Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Duffy (1968) (SPOILERS) It’s appropriate that James Coburn’s title character is repeatedly referred to as an old hipster in Robert Parrish’s movie, as that seemed to be precisely the niche Coburn was carving out for himself in the mid to late 60s, no sooner had Our Man Flint made him a star. He could be found partaking in jaundiced commentary on sexual liberation in Candy, falling headlong into counter culture in The President’s Analyst , and leading it in Duffy . He might have been two decades older than its primary adherents, but he was, to repeat an oft-used phrase here, very groovy. If only Duffy were too.

Green for Danger (1946) (SPOILERS) A magnificently sure-handed piece from Launder and Gilliat – Sydney Gilliat receives the director credit, Frank Launder the producer, and Gilliat shares the screenplay with Claud Gurney – that plays superbly as a straight wartime noir murder thriller… until the inimitable Alastair Sim’s Inspector Cockrill is thrown into the mix. He’s an irreverent goofball, sharp of wit and intellect with a wonderfully twisted sense of humour and an abject terror of doodlebugs. The only slight you might lay against Green for Danger is that you’re likely to undervalue it because the duo make it all look so easy.

A High Wind in Jamaica (1965) (SPOILERS) An odd one, this, as if Disney were remaking The Swiss Family Robinson for adults. One might perhaps have imagined the Mouse House producing it during their “Dark Disney” phase. But even then, toned down. After all, kids kidnapped by pirates sounds like an evergreen premise for boy’s own adventuring (more girl’s own here). The reality of Alexander Mackendrick’s film is decidedly antithetical to that; there’s a lingering feeling, despite A High Wind in Jamaica ’s pirates largely observing their distance, that things could turn rather nasty (and indeed, if Richard Hughes’ 1929 novel  had been followed to the letter, they would have more explicitly). 

Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) (SPOILERS) Bryan Forbes’ adaptation of Mark McShane’s 1961’s novel has been much acclaimed. It boasts a distinctive storyline and effective performances from its leads, accompanied by effective black-and-white cinematography from Gerry Turpin and a suitably atmospheric score from John Barry. I’m not sure Forbes makes the most of the material, however, as he underlines Séance on a Wet Afternoon ’s inherently theatrical qualities at the expense of its filmic potential.

Southland Tales (2006) (SPOILERS) Richard Kelly’s (kind of) post-apocalyptic smorgasbord of science-fiction, politics, music and musing was memorably lambasted at Cannes in its unexpurgated three-hour form and subsequently mauled by critics and shunned by audiences. Check its IMDB score for confirmation that most are not on board with recognising it as a misunderstood classic. And that’s fair. A classic Southland Tales is not. On top of which, it’s certainly unrefined in some of its targets (Jonathan Ross labelled it “ a bad, overlong student film ” and there’s something of that messy over eagerness in its scattershot approach). This is, undoubtedly, an instant cult movie; indeed, Kelly could be argued to have self-consciously made a cult movie, always a dangerous intent. A cult movie which simply has too much going on to be rebuffed as “bad”, for all the hit-and-miss, slipshod structure and motive that even an insistently expositional narration fails to remedy. A mess, definitely, b

Torn Curtain (1965) (SPOILERS) Torn Curtain boasts a scene, about forty minutes in, that is every bit as proficient and startling as the Psycho shower scene. Unfortunately, in contrast to Psycho , the rest of the movie is a dog: a bog-standard Cold War spy affair, complete with miscast leads, a frequently flagrant disregard for verisimilitude and a rote and at times entirely inappropriate score. In the latter department, it seems studio interference led to Hitchcock rejecting Bernard Herrmann’s contribution and thus their falling out. He had also lost his regular cinematographer and editor. No sooner had Hitch reinvented himself for a new generation, first Marnie and then Torn Curtain show him wildly out of touch with the prevailing trends, both in terms of subject matter and moviemaking. Apart from that scene.

