2015 REVIEW

2015 yielded some great individual movies, but putting together a Top Ten proved to be trickier than I realised. I suppose overall 2015 was a bit inconsistent, but here goes with the Top Ten, honourable mentions and worst of the worst.

1. Mad Max Fury Road
George Miller’s return to Max Rockatansky’s scorched earth was the best film of the year by gasoline chugging miles. In fact, it was the best film of any year. A gloriously supercharged car chase through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, it redefines action cinema as a spectacle. There is nothing about Fury Road that is not wonderful. Tom Hardy’s absurdly taciturn performance as Max, Charlize Theron’s raging Furiosa, Hugh Keays-Byrne’s berserk Immortan Joe and an eye popping cast of assorted grotesques.  Like a fruity jazz number where it’s the notes you don’t play that make it a work, it’s the things you don’t see in Fury Road that elevate it to greatness. While the focus is clearly the chase, it’s the implication and suggestion of the bigger and bolder universe they inhabit that make it great. The depth and attention to minute detail indicating the love and creativity and inspiration that went into this film. Unlike so much modern science fiction, Fury Road eschews ham fisted exposition in favour of depositing you in the wasteland and crediting you with enough booksmarts to figure it out. Production values aside, it feels like it belongs in the 70s. In 2016 I need to see the Black & Chrome cut (fan edited, Miller approved, black and white, dialogue free version). But as it stands Fury Road is a near perfect movie.

2. It Follows
So great that I have included it in two end-of-year top tens. I saw it at the 2014 Melbourne Film Festival, but 2015 saw it get a divisive general release. For my money it delivered everything you could possibly want from a modern day horror movie. It Follows juggles its inventive concept and a genuinely creepy vibe, with some STD subtext and Carpenter homage, without ever resorting to cheap scares or becoming derivative.

3. Ex Machina
Alex Garland’s existential A.I. rumination. Young corporate whizz kid gets summoned to his boss’s remote estate to test out an Artificial Intelligence experiment.  Stylish, intelligent, thought provoking science fiction. Arguably the better Oscar Isaac / Domhnall Gleason sci fi picture of 2015.

4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
When the first trailer materialised for The Force Awakens I tried to manage my expectations, remembering the gigantic slice of ‘meh’ pie that The Phantom Menace served up. But by the time I set foot in the cinema I was like a kid on Christmas day. The first half of the movie is a helluva lot of fun, but it does lose its way as the last act becomes a little too derivative of the original trilogy. But a decent Star Wars movie is unarguably a ‘must see’, and one I’ll definitely be going back to for a second viewing.

5. The Guest
Although technically a 2014 release, this sneaked out direct-to-dvd in Australia in 2015 so it gets included. Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett’s previous collaboration, You’re Next, was an interesting home invasion flick that unfortunately ran out of steam in the last third; but The Guest has the stamina for the long haul. Dan Stevens turns up on a family’s door step claiming to have been friends with their son who died in the military. But all is not as it seems. A cracking action movie / black comedy.

6. Kingsmen: The Secret Service
Matthew Vaughn’s back catalogue generally seems to fall into the watchable/forgettable category, and as such, I went into Kingsmen with very little by way of expectation. I was rewarded with two hours of pure, distilled cinema fun. An exciting, hilarious chav James Bond take on the spy genre; Colin Firth is brilliant; and it is just a 100% good time.

7. Jurassic World
Colin Trevorrow’s unlikely follow up to the wonderful Safety Not Guaranteed could not have been more of its opposite. Much like Star Wars, Jurassic World does not feel the need to tread on any new ground but finds a likeable lead in Chris Pratt and plays to its strengths as genetically engineered dinosaurs predictably run amok. And you do know how I love a good large-creature-runs-amok movie.

8. The Spongebob Movie: Sponge out of Water
Spongebob’s second theatrical feature proved he’s still got it. The regulars go 3D in pursuit of the stolen Crabbie Pattie recipe, Antonio Banderas turns in possibly his greatest ever performance as the villain, and Matt Berry appears as a future dolphin. The best animated movie of the year, and more fun than both Inside Out and Big Hero Six combined. Watched it on a plane and guffawed my head off.

9. Avengers: Age of Ultron
Not even remotely as much fun as the first instalment, Age of Ultron stuttered and stumbled with some less than sparkling dialogue and the first recorded case of 2015’s most common movie disease – being too derivative of a successful predecessor. Nevertheless, even operating on half a tank, the Avengers can serve up delight in the form of an eminently enjoyable principle cast and a ton of Hulk Busting spectacle. An enjoyable couple of hours, just not the (repulsor) blast we had been expecting.

