Cloverfield

There were few films in 2008 that gave me such a rush of excitement and exhilaration as creature feature Cloverfield. The brain child of J.J. Abrams, Cloverfield follows a group of young New Yorkers as they battle to survive the onslaught of an unidentified thirty story monster that tears through the city on a May evening. The production was shrouded in secrecy and a viral marketing campaign matched that of any film in producing a sense of confusion and anticipation for the forthcoming movie. The monster’s design especially was kept a closely guarded secret until the movie was released theatrically.

Coming back to the movie five years after I initially saw it and a couple since my last watch, I found that my excitement had dissipated quite a lot and my interest in the story is much lower than it previously was but I still thought the movie was a fantastic 80 minutes of animation and mayhem, topped off by some highly accomplished effects and fantastic creature design.

Winchester '73

Winchester ’73 was the first in a string of successful Westerns to be directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart. Stewart, who was worried about his career following a number of post war flops, decided he needed to branch out as an actor and jumped at the role of Lin McAdam in this story of one man’s search for his gun. Audiences were initially surprised at the casting but Stewart went on to have a successful career in Westerns alongside the dramas and thrillers for which he is better known. McAdam (Stewart) enters Dodge City with his friend High Spade (Millard Mitchell) on the eve of a Centenary Rifle Shoot Competition. His main rival for a once in a lifetime prize of a priceless Winchester ’73 rifle is the outlaw ‘Dutch Henry’ Brown (Stephen McNally) and it soon becomes obvious that the two have history. McAdam wins the rifle but it’s stolen by Dutch and passes through several hands before the two can square off again to decide once and for all who should own the precious gun.

With a plot that goes back and forth from interesting to really boring and some incredibly clichéd and reductive dialogue, Winchester ’73 runs the risk of being just another Western. The poor generalising of Native Americans and stereotypical female character only chalks up marks in its negative column but there is something about the movie which gives it a spark. I personally think that spark is the gun. I have no interest in firearms and have never held a real one, let alone shot one but the film turns the gun into something else. It isn’t a gun, it’s a symbol. It’s a symbol of masculinity, success and triumph and every male character in the movie wants it.

In the House

In the House, known as Dans la masion in its original French title is an off kilter French drama with more than a hint of thriller thrust into its unorthodox and highly inventive story. Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is a High School teacher beginning a new school year. While marking his first assignments, a bland and unimaginative pile each entitled ‘What I did Last Weekend’ he comes across a longer piece written by Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer). The essay is well written and details a voyeuristic experience outside a classmate’s house. Slightly worried by the details in the story which make special reference to the smell of his classmate’s middle class mother, the teacher takes Claude to one side to discuss the content but impressed by the standard of prose he encourages the boy to continue with another chapter of his troubling story.

Before seeing this movie I knew absolutely nothing about it. My girlfriend suggested we see it after she read a brief synopsis and noted that Kristen Scott Thomas was featured in the cast. I’m really happy that she spotted it because it’s a terrific little movie which features a highly engaging story which turns the camera on the writing process as well as takes an unflinching look at Freudian sexuality in a modern French setting.

Ghostbusters

I haven’t seen Ghostbusters since the mid 1990s. I don’t know why this is as I remember liking it as a child, although Ghostbusters II scared me, and I also watched the cartoon The Real Ghostbusters when I was very young. If memory serves me right I also had some Ghostbusters toys. I don’t know then why it has taken me so long (over half my life!) to watch it again. I got the idea to re-watch it before a recent trip to New York as I was in the mood for New York based movies and it was recommended to me on Twitter. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time before I went but I saved it until today and wasn’t disappointed. It’s great fun!

Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Raymond Stantz (Dan Akyroyd) and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) are three misfit scientists working out of Columbia University. When they lose their jobs due to a mixture of incompetence and lack of results they decide to set up shop as Ghostbusters, investigated the paranormal and catching ghosts for the people of New York City. They are initially successful and gain a reputation and celebrity status but something big on the horizon threatens to derail them and the entire city.

The Evil Dead

I always seem to prefix horror movie reviews with the same statement and here it is. I don’t really like horror movies. I don’t like to be scared and horror movies scare me. Now that’s out of the way I can spring a little surprise and say that watching The Evil Dead was just about as much fun as I can remember having with a movie, possibly ever. It’s fantastically gory and over the top as well as being hilariously and outrageously funny to boot. I watched the movie for two reasons. The first was to try and expand my cinematic viewing (horror is the only genre I generally avoid) and the second was to make sure I saw the original before the remake Evil Dead hits cinemas next month. I’m really glad that I saw this terrific movie before the remake.

The story will sound very familiar as the concept has been copied hundreds of times over the last thirty years but basically five college students head to a cabin in he woods for a break and things start going bump in the night. Shortly after arriving they discover some creepy looking items in the cellar which include a tape recorder on which a scientist documents strange goings on in the woods. What follows is an hour of gory, gruesome and genuinely mirthful slayings as the kids battle the demonic forces that lurk in the woods.

Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a 1964 satirical black comedy which was co-written, produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. A hit on its initial release and widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, Dr. Strangelove lampoons the Cold War fear of and attitude towards Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the idea that if one side were to bomb the other then the other side would retaliate and so on until both were destroyed. Although a seemingly brave subject matter for a comedy it is in fact part of a long line of films which poke fun at serious issues of the day. Both M.A.S.H. and more recently Team America: World Police have managed to find humour in solemn subjects but a very strong argument can be made that Dr. Strangelove is the greatest of them all.

The plot concerns a wayward and mentally disturbed US Air Force General who sends his squadron of B-52 bombers, armed with nuclear bombs towards Russian targets and then closes down all lines of communication and removes all abort codes. With the world close to its end, various men attempt to halt the planes from reaching their targets. British actor Peter Sellers plays no less than three characters here, and plays them all brilliantly. He performs as RAF Group Captain Lionel Mandrake who attempts to persuade the wayward General Jack D. Ripper (Stirling Hayden) to stop as well as playing US President Merkin Muffley who is in the War Room and his wheelchair bound ex-Nazi advisor Dr. Strangelove.

Midnight Express

For years friends and colleagues who know of my interest in films have been asking what I think of Midnight Express. I’ve always had to apologise and say that I’ve never seen it. This happened most recently last week and when I got home I finally remembered to add it as a high priority to my LoveFilm account with the company duly dispatching it just a couple of days later. Now when someone asks me what I think of Midnight Express I will be able to take them, though it might take some time. There is no doubting that it’s a very good film but it wasn’t quite the film I was expecting and there are one or two quite major problems with it.

The movie is based on a book by Billy Hayes, played here by Brad Davis. While in Istanbul with his girlfriend, Davis attempts to smuggle 2kg of hashish back to the US but is caught at the airport amid tighter security following a series of Palestinian lead hijackings. Billy is arrested and sent to a Turkish jail where he will spend the next several years.

Trance

Trance is the first film from Oscar winning Director Danny Boyle since he helmed the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony. Less than twelve months after performing the seemingly impossible and creating a ceremony for which Britain could be proud, Boyle is back to doing what he does best which is to make bloody good films. Trance is a thriller/drama starring James McAvoy as an art auctioneer who gets mixed up in a heist but subsequently loses his memory. With an impatient gang behind him lead by the always watchable Vincent Cassel, McAvoy’s Simon visits hypnotist Rosario Dawson to unlock his missing memory and rediscover the lost Goya painting.

I saw a retrospective interview with Danny Boyle recently in which his back catalogue was delved into. It suddenly dawned on me that he is one of my favourite directors as I’ve enjoyed every single one of the seven (of his nine) films I’ve seen. Additionally I’ve seen six of those seven more than once and I’d put the likes of Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire in amongst my top 50 films of all time. Trance won’t be entering my top 50 (if I actually had one) and isn’t a film I will be in a rush to see again but I thought it was a taught, stylish and confusing thriller which had me gripped from start to finish.

A Beautiful Mind

I saw A Beautiful Mind sometime in 2003 when I was still living at home with my parents. I remember that we all loved it and for a little while it became my favourite film. (Note I discovered Martin Scorsese the next year). Ten years later and I barely remembered a thing about it. I remembered Russel Crowe and something about maths and spying but that was all. I didn’t even remember how remarkably well formed Jennifer Connolly looked. I certainly didn’t recall any twists or surprises. Coming back to the film after ten years in my bid to watch every Oscar Best Picture winner (the film won in 2002) I was left disappointed by some very obvious twists and character development, something my young mind didn’t pick up on in 2003 and had subsequently forgotten. This early flaw put a dampener on the entire film and although it is very good in places, I could never quite get over the early let down.

The film is based on the life of Mathematician John Nash (Crowe) and we pick up his story as he begins his Doctoral thesis at Princeton in 1947. It is immediately obvious that he is highly gifted, egotistical and sure of his talents but lacks interpersonal skills. This is something which is picked up upon by his class mates and he makes very few friends in his time at College. He does gradually become acquainted with his eccentric English room mate Charles Herman (Paul Bettany) and the two remain close for many years. After a major breakthrough at Collage, Nash begins working at MIT but his unusual personality begins to develop into something more and he is taunted by mental illness which interrupts his work and threatens to break up his family.

Slumdog Millionaire

In early 2009 I was stunned by a cinematic experience so bright, colourful, exciting and interesting that I saw the movie twice within a week. The film was Slumdog Millionaire and a month later it won seven BAFTAS and eight Oscars including the big one, Best Picture. The film is a somewhat fantastical but highly engaging story of love, hardship and fortune told from the point of view of young Mumbai tea boy Jamal Malik (Dev Patel). Through his eyes we are told the story of his eighteen years and of his continuing search for his lost love Latika (Freida Pinto). In the hope that she sees him, Jamal becomes a contestant on India’s highest rated game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire but when he fortuitously answers several difficult questions correctly the host (Anil Kapoor) and Police (Irrfan Khan) want their own answers, most pressingly how he knows what he knows.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that I love this movie. I love everything about it from the direction, the soundtrack and the story to the cute child actors and cute adult actors (Pinto). After my initial double viewing I didn’t see the film again until today, over four years later. As soon as the titles rolled I got the little tingle that I got on my first viewing and by the end I was sure that my affection for the film hadn’t diminished at all.