TOP HAT

1935; directed by Mark Sandrich; adapted by Allan Scott and Dwight Taylor; 101 mins

Ah! That’s better. More enjoyable than Swing Time and not just because it doesn’t feature lots and lots of blackface. This movie was the most successful of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movies but critically, Swing Time‘s reputation has increased over the decades. Well, for me and the other half, this movie is better because, curiously despite its lack of cheerful racism, Top Hat is more unashamedly fun. It is a Hollywood musical which is hitting all the beats that it knows it’s meant to but they all slot into place with ease and grace.

A HIDDEN LIFE

2019; written and directed by Terrence Malick; 174 mins

Like most people, I tuned out of Terrence Malick’s work after The Tree of Life. I managed the first ten minutes of To the Wonder and realised that was enough for me. To be honest, though, I was never a huge fan. I love Days of Heaven and The New World but they’re the only ones I thought masterpieces. Otherwise, I can’t remember much of Badlands and The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life were great in places but stretched the patience in others. As far as A Hidden Life is concerned, it’s not perfect but it is the best he’s done in a long time.

JURASSIC PARK

1993; directed by Steven Spielberg; adapted by Michael Crichton and David Koepp; 127 mins

Anybody else know a miserable old git who sits through movies like this, no matter how good and slags off every little thing they can think of? If so, let’s all use the tax dollars they moan about to build a far off, Jurassic-Park-style holding pen for them. Then they can mill around, grumbling about the movie, saying what they wouldn’t done in that situation.

LITTLE WOMEN

2019; adapted and directed by Greta Gerwig; 135 mins

There is an emergent trend of sanctimonious criticism which taints good movies. With Little Women, the star ratings could not be ignored but I deliberately avoided reading reviews because I feared a gushing torrent of superlatives describing a film of utterly world-changing piety. It’s the same old hype thing but nowadays accompanied by an unbearable holier-than-thou attitude which the film itself doesn’t have. Little Women is one such movie and I hope it doesn’t suffer by association, now or in the future.

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?

THE WIZARD OF OZ

1939; directed by Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Mervyn LeRoy, Norman Taurog, Richard Thorpe and King Vidor; adapted by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf; 98 mins

If you love The Wizard of Oz, this review may be disappointing to you. Not massively so, I hasten to add. It’d be foolish to say this is a bad film at all but it’s one of those canonical classics in which – leaving aside whether or not it’s aimed at me and all the non-sequiturs that go along with that – it’s not for me.

Q

1982; written and directed by Larry Cohen; 93 mins

Unexpected. You wanna see the unexpected when it comes to movies and while Hollywood plays it safe, lower budget exploitation movies have revelled in and sold themselves on the promise that you ain’t seen this before! Well, on the one hand, I haven’t seen a flying Aztec god lizard terrorise New York before but I did expect it because it’s on the poster. What I didn’t expect was a John Cassavates movie disguised as a crime-horror-fantasy B-movie starring Caine from Kung Fu and Shaft.

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.

SWING TIME

1936; directed by George Stevens; written by Howard Lindsay and Allan Scott; 103 mins

Wow! This is so much fun! Oh, this is really good! This is such a magical movie! Oh! Oh! … Oh. Awwwwwwwwwww, bugger! It just got racist. Swing Time is such a flawless, timeless classic for every second it isn’t showing us dodgy, dated racial stereotypes. Genuinely. I’m not being a twat. Most of it is a supremely entertaining, gracefully made piece of very cinematic fluff that effortlessly vaults my prejudices against this kind of proto-Richard Curtis, wish-fulfilment storyline.

THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL

1992; directed by Brian Henson; adapted by Jerry Juhl; 85 mins

[Spoiler-y but come on! It’s A Christmas Carol!]

Childhood movies are a bit of a touch-and-go subject, aren’t they? At absolute worst, it’s the “incels” who post the most horrible, objectionable invective because of female Ghostbusters and consequently destroy almost all good feeling toward the original movie. Alternatively, you have the people who love a film despite being aware of its reputation because it was their favourite movie as a child, undemanding, particularly in pre-internet days. The Muppet Christmas Carol is one of those movies, for me. It’s reputation has grown a bit in the last 28 years but it was greeted rather dismissively upon release, both critically and financially. Perhaps there are loads of things wrong with it… but I just don’t see it.