10. Spy
Surprisingly amusing spy caper, with a fun story and a bunch of great performances from a decent cast. It somehow manages to make both Melissa McCarthy and Miranda Hart funny, largely due to the fact McCarthy dials back her unwatchable OTT shtick to a more bearable level. The greatest triumph of all however, is Jason Statham’s hapless spy, sending up his tough guy image to hilarious effect. The Stath is brilliant in this. But as much fun as Spy is, I still have zero interest in director Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters, due in 2016. Please burn it with fire.

Honourable mentions (in no order):
•    Self/Less
•    Deep Web
•    Mistress America
•    Ant Man


Still waiting on the strangely horror-shy Australia to get a release date for two movies I’ve been chomping at the bit to see for the majority of 2015, Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno, and the Kurt Russell cannibal/western mash up, Bone Tomahawk. No doubt they’ll silently fart out direct-to-dvd at some point in 2016 because Australia is weird.


Worst:
Deathgasm
All the worst things about generic horror and generic heavy metal in one shitty movie.

Inherent Vice
Muddled private eye lark from Paul Thomas Anderson. Lacking enough humour to call it a comedy or enough intrigue to call it a mystery, let’s just call it a disaster.

Mortdecai
Irritating Johnny Depp vehicle seemingly designed around seeing who could conjure up the worst accent. It was excruciating. I switched it off.

Queen of Earth
Two childhood friends go on vacay to a cabin and up irritating the hell out of each other, but not as much as they irritated me because it was supremely boring and all the characters were jerks.

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (full review at The Reel Word)

Star Wars is an almighty juggernaut, so enmeshed in popular culture that it transcends all geek culture.  Star Wars is a part of peoples’ lives. It represents much more than mere nostalgia, and what George Lucas failed to understand with his endless tinkering and dodgy prequels, is that because of this connection Star Wars now belongs to all of us.

So with that in mind, the question we have to ask is does The Force Awakens work? And the answer is yes… and no. For the most part it is largely enjoyable, but is not without flaws.

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/star-wars-the-force-awakens-review/

IMDB: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

MISTRESS AMERICA (full review at The Reel Word)

Lonely and adrift at the start of her college year, Tracy Fishko (Lola Kirke) is encouraged by her mother to look up her soon-to-be step sister, Brooke Cardinas (Greta Gerwig), in New York City. The two hit it off immediately, and Tracy becomes enamoured with her older, confident friend’s bustling, sophisticated big city lifestyle. As Tracy orbits Brooke’s life, growing in confidence, the pair become good friends.

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/mistress-america-review/

IMDB: Mistress America

CUT SNAKE (full review at The Reel Word)

Sparra Farrell (Alex Russell) is living an idyllic lifestyle with a new job, a new house and beautiful soon-to-be wife, Paula (Jessica De Gouw). Just as things appear to be going well for them both, their life is interrupted by the arrival of Sparra’s old friend, Pommie (Sullivan Stapleton), an ex-con fresh out of prison and a link to Sparra’s secretive past.

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/cut-snake-review/

IMDB: Cut Snake

DEATHGASM - M.I.F.F. screening - (full review at The Reel Word)

Metalhead, Brodie (Miles Cawthorne), is sent to live with his devoutly Christian Aunt and Uncle in a new town. At odds with his bullying cousin and his relatives religious views, Brodie quickly finds himself an outcast. However he manages to befriend classmate Medina (Kimberley Crossman), fellow metalhead Zakk (James Blake) and form a band, the eponymous Deathgasm. Following the ill-fated discovery of some ancient sheet music known as The Black Hymn, the unwitting heroes manage to release a hoard of demons upon the townsfolk, and it’s up to them to set things right.

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/deathgasm-review/

IMDB: Deathgasm

RAIDERS! - M.I.F.F. screening - (full review at The Reel Word)

In 1981 three school friends correctly identified that Raiders of the Lost Ark is the greatest film of all time, and set out to make a shot-for-shot remake during their summer holidays. Seven summers later, with modest resources and a slavish attention to detail  Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala, and Jayson Lamb, finished Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. Complete, all bar one scene, it was a remarkable achievement. Thirty-odd years later Chris and Eric reunited to film that missing scene properly, raising the money via investors and crowdfunding, and Raiders! charts their progress.

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/raiders-review

IMDB: Raiders!

TURBO KID - M.I.F.F. screening - (full review at The Reel Word)

In an alternate 1997, the Earth is a wasteland, decimated by nuclear fallout. Humanity lives hand-to-mouth, scrounging for water and whatever remnants of their past society they can lay hands upon. We follow orphaned ‘Kid’ (Munro Chambers) as he befriends curious wasteland oddball, Apple (Laurence Leboeuf), and tough-as-old-boots water scavenger Frederic (Aaron Jeffery). Pursued by feral bad buys on bicycles, the Kid stumbles onto a ‘Turbo Suit’, incorporating an explosive power glove, which gives him the ability to take on evil apocalyptic warlord, Zeus (Michael Ironside), who is making everybody’s life a misery.

