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?

1917

2019; directed by Sam Mendes; written by Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns; 119 mins

When I reviewed The Revenant four years ago, I was very reticent about being the contrarian but the fact of the matter was, I didn’t like that movie. I thought it was massively overrated and didn’t tell me very much beyond its director’s lust for glory. Whilst Sam Mendes doesn’t have the overriding ego of Alejandro González Iñárritu, 1917 is very much the same case. It’s not all that, sadly.

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH

1934; directed by Alfred Hitchcock; written by Charles Bennett & D.B. Wyndham-Lewis and Edwin Greenwood & A.R. Rawlinson and Emlyn Williams; 75 mins

Well, here’s one motion picture which just goes to show that you can’t trust old Johnny Foreigner! Got to keep an eye on the perishing scoundrels, eh? A good old British film from Alfred Hitchcock in which emotions are kept to a minimum and one’s upper lip is favoured in any crisis.

EXPLOITATION DOUBLE FEATURE #4

I know these two Argento films are meant to form a trilogy along with 2007’s Mother of Tears but I did actually watch this as my first Halloween double bill at the Lumiere cinema. Spoilers ahead, I’m afraid.

MIAMI VICE

2006; adapted and directed by Michael Mann; 132 mins

When Miami Vice was released into cinemas in 2006, it sunk big time! Michael Mann, riding on a near-perfect run of movies from Last of the Mohicans to Collateral, was revisiting the TV series that made his name – what could go wrong? Everything. Inflated egos and budgets, hurricanes, shootings and an end product that did not look good. In any sense. In the words of Kenny Everett’s critic character, Fulcrum; “AND YET…!” the film has had a real rehabilitation. As a Mann fan, I wanted to see it anyway and having now done so, I’m gonna throw my hat in the positivity ring. Not only that but Miami Vice has given me cause to wanna re-assess the director’s recent work.

ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13

1976; written and directed by John Carpenter; 91 mins

Every time those opening beats come on and that red title glowers onto the screen, I get a real thrill! It may be the greatest theme tune of all time for me – even taking into account The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. John Carpenter’s follow up to sci-fi cult comedy, Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13 may be my favourite movie of the 1970s. I know I should be saying Barry Lyndon or Taxi Driver or The Godfather and I do love all those movies but this is the one I’ve watched the most. That being said, if you asked me to pick it apart and dissect its relevance to other movies or what it has to say about street crime – I couldn’t tell ya.

M

1931; directed by Fritz Lang; written by Fritz Lang and Thea Von Harbou; 105 mins

[Spoilers, I’m afraid]

“Well, of course, you weren’t born then but you have to understand at the time, it was really shocking.” Ever heard that? Ever thought; “I can’t”? You weren’t there. So, it is nigh-on impossible to understand that. Sometimes, however, an older film gets under your skin. Sometimes, you see an old film and you do understand why people back then – in olden times – were outraged or offended or scared out of their wits. 88 years old, M is one of those films.

HOLD THE DARK

2018; directed by Jeremy Saulnier; adapted by Macon Blair; 125 mins

Well, the reviews seem rather muted. One did hit the nail on the head when it said to go in knowing as little as possible and I did. I hadn’t watched the trailer, or if I did – no memory of it. Jeremy Saulnier and Green Room were the hooks for me. Having belatedly caught up with that film, which I sincerely think is one of the best of the decade, I wanted to check out his other work and where better to go than the readily available new one.

RUN LOLA RUN

1998; written and directed by Tom Tykwer; 80 mins

Here’s a movie that should’ve aged way worse than it has! If Trainspotting had a coked-up sensibility belying it’s body-and-soul-stopping heroin subject, then Run Lola Run has spent a bank holiday weekend on E. Kieslowski protégé, Tom Tyker, essentially reworked the late master’s 1981 work, Blind Chance, the story of a young man trying to catch a train with three different outcomes into a jacked-up, MTV-era, 90s explosion of drugs, guns, multiple angles, hyperdrive editing, reliance on speed (of both kinds) and ironically the need to still use a phone booth.

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.