The Asphyx (1972) (SPOILERS) There was such a welter of British horror from the mid 60s to mid 70s, even leaving aside the Hammers and Amicuses, that it’s easy to lose track of them in the shuffle. This one, the sole directorial effort of Peter Newbrook (a cameraman for David Lean, then a cinematographer), has a strong premise and a decent cast, but it stumbles somewhat when it comes to taking that premise any place interesting. On the plus side, it largely eschews the grue. On the minus, directing clearly wasn’t Newbrook’s forte, and even aided by industry stalwart cinematographer Freddie Young (also a go-to for Lean), The Aspyhx is stylistically rather flat.

Casablanca (1942) (SPOILERS) I’m not sure, way back when, that I went away from Casablanca on first viewing recognising it as the all-time classic for which it is so acclaimed. Perhaps it was just too hallowed to be viewed with unprejudiced eyes. I enjoyed it well enough, but my reaction wasn’t comparable to first sight of the similarly lauded Citizen Kane . And as Humphrey Bogart movies went, I was much more persuaded by The Maltese Falcon . Nevertheless, subsequent visits have served only to elevate its status and confirm the hype was right. You can see very clearly that Casablanca was just another studio picture that somehow separated itself from the pack to earn a status for the ages. But you can also see just how and why it deserved such singling out.

End of Days (1999) (SPOILERS) Or Arnie v Satan. And maybe, a decade earlier, it could have been a match worth catching. Or maybe not. Because End of Days simply cannot escape the fact that this is a terrible fit for the Austrian Oak. That it remains an entertaining movie – in most respects more so two decades on from its release, when it came across as no more or less than a rather desperate cash-in on pre-millennial angst – is almost entirely despite his presence.

Doctor Who Vengeance on Varos It would be understandable, given how well written parts of Vengeance on Varos are – superbly written, even – to tend toward the reasoning that those aspects which aren’t must be intentionally bad. You know, as a commentary on the artifice of the medium, in a similar fashion to the way the story is commenting upon the medium generally. Unfortunately, I don’t think that explanation holds up (take a look at the synopsis for Philip Martin’s subsequent and aborted, except by Big Finish for whom nothing is ever aborted but instead an opportunity for a six-part box set, Mission to Magnus ). Even the most charitable reading must accept that Vengeance on Varos displays bursts of brilliance and stretches of utter stodge.

Marnie (1964) (SPOILERS) Hitch in a creative ditch. If you’ve read my Vertigo review, you’ll know I admired rather than really liked the picture many fete as his greatest work. Marnie is, in many ways, a redux, in the way De Palma kept repeating himself in the early 80s only significantly less delirious and… well, compelling. While Marnie succeeds in commanding the attention fitfully, it’s usually for the wrong reasons. And Hitch, digging his heels in as he strives to fashion a star against public disinterest – he failed to persuade Grace Kelly out of retirement for Marnie Rutland – comes entirely adrift with his leads.

The X-Files 9.4: 4-D I get the impression no one much liked Agent Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish), but I felt, for all the sub-Counsellor Troi, empath twiddling that dogged her characterisation, she was a mostly positive addition to the series’ last two years (of its main run). Undoubtedly, pairing her with Doggett, in anticipation of Gillian Anderson exiting just as David Duchovny had – you rewatch these seasons and you wonder where her head was at in hanging on – made for aggressively facile gender-swapped conflict positions on any given assignment. And generally, I’d have been more interested in seeing how two individuals sympathetic to the cause – her and Mulder – might have got on. Nevertheless, in an episode like 4-D you get her character, and Doggett’s, at probably their best mutual showing.

Jeremiah Johnson (1972) (SPOILERS) Hitherto, I was most familiar with Jeremiah Johnson in the form of a popular animated gif of beardy Robert Redford smiling and nodding in slow zoom close up (a moment that is every bit as cheesy in the film as it is in the gif). For whatever reason, I hadn’t mustered the enthusiasm to check out the 1970s’ The Revenant until now (well, beard-wise, at any rate). It’s easy to distinguish the different personalities at work in the movie. The John Milius one – the (mythic) man against the mythic landscape; the likeably accentuated, semi-poetic dialogue – versus the more naturalistic approach favoured by director Sydney Pollack and star Redford. The fusion of the two makes for a very watchable, if undeniably languorous picture. It was evidently an influence on Dances with Wolves in some respects, although that Best Picture Oscar winner is at greater pains to summon a more sensitive portrayal of Native Americans (and thus, perversely, at times a more patr

