality, this is a more complex affair, the opening caption declaring it a work of fiction barely dissuades us of its authentic bite. Padilha’s facility for creating action scenes of you-are-there intensity grabs the attention, yet his storytelling struggles to keep too many plates spinning at once and by the time we learn the full scale of the conspiracy, momentum is flagging.
That said, the whole thing’s driven by palpable anger to tell it like it is and a pivotal role for a sociology prof offers a degree of ideological light and shade. A thumping modern policier with a social-conscience edge.
Back in 2007, former documentarist José Padilha’s ‘Elite Squad’, a pumped-up hybrid of action flick and insider portrait, took us inside Rio’s trigger-happy BOPE (Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais).
This sequel moves the story on 13 years, opening with a handy précis of its predecessor so newcomers are at no disadvantage. Wagner Moura’s determined Captain Nascimento remains centre stage, his realisation that political muscle is needed to shake the drugs gangs from the favelas prompting him to accept the post of under-secretary of state for security. Initial success, however, throws up a new crisis, revealing the protection rackets operated by bent cops and their political superiors as the real canker in society.
While the first film came perilously close to endorsing police brutality, this is a more complex affair, the opening caption declaring it a work of fiction barely dissuades us of its authentic bite. Padilha’s facility for creating action scenes of you-are-there intensity grabs the attention, yet his storytelling struggles to keep too many plates spinning at once and by the time we learn the full scale of the conspiracy, momentum is flagging.
That said, the whole thing’s driven by palpable anger to tell it like it is and a pivotal role for a sociology prof offers a degree of ideological light and shade. A thumping modern policier with a social-conscience edge.
244. Black Swan
It’s best to switch off the more sensible side of your mind, along with any idea that you’re going to experience a documentary-style portrait of the world of ballet, before encountering Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Black Swan’. It’s a film that really only works if you let yourself be swirled up, like its main character, in a storm of hysteria, paranoia and tears: it’s too impulsive and emotional to be picked apart at the level of logic and too ludicrous to exist in a world other than its own. It’s huge fun, but only if you’re willing to swallow its more bonkers excesses.
‘Black Swan’ gives us a harried, weepy Natalie Portman as Nina, a delicate, overly mothered dancer with the New York City Ballet who cracks up ten times over when she lands the dual roles of the White and Black Swans, Odette and Odile, in a production of ‘Swan Lake’. Realism barely gets a look in as Aronofsky and his team go hell-for-leather in reflecting this young woman’s fractured mental state – and the ballet’s own story and themes – in everything from an invasive, swirling photographic style to the monochrome production design of the office and apartment of her mentor and director, Thomas (pronounced the French way and played by Vincent Cassel), a man as stereotypically ‘European’ as Hercule Poirot. A fan of turtlenecks and indoor scarves, he’s the sort of guy who asks his protegées to masturbate, just to explore their devilish sides.
Or does he? It’s rarely clear what’s real or not in ‘Black Swan’. Aronofsky’s approach to psychological drama – to making real the horrors of the mind – makes the likes of Polanski’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ or ‘Repulsion’ look very timid. He doesn’t go for a gradual reveal of insanity. Instead, right from the off, we see Nina tearing off impossible amounts of skin from her fingers and hear awful cracks and snaps as she exercises her feet. From there, all Aronofsky can do is throw taste and subtlety to the wind.
The body horror increases: later, we see Nina’s legs bending and snapping, just as she hallucinates while looking at the walls of the flat she shares with her ultra-protective mother, played as a witch byBarbara Hershey. Her other nemeses are a demonic, newly retired dancer (Winona Ryder) and a pretty new colleague (Mila Kunis). Our view of both is entirely distorted by Nina’s breakdown as she struggles to play both swans and defy Thomas’s concerns that she’s too pure to play the more evil role.
