TRANCE

2013; directed by Danny Boyle; adapted by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge; 97 mins

When Trance came out, it seemed to garner mediocre reviews, which was a surprise in light of the ongoing Danny Boyle love tsunami that had started with Slumdog Millionaire and continued on through 127 Hours and that incredible Olympic opening ceremony. I love this movie! Not only that but this is my favourite of Boyle’s movies from the last decade*, alongside T2 Trainspotting. It’s just enormous fun! It’s proper, naughty, violent, sexy, twisty, turn-y entertainment for grown-ups and what’s wrong with that?

PUBLIC ENEMIES

2009; directed by Michael Mann; adapted by Ronan Bennett, Ann Biderman and Michael Mann; 140 mins

Having recently turned around on Once Upon a Time in America, it’s interesting to revisit this movie and realise that I’ve gone the opposite way. When Public Enemies first came out, I felt nothing for it. With those words comes a suggestion of contempt, so I should clarify: I felt absolutely nothing. It was as though I hadn’t been to the cinema for two hours, so nonexistent was the film’s impact on me. That was a strange sensation to get from a Michael Mann film, particularly one that looked so much like a period piece Heat.

NZIFF ’18/06: THE WORLD IS YOURS

2018; directed by Romain Gavras; written by Karim Boukercha, Noé Debré and Romain Gavras; 104 mins

The first review I read about this movie said; “the best movie that Guy Ritchie never made“. Guy Ritchie would dream of making this movie! From Romain Gavras, director of the most eye-popping, social realist music videos you’ve ever seen, this is a big, colourful gangster movie about children of the recession. Gavras’ world makes the ultra tacky into the ultra stylish, the ugly into the gorgeous. Watching Early Man earlier this year, it occurred to me that Nick Park champions the unbeautiful people and pretty people are to be mistrusted. Nick Park and Romain Gavras are not necessarily two filmmakers you lump together but in that respect, they both appear to meet in the middle.

THIEF

1981; adapted and directed by Michael Mann; 118 mins

Unbelievably, it’s taken this long to get a Michael Mann movie up on the blog but what a way to start! From the beginning – well – movie beginning. He was already a small screen veteran and I understand that his TV prison movie, The Jericho Mile is a great watch but let’s jump straight to the feature films and talk about a film which is the leaping off point for so many of his concerns and themes that would coalesce later on into his greatest crime flicks such as Heat and Collateral.

CARLOS

2010; directed by Olivier Assayas; adapted by Olivier Assayas, Dan Franck and Daniel Leconte; 339 mins

“The man who hijacked the world”

In a recent interview, the filmmaker and critic Alex Cox complained that critics have become “hucksters”, touting and selling films to audiences rather than being honest about a film. I agree with him up to a point but I do think that there is a slight element of whore-ishness that enters into it when you really love a film but you know it’s a tough sell. This is definitely the case with Carlos, which is one of my absolute favourite films but bear in mind that whilst – Yes! – I am selling this movie to you, I honestly love it to bits and I want to share it because it’s such an exciting movie!

LE CERCLE ROUGE

1970; written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville; 135 mins

The penultimate film of Melville‘s career is a crime movie that precedes Fargo with it’s opening bullshit text. Utilising a made up story with Buddha saying something unfathomable; “Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, drew a circle with a piece of red chalk and said: ‘when men, even unknowingly, are to meet one day, whatever may befall each, whatever the diverging paths, on the said day, they will inevitably come together in the red circle.'”