Our Man in Marrakesh aka Bang! Bang! You’re Dead (1966) (SPOILERS) I hadn’t seen this one in more than three decades, and I had in mind that it was a decent spy spoof, well populated with a selection of stalwart British character actors in supporting roles. Well, I had the last bit right. I wasn’t aware this came from the stable of producer Harry Alan Towers, less still of his pedigree, or lack thereof, as a sort of British Roger Corman (he tried his hand at Star Wars with The Shape of Things to Come and Conan the Barbarian with Gor , for example). More legitimately, if you wish to call it that, he was responsible for the Christopher Lee Fu Manchu flicks. Our Man in Marrakesh – riffing overtly on Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana in title – seems to have in mind the then popular spy genre and its burgeoning spoofs, but it’s unsure which it is; too lightweight to work as a thriller and too light on laughs to elicit a chuckle.

The X-Files 8.7: Via Negativa I wasn’t as down on the last couple of seasons of The X-Files as most seemed to be. For me, the mythology arc walked off a cliff somewhere around the first movie, with only the occasional glimmer of something worthwhile after that. So the fact that the show was tripping over itself with super soldiers and Mulder’s abduction/his and Scully’s baby (although we all now know it wasn’t, sheesh ), anything to stretch itself beyond breaking point in the vain hope viewers would carry on dangling, didn’t really make much odds. Of course, it finally snapped with the wretched main arc when the show returned, although the writing was truly on the wall with Season 9 finale The Truth . For the most part, though, I found 8 and 9 more watchable than, say 5 or 7. They came up with their fair share of engaging standalones, one of which I remembered to be Via Negativa .

The Cabin in the Woods (2011) (SPOILERS) Drew Goddard and the recently cancelled Joss Whedon attested that The Cabin in the Woods , bashed out over an intensive weekend, represented a critique of and love letter to the horror movie. Such a mission statement shouldn’t be that much of a surprise from Whedon, the guy who made meta a badge of pride throughout his various pop-culture-littered TV shows and movies. But it’s as a consequence of that very element that The Cabin in the Woods also very easily invites another layer of reading; indeed, not to read it this way invites a response that’s more towards the typically shallow end of Whedon’s favoured pool, rather than the slightly more substantial one Goddard tends to prefer.

Frequencies (2013) (SPOILERS) Low budget science-fiction movies are often among the genre’s most satisfying, since they have to rely almost entirely on their core ideas rather than showy effects or spectacle. Frequencies is one such, positing an alternate reality where we are defined by our frequency – high, low, somewhere in between – and positioned in society accordingly (everything from luck to romantic entanglements is affected – opposites here repel). At its root, this is a love story and rumination on freewill and determinism, but writer-director Darren Paul Fisher infuses the proceedings with such a rich conceptual framework that Frequencies very nearly convinces you of its fictional profundity. Before you pull back and realise it doesn’t really hang together, that is. Although, I’m not altogether sure it needs to.

The Ladykillers (1955) (SPOILERS) Alexander Mackendrick’s ghoulish black comedy, with the emphasis on ghoulish, as five crooks pull off a daring robbery, a key component in the success of their plan being the co-opting of a dear, sweet, oblivious little old lady. Unfortunately for them, she turns out to be the Terminator. Obviously, if The Ladykillers were a modern take – of the sort John Hughes’ might have fashioned, perhaps – she would be delivering literal blows, Home Alone style (the Coen Brothers’ 2004 remake has its moments, but it fails to come up with a distinctive reason for existing, aside from transatlantic relocation with concomitant uncharacteristic crudity). But Mrs Wilberforce (Katie Johnson) rather comes armed with saintly intransigence, puncturing their best-laid plans at every turn.

