Advertisement

Resident Evil

After a biological warfare research lab goes tits up when a virus gets loose, plucky security guard Milla Jovovich has to fight off hordes of the living dead in this fast-paced adaptation of the video game. No faulting the SFX or the action, but all the dialogue here is irritatingly clunky exposition, and the plot lies somewhere between predictable and brain-dead.

Summer With Monika

Early Ingmar Bergman investigation of the problems of young love in which a romantic summer idyll turns to pregnancy, marriage, boredom and infidelity. The director's first film with Harriet Anderson, whose defiant animal vitality was the focus of the tale, it still packs an emotional punch.

Trading Places

Much-imitated life-swapping comedy from '83, back when John Landis was a hot name. Street chancer Eddie Murphy and stockbroker Dan Aykroyd switch places after a nature-versus-nurture debate, with Jamie Lee Curtis as Aykroyd's love interest. Doesn't aim to be anything other than broadly funny, and so largely succeeds, though it hasn't aged too cleverly.

Kissing Jessica Stein

Unconventional, witty rom-com chooses its inspirations carefully in Woody Allen and Seinfeld. Jessica's a New York singleton who can't find Mr Right, and so decides to give Ms Right a fling. But she doesn't quite know how to go about this trendy Sapphic stuff, and whenever the film veers on cheese it snaps back sharply. Surprisingly wry.

Urban Cowboy

John Travolta begins his '80s career slide as Bud Davis, a hick who migrates to Houston, falls for the honky-tonk bar scene, marries city girl Sissy (Debra Winger), loses her to recidivist Wes (Scott Glenn), and enters a mechanical bull-riding rodeo. Compelling supporting performances (especially Winger) and authentic bar footage from-director James Bridges (The Paper Chase) compensate for Travolta's squeaky, misjudged central turn.

Child’s Play

Truffaut's genre-defining masterpiece of childhood alienation

Zulu

Remembered now as Michael Caine's debut, playing a posh officer opposite Stanley Baker, Cy Endfield's epic recreates the massacre of the Welsh redcoats by the Zulus at Rorke's Drift. Jack Hawkins runs the gamut from demented missionary to drunk, and the battle scenes are terrific.

Serpico

One of the great Sidney Lumet's thoroughly hypnotic New York movies, where you can smell the sweat of the tension and the barely-repressed panic in the streets. An Oscar-nominated Al Pacino is in hell-for-leather form. Made in '73 and based on Peter Maas' book of the trials faced by real-life cop Frank Serpico, who ended an 11-year career by blowing the whistle on his colleagues, it follows Pacino as the committed crusader exposing corruption in the force. He's abused, ostracised, and ultimately has to flee the country.

Men In Black

Reissued as part of the Superbit series, Barry Sonnenfeld's witty and energetic spoof fields a wonderful tearning in sassy Will Smith and sardonic Tommy Lee Jones. "Searching for a handle on the moment?" asks the latter when the rookie alien investigator is first confronted with the tentacled weirdos from outer space. Fave moment: Noisy Cricket.

Blade Runner Special Edition Deluxe Box Set

Whoo hoo! Ridley Scott's timeless sci-fi noir classic gets handsomely packaged in an impressive box set along with lobby cards, original 35mm frame, script book and poster Definitely Harrison Ford's finest hour, tracking Rutger Hauer and his band of existential Replicants through a neon-and-rain-soaked future LA. Peerless.
Advertisement

Editor's Picks

Advertisement