The Wrestler

Has there ever been a character so seemingly written for a specific actor than Randy ‘the Ram’ Johnson, so perfect a fit for Mickey Rourke it’s impossible to imagine anyone else play him. Both were big in the 80s, Rourke at the peak of his game in Diner, 9 ½ Weeks and Barfly, Randy a top billing wrestler, but then saw their popularity wane and the roles dry up, before a comeback arrived, in the shape of Sin City for Rourke, as heavily scarred behemoth with a heart of goldie Marv, and a reunion battle with former nemesis the Ayatollah for the Ram. Rourke’s face, a battleground of botched plastic surgery and his four year stint of boxing in the early 90s looks like it’s been pummelled in the ring for years, and he nails every note of Ram’s trajectory, as a particularly brutal weapons match – in which a disabled spectator offers Randy his prosthetic leg to use as a club – causes the Ram to suffer a heart attack, and his wrestling days are over. Whilst struggling to adapt to a life without his one true love, he attempts to form a relationship with similarly aging, but still smoking at 45, stripper Cassidy (Oscar-winning Marisa Tomei) and reconnect with his estranged daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood). The flinch levels are unexpectedly high for a character piece, with incidents involving a deli-counter meat slicer and a staple gun proving the most worthy of a glance away from the screen. Director Darren Aronofsky – more known for deeper, more obscure work like Pi, the Fountain and more recently Black Swan, employs great cinematography, shooting everything on location with no sets and as many long tracking shots as he can, but this is Rourke’s game through and through, and though he wasn’t robbed of the Oscar (Sean Penn’s Milk was more deserving , in my opinion), I hope he doesn’t throw everything away with support roles in entertaining but cringeworthy fare like the Expendables and Immortals. He needs some more layered, meaty roles, I’m just not sure anything will ever be such a good fit.

Choose film 7/10

Saw

Launching a new sub-genre, in this case the US branch of torture porn, is a difficult task, but can pay off in spades if done well. James Wan, writer/director of Saw, knows this, for although on the surface his creation looks like just another horror franchise kick-starter, scratch the skin and you’ll find an intelligent, tightly plotted thriller that just happens to be sick and grotesque enough to stay with you for days, if not years later.

A serial killer going by the nickname Jigsaw has been trapping people who he deems worthy of needing to re-evaluate their lives. His traps are deadly, but can be survived if the victims are willing to suffer physical and mental scarring, and abide by his rules. Awakening in a disgusting, windowless bathroom, Dr. Gordon and Adam (Cary Elwes and fellow writer Leigh Whannell) find themselves in such a predicament, each chained by the leg to opposite corners of the room, equipped with a tape recorder, a gun, a saw apiece and a corpse in a pool of blood, with the only way out looking to be losing a foot. Meanwhile, cops Danny Glover and Ken Leung are closing in on the criminal mastermind. The plot remains just on the right side of ingenious, with some of the best twists seen in horror, and the psychological scares do greater work on the psyche than any sudden jumps although a couple are thrown in to please those unable to fully grasp a new kind of horror film.

The sequels took a great premise too far, making the plot far too convoluted and the reasons for participants being tested too obscure and mundane – undoubtedly Jigsaw would find me worthy of testing for spending too much time watching films – so go no further along the Saw blade than this fresh cut.

Choose film 7/10

Straw Dogs (1971)

When mild mannered American mathematician David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) moves with his wife Amy (Susan George's nipples) to her home village in Cornwall, the last thing they find is the peace and quiet he was hoping for in order to write his book. Instead, the locals take a shine to Amy and mock David, showing contempt that such a bookish person could have the prize of the village. What follows is an escalation of abuse and provocations, brought to a head with the horrifically violent rape of Amy, the unrelenting and ambiguous portrayal of which caused problems for director Sam Peckinpah, with the film remaining unreleased on video/DVD in the UK until 2002. Hoffman is more believable as the pre-broken David than the near-psychopath he becomes post-rape, and the climax – as drunken locals lay siege to his house as he harbours the local simpleton in danger of being beaten to death plays out like an 18-rated Home Alone, with swinging paint cans, icy steps and a loose tarantula substituted with blaring bagpipe music, saucepans of boiling alcohol and a sprung bear trap.