Outbreak (1995) (SPOILERS) One thing in Outbreak ’s favour: it’s unashamedly Hollywood. Contagion might fool the unwitting movie peruser into believing it’s based on real, hard science, but Outbreak is so intent on throwing the kitchen sink of all-star moviemaking tics and tropes into the mix that it’s hard to take seriously. Even as it’s flourishing an Ebola-esque virus fully equipped to make you queasy (it’s interesting that Wolfgang Peterson is much less reticent that Steven Soderbergh in respect of the horror elements, even though this is a much bigger production. Perhaps because Peterson’s a much more imaginative director). Outbreak isn’t a good movie by any stretch, but at least it’s having a bit of fun with its clichés.

Contagion  (2011) (SPOILERS) The plandemic saw Contagion ’s stock soar, which isn’t something that happens too often to a Steven Soderbergh movie. His ostensibly liberal outlook has hitherto found him on the side of the little people (class action suits) and interrogating the drugs trade while scrupulously avoiding institutional connivance (unless it’s Mexican institutional connivance). More recently, The Laundromat ’s Panama Papers puff piece fell fall flat on its face in attempting broad, knowing satire (in some respects, this is curious, as The Informant! is one of Soderbergh’s better-judged films, perhaps because it makes no bones about its maker’s indifference towards its characters). There’s no dilution involved with Contagion , however. It amounts to a bare-faced propaganda piece, serving to emphasise that the indie-minded director is Hollywood establishment through and through. This is a picture that can comfortably sit alongside any given Tinseltown handwringing over the Wa

The Birds (1963) (SPOILERS) Perhaps the most impressive thing about The Birds is how palpably it succeeds in spite of itself. Other Hitchcocks have been beleaguered by a lead not quite delivering the goods, such that the overall piece has suffered (for example, Foreign Correspondent ). Often with the consequence of drawing attention to supporting characters (the aforementioned, and also Stage Fright ). Here, Hitch has two so-so leading players, and yet you could almost believe he was deliberately making that work in the material’s favour. Certainly, the horror movie where the setting and the horror is the star, and the players neither here nor there, would become something of a staple in the decades ahead, usually as envisioned by grossly inferior filmmakers. And that’s the key. Because The Birds is the last great film of a master and as influential on the genre as its predecessor, Psycho . As much as aspects of it have aged – the special effects, but not nearly as much as you’d thin

The Loved One (1965) (SPOILERS) Tony Richardson’s follow up to Tom Jones rather suggests his success with that film was an accident (I’m an unabashed fan, and regard it as a rare Best Picture Oscar winner the Academy got right). More likely, it was a case of the very things that worked for Jones… didn’t so much for The Loved On e. The movie entertains consistently – it couldn’t really not with that cast – but it never feels quite as incisive or as effective as it should, Waugh’s eviscerating satire ending up rather too broad and scattershot. 

The Andromeda Strain (1971) (SPOILERS) Robert Wise’s adaptation of Michael Crichton’s alien invasion fantasy plays things entirely straight, which undoubtedly helps to sell its mile-high absurdities. But then, Crichton was a master of legitimising official science under the guise of airport fiction, boosted as his novels were by his authoritative status as qualified doctor. All that’s really proof of, of course, is that he’s able to parrot what he’s been taught. Which is very handy when you’re making a living from selling the excitingly plausible. The Andromeda Strain relates and celebrates the wonders of modern science with diligent, unquestioning, reverent awe, and Wise’s approach – faux-documentary, complete with underplaying, non-starry lead actors – serves to emphasise the strengths of the conceit. Make no mistake, though. This movie is about as realistic as Star Wars .

At the Earth’s Core (1976) (SPOILERS) It’s worth making the most basic of compare-and-contrasts between this cheep and cheerful Amicus follow up to their reasonably successful 1974 Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation The Land that Time Forgot (which also happens to be reasonably decent) and the subsequent year’s game-changer Star Wars . Because while a slew of cheap and cheerful Star Wars rip-offs would follow that wouldn’t look so out of place in At the Earth’s Core ’s company, George Lucas’ movie instantly relegated this kind of picture to the status of a dinosaur (or Mahar).

Doctor Who The Chase It’s for good reason The Chase is commonly derided. I’m not here to rock that particular boat – or indeed Marie Celeste – although I think by far the worst of it comes early in the proceedings and the last half, while never amounting to very much essential, is much easier going. One can, if one is lenient of spirit, make all the excuses going for director Richard Martin – in much the same way one might find Pennant Roberts not guilty of Ingrid Pitt karate chopping a Myrka beyond the brink of sanity – but one would be looking in the wrong direction for other culprits.

