A Prophet

This dazzling piece of cinema from French director Jacques Audiard is a powerful work of art, overflowing with iconic characters and oozing confidence from its every frame.

The film focuses on young Malik (powerfully played by Tahar Rahim), serving a six year prison sentence for an unknown crime. Arriving with nothing more than a fifty-euro note stuck in his worn-out trainers, A Prophet follows his career on the inside, as he comes across Corsican mafia (led by Niels Arestrup) and other groups within the crowded prison.

To discuss the way the plot unfolds throughout the near-three hour length of the film would be to ruin one of the chief pleasures of an excellent script, but it is worth noting that the writing quality here is of an exceptional standard. Politics, characterisation, religion and elements of fantasy or super-realism are interwoven with a plot that maintains a relentless and gripping pace from start to finish. Some segments are perhaps slightly superfluous to the main narrative thrust, but these are executed with such panache that few viewers could find sufficient cause for complaint.

Audiard's direction is superlative, his keen eye filling every scene with details and touches, and effectively capturing some magnificent performances by the strong cast. There is a tangible attempt to create a truly iconic crime drama here - with the epic scope of The Godfather, the punchy style of Trainspotting and the thematic ambiguity (but notably none of the ironic overtones) of Pulp Fiction. These are not glib references - the film merits comparison with such definitive work because it is undoubtedly worthy of entry into that pantheon.

Utterly revelatory on a first viewing, A Prophet is a film to be pored over, studied, dissected and above all treasured.

5/5

Swingers

'Romantic comedy' is a phrase likely to bring most cinephiles out in a rash. This 1996 offbeat comedy skirts potential artistic suicide with a strained attempt at effortless cool, and plays out like a comedy of manners for the Tarantino generation.

Jon Favreau gives a magnetic performance in the central role of his own script, as a recently single comedian trying to make it in Hollywood, held back only by coyness, self-reflection and an annoying (and occasionally far-fetched) propensity for self-destruction.

The first third of the film follows Favreau on a road trip to Las Vegas with a before-he-got-irritating Vince Vaughan in support, in a doomed attempt to banish the ghosts of his previous relationship with a one night stand. While providing some good gags and employing a measured pace that intrigues, this section of the film sits uncomfortably with the remainder, which takes place in Los Angeles.

With a mostly forgettable supporting cast (Heather Graham lifts the quality somewhat with her late appearance) the crop of reservoir dogs around which the film is centred not only idolise Tarantino, but highlight an uncomfortable level of fan boy worship in Favreau's script. Indeed the juddering slow-motion walking sequence in the middle of the film, no doubt intended as arch and ironic, comes across as patronisingly derivative.

Engaging and funny, but a little too sharply scripted for its own good, Swingers slaps a dollop of 90s chic onto a well-worn formula and, thanks in most part to some bright performances, manages to entertain more than it irritates.
3/5

Radio On

This sparse, poignant 1979 film from critic turned first-time-director Christopher Petit is a rare example of a British road movie. Financed by Wim Wenders' production company, the film centres on a young man who travels from London to Bristol to investigate the mysterious death of his brother.

Plot is not important here. Indeed the lives of the various characters met on the way are relatively unimportant. What is most strongly conveyed, through a precise mix of bleak, monochrome cinematography, languorous tracking shots of industrialised Britain and cold New Wave and electronic music is a meditative exploration of a societal malaise.

The film opens with a long tracking shot through an apparently deserted house, taking in many minor details, and looping through different rooms to the sound of David Bowie's "Heroes" / "Helden" (the German version of the same song), finally setting on a image which transpires to be the final viewpoint of a dying man in the bath.

Oppressively bleak and yet somehow ultimately uplifting, a feat accomplished without being remotely redemptive, Radio On is worth persevering with to the end - just don't expect any answers. As with all good road movies, the lesson learnt is in the journey. In Petit's minor masterpiece we are taught that apathy is universal. Somehow, this is a comforting thought.
4/5

Se7en

This unremittingly bleak tale of murder and attrition from director David Fincher is an astonishing cinematic statement, that remains as shocking today as when it was first released in 1995. It is a masterpiece of the macabre and modern gothic, and sits in the same category as Psycho - a film that proves pure genre pieces can be as profound and inventive as any cinematic expression.

Se7en follows Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt as two detectives in their respective last and first weeks on the job, following the case of a serial killer who mutilates his victims and labels the crimes with one of the seven deadly sins. The murders, though off screen, are nonetheless gory and graphic, and form the gritty substance of the film.