The film’s endless pulp elements (erotica, stabbing, drugs, blood, strangling…) are tempered by the beauty of the story’s context – the music, dancing, costumes – and the film’s ballsy momentum. Yet there’s no escaping that this is high-class trash, however enjoyable. Aronofsky has taken a disturbed psychological state – the neuroses of a fragile artist – and flung it into lurid territory. He’s more concerned with expressing Nina’s madness and reflecting it (and, boy, he likes mirrors) in the world about her than in making any sense of her character or the life of a dancer. But he whips up such an orgy of fun in the process that it’s hard not to tear off your clothes and dive in.
It’s best to switch off the more sensible side of your mind, along with any idea that you’re going to experience a documentary-style portrait of the world of ballet, before encountering Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Black Swan’. It’s a film that really only works if you let yourself be swirled up, like its main character, in a storm of hysteria, paranoia and tears: it’s too impulsive and emotional to be picked apart at the level of logic and too ludicrous to exist in a world other than its own. It’s huge fun, but only if you’re willing to swallow its more bonkers excesses.
‘Black Swan’ gives us a harried, weepy Natalie Portman as Nina, a delicate, overly mothered dancer with the New York City Ballet who cracks up ten times over when she lands the dual roles of the White and Black Swans, Odette and Odile, in a production of ‘Swan Lake’. Realism barely gets a look in as Aronofsky and his team go hell-for-leather in reflecting this young woman’s fractured mental state – and the ballet’s own story and themes – in everything from an invasive, swirling photographic style to the monochrome production design of the office and apartment of her mentor and director, Thomas (pronounced the French way and played by Vincent Cassel), a man as stereotypically ‘European’ as Hercule Poirot. A fan of turtlenecks and indoor scarves, he’s the sort of guy who asks his protegées to masturbate, just to explore their devilish sides.
Or does he? It’s rarely clear what’s real or not in ‘Black Swan’. Aronofsky’s approach to psychological drama – to making real the horrors of the mind – makes the likes of Polanski’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ or ‘Repulsion’ look very timid. He doesn’t go for a gradual reveal of insanity. Instead, right from the off, we see Nina tearing off impossible amounts of skin from her fingers and hear awful cracks and snaps as she exercises her feet. From there, all Aronofsky can do is throw taste and subtlety to the wind.
The body horror increases: later, we see Nina’s legs bending and snapping, just as she hallucinates while looking at the walls of the flat she shares with her ultra-protective mother, played as a witch byBarbara Hershey. Her other nemeses are a demonic, newly retired dancer (Winona Ryder) and a pretty new colleague (Mila Kunis). Our view of both is entirely distorted by Nina’s breakdown as she struggles to play both swans and defy Thomas’s concerns that she’s too pure to play the more evil role.
The film’s endless pulp elements (erotica, stabbing, drugs, blood, strangling…) are tempered by the beauty of the story’s context – the music, dancing, costumes – and the film’s ballsy momentum. Yet there’s no escaping that this is high-class trash, however enjoyable. Aronofsky has taken a disturbed psychological state – the neuroses of a fragile artist – and flung it into lurid territory. He’s more concerned with expressing Nina’s madness and reflecting it (and, boy, he likes mirrors) in the world about her than in making any sense of her character or the life of a dancer. But he whips up such an orgy of fun in the process that it’s hard not to tear off your clothes and dive in.