The Razor’s Edge (1984) (SPOILERS) I’d hadn’t so much a hankering as an idle interest in finally getting round to seeing Bill Murray’s passion project. Partly because it seemed like such an odd fit. And partly because passion isn’t something you tend to associate with any Murray movie project, involving as it usually does laidback deadpan. Murray, at nigh-on peak fame – only cemented by the movie he agreed to make to make this movie – embarks on a serious-acting-chops dramatic project, an adaptation of W Somerset Maugham’s story of one man’s journey of spiritual self-discovery. It should at least be interesting, shouldn’t it? A real curio? Alas, not. The Razor’s Edge is desperately turgid.

Reign of Fire (2002) (SPOILERS) There was good reason to believe Rob Bowman would make a successful transition from top-notch TV director to top-notch film one. He had, after all, attracted attention and plaudits for Star Trek: The Next Generation and become such an integral part of The X-File s that he was trusted with the 1998 leap to the big screen. That movie wasn’t the hit it might have been – I suspect because, such was Chris Carter’s inability to hone a coherent arc, it continued to hedge its bets – but Bowman showed he had the goods. And then came Reign of Fire . And then Elektra . And that was it. Reign of Fire is entirely competently directed, but that doesn’t prevent it from being entirely lousy.

Psycho (1960) (SPOILERS) One of cinema’s most feted and most studied texts, and for good reason. Even if the worthier and more literate psycho movie of that year is Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom . One effectively ended a prolific director’s career and the other made its maker more in demand than ever, even if he too would discover he had peaked with his populist fear flick. Pretty much all the criticism and praise of Psycho is entirely valid. It remains a marvellously effective low-budget shocker, one peppered with superb performances and masterful staging. It’s also fairly rudimentary in tone, character and psychology. But those negative elements remain irrelevant to its overall power.

Private’s Progress (1956) (SPOILERS) Truth be told, there’s good reason sequel I’m Alright Jack reaps the raves – it is, after all, razor sharp and entirely focussed in its satire – but Private’s Progress is no slouch either. In some respects, it makes for an easy bedfellow with such wartime larks as Norman Wisdom’s The Square Peg (one of the slapstick funny man’s better vehicles). But it’s also, typically of the Boulting Brothers’ unsentimental disposition, utterly remorseless in rebuffing any notions of romantic wartime heroism, nobility and fighting the good fight. Everyone in the British Army is entirely cynical, or terrified, or an idiot.

Doctor Who The Space Museum I might not be fully on board with his takes on The X-Files , but Rob Shearman does have a point with his defence of The Space Museum . It has a lot more going for it than its frequently lethargic realisation inclines one to assume. It’s also… Well, I wouldn’t exactly label it dynamic, especially given some the torporous supporting characters and performances thereof, but director Mervyn Pinfield gives it far more welly than Richard “When’s-lunch?” Martin in the season’s three big-budget prestige stories.

Demolition Man (1993) (SPOILERS) Demolition Man , the point at which Sly finally dipped his toe into SF waters – he’d formerly left that to President Schwarzenegger – is not a great movie. But it’s easy to assume the bits of it that are – great – are all down to screenwriter Daniel Waters, impressing his acerbic and absurdist perspective on what would otherwise surely have been another forgettable future-tense flick. There’s much in here that might be labelled predictive programming, but equally much that could be laid at the door of the bog-standard mechanics of your standard Joel Silver production. Indeed, once we’re into the last half of the movie, and the interminably uninvolving action sequences take precedence, it becomes very easy to see why Stuart Baird was called in to fix the thing (he did a much less persuasive patch job than on Last Boy Scout , but then one can only work with what one is given).

North by Northwest (1959) (SPOILERS) North by Northwest gets a lot of attention as a progenitor of the Bond formula, but that’s giving it far too little credit. Really, it’s the first modern blockbuster, paving the way for hundreds of slipshod, loosely plotted action movies built around set pieces rather than expertly devised narratives. That it delivers, and delivers so effortlessly, is a testament to Hitchcock, to writer Ernest Lehmann, and to a cast who make the entire implausible exercise such a delight.

