District 9 (2009) (Neill Blomkamp) 8/10

District 9 has a well-drawn story, which despite my fears, does not lose its way at the end. As ever in Sci Fi, there are some plot holes, but I will not bore my reader with these.

It features as its protagonist a yokel South African everyman, played by rookie film actor Sharlto Copley, who has a rollercoaster story arc. At first I thought him comical, but I grew to root for him very much.

Despite its themes of race and tolerance, its South African setting, and its name, which points us to District 6, District 9 tells us nothing new about Apartheid. To my mind, its allegorical subjects – if specific political interests are even intended – are immigration and refugees.

District 9 made me think of many other films – ET, The Fly, Men in Black, Enemy Mine, Starship Troopers. Nonetheless it is fresh, and best of all unashamedly South African, which is rare in these days when American actors are made to play every nationality.

35 Rhums (2008) (Claire Denis) 2/10

Slow, interminable, lingering shots of people doing mundane, trivial things until you beg them to stop. Watch as they unwrap rice cookers, ride trains, cook dinner, eat it, walk, dress, drive; all to no discernible purpose. I have read some reviews which try to sell this as a deep and thoughtful study of family relationships. It is not. It is a study in dullness. There is no art in it, and no substance.  Avoid, at all costs.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) (David Lean) 9/10

I finally got around to watching Lawrence of Arabia after reading this article by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker.

It is a magnificent and epic film, sweeping, inspiring, and beautiful to watch. Peter O’Toole is supernaturally compelling; his eyes an otherworldly blue, his voice mellifluous and poetic (why isn’t he spoken of more as one of the all-time screen romantic gods?) His dialogue is great too – read this.

The cinematography is constantly breathtaking – the famous long shot of Omar Sharif’s floating mirage entry on the horizon; the huge battles (including hundreds of extras, trains derailing, etc. – all without CGI!)

The rest of the cast are beyond excellent: Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Jack Hawkins…

I can’t commend this enough.

Diner (1982) (Barry Levinson) 6/10

A group of young men get drunk, laid, married and in trouble in 1950s Baltimore, and hang out in a diner late at night.

Diner features nine million actors who went on to have successful careers: Steve Guttenberg (Police Academy), Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Paul Reiser (from sitcom Mad about You, which btw, I always hated), Tim Daly (from 90s sitcom Wings), Daniel Stern, Ellen Barkin, and Michael Tucker (LA Law).

The dialogue is often funny (“I’ll hit you so hard I’ll kill your whole family”) and many scenes are memorable (it contains a date scene in a cinema, involving popcorn, which is the stuff of urban legend). Kevin Bacon, as a wastrel drunkard, is hilarious, and steals the film, and Mickey Rourke has something of an interesting character arc. For the rest, I found that there were too many characters. I liked them all, but the film is too thinly spread, so hardly any of them seem to change that much (as a coming of age film, there is insufficient coming of age). 

Leave Her to Heaven (1945) (John M. Stahl) 6/10

Melodramatic bunny-boiler; template for more recent films such as The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. Terrific colours and scenery (it won the Oscar for cinematography); even the painted backgrounds are lush and the sound stages well lit. Gene Tierney, pictured, who has recently become one of my all-time screen goddesses, stars as our boiler. Melodramatic highlights (spoilers follow): the drowning of a handicapped kid brother and (that soap opera staple) the purposeful-down-the-stairs-to-kill-your-unborn-baby-fall (sounds of scream and thump, then cut to doctor exiting hospital room with grave expression). Cool ending, nice dialogue and Gene lights things up. 

McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) (Robert Altman) 7/10

An original Western, relentlessly realistic, artful, and moving.

In his pursuit of realism, Altman subjects us to weak lighting and horrendous sound quality – exacerbated by the way in which some characters mumble and talk over each other. The people are dirty and unattractive (especially the whores!), and stupid (even the hero is not the sharpest). The meals look unappetising, the lodgings uncomfortable. The fight scenes are dramatic but believable.