Murky and dark, the opening segments of the film trap the audience in a purgatorial city of depravity, fear and constant decay. As the investigators meditate on the writings of Milton and Chaucer, we are pulled in to the psychology of a killer who we've yet to meet. Most intriguingly of all, and virtually unique in good crime films, we are forced to focus on the how, rather than the why of the grisly murders.

As Fincher unveils the ace up the film's sleeve, we are pulled with the characters into the blinding light of day, and left with the uncomfortable notion that self-understanding is the worst fruit plucked from the tree of knowledge. Dazzlingly pure and perfectly realised, Se7en is in many ways the epitaph of modernist cinema, and gave Fincher the freedom to move on to tackling post-modernism, a goal he would achieve with Fight Club.
5/5

The Descent

This terrifying British horror movie is, to turn a cringing phrase, "the mutant offspring of Touching The Void and The Hobbit on steroids". A group of young women meet to go potholing in the Appalachians, one year after a terrible accident threatens to tear them apart. Tensions bubble under the surface as they descend into the mountain, where they are totally unprepared for the horrors that will throw them together and then tear them, limb from limb, apart.

While on paper this premise sounds overblown and more than a little silly, The Descent is actually a refreshing change: a horror movie that is subtle in characterization and sharply acted. Once the subterranean odyssey begins, the dialogue is reeled in, and director Neil Marshall allows his astonishing visuals to command the action. A happy conjunction of realism and textured artistry, the aesthetic is dark, claustrophobic, and unnervingly effective.

Indeed the claustrophobic first half of the film is arguably the stronger, where the tension is maintained by the fracturing emotions and crumbling setting. Horror aficionados especially will appreciate the punch behind the claustrophobic terror shown here, of woman-versus-nature at it's most raw. Inevitably this is lost somewhat in the second act, as Marshall pulls out all the stops to unleash a torrent of gore. Surprisingly, the tension remains.

Important to note here is a conscious effort to avoid clichéd visual terminology, meaning some of the symbolism is surprisingly potent. Where one "dirtied" character lands in a pool of water, another apparent innocent lands in... something rather less appealing.

Ultimately the main point of contention in whether the film succeeds is in the reading of the dénouement. Marshall attempts to append "into Madness" to the title of his film, and whether he successfully achieves this coup de grâce is for the viewer to decide. What is certain is that The Descent stands tall as a terrifying, brutal and witty horror film, that no doubt will age better than many of its contemporaries.
4/5

Punch-Drunk Love

This beautiful indie flick from art house maestro Paul Thomas Anderson is a deliberately understated study of neurosis and first love. Light and playful in the most part, but with an undercurrent of ire directed at societal complacency, it is perhaps most notable for an excellent performance from Adam Sandler, certainly a diamond in the turgid rough of his career.

Sandler takes the central role as Barry Egan, a frustrated, possibly mildly autistic businessman whose life is ruined by both his own repressed psyche, and the meddling of his seven ghastly sisters. Indeed, all the women that Egan encounters in the film (including the woman he speaks to on a phone-sex hotline) are a source of nothing but trauma, save for one. As his relationship with the quiet Lena, pointedly underplayed by Emily Watson, blooms, Sandler nuances his performance with a surprising amount of depth.

Combining plot elements of comedy, romance and thriller, the film is pitched as a minimalist and artistic piece. The use of colour is bold but not overpowering, and there is striking use of the late Jeremy Blake's video artwork to break up the narrative. Yet the balance is maintained, as Philip Seymour Hoffman (enjoying himself) and his goons manage to cause a believable amount of mayhem.

Anderson's screenplay and direction are typically unpredictable, and repeat viewings will undoubtedly reveal a complex substructure to the playful narrative. Despite this, Punch-Drunk Love is a pleasure to watch on a first viewing, and proof that Anderson can churn out quirky, clever little indie gems in his sleep.
4/5

El Mariachi

This micro-budget Mexican thriller marked the feature-film debut of Robert Rodriguez, who's taste for superlative action and grungey horror has made him a Hollywood success story over the last decade or so, including two collaborations with Quentin Tarantino. It comes as something of a shock then, to re-visit this early exercise in style and suspense and see the restraint on view.

