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Clever, this Anaconda, a vastly ironic comedy horror written and directed by the guys who did The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent – which was also as clever as it was ironic. It follows a bunch of flaky dudes whose lives have been less than fulfilling in a last ditch attempt to do something meaningful by … Read more
The legendary titles guy Saul Bass (he did the opening credits sequence for Psycho, The Man with the Golden Arm and Casino) made only one feature film and Phase IV is it. A fascinating sci-fi/horror tale set in the desert, it has ideas, some great acting, excellent close-up cinematography, gorgeous locations and an excruciatingly static … Read more
Magellan is quite a conventional movie by the standards Lav Diaz sets himself. An ocean-going biopic about the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, it’s in English rather than Diaz’s usual Tagalog, features a well known actor in the shape of Gael García Bernal, is in colour (this is Diaz’s first colour film for 12 years) and … Read more
The issues are fascinating but the plotting swings about like a thing demented in The Clay Pigeon, a paranoid thriller written by Carl Foreman, of High Noon and The Bridge on the River Kwai fame, and directed by Richard Fleischer, estimable names both. Bill Williams plays a soldier who wakes up from a coma only … Read more
In La Grazia (aka Grace) Paolo Sorrentino once again gives us what we expect – a lushly gorgeous movie about a man in an existential funk – except this time he’s turned the power down a couple of notches. We’re back (almost) in the realm of his breakthrough, The Consquences of Love. It’s a fugue of … Read more
A crazy mixed-up kid is dragged to hell by a sexy dame in Gun Crazy (not for nothing also known as Deadly Is the Female), a film that has us by the scruff of the neck right from its fabulous opening scene. In super-sharp close-up a kid smashes the plate glass window of a hardware … Read more
When Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty were setting out to make Becoming Led Zeppelin they didn’t realise that surviving band members Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones had all seen their TV series American Epic, about roots music in the US, and were big fans. So it came as more than a surprise … Read more
Follow Me Quietly is only one hour long and so desperate to use its time well that it’s already running its first scene beneath the opening credits – a woman walking to and fro in the rain. From the way she’s pacing, and shielding the glowing end of a cigarette like a soldier in a … Read more
Cold Storage is lo-fi sci-fi done on a decent budget, it’s written by David Koepp, who did the original Jurassic Park the first Mission: Impossible. And it is stacked with actors of the calibre of Lesley Manville, Vanessa Redgrave and Liam Neeson, though none of them is the star. Smartly made, well acted, it’s entirely … Read more
In Casablanca “everybody comes to Rick’s”, in The Bribe it’s Pedro’s, a sweaty canteen somewhere in venal Central America, around which this messy mix of thriller, romance, exotic adventure and detective story plays out. Robert Taylor and Ava Gardner are the stars, but Charles Laughton is the standout, taking it upon himself – probably not … Read more
Described bafflingly as arthouse in some quarters, Pillion is much more your seaside-postcard Full Monty-style Britcom of yore sexed up with Alexander Skarsgård in his scanties, in a story about a timid boy-man (Harry Melling) willingly entering into a BDSM relationship with a biker. If you approach it as arthouse, you’ll leave disappointed. But come … Read more
Of course The Big Steal is a noir. With a title like that what else could it be? And yet it’s also an undeclared screwball comedy. The IMDb might say crime, film noir and romance, but screwball is the real dynamic, and that’s how Don Siegel directs it and stars Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer … Read more