Taken as a whole, it left me with the sense of the characters as real human beings, their stories as true, somehow.

Julie Christie is quite brilliant, and the Leonard Cohen soundtrack fits the film well.

Brazil (1985) (Terry Gilliam) 7/10

 Brazil is deeply strange and funny and so I will definitely watch it again.

It has a very simple plot, and so may appear dull to the casual viewer, but to focus on the film’s surface story is to miss its charm. It’s chock-a-block full of peculiar stuff, which infiltrates your mind and gets stuck there — since watching it last night I’ve been unable to stop thinking about it.

The film concerns itself with totalitarianism, terrorism, bureaucracy, love, dreams, and with broad satire about modern life, consumerism etc. and in that sense is relevant today, despite its 80s look and sound (its technology is dated, but surreal also).

A few remembered images: Cosmetic surgery by stretching or acid; a dog with its bum taped shut; an ever-circulating decision-making toy gift for executives; bizarre dream sequences with giant samurai, and pavements and buildings which come alive; a waiter who can only take your order if you say its number aloud; twins becoming triplets; a dirty-mouthed little girl; weird masks; highways with billboards blocking all scenery; storm-troopers who habitually make holes in ceilings; absurdly complex air-conditioning wiring; a desk shared between two offices; I could go on…           

Watch it carefully and revel in its bizarre originality.

Private Fears in Public Places (2006) (“Coeurs”) (Alain Resnais) 7/10

I enjoyed Private Fears in Public Places very much, although I wished that I liked the characters more.

It fits into a vague genre which I love — the drama with an ensemble cast (of good actors) with tangentially intersecting stories (see Short Cuts, Magnolia, etc.)

To make it even more appealing to me, it features characters who have the kind of loneliness and unhappiness you find in real life, not the Hollywood variety that is remarkably similar to the common cold (it gets better, just like that). Their sadness is true and powerful, its source is alluded to but never completely known to us (or possibly even them).

Here we have a ex-soldier who made a bad mistake and who can’t talk to his girlfriend or get a job, his lonely girlfriend, their lonely estate agent who fancies his oddball religious colleague, and the mysteriously widowed man (who works at a bar frequented by the ex-soldier) whose father she looks after, and the estate agent’s sister who internet dates and hooks up the soldier, and so on.

I rooted for the estate agent and I sort of liked the barman, and I found the religious woman very interesting, but overall I didn’t care enough for all of the characters. Good film though, and recommended.

The Birds (1963) (Alfred Hitchcock) 8/10

Not sure why I’d never seen this before. A simple story, masterfully delivered by Hitchcock, as ever… The Birds is suspenseful and fun. One memorable scene – amongst many – has the heroine sitting on a bench in the foreground while behind her a crow lands on a jungle gym. We suspect that more birds are joining it, but Hitch makes us watch the heroine smoke for what seems an eternity before panning back to the jungle gym… which is now swarming with crows.

Loved the ‘making of’ feature. Things were tough before CGI.

Also, although I’m more of a connoisseur of brunettes and redheads than blondes, I have to say that I generally fall in love with Hitch’s leading women, and ‘Tippi’ Hedren is no exception. She’s no Grace Kelly (has there ever been a woman so beautiful?) but she has that same posh 1950s American beauty and grace. I love the way she dresses and her voice and her accent and her general spark and independence. I should have lived in the 1950s. In a Hitchcock film. I could even have worn a hat. Damnit, why don’t we wear hats anymore?

The Exorcist (1973) (William Friedkin) 9/10

This film is astonishing. Why did I only just see it now? I must have had some kind of anti-horror prejudice. Stupid me.

Sure, its frightening, but in a worthy way… with no gore or cheap shocks. The Exorcist is so original, so compelling, so well made. [Spoilers follow]. I loved the voice Linda Blair took on when she was possessed by the demon, and the way her head did a 360 degree turn, and the upside-down Spider-Walk with blood vomiting. And some of the demon dialogue is genius: “Do you know what she did? Your cunting daughter?”

Sheer genius.