Carlos Gallardo plays the near-destitute mariachi who arrives in a strange city, guitar in hand, looking for work. Unfortunately for him, a recent breakout at a local prison (which forms the drily amusing opening of the film) has meant that a local crimelord has ordered his men to kill a man carrying a guitar case (in this case loaded with guns). A case of mistaken identity serves as the McGuffin to kick start a reasonably predictable but enjoyably twisted cat and mouse thriller.

Some may dismiss the low production values on offer as limitations, but in many ways they ring more true than the high-budget B-movie worship of later works such as From Dusk Till Dawn. Peter Marquardt makes for an hilariously unconvincing villain, and there are certainly continuity goofs that even the most casual viewer couldn't fail to spot.

Regardless, the film comes across as an effortless fusion of style and charm, and deservedly became something of an international hit.
4/5

Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould

This experimentally-structured dissection of the life of reclusive Canadian pianist Glenn Gould is far more watchable than it has any right to be. The short films referred to in the title are spread across a range of styles and genres - from talking heads through dramatic reconstructions and including abstract pieces set to Gould's performances and compositions.

Gould himself, a child prodigy and concert pianist star at a young age, retired from performing in the 1960s at the tender age of 32 to concentrate on recorded performance (a trick the Beatles would pull two years later). In the majority of the films here he is played by Colm Feore, who captures the essence of an idiosyncratic - arguably obsessive-compulsive - personality.

Director Francois Girard follows a loose chronology though Gould's life, breaking the biographical sections up with a range of excellent - occasionally inspired - shorts centred around the man's music. These include snippets of cinematic expression similar to those found in Fantasia, enacted or genuine response to the music, abstract animation, and perhaps most memorably one astonishing sequence of X-ray video footage.

This is not a film for entertaining the family on a weekday afternoon, but - for those so inclined to watch - is is gripping, fascinating and beautiful. As an artistic exploration of one man's life and work, and a study of the music that engulfed it, the film is a triumph.
4/5

There Will Be Blood

This breathtaking masterpiece from director Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the best American films in decades. Uniquely innovative from start to finish - both in Anderson's excellent script and his unorthodox direction - it also contains a career-best performance from the finest actor of his generation.

Daniel Day Lewis has had a career notable for its consistent level of excellence, no doubt due in part to his highly selective choice of roles. Here, he portrays an entrepreneur and self-proclaimed "oil-man" on his rise to wealth and power in the first decades of the twentieth century. On screen for virtually the entirety of the near-three hours of There Will Be Blood, his complete, full-blooded, human and ultimately demonic portrayal of a man's spiralling collapse within his own soul deservedly won him a second Best Actor gong at this year's Oscars.

The rest of the cast is also excellent, especially the young Paul Dano (best known as the one who doesn't speak in Little Miss Sunshine) who excels in a difficult role as a proto-evangelist preacher. Religion is a core aspect of the areas examined by the film, but Anderson does not presume to pass comment for or against it. Instead, religion and the economics of oil exploration are fused into a complex exploration of a number of issues underlying the surface fabric of the film.

Many reviews have praised the depiction of the period setting, but it isn't hard to see through this to a modern America, being chewed up by oil and religion. Both are seen as blood, coursing respectively through earth and society, a blood which boils up in the veins and arteries of the central character and is unleashed as cholic hatred on all within range.

The power and brilliance of There Will Be Blood is almost overwhelming on a first viewing - due in no small part to Johnny Greenwood's astonishing experimental score - and the film demands a second viewing. Watching it is like having your guts pulled out through your stomach, and yet somehow you leave the cinema walking on air. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
5/5

Blood Simple

This hugely impressive debut feature from Joel and Ethan Coen is a brilliantly cast, highly stylised modern noir. Immediately showing its hand, the film opens with a beautiful scene, with two characters talking in a dark car at night, viewed from behind. We glimpse their faces only as headlights approach and pass. It sets the tone for a film that is built around the characters never quite seeing the full picture.

M. Emmet Walsh is the sleazy private eye hired to kill a debutante Frances McDormand, the cheating wife of bar owner Dan Hedaya, and her lover John Getz. A spate of twists and excellently scripted misunderstandings follows, as the body count mounts, and the characters are each pushed through their own private hell.

The acting is excellent throughout, especially the vivid, droll performance from Walsh, who is truly disgusting and yet mesmerising in his own way. McDormand's character emerges from the wreckage in the state described in the title - that of a childish simplicity into which those immersed in violence slip.