245. Beauty and the Beast
Whether or not you give a mouse dropping about 3D (and Disney has done a smashing job on the refit), what a treat it is to see ‘Beauty and the Beast’ again. It was among the studio’s crop of early 1990s hits, but in look and feel harks back to the Disney glory days, delivering a rush of sunnily confident, cockle-warming innocence. ‘Be nice and nice things will happen’ is the message, as plucky heroine Belle dodges salivating wolves to rescue her dad from the Beast’s castle. It’s witty and charming, with glorious Busby Berkeley-style numbers. And for sheer inventiveness you can’t beat the talking objects in the castle: Mrs Pots, the cockney teapot and her chinaware brood; a stagecoach that scuttles like a spider; the footstool dog waggling his tassels
Whether or not you give a mouse dropping about 3D (and Disney has done a smashing job on the refit), what a treat it is to see ‘Beauty and the Beast’ again. It was among the studio’s crop of early 1990s hits, but in look and feel harks back to the Disney glory days, delivering a rush of sunnily confident, cockle-warming innocence. ‘Be nice and nice things will happen’ is the message, as plucky heroine Belle dodges salivating wolves to rescue her dad from the Beast’s castle. It’s witty and charming, with glorious Busby Berkeley-style numbers. And for sheer inventiveness you can’t beat the talking objects in the castle: Mrs Pots, the cockney teapot and her chinaware brood; a stagecoach that scuttles like a spider; the footstool dog waggling his tassels
246. Red
Pension-age suburbanite Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) wakes up to a volley of fire from masked hitmen, and as he deals with them one by one, realises his retirement is going to take a violent detour. The title stands for ‘retired, extremely dangerous’, and this knockabout action comedy is a boisterous, getting-the-band-back-together movie as Frank assembles a crew of trigger-happy oldsters (John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman,Helen Mirren, Brian Cox) to uncover why his distinguished, black-ops past is coming back to haunt him. It’s a charming mess, rescued by the knowing gusto of the acting. Beneath its light exterior is not only a neat, if unsubtle, political undercurrent but a rebellious streak about how the allure of firing an RPG outweighs the prospect of retirement.
Pension-age suburbanite Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) wakes up to a volley of fire from masked hitmen, and as he deals with them one by one, realises his retirement is going to take a violent detour. The title stands for ‘retired, extremely dangerous’, and this knockabout action comedy is a boisterous, getting-the-band-back-together movie as Frank assembles a crew of trigger-happy oldsters (John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman,Helen Mirren, Brian Cox) to uncover why his distinguished, black-ops past is coming back to haunt him. It’s a charming mess, rescued by the knowing gusto of the acting. Beneath its light exterior is not only a neat, if unsubtle, political undercurrent but a rebellious streak about how the allure of firing an RPG outweighs the prospect of retirement.
247. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
In late 1995, French Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby was thinking about writing an update of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’. ‘I did not have time to commit this crime of lèse-majesté,’ Bauby later wrote; for his hubris, he darkly joked, ‘the gods of literature and neurology’ smote him with a fate not unlike that of Edmond Dantès: a massive stroke left Bauby with ‘locked-in syndrome’, paralysing his entire body except his left eye and his mind. Bauby composed a limpid, droll memoir instead – his amanuensis would recite the alphabet and Bauby would blink when she called the correct letter – and died two days after ‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’ was published in France, at the age of 44.
Julian Schnabel’s adaptation is, like ‘Before Night Falls’, a tender and sensuously sad film, at once empathic and expressionist in its immersion in Bauby’s bathysphere. The movie first places us in the POV of Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) – we even watch from within as his useless right eye is sewn shut – and then unlocks the man’s memories and fantasies, his ecstasies and regrets. (And his dad: the scenes with the incomparable Max Von Sydow’s as Bauby’s father are almost unbearably moving.)
Amid a parade of the gorgeous women in Bauby’s life (Emmanuelle Seigner as his recently abandoned wife, Marie-Josée Croze as his speech therapist), Schnabel and cinematographer Janusz Kaminskiadd flourish upon flourish to animate Bauby’s inner world: smearing colours, pulsating focus, extreme close-ups. In fact, the film often seems less a memorial to Bauby than a guided tour of the auteur’s voluptuous aesthetic. But then, the last thing we want from Julian Schnabel is a hint of deference, and the last thing we want from a triumph-over-tragedy narrative is an excess of restraint.
In late 1995, French Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby was thinking about writing an update of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’. ‘I did not have time to commit this crime of lèse-majesté,’ Bauby later wrote; for his hubris, he darkly joked, ‘the gods of literature and neurology’ smote him with a fate not unlike that of Edmond Dantès: a massive stroke left Bauby with ‘locked-in syndrome’, paralysing his entire body except his left eye and his mind. Bauby composed a limpid, droll memoir instead – his amanuensis would recite the alphabet and Bauby would blink when she called the correct letter – and died two days after ‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’ was published in France, at the age of 44.