Choose film 6/10

Quiz Show

The year is 1957, Sputnik has just launched, Eisenhower has died and Nixon is president. The quiz-based game show Twenty One, hosted by the reptilian Jack Barry (a tremendously smarmy Christopher McDonald) has swept the nation and every week John Turtorro’s nerdy know-it-all Herb Stemple defeats his new opponent. The only problem is, Stemple’s ‘freak with a sponge memory’ appearance, all bad teeth, terrible glasses and ill-fitting suit, isn’t playing well with the shows bosses and sponsors, who’d much rather Ralph Fiennes clean cut intellectual Charles van Doren takes his place. Showing an obvious disdain for quiz shows, Robert Redord’s assured directorial style, flitting between the stories of Stemple, van Doren and Rob Morrow’s personal investigator Richard Goodwin keeps the largely talky sections enjoyable and entertaining, whilst still grounding them into the seriousness of the issues at hand. This, with a great cast that also includes Hank Azaria, David Paymer, Martin Scorsese (!) and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearances from the likes of Calista Flockhart, William Fichtner and the West Wing’s Timothy Busfield, makes a film far superior to the programmes it holds a mirror up to.

Choose film 8/10

Wonder Boys

Always be wary when a DVD cover proclaims the feature it houses is an Oscar winner, yet follows this statement with an asterisk not revealed until the fineprint on the back of the box, for more than likely this will lead to a win for one of the lesser Oscars that, though probably well deserved and awarded to people who are very good at, and have worked very hard on what they do, does not make the associated film any good. And so it is with Wonder Boys, overly proud recipient of the Oscar for Best Original Song for Bob Dylan’s Things Have Changed, so worthy is it that I cannot even remember hearing it, when part of me was specifically listening out after discovering the win. Whilst Michael Douglas gives one of his best performances as the mild-mannered, scarf-wearing, adulterous English professor Grady Tripp, he is let down by a meandering plot involving a dead dog, a 7ft transvestite, a stolen dress and an epic manuscript, and a fairly average cast with Tobey Maguire it’s obvious weak link – impressive when Katie Holmes is also involved as a besotted student. Too much takes place without a reason – is Maguire’s James fascinated with celebrity deaths just because he is weird? – and the script is far from excellent (“I’m not gonna draw you a map, sometimes you need to do your own navigating.”)

Choose life 4/10

Apollo 13

In 1969, man landed on the moon. This man was not Tom Hanks’ Jim Lovell, then first reserve for Neil Armstrong, but later he was given his own shat at the big floating wheel of cheese aboard the ill-fated Apollo 13. Hanks displays his greatest talent of evermanisation in this film, managing to make even an astronaut seem like a regular Joe, suffering from everyday concerns with young kids and a daughter dressing inappropriately on Halloween, coupled with the hours of arduous practice and training required for his profession and the worrying endured by the families left behind. Director Ron Howard evokes the feel of the late 60s well – the excitement of new scientific endeavours coupled with the period details, fashions, chain smoking and news reports, and Hanks is well supported by Gary Sinise, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon as his fellow astronauts, Ed Harris as the waistcoat wearing mission control and Kathleen Quinlan’s distraught wife, the latter of the two were Oscar nominated for their roles.

Choose film 8/10

Inception

Apparently the concept of Inception began when director Chris Nolan, he of the Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Memento and the upcoming Dark Knight Rises, the most anticipated film of 2012 (tied with the Avengers and the Hobbit), wanted to make a film in which several climaxes are all occurring simultaneously. Most directors would then structure a plot in such a way as to have different characters in different locations, all partaking in various climactic events and cutting between them, but Nolan, in what I’m going to assume was an evening rife with alcohol, narcotics and some rare kinds of cheese, opted instead to make a film predominantly set within the world of dreams.

Taking an already interesting, fantastical premise – secrets can be obtained by stealing them from people’s dreams via extraction and spinning it on its head, as Leonardo DiCaprio’s master extractor Cobb and his team – Joseph Gordon Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy and Dileep Rao, are enlisted for one last job, to plant an idea in Cillian Murphy’s dream by business rival Ken Watanabe. By using this world of dreams, Nolan has released literally all limitations as to where the plot can go, and opened up the door for some thoroughly original set pieces, the standout of which is Gordon Levitt’s taciturn Arthur fighting armed goons in a corridor with an ever-changing, and disappearing, centre of gravity. This, combined with a rain-lashed chase through busy city streets and a Bond-inspired snowbound explosive finale adds up to one of the most thought provoking action movies in recent years.

The plot is sometimes lost amid the spectacle of the dream worlds and the new logic required to understand it – in a dream, time travels 12 times slower with each level you go down, your subconscious can flare up against you but you can bend the environment around your will – so at times you forget just what they are fighting to achieve. Nolan also appears to have paid attention to the naysayer accusers who believe, not unfairly, that his films lack a required heart and emotional depth, as the addition of Cobb’s deceased wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) appears in his subconscious, eager to turn the dream worlds against him, and the entire plot takes place just so Cobb can be reunited with his kids. Both these points seem tacked on and superfluous to the overall plot, other than adding a motive and antagonist that, although not asked for, do not overly deter.