Indeed the central premise of the original script appears to be the emotional and psychological chaos that is formed in violence. The Coens' juxtaposition of this tumultuous idea with the calm, almost stately direction is intoxicating, and the film intelligently builds to a deeply satisfying, subversive and highly original conclusion.
4/5

A Zed & Two Noughts

This 1985 surrealistic analysis of the notions of decay, evolution and the trappings of flesh is one of the most vivid films of the decade. Peter Greenaway's film concerns twin brothers, whose wives are killed in a freak swan accident outside the zoo (the title spells out the central location in a pun) at which they work. As they struggle to cope with the notion of their loved ones' decomposition, they form a bond with the only survivor of the accident, a French woman who is to lose her leg.

In parts extremely disturbing, the film contains much footage of plants and animals (and eventually worse) decaying, using time lapse photography that the brothers use as an experimental means to consider the notion of death. There is also much screen time spent watching characters watching a series of David Attenborough-narrated nature documentaries. The central postulate of the first act seems to be the futility of any evolution which can climax only in death.

As with all of Greenaway's films, there is a glorious mix of lush cinematography, full of rich colours and steady tracking shots, and the propelling force of Michael Nyman's pre-Baroque score. As well as the virtuoso use of the time-lapse photography, there are many visual tricks, such as the twins' appearances gradually converging, and this being mirrored in an increasing symmetry in the shot framing, culminating in the most perverse and profound of finales.

The real joy here is the sensual overload that coils around the increasingly surreal plot. The doctor obsessed with amputation, the stranded amputees, the decaying fabric of society compared with decomposed flesh, the resurgence of animalism over humanism, the sexual frustration of losing a partner, the association of animals with nursery rhymes (and the repeated use of the "Teddy Bear's Picnic"); all these ideas and more combine in a visual, sonic and intellectual smorgusboard of decay and despair in modern society.
5/5

Hard Eight

This 1996 debut by rising talent Paul Thomas Anderson is an underplayed, rewarding drama about gambling and crime. Philip Baker Hall is brilliant as Sydney (the film's working title), a professional gambler who takes a young John C. Reilly under his wing after finding him penniless outside a diner. The pair go to Las Vegas, where the protégé is taught a few clever tricks to earn himself a bed for the night in a luxury casino hotel. Without warning, the films shifts forwards two years, and the pair are still working together. Reilly's character is mixed up with Samuel L. Jackson, unusually in villainous mode, and Gwyneth Paltrow is the hooker who is the object of his affections.

Pleasingly moving along an unpredictable plot at a stately pace, the film rewards in a style that Anderson would later perfect in Magnolia. Philip Baker Hall gives a magnetic performance, lending a mixture of gravitas and humanity to a role that could easily have been pantomimic. Reilly and Jackson are as excellent as ever, and Paltrow is believable as the confused prostitute whose actions catalyse the violence of the second act. There is also a small appearance by Philip Seymour Hoffman as an impertinent gambler.

Anderson is an extremely talented writer and director, both in terms of his visual style and how well he coaxes interesting performances from characters often typecast. Hard Eight is not his best picture, but it is an interesting and under-rated debut from a director who would go on to great things. For a film concerning gambling and crime, there is pleasingly little of either on show here, and instead he bravely focuses on the human drama surrounding the idiosyncratic plot.
3/5

My Neighbour Totoro

For true appreciation of Miyazaki's genius, his films must be watched with children. Because they are Japanese films its easy to forget that they're not art house cinema; they are cartoons written with children in mind. For my money, My Neighbour Totoro is perhaps the most wonderful expression of childhood ever found in a film that can be enjoyed by children.

An early high watermark from Studio Ghibli (indeed the film that gave them their icon, the titular "Totoro"), the story is astonishingly simple, and is perhaps unique in featuring no antagonist whatsoever. A frequent device in Miyazaki's films is to undermine the simplistic notion of villainy, but here there is no villain of which to speak. We follow the story of two sisters, the school-age Satsuki and her younger sister Mei, as they move into a new house and explore the surrounding area.

With a small crop of wonderfully realised characters (academic dad, the helpful old lady who asks them to call her "granny", and a mother sick in hospital, possibly from tuberculosis) the true joy in the film is the children's giddy excitement at such simple acts as collecting acorns. When Mei discovers a series of increasingly large squashy rabbit-trolls, the adventure begins. Despite there being no antagonist, the latter half of them film is still extremely tense, and had my young cousins biting their nails at the thought that young Mei had become lost in the woods.