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/turbo-kid-review/
IMDB: Turbo Kid

SPRING - M.I.F.F. screening - (full review at The Reel Word)

In the aftermath of his mother’s death, Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci)’s life is in turmoil. Thanks to a heady cocktail of grief, unreliable friends and some unfortunate circumstance, Evan finds himself needing to skip town in a hurry. After befriending a couple of English backpackers, Evan’s travels land him in a small Italian town where he decides to stay on for a while, scoring a job with a friendly local farmer (Francesco Carnelutti) and becoming instantly taken with the mysterious Louise (Nadia Hilker). As we follow Evan and Louise’s burgeoning relationship around the narrow alleys and blind corners of the quaint old town, it soon becomes apparent that things are not all as they seem and Louise harbours a guarded secret.

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/spring-review/ 

IMDB: Spring

JOE DANTE (full article at The Reel Word)

With Explorers turning 30 this year, and his new movie Burying the Ex gradually getting a release around the globe, the time seems about right to celebrate Joe Dante’s eclectic back catalogue. It appears to be a recurring trend throughout his career that Dante’s movies are underrated upon release, only to find their audiences much later as beloved cult treasures. From his early days working for Roger Corman, through to his current stewardship of the excellent Trailers From Hell website, Joe Dante’s career has relished bringing the B-movie kicking and screaming into the mainstream.

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/reel-spotlight-director-joe-dante/


IMDB: Joe Dante

OPEN RANGE (full review at The Reel Word)

Kevin Costner’s 2003 Western, Open Range, is hardly a ‘hidden gem’ in the conventional sense. It arrived with a sweeping grandness and a roster of great actors, at a time when Costner’s star was still bright and there was nothing he did that could slip under anyone’s radar. But despite its big names and warm reception, Open Range is a movie that seems to have fallen down behind the sofa and been forgotten. Perhaps due to the unfashionableness of the genre, perhaps due to Costner’s inexplicably waning appeal. Whatever the reason, Open Range is an absorbing, thrilling Western that is driven by robust characterisation and gritty action.
Read the full article at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/hidden-gem-open-range/


IMDB: Open Range

WHEN UNDER: FIRE SHOOT BACK! (full review at The Reel Word)

When Under Fire, Shoot Back is a documentary following the career of the Bang Bang Club, a group of four dedicated photojournalists, renowned for their striking and uncompromising documentation of the bloody violence in post-apartheid South Africa. The group comprised of  Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich, Ken Oosterbroek, and João Silva, and the film charts the heights of their prolific and acclaimed photography careers to the downward trajectory of tragedy that would befall them.
Read the full article at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/when-under-fire-shoot-back-review/

IMDB: When Under Fire: Shoot Back!

TOP TEN FUTURE PRISONS (full article at The Reel Word)

Everyone is scared of going to prison. And if there’s one thing worse than prison, it’s Future Prison. Future Prison is gonna chew you up and spit you out. If you’ve been sentenced to do time in a Future Prison, chances are you’re probably innocent. Failing that, the chances are you’ve been ‘done’ for something relatively normal by today’s standards, but strictly at odds with future society’s warped moral compass. If you’re getting sent down to Future Prison it’s mostly likely being run by an evil corporate entity or a deranged, power-crazed madman. Future Prison is probably holding a mirror up to the neo-fascist Orwellian nightmare that society has become. Future prison is bad news, and you better get yourself a good Future Lawyer, ‘cause here are the Top Ten...
Read the full article at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/top-ten-future-prisons/

KUMIKO THE TREASURE HUNTER (full review at The Reel Word)

Kumiko The Treasure Hunter is a curious picture. By the time the credits roll, expectations are flung distant, in part due to some extremely odd decisions to position it as a comedy, and in part due to a concept that promises whimsy, but instead delivers melancholy.
Read the rest of the review at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/kumiko-the-treasure-hunter-review/

IMDB: Kumiko The Treasure Hunter

WESTWORLD (full review at The Reel Word)

Twenty years before Michael Crichton conquered the world with a little novel about dinosaurs running amok in a futuristic theme park, he had a stab at a similar idea, writing and directing his debut feature, Westworld.
Read the rest of the review at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/reel-classic-westworld/

IMDB: Westworld

SOYLENT GREEN (full review at The Reel Word)

Richard Fleischer’s 1973 science fiction movie, Soylent Green, is a hard-boiled detective yarn set against the backdrop of a dystopian future, ravaged by the effects of overpopulation and the greenhouse effect.