Soul (2020) (SPOILERS) Pete Docter was doubtless aware that, with a title this presumptive, Soul was asking to be written off with “It ain’t got none”. But he probably also knew that, excepting something going fascinatingly wrong – The Good Dinosaur – Pixar movies tend to get a free pass, from critics and audiences alike. And Docter, responsible for telling kids it’s good to be scared so that benign invisible monsters can feed off their loosh, or – hey, why not, if it’ll make them feel better about it – their laughter, is guilty of the same plodding literalism of all Pixar pictures. It’s most obvious in the anthropomorphic likes of Toy Story , A Bug’s Life and Cars , whereby our own societal signifiers are reproduced in the most banal and recognisable form. Most irritatingly, this unimaginative and strategic – some might say obsessively so – lens also extends to explorations intangible and subjective. Realms such as the mental space of Inside Out – a much better movie, but all the

The X-Files 6.14: Monday Monday ’s a little masterpiece. By rights, following as it does in the wake of the ever-burgeoning-in-reputation Groundhog Day , it ought to have come across as little more than a weak pretender, treading where many others have gone before – also 12:01 in that decade, along with a smattering of other eager TV shows – as a lukewarm Mulder and Scully encounter the same fateful events over and over again. But scripters Vince Gilligan and John Shiban, in tandem with never better or more attuned direction from Kim Manners, produce a forty-five-minute gem that counts as one of the very best of the series’ – or any series’ – standalones.

The Mandalorian  Season 2 (SPOILERS) The Mandalorian Season 2 has received all the raves, and it’s easy to see why. If what you wanted from Star Wars was a one-dimensional Luke Skywalker avatar dispensing the kind of kickass Force-ful justice you used to have his Kenner figure inflict on stormtroopers, then you’re quids in. Which is to say, shallow as his appearance is, the response is entirely understandable and not a little earned after the carnage Kathleen Kennedy has wreaked on the Star Wars universe (and I say that as someone who rather enjoyed green milk-guzzling hobo Luke in The Last Jedi ). His appearance is also motivated within the realm of the show itself, so providing a contrast with its obvious parallel, the kung-fu kickass Darth Vader sellotaped onto the end of Rogue One . Which let’s face it, was the reason fans responded to the movie, rather than the cardboard characters.

The Mandalorian Season One (SPOILERS) A few weeks back, I mooted the unlikelihood that I would succumb to Disney+ – I mean to say, nothing good can come from all those tunnels under Disneyland, can it? Since then, I reconsidered, on the basis that a month’s subscription amounts to little more than a rental (remember, back in the old days?) I know, I know, that’s how they suck you in. But there really is very little I’m hankering to see in their wonderful world. This mainly, since it will probably be the crack of doom – definitely , since that’s looking sooner rather than later – before they release it on Blu-ray. Was The Mandalorian worth it? Well, most of what I’d heard said is undoubtedly the case. It’s nothing especially special, but it has two crucial things going for it. Even if it’s playing things very safe, it very much feels like it’s Star Wars made by people who know the universe and actually love it. And, baby Yoda is sooooo cute.

The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) (SPOILERS) John Carpenter’s first serial-killer screenplay to get made, The Eyes of Laura Mars came out nearly three months before Halloween. You know, the movie that made the director’s name. And then some. He wasn’t best pleased with the results of The Eyes of Laura Mars, which ended up co-credited to David Zelag Goodman ( Straw Dogs , Logan’s Run ) as part of an attempt by producer Jon Peters to manufacture a star vehicle for then-belle Barbra Streisand: “ The original script was very good, I thought. But it got shat upon ”. Which isn’t sour grapes on Carpenter’s part. The finished movie bears ready evidence of such tampering, not least in the reveal of the killer (different in Carpenter’s conception). Its best features are the so-uncleanly-you-can-taste-it 70s New York milieu and the guest cast, but even as an early example of the sub-genre, it’s burdened by all the failings inherit with this kind of fare.