Under close scrutiny some of the dream logic is inconsistent and doesn’t quite hold up, with some questions remaining unanswered – how exactly does Tom Hardy’s scene-stealing Eames transform into other people as the teams forger? – but the performance, cast (also including Michael Caine, Tom Berenger and Pete Postlethwaite), effects and sheer scale of the project make this unmissable, and my best film of 2010, although it makes my dreams look utterly pathetic in comparison.

Choose film 9/10

Evil Dead Trilogy

When five college friends go to stay in a mysterious cabin deep in the woods, it’s safe to assume they’ll be lucky to see their homes again, as they will undoubtedly encounter a clan of cannibalistic hillbillies or some centuries old curse. So when, in Sam Raimi’s schlock horror debut, the kids find the Book of the Dead, bound in human flesh, written in human blood, and play a recording of it being read, the dead become free to walk the Earth, and the kids must struggle to stay alive until morning, in the hope of finding their way back to civilisation. So far, so standard, but where the film differs from the gory also-rans is when a girl is dragged into the woods – by the woods – and raped by a tree. Plug sockets and light bulbs leak with blood, and one by one the kids become possessed by demons, with bloodied eyes, gnarled, pallid skin and faces like beaten up clowns. Raimi’s innovative camerawork and game cast – all terrible actors aside from our hero, the uber-chinned Bruce Campbell – stand this film out from its imitators and inspirations.
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn is that rarest of sequels that rewrites the entire plot of its predecessor in its first 7 minutes, showing what the film could have been had a greater budget been available – a more attractive love interest, advanced effects and even a back story for the Book of the Dead. Having discovered an audience for his own brand of homemade horror and slapstick splattery, Raimi lets himself, and reprising star Campbell, off the leash, balancing the grotesque with the quirky in such classic scenes as Ash cutting off his own possessed hand and replacing it with a fully operational chainsaw. The more what the fuck moments add to the feeling of watching someone’s head explode onto a screen – the maniacally laughing moose head and bizarre neck extension are standouts, and this remains a tremendously fun, if occasionally bat-shit insane adventure.
As with Raimi’s other threequel, 2007’s Spiderman 3, the approach to Army of Darkness is to take everything and throw it at the script, see what sticks, and include it all anyway. This leads to a film with a frankly ludicrous premise – at the end of part 2 Campbell’s Ash opened a rift in time, and is now stranded in 1300AD, and stretches it past breaking point with the sheer volume of ideas piled on top. The opening death pit scene is fun, but the ensuing insanity of a two-headed Ash (beginning with a repulsive eye growing on his shoulder), Gulliver’s travel style tiny men causing havoc and a skeletal army complete with beards takes it all too far. The result is a film still endlessly enjoyable and quotable, but lacking the overall playful sense of fun from the previous entries.
The Evil Dead choose film 8/10
The Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn Choose film 9/10
The Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness Choose film 6/10

Rope

The first of many Hitchcock films on this list – probably more than any other director, and rightly so – shows the great man at his most experimental, as he attempted to shoot this film, based on a play by Patrick Hamilton, in one continuous shot. Limited only by the maximum length of a film reel at the time (10 minutes), a fact cleverly, if unsubtly hidden by editing shots of the backs of suits or a close up on an open chest lid, he pulls it off, utilising moving walls and tracking shots to accommodate the action as it pans out in the three rooms of an upmarket apartment.
The film follows two young men – the charming yet callous Brandon and his nervous, increasingly agitated friend Philip, as they attempt to cover up the perfect murder of their classmate David, whose body is hidden in the chest they use as a centrepiece for a party held for David’s family and friends. The acting is flawless, particularly from the two leads and James Stewart as their inquisitive former house master Rupert, and Hitch earns his moniker as the master of suspense, accomplishing an ever mounting level of tension with minimal music and meticulous plotting.
Choose film 9/10

Get Carter

Get Carter is justifiably remembered for Michael Caine’s gripping portrayal of London hard man Jack Carter, visiting his old stomping ground in Newcastle to bury his brother and sort out the men who killed him. Caine is iconic as the immaculately attired, quick witted vengeance seeker, endlessly quotable (“Clever sod, aren’t you?” “Only comparatively”) and calmly menacing, yet credit should also be given to director Mike Hodges (…Flash Gordon). The framing of the shots is excellent, particularly when showing Caine watching a video, as a cleverly positioned mirror allows us to see both what he is seeing, and his reaction to it, without the need for split screens, a delayed response or a clumsy cut. The ending is brutal, if perfect, and it will take a great deal for me to sit down and watch the inevitably terrible 2000 Stallone remake.