The year is 2022 and the Earth is running on empty. The soil and seas have been poisoned by industry, and population growth has strangled the planet. Set in a crammed, breadline New York City, there is so little room people sleep on stairways, and the majority of the population exist on rationed food cubes (the titular Soylent Green, as well as Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow). Opportunism is rife, and luxury is seized with both hands whenever it presents itself.  It is a world of food riots, unemployment and endless stifling heat.
Read the rest of the review at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/reel-classic-soylent-green/

IMDB: Soylent Green

INHERENT VICE (full review at The Reel Word)

In 1970 Los Angeles, Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is a perma-stoned private detective, hired to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend, a wealthy, married property mogul. At the same time, Doc is hired to find a recently released ex-con and a woman’s missing, presumed dead, husband. By accident or design, these cases intersect and Doc must work to resolve them, all whilst being hassled by Detective ‘Bigfoot’ Bjornsen (Josh Brolin), and the stridently anti-hippy LAPD.
Read the rest of the review at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/inherent-vice-review/

IMDB: Inherent Vice

THE REEL WORD

Since the beginning of the year, I have been submitting writing to some other websites and publications and in some fun news, I am going to be writing some reviews for a film website (which confusingly shares a very similar name to my own blog) The Reel Word. I'll be linking to my reviews with posts on here, and I'll still be trying to update Reel Important at least semi regularly, but it may be a little less frequent for a while.

You can visit The Reel Word at the following address:
http://www.thereelword.net/

ONLY GOD FORGIVES

Nicolas Winding Refn's divisive follow up to Drive is a curious, but problematic picture. Like Drive, its basic plot line is trashy pulp, and I mean that as praise. But what makes Only God Forgives interesting is that it seems to emanate art-house nous when at its core it is a seedy, violent revenge movie. Refn is a hugely interesting film maker but Only God Forgives, however stylish, is flawed and ultimately empty.

Julian (Ryan Gosling) runs a boxing club in Bankok with his brother Billy (Tom Burke) as a front for his family's lucrative drug operation. When Billy is arrested and killed for the rape and murder of a young girl, their mother Crystal (Kristen Scott Thomas) hastily arrives to oversee revenge. On the side of the law, they are pitted against Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), a ruthless detective whose methods of interrogation and justice are as brutal and merciless as the criminals he is pursuing.

Only God Forgives is a neon drenched fever dream unfolding with a fascinating initial 20 minutes that is virtually dialogue free. It is also terrifically violent. As it descends into the madness of a quid pro quo revenge flick, it features a protracted, almost unwatchable torture sequence, made all the more unbearable by the blankness of the characters involved. It's mean and nasty and features the grimmest set piece since Kill List's kitchen table encounter.

However the real problems arise when it comes to the characters, or rather the lack thereof. Stoicism becomes a practiced art form as Gosling and Pansringarm forgo depth in favour of machine-like automaton brutality.  We learn things about Gosling's back story in passing, through reference and insinuation, but we know nothing of him as a character. In fact Gosling himself has likened Julian to an avatar. A vehicle through which to experience the movie. The other characters lurk on the periphery, drifting in and out of the feint story with an economy of dialogue. The only one who cuts loose to any degree is Kristen Scott Thomas's feral mother, Crystal, abusing every human being she comes into contact with and saddling Julian with some deranged Oedipal blackmail.

The police officer,  Chang,  dispenses brutal street justice, answering to no one, and then unwinds by singing ballads in a karaoke bar as the only mitigation to his ferocity. It brings to mind Chow Yun Fat's melancholy, clarinet playing Inspector Tequila from John Woo's action masterpiece Hard Boiled, smooth jazz-ing his guilt away. But that's as close as we get to any humanity from Chang. Another stoic hero/villain in a movie awash with them.

That's not to say Only God Forgives is without merit. It's hard nosed and bleak, and much like Drive it's stylish and assured.  And when Julian and Chang face each other down at the gym, the resultant pummelling is a mesmerising, bone crunching punch up straight out of a top drawer martial arts movie.

Ultimately even the loose characters could be overlooked in the bigger scheme of things for the sake of its art and general non-verbal nature, were it not for the deeply unsatisfying ending. Meaning that while Only God Forgives is undeniably interesting, its sum total is a film that's very light on both plot and character. Without one concession to the audience, giving us some closure, we're not left with very much at the end of the movie. Only God Forgives' stylish pomp offers only a confounding glimpse at what might have been a great film, but is instead a disappointing one.

IMDB: Only God Forgives

by Randy Ortiz

GONE GIRL

Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike) are a not-so-happily married couple. Their five year marriage is seemingly on the verge of divorce.  Nick returns home one afternoon to discover evidence of a struggle in their house, and that Amy is missing. He contacts the police and as the investigation proceeds, further details of their rocky marriage are revealed and the finger of suspicion begins to point toward Nick himself. He must fight not only the charges against him, but also a PR battle against a merciless, judgmental media. As our opinions of Nick oscillate between guilty and innocent, it soon becomes apparent that perhaps all is not as it seems.