Julian Schnabel’s adaptation is, like ‘Before Night Falls’, a tender and sensuously sad film, at once empathic and expressionist in its immersion in Bauby’s bathysphere. The movie first places us in the POV of Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) – we even watch from within as his useless right eye is sewn shut – and then unlocks the man’s memories and fantasies, his ecstasies and regrets. (And his dad: the scenes with the incomparable Max Von Sydow’s as Bauby’s father are almost unbearably moving.)
Amid a parade of the gorgeous women in Bauby’s life (Emmanuelle Seigner as his recently abandoned wife, Marie-Josée Croze as his speech therapist), Schnabel and cinematographer Janusz Kaminskiadd flourish upon flourish to animate Bauby’s inner world: smearing colours, pulsating focus, extreme close-ups. In fact, the film often seems less a memorial to Bauby than a guided tour of the auteur’s voluptuous aesthetic. But then, the last thing we want from Julian Schnabel is a hint of deference, and the last thing we want from a triumph-over-tragedy narrative is an excess of restraint.
248. Jurassic Park
Eccentric billionaire John Hammond harnesses DNA from prehistoric amber to re-animate various dinosaur species in a specially constructed reserve on Isla Nublar, located off the coast of Costa Rica. Hammond invites paleontologist Dr Alan Grant, paleobotanist Dr Ellie Sattler and chaos mathematician Dr Ian Malcolm to tour the island in the company of his grandchildren Tim and Lex.
Eccentric billionaire John Hammond harnesses DNA from prehistoric amber to re-animate various dinosaur species in a specially constructed reserve on Isla Nublar, located off the coast of Costa Rica. Hammond invites paleontologist Dr Alan Grant, paleobotanist Dr Ellie Sattler and chaos mathematician Dr Ian Malcolm to tour the island in the company of his grandchildren Tim and Lex.
249. La dolce vita
The flying statue of Jesus, hovering over Rome via helicopter; Anita Ekberg, voluptuously traipsing around the Trevi Fountain; that climactic metaphor of a bloated, beached sea creature, staring dead-eyed at Marcello Mastroianni's fatigued urban Candide. It's so easy to reduce Federico Fellini's three-ring satire of the Euro-chic "good life" to iconic scenes, or to accept the movie simply as a canonized classic (of course it's great; they teach it in college courses!), that you can forget what a damning indictment of This Mondo Modern World it really is.
Yes, Film Forum's two-week revival of il maestro's groundbreaking work should be considered mandatory attendance anyway, given that this new 35mm restoration is gorgeous; the movie's aristocratic filth has never looked so pristine. But the real reason to wallow once more in its parade of faux Madonnas and real whores, rich junkies and jerkwads, parasitic paparazzi (a term the film coined), dim-bulb starlets, drunken louts and the lowest of the low---that'd be journalists---is to recognize, with stunning clarity, the morally bankrupt, media-fried here and now. Historians can laud it as the transitional pause before the director fully abandoned any neorealistic flourishes and dove into the psycho-personal surrealism known as the Fellini-esque. Yet everyone else will simply admire, in slack-jawed stupor, the way this 51-year-old time capsule thoroughly predicts the era of TMZ, Paris Hilton and celebutante overload. Everything has changed, and nothing has changed. How sour it still is.
The flying statue of Jesus, hovering over Rome via helicopter; Anita Ekberg, voluptuously traipsing around the Trevi Fountain; that climactic metaphor of a bloated, beached sea creature, staring dead-eyed at Marcello Mastroianni's fatigued urban Candide. It's so easy to reduce Federico Fellini's three-ring satire of the Euro-chic "good life" to iconic scenes, or to accept the movie simply as a canonized classic (of course it's great; they teach it in college courses!), that you can forget what a damning indictment of This Mondo Modern World it really is.