Choose film 8/10

Les Vampires

If acclaimed (though not be me) surrealist master Luis Bunuel is a fan of your work, it’s fair to say it’s unlikely to be a straightforward police procedural picture. The likes of Zodiac and All the President’s Men are probably far too logical for him to have admired, with far too few poisonous rings, hidden cannons and magic anagrams for his liking. That, and they aren’t 10-part silent serials from 1915, as is the case with Louis Feuillade’s Les Vampires, following newspaper editor Philippe Guerande and his flamboyant sidekick Mazzamette as they attempt to track down the notorious criminal gang known only as the Vampires, led by an ever changing Grand Vampire and his muse, the most interesting character of the series, Irma Vep.
 

In this world nothing is ever as it seems, with walls and paintings sliding aside to reveal hidden compartments (occasionally containing cannons), Vampires revealing themselves to be policemen, figures of authority revealing themselves to be Vampires and the dead returning back to life. This does become irritating, as logical second-guessing of the plot becomes impossible when it makes up its own rules as it goes along, but the sense of ingenuity keeps things interesting throughout the almost 7 hours runtime. I’m grateful too that modern architecture has advanced to a stage where most exterior surfaces are now only scalable using a ladder, whereas here they seem designed by the people behind Assassin’s Creed.

Choose film 7/10

Most anticipated films of 2012

2011 is drawing to a close, and let’s be honest, it hasn’t been a terrific year for film, but worry not, in just over a week a new year will be upon us, and its already looking like a cinematic doozy. Here’s my pick of what’s likely to be saucering my eyes next year:

The Avengers

Marvel’s dream team of superheroes line up to face a world threatening attack, as well as each other, in Joss Whedon’s epic ultimate crossover.

The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists

Aardman are back with more traditional stop-motion animation and characters comparable with Wallace and Gromit, and just as silly.

Men in Black III

Doubters hold fire, part 2 was a blip that can be hastily ignored as Will Smith’s Agent J goes back in time to team up with Josh Brolin as a 60s Agent K.

Prometheus

Ridley Scott making a new Alien film? With Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace, Patrick Wilson, Rafe Spall and LVF favourites Idris Elba and Michael Fassbender? Count me in.

Rock of Ages

Same director as the abominable Hairspray remake, but this features much better music and a far superior cast (no Christopher Walken though).

Jack the Giant Killer

Bryan Singer’s fairy tale reboot sees Nicholas Hoult ascending the bean stalk to fight a giant and rescue a princess.

The Dark Knight Rises

Micro-budget indie you’ve probably never heard of about some guy who gets his kicks dressing up as a flying squirrel. Or something.

Ted

Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane makes his live action debut in a tale of a talking teddy bear. Sounds much better than I just described.

Brave

Pixar. ‘nuf said.

Warm Bodies

A rom-zom-com, but with a zombie falling in love with a person. Sounds mental, hopefully will be.

Premium Rush

A movie about a cyclist! Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s NYC delivery guy goes up against Michael Shannon’s corrupt cop.

Looper

Brick’s Rian Johnson directs Gordon Levitt (again) as a hitman tasked with killing his future self (Bruce Willis). I’ve just realised how ridiculous that sounds, so I’m eager to see where on Earth they take it.

Argo

Ben Affleck’s next directorial outing, focussing on a CIA operation to extract hostages from Iran in 1979, by directing a fake movie. Produced by Clooney and starring John Goodman.

Gangster Squad

Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer takes a break from directing Jesse Eisenberg comedies to pit Josh Brolin and Ryan Gosling’s 1940’s policemen against Sean Penn’s Mickey Cohen.

The Expendables 2

Just look at that cast. Stallone, Statham, Van Damme, Lundgren, Li, Hemsworth, Couture, Crews, Willis, Schwarzenegger, Chuck frickin’ Norris! Just need Steven Seagal and we’re done.

The Hobbit

No idea what this is. Supposed to be good though.

It’s not all looking good though, and I think my 2012 would probably be preferable without this bunch:

The Amazing Spider-Man

Sam Raimi’s films were good, at times great, and made just the other day. I don’t care how much of a reimagining this may be, there are plenty more original films I’d rather see.

Mirror Mirror

Why release one Snow White film, when you can release two? Tarsem Singh’s release may pip the Kristen Stewart starring Snow White and the Huntsmen to the post, but it’s nauseating candy-coloured visuals and starring of Lily “daughter of Phil” Collins as White makes me ill just typing about it.

Wrath of the Titans

Did no-one see Clash of the Titans? Alas, I did, in the cinema, in what was laughably called 3D (never again), so I apologise for my part in the financial gains that must have led to this unnecessary, unasked for and frankly unwanted sequel. Screw you Sam Worthington, learn another bloody accent.

Titanic 3D

Because James Cameron doesn’t have enough money. Retro-fitting 3D should be a hanging offence.

Battleship

The navy fights an alien invasion, made by a group of people who apparently have never played the board game.