Gone Girl is David Fincher's adaptation of Gillian Flynn's popular novel of the same name. Its baffling critical acclaim contrasting starkly with the simple fact it is one of the stupidest films ever made. The plot is utterly, maddeningly absurd. There is of course,  nothing wrong with stupidity in context, but with Gone Girl being compared to Hitchcock and championed as a razor sharp satire, it is asking you to take it seriously. There comes a point at which ridiculous plotting starts to become annoying, and the two and a half hour run time asks you to endure a lot.

In fairness, it is well acted and the cast do well with what they are given, but it is hamstrung by cliche and is alarmingly clunky. The media,  whom it supposedly satirises, are portrayed as one dimensional, reactionary and straight out of The Simpsons. I half expected Godfrey Jones to appear at any second.  Nick's lawyer, the crazily named Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry) is no more a character than Seinfeld's Johnny Cochran parody,  Jackie Chiles. Nick's proposal to Amy, told via flashback, is cringeworthy and soap opera-level naff.  The whole movie is Fincher on autopilot.

Ultimately Gone Girl feels idiotic.  It relies on dumb luck, logic-defying plot holes and character leaps that belie any pretext of reality. The world these characters inhabit has about as much to do with ours as Star Wars. As outlandish trash, Gone Girl might find a niche - or as a movie you might watch on a plane, alongside the novel you might buy in the airport. But as stylish noir or Hitchcockian thriller it's got serious delusions of grandeur.

IMDB: Gone Girl

by Ben Holmes

by Matt Needle

by Fernando Reza

THE ONE

Jet Li's mind bending, high concept, sci-fi, martial arts actioner The One is another addition to the underrated list. Lost to many people in the post-matrix deluge of slow-mo, CGI heavy bullet-time movies of the early 00s, The One deserves reassessment. Bestowed with an intriguing, albeit loopy concept, The One delivers an interesting meld of science fiction and action movie joy.

The bonkers concept essentially sees Jet Li trying to kill all the other Jet Li's across various dimensions, so that he can absorb their strength and become the most powerful Jet Li in the Universe! As his evil bastard alter ago, Gabriel Yulaw, he attempts a spot of interdimensional homicide, but just as Yulaw (Jet Li) gets stronger with each assassination, so too does good guy cop Gabe Law (Jet Li). As the number of interdimensional Jet Li's dwindle, it falls to Gabe and a pair of agents from a parallel universe police force called the Multiverse Authority (MVA) to stop him.

Generally you go into a Jet Li movie wanting to see Jet Li hand some bad guys their ass, but in The One Jet Li hands himself his own ass! Through a variety of  gravity defying action scenes and super pumped fisticuffs, The One's effects have held up well. The wire work fight scenes are convincing as Gabe battles both himself and battalions of cops, and there is an awesome set piece where a powered-up Yulaw attacks a motorcycle plod with a vehicle in each hand!

The One also has a pretty great cast going for it. Veteran character actor Delroy Lindo provides the acting chops, as World-weary MVA Agent Harry Roedecker.  Dean Norris from Breaking Bad also features; and it has an early appearance by Jason Statham who stomps around with another dicey accent, but gives the film cred by playing it totally straight and taking the material seriously. In fact, Crank aside, this might very well be The Stath's finest hour, despite the fact he doesn't really get to show off his fighting prowess.

Director James Wong and writer Glen Morgan have a notable back catalogue in the form of the first, surprisingly enjoyable, Final Destination movie, alongside consistent work on both Millennium and The X Files.  I doubt there are that many folk who are enamoured enough with this movie to sit down with the director’s commentary on, but let the record show I am that person. In an enlightening talk track we learn that one of the characters in the hospital morgue scene is played by none other than Mark Borchardt from the incredible against-the-odds movie making documentary American Movie. We’re then hit with the revelation that Jonathan Ke Quan aka Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Data from The Goonies, assisted on the fight choreography! Much is made of the fact the production was hit with budget constraints and a studio desperate for a PG13 rating, resulting in the elimination of a spectacular souped-up car chase, and a planned Statham versus Li dust up.  We are therefore left to only imagine the lofty heights The One might have soared to, were its wings not clipped by a reduced budget and a concession to tone down the violence.

Critics have accused The One of being too similar to Highlander, but ultimately that's a little lazy and unfair. That assertion overlooks one crucial fact... Highlander is cack. If there are a couple of negatives it's that the excellent Carla Gugino is wasted in a generic-wife role, and I could have done without the Nu Metal on the soundtrack.

Otherwise, there is plenty of fun to be had with The One. It does everything you want it to, and it’s just a tall, frosty glass of enjoyment.