The animation here is obviously done on a smaller budget then later works such as Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away, but is alive, and the rural landscape breathes and moves unbelievably. The film is wonderful fun, and very funny for both adults and children. The score by the ever-excellent Joe Hisaishi is superb, although the English-language title song is cringingly terrible (but then you were going to watch it subtitled anyway, weren't you?).

The Totoro himself is a wonderful, comic creature that has a deliriously idiosyncratic character (try to stop yourself giggling with glee at the effect an umbrella has on him). If nothing else, the film is worth watching for the two appearances of the Catbus, perhaps the single greatest piece of animation ever seen in cinema.
5/5

Barton Fink

This 1991 surrealist drama swept the board at Cannes that year, winning the Palme d'Or as well as awards for best director and best actor. Despite this, it remains one of the Coen Brothers less known pictures, as indeed do all of their films before Fargo.

The chameleonic (and impossibly faceless) John Turturro is brilliant as the titular playwright who (perhaps literally) sells his soul to Hollywood in 1941. After achieving critical success in his native New York with a social realist play about fishmongers, he moves to Hollywood and is immediately set to work on a demeaning B-movie about wrestling. Nonetheless, writer's block sets in, and as he imprisons himself in a run-down hotel and attempts to connect with "the common man", the only people he encounters are the twitchy "Chet" (Steve Buscemi), the receptionist, and his unnerving neighbour, played with disturbing amiability by John Goodman.

Stylistically owing a huge debt to David Lynch's Eraserhead (from the industrial drone of the hotel down to John Turturro's hairstyle), the film can be read in any number of ways - vitriolic satire on Hollywood; character study of writer's block; blackly comic analysis of Nazi influence in the 1940s; even a twisted take on the biblical (or perhaps Satanic) epic. Crammed full of inventive and frequently nightmarish ideas - the wallpaper in Fink's room slowly peeling down to reveal a worrying flesh underneath - the film bravely moves into less familiar territory in its second act, and provides one of the most stunning, if perplexing, finales I have seen in some time.
4/5

The Host

This Korean monster flick (literally translated as "Monster") was a box-office smash back home, and has received critical adoration the world over. In addition to this, it has been wilfully rejected by horror aficionados, who fail to realise that it was never really aimed at them in the first place.

Concerning the story of a giant mutant tadpole/fish born in the Han River, filled with toxic formaldehyde, its a tremendously entertaining and riveting blend of teen-horror flick gore, human drama and black comedy, with a cunning line in political satire too. Kang-ho Song is terrific as the simple-minded father of Hyun-seo, the little girl kidnapped by the monster and kept in his sewer lair for food. The plot follows him and his family as they attempt to rescue the child, but uniquely the main obstacle in their path is not the monster itself, but the paranoia and bureaucracy that its arrival prompts.

Indeed, the film refuses to conform to any genre stereotypes on a number of levels. Firstly, the monster is not hidden, waiting to be revealed from darkness at the climax (as in virtually all horror films post-Alien and Jaws). Instead, it is shown in broad daylight in full shot right from the start; this does not diminish its impact. Secondly the characters are all deeply flawed, making stupid mistakes (such as miscounting the number of bullets in a gun) that frequently have tragic costs. The film also subverts the notion of 'form a plan, preparation, enactment' by repeatedly throwing in innovative and unexpected plot twists.

As an entire film, The Host in fact feels much more like one of George A. Romero's Living Dead films than other monster flicks from Jaws to Ringu. Nonetheless, it plunders what it wants from these, and creates a truly original and hugely entertaining piece of subversive blockbuster entertainment.
4/5

Hostel

This abysmal progenitor of the non-existent 'torture porn' genre is a cynical, xenophobic and misogynistic mess of a badly plotted flesh-and-gore horror film, which in no way deserves any of the success or attention it gained on release. Exec-produced by Quentin Tarantino, who evidently loves the terrible films to which his work so frequently pays homage, the mind boggles as to how such a distinguished film maker could put his name to such a poorly-scripted rubbish dump of a movie, and as to how director Eli Roth is somehow being proclaimed the saviour of American horror with such uninspiring and frankly tame adolescent fantasy.