Yes, Film Forum's two-week revival of il maestro's groundbreaking work should be considered mandatory attendance anyway, given that this new 35mm restoration is gorgeous; the movie's aristocratic filth has never looked so pristine. But the real reason to wallow once more in its parade of faux Madonnas and real whores, rich junkies and jerkwads, parasitic paparazzi (a term the film coined), dim-bulb starlets, drunken louts and the lowest of the low---that'd be journalists---is to recognize, with stunning clarity, the morally bankrupt, media-fried here and now. Historians can laud it as the transitional pause before the director fully abandoned any neorealistic flourishes and dove into the psycho-personal surrealism known as the Fellini-esque. Yet everyone else will simply admire, in slack-jawed stupor, the way this 51-year-old time capsule thoroughly predicts the era of TMZ, Paris Hilton and celebutante overload. Everything has changed, and nothing has changed. How sour it still is.
250. Blood Diamond
Who knows what they’d make of it on the veld, but Leonardo DiCaprio’s ‘Rhodesian’ (as his character insists) accent isn’t as awful as the trailers might suggest in this well-meaning, well-made action-flick masquerading as a campaigning movie. DiCaprio is Danny Archer, a Zimbabwe-born hard man who flies into war-torn Sierra Leone on the trail of a pink diamond. He enters into a selfish bargain with local Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), who knows where the gem is hidden and wants help in finding his family. On hand is open-shirted investigative journalist Maddy (Jennifer Connelly), there among the chases and explosions to provide some handy facts and a few gratuitous chest-shots.
‘Blood Diamond’ inspires more than a few back-handed compliments. It doesn’t entirely evade the issue at its core – conflict diamonds – in favour of pure action by way of guns and planes, thrills and spills; but it hardly embraces the subject fully either. Similarly, it doesn’t entirely shy away from showing the brutality of conflict in Sierra Leone – there are terrifying depictions of child-soldiers in battle and of limb amputations – but neither is it daring enough to present Archer solely as a villain. By the final reel, we’re expected to detect a heavy dose of redemption and regret in Archer that’s about as plausible as baby-faced DiCaprio playing a tough mercenary of many years service. Final scenes in London in which diamond-dealing head-honcho Michael Sheen glides through London in a limo like a Bond villain are risible. Expect very little in the way of ideas and debate, and a lot in the way of action set-pieces, and as a lesson in distant suffering for kids or the unenlightened, it’s not so bad.
Who knows what they’d make of it on the veld, but Leonardo DiCaprio’s ‘Rhodesian’ (as his character insists) accent isn’t as awful as the trailers might suggest in this well-meaning, well-made action-flick masquerading as a campaigning movie. DiCaprio is Danny Archer, a Zimbabwe-born hard man who flies into war-torn Sierra Leone on the trail of a pink diamond. He enters into a selfish bargain with local Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), who knows where the gem is hidden and wants help in finding his family. On hand is open-shirted investigative journalist Maddy (Jennifer Connelly), there among the chases and explosions to provide some handy facts and a few gratuitous chest-shots.
‘Blood Diamond’ inspires more than a few back-handed compliments. It doesn’t entirely evade the issue at its core – conflict diamonds – in favour of pure action by way of guns and planes, thrills and spills; but it hardly embraces the subject fully either. Similarly, it doesn’t entirely shy away from showing the brutality of conflict in Sierra Leone – there are terrifying depictions of child-soldiers in battle and of limb amputations – but neither is it daring enough to present Archer solely as a villain. By the final reel, we’re expected to detect a heavy dose of redemption and regret in Archer that’s about as plausible as baby-faced DiCaprio playing a tough mercenary of many years service. Final scenes in London in which diamond-dealing head-honcho Michael Sheen glides through London in a limo like a Bond villain are risible. Expect very little in the way of ideas and debate, and a lot in the way of action set-pieces, and as a lesson in distant suffering for kids or the unenlightened, it’s not so bad.