IMDB: The One

BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE)

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) follows - quite literally - Riggan Thompson (Michael Keaton), the ex-star of Hollywood's hugely successful Birdman franchise, as he courts legitimacy with a Broadway production of the Raymond Carver story ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’.  Riggan is staking everything - his financial stability, his professional reputation, his sanity - on the success of  his play, as he encounters problems with his cast and his own brittle metal state. His internal monologue, personified by his famous Birdman character, is constantly questioning whether he wants critical acclaim or global celebrity.

Alejandro González Iñárritu has crafted a strange and enigmatic movie. Birdman's two hour duration is presented as one long, glorious tracking shot. It's an inventive device that succeeds in depicting the whole movie almost as if it were itself a play; and it lends itself to some very inventive problem solving when faced with the progression of time and location. Likewise, the superhero motif of Riggan's past glory is used to illustrate the movie's bigger, art v commercialism pondering, and creatively sketches Riggan's mental unravelling.

It's Keaton's show, and no mistake, but he's ably abetted by the likes of Naomi Watts and Zach Galifianakis testing their acting mettle here. But for all its great performances, it does over-egg itself at times. Emma Stone's grandstanding,  wide eyed gesticulating is a gnats cock away from being Jack Nicholson on the stairs in The Shining shrieking "gimme the bat", and even Keaton himself ramps up the 'actor face' a bit much.  Edward Norton excels above all others as Mike Shiner, the best actor in the production, which has one wondering if this is intentional - if the actors in the movie are supposed to be mimicking the skills and qualities of the actors in the theatre production - or if that's reading too much into it?

Birdman is a weird,  interesting cinema experience, but is ultimately a little unsatisfying.  Is Birdman just musing on relevance in the digital age, and creative success versus commercial success  like it's conflicted protagonist? Or is there a message in the madness? Perhaps it is merely asking questions of itself and its audience, despite feeling like it has a point to make. On the one hand Birdman is taking pot shots at Hollywood and comic book movies, while on the other, it rails against the critic who dismisses Riggan outright for his celebrity and populist career. It's message therefore, IF it has one, is left feeling a little inscrutable.

Nonetheless, Birdman is an absorbing watch. I'm not sure if it is quite the challenging piece of cinema it is being held up to be. Nor is it perhaps fully deserving of all its attendant hyperbole.  But it is certainly an intriguing curiosity, with a very pleasing oddness about it. And that alone makes it worth a look.

IMDB: Birdman 

NIGHTCRAWLER

Nightcrawler follows the story of Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhall), a small-time petty thief and nominal jobhunter eeking his way around Los Angeles trying to make ends meet. Whilst driving home one evening Lou chances upon a dramatic road traffic accident and, stopping to investigate, becomes aware of the career potential in 'nightcrawling' Nightcrawling is the practice of trawling the police band radio every night for juicy accidents and crimes to film, translating into lucrative sales to the ratings hungry, morally abject local TV news stations. Lou gets a lucky break and manages to sell a graphic, but poor-quality video of a fatal carjacking to local news chief Nina (Rene Russo), who recognises a crude talent.  Nina encourages Lou to bring her further footage, and so he gets his foot in the door of a seedy news industry, where the grimmer the tragedy, the bigger the paycheck. Lou hires an assistant, Rick (Riz Ahmed), to help him navigate the labyrinthine Los Angeles streets and decipher the coded police calls they track from the car. As Lou's career ascends, so too do the lengths he will go to frame a good shot or best his competition.

Lacking in any sort of moral compass, Lou manipulates everything and everyone he comes into contact with, from his assistant Rick, to the bodies at a crime scene. Nothing is off-limits and everything is a 'sale'. A gaunt looking Jake Gyllenhaal is super creepy as Lou, superficially earnest and hardworking, but underlying it all he is a sociopathic void. Lou is constantly spouting weird business platitudes as he gives it the bug-eye. Rene Russo and Riz Ahmed are excellent as the closest thing Lou has to friends, and it's fantastic to see Bill Paxton as a sleazy nightcrawling competitor. Note: it is scientifically impossible for Bill Paxton to be bad in anything. He rules.

On the face of it, Nightcrawler might sound like a grim ride, and although it feels OTT at times, it is no less compelling for it. It's grimly amusing in its own way. The absurdity of Lou Bloom's detachment and  lack of empathy, combined with his self-help book motivational creed, lend themselves to some darkly comic scenarios. If you've ever pondered whether ambitious people are dangerous, then Nightcrawler is going to give you some bad dreams. It's a stylish yet seedy study of what happens when blind ambition and moral ambiguity collide. An extreme portrait of aspiration as a weapon.

IMDB: Nightcrawler

HARD TARGET

Hard Target was John Woo’s first film outside of Hong Kong, and is arguably his finest western movie. You may well have enjoyed Nicholas Cage and John Travolta facing off in ... erm ... Face/Off, and there is much to get down with where the proto-Nicholson stylings of Christian Slater are concerned in the underrated Broken Arrow, but Hard Target is an utterly unsung masterpiece of action cinema. It has everything going for it.