Vertigo (1958) (SPOILERS) I’ll readily admit my Hitchcock tastes broadly tend to reflect the “consensus”, but Vertigo is one where I break ranks. To a degree. Not that I think it’s in any way a bad film, but I respect it rather than truly rate it. Certainly, I can’t get on board with Sight & Sound enthroning it as the best film ever made (in its 2012’s critics poll). That said, from a technical point of view, it is probably Hitch’s peak moment. And in that regard, certainly counts as one of his few colour pictures that can be placed alongside his black and white ones. It’s also clearly a personal undertaking, a medley of his voyeuristic obsessions (based on D’entre les morts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac).

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) (SPOILERS) Gilliam’s last great movie – The Zero Theorem (2013) is definitely underrated, but I don’t think it’s that underrated – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas could easily have been too much. At times it is, but in such instances, intentionally so. The combination of a visual stylist and Hunter S Thompson’s embellished, propulsive turn of phrase turns out, for the most part, to be a cosmically aligned affair, embracing the anarchic abandon of Raoul Duke and Doctor Gonzo’s Las Vegas debauch while contriving to pull back at crucial junctures in order to engender a perspective on all this hedonism. Would Alex Cox, who exited stage left, making way for the Python, have produced something interesting? I suspect, ironically, he would have diluted Thompson in favour of whatever commentary preoccupied him at the time (indeed, Johnny Depp said as much: “ Cox had this great material to work with and he took it and he added his own stuff to it ”). Plus

How to Murder Your Wife (1965) (SPOILERS) I feel it’s probably necessary to present to the jury the case for the defence: that it really is okay to like How to Murder Your Wife , despite the rampant sexism, misogyny and chauvinism. I mean, after all, it’s a very, very silly movie. A brazen example of a “You’d never get away with it now” cheeky wish-fulfilment fantasy with a jet-black streak that can only truly be labelled offensive if you take its characters’ positions literally. Well, okay. No. It is offensive, but it’s also clearly absurdist: it knows it’s being provocative (see the poster). The finale revolves around the idea that all married men – all of whom are harmless chumps, forced into servitude once the knot has been tied – would wipe their spouse’s out of existence if they could, at the press of a button. So the hyperbole that “ The court scene turns into one of the most appalling scenes since the veneration of the KKK in Birth of a Nation” is almost as funny as the fi

Split Second (1992) (SPOILERS) Greta Thunberg’s favourite movie. Probably. Well, her “people’s” anyway. Somehow, I managed to miss this one when it came out, although its lousy reviews probably had something to do with it. I was nudged into taking advantage of its current, Bezos-sanctioned availability by an Empyre take that called it “ glorious ” and suggested “ As a showcase for a mischievous Hauer behaving badly… it’s almost matchless ”. The recently departed Rutger Hauer is on magnificently over-emphatic form, it’s true, and there’s frequent amusement to be had from the dialogue and chemistry between the star and sidekick cop Neil Duncan, but Split Second lacks a crucial sense of gusto as it crunches through its B-, straight-to-video, supernatural sci-fi serial-killer buddy movie clichés.

After the Fox (1966) (SPOILERS) I’ve always liked After the Fox , from when I first saw it as a youngster, in thrall to its catnip Burt Bacharach score while simultaneously perplexed by its final reveal. It has to be admitted, though, that it perhaps isn’t quite as funny as it might have been. And further, that it may have been a bit too clever to have stood a chance of garnering another The Pink Panther  (1963) size hit for Peter Sellers (it came complete with animated-animal titles and potential hit single from The Hollies that failed to chart). Taking shots at Fellini movies simply isn’t the kind of thing that engenders mass-audience raves.

One by One (2014) (SPOILERS) This first came on my radar last year, loosely labelled as “the film that got Rik Mayall killed” (although he managed to shoot another first). And more particularly, noting its importance as a portent of current times. I didn’t bite until now, as I didn’t think it sounded much cop. And... It is certainly topical, I’ll give One by One that. Unfortunately, however, it falls into the great yawning trap awaiting all dramatised polemics: being both patronising and preachy. And not very dramatic. It’s very rare that such approaches do work – JFK (1991) is a rare exception – and the more problematic that Diane Jessie Miller’s film finds itself following a path that closely resembles the Christian conversion movie. Dion (Heather Wilson) is “born again” as a conspiracy believer – and more to the point, a believer in the population-reduction agenda – by means of induction by a small cadre of proselytisers to the cause headed by Mayall’s Ernest.