The plot, as we are forced to refer to it, follows American backpacker Jay Hernandez and his clearly soon-to-be-dead companions, a fellow American and a ridiculously sex-mad drifter from Iceland, as they blunder their way across a Europe populated entirely by stoned glamour models. Roth may claim the film as an indictment of ignorant American sensibilities abroad, but attempts to use this as a shield against his own incredibly blunt and bizarre realisation of Slovakia as a pit of hell, inhabited only by evil, beautiful prostitutes, violent, twisted German businessmen and feral packs of murderous children is offensive.

More offensive still is the sickening mound of stupidity we are force-fed through the characters' cataclysmicly dumb actions. Oh, there's a youth hostel near Bratislava filled with beautiful women who are horny for American men? Yes, I believe you, sinister pimp, lets trot off on a merry expedition over there. Oh, my friends have disappeared mysteriously, I know, I'll ask that suspicious prostitute who drugged me if she can help. She can? Brilliant! I'll just follow her into this ominous old warehouse surrounded by shady business and from which all those screams are emanating. Oh, whoops.

Perhaps most infuriating is that Roth is clearly a talent, to which the few spatterings of genius attest (the baffled receptionist in the titular hostel, the monetary use of bubblegum) and it is impossible to understand why he so deliberately goes out of his way to blow gaping holes through his own film. Jay Hernandez is a good actor (as he showed in the underrated Crazy/Beautiful) but has little to do here apart from grin flirtatiously and then scream as his fingers are chainsawed off.

Indeed, the torture scenes are surprisingly tame, given the controversy at time of release. There is only one full one, in which the other American is drilled to bits (killing off the only interesting sub-plot, and conforming to the tired cliché of kill those who give in to sex), and the other bits here and there are generally mostly off screen violence. In fact, everything here you will have seen before. If you want to see a grimy, horrific film, watch Se7en. If you want to see gore, watch Braindead. Hell, if you want to see eyeball-related violence (the supposedly unique selling point of Hostel) then watch Un Chien Andalou, a film which by seventy-six years predates this ill-conceived, narcissistic and adolescent pile of cinematic excrement.
1/5

Ran

Not so long ago, I used to think of the 1980s as a cultural void. In music and cinema, the relative golden era of the 1970s had given way to brainless commercialistic drivel. But then I realised it was actually the golden age of the alternative, the underground, the hard-to-find gems nestled in among the post-Star Wars, post-pop detritus. Suddenly, I connected with music in a new way, listening to The Smiths, New Order, Pixies and R.E.M. And in cinema, I found the birth of independent American cinema (in Alex Cox's Repo Man) as well as a wave of auteurs such as David Lynch and Peter Greenaway.

All of this was an act of profound realisation and also profound ignorance. Ignoring the mess in the English-language, world cinema was as much a source of originality and excellence as ever. Ran, maestro Akira Kurosawa's last epic, is one such example. Shorter than such lengthy epics as Seven Samurai, it is a tale most recognisable to non-Japanese audiences as that of King Lear, transplanted to feudal Japan. A king divides his land between three sons, the youngest of whom calls the decision foolish and is banished. However, it becomes clear that he fears only for his father, and is proved right when civil war breaks out between the other two sons.

The story was initially developed as a twist on the traditional parable of Mōri Motonari, who gave each of his sons an arrow to break, which they did. He then gave them three arrows together, and they were unable to break them, thus demonstrating their united strength. In Ran, the youngest son ably demonstrates that even together the arrows can be snapped.

There is so much that could be written about Ran without ever passing judgement on it. The use of primary colours (one each for the three sons) and their comparison with blood, sunlight and so on; the amazing visual impact of the King losing his mind (and possible comparisons with Kurosawa's own deranged attempt to secure his legacy); the phenomenal, exciting and bloody battle sequences so powerful that their effect is still felt today in, for example, Peter Jackson's The Lord of The Rings trilogy.

Ultimately, it is the final image that most haunts. The war is over, and the Shakespearean tragedy has taken its toll, leaving a blind young man stood on a precipice, uncertain of how to find his way home. You leave the film with a sense of loss that is intangible, but stays with you for days.
5/5

Shadow of a Doubt

This wonderful thriller from 1943 is a mid-period masterpiece from director supreme Alfred Hitchcock. His sixth American production since Rebecca only three years earlier, it was regarded by the auteur as his personal favourite, and it is not hard to see why. Neither is it hard to see why it is so often overlooked in favour of other masterpieces such as Psycho, Rear Window or The 39 Steps.

The subject matter here is dark and perhaps more psychological than other examples of his work from this period. Joseph Cotten plays Charlie Oakley, a suspicious character on the run from the law. He goes to stay with his sister's family, whose daughter, also called Charlie (played by Teresa Wright), feels a pseudo-telepathic link with her mysterious uncle. This is not overstated; merely, she feels they share a connection akin to twins, though to the modern viewer this relationship may feel a tad more unhealthy than that.

Shot in inky black and white, the film's aesthetic is dark and yet never murky, a decided contrast to the bright clarity of Rebecca. There is a vaguely surreal feel to some of the plot - the girl's father and his colleague pass the time by discussing diverse and grim ways to murder each other. The surface tranquility of the Californian suburb in which the family live is gradually disturbed, revealing the unrest underneath; a pair of men who may be investigating the elder Charlie turn up asking the family about their apparent normality, a concept the younger Charlie cannot bear. Not until the final act does the tension break, as Charlie's suspicions of her Uncle finally come to a head, and yet we are not treated to a trademark Hitchcock showdown, rather the denouement is abrupt and deliberately unsatisfying.

Innovative in both its direction and plot, the film is blessed with a terrific script by renowned writer Thornton Wilder. As an interesting side note, this film probably most directly shows Hitchcock's influence on David Lynch, whose Blue Velvet borrows somewhat from the plot and themes here.

So, an assured and innovative masterpiece from the master of suspense, and a film both psychologically and visually well ahead of its time.
5/5

The Matador

This 2005 black comedy serves as a vehicle for erstwhile (then current) James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan to distance himself from his defining role by parodying the spy. He is the middle-aged, alcoholic hitman, complete with comedy moustache, who finds himself in a mid-life crisis, unable to kill with the coldness he once had. Greg Kinnear is a nervy businessman who encounters Brosnan on a trip in Mexico City, and the two strike up an unlikely friendship.

Written and directed by Richard Shepard, the film's plot is rather clichéd. Its difficult not to cringe when you realise that Brosnan's character has turned up on Kinnear's doorstep halfway through, leading to a predictable fish-out-of-water farce in which Kinnear's shy wife (Hope Davis) reveals a desire for guns. There are also a couple of twists towards the end, pretty much all unfortunately predictable, and the spattering of irony doesn't really distract from the gaping holes in the plot. For my money, you either need to embrace the cliché, or avoid it all together.

Despite all these (major) problems, the film is actually a real treat to watch, almost entirely due to the two male leads, and the bizarre undercurrent of homo-eroticism in their relationship. Pierce Brosnan is amusing as the loser hitman with no friends, and shows once again how underused he was in the Bond franchise (check out The Thomas Crown Affair or The Tailor Of Panama). Similarly, Greg Kinnear demands more attention from Hollywood. A previous Oscar nominee, its something of a mystery as to why his profile is so low, and he proves himself as a good comic straight man here.

Ultimately, The Matador is not essential viewing, but is an enjoyable slice of rather brainless comedy, greatly improved by some fine comic acting.
3/5

Kids Return

This character study from Japanese writer/director Takeshi Kitano is a measured consideration of the alienating effects of the end of adolescence. One of my favourite directors, Kitano's films have an annoying habit of being impossible to find on DVD, VHS or TV anywhere, and such is the case with Kids Return. Having managed to rent it as a download, I was pleased to discover that this low-key film is a treat among Kitano's strong work.

The story concerns two friends, who misspend their time at school getting into fights and stealing dinner money. As their education falls apart, they each take up boxing, and one eventually moves away into the local yakuza gang. As ever for Kitano, the action and acting is understated. However, for the first time here the camera is somewhat dynamic, a move away from the static tableau that dominated earlier works such as Violent Cop and Sonatine. The score is provided by Joe Hisaishi, and is uncharacteristically dependent on electric instruments; it's still a winner, though.

As his first film following a horrendous traffic collision that left Kitano semi-paralysed, it begins a loose trilogy of contemplative pieces that move away from the violent downward spirals in his first films. Kids Return lays the template for a formula that would be perfected in his following two masterpieces, Hana-Bi and Kikujiro.

Its as good an entry point into the Kitano catalogue as any, and as such is strongly recommended for those with an interest in Eastern cinema that avoids the vaguely trendy 'extreme' scene, or simply for anyone who wishes to see a well-realised, moving drama.
4/5