The premise is thus: Lance Henricksen runs an Nth-degree-evil corporate events management company, where rich bastards pay him some fat wedge to safari hunt homeless people in New Orleans. With some cops on the payroll and Joe & Jane public's casual ambivalence to the plight of the homeless - even when they are being big-game hunted through a pedestrian arcade - they've got a pretty cushy number going for them. Things start to unravel, however, when they inadvertently kill a man who still has a family (a fact not picked up on by their screening process). The man's daughter (Yancy Butler) comes looking for him, enlisting the help of down-on-his-luck ex-army guy Chance Boudreaux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) when she runs into nothing but dead ends at the cop shop and city hall. Together, they set out to uncover the mystery of her father's death.

Hard Target has got an astonishingly mullet-permed Van Damme, looking like a cross between Billy Ray Cyrus and Deidre Barlow,  sprinkling his dialogue with Cajun spice (i.e. a weird accent) and uber-creepy references to finding Yancy Butler’s “Daddy”. He is one heck of an oddbod as the hero, but don’t get me wrong, Van Damme is completely badass in this.

We have Lance Henricksen as the villain, chewing the scenery and stalking the indigent with an absurdly impractical antique gun he can only reload one shot at a time, while Arnold Vosloo (of The Mummy and the Darkman-sequels 'fame') menaces all as his cue ball-headed henchman.

We have Wilford Brimley as a mega-stereotypical crazy old coot living out in the Bayou backwaters brewing moonshine, and of course, this being a John Woo picture, it's got more slo-mo, motorbikes, fluttering birds and Uzi's than could be ever be imagined by a normal human mind.

Although Van Damme's fans are legion, and often point to his skill and martial arts prowess as being peerless amongst the action heroes of the '80s and '90s, for my money his obvious technical ability was just never a match for the comedic, brute thuggery of Arnie or Sly in their prime. But in Hard Target’s Chance Boudreaux, the stoic brow-beaten hero, plays perfectly to Van Damme’s strengths as a quietly composed nut job, kicking gumbo-flavoured ass in a Canadian tuxedo and Timberlands.

This leads us on very nicely to one of the greatest sequences in all of cinema history. Now, the scholars amongst you might well stand before the jury and present a well-reasoned case for Bogart and Bergman at the end of Casablanca being the best. You might choose to sit yourself down and eulogise the cockle-warming ending of It's A Wonderful Life. Or you might even want to stand up and salute the virtues of Citizen Kane's famous Rosebud enigma. But before we go any further, let me ask you this: do any of those movies feature Jean-Claude Van Damme knocking a rattlesnake unconscious with one punch, biting off its 'rattle' with his teeth and then hanging it in a tree so it can silently attack a baddie later on? The only movie that can answer 'yes' to that question is Hard Target, and that is precisely why it is awesome.

Insanely, the internet abounds with rumour concerning various alternate cuts of the movie. From a supposed extended laser disc version through to an ultra violent, director’s cut work print with a whopping 20 extra minutes. Whatever the reality, the fact remains that even in its theatrical incarnation, Hard Target is a rare gem of an action movie. Over the top and a bit silly, but at the same time huge amounts of fun and massively entertaining.

In fact, I love this movie so much I feel like I should start a crowdfundung campaign to allow me to write and co-direct Hard Target 2. Of course, I’d only do it with the proviso that I could get Van Damme and Woo on board and cast Jason Statham as Van Damme’s ass kicking Cajun cousin.

Hard Target is the God of underrated 90s action. Go forth and spread the gospel.

IMDB: Hard Target

                  

DEAD HEAT

Dead Heat is a criminally underrated horror comedy from 1988, which seems to have either flown under most folks' radar or been largely misunderstood for the past two and a half decades. Riding the wake of Lethal Weapon, it's part cop/buddy movie, part zombie flick.

Doug Bigelow (Joe Piscopo - who I knew of previously only from a couple of Simpsons references) and the magnificently monikered Roger Mortis (Treat Williams - the unlikely action hero of the underrated sequels in The Subsitute series) are a pair of classic play-by-their-own-rules detectives who stumble upon a criminal masterplan to achieve eternal life through the resurrection of the dead!

Thing's kick off nicely with an enjoyable cameo from the master of the '80s cameos, Robert Picardo (as a detective chief), when the two cops foil a jewellery store robbery by a couple of hoods, who take scores of bullets but refuse to die. Having resolved the situation via unconventional means, Doug and Roger get chewed out back at the station by the Chief, who does not approve of unconventional means but DOES approve of the results. They follow up on a lead, which takes them to a suspicious laboratory that has been working on a 'resurrection machine' to bring back the dead, and it's no spoiler to reveal that Roger is killed in the line of duty. He is subsequently reanimated, and it's up to the pair to track down Roger's murderer and uncover the truth behind the resurrection machine.