The Wrong Man (1956) (SPOILERS) I hate to say it, but old Truffaut called it right on this one. More often than not showing obeisance to the might of Hitchcock during his career-spanning interview, the French critic turned director was surprisingly blunt when it came to The Wrong Man . He told Hitch “ your style, which has found its perfection in the fiction area, happens to be in total conflict with the aesthetics of the documentary and that contradiction is apparent throughout the picture ”. There’s also another, connected issue with this, one Hitch acknowledged: too much fidelity to the true story upon which the film is based.

The Avengers  (1998) (SPOILERS) The 1990s witnessed a slew of attempts at rebooting old properties, from comic book fare to movies to big screen versions of much-loved television shows. With generally mixed-negative results. The likes of The Saint (1997), The Phantom (1996), The Shadow (1994) and Doctor Who (as a 1996 TV movie) predominated over rare successes like Mission: Impossible (1996), Blade (1998), Pierce Brosnan’s Bond and Batman (okay, the first was 1989). In most cases, the problems stemmed from an intention to refashion those characters or premises in the image of another existing hit, in the process capturing little of what made the material so compelling/popular in the first place. It’s possible that the bare bones The Avengers , equipped with a director with an actual vision and sensitively cast leads, could have made for a serviceable movie adaptation. Unfortunately, one ends up with a view that this is exactly why you shouldn’t exhume old material, plundering as

The Singing Detective (2003) Icon’s remake of the 1986 BBC serial, from a screenplay by Dennis Potter himself. The Singing Detective fares less well than Icon’s later adaptation of Edge of Darkness , even though it’s probably more faithful to Potter’s original. Perhaps the fault lies in the compression of six episodes into a feature running a quarter of that time, but the noir fantasy and childhood flashbacks fail to engage, and if the hospital reality scans better, it too suffers eventually.

Cold War (2018) (SPOILERS) Pawel Pawlikowski’s elliptical tale – you can’t discuss Cold War without saying “elliptical” at least once – of frustrated love charts a course that almost seems to be a caricature of a certain brand of self-congratulatorily tragic European cinema. It was, it seems “ loosely inspired ” by his parents (I suspect I see where the looseness comes in), but there’s a sense of calculation to the progression of this love story against an inescapable political backdrop that rather diminishes it.

The Handmaiden (2016) (SPOILERS) Park Chan-wook’s highly-acclaimed BAFTA winner, a loose adaptation of Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith – she suggested “ inspired by ”, rather than “ based on ” – gets its salacious cachet from the erotic lesbian love affair at its centre, artfully choreographed by the director. But it’s the presence of themes of incest, tricksy plotting and gratuitous violence that announce it as Park’s work through and through. As someone entirely underwhelmed by Oldboy (2003), my appreciation of The Handmaiden was correspondingly muted.

Hustlers (2019) (SPOILERS) Sold as a female Goodfellas – to the extent that the producers had Scorsese in mind – this strippers-and-crime tale is actually a big, glossy puff piece, closer to Todd Phillips as fashioned by Lorene Scarfia. There are some attractive performances in Hustlers, notably from Constance Wu, but for all its “progressive” women work male objectification to their advantage posturing, it’s incredibly traditional and conservative deep down.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) (SPOILERS) Hitchcock’s two-decades-later remake of his British original. It’s undoubtedly the better-known version, but as I noted in my review of the 1934 film, it is very far from the “ far superior ” production Truffaut tried to sell the director on during their interviews. Hitchcock would only be drawn – in typically quotable style – that “ the first version is the work of a talented amateur and the second was made by a professional ”. For which, read a young, creatively fired director versus one clinically going through the motions, occasionally inspired by a shot or sequence but mostly lacking the will or drive that made the first The Man Who Knew Too Much such a pleasure from beginning to end.