Dead Heat also features a sprightly appearance from Vincent Price in one of his final roles (behind only Edward Scissorhands and a couple of TV movies) as rich tycoon, Arthur P Laudermilk.

Dead Heat is total fun, and it's a complete mystery as to why this movie isn't better known or well loved. It's surprisingly violent in places, so perhaps this odd tone is what puts people off. If that is the case, then Dead Heat was certainly ahead of its time, as the same mix of broad comedy and zombie-based violence was put to expert use sixteen years later in Shaun of the Dead. If Dead Heat came out ten years later things might well be different - Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo would be huge! It's true that some of the dialogue is pretty corny in places, with some truly dreadful one-liners, but it works somehow. It's an ingenious concept and, despite appearing to operate within the boundaries of genre cliche, it actually does something fun and interesting with it.

The other star of the show are the excellent special effects. One of the unparalleled highlights is a gloriously inventive set piece in a butcher's shop, where Doug and Roger are attacked by the chopped up, reanimated meat products littering the counter.

So, let's recap - it's a violent, mad scientist, cop buddy horror comedy with reanimated, malevolent butcher's meat, a few surprises up its sleeve and Vincent Price. What more do you need? It's essential viewing.

Format note: The US Blu Ray version that I own is not much better than DVD quality, with nothing by way of extra features, whereas previous US DVD releases included deleted scenes, the script and director commentary. The DVD might be the option to go for if you're keen on tracking this down.

IMDB: Dead Heat

2014 REVIEW

2014 produced some really great movies, and this year, my top spot is a three way tie. Three vastly different movies, all reminding me in their own way of the best things about cinema, and all essential viewing.

1. Interstellar
Nolan's ode to 2001. Intelligent, emotive, sublime science fiction

2. We Are The Best! (Vi är Bäst!)
Punk rock + Lucas Moodysson = cinema heaven. I loved this film so much. 5 stars, ten out of ten, all that jazz and then some. We Are The Best? Damn right.

3. The Grand Budapest Hotel
Wes Anderson's stylish, hilarious, aspect-ratio-molesting caper delivers on all counts. Gets better with every watch.

4. Her
Technically Spike Jonz's existential sci-fi romance drama hit screens in late 2013, but get included here anyway on account of its brilliance.

5. The One I Love
To provide any plot details about this overlooked gem would be too much information. Trust me, rely on the fact that Mark Duplass and Elizabeth Moss are GREAT; go in fresh and enjoy the hell out of this unexpected treat.

6. It Follows
An inventive, creepy, new horror flick which delivers on it's killer concept. Caught it at M.I.F.F. and it looks like this will get its wider release in 2015.

7. Jodorowsky's Dune
The greatest movie never made. Jodorowsky's enthusiasm for his 40 year old dream project is as infectious as it is inspiring. Wonderful stuff.

8. Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films
Massively entertaining documentary on the hilarious, almost unbelievable story of Cannon Films. I saw it at M.I.F.F. and it looks like this will be out more widely in 2015.

9. Guardians of the Galaxy
James Gunn's highly entertaining entry to the Marvel universe did  great job with a relatively obscure comic. The soundtrack didn't engage me like it seemed to with most, and his best movie is still the the underrated Super, but Guardians was lot of fun and you can't ask for much more than that.

10. Godzilla
Solid and entertaining US update of everyone's favourite Kaiju. Cranston adds gravitas to an enjoyable couple of hours while we wait for Pacific Rim 2.

11. Only Lovers Left Alive
Jarmusch's lethargic muso vampire meditation. Slow, yet absorbing.

Honourable mentions go to the ripping indie revenge flick Blue Ruin, which also came out in 2013 but didn't seem to get a release anywhere until 2014.  Whiplash, Inside Llewyn Davis, Dallas Buyers Club, Frank,What We Do In The Shadows and Captain America: The Winter Soldier were also well worth a look-see.

Of the films I didn't manage to catch in 2014, I wanted to see Nightcrawler, The Babadook, Boyhood, Under The Skin, and 12 Years A Slave, all of which I expect would have competed for spots in the Top Ten.

Worst:
Life After Beth
Painfully unfunny Aubrey Plaza zombie / comedy vehicle, with emphasis on it's painful unfunniness. It hurts to watch shit like this when you realise there are probably talented people out there trying to write and make movies and getting nowhere. A derivative, joyless waste of everyone's time. I want my 20 bucks back.

American Hustle
Bloated, star-leaden tedium that attracted praise from all corners like flies on stink, but for my money looked hopelessly inauthentic and bored the